#is this a desktop only thing or do I need to update my app

[deliciousdietdrpepper]

Happy booptober y’all

[sundial-girl]

idk if its like just a glitch or some feature that tumblr is secretly trying to roll out or sm shit but sometimes when i refresh my dash on desktop i start getting random blog posts show up

and i KNOW i dont follow these people/tags for a fact so i start panicking refreshing trying to get rid of them. WHY are some of you on my dash i do not KNOW yall I SPECIFICALLY FOLLOW LIKE LESS THAN 100 PEOPLE & 5 TAGS FOR THIS REASON GO AWAYYYY. HISSSS

[psi-hate]

alright, this really, really sucks but i have an unfortunate update that occurred regarding my recent living situation.

not to get into too much detail for the sake of my friend's privacy, but she and her fiance offered to take me in after i was suddenly on the verge of homelessness this february. i accepted their offer and moved in thanks to everyone's support, and for the last few months, i felt comfortable and capable in getting myself together for the first time in years.

however, despite what i assumed were all positive developments, things started getting a lot more complicated. i become exposed to the treatment and stress my friend has been suffering from her fiance over many years, from being spied on via tracking apps, in-house cameras, a ridiculous jealousy complex and all sorts of other personal issues.

her friends and i have been supporting her over the years, but i didn't realize how bad it was until i started to be subjected to it as well.

my friend decided to break up with her fiance last week, finally standing up for herself but still wanting to remain friends and live as normally as they could, they still had the house and their cats and such. her now ex-fiance hasn't taken kindly to this and has been pretty passively hostile towards us, and has started to take it out on me.

she started stalking my tumblr to find things to get mad at, and checking the cameras when i leave my room. i've not felt comfortable to leave my room in well over a week other than to get some food or use the bathroom in the middle of the night, the tension has been a nightmare.

my friend and i decided we needed to move out, especially me since i'm technically not a tenant and we suspect she's going to call the police on me to get me out of here. my friend will be going to her parents at a later point, but i unfortunately need to leave within a couple weeks as i've already been "indirectly" threatened.

this is sort of a nightmare, and i feel so horrible things turned out this way for my friend. i tried my best, but this feels out of my control. trying to keep the peace has only made things worse, and we think it's best for me to book it before i get blind-sighted.

i suspect if her ex-fiance sees this, she'll retaliate, but at this point i've already made my peace with that.

unfortunately, i won't be able to bring much of my stuff with me, i only have enough money for a ticket to move in with another close friend as an emergency.

i don't have enough to buy any checked bags for most my belongings, especially my desktop pc, so once i move i'm very likely going to not be able to do my art or anything until i can afford a laptop eventually. i'm really sorry to those waiting on any commissions, i'll try my best to get them done before i move. i feel so horrible about this.

if anyone is able to help, i'd really appreciate it. even just a reblog is more than i can really ask. i hesitate to make this request because i feel like i just asked for it only for it to all be wasted once this exploded in my face. but i've been encouraged to reach out, and i apologize if this is too much. my ko-fi:

thank you so much for supporting me so far. i don't want to disappoint anyone anymore. i am so scared but i still want to keep trying.

[losergames]

Chop Shop is strictly 18+ for language, themes, and potential explicit content. 

🔗 - Game Intro | Bug Report | Ko-Fi

Episode Three is now available! (+ 86,000) - PLAY HERE

Get your first taste of the underground car scene.

Meet some other players in the game.

Be made an offer.

5 achievements up for grabs!

And more!

AN: thank you so much for the patience - i've been dying to put this update out. lots of new characters and lots of variation!! there are 3 major paths to choose between in this ep, i recommend trying them all out! and thank you to my betas for keeping me sane lmao

This update comes with a patch and UI refresh (Version 1.1.2) Notes are under the cut. If preferred, you can access them in game in the start menu.

STORY

EPISODE 01:

MC should now be able to smoke! Buying cigarettes at the shop was not triggering correctly. If playing with an old save, you DO NOT have to restart as code at the beginning of EP 03 has resolved the error. Player will need to restart if they wish to read smoking related scenes in previous episodes.

Updated MC Name selection. Player can now choose from a list of names instead of having to input one to proceed.

Player can now give Taha their chocolate bar if it's in their inventory.

When asking Maz about their scars, the second choice 'You want to ask about it but you're going to keep your mouth shut.' should now take you to the correct response.

Extended and updated 'End Game' scenes.

EPISODE 02:

If MC is faint after exiting the car, but also drunk, they should now get the fainting scene, followed by Dilani helping the MC in the bathroom.

UI + TECHNICAL

SETTINGS:

Autoname Save is now defaulted to ON. This is to add ease and flow to gameplay, especially for mobile, tablet, and app users, instead of calling for an inputted saved name. If player wants to input save names, toggle Autoname Saves to OFF.

Autoname Save previously only used the forename of the MC but now includes the surname as well.

Removed the Fullscreen toggle as it is only intended for desktop use. Player can still toggle fullscreen function via the UI bar on the desktop interface.

Added a choice indicator toggle. (This probably won't come into effect until EP 04 or 05)

Changed serif font from Vollkron to EB Garamond.

OTHER:

Changing the MC's pronouns via the Dashboard has been updated. Additionally, after confirmation will take player back to the Dashboard and not close the dialog boxes entirely.

Hovering over 'Personality', 'Motives', and 'Skills' titles in the Dashboard will now display an information box with a definition. Mobile and tablet users will need to tap on the title.

'Resume Game' now only appears on the main menu when there is an autosave in the saves log.

Choices styling changes.

General UI and button style changes.

Fixed errors with the text message styling.

Added styling for reading text off of a page in game.

Darkened blue in light theme 'Skyline' to reduce eye strain.

CREATE A SAVE

Introducing Create a Save! This feature allows players to quickly manufacture a save file and start at a later point in the game.

Set your identity, appearance, history, and statistics; including personality, motives, and skills. Continue to set key decisions made in previous episodes.

Randomise options available for creating a PC and key decisions.

OTHER

Fixed gaps and spacing issues.

Minor phrasing and sentence structure changes.

Grammar and typo fixes.

whew -- that's a lot of patch notes! apologies for so much that needed to be fixed.

this update shouldn't break/ mess with saves but as a disclaimer i will say, if you spot anything funky, broken, or you don't think things are triggering correctly, try starting a new save. the new create a save feature is incredibly code heavy, and it's been tested relentlessly, but i wouldn't be surprised if something crops up.

if starting a new save doesn't resolve your issue - please submit to bug report or just send me an ask/message.

some things have been meaning to get fixed for Some Time - thank you to everyone that is using the bug report form!

apologies if there are typos and/or bugs - this was a long one to edit and my lovely betas did an OUTSTANDING job reading so much for ep 3 - thank you so much again!!! this time i am going to give it a bit more time before i put together a patch so i can grab more error responses haha.

create a save has also added a wee chunk to the word count, somewhere around 6k, but i'm not including it in the episode 03 word count as it's purely code. so, if you think the total wc is off, that's why!

if you've read this far, happy reading and thank you so much for the continued support!! :) - becky <3

[nataliescatorccio]

so as some of you may be aware, i managed to get a response from staff when i sent my feedback about the beta editor change and this was something that came up a lot when i called for screenshots. i thought i'd write a little summary of what i've found out because i think this is incredibly important in how we continue to raise the problems regarding the change to staff.

the number 1 biggest issue raised to me was the change disruption in quality via your blog's desktop theme. the biggest thing is the padding we notice on themes and the resizing of gifs, leading to their quality decrease:

in some cases, this also makes black (or even white) lines appear across the bottom of gifs:

now this is the response i received:

"The issue here is theme actually. It's applying padding to the entire Text post, rather than individual blocks. Because of this, the browser is scaling the proper 540px GIF down to 500px, and once the browser scales things, quality goes out the window.   Under more modern themes, padding is applied only to Text blocks rather than the whole post, so Image blocks receive no padding and serve at their full 540px.

We're working on both a new post to explain this as well as looking into ways to improve this for older themes."

essentially, this is saying that it is an issue with how older themes process the gifs. now this changes things, this is not to do with gifmakers and our process, this is now to do with theme makers. if tumblr turn round, just make a post to explain it, and say 'just use our up to date themes!' this means that all older custom themes will still retain this issue. if you are a theme maker and you have old themes, they now become unusable. additionally from what i've heard (i'm not a coder, but from a brief chat with people who are) coding for this update is tricky. it is possible that this will majorly impact theme makers processes and limit our ability to use custom themes.

this means that we need to factor this into our feedback to staff. it's not enough to say 'we want to preserve our gifs', because the response is going to be 'absolutely fine, use one of our themes or a /blog view and it'll look great!'. we need to direct our feedback into also including that we love custom desktop themes and want to be able to use them to display our work, otherwise these will be sacrificed.

the second issue i received a few screenshots about is the shrinking of gifs on the app, as so:

this does not seem to be a beta post issue and in fact from the screenshots i've received, it affects posts both posted with beta and legacy.

i didn't receive a whole lot of insight on why it's occurring, but staff are aware of this and are working on fixing it. while incredibly frustrating it does not at least seem to be linked directly to beta and therefore shouldn't be something that sticks around!

[wardensantoineandevka]

sorry to bother you but i wanted to ask how you're enjoying using Obsidian? I've been eyeing it for a while but would love to know your thoughts, highlights, lowlights, etc :) if you don't mind sharing, ofc!

No worries! The short version is that I've been enjoying Obsidian quite a lot, and I find that it serves all of my needs nicely without any fuss. Using it is rather frictionless, I think, and getting used to it was pretty easy though it did take some willingness to very much learn to navigate its menus and features and how it lays everything out. It's not at all difficult, but I do think you have to sit with it for a bit. It's currently my main writing program with the exception of screenplays, for which I use Highland 2.

For context on myself, my writing needs are rather straightforward. I use these sorts of apps and programs to write and organize my fanfic, original prose writing, professional correspondence, and journalistic article drafts. I previously used Notion, which I left because of the big NotionAI push. Before Notion, I used Bear, though I can't remember why I stopped using it; I haven't checked out Bear 2, so I don't know if it suits my needs.

When I was shopping around for a new program to use, the following points were important to me, in no particular order:

no native / built-in generative AI assistants

interface is simple and clean or had customization or community themes that would make it so

offline access

mobile app with document sync

ability to organize and group notes through a folder, tag, or similar system

not too many Things going on with it or I could very easily ignore stuff I didn't use without them cluttering up the UI or my space

Obsidian organizes files within "vaults", of which you can have multiple, each of which are connected to folders that are stored locally on my laptop (or my phone). I love this. I have local versions of all of my notes. I can literally find all my stuff as markdown files within a folder on my desktop and open them up in another program with EASE. If you are someone who doesn't have a lot of storage space, this might be an issue, but for me, this is a very bright highlight.

The biggest lowlight for me is that mobile sync is reliant on a subscription fee, but considering that the rest of the program is free and the fee is small, I found this ultimately a very small concern. I very critically need mobile sync because I spend a significant amount of time writing from my phone. The mobile sync is incredibly good; it keeps all documents synchronized very well, and I have yet to run into version conflicts that cause me to accidentally overwrite and lose significant progress. I don't even have to close files on my laptop first; they'll just update in real-time on my screen like Google Docs. Sometimes I'll name documents something that my phone's file path system cannot handle; Obsidian warns me that it cannot fetch and sync these files with illegal names, and I like that it keeps me informed about that.

It has both a folder system and a tag system, which allows you to organize your files. I only use the folder system because my needs are simple, but the tag system is also solid. It also has a robust search system. It also has a bookmarking system to further organize your stuff. I don't have enough files to use that, but it is available, and I think that's neat.

More precise customization can be difficult if you're not used to writing CSS. I am familiar with CSS, so I found this a small hurdle, but this will be a bigger issue for others. That said, this does mean that Obsidian is DEEPLY customizable, and there is a large gallery of community themes that offer a lot of styles that serve a wide variety of needs. There is also a deep bench of community plugins to help get Obsidian to do what you want — I have plugins that make the word count in the status bar show the count of highlighted text and allow me to copy text as HTML instead of formatted text or markdown. There is also an active Obsidian community and forum, so you will not be necessarily troubleshooting customization alone.

Other small things that occur to me to mention right now: It supports opening files in multiple windows, and it has a tab system, which is really neat. The ability to open multiple files at a time is very good. You can also open files side-by-side for easy comparison, which is useful for more technical work. I don't use Obsidian for coding or wiki work, but I can imagine this being really useful for that. It has a reading mode. Offers a version history with a "show changes" mode and restoration capability. File merge capability. You can open images into it and organize them like any other file.

All in all, I'm very happy with it, and it serves all of my personal needs very well. I generally give it a blanket recommendation, again noting that I think it does take sitting with to get used to some of its features and UI and customizing it to your needs and preferences, but I don't think that's super difficult with some patience and time.

[acertainmoshke]

Let's Talk About Notion

So, I use Notion for plenty of non-writing things to keep myself organized, but the main thing I use it for is writing. And I love it because it can be simple--just pages nested within pages and including lists or paragraphs--or as complex as you need. The template I use for keeping track of my novels I did pay $20 for, but that was to the random person who put in all the time and effort and not to the company. There are free templates and if you put in the time to figure it out, you can make the complex ones yourself. And I do have a side page to just add pages for random ideas and not clutter my official system.

Anyway.

This is the front page of my favorite Notion template ever, WIP. I can add as many projects as I'm working on, complete with cover pages (which I use just to be thematic but if I had actual covers I could upload those too) and summaries, but those aren't the practical parts. Based on the word count goal I entered, it tells me how close I am, as well as calculating how many book pages each takes up and how long it would take to read.

There are also tabs for concept stories that I'm still planning and don't want to count towards my word count goal yet, and archived ones that I'm putting on hold.

under the projects section, still on the front page, I have word count cards where I can enter my daily word count and it automatically updates the goal based on the end word count goal for all active projects and the date I said I wanted to finish each.

If I open one of my projects, it gives me all this info in what is technically the header. I entered the summary, genre, dates, and goals, but it calculated the rest.

That page includes chapters, which I can put in different stages of development, name, and move around; characters to keep track of, which I can attach to relevant chapters, and tasks I don't really use but they work as a checklist. That may be more useful when I'm in the 3rd draft and editing.

Below all of that there's also a storyboard. I don't use it for TDATS and I don't really want to share the one I do use regularly, but basically they're pages attached to various chapters and you can use them as scenes or events to plot out the story, move things around, and get an idea of what's happening before writing.

I prefer to write my actual stories in Word, but I could write them here directly in the chapters. There's also a spot to include specific words used or introduced in a chapter. Most of what I use these for is keeping track of word count, because you have to add them to the chapters for them to be added together into the project total. But it calculating how long it takes to read each chapter is certainly fun.

Anyway, you should definitely use Notion--there are other writing templates if you want something free or just different, and you don't have to use templates at all, but as a chaotic neurodivergent author, this has seriously helped my organization and planning.

The website is notion.so and there's desktop and mobile apps and the service itself is free. I guess there is a pro version but I think that's only useful if you're trying to use it as a team for work.

[ahedderick]

Tech Trouble

Damn. A good, techie kinda person with a wide knowledge of doodads and thingamabobs could have such a great small business. For example:

Go Pro camera, not cheap, that I bought for my mountainbike-riding son. We cannot get it to connect with his laptop AT ALL. It claims it will only connect to a phone. Why would a camera ONLY connect to phones? We obviously need to download Something onto the laptop but cannot figure out what. The $$$ camera sit, unused, because we cannot make it connect.

A computer tech, visiting my late father's house, told me that if I bought a certain cable I could connect a laptop to the large tv. (Obviously, I cancelled his tv service once he passed away, but it would be nice to be able to watch Netflix or Youtube on the bigger screen). I bought Cable, but . . we cannot Make Things Work.

Printers. Jesus.

The app for online banking refuses to install an update on both my kids' phones. Ergo they can no longer check their balance or transfer funds unless they come home and do it on the desktop. Neither the bank nor the phone provider will help with this, because it's 'not their job'.

Photo storage. All their photos should NOT be on their (loseable, breakable) phones. Phone company will not help with this issue; only tell us that photos taken by the phones are 'stored on THE CLOUD.' "Where," I asked, "do we find them on THE CLOUD." The phone company person gave me a deer-in-the-headlights stare. "They're ON THE CLOUD," he carefully repeated. I don't honestly think he actually knew the answer to the question. Just had a programmed response.

I sure wish there was someone who could literally come to my house, sit down with the offending cables and devices, and SHOW me how to make things work. Or, if it's a one-time issue, just do it for me. The guys from Computer Store only want to touch computers, not other devices/phones/printers . . and the guys from the phone store will only help with the phone, but not help with misbehaving apps or connections to other devices. It's . . maddening.

[canmom]

since this seems to be my topic of obsession for today...

turns out Bluesky internally uses content-based addressing and IPFS. I don't have a lot of use for it since it's a Twitter clone, and I've never got on very well with Twitter. Bluesky hides most of that from the user - it looks just like any old web app backed by a central server. i need to look into this more, Bluesky is taking inspiration from IPFS but it's using its own protocol, and it is doing some good things. I think its protocols could be used for something more Tumblr-like.

there's a protocol called PubSub which sounds like it does a lot of what I want, or rather gives you the low-level framework to broadcast info across a decentralised network. you could build a social network on top of that. IPFS uses it as one way of handling mutable data, like 'my website just updated'.

there's an absolute plethora of ideas, protocols, and tools for decentralised file sharing, decentralised messaging, decentralised social networks. this broad idea space is very much the hot new thing at the moment. some of them seem like they're growing. a lot of them have glossy websites with animations and stock photos of smiling people. it's hard to know in advance what's worth paying attention to. the whole field is dense with acronyms and rather abstruse concepts. which unfortunately means the current audience tends to be limited to tech nerds (c'est moi) and crypto cultists (ce n'est pas moi. merde!).

Briar is a protocol I find personally very appealing. it's security-oriented, designed to be crazy resilient, creating a mesh network through whatever protocols are available. you use it for E2E-encrypted messaging, but also you can use it for threaded discussions and blogs. right now it's only available for phones but they're working on a desktop version. the primary use case seems to be like "you're at a protest and the gov shuts off the internet", but it would be a very sexy place to put your blog. that said, I expect it would not be very fast at all.

the major encryptable, decentralised Discord/IRC alternative is Matrix. I broadly like the look of it, but we have the same problem of inertia getting people to switch from Discord, and there's still some jank I encountered when I tried it.

there's a lot of cryptocurrency in this whole area. (not surprising since the underlying tech of crypto is also hash-based, and there's ideological overlap between crypto and torrent people, because 'decentralised').

notably, there's a companion project to IPFS, a complicated scheme called FileCoin which is designed to encourage people to host data for a certain period in return for FileCoin tokens. you get FileCoins for consistently holding onto the data, and you lose a stake of FileCoins if you delete it prematurely. these FileCoins can then be used mainly to pay other people to host data for you: you pay FileCoins to a host, and pay them again to fetch your data(!). or you can trade them for other cryptocurrencies.

I'll acknowledge it doesn't seem as intrinsically environmentally corrosive as proof-of-work crypto, or even as simply 'the rich get richer' as proof-of-stake crypto. it's not filling up HDDs with random crap either. though it does sound like it requires quite a bit of CPU work to be done in all the hashing for the 'sealing' process.

I'm still not entirely convinced of the benefit this scheme brings. crypto stuff has a tendency to go belly-up very abruptly when speculative bubbles pop, so I wouldn't be super excited to rely on FileCoin for archiving some valuable bit of data. of course any offsite backup carries risk, e.g. Dropbox could go bankrupt one day. but I'm way less convinced of the benefits of something like FileCoin than IPFS. I guess it remains to be seen if this takes off.

[whereshadowsthrive]

Let me tell you how I just almost lost this account forever-

I went to check tumblr only to notice that it had forced logged me out on desktop. So I enter my email to log in...no dice. Then I think to myself "well it's probably my college email then, surprised I hadn't changed it over." No dice again. I then think to check on the mobile app what the email was. Bingo! It was my long dead middle school/high school era email. I tried that email and my password I had written down for tumblr...no dice Again. Now I start to panic. I start trying other passwords, nothing is working. Then Down From The Heavens Descend Into My Mind: the memory of my old universal password for everything when I was kid. Bingo, I'm back into tumblr. I have no earthly idea why I was using *that* password here or why it doesn't match my notes but whatever. Hacker voice, I'm in...

So I go to update the password to what I had written down so this doesn't happen again. I do this on the mobile app for Some Fucking Idiot Reason...and it doesn't ask me to input it a second time to make sure it's right...and then the app force logs me out.............and I try to log back in....I Fucking Mistyped The Password. I could literally start to feel my heart pumping and my ears get really warm with panic at the realization I might've just lost my decade+ old tumblr account because a basic password reset feature apparently doesn't exist on this site. I went to go report this issue to Tumblr Support and ask them to recover my account. However, I need to provide the email this account is attached to... and I don't have access to that, so support is just a worthless route...and then I realized going to submit a fucking support ticket logs you out. So now I was logged out on both app and desktop. Literally beside myself. Broken ass website, deadass wondering if anyone tests this place. I go to recover the email this account is attached to. Then gmail does me so dirty, it says to me "to recover this email, you need a security code sent to your elementary school era email." At this point, I'm ready to just cry. So I go to crack into that email and BECAUSE I HAD REMEMBERED MY OLD UNIVERSAL PASSWORD AND CUZ SHIT LIKE 2 FACTOR JUST WASN'T A THING WHEN I MADE THAT EMAIL, I GOT IN So then I had to fuckin' recover and reinstate the middle school email from my elementary school, recover my tumblr account and reset the password *again* (this time on desktop and not the fucking app) and make sure this account was set to my up to date email and just.....y'all, if my memory didn't just shit out my childhood universal password at me, I deadass would have lost this account forever. All because desktop just randomly decided to log me out. I hate social media.

[soulstumble]

Updates: 28/01/2025 - Page Code done - Profiles Need to be edited and pasted into code.

For rules check under the read more.

Links because going on the blog can be a hassle.

Muse page (Not Mobile/App Friendly, desktop view only)

Main blog - @soulstagger

Sin blog - @soulflatter

Welcome, thank you for taking the time to read up on the muse/muses and for taking a brief moment to read my simple rules.

This blog like all my blogs will contain mature themes alongside most other forms of writing. Though outright smut will be reserved for the nsfw blog (@soulflatter) unless it's part of something that started on the blog or lacks any material that might merit moving.

Exercise common sense and be kind. I’ll do my best to keep track of things and keep you in the loop if I might be delayed in getting to things or if I feel I need to move on from a thread.

I like my long stories but I’m also okay with some small short stuff. Though I do not do anon threads through asks. I’ll always get to your thread and if I can’t I’ll tell you.

I’m mutuals only for threads, though anyone can send questions or ask memes. 

This blog all my sides muses, npcs, and old legacy stuff as well as some high active muses. For the main focuses go to @soulstagger

I am semi-selective and I may not follow all of you back right away especially if we have nothing to do together. That doesn’t mean I don’t like you or that we’re not friends, it's just a dashboard thing and sometimes I don’t need it so cluttered.

[soulstagger]

Updates: 28/01/2025 - Page Code done - Profiles Need to be edited and pasted into code.

For rules check under the read more.

Links because going on the blog can be a hassle.

Muse page (Not Mobile/App Friendly, desktop view only)

Side blog - @soulstumble

Sin blog - @soulflatter

Welcome, thank you for taking the time to read up on the muse/muses and for taking a brief moment to read my simple rules.

This blog like all my blogs will contain mature themes alongside most other forms of writing. Though outright smut will be reserved for the nsfw blog (@soulflatter) unless it's part of something that started on the blog or lacks any material that might merit moving.

Exercise common sense and be kind. I’ll do my best to keep track of things and keep you in the loop if I might be delayed in getting to things or if I feel I need to move on from a thread.

I like my long stories but I’m also okay with some small short stuff. Though I do not do anon threads through asks. I’ll always get to your thread and if I can’t I’ll tell you.

I’m mutuals only for threads, though anyone can send questions or ask memes. 

This blog contains my most active muses, for more muses check out @soulstumble, a sideblog with all the other muses of mine.

I am semi-selective and I may not follow all of you back right away especially if we have nothing to do together. That doesn’t mean I don’t like you or that we’re not friends, it's just a dashboard thing and sometimes I don’t need it so cluttered.

[soracities]

hey ! i’m very curious !!

you talked about social media in one of your last posts and i wish you could talk about your relationship with social medias !

honestly i don't know how i would describe my relationship to it simply because i detest like 90% of what social media is about. however i DO try to focus on intentionality and being very mindful of what i use and how i use it. the only social media i use as social media are twitter and instagram but i try to be very careful about the time i spend on them. this is easy for twitter because i have no vested interest in it so i just log in maybe once or twice every few months because i only use it to follow various writers / publishers and see what new releases are upcoming or what books are being talked about. i'll retweet a few quotes / puns / medieval illustrations, make note of books or articles and call it a day for another two months or even more sometimes.

instagram is my "main" one but even then i know how easy it is for me to get caught up in their reels so i try to stay away from that as much as i can (i also despise what it does to music for me): i don't follow brands, influencers, or celebrities (i follow one international musician and like, 3 writers, and that's it)--my feed is predominantly urban gardening / nature / arts accounts, but i use it far more like the morning paper to see what my friends are seeing or follow any little updates in their stories. i have post notifications turned on for some of my closest friends so that the only things i DO get notified on when i'm spending time away from the app are the people whose updates are most important to me--but even then, IG is not my main form of communication because the closest people in my life know how to contact me directly.

again i don't take social media seriously, chiefly because i can't: the idea of needing to be constantly "tuned in" is one i really dislike so i'm never invested in whatever the current trends are. the only consistent main one for me is tumblr and even then i'm on this blog almost exclusively on desktop which limits how i often i log on to begin with. i still try to remain intentional and since it's more an archive or a collection of things i like and want to keep, my main objectives are usually: collect the quotes i want to save, browse my mutuals / favourite blogs, check my inbox when and if i'm able. i can still end up prone to spending more time here than i would like, but i also know that--most of the time, anyway--i'm spending that time gaining something: photos or artwork i love get saved to my computer or notion folders, poems that move me get copied into my ledger or saved on my laptop, links to certain articles get clicked on and read immediately when i can--this is great to stop me from scrolling mindlessly and actually using the time more wisely, but if i can't read it immediately i just move them onto my desktop so i don't forget to read them later on. when i feel i'm still spending too much time here, or simply not devoting enough time to other things that are important to me, i'll set days aside where i do log in and days when i don't.

anyway that's where i'm at with social media at the moment, anon x

[izder456]

Good (and slightly humourous) overview of the various *BSD Operating Systems

I was reading some posts on a private OpenBSD forum, and found this post comparing the various BSDs sorta humorous, and fairly helpful. I'll put the text from the post in "chat" (monospace) formatting, and the comments I have in regular text. The original author didn't request credit, so they are anonymous.

OpenBSD

Don't have to relearn stuff every time some widget-ng comes out. e.g. network interfaces are still configured with ifconfig. Including wifi, because they are an interface for networks and what the hell else would you use. Or when the entire package management system was rewritten from scratch, the only user-visible change was that pkg_add added a -u flag. Any patches that don't also update relevant manuals where relevant aren't accepted; crap documentation is considered a software bug. If you pick up a random unix book from the 80s or 90s it'll still be relevant for user management stuff or such tasks. One of only two OS for which package or OS updates haven't at some point hosed my system -- the other is Debian. Introduced half the shiz linux and windows use for exploitation mitigation; absolutely do not care if anything new there breaks a lot of ports it shouldn't, which often leads to a flurry of bug fixes sent upstream to affected ports. Could see live code updates rather than waiting for a tarball since inception back in '95 via AnonCVS, hence the name. https://www.openbsd.org/faq/

This is why I daily drive OpenBSD. It’s not just the technical elegance, but the philosophy of doing things right. Everything about OpenBSD feels deliberate, like every tool and decision serves a purpose. It's almost meditative how clean and straightforward it is. Plus, you can feel that the devs use their own tools. Nothing feels bolted on. Pure KISS ideology. Beautiful.

NetBSD

The only OS for which I've ever gotten to report both kernel and crypto-related bug, due to their taking a simple code base and stuffing it full of preprocessor macros for zero performance change. It will never outlive this shame. https://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/

NetBSD feels like the quiet sibling in the BSD family- an underappreciated powerhouse. It’s OpenBSD’s ancestor, and while I don’t use it much, it’s worth noting the portability and extensive architecture support. I kind of wish it got more love, but it feels stuck in Open’s shadow. That said, props for being the origin point of so much BSD innovation.

FreeBSD

Takes a modicum of extra effort to actually get X and a desktop installed, but will certainly have the best performance, I'd guess since 5.x they've maybe fixed their package management, and is the only real option if you have nvidia graphics and want to play more than Doom 1 with it. Latest compiler spiffiness for faster loading of web pages. Probably still has a Linux ABI compatibility layer for the occasional wonky closed source app. Handbook is the most complete if you don't like manuals because you're not used to Open's. ZFS out of the box. If you have some janky hardware that needs blobs like nvidia graphics or the wifi equivalent of a winmodem, it's probably supported where it wouldn't be in Open. https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/

FreeBSD is the gateway drug of the BSDs, and for good reason. It’s user-friendly enough to attract newcomers, with excellent performance and a robust ecosystem. The Handbook is legendary- probably one of the best documentation efforts out there. If you’re looking for a BSD experience with a wider community, this is the place to start. And GhostBSD? (a FreeBSD-based desktop system)? Even more approachable if you’re coming from Linux or Windows.

DragonflyBSD

If you're very deeply a filesystem geek but don't like ZFS licensing. Has interesting ideas elsewhere but not enough to push it as a daily driver, save that I have not found kernel-level crypto related bugs like ten years ago which instantly makes it objectively better than NetBSD. https://www.dragonflybsd.org/docs/handbook/

DragonflyBSD is the wildcard of the BSDs. It’s the OS equivalent of a hobbyist’s passion project, hyper-focused on specific innovations like the HAMMER filesystem. HAMMER2 is undeniably fascinating if you’re into filesystems and storage efficiency, and it offers a compelling alternative to ZFS without the licensing drama. But for daily use? It’s niche- sometimes feeling like it’s trying to solve problems most users don’t have. That said, I can’t help but admire its ambition. It’s not afraid to be its own thing, even if it’s destined to remain in the shadows of its BSD siblings. If you’re a tinkerer or someone who loves exploring unique OS concepts, Dragonfly is worth a look.

MacOS X/Darwin

The only technically a UNIX(TM), borrowed some of FreeBSD's user land in the very early days and sexually identifies as a BSD. Good luck trying to use it as one.

OS X: a weird hybrid beast. It borrows from FreeBSD, slaps on a consumer-friendly facade, and somehow manages to be a UNIX(TM). It’s the OS equivalent of a midlife crisis sports car. Works great for productivity, but you’ll never confuse it for a real BSD. If you’re reading this, you probably already know you’re not sticking to Apple hardware.

Any of them

No more googling for how-tos for basic OS tasks. Just go read their own docs.

Using *BSD is as much about self-discovery as it is about using an operating system. These projects have some of the best documentation out there- concise, detailed, and written by the same people who write the code. It’s not just a resource; it’s a gateway to understanding the system deeply. That said, let me offer some perspective on the “RTFM” culture.

The *BSD communities, especially OpenBSD, emphasize learning and self-reliance. They’re not dismissive; they’re encouraging you to explore and grow. Yes, the documentation is the first place to start, but that doesn’t mean you’re on your own. The key is to show initiative. If you’re struggling, share what you’ve tried and where you’re stuck. Most users will appreciate the effort and point you in the right direction.

For OpenBSD in particular, the experience can feel like stepping into 90s hacker culture- no hand-holding, but also no gatekeeping if you’re genuinely trying. The local manpages, the afterboot(8) page in particular, and even the “Welcome to OpenBSD” email sent to your user post-install are wondrous. You’ll need to get comfortable with reading and experimenting.

To me, learning at your own pace, on your own terms, is what makes OpenBSD and the other *BSDs so rewarding. It’s about discovery, discipline, and the joy of solving problems. The culture of “RTFM” isn’t about shutting people out- it’s about giving you the tools to empower yourself.

When you embrace this mindset, you’ll find the journey incredibly satisfying. And the best part? You’ll always have something new to learn, even years later.

[lyingbard]

Update: Patience Fans Winning Again (Import Poll Decisions Too!)

So I've got a version working with all the features for a solid beta, but... only on my computer.

It should work when I set it up with all the cloud nonsense it needs, but it costs money, I don't wanna spend money right now, and I can't really make you pay for a product I'm not sure will work right.

So here's the deal: I'm starting a paid internship soon, so once I have that income I'll be willing to spend money on this. Problem: it's a National Parks internship so I won't have internet or the computer that I make LyingBard with until I get back... in 3-6 months.

But! I also want to ask you an important question...

I've been making LyingBard as a Cloud-Based app. It allows you to use it from anywhere through my website, but it also means I incur the cost of finding GPUs to run this with while you have a perfectly good GPU sitting in your computer doing nothing (also cloud apps are a pain in the ass).

I could also make it a Desktop App, but it would be about 1GB (blame PyTorch), it would only run on NVIDIA GPUs, and you'd have to set up your own discord bots and stuff (although I can try and streamline that for you).

Another big problem is money. Cloud-Based stuff costs money to run and becomes basically a job even if it doesn't pay enough. I'm considering a career in the National Parks Service so I won't be available most of the time if something goes wrong and stuff can go VERY wrong with a paid cloud app (think leaked passwords, compromised payment processor (Stripe) account, that sort of thing).

A Desktop App, however, can be left alone without spontaneously deleting itself or attacking you, but I would certainly have to focus on a career unless you donated a whole heck of a lot.

So DECIDE TIME! After carefully (or carelessly, idc) considering these options. WHICH DO YOU CHOOSE?!

Unfortunately, LyingBard isn't releasing until I get back regardless. Even the desktop app is just a bit too much work for me to get done before I leave.

[tau1tvec]

I've decided to do it, I don't know if this is ea problem but lately my game crashes or ends in an endless loading screen when I try to place, visit or bulldoze lots. It's not even specific, for example, a lot I've been able to visit successfully just started crashing when I try now. So I resetted my electronic arts folder and I'm actually going to organize my mods folder. All 200gb of it. I know it's not my computer because I spent a lot of money on building it to handle a lot of games and this problem really just started this year. Or maybe I should just bite the bullet and do the dx 11 batch fix and switch? I wanted to ask if your mods folder is organized and if you've done the dx 11 switch. If you have how was it?

Yeah, I've switched, and it's alright, it looks crisper ig, also here's how my mods folder looks.

Hard to say what could be causing your issues exactly, but if you've updated recently, it's likely what's behind your crashes. Having 200gb of mods/cc is a lot, but if you can try and move your mods folder to your desktop for a bit then run TS4 and see if your problems persist, if not, then it's definitely something in your folder that needs updating, or removing until it's updated.

Regarding DX11, if you have updated, and your computer supports DX11, the game will automatically enable it. So if your cc isn't patched to work with it, this could also be a huge contributing factor to your crashes, esp since they seem lot related.

You can either go into the settings and re-enable DX9, which I would suggest anyway to see if it's just your cc specifically causing the crashes, and not your mods or installation, or you can go ahead and patch your cc through Sims 4 Studio, which considering all the cc you've got might take a while. I would suggest organizing your cc like mine, esp wallpapers into smaller seperate folders, then path the patcher to each one to minimize wait times.

My only other suggestion if you've done all of this, and it's still crashing, is to repair your game through EA App. Sometimes things just go weird when we update, and repairing or reinstalling is the only way to mend it.