#linux can be so annoying with all sorts of things

[elektroyu]

Tbh I already miss the ease and convenience of having only Windows systems 😂 I kinda wish I could just keep doing what I've been doing until now. But yeah. Fuck you Windows, I guess.

[copper-skulls]

Getting Undertale running on linux in 2024: a guide for those that cannot be assed on debian-based distributions

Step one: TRY.

this is for the humblebundle downloads only, unfortunately. i don't have + can't test the steam version. unzip. get into the folder. try good ol ./UNDERTALE on the runnable-looking thing. if that doesn't work, try chmod +x UNDERTALE and chmod +x game/runner for good measure and repeat.

if you managed that and it runs, congratulations!! YOU WON. otherwise:

Step two: SCREAM.

You probably got cryptic messages about stuff not being found when you caN SEE THEM RIGHT THERE. it's okay. it's an old game on an old engine. it's 32-bit. the messages don't help with diagnozing that but if it's THAT sort of message IT'S THE 32-BIT BULLSHIT. continue to step three.

Step three: 32-bit libs the easy part.

sudo apt install lib32z1 . try to run it again. restart if no change. now you're probably met with something MUCH more helpful and specific, like:

don't give up you're getting closer!!

Step four: 32-bit libs the bug-squashing part.

this one is annoying but you only have to do it once per machine i love you

okay, first, setup your machine for the 32-libs with

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 sudo apt update

^ you won't need to repeat this ever again. you're good. NOW. hunt down where the files you want are in your package directiories, depending on the distributions. I was missing libstdc++.so.6. it was in the package libstdc++6. notice the pattern. it's lowercase[number after 'so'] if you're on debian or ubuntu you'll probably only have to plug this pattern in and you're GOOD.

sudo apt install libstdc++6:i386

^ the colon part is important! that's the 32 bit bit.

wait for the install to finish, try to run the executable again and hunt down the next library . rinse and repeat until undertale kicks in and RUNS. THat's it!!! you're done, hopefully!!

the libraries I was personally missing were: libXxf86vm.so.1, libGL.so.1, libopenal.so.1, libXranr.so.2 and libGLU.so.1. I installed them from the packages libxxf86vm1:i386, libgl1:i386, libopenal1:i386, libxrandr2:i386 and libglu1:i386. all were conforming to the pattern earlier.

step five: undered. tal <3

okay now how to tag this when in two years I want to play undertale again on a new machine.

[samflir]

What makes a good boot sequence?

A while ago, I had my first truly viral post on Mastodon. It was this:

You might've seen it. It got almost four hundred boosts and reached beyond Mastodon to reddit and even 4chan. I even saw an edit with a spinning frog on the left screen. I knew the post would go down well with tech.lgbt but I never expected it to blow up the way it did.

I tried my best to express succinctly exactly what it is I miss about BIOS motherboards in the age of UEFI in this picture. I think looking at a logo and spinner/loading bar is boring compared to seeing a bunch of status messages scroll up the screen indicating hardware being activated, services being started up and tasks being run. It takes the soul out of a computer when it hides its computeriness.

I think a lot of people misunderstood my post as expressing a practical preference over an aesthetic one, and there was at least a few thinking this was a Linux fanboy post, which it certainly is not. So here's the long version of a meme I made lol.

Stages

I remember using two family desktop computers before moving over a family laptop. One ran Windows XP and the other ran Windows 7. Both were of the BIOS era, which meant that when booting, they displayed some status information in white on black with a blinking cursor before loading the operating system. On the XP machine, I spent longer in this liminal space because it dual-booted. I needed to select Windows XP from a list of Linux distros when booting it.

I've always liked this. Even as a very little kid I had some sense that what I was seeing was a look back into the history of computing. It felt like a look "behind the scenes" of the main GUI-based operating system into something more primitive. This made computers even more interesting than they already were, to me.

Sequences

The way old computers booted was appealing to my love of all kinds of fixed, repeating sequences. I never skip the intros to TV shows and I get annoyed when my local cinema forgets to show the BBFC ratings card immediately before the film, even though doing so is totally pointless and it's kinda strange that they do that in the first place. Can you tell I'm autistic?

Booting the windows 7 computer would involve this sequence of distinct stages: BIOS white text -> Windows 7 logo with "starting windows" below in the wrong aspect ratio -> switch to correct resolution with loading spinner on the screen -> login screen.

Skipping any would feel wrong to me because it's missing a step in one of those fixed sequences I love so much. And every computer that doesn't start with BIOS diagnostic messages is sadly missing that step to my brain, and feels off.

Low-level magic

I am extremely curious about how things work and always have been, so little reminders when using a computer that it has all sorts of complex inner workings and background processes going on are very interesting to me, so I prefer boot sequences that expose the low-level magic going on and build up to the GUI. Starting in the GUI immediately presents it as fundamental, as if it's not just a pile of abstractions on top of one another. It feels deceptive.

There may actually be some educational and practical value in computers booting in verbose mode by default. Kids using computers for the first time get to see that there's a lot more to their computer than the parts they interact with (sparking curiosity!), and if a boot fails, technicians are better able to diagnose the problem over a phone call with a non-technical person.

Absolute boot sequence perfection

There's still one last thing missing from my family computer's boot sequence, and that's a brief flicker of garbage on screen as VRAM is cleared out. Can't have everything I guess. Slo-mo example from The 8-Bit Guy here:

[compusever]

Hi there! Bit of a weird question, and I’m not sure if this is the right blog for this, but… best laptop for privacy? I’m going to go to uni in a year and my parents have said that they’re going to buy me a laptop, which is awesome, except— I don’t know which one to chose? I’ve never had a laptop before but I try to take being private online as seriously as I can, and so I don’t really care… well, like, I do care that the laptop has good storage and works and stuff, but I care mostly about how private it is. Which one supports adding privacy-related stuff the best? Which one steals your data the least? I… am actually not sure what kind of questions I should be asking, since… again, never had a laptop before, and I don’t know what about its make makes it private (other than like general online privacy practices across all devices), so I was just wondering if you had any recommendations for me? Tldr: don’t care about fancy features, just want a laptop that more or less works, but would love privacy to be the main focus. This can sort of come at the expense of convenience - I don’t care it if’s harder to set up, use, etc., so long as I can connect to the internet with it.

So the hardware is pretty agnostic on this, the place where privacy is going to become an issue is in the software.

Windows loves to track you and send your data back to homebase; Apple is a walled garden that doesn't let people get deep into configurations; linux is intimidating for a lot of people.

Your actual best bet on privacy would be to get a laptop with no OS and install a linux distro on it, but it sounds like that's probably not something that's terribly approachable for you. So in that case I'd recommend getting a Windows laptop (mac prices aren't worth it) and going through this list to change the settings to ensure better privacy.

HOWEVER please note that you should be getting a laptop with a full OS. Windows has an option for "windows 11s" or "windows 10s" and first off you should be going with 11 at this point but second that "s" means that there are pretty strict limitations on what you can do as a user in terms of configuration and installation.

If you are willing to pay a bit more for Windows 11 Pro instead of windows 11 Home, the pro license cuts off some of the more annoying tracking that Windows does automatically, but I'd say you're better off simply getting the home license and really digging into the settings and getting to know it and setting it up for yourself.

BUT if it's at all possible, honestly I'd say get a bare metal laptop (that means it's just the hardware, no software, you need to install an operating system before you do anything) and install linux. HOWEVER keep in mind that there are some significant downsides to using linux as a student, mostly that you'll likely run into software at some point that you won't be able to install. Also if you're not already pretty good with computers it can be difficult to keep a linux machine running (but very easy to make it private; that's the tradeoff - you can make it more secure more easily, but you really have to know how to fix your own computer if something goes wrong.)

For your situation, again, I think a Windows 11 Home laptop with the settings adjusted is your best bet.

Absolutely positively don't get a chromebook (you've got no control of the settings on a chromebook and the thing is made to feed information to google) and don't get a mac (you can get better specs on a PC at a lower cost).

For an idea of budget on this, I'd say you can probably get something from Dell, Lenovo, or HP for around $650-1000 dollars that's got decent specs (12th gen or newer i5 processor, 16gb RAM, 512GB SSD) and maybe something more like $500-800 from acer, asus, or samsung. Whatever computer you end up getting, you should get the added drop protection warranty because that means the manufacturer will fix your laptop if you drop it, something that is a bigger deal for college students than most people (because of your environment you're more likely to end up with drop damage than a lot of people AND because you're a college student you probably won't be able to afford to fix or replace the computer)

Good luck!

[linuxlife]

Linux Life Episode 87

Hello everyone and welcome to my ongoing piddling about in my corner of the world of Linux. Well this month I have been playing around with Wayland and trying to work out whether I am ready to switch to it.

I admit that I recently switched back to X11 when using KDE Plasma 6.2 as several tools don’t work well in it under Wayland.

When in X11 I use Cairo Dock as a program launcher which does have a version that allegedly works with Wayland but the team of Cairo Dock admit its alpha and is buggy. Indeed it worked for a while then it started messing up shortcuts. Also in X11 I can move the bar up above the main KDE panel so I can still see the icons and switch tasks etc.

In X11 it works fine. In Wayland it is just too basic and the coders of it are in no hurry to create a full version until Wayland setup some standards regarding key bindings etc.

Which I guess is fair enough but annoying.

When it comes to collecting screenshots I normally use Shutter. I have tried others such as Flameshot and others but they seem to have issues when grabbing certain screenshots such as Steam games and Shutter just works.

However under Wayland. Shutter has been hacked to work but will only allow you to grab the desktop only and none of the other options are available.

So I have been using X11 to allow Shutter to continue to work.

Maybe I’m a bit old fashioned but I like to have things that work. Also OBS Studio works with Wayland but apparently has issues when selecting input sources and areas.

In time they may fix this but at this time it doesn’t quite work as it should.

So I admit if I am using KDE Plasma I won’t be using the Wayland version.

Taking a slight side step ...

I have recently decide as I was noodling about in the Wayland compositing wibble I decided to try Hyprland.

Well I must admit at first I really didn’t get on very well with it and to be honest while I could open a few windows and I managed to use ghostty as my terminal.

However after a bit of a play I didn’t know how to close all the open windows and had to faff around just to get the slightest thing open.

So I was about to give up. However I decided to look up the wiki and it gave a few preconfigured options. I admit I downloaded and installed the JaKooLit dot files.

I must admit that it has actual made Hyprland useful and with a bit of playing I finally managed to get most things working and yes it can be fun and it’s pretty fast but I really don’t see me using it regularly.

It has allowed me to capture screenshots using certain keys so Hyprland has solved my requirements and Shutter is not needed using it but until OBS Studio issues in Wayland are sorted I will have to go back to KDE Plasma 6 X11 if I want to capture video.

I really didn’t understand Hyprland when i first started but I admit that the preconfig has made it useable once you get used to the quirkiness. I am even willing to live without a dock.

Hopefully OBS Studio will manage to get around its issues and who knows I might even switch to Hyprland and stop using KDE Plasma.

I’m sure someone will advise me better Hyprland tricks but for now I have it working and it is not bad. In time I could get used to working with Hyprland. Once you get the hang of it, it is quite fast and useable.

Wayland is good but not quite 100% there. Not far its about 95% workable, it just needs the last few things to get working.

Well that’s enough waffle for now ... Until next time ... Take care.

[silvercat-the-daydreamer]

right touhou13 experience yeah

(post with considerable delay since i was first waiting for my friend to come back to tumblr, can't just hoepost without them y'know, that'd be rude-- and then i procrastinated on that for several more days,,, you know how it is.)

OH OKAY THIS SHITS EASY ALRIGHT-- I DID ALMOST 1CC IT ON EASY FIRST TRY (n then got it on the second). that's hardly anything. i did get to miko's last attack on the first try without using any continues and then i died there. kinda wet and soggy compared to byaku. like come on miko my guy, how can you live with her being harder than you...

(maybe i should have started with this one, but maybe attempting to figure out the controls while also having to frequently dash up to the top of the screen to grab the things would not be the best idea. who knows. hard to find out now.)

yeah, well, just because i was taken over by the sudden and overwhelming need to look at miko, i went and played touhou13. i'm sure you understand. i just think she's neat.

in any case the gimmick of this game is Interesting for sure. more grab-the-fuckin-things. i love these sorts of things actually. then there's also something neat about being basically dead when you get hit but still being around for a few more seconds but then inevitably dying anyway. very cool. i just haven't really figured out how to use that efficiently i think...

MUSIC GOES REAL HARD TOO. IT'S GOT PECULIAR NOISES HELL YEAH. now that i actually have something to describe that with instead of just "really interesting". futo's theme beloved. stage 2 theme too. and of course miko's theme is a real banger as well even tho it doesn't have that peculiar noises. directly after watching my friend beat the game on stream a few days before i played it i listened to it on loop for an hour while working on a spreadsheet. bless

...that being said, miko's theme does go hard but despite being really speedy and stuff it also feels strangely calm. maybe... "focused" is a more appropriate word. interesting for sure.

now, i really appreciate how interesting the spellcards of this are. fuckin kyouko's with the reflecting? would probably confuse the fuck out of me on higher difficulties but i love it. also the several spells in this game where someone just brings in their buddies. in which i also really appreciate the detail of seiga moving to her pet zombie to heal her if she's knocked out. that's kinda cute.

however. yoshika's.

listen.

I Like The Concept. but. hooo fucking boi are those spellcards where she heals herself annoying. like jesus fuckin christ dude especially the last one can i please get through that without timing out thank you. waurgh.

apart from that there's also that one part in stage 4 where there's a bunch of guys comin at you from the sides at high speeds and throwing things at you, and i really enjoy that part bc there's so much going on and the speediness of the soundtrack works nicely to bring out the vibe of great nyoomage. hell yeah.

(also is it just from me playing this game on linux or does anyone else get a fuckton of graphical glitches playing this. nothing gamebreaking but sometimes just displays unrelated graphics on some bullets which seems to happen most often on kyouko's spells and miko's final one in which it displays big stars for a few frames sometimes. not something that happens with any other touhous i played.)

so anyways miko's birthday is coming up soon isn't it. wonderful fuckin timing. (almost as great of a timing as when i first played touhou15 and then looked out the window after i beat it to see the wonderful full moon. that was really cool. we should all appreciate such small but neat things.) i need to like draw her or smth.

[netscapenavigator-official]

How do u like jellyfin? I've been using kodi since i've been looking for something more featured than VLC for browsing media but it feels bloated and makes wayyy to many internet connections automatically for me to really enjoy it or feel safe running it on any device that seeds torrents. I'm strongly considering jellyfin since I despise plex and ember is proprietary.

It’s the only media server software I’ve ever used, so I don’t have any points of comparison. Also, a transparency preface, the device my server is hosted on is an M1 Apple iMac that's running up-to-date macOS (as of the time of writing, that’s macOS Sonoma 14.1), so as always, your mileage could always vary on other operating systems and chipset architectures.

I also view content exclusively via the iOS app, Apple TV app, and Firefox for Linux x86-64, all of which I’ve never had a problem with.

For the most part, however, I haven’t had any complaints. I keep all of my content on a 2TB USB External HDD that I bought from Walmart. It stays plugged into the computer 24/7, and all I had to do was tell Jellyfin where the files were, which you have to do regardless of where they are.

I’m not an advanced user by any means. I’d love to get outside network support going, but even that is proving too intimidating for me. I probably don’t take advantage of most of the advanced features, either. From my experience with Jellyfin, though, it does what I wanted it to: allow me to view my videos and photos without having to download them onto my phone. I have three users set up (including the one mandatory admin profile), and that’s probably the most non-out-of-the-box thing I’ve done.

The only issue I’ve had is that if your host device loses power (or somehow force shutsdown or crashes without first properly quitting the Jellyfin app) during a library sync (which can take a long time if you’ve added a lot of data at once and are running it off an external HDD), the on-device database file seems to corrupt easily. When this database file gets corrupted, it makes the Jellyfin app panic and shutdown without actually closing the app. As a result, the app looks like it’s running properly, but when you try to access it from anywhere, it’ll fail to load. You have to check the .txt file logs to actually see the panic code and shutdown command. I’ve had that happen twice, and it isn’t very pleasant. Luckily, I also use macOS’s Time Machine feature, so I had plenty of backups. However, it is annoying to have to sort that out, and if you didn’t have backups, you’d basically have to restart the server from scratch. Your content would be fine, but all of your manual IMDb data, custom thumbnails, reported file locations, etc. would be factory reset.

Of course, if you’re running the server on something with a backup power supply or a built-in battery, that eliminates a lot of the risk. The iMac I run my server on also acts as a secondary computer, for me. So I'm also at a heightened risk of crashing and whatnot. If you had a dedicated server computer that did nothing but act as your Jellyfin server, that'd also probably help alleviate some risk.

The extent of my daily use of Jellyfin is constantly playing ambient music from an old iPad next to my stereo, and occasionally viewing images and videos from my phone or laptop. I’m certainly not a power user, but for me, I’ve never had any reason to dislike Jellyfin, so I don’t exactly have a desire to go looking for an alternative. It does what I need it to do, and it does it smoothly, simply, and reliably.

If you're looking for a more advanced user's opinion, however, I'm afraid you've come to the wrong blog.

[linuxgamenews]

Discover The Jackbox Megapicker for Endless Fun

The Jackbox Megapicker due to release soon for the celebrated game franchise on Linux, Steam Deck, Mac, and Windows PC. Thanks to the ongoing creativity of Jackbox Games. The latest The Jackbox Party Pack 10 release is available for Steam and Humble Store. Over the past decade, the developer has had the pleasure of creating tons of titles and becoming a part of your lives. Having been there for your icebreaker moments, your laugh out loud sessions, and even those times you just needed to distract your weird uncle. Hence The Jackbox Megapicker announcement. With over 50 games in the collection, the developers heard from many of you that it can be a hassle to switch between packs to find the title you want. And also what some players have been saying on social media. Doing so in feedback surveys and even in handwritten notes: “It’s the only annoying thing about Jackbox at parties. Having a unified picker that recognizes purchases would be great.” “I think it’d be awesome if they had a single Jackbox launcher that all the Party Packs added into, so I don’t have to remember which pack has which title and go through the hassle of switching.”

The Jackbox Megapicker big question:

"How has Jackbox released seven party packs without a unified combo-pack launcher?" Well, the developer is listening. Introducing The Jackbox Megapicker. This free product is exclusive to Steam and lets you view your entire library, sort and filter your favorite titles, and quickly launch an evening of fun. No more flipping through different packs to find what you’re looking for. The Jackbox Megapicker will be released in July 2024, so mark your calendars. Stay tuned for more information on the official website, follow us on social media, or join our Reddit AMA on r/jackboxgames with the team around launch time. This new feature is a big change for Linux and Steam Deck. Due to make those nights even smoother and more fun. All due to the player feedback and support over the years. The Jackbox Party Pack 10 the latest release is available on Linux, Steam Deck, Mac, and Windows PC. Doing so via Steam and Humble Store. Priced at $34.99 USD / £29.49 / 34,99€.

[tiny-talks-big-tales]

Institutions suck and administrative tasks are hell

Today is day 13 out of 15 days at a temporary stay in a local nursing home. So, not a hospital, but very much an institution still. I'm both bored and annoyed on multiple different levels. But! My partner has gotten a much needed break thanks to me staying here, and that is worth it.

This is my 16th stay in a hospital/institution and all things considered this one has been pretty comfortable compared to the other 15. Most of the other 15 were just straight up traumatising.

While here I've not really done anything, it was supposed to be a stay for rehabilitation reasons, but one of their PTs (physical therapists) has been on vacation and the other one has been on sick leave. I was meant to talk to an OT (occupational therapist) but it kinda just didn't happen. A lot of things have been kinda just not happening here. Understaffing, hooray.

It feels kind of like I'm being put on a shelf and only looked at for brief intermittent maintenance, to be honest. I shared that with a few of the nurses and they said I'm not the only one saying that... :/

Anyway.

I've attempted to tackle overdue and much needed administrative tasks while here, cause I've got limited video game access and need something to do.

So I've played an absolute crapton of puzzle games, and worked a lot on different spreadsheets. Puzzles and spreadsheets make the creature happy.

I do wish solving anything in my life wasn't reliant on a full-time job's worth of admin task hours, tho. Like it took me 5 hours to sort all the major goals for unfucking our situation, immediate tasks to do, and calendar of upcoming dates. That's 5 hours of sorting information for the sole purpose of more effectively recruiting people I know to help with all the tasks on the ToDo spreadsheet that I can't do on my own. Like approximately a zillion phonecalls and about a petabyte worth of application writing. Maybe mildly exaggerated.

It's so much! work! to! do!

I just want a little home on the coast and in-home carers so I can stay institutionless and at least mildly content with my state of being alive in a flesh prison body suit. But the system is built for people like me having parents to sort that shit out. And I just don't have parents. But I also don't have the ability to fix everything, because - shockingly - being disabled impairs my ability to do the things.

So yeah I've been bored and mad at the administrative workload and also playing so many puzzle games. So. Many. I've been especially fixated on puzzles from Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection and can absolutely recommend those. There's a bunch, on Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, and webversion. My favourites are Unruly, Guess, and Map. Please tell me if you try any of them I would love to talk puzzles. Puzzles make me happy, a bajillionty admin tasks do not.

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Pedantic, chapter one - a Malevolent AU

Arthur Lester is the best IT architect in the world, and the reason Carcosa, Inc. has its fingers in every pie. Government, medical, everyone in the world uses its systems.

Arthur is also going blind, with a rare genetic condition that can’t be fixed.

The looming depression is bad. He can’t imagine a life where he can’t create anymore. Arthur nearly gives up… until a deeply annoying cybersecurity programmer prods him into trying something new.

Great, right? Now, if only this John Doe weren’t clearly hiding something so wild that not even PI Parker Yang can dig it out…

Chapter One: Time for a bet.

AO3

----------

Arthur couldn’t see his view.

He knew it was good. He could still see when picking out the penthouse three years ago. He also knew it was a complete waste for him to hang on to this view now when he couldn’t see it, but he didn’t give a fuck. It felt like revenge against whatever force saw fit to do this to him, by depriving some other bastard of a view like this.

I’m telling you, it isn’t compliant, the robotic voice in his head said, synthesizing that fucking American’s words in the least emotional manner possible.

Arthur had never heard John’s actual voice, but was certain it wasn’t emotionless. “It does. I checked it against CIC standards, and YTM, and even the elusive Carney and Dobbs scale. You’re wrong.”

No, you are, argued the distant engineer.

Arthur didn’t have time for this. “Listen, Mister Doe, it is two o’clock in the morning here. I know damn well what I sent you works. So the problem is on your end, and I expect you to figure it out. ”

Silence. A long moment of silence.

Arthur knew precisely two things about John Doe. One, he was some sort of security whiz, capable of sniffing out backdoors and potential risks before even the pro hackers did, and two, John Doe absolutely hated his guts.

It was personal. Had to be. He never agreed to anything, always dragged out every damned conversation. Damned pedantic son of a bitch.

Finally, an answer: I think you need to check your code.

Check his code! Arthur did not need to check his code. “Excuse me?”

Check your code.

“No. It is two o’clock in the morning here, Doe.”

It is noon here, Lester. I have four hours to get this implemented. If you don’t fix your fucking code, I will.

And there we go. Pointless threats. Inappropriate language.

The sucky thing was, while normally altering code like this without approval would be enough to get someone fired, John Doe could get away with it.

Doe had come out of nowhere; Arthur had never heard of him, and he’d made no waves, but boom, old Hastur had promoted him to chief of cybersecurity for the whole company, and evidently paid him enough to live comfortably in the Upper East Side, Manhattan.

And Arthur had to admit: Doe was some kind of golden boy. He knew his stuff. It may feel like he sprang fully-formed from Hastur’s head, but he knew cybersecurity. It was like he had a fucking pipeline to the bad guys, the way he was able to spot exploits before anyone else could grab hold.

What Doe didn’t know was art. Or beauty. Or utility. Or any of the things Arthur’s entire life had revolved around since he was twelve and used Python to design his first Linux GUI.

Arthur sighed. He turned away from his glass walls and wraparound balcony, from the view of Melbourne at night which he could not see, and made his way to his computer.

His monitor—enormous, because all the text had to be, as well—booted up, and he sighed as he entered the usual frustrating and painful balance of trying to focus, squinting, dealing with the pain of the monitor’s brightness (without which he couldn’t see the damn screen) and adjusting the size of the text until he could handle it and read through what he’d written.

Gods, this was a gorgeous design. Lullabye, he called it, because it was designed to help after a DDOS attack, to put all relevant and endangered systems right to sleep, cutting off access, stopping whatever invasion was going on right in its tracks.

It was flawless. It was efficient. It was beautiful. It was a hell of a major project to go out on.

He could not spot whatever put Doe in a tizzy. Fuck.

The easy solution would be to give Doe permission to patch it, requiring detailed notes of what changes he made.

The medium-hard solution would be to give him permission to patch it, but live, with Arthur sharing his screen, so Doe couldn’t do anything unmonitored (and maybe Arthur could finally understand how Doe thought).

The dangerous solution was to refuse him, foment more conflict for no pay out, and watch Doe have his way, anyway.

Damn it. But it’s perfect, he thought, unable to keep from whining a little.

Arthur sighed. Carcosa had been good to him. Hastur had rewarded his artistry over and over. The ungrateful thing would be not to trust Doe. “Fine,” Arthur muttered. “Cassilda, email John Doe.”

Emailing, she replied through the implants in his head, voice as musical as he designed her to be, damn near singing.

“Permission granted to make changes to the code as long as we do a screenshare and all changes are approved by me. Send.”

Silence for a moment.

About fucking time, Lester. Here’s my number. Text is fucking faster.

This guy knew his stuff, but he did not know how to be fucking appropriate in a fucking business setting. “Is he serious?” Arthur said. Maybe he did spring fully-formed from Hastur’s head, he snorted. Being a year old would explain it all. “Reply: If you’re trying to cover your ass legally, that won’t work with a company phone.” It was both sarcasm and a warning. Also, logic. Touché!

Arthur’s smugness lasted all of the 60 seconds it took for Doe to receive and reply: I have my own personal phone and so do you. Don’t be a dick. Let’s get this done.

How did… What? Why did Doe know that? “I’m not a dick,” Arthur muttered, trying to decide if this was a great big personal information violation, or…

Well, it was, but did it really matter? He could change the number. Block Doe. Whatever he wanted to do here. And it would be quicker. The Hyades global network was faster than any email because Arthur had helped design it. (Hastur had given him an incredible bonus that year.) “Cassilda, send Doe my phone number.” Okay, why had he done that? Why? “Because I’m not a dick,” he answered himself. “I’m an idiot.”

The reply took literally as long as Doe needed to save the contact to his phone. Nice to meet you.

“We haven’t met yet, Doe,” said Arthur, replying through Cassilda.

Call me John. Now let’s fix this code.

“Damn you, there’s nothing to fix!”

An exclamation mark! A swear word! Looks like I finally got some emotion out of you.

Arthur gaped at nothing. “I will have you know that you get plenty of emotion from me. Primarily, frustration.”

Glad to know you’re not frigid. Okay, I’m sending the screenshare request now.

“Frigid? What the fuck… Wait, wait, give me a moment. Got it, got it. You prick.”

Better believe I am. Now, pay attention. Line 1004. Doe—John—read the code to him via text, because Cassilda would read it next.

Arthur paled. It had a typo.

He couldn’t see the typo. The font showed the difference between a lower-case l and a numeral 1, but he couldn’t see it.

He leaned in, face nearly to the monitor, peering. The serifs might as well have all been erased.

See it? Good. Next we’ll jump down to line 8524.

Arthur didn’t reply. He swallowed.

It was another typo, but this one… he didn’t need to know this was the big one. The typo on 1004 just rendered that bit of code inoperable; nothing would happen. But this one…

This one. Instead of a semi colon, it was a colon, which meant…

This is the big one, said John unnecessarily. Arthur didn’t reply. This one means this process keeps running, and the particular ping it creates to find the invading bug also leaves it open to malicious injection.

“I was right,” Arthur whispered, because he had been. He’d thought, deep down, this would be his last major project.

About what?

Arthur hadn’t meant to send that. He leaned back in his chair, reducing the familiar, beloved language on the screen to blurry dots and squiggles, and was surprised to find he was crying. He wiped his face, furious. “Nothing.”

Tell me. It could be relevant.

Fuck him. “It’s not relevant.”

It might be. We’re getting this fixed so you can go to bed and I can go get drunk. Come on, Lester.

He sighed. “Arthur. Just Arthur.”

All right, Just Arthur. What were you right about?

Arthur checked. Cassilda confirmed that “just” had been capitalized. Like receiving a knighthood, or something.

He laughed weakly. “Didn’t know you were funny, Doe.” A pause. “John.”

Only when it’s worth my while.

So… well, this moment was certainly worth his while. They had three hours left to implement this thing. “Just that this was my last big hurrah. That’s all. I knew. I knew it. Just didn’t want to know it, if you get what I mean.”

Why the hell had he said that?

Arthur sighed. There was no undo send with Hyades and the Carcosa phone line (Dancer—it had long put Apple out of business). It was better, Arthur believed and had argued, to have a record of communication, even when things were sent by accident. Better to have that record, legal and powerful, then try to handle the fallout of removed knowledge and the potential for deceit.

It doesn’t have to be, fucking hell.

That made him laugh for some reason. “Right. Sure.”

It doesn’t. I’m guessing the coding doesn’t work so great with Cassilda for you?

No, it had not worked with Cassilda. Cassilda could read it all out (Line 147, from enum import Enum semicolon. Line 148, class Day(Enum) colon. Line 149, all capitalized letters, MONDAY space equal sign space the numeral 1).

Yeah, he couldn’t do that. It was like trying to listen to an audiobook one godsdamned letter at a time. “It doesn’t work for what I do.”

You just need someone who knows how you think who can put your stuff into code, then. You’re good at this, Arthur.

“I’m going blind, John.” Which of course he knew. Everyone knew. Fucking TIME magazine knew.

So?

“Excuse me?”

You a betting man?

“Oh, what the hell are you saying?” Arthur muttered. “Don’t send that!”

It’s already sent, Arthur. My apologies.

He sighed. “No, it’s fine. Continue to send automatically unless instructed not to. I guess we’re doing this.”

John was scrolling on his end, highlighting bits of code and fixing them. It wasn’t a lot. The whole thing was nearly 100 million lines of code, and Arthur had made a total of four mistakes. That wasn’t bad.

Except that when Arthur could see, he never made any.

The code scrolled. Too fast; he didn’t have time to focus on what John was doing (and doing quickly, with an ease that spoke of artistry the idiot himself did not understand). The next generation, folks, picking up the slack.

One wild, intrusive thought of throwing himself off his expensive balcony later, Arthur shook it off. “What bet?”

Let’s design something together.

Oh, this could go so badly. “What?”

Don’t know yet, but here’s the catch.

“Of course there’s a catch.”

Heh, heh, heh.

What a silly text to send. Arthur’s lips quirked. “Out with it, you dork.”

You share your vision with me, and I design it. Your specs. I won’t interfere with your idea of beauty or whatever you call it. You stick to the parts you love—making it pretty, and how the user accesses it. I’ll make sure it works.

Arthur swallowed. He’d never successfully designed with anybody. It always fell apart. “I don’t know.”

Let’s make it big. We won’t announce it. If it falls apart and I lose the bet, I’ll do whatever you want. Quit. Shave my head. Whatever.

Arthur laughed. “Shave your head?”

But if I win—

Arthur waited. He frowned. “Did you fall on your overlarge head and die?”

Shut up. If I win, you have to keep creating shit, and I get to be smug at you over coffee.

Eh? “That’s—” He didn’t know what to say. “What kind of a stupid bet is that?”

Beneficial to us both. You think my best work isn’t done on your coattails? It is. My star rises and falls with yours. I need you, and for once, you need me, too.

That was too much, and Arthur walked away from the desk. He had to pace.

This shouldn’t be personal, but it was. “How the hell was that both flattering and infuriating at the same… need… what in fuck’s name…”

Of course, Casdilda sent that.

By all means, keep going. This is funny as fuck.

“Fuck you.” Arthur sat back down. He was shaken. He felt like he was a million years old.

It’s cleaned up. Do you want to test it?

“No, it’s ready to go live. I… I trust you.” Because he had to, at least in this. But this bet… insane. Insulting. Ingratiating? What the hell? How was he supposed to take this? It was the weirdest thing he’d ever been offered.

And it’s implemented. Congratulations. Updates are going out now. Got any champagne?

“It’s three in the morning. What I have is bed. We’ll talk tomorrow. Goodnight, Doe.”

It’s John. Dick.

Arthur decided not to answer out of pure pettiness, and was still churning the entire conversation in his head when he fell asleep.

------

CHAPTER TWO

Notes:

This was posted on the road and written on my phone, so I beg your patience as I correct inevitable coding errors typos. Also, the tech stuff is made up. Just pretend it’s an alternative future. We’re all here for John and Arthur, anyway.

[enigmaincrimson-personal]

Internet rebooted just when I finished that post... Scared me for a bit.

To be honest, transitional periods are always messy, even if you somehow preempt them.

Like... It turns out that you have to replace the battery in a phone every 18 to 24 months, but unless you have the proper tools or a repair shop is a available in the area, there's no way to just pop the thing open and put in a new one as they're basically sealed containers.

Most android phones have an 18 month support lifespan with Samsung's 5 year and Google's 7 year being the exception...

Sure, you can do some weird hacky stuff to install Windows 11 on an unsupported old laptop, but even Microsoft admits that is basically a ticking time bomb. Win 10 has only a little over a year left to live at this point as well... And the cost of extended support exceeds the cost of the machine.

Providing the thing doesn't start to come apart on its own before then. Old rubber seams tend to give way and crumble with age after all.

And there's even weirder forms of support lost... While Open Source drivers are technically forever, it just takes some very poor timing to make life miserable for years.

You see... This particular laptop is a dual GPU model... With an Intel HD 4600 running most of the time and an Nvidia GTX 950M that can take over if needed.

First, the Intel GPU is one hardware revision short of proper vulkan support, so running Proton for Windows gaming on Linux on it is... Some what questionable. It isn't what I'd call fast either.

The Nvidia GPU has full Vulkan support, but... You have two main issues... The drivers and getting applications to utilize the GPU when needed.

By default, they use the Noveau drivers, which does technically work, but runs like a car stuck on first gear... And I'm not sure if the switchover works at all. It will catch up eventually, but it could be years.

The proprietary GeForce drivers are fully functional, but unless something changes in later drivers, I'm stuck with the older Proprietary Kernel hooks... Which makes addressing the GPU more complicated than it should be. And while there are official Open Source Kernel hooks now, they only work for newer Nvidia GPUs.

The proprietary kernel hooks cause all sort of problems... Like it makes updating more complicated, the system isn't as fine tuned or integrated together as it should, and more. That also leads into the other annoyance... Optimus support.

As I can't address the secondary GPU directly, I have to use a supplied tool known as prime to get it to work... And as simple as Prime-run application-name might sound, it can be a hit or a miss.

Oh and I can't just run an up to date version of Ubuntu or Linux Mint either... Since the kernel version they use doesn't like my wifi adapter... And even more frustrating is that it's like one version number off from being compatible.

Otherwise, it just shuts off after a few minutes... Gotta be 5.9 or greater, but they use 5.8 by default.

To make it even more annoying, the new Wayland window manager requires the Nvidia drivers to be set to 550 or higher... And those use 530ish by default.

I mean, the Noveau drivers do have Wayland support, but as I said... Stuck on first gear.

KDE on Wayland feels very comfortable to me, but... I have no idea how to address the secondary GPU reliably...

No idea if the backlight on the keyboard is gone because it's old or some sort of Asus firmware shenanigans.

I mean, it's ten years old at this point... And keeping this thing running is all I can afford unless some miracle happens.

[sandybrett]

Transferring music and podcasts from a Linux computer to a Walkman is a surprisingly complicated process that sometimes goes awry, but today I had the strangest glitch yet.

I downloaded Season 3 of The Cellar Letters onto my Walkman last night, and was getting ready to listen to this morning when I realized that the first eight episodes of the season weren't there. At first I assumed I had forgotten to copy the episodes over, so I plugged my Walkman in again and copied the episodes again... no change.

Further investigation revealed that the files were in the correct folder on my Walkman, but the artist and album tags were missing and the lengths were all listed as 0:00. The files played just fine in my music library, and when I plugged my Walkman into my computer, the file properties looked normal, with the correct lengths.

Finally, I decided to click on one of the 0:00 episodes on my Walkman to see what would happen. And it started playing! With the length counter staying at zero and the dot staying at the start of the file the whole time.

This was annoying, but it was also exactly the sort of thing that would happen in The Cellar Letters, so I couldn't be too mad.

I have now listened to all the ghost episodes, ending with 48, "Doula". Spoilers:

If this were the newest episode, I would make a post that said, "We can all agree that the baby in the letter was Nate, right?" But there's been almost an entire season's worth of episodes since then, so I suspect it's either been confirmed or, to my great surprise, jossed. (Don't tell me!)

[elodieunderglass]

Oh it’s even more than that! The cis straight guy is very often a ride home, dad or husband. Or a Bob which I will explain in this essay is a signifier of a healthy ecosystem, like frogs are.

This is a 3 am take so consider this a blanket apology and a readmore but if you hate this post you were warned.

If he’s someone’s ride home, then his presence enables queer people to show up. Note this importance in, say, rural America or where the person might use a wheelchair or need care or can’t drive. Or where the meeting place is generally awkward.

If he’s someone’s dad, his presence enables kids to show up. I know a 5 year old trans kid in real life. I know a nonbinary teen in real life who’s allowed to do a lot on their own, but their parents worry, and if they’re hanging out with adults the parents want to attend and meet the adults. Teenagers are so liminal with this.

If he’s someone’s husband, that’s a perfectly common accessory for a bisexual, nonbinary, or trans person. I think it adds a delightful dimension to queer spaces. I think it’s great that there’s a whole class of sexuality that’s “bi wife energy” or “straight except for loving this person” or “straight since I think nonbinary people are considered a different gender to my own - actually I’m completely lost about whether that’s true but we’ve been married ten years?” or “straight except for the fact that my partner transitioned, and we’re still married, and it’s none of your business.” At this point they’re so common that they’re their own subspecies. I think all spaces should have a slightly bewildered guy in his late forties who owns a set of good screwdrivers. I am bi and have one myself; it is a common pairing. “Why would your husband come to your social thing” idk this is a genuine thing people do sometimes in non-tar-pit spaces. They stop by. It’s almost like birds. You meet this incredible ornate, splendid older queer person and then they introduce their husband Professor Robert “Bob” Kevinsworth, who’s just this extremely straight old big fat Linux geologist in a 90s t-shirt with a trout on it, they’ve been married 45 years. Evolutionary pressures mean that the Bob must be relatively drab in order to camouflage themselves on the nest or something; if you want to attract the flashy half of the couple to your garden, then you have to provide habitat for Bob. idk it’s 3:46 am right now. But it’s like frogs; the presence of Bobs indicates a healthy and established ecosystem, like Grison and Derin indicate. Because frogs, who absorb environmental toxins readily through their skin, are an indicator species for pollution and biodiversity; a Bob means there is going to be less toxicity and more diversity.

[And also it’s none of our business but there are an awful lot of queer Bobs (Bob himself, again, possibly being queer) and it’s really none of our business. Sure, maybe that person looks like a straight grandpa. A lot of people do/did. I have always hated the idea that you can “spot” a queer person by their haircut, clothes or youth (largely because I don’t look very unusual or amazing myself.) the oldest nb person I know is a sort of Bob with a big white beard and grandchildren, and I’m sorry but at their age they are NOT going to be getting a different haircut! Let alone pink Shein dungarees and black circle sunglasses to signify their queerness to gatekeepers. A lot of people seeing them would assume they are cishet. Nope! Just old, fat and unfashionable.)

So a space that doesn’t have room for a cishet guy is a space that has made decisions about children, non-drivers, a large proportion of bi and nonbinary people, straight trans women, dads, and so on.

Which is fine in itself I suppose, but what they’re clearly kinda selecting for is a population of able twentysomethings who can all have sex with each other. and the thing is that there’s often a vibe they feel annoyed by seeing people they don’t want to fuck (children, middle-aged people, unfashionable queer people, people unironically wearing trout t shirts).

So in my admittedly highly limited personal experience, the exclusionary “queer spaces” just tend to be an elaborate drama-production exercise for twentysomethings to date each other, the rituals are intricate etc.

And all the rest of the weird queer people are just. at the seed swap.

I'm kind of at a point where the "queer spaces" i feel safest in are the ones that have a pet cishet dude or two hanging around

[hydrus]

Version 559

windows

zip

exe

macOS

app

linux

tar.zst

I had a great week working mostly on one thing: converting the timestamps in the program from seconds to milliseconds.

full changelog

milliseconds

tl;dr: time numbers better, you don't have to do anything

Since the program started, it has tracked the various file 'times', like import and archive time, using a system that stores time with second precision. It knows that file x was imported at 2023-12-02 14:04:51, but nothing finer. This is common in many computing applications, but sometimes you want more. Particularly, in hydrus, whenever you have a fast importer that brings in two files within the same second, the program does not know, later, which was actually imported first (e.g. when you sort by 'imported time'). This can be annoying when you import a whole chapter of a comic and don't have good page tags set up yet--random pairs of pages will be flipped whenever you next try to sort those files by 'import time'.

So, this week I converted the database to use a time system that has millisecond resolution. Any files imported from now on, or deleted, archived, modified, or 'last viewed', will now get a millisecond timestamp. You don't have to do anything, and nothing outside of the 'edit file timestamps' dialog will appear any different, but it may take a minute to update.

This work was quite simple, but there was a ton of it, years and years of system build-up to go through. Rather than make an already messy system more complicated with a rough injection, I decided to invest the time and clean everything as I moved to the new format. I've tested it back and forth, but given the number of changes, I wouldn't be surprised there is a typo in there somewhere--if you see a file saying it was last viewed '54 years ago' or similar, let me know!

Also, the Client API can now edit timestamps, including with the new millisecond precision. If you are an API dev, check out the new call (and 'edit file times' permission) here: https://hydrusnetwork.github.io/hydrus/developer_api.html#edit_times_set_time

misc

Just a side note, I have removed the sankaku downloader defaults from the program, so new users won't see them. None of them were working well/at all, especially in recent weeks. If you want to grab from complicated sites, and there isn't a clean solution on the shared downloader repo here, https://github.com/CuddleBear92/Hydrus-Presets-and-Scripts;, I recommend going with a more robust solution like gallery-dl/hydownloader or just finding the content elsewhere.

If you ever run something like 'system:known url: regex = blah.com/(regex stuff)' and are annoyed at how slow it is, try adding a 'system:known url: domain = blah.com' pred in addition. This combination will now be explicitly much faster than just the bare regex (previously, it could be faster, by accident).

next week

Now we have ms timestamps and nicer code, I'd like to try tackling an 'edit timestamps' dialog that works for multiple files, including a 'cascade' command for force some clever sorts.

[linuxgamenews]

What's New in the Cyber Knights: Flashpoint Update #30?

Cyber Knights: Flashpoint adds worthy changes to the squad tactics heist RPG game for Linux, Steam Deck, and Windows PC. Which is the result of the dedicated work and effort of the Trese Brothers team. Available now in Steam Early Access Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, an exciting tactical role-playing game, recently released Update #30. Which also brings new features that make the gameplay even more engaging and diverse. This update is especially interesting for Linux and Steam Deck players keen on strategy and action. First off, let's talk about "proc-gen missions." Proc-gen stands for procedural generation, which means the title creates unique missions every time you play. This keeps things fresh and new. The Cyber Knights: Flashpoint update adds new scenarios and possibilities. So now you can take on different kinds of tasks from the Warner-Braun group. This means more variety and surprises in your missions. Another unique addition is the improved options menu. Before, if you wanted to change settings like how fast the camera moves or the game's volume, you had to go back to the main menu. Not anymore! Now, you can tweak these settings right in the middle of the action, whether you're in your safehouse or on a mission. This makes adjusting gameplay to your liking far easier.

Cyber Knights: Flashpoint - Early Access Trailer (Pre Update #30)

Speaking of convenience, let's talk about the Nuke program in the Matrix part of the game. The Matrix is like a digital battlefield where you fight against security systems. The Nuke program is a powerful tool that damages all the enemy defenses in one area. It had some issues before, but now it's fixed and works great. Also making your cyber battles more exciting. The update also improves the Reo-Flex Lightsuit armor into Cyber Knights: Flashpoint. Armor is crucial for protection in combat, and this suit now offers even better defense, making you tougher in battles. For those who like to lead their team strategically, there's good news too. The update has balanced the K-Protocol Talent for Vanguards, a Cyber Knights: Flashpoint character type. This means better and more strategic choices for how you play these characters. There are also fixes to bugs that players have reported. Bugs can be annoying as they might stop working properly or make some features behave oddly. The team has listened to player feedback and fixed these issues. Making your experience smoother and more enjoyable. Lastly, for those who like to keep things organized, the seniority sort feature in your merc team's roster now works correctly. This helps you manage your team better, knowing who's the most experienced and who joined recently. Gameplay combines strategy, action, and role-playing in a futuristic setting. It's all about making smart moves, whether you're sneaking past enemies or engaging them head-on. The Update #30 enhances these aspects, offering more options and a better overall experience in Cyber Knights: Flashpoint. Available on Steam Early Access for Linux, Steam Deck, and Windows PC. Priced at $29.99 USD / £24.99 / 28,99€.

[televisionenjoyer]

ok so like. Stremio. Completely legal app. Works in most devices (windows, mac, linux, android, android tv, lg tvs, samsung tvs) with some caveats (basically useless on iOS, couldn't get casting to a chromecast to work using torrentio).

It's basically a player with a browser. If you use Plex the general purpose is very similar to that. In it's vanilla version it will let you search for all movies and series on IMDb and will give you different platforms to watch it or the option to get it from a repository (in plex's case that would be your personal server).

But!!! Stremio not only has public domain repositories you can install as add-ons, it also has things like ✨torrentio✨. And what the torrentio addon does is search for the movie/series of your choice in various torrent repositories (torrentgalaxy, rargb, eztv, etc) and allow you to stream the piece of media of your choice in real time from any of the torrents it finds.

Some notes though, if you live in a country that reinforces anti piracy measures, you will either need a VPN or a debrid service. If you already have a VPN and you're wondering how you can implement it to work with torrentio, well, you basically have to set the VPN up in your modem so that it intercepts everything, and that sounds exhausting tbh lol. can't help you there because my country doesn't give a shit 🫡🇦🇷

A debrid service is recommended not only to bypass any existing piracy restrictions, but also because it will make everything you want to watch load tons faster. The way it works is it has tons of content already loaded in its cache, and what it doesn't have, it downloads at super high speeds, and what this does for you is basically emulate the loading times you would get on any other regular stream service. Personally I use realdebrid and it's like three dollars a month I think?? which put in the balance against paying the actual sum of streaming services that interest me, is a more than acceptable price to me.

a debrid service is not necessary though, but without it you might experience some pretty annoying loading times, this is both due to the way torrent works and the fact that a bunch of pirated content is actually, hilariously, less compressed than your average streaming experience. To fix it look out for torrents with the most seeders and favor those lighter in weight (maybe don't pick a 4k HDR10 5.1 torrent for your 1080p stereo setup)

Personally, this is the guide I followed for my setup (stremio + torrentio + realdebrid)

You can just skip the debrid stuff if you don't need it/want to try out stremio without a debrid service. But that's the basic gist of it.

Also, there are all sorts of cool addons for stremio, personally I just have torrentio + the pre-installed public domain repositories + the pre-installed open subtitles addon + a local live tv addon. The stremio addons subreddit is a great place to browse for addons that could interest you.

I need to teach you guys how to use stremio I can't see you living like this