ifixcoinops

ifixcoinops, 9 months ago to random

In case y'all were tired of hearing about popular Fediverse people making bad decisions, just thought I'd let y'all know I bought a 1980's hybrid pinball/videogame tonight

ifixcoinops, 11 months ago to random

So I downloaded a whole bunch of free or pay-what-you-want Game Boy games off itch.io for my Game Dad. They're all made with GB Studio (which is a free super-easy game-making program to make Game Boy games) and so far they're all pretty chill.

A highlight is Analog Age Rainy Day, which has you playing as a kid trying to survive a rainy day; catch is it's 1984 so there's no phones or game boy or anything so you've gotta find ways to amuse yourself.

A lovely benefit of using the Game Dad for Game Boy games is the ability to shift the palette so that it's red-on-black for playing in bed without giving me insomnia. It only works for Game Boy games though, not Game Boy Colour or Advance; I wish this were an option I could toggle in Retroarch for all my games.

I'm getting into the idea of writing my own Game Boy game and I think I want to make it about a tiny smol officeboy/retailboy who gets laid off and joins a moving company to make a bit of quick cash, and finds that he loves using his body and feeling those aches and becoming stronk. And like this is possible now, it's very do-able to make a game that isn't about saving the world or whatever, doesn't have to have mass appeal enough to justify burning a bunch of ROMs and moulding a bunch of cartridges, you can chuck it up on the internet as easily as we could copy a tape game in a boombox thirty years ago and if ten people fall in love with it then Hooray.

ifixcoinops, 4 months ago to random

Wanna repaint upstairs, dunno what colour, typing "What colour should I paint my walls" into DDG like a total chump, if that question had an answer then paint shops wouldn't exist, yet there's a million linkspam websites and a thousand youtube videos that'll all waste your time taking ten minutes each to say "IDK LOL"

ifixcoinops, 10 months ago to random

I'm getting on a plane to go and visit my family in England tomorrow, which is nice :)

But I had to go clothes shopping, boooooo

ifixcoinops, 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago) to random

Hey #xmpp folks, is Prosody still the easiest way to self-host a server?

Please, please, please say it isn't

EDIT: use case is I have an Ubuntu box from Hetzner hosting some websites and (soon) a nextcloud, this is what I had set up on my last dedicated server (except owncloud back then) and the new box has Plesk on it and after just a couple of weeks of pressing buttons in Plesk and having it Do It All For Me I've been completely spoiled

EDIT 2: the root of the issue is that Plesk hides your .cert and .key files. Scrambles their names, removes their extensions and dumps them all under /opt/psa/certificates/ not even in different folders for different domains, you'd expect mydomain.com.cert but instead you get scfLios3a, all mixed up in a bucket with the eggs on top, good luck telling Prosody where to look for those buggers

ifixcoinops, 7 months ago to random

Yesterday was a hard day. Got cheered up a bit today by getting a free bike off one of those Buy Nothing groups on Facebook.

When last I visited my family I rode a pushbike for the first time in over twenty years and I'd forgotten how much fun they were, how light, how without the context of being on top of an engine you look behind yourself and go "Wow, I went FAR!" and I said "Haha yeah I'm gonna get a bike when I get back to America." My brother said, as many people in my life have always said, "Dan, never buy a pushbike, people throw or give them away them all the time" and everyone's right of course, they do.

This thing's got two problems, slow leaks in the tyres and not changing gears properly. I've never fiddled with a derailleur before but eh, it's not rocket science, it just goes in and out on a cable; got the derailleur all cleaned off and adjusted up and still no dice so I took apart the shifter mech that lives on the yoke. Symptom was it wouldn't shift down more than a couple of clicks, this is the style where you've got two levers, one has a positive snap and one feels like a ratchet, the ratchetty one weren't ratchetting so I figured its ratchet must be stuck open and aye, its ratchet were stuck open.

Now if only I'd known this thing came apart on a left-hand thread, I might not have stripped that one bolt and be waiting on parts, but in the meantime I worked it a bit and gave it a drop of oil and now the ratchet bit works if you press up as well as in lol, just kinda hold it together with a squeeze whenever you change gears, it's fine

Tyres can wait til the weekend, I'll just pump it up now and then

Also this thing is so high. It's SO. HIGH. I'm 185cm and when I went to see to the bloke giving it away I craned my neck right back to say hello, dude could've been 2m tall. The seat's already down as far as it'll go and I'm 41 so I don't think I'm likely to grow into it. Getting real Penny Farthing feeling tryna ride the thing. Good fun though, and littleun actually managed to Properly Ride her bike today for a few metres, pedalling and everything, so tomorrow's gonna be a dad-and-daughter-and-bike day

ifixcoinops, 8 months ago to random

Littleun's school is doing a charity event that's clearly changed a bit over the years - the flyer has some cartoon penny-people waving flags and it says "1, 2, 3, 4, I declare a coin war!"

"Coin isn't enough syllables," I say, narrowing my eyes, "but alright, you can have my odd change if it'll get her class a root beer float party."

All US coins and bills accepted, it says, "WELL THAT'S BANG AGAINST THE PENNY-WAR SPIRIT OF THE THING" I say, but whatever, let's empty out the jelly bean machine, it'll be a nice excuse to show y'all the coin mechanism.

ifixcoinops, 16 days ago to random

Wanna guess what I'm making?

ifixcoinops, 10 months ago to random

Y'know I'd love love LOVE an e-reader with a red light.

Not a warm white light, not an orange light, not a yellow light; a RRRED light. Like, the colour red. As in red LEDs.

Decades of insomnia only alleviated by using a rooted phone with a red-subpixels-only option have ruined me for anything else.

ifixcoinops, 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago) to random

Watching a mutual ask for printer recs and receive a chorus of tired tech folk going "Just get a Brother, they're fine" and man

MAN

Like this is actually kinda fascinating honestly, Brother is now the best printer brand, the one that every Computer Person recommends, and is it because their printers are good? Their printers are fine, they print, whatever, no, it's because everybody else's printers have gotten Innovated out the wazoo, every innovation making them way worse, until it's gotten to the point where I wouldn't have one in the house even if it were free, and meanwhile Brother's have remained consistently Fine I Guess, which now makes them the best printer manufacturer simply by virtue of them opting out of the Who Can Get Crappiest Fastest race

Brother have gotten to where they are now, by NOT innovating

EDIT 2023-11-27 2130 UTC: I muted this thread a while back because wew lad this got too big. I won't see your reply but the lurkers (and commentors) of Hacker News might.

ifixcoinops, 20 days ago to random

Ooooh should Pinball Dad stick his toe in the Linux Discourse

I've been on it since 2010, I guess I should maybe?

How about I stick my whole entire foot in, maybe if I poison it with my footstink then it'll die down a bit

ifixcoinops, 7 months ago to random

Hahaha good lord I love when computer mans try to make pinball machines

Remember the Weird Al thread?

At least Weird Al had coin slots

https://www.knapparcade.org/post/coinless-pinball-the-mysterious-front-portion-of-turner-pinball-s-ninja-eclipse-machine-revealed

ifixcoinops, 11 months ago to random

Alright so last night I said hey folks, I'm 40, dyspraxic as heck and can't draw, and it bothers me, pls recommend me a beginner-friendly course, and drawabox was recommended among others.

Started it today. Dude's telling how to draw smooth lines that don't wobble; use your whole arm not your wrist, practice each stroke first to build muscle memory, put your eyes on the end, do the whole thing in one constant motion at one constant speed and don't think until you're done with the line, I nod along and go alright and give it a try and ffs this is welding, this is literally MIG welding, it's also how you spray paint and clearcoat, it's how you brush polycrylic onto wood, and I've been drawing crappy wobbly lines my whole life because no bugger ever told me "Hey Dan why don't you try moving the pen like you're spraying lacquer onto a pinball playfield."

Still cannae draw, but at least I've figured out how to do straight smooth bloody lines with a pen, wish I'd put two and two together ten years ago

ifixcoinops, 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago) to random

A boosted "Hey it's getting dark and I'm getting blue, help me out with Seasonal Affective Disorder tips" post reminded me of how I deal with my own seasonal affective disorder, so here, a small thread.

Here's how it works for me: my brain tells me to be sad in winter and happy in spring. But, my brain is a gullible little noodle, and I can trick it into thinking it's summer just by shining a bright light at it. So, light therapy lamp!

EXCEPT: light therapy lamps are very expensive. If I'm to spend money on my brain, I'm going to do it the cheap way AND the silly way, and build a smegging light therapy CANNON

(edit: haha this angle makes my wrist look REALLY WEIRD lol noodlywrist)

ifixcoinops, 1 month ago to Pittsburgh

Constructing an emergency dam out of leftover laminate flooring cutoffs on this fine #pittsburgh evening

The edges pound into the ground pretty well if you're pissed off enough

ifixcoinops, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago) to random

Urgent, boosts appreciated: My web host, Heart Internet, is imploding (I found this out AFTER I'd paid them for a year's worth of dedicated server up front) and I need recommendations for a company doing dedicated servers. Please, PLEASE only tell me about companies that you personally have used and have positive firsthand experience with, please don't just google this for me.

EDIT: I'm going with Hetzner, thanks to your recommendations and the recommendations of folk I know IRL and was able to chat with face-to-face, thanks everyone for boosting this so widely and giving me so many excellent recs, there's no need to boost this post any more, you are all wonderful

EDIT 2: folk asking how I know Heart's winding up, check out the TrustPilot reviews from mid-August on, you gotta read between the lines a bit but the takeaway is a) they're doing the "whoops we're experiencing unusually high volume of support requests" thing, b) at least one support team member is going "Screw it, here's how to transfer your domains to someone else." I assume that's why y'all are still boosting this lol

EDIT 3: maybe y'all are still boosting this because the "I'm asking for firsthand experience pls don't just google it for me" bit is Resonating with you, I want to let you know that it annoys me as much as it annoys you. A fun game to play when someone does that is to ask them how they know, and when they say google, pretend not to know what that is and ask them to explain it

ifixcoinops, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago) to random

christ does anyone remember how you used to be able to get a page of your earliest posts on mastodon? Before this infinite-scroll malarkey?

It had something to do with appending either min_id or max_id to the URL but either it doesn't work these days or I'm doing it wrong lol

Edit: I was right, you just append min_id=0 to your profile - but that doesn't work anymore 'cause Eugen's a big silly sausage

ifixcoinops, 4 months ago to random

Dang, two people in my tl posting about having to jump their cars today

ifixcoinops, 11 months ago to random

Alright, so how come I'm ifixcoinops@retro.social now when I was ifixcoinops@mstdn.social yesterday, what's the story, what's everyone banging on about with the dot art and Welsh pixies and Meta meta and stuxes, alright here's the Short Version

Stux = guy who runs mstdn.social and a bunch of other general-purpose fedi sites
Welshpixie = lady who runs mastodon.art, an art focused mastodon website
AJ = guy who runs retro.social, this website
Meta = Facebook, hereafter referred to as Facebook because they don't get to change their name and wash away their past sins any more than my Lucky Goldstar dishwasher does

Facebook: Mmmmmmay we pleasssse have a little CHAT with the big adminsssssss, we promissssse we'll be good this time <3
Fediverse in general: Haha get bent facebook, we weren't born yesterday
Facebook: That wassss Facebook, we've reconssssidered, let'ssss be friendssss
Me: Happily dunking on people who spell accessibility as a11y and completely oblivious to this whole conversation
Welshpixie: Ey up, facebook are up to their old tricks again, remember not to fall for it guys
Stux: Nasty Welsh Pixie, let's give them a chance, I will block your Whole Entire Domain
mstdn.social website: A block you say, a defederation, now that's quite serious, that's for when you don't want anyone on your website to follow anyone on this other website, are you quite -
Stux: yes I'm sure lol
mstdn.social website: Very well, chop
Everyone on mstdn.social who was following anyone on mastodon.art: suddenly, silently not following those people any more
Everyone on mastodon.art who was following anyone on mstdn.social: also suddenly silently not following those people any more
Everyone on both websites who was following anyone on the other website: WTF STUX
Stux: oh uh yeah hm. Ahem. That may have been hasty. I wonder if I can undo some of the -
mstdn.social website: nope
Stux: I think I'll take a break from the computer for a bit
Me: Drinking beer and playing Beat Saber with a couple of out-of-town mates and completely oblivious to this whole thing happening
Me: goes to bed
Fediverse: meta meta meta
Me: good morning fediverse, what are the haps my frieWHAT THE HELL
Me: WHERE'S MY GOOD MORNING ART
Fediverse: meta meta meta
Me: FACEBOOK? WHAT?
Several People: Dan my server's gonna defed from yours in a week, can you move?
Me: what no what's going on that's not enough time I've got things to do, tell you what though I'll have some time in the autumn and I like you too, can we catch back up then?
Several People: we are chill and lovely and we understand
Me: slowly pieces together what's going on while drinking a Winsford Mocha

---intermission because I have a fifty thousand character post limit now---

A Winsford Mocha is an analogue of this fancy "mocha" coffee stuff you tasted once in the far-off land of Chester, where they have coffee shops; you live in Winsford, which is a town best known for having Europe's last remaining salt mine, a literal man-made hole in the world, where there are no such frivolities, so you attempt your own. It's two spoons of instant coffee, two spoons of Cadbury's drinking chocolate, microwaved for a minute, stirred and microwaved for another minute, and drunk with thumb resting on the spoon because the contents tend to settle.

---intermission over---

Me: WTF STUX I HAVE NO IDEA WHO I WAS FOLLOWING FROM .ART APART FROM WELSHPIXIE, HOW AM I GOING TO RE-FOLLOW ALL MY ART PEOPLE
Everyone on both affected sides of this whole shambles: YEAH SAME DAN I SEE YOU'RE LATE TO THE PARTY HERE
Me: Sigh. I guess I'll move servers, AGAIN, and probably spend a month or two having random people look at my join date and tell me I'm using mastadon wrong, AGAIN, but this'll have to wait, I have Things To Do
Mastodon: it's Mast-OH-don actually
Me: I know
The Fediverse: actually it's the F... ah, you know
The Things I must Do: oh my god where do I even start, they are a nice even spread between equally important physical things and computer things and family things and some of them have Rather Tight Deadlines, I will spare you the details but this is why I said to several people lol see you in October
Me: I am mad about this situation and I want to talk to someone IRL about it but how the hell do I even start to explain why this is even possible without that person resolving to never ever ever even glance at this whole fediverse thing
Stux: notices me, noticing him and his horrible mistakes
Stux: Say, that post of yours... not the one where you call me a wanker, it'd be a bit heavy-handed to delete that one, if I were to delete that one then you'd be able to say "Lol look at this fragile guy everyone" and you'd be right, but this one from yesterday:
Me, from yesterday: "Extremely popular take that some here won't like but seriously need to sit with: spelling words like a11y or l10n or i18n or m17n is bloody incomprehensible and makes you look like an absolute w4r"
Stux: yeah, that content violates the following community guidelines: "No harassment, dogpiling or doxxing of other users." I am going to remove it.
Me: oh no, not only is he not taking a break from the computer, he's back to pressing buttons and he's gone into petty "LOOK AT THE POWER I HAVE TO REMOVE YOUR VERY WORDS" mode, I have to move TODAY while I can still get an archive of my shite
AJ: Hey you can put your shite here
Me: Thank you AJ, I will put my shite right there. I will fill your website with my shite.
Several long threads of mine which started on mastodon.social which is the website I was on before I was on mstdn.social which is the website I was on before I moved to retro.social today: lol what are you gonna do, make a blog?

---the story is done but so is the damage---

Everybody I was following on mastodon.art: I'm still not following them; there's no way to get that data back, shy of just kinda stumbling across folk and going "Oh I recognise them, follow"
Everybody from mastodon.art who was following me, probably months from now: Hmm haven't seen that joystick pop up in my feed for a while, wonder if he died, shrug
The Fediverse In General: LACKING in having tools to recover from the social damage that can be wrought with one reckless button press
Facebook: hrmmmm yesssssssss, yum yum yum, licks eyeballs
Me: sure hope next time this daft shite happens there's some kind of backup
AJ: My server can do 50,000 characters
Me: makes USE of this, haha you all get TURBO DAN NOW

ifixcoinops, 8 months ago to random

Boosts appreciated:

Every time I get my calipers out to measure a thing I go "Agh, these calipers are a load of flimsy shite and the batteries run down even when I'm not using them, I should buy a better set," and then I never do, so fedi, please recommend me a good set of digital calipers that you've got firsthand experience with.

Difficulty level: I live among AMERICANS and am subject to their measuring nonsense so it has to give fractional inches as well as proper.

ifixcoinops, 10 months ago to random

Murena-edition Fairphone first impressions:

• incredibly expensive. Like whoa. Like thrice as much as I've ever paid for any phone, and I'm an immigrant who has to get the more-expensive international variant of any phone I buy and furthermore buy it outright and carrier unlocked. BUT,

• five-year warranty, and just holding this thing I 100% believe it'll outlast any of my other phones.

• absolutely gorgeous device, physically I mean, it's heavy and chunky and green and there's a copper-coloured indentation for your thumbnail so you can rrrrip the back cover off and throw the battery out the moment it starts doing anything weird

• bit too tallskinny for my tastes, I like my screens as close to square as possible

• bloody works and makes phone calls which is an improvement over my last phone

• it'd be really nice if it was written down somewhere, ideally somewhere in big bold letters at the top of the purchase page, that you need to find and enable the setting that lets google sniff all over this allegedly-degoogled phone if you want to get notifications about anything, which kind of renders the whole e/os / degoogling efforts kind of fruitless-feeling

• great screen

• cameras are okay, looks like there's a normal lens and then a wide angle lens and then another normal lens, still not sure how the two normal lenses are different but it's nice to have a backup I guess?

~ baked-in camera app is the one I was using on my old phone because it was Open Source And F-Droid Available And Yeah Right On Software Freedom Etc but the whole time I've been using it I've been waiting and hoping for it to get just a little bit less shit

More incoming over the next few days probably

ifixcoinops, 11 months ago to random

Pain Scale but for how much of a pigsty your place is

My place is clean and tidy enough that I could cheerfully accept, at no notice, a visit from:

0 (no pain): Child protective services
1: A news crew summoned by that shitpost I did
2: An old teacher who thought I'd go far
3: A potential employer who eats pizza with a knife and fork
4: A neighbour who has a flowerbed
5: An electrician, plumber or carpenter
6: A chill friend
7: A close friend who isn't scared of spiders
8: Smelly Gary
9: An especially bright day or a new lightbulb
10: A raccoon

ifixcoinops, 7 months ago to random

Lost Harley the cat this morning.

We've had him spread out on a towel downstairs the past couple of hours, took turns telling stories about him, the usual wake stuff, you know.

Kid's been watching over him while I do the work outside. Mad respect to sextons, it's hard bloody work.

Had to come in and do the grim job of measuring him, now having a quick cup of tea before I go back out and widen his grave a bit. Well, a lot really.

ifixcoinops, 6 months ago to random

Last night: posted a thing about printers and went to bed

This morning: Woke up, drank tea, started the toots loading, huh how come retro.social is so slow this morning

Oh

Oh no

ifixcoinops, 1 month ago to random

I got a secondhand projector screen for like fifty bucks because it was supposed to be motorized but the motor was knackered.

Spouse: 😺 oh that'll be awesome, we'll be able to motor it up to reveal the bookcases behind
Me: 🦝 aye it'll be magic, just gotta swap out the motor

Well she's been very patient the past three or four years