But First, These Brief Messages

If you were a hip gamer back in 1989, your first point of contact with our game of the month, Space Rogue, might have been this video ad (timestamped) that explains exactly why Origin's new space adventure is the hottest thing in gaming right now. Or you might have marvelled at this magazine ad.

I'm starting with these ads because the game is currently on sale on GOG! The sale ends in just two days, so get it while the getting is good! And while there, consider also grabbing Sid Meier's Pirates! Gold Plus (the 1993 remake) and/or Sid Meier's Pirates! (the 2004 remake) for our next month's gaming, as both are also heavily discounted. Thanks to /u/J-Chiptunator for the heads-up!

All of these do exist on Steam as well, of course, and don't cost much even when not discounted. I will write more about platforms and general availability later. But now, back to our regular programming.

Introduction

So, this is what it's come to. You in the pilot's seat, surrounded by the vast emptiness of cold, dead space. A row of cryptic console buttons. A user interface that seems to come from an entirely different era, if not species. One wrong move, one mistaken button press, and you are probably dead. Great. Just great.

It's not even your seat, or technically your spaceship, just something that you stumbled into when the aliens blew your crewmates into smithereens. You are the sole survivor, alone on board the Jolly Roger (who the hell named this ship?) and now seriously evaluating your life choices.

Go to space, they had said. Space is exciting, it's fun, it's different, they had insinuated. You specifically remember the poster screaming that it had "everything for everyone".

Bullshit.

Instead, you find yourself hunched over the console with a thick manual in one hand and a glass of the galaxy's worst gin in another, trying to figure out how this piece of crap Jolly Roger functions. You don't feel jolly at all. Or roger.

Just as you are about to give up and slip into cryogenic sleep for the next thirty days until that vacation in the Caribbean, you notice something buzzing on a side table. It's the quiet, gentle buzz of a smallish electronic device. Friendly, inviting. You pick it up and the screen lights up. It's a warm, welcoming glow of an e-reader. It is here to help. The page it opens simply reads:

Welcome to Space Rogue

In my CGA lobbying post, I wrote that although Space Rogue was a fairly major release at its time, for modern tastes, it can feel a little clunky, perhaps difficult to get into. It is not only the oldest game that we have played so far, but also the first one on our list that was designed with a personal computer and its keyboard in mind, rather than something that would be controlled purely with a controller, joystick or mouse. If you are not familiar with this era or style of gaming, it may take a bit of a mindset adjustment to get going.

I will try my best to help you get started without too much headache. Just trust me that there really is a very good game in there, in fact one that has been voted as one of the best Commodore 64 games of all time. It is a galaxy spanning scifi RPG that mixes the space sim combat of Elite and Wing Commander with the adventuring of Ultima and Mass Effect. A game that combines some of the best of late 80s design while paving the way for what was to come.

📚 Reading materials

Although the game starts with a cutscene that sets up the story, it still very much expects you to take a look at the documents that originally came in the game box. As so often with games of this era, these are not "supplementary" materials but an actual part of the game. Both Steam and GOG releases should contain the following:

• Quick Reference Card
• Novella (Stars of Opportunity)
• Manual
• Map
• Ship Models

With GOG, you should be able to download the files directly from the website. With Steam, the Manual shows up in the "Additional Content" section of the game page, while the rest can be found in the game's installation directory under the directory "Bonus Content".

The original game box also included an advertisement for the game-within-a-game arcade hit Hive!, but the GOG and Steam releases seem to not have it. You can find a copy here. And you can also find all of these documents in one package on scribd.com, although the manual there lacks colour and the reference card is for the Amiga version.

That's a lot of materials, I know. But you don't need to study them all at once. Here's what I suggest you do:

🕹️ Start by figuring out how to control the ship

Once you are through the opening cinematic, begin with the Quick Reference Card and its section titled "Commands Used in Space Flight". This will teach you how to move your ship in the cockpit view. Don't worry about the dashboard information right now, just concentrate on controlling the Jolly Roger. You should be safe to experiment at this point as you are in empty space and no one is going to be bothering you. I personally use the WASDZXC keys, but I know some prefer mouse controls.

When in the Cruise Flight mode (the default mode), the STOP key (S or 5) is very handy. It stops all of your turning and rotation immediately. Learn to use it.

💾 Saving and loading the game

Note also the Quick Reference Card's section titled "Saving the Game". In addition to remembering the keyboard command Ctrl+S, it is important to keep in mind that you can only save when you are in space. It's a good idea to save before docking at bases.

You need to give your save game a name. Remember that name because you need to type it again when you want to load it. You can only load games when starting the game. Loading a game asks a copy protection question that requires the manual.

If you forget your save file name, you can find it in the game's installation folder as a SAV file.

🧑‍🚀 Suggested first actions

Next, take a look at the section called "Quick-Start Instructions", still in the Quick Reference Card. It is like a tutorial, telling you what to do first so that you get used to the game's UI. For you convenience, below is what is says, together with my additional notes:

🪐 Learn more about the game world

After you have explored the Hiathra Starbase a little bit, it's a good time to learn more about the world in which the game takes place.

The novella gives you background information about your character and the world. Unlike the intro cutscene, the novella also gives you a goal. It's worth reading not just for the flavour but also for the information and guidance that it provides.

The manual also gives you background information about the universe. Take a look at these three sections to better understand the world that you inhabit:

• Information about the setting (41-46)
• Descriptions of location types available to you and hazards to avoid (36-38)
• Information about game mechanics (47-48)

Additionally, take a look at the map provided and figure out where you are.

🚀 Master your ship

After you have an idea of the world that you inhabit, start to learn everything you can about your spaceship. While this is an RPG, you will actually not be levelling your character; instead, you will be upgrading your ship. So, sooner or later you should know the Jolly Roger inside out. At the very beginning, avoid combat and hazards and instead get accustomed to:

• Your cockpit view (pages 3-7)
• The two flight models (page 8)
• How to dock at bases (pages 10-11). Keep in mind that you cannot land on planets.
• Navigating within a solar system (pages 21-23)
• Wormhole travel between systems (pages 24-25)
• Space hazards to avoid (38-39)

It is also a good idea to leaf through the rest of the manual, and to check out the hand-written notes that the previous owner of Jolly Roger jotted down. Once you get the hang of flying and docking and encounter some enemies, pause and read the remaining sections about combat and ship types.

👍 Early game tips

In case you feel a little aimless and/or overwhelmed, here are some further tips for the early game:

🎶 Music

Space Rogue has little sound and no soundtrack, apart from the Japanese versions which are no longer available. In case you would like to listen to some music while adventuring, I have put together a Spotify playlist of tunes that might work. You can find it here. I hope you like it. You might be able to convert it to your preferred streaming service somehow.

Historical Context

Developed by Origin Systems towards end of the golden age of the Commodore 64 and Apple II, Space Rogue was something of a pioneering hybrid that bridged the gap between the space flight simulator genre, led by titles like Elite, and the deep narrative-driven RPG systems found in Origin's own Ultima series. The game was marketed as the first of Origin's "cinematic experiences" and while I don't think Origin ever used that marketing term again, their wildly successful and quite cinematic Wing Commander series launched a year later and in many ways stood on the shoulders of Space Rogue.

Space Rogue was created by Paul Neurath, who later went on to found his own company that developed a number of influential titles such as Ultima Underworld I & II, Thief I & II and System Shock 1 & 2. Meanwhile, a young Origin Systems designer by the name of Chris Roberts was quite influenced by Neurath's work and took its combination of 3D space flight and cinematic storytelling to create the Wing Commander series. These days, Roberts is perhaps even better known from his crowdfunded in-progress magnum opus Star Citizen, which in many ways seems to continue the Space Rogue legacy.

Game Information

Platforms & Versions: The game was originally released for Commodore 64 and Apple II. It was later ported to Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, FM Towns, Macintosh, PC-9801 and X68000. The versions are largely the same, with minor graphical differences, apart from the Japanese releases, which feature some music and improved cutscene visuals.

Genre(s): Space combat simulator, RPG

Links: Mobygames, Wikipedia

Stores: GOG and Steam. Note that the game is sold as "Space Rogue Classic". Don't confuse with the unrelated game from 2016 called "Space Rogue".

Game Setup

The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game.

On Windows and Linux, the game should run directly from Steam and GOG without problems.

On a modern Mac, you likely need to extract the DOS files and run them in a DOSBox emulator.

For other versions and platforms, I'm afraid you are on your own. But do tell us if you decide to do something funky like run it on a C64 or hunt down and emulate an FM Towns or a PC-9801 version!

It's recommended that you:

• Share which version of the game you're playing
• Share what hardware you're playing it on
• Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend
• Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game
• Ask questions if you need help

Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:

• Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?
• What about its system or era?
• What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?
• What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?
• What are you expecting from this game in particular?

Finally, this topic is the beginning discussion for people starting to play it:

• Post updates sharing your thoughts as you play.
• Ask for help if you get stuck.
• Offer help to others.

It is recommended that you reply to your own posts if you are making consecutive updates so that they are in the same thread.

Important

• Any links to the game should be legal distributions of the game only. Please do NOT link to any unauthorized copies.

• Put any spoilers in a dropdown block. Copy/paste the block below if needed.

<details>

<summary>Spoilers</summary>

Spoiler text goes here.

</details>

FAQ

as a grapheneOS user, I obviously care about my privacy, hence why the iPhone will not be my main driver, the grapheneOS device will continue to be.

but I might be getting a free iPhone soon and I have an idea of what I would use it for (Podcasts as Apple Podcast is the best cross-platform podcast app I have come across) but am not sure what else I would be comfortable using it for as I don't know what actions are safe without having Apple gather that much data or telemetry on me.

I know that I won't be using iCloud on it. I have no need for Apple's data storage. Nor do I see myself ever using the App Store, except for installing a VPN app. I might install Signal on it but not anytime soon (not least of which cause Signal does not yet support multiple smartphone usages for the same device). I definitely won't use iMessage as I don't believe in using a messaging service that is limited to a specific ecosystem.

I will note that I wont install a SIM on it. It will be using Wi-Fi for the foreseeable future.

Given these things, i am not sure if there is anything i should be on the look-out for in terms of privacy concerns with the usages I have outlined above

Edit:

Based on the answers to my post, I am getting the sense I didn't explain my current situation, which fair enough.

I have audio and video podcasts I consume, for my audio podcasts that I tend to listen to while commuting and exercising, AntennaPod proved a God send for this, to the extent that I wanted to support the app financially until I saw that they said their costs are already covered and it made me appreciate them even more for their honesty.

However, I have a free iPad I got by accident (not worth going into here) and I prefer to consume my video podcasts on a bigger screen than my google pixel. I don't trust Google with tablet development after a bad experience with another tablet I had from them so that was out. so I decided to just use the free iPad and was delighted to find their Podcasts app also supports videos.

However, I wanted 1 service that I can use on a phone and tablet. AntennaPod does not have any iPad apps. I saw this page and the 2 alternatives seemed to be Pocket Casts and Podverse. I tried Podverse but the iPad app would not even launch for me, it crashed every time so I said goodbye to that.

reading into pocket casts, it seems they do collect some data and they do have the option opt-out of that but that could very well change, which means I'd be in a situation where I could be paying for a product while also having my data collected and I disagree with that business model.

So, Apple Podcasts is probably collecting some data on me but I figured all it knows is what podcasts I listen to, which isn't terribly useful (I hope) considering I have subscribed to podcasts from a feed I generate myself.

And I happened to already have an old iPhone lying around at home so I decided to switch to using that for my audio Podcasts and use my iPad for video podcasts and its sometimes glitchy since I would call the Apple Podcasts synchronization experience (between devices) half-baked at most but I can make it work for my use case. So I am already using a separate iPhone just for podcasts and I might be in the position where I get a new iPhone which would replace the current iPhone but not sure what new threats to be aware of privacy-wise. I would be upgrading from an iPhone SE first gen to whatever new version I am getting.

I forgot my driver's license today but had my phone with me. I remembered seeing stories that google and apple both allow these (for some states) in the digital wallet.

Before doing this, I thought I would ask people here to weigh in on whether it is a good idea. Is it considered secure? Is it going to cause me more privacy issues than a physical card in my wallet?

This is also related to recent discussions about online age verification.

This is a related Tildes post from last year: Google Wallet adds age verification and more government ID support

I've been on an interesting train of thought these past few days. I came across some criticism of a random old movie and I started thinking that the reason why I actually hate most modern movies is because they are all cowardly avoiding having any possible political interpretation for anything that happens in them. I've experienced movies that when the big fight scene starts, I'm falling asleep because I'm just so negatively invested in the characters or what will happen to them. That made me think about why so many boring, bland movies and shows keep being made, and it made me think of an opinion that the biggest reason why studios keep betting on blockbusters that are as boring as possible is that they are dependent on theatrical box office takings because streaming killed post-release revenue streams such as movie purchases.

I think that the reason for this is at least partially a symptom of the death of desire for physical media itself. Why deal with the inconvenience of physical media when you can just press a button and the movie starts playing? But at the same time I don't think this is entirely the fault of streaming services, but the fault of movie companies attempting to exert too much control over how people access their films.

I won't bore you with explanations of the limitations of streaming services. We've all been there, surely. They don't have what we want, the stuff we do want to see is spread out on a hundred different subscriptions, yada yada yada. So why do we not deal with them piecemeal? That answer comes with good news and bad news. Good news: you can! You can both buy and rent most movies that have ever been made. Bad news: it's an absolutely terrible deal if you do.

Right now there's at least three major services that allow you to buy digital movies: YouTube, Apple TV / iTunes Movies, and Prime Video. There's also the vestiges of the industry's "digital movies" initiative called Fandango at Home, previously Vudu - the one where you'd use a code you got with a DVD that said it included a digital copy. The problem with all of these services is obvious: if you buy a movie from them, you don't actually own it. They can and will take away access from you at any time for any reason they see fit.

There's an obvious solution to this: rental. It doesn't matter if they de-list a rental because you never had the illusion of ownership to begin with. But that has it's own problem: it's way too fucking expensive.

To put things into perspective, Blockbuster, before it closed down, would let you rent new releases for between $3-5 for a 1-2 day rental, while older movies could be between $1-3. Granted, this was before a lot of inflation, but those rentals also had the costs of running a store in expensive commercial real estate as well as the people who had to manage it, the cost of purchasing the media - sometimes at retail prices - and the cost of maintaining them (rewinding cassettes, cleaning and resurfacing discs, and replacing worn media).

Lets compare the cost of renting on Prime Video today.

Dicks the Musical is a somewhat niche movie unavailable to watch on streaming sites that came out more than two years ago, and the current price to rent it is $4.99. Five bucks. I should mention this is for a movie that I already watched on Hoopla via my library card for free.

Batman Returns is a blockbuster from 1992 and is available for $3.99. Four bucks. You get a one dollar discount if you want to watch something 30 years old. Fantastic.

The category that will really open your eyes is new movies. Zootopia 2 just became available for digital purchase, with no physical editions, and is not yet available on Disney+. If you want to purchase the film, it costs $29.99. Rental is $24.99. Frankly I cannot imagine a world in which the number of people who would pay for that rental exceeds the number of people who opted to pirate but would have paid if the price was at least half that.

If you forget that the major studios own their own streaming services, then this math really doesn't work out. Surely they are getting more money per stream through purchase and rental than they are with the fractional payment they would get from licensing it.

But of course you have to remember that they do own their own streaming services - it's part of why everyone's complaining after all. The major producers, by discouraging short term rentals and pushing streaming services (note that Prime Video will try to sell you one of those subscriptions if the title is available on one), they are attempting to move from producers of cultural products to yet another industry of rent seekers.

I'm up for both a new phone and a new laptop, I have an Iphone 8 and a Macbook pro (2020) that was a freebie from an old job.

I wanted a new Iphone, but if I did that, only a Macbook can put music on it and that's half what I use my phone for. I don't really need a new laptop, but all of my other devices are Linux and can't put music on an Iphone. So seems like it's either all or nothing here. Either I switch to Android, or I go buy two expensive Apple products soon.

Iphones have always been great to me, the only reason I need a new phone right now is because Apple refuses to support mine any more. The Macbook though, I had that for only a year before the logic board gave out and bricked it. Is that just something that happens with Macbooks? Are all Apple products actually trash and I've just gotten lucky with both Iphone 4s and Iphone 8 being built for war?

Am I dumb for avoiding Android like the plague? Every Android phone I've ever met is loaded with tons of bloatware and insecure as hell, seems like the Windows of the phone world.

Does anyone have any idea on how different online translation "services" actually rank now? I was thinking about this today (after I saw the TranslateGemma announcement) and realized that I had not really updated my view on translation apps/services in quite a while.

There is Google Translate, Apple Translate, Kagi Translate, DeepL, etc., but I have no idea how these would rank, especially if it comes to different use-cases.

I’ve been meaning to switch streaming platforms from Spotify for some time now, for many reasons. To me, it seems like good alternatives are challenging to find, so I figured I’d solicit some discussion here on Tildes to see how people like other platforms.

My Only Requirement:

• Mobile App for iOS with Offline Capability

I Strongly Prefer:

• Good Search Functionality
• Niche Artist Availability

Alternatives I’m Considering:

• Apple Music
• Bandcamp
• Tidal
• Deezer
• Qobuz

If anyone has used any of these applications, I’d love a review of the pros and cons. I’m leaning towards Bandcamp right now, but am concerned that I will fail to discover new artists because of the need to pay for albums.

I need a German phone number, so I need a German SIM.

My preference would be a prepaid year because it’s a bit cheaper. Also, I have a physical sim slot and would rather use a physical sim than an eSIM.

Many apps (Mein O2, MeinMagenta for cell services and most of the local transit apps) are region locked. I can’t currently change my Apple ID to Germany and can’t make a new Apple ID for Germany without a German phone number.

Any hot takes on Telekom, Vodafone, O2, etc. or recommendations on getting a physical SIM card?

Note: The Aldi closest to me only had eSIM today or thought they only had eSIM.

Edit: I actually need a phone number for things, e.g. kita being able to call me if one of my kids get sick at daycare.

The first ep. got its own thread on Tildes and a decent discussion, I figured I'd try to get one going for whole season. Since it finished airing like 2 weeks ago.

I binged S1 yesterday, and am very happy that I waited till all episodes were out, as the pace of the show is glacial and I would've likely lost interest were I not able to skip around a bit. That's one of my two major issues. The other being that I found Carol insufferable at moments in the show. I think it does a good job at humanizing her and explaining why she is the way she is. It's also important to note that a majority of the show plays out days after Carol's wife Helen dies and she's reeling from that loss, as well as losing everyone else too. For me this culminated in ep 6, when she has a conversation with another survivor after having uncovered that they process human corpses into protein powder, and she thinks it's a big reveal that everyone else already knows. She just wasn't told because she's made everyone not like her.

That being said, the premise of this show is excellent and I love the questions it makes me ask and think about. The way it's shot is also fantastic. Yes, all of humanity is in a blissful state, but most of us would also die due to starvation, but there's no murder, no robbings, but it's also clear that this blissful state is more akin to being happy because you're on drugs, not "true happiness". I think this was most evident in the scene when the Peruvian girl turned willingly. Just before she does, she's shown with a lamb on her lap, which she likes and pets. The moment she turns, she just walks off, leaving the lamb behind. Obviously also all expressions of individualism are gone, this means all art, plus the question hasn't been properly answered on what exactly the Others do when they don't have someone around to make happy. I guess work together as a collective on sending the signal onto the next planet.

I think the big answer is going to be when they hopefully break someone out of the hivemind in S2. I just hope that it won't be the season finale, but sooner. I dislike the trend of prestige television being at such a slow pace.

What do you guys think? Both the smart writing and the pacing issues seem to be the main two things i see mentioned online. Anything else you liked or disliked? Any theories on where it'll go?

Started a new job today and got a mac as a dev machine. I won't do technical onboarding until later in the week, so I haven't seen what the dev tools are like, but today I was driving myself crazy just trying to do basic things like copy, paste, screenshot, change windows.

At the last job, we had ubuntu machines, so I was able to use gnome extensions to mostly replicate the same general layout, menus, and shortcut keys as Windows. Primarily, this allowed me to keep the same "muscle memory". Since the ubuntu gnome desktop is nothing special from a UX point of view, there didn't seem to be a downside. But I understand that the Mac experience is very curated, so I'm thinking I should lean into learning it.

So my questions are: what are your mac pro tips and things that speed up your work? And for others who have made this transition, what did you learn to do the "mac way" and what did you tweak?

EDIT: As one user pointed out, this is not about Apple Music the streaming platform, this is about basically itunes but itunes no longer technically exists as an application.

So a little background: my father just died and a big part of his life was listening to music, for most of his life he's been building themed compilations of songs he liked using whatever medium was available, magnetic reel tapes in the '60s and '70s, then cassette tapes, then CDs, and of course playlists for the last 20 or so years. Now my mother and I would like to back up and save a lot of that work as those compilations have a lot of sentimental value and are pretty unique. There's lots of old obscure rhythm and blues and soul songs that you aren't really going to come across anywhere else. However, it's pretty much all locked into Apple Music, which isn't really a problem in the here and now, because we all have tended to use macs since my mother adopted them in the '80s or '90s. However, we don't really want that data just locked into a private ecosystem that has been getting more and more restricted and where we have less and less control.

So I'm looking for a way to keep those playlists intact and export them out of Apple Music in a playable format and into a less locked in system to then back them up. Most of the music should be DRM free as a lot of it would have been taken off of CDs probably as MP3 files, though a lot of that would've happened 15+ years ago.

Does anyone have any ideas about the best way to do that? I seem to be able to manually export each one into a .txt file but of course it's not really playable sound files. My tech skills are pretty limited, I have about an average amount of knowledge or even slightly more for someone my age (30s) who grew up around computers and the internet but I grew up after it necessary to have basic coding skills to use computers so my experience doing even basic coding or running scripts is pretty much nil. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Edit: it’s version 1.0.6.10

Overview

If you want to see just the final result, check out my TiMaSoMo showcase post. This post does minimal amount of showcase of the final project, although it does include some pictures. If you want to see a showcase of the software, the original author has made a great video showcasing it that is worth checking out: YouTube videoBlogpost for those who prefer reading. Instead, this post is more a discussion of my experience developing a device.

Initial Planning

The goal of this project was to create a dedicated audio player, to separate that capability from my phone. The main source of audio will be streaming Spotify, not local files. Although unfamiliar with them, I felt that a Raspberry Pi was a good baseline device. For audio, I had an old USB DAC/amp that I wanted to repurpose. Using this DAC/amp would allow for some of my harder to drive headphones to work, as well as just getting cleaner audio. Then, I was planning on just using an eInk touchscreen. The rationale for eInk was so that it would feel different than my phone, and just feel like it was intended for music instead of scrolling. The logic was if I put a regular LCD screen on, it would not differ from a smartphone, and therefore I might as well just connect my DAC to my phone and use that. For software, the plan was to just use either Android or some lightweight linux distro. The initial plan for batteries was to just use rechargeable AA batteries, so that I can easily swap them out. One major reason I wanted to go with the DIY route was for repairability, especially with batteries. If I got an existing Digital Audio Player (DAP) on the market, I knew that the Li-Ion battery would eventually go bad, and existing devices on the market may not be easily repairable.

Hardware Sourcing

My hardware approach was to buy one component at a time. That way, if I ran into an issue with the feasibility of the approach, I could pivot without having wasted money on all the components ahead of time. This approach did slow down development as I was frequently waiting on hardware, but was more fiscally responsible. In January I got a Raspberry Pi 3a+, and played around briefly with some different operating systems. The next part that was needed was to source the screen.

Initial Plan for eInk

The original goal was to try and get a touch eInk screen, roughly 5” for a reasonable price. I spent a few weeks trying different places to try and find one, but could not find one. Since I could not find one I started thinking about pivoting to an LCD screen. With this pivot, I started defining goals of the project more. If I were to just use an LCD touchscreen potentially running Android, what makes it different from using my phone? I spent a few weeks trying to define the goals of the project, and was not able to come up with satisfactory answers if I went with an LCD screen.

Clickwheel design pivot

In the process of trying to figure out my approach, I stumbled across this YouTube video. I felt like this would be a good starting point. It seemed to solve the issue of it not being another Android device, which was my main problem I was trying to solve. However there were a few parts of the implementation that I did not like:

• It relied on using old used Apple hardware. This works for now, but over time it would become harder to source replacement parts.
• I did not already have the hardware, so I would have to buy an old used iPod and strip it for parts
• It was a bluetooth implementation, so I would have to figure out how to fit my DAC into an old iPod, which seemed unrealistic
• The battery while replaceable, was a non-descript battery so getting a new replacement with the same form factor would be harder.

Luckily, for the clickwheel, someone on the weekly programming project on Tildes pointed out this new clickwheel. Since that seemed to be a reasonable approach I ordered one and also got a small LCD screen from Amazon. Unfortunately, the screen used up all the GPIO pins and had non-existent documentation or drivers. I was unable to get the screen to work, so I returned it and ordered a Waveshare 2” LCD. I was intentional on finding one that could be a regular display without using too many GPIO pins. The Waveshare screen had significantly better documentation, and with a bit of work I was able to get it working. With that solved, I started wiring in the clickwheel, and creating basic code to detect basic inputs, which I then used to modify the original code for the Spotify player to handle my clickwheel (see below for comments on code modification). Once I had the screen and clickwheel, I could also develop the software while waiting for parts. Image showing the early iteration of the device

The last main part I had to solve was batteries. Another helpful comment on the weekly programming thread on Tildes told me about 14500 and 18650 batteries. I sourced a 14500 charger and some 14500 cells from Amazon. I had some issues with the first charger I got, and since they were shipping directly from China, it meant the second one would take another few weeks. Picture of using the 14500 battery. The cells I sourced said they were 2500 mAh. I tried one out, and had playtime of about 30mins, not enough to even listen to a full album on a single charge, which is inadequate. I used a portable battery bank rated at 10000 mAh to set a benchmark, and that lasted significantly longer (I was probably around 50% after about five hours or so of playback). This indicated that the 14500 cell was falsely claiming capacity, which is apparently a common issue on Amazon. It also seemed like 14500s rarely have capacity above 700mAh, so I realized that a 14500 would not work. So I decided to upgrade to an 18650 cell, which I could source the actual battery locally from a reputable vendor, with a capacity of 3400mAh. Since I realized that small hobbyist electronics like this on Amazon were shipping directly from China, I started ordering from AliExpress for the charger, which saved me some money for the same part (and even picked up a spare just in case). Picture of me using the 18650 to listen to music on my balcony during the summer. Since I did not need the extra power of the RPi 3a+, and the battery was taking more space, I ordered a RPi Zero 2w+. I also ordered some micro USB ends to solder to to make internal cabling, as well as a USB-C port to use for charging. By May I had all the hardware parts I needed, and all that was left for hardware was to design a case to 3D print, which is detailed below.

Software Development

The first thing I tested was installing Raspotify which this project used, and set it up with my DAC. Since that worked, I started to program the clickwheel using GPIO pins. I had never used a RPi before, but found some easy tutorials on programming the buttons of my clickwheel in Python. Once the buttons were programmed, I had to figure out the rotary encoder, but was able to find a Github repo that had a working Python code to process the inputs. I was able to add that, and created a Python class that would handle all the inputs of my clickwheel. Once that was coded, I just had to incorporate that into the code for the Spotify player frontend. I forked the repo, and was greeted with at the top of the main file this comment:

# This code is a mess.
# This is me learning Python as I go.
# This is not how I write code for my day job.”

This was not an encouraging comment to read, as at the start my Python skills were relatively low. I was able to quickly find where the inputs from the clickwheel were being handled. The original code had clickwheel inputs being handled in a separate C program and then communicating to the Spotify frontend via sockets. Since my clickwheel code was handled via a Python class I was able to simplify it, and not require sockets to be used. With that working, I just had to set up all the required steps to get the project working. Unfortunately, the documentation for deployment was extremely lacking. I was able to find a Github issues post that provided instructions so was able to get it all set up. I was able to get to this phase by the end of March.

Once I had it all working, I could start on expanding the software to fit my use case as well as start working on any bugs I encounter. I felt a good starting point in handling this was to start addressing the issue of “this code is a mess.” Cleaning up the code would be a good way to gain familiarity with the code as well as make it easier for me to address any bugs or future enhancements. I started work on creating a class diagram, but it was really tedious to do it from scratch with such a large codebase, so I deserted that plan quickly. I am thinking of creating some sequence diagrams from some features I implemented recently, which would help in general documentation to refer back to in the future. I did find some classes that would make more sense in separate files, so did do that. I also started adding in new features as well. The first was to implement a “hold switch” which turns off the screen and disables the clickwheel input. Before, the screen would be on a 60sec timer to turn off, but I felt that sometimes I would want to have the screen stay on (like if I am just sitting in a chair listening to music). This was a relatively easy feature to implement. One bug that kept on appearing is that the screen would frequently freeze on me, normally about 60sec into a song, but would update once the next song started playing. I spent several weeks tracking down this issue, thinking it was software related, as the screen used to timeout after 60sec. I also thought it might be a configuration of my OS, so did some debugging there as well. Finally, I plugged in my main desktop monitor, and realized when the small 2” screen would freeze, my desktop monitor would not. This lead me down to investigating the driver for my screen. I found an issue with someone having similar issues with the original driver that Waveshare forked. I then realized that there was a setting that the screen would stop updating if less than 5% of the pixels were changing. Once I changed that in the config file, the screen freezing issue stopped. I was able to solve this major issue by late July.

The last major feature I have implemented is to create the ability to add new WiFi networks from the app itself. This was a needed feature if I wanted to bring it anywhere outside of my home, since 3rd Party Spotify apps cannot download music. Luckily, there was a search feature, which gave me a baseline for text input using the clickwheel. I was able to create a basic page that prompts for the input of a SSID and the password, and then adds that to /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf and then restarts the wireless interface. I added this feature into the overall settings page I added, which also included other useful dev options, like doing a git pull for me to avoid having to SSH into the Rpi to do it. The settings page features were a part of my project for TiMaSoMo.

Case Design

I started work on the case in late May roughly. The plan was that I was going to design the case and have my friend who owns a 3D printer print out my design for me. To continue with the project goal of repairability, I wanted to avoid using glue for the case. Instead, I wanted to use heated inserts to hold all the components. I had not used any 3D modeling or CAD software before, so it was a learning experience. I settled on using FreeCAD, which I was able to learn the basics of what I needed relatively quickly. I started with a basic case design for a prototype, to help plan out how I would lay things out. On my computer screen, having the device be 40mm thick sounded fine, but after receiving the prototype I realized I would need to be aggressive in thinning out the design. However, this protoype in early June was very helpful in getting a better understanding of how I needed to design it. Case prototype pictures.

The first iteration I was able to get down to 27mm, which was a significant improvement. I received this iteration in mid July. However, there were parts that did not fit properly. Most of the mounting holes were not aligned properly. However, the bigger issue was that at 27mm the device would not be thick enough to hold the DAC and screen stacked on top of each other. This iteration still had the DAC keep the original metal housing, so that I could easily remove it and use it as originally intended if I did not want to continue using my audio player. First case iteration pictures.

The second iteration I decided to remove the metal housing of the DAC, which freed up a lot of internal space, with the main limiting factor of thickness being the 18650 battery. So I kept the thickness around 27mm, but had more internal space. Removing the metal case of the DAC was relatively straightforward, except figuring out how to secure it to the print. Luckily, there were two roughly 2.5mm holes in the PCB, that I was able to use to secure it. I also started to do a more complex design, since I was getting more experienced with FreeCAD. I also moved the RPi to the top of the case, so that the two parts of the case could easily separate, with only micro USB connectors being used between the parts in the top and bottom part of the case(Picture of third iteration showing this feature). For anyone who has had to repair electronics that did not fully separate due to ribbon cables (laptops are the worst for this it seems), you understand the quality of life improvement of having the two parts easily separate. I got this iteration of the case in early September, and found a few issues of parts conflicting. However, with the use of a dremel, I was able to modify it to get it to roughly fit (although janky in some parts).In this picture you can see the power switch, which I had to modify to sit outside the case. I wanted to fully assemble it, so that I could start using it and figure out where it needs to improve. The biggest issue aside from conflicting parts was that the top of the case was bulging, so I wanted to add another point of connection to prevent it. This bulge was partly caused by the screen cutout causing a weak point in the top of the case. Second case iteration pictures.

The third iteration was part of my TiMaSoMo project. This was a relatively simple minor tweaks, as well as fix some minor pain points of the previous iteration. I reinforced the top significantly to prevent bending, as well as add a fifth point to secure it. I also added a recess to make accessing the switches for power and hold easier to use (although I think I messed up the hold switch one). Overall, this print worked well, and there is currently no plans for a fourth iteration. Fourth iteration pictures.

Here is all four cases compared side by side

What I learned

The first lesson I had to learn was how to define project goals. Not being able to source an eInk screen had caused me to pivot, and in doing so I had to reflect on what truly mattered for my project. I knew that DAPs existed, so why build my own rather than buy one? Most DAPs on the market seem to be Android devices where they removed the phone functionality and added in quality audio components. Part of a dedicated audio device was to not have my phone be the everything device that they are, but a second Android device with an LCD screen and better audio components is not the solution. Luckily, I encountered the clickwheel based approach, which did solve that issue (and probably better than an eInk would have). Also, I wanted the device to be easily repairable. Li-Ion batteries go bad, which was another major concern for me with the current options of DAPs. Repairability was something that mattered to me, but I had to embrace what that meant for the form factor. If I went with a non-descript Li-Ion pillow battery, I could probably significantly reduce the size. Understanding that I wanted to avoid just being another Android device and have repairability and replaceable parts as the defining features were useful to keep in mind. That approach did result in compromise though, primarily in physical size at the end.

The second big thing I learned was just the process of sourcing parts for a project like this. The closest project to this that I have done in the past is create a DIY cable tester. That simply just involved some switches, resistors, LEDs, and some AA batteries that I could all source locally. So having to buy more complex electronics where the documentation mattered was a learning curve for me. Luckily, early on I was ordering from Amazon, where returns were relatively easy. The problem with Amazon though was false advertising for batteries and some components were shipping directly from China. So, switching to AliExpress saved me money without adding any additional in shipping.

Learning 3D modelling and getting stuff 3D printed was also a huge learning curve for me. I am glad that I got a very rough prototype printed early on in the process. In designing the prototype, I just was not concerned about saving space. However, once the prototype was printed and off my screen and into my hand, I realized how aggressive I needed to be in compacting things. The other thing with using FreeCAD is I learned too late in the process about part hierarchies, and I still do not fully understand them. Not using part hierarchies properly led me to have to do a redesign on each iteration, as moving mounting holes over a few mm would shift every part added after it. Luckily, my designs were relatively simple, but having hierarchies handled properly would have helped me iterate quicker. On top of getting prototypes in hand quickly, using imperfect prints and just adjusting the parts that didn’t work with with a dremel was useful. If I didn’t do that with the second iteration, I would not have dealt with the issue that the top of the case would bend out over time. Spending time using the imperfect device helped me figure out the issues to make the next iteration better.

Future Goals

The first goal I will add in future expansion is to add better documentation and create a better development workflow. Right now, my process includes pushing any changes I do (luckily I am using Github branches now), then pulling the updated repo and starting it on my Pi. However, I never test if it compiles properly before pushing, so I end up sometimes doing five pushes in ten minutes, playing whackamole with compilation errors. Being able to run a dev version on my desktop with keyboard emulation for inputs would be beneficial.

Another big issue that I want to solve is that I need to clean up the audio on lower resistance headphones like my IEMs. There appears to be some electrical noise, that only sensitive devices like IEMs detect. The solution I am currently considering is to add in a capacitor on the voltage rail between the Pi and the DAC to hopefully get cleaner power.

Another issue is that I currently have no indicator of battery life. Since it is an 18650 Li-Ion battery, I should be able to just detect the gradual decrease in voltage, and calculate battery percentage. However, GPIO pins appear to be unable to do that natively, so I may have to add in a small controller board to do it. I have not looked too much into this.

There are a few UI/UX decisions that do not match my preferred way of listening to music. So over time I plan on gradually tweaking the UI/UX to match what I want it to be. A prime example of this would be that when I select an artist, I want it to present a list of their albums, instead of playing their most popular songs.

I want to be able to use Spotify Lossless, since that has rolled out near the end of this project. Unfortunately, it seems that currently it will not be supported. Seems like Librespot (which is the basis for Raspotify) does not currently have a solution that does not involve working around Spotify’s DRM.

Conclusion

Overall, I am really glad I took on this project. It took a long time for me to get it to a finished state. However, the experience has been really fun, and I have learned some new skills. Also, having a dedicated device that all it does is stream Spotify is really nice. I always found myself whenever I was listening to music ending up scrolling on my phone for a bit more stimulation, and then realized I have not been paying attention for the past couple of songs. Having a device where all I do is just listen to music and leave my phone behind has been nice. Also, modifying the code to fit my preferred use case has been nice. There are points where I realize I do not like how something is laid out, but then I have agency to change the layout. Here are some pictures of the final device.

If you want to build the device yourself, I will warn you that it has some rough edges. Also, the DAC/amp is discontinued, so sourcing that to fit inside the case would be tricky. However, my Github repo has all hardware listed, the code needed, and easy to follow software deployment instructions.

I use a Mac for work, Linux for my personal machine, and the same mouse between the two. I’m accustomed to the dpi/acceleration on Mac, so when I switch to my PC at the end of the day there are slight inaccuracies with the pointer. My wrist compensates to cover the gaps and I develop wrist strain after short periods of use.

Does anyone know how to make the Linux mouse dpi/acceleration as close to identical as possible with my Mac?

chimera linux w/ gnome btw

She currently has apple everything, but is open to getting something like a Garmin watch.

Rough requirements are:

• Batter life of at least a few days with normal use, ideally up to a week
• Physical activity tracking for swimming. She isn't a runner and doesn't need running-specific features.
• Heart rate / sleep tracking
• Receive and view emails / texts / notifications from her iphone

Some watches she is most interested in are:

• Enduro 3 even though she's not doing multiple day expeditions, she loves the idea of the battery lasting that long, but it is a bit heavy / bulky and has a lot of features that she won't use for the price
• Another apple watch, but even the upgrade is only a day and a half of battery
• Garmin forerunner, we were taking a look at this comparison chart and if she doesn't care about all the running features, would the cheapest version like https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/1611937/pn/010-02863-33/ to just act as a budget apple watch with better battery as long as she still gets all the notifications and it works with her iphone?

Also taking suggestions from other brands, I'm just mostly familiar with Garmin and have an instinct solar 2 for 4 years that I really enjoy.

hey everyone — i finished my music/sound project back on halloween but forgot to post it here!

it is drone/noise/ambient/experimental music so if that’s not your thing, i completely understand!

listen and download for free on bandcamp

or listen on other streaming platforms:

• spotify
• apple music*
• youtube
• deezer (cannot find link at the moment)
• amazon music
• 100+ more, just search “mabry amalgam” and I hope you’ll find it.

(*) for some reason the distributor created a new artist with the exact same name as my correct account just for this EP. If you want to hear my other stuff as well, here’s the correct profile

this was a music/sound project with contributions from some fellow tildes users. some of you may remember my post from several months ago asking if anyone wanted to collaborate. a number of you kind folks did and I used 5 users contributions throughout the project.

i’m very happy with how things evolved (and don’t have the overwhelming urge to pull it down and tweak it into oblivion per normal) and am very grateful for everyone who participated. it was a unique experience for me and i enjoyed 99% of it! the 1% I didn’t enjoy was dealing with a new music distribution service, but that’s a different topic.

seriously, thank you

i was in a creative rut for months and having the pieces submitted by other people really helped.

i don’t know if the folks want to be credited directly in this post but those who agreed to being credited in general have been with the final releases.

i tried my best with the tags but i’m still not 100% on how to tag properly :)

Now that it is finally fall weather in the Midwest, I have been back to making stews/soups.

My current go-to’s are Zuppa Toscona, Pozole Rojo, and I just made some Kartoffelsuppe (German Potato Soup with Sausage), but I’m looking for more! Any stew-like meal that’s hearty and warm - I like to make a big batch Monday night & eat it for lunches throughout the week, so preferably ones that reheat OK.

I love the Dapanji I’ve had from a local place with hand-pulled noodles, but that seems a bit out of my skill level or comfort-zone to try to make.

What are some of your favorite stews (preferably with recipes)?

Recipes

A prototypical example of what I am looking for would be fruit juice. Where I am at the only options for something that isn't orange or apple are overpriced lemonades with about thirty to fifty percent fruit content and truly expensive 100% ones.

Usually I simply buy the expensive ones and add 1-2 parts water ending up with better tasting juice at same or less cost.

Another step would be squeezing fresh fruit yourself but that adds time, space, complexity and money costs.

What things can be done in a typical kitchen without buying additional single purpose appliances? Sufficiently multipurpose ones or small tools are fine. Basically I want to reduce the number of steps in which the food is industrially processed.

I heavily utilize ChatGPT to generate .ics files to populate my Apple Calendar with various events, but I have been wanting to upgrade my time management and also use the Reminders app.

I recently used ChatGPT to help me populate a Trello board with tasks associated with a project I am working on, but I was getting annoyed with having my workflow split across Apple Calendar and Trello. I exported my Trello board as a CSV and was trying to have ChatGPT turn it into a file I could import into Reminders, but as it turns out, this is not easy.

.ics files do contain syntax for reminders tasks with due dates that populate the Apple Calendar, but generating an .ics file with only reminders tasks and importing into Calendar doesn’t actually work. Calendar recognizes that the .ics contains Reminders tasks and opens Reminders to import the tasks, but Reminders returns an error because it doesn’t support import, it only supports export to Calendar.

I found that Reminders has a Reminders.scpt dictionary file within the .app package that details .applescript commands that can create new tasks, so I fell into the world of AppleScript. The issue with AppleScript is that it was created in the 80s and hasn’t been updated since 2013. It has no native CSV support and is pretty clunky.

AppleScript does have text file support, so I was able to have ChatGPT convert my CSV into a .txt that I could parse with AppleScript. This allowed me to automate the creation of tasks in the Reminders app from my Trello CSV, but it was annoying and I still feel like there must be a better way.

Does anyone here use AppleScript regularly and know its full capabilities?

Also, are there any good resources out there for learning more about AppleScript? The Apple documentation is very out of date and it seems like more of a legacy language than something Apple regularly maintains.

Quick background: wife inherited an iPhone 8 plus from a recently deceased relative. Said relative used to have AT&T, wife and I do not. I was hoping to possibly use this phone on an upcoming international trip but it would need to be unlocked from the carrier first so I can put a new sim card in it. (Just to be clear, I don't mean getting into the actual phone, we've already saved the few photos and messages that were on there and reset the phone to factory settings). Tried doing the automated process on the AT&T website and it was denied immediately, no explanation given. Tried calling them and the automated system straight up hangs up on me because I don't have an account with them. So lastly we tried taking it directly to an AT&T store where they directed us to either call the number that keeps hanging up on us, or to "take it to one of those places at the mall that can unlock it for you". Useless.

I've done some research on this and seen various solutions online. Most of those solutions I have already tried (like calling the number or trying the online portal thing) or their situations don't apply to my case (like having purchased a new phone or having an account already with AT&T). One thing I've seen mentioned multiple times that seems to get results is to file a complaint with the FCC, so I went to do that and welp... government is shut down. FCC not accepting any complaints at the moment.

Another thing that I thought of was jailbreaking the phone, but I haven't done that to a phone in many years and am not even sure if that would resolve the issue of it being carrier-locked. But surely if 'those places at the mall' can unlock them without going through AT&T, then I might be able to as well. Hence I came here asking for help.

Anyone have any experience with this sort of thing?

tl;dr: disconnect from your VPN (or allow LAN connections)

I recently got an iPhone 17 and was being driven mad because, at first, CarPlay worked flawlessly on my 2019 Honda Fit (EX). However, next time I plugged in CarPlay refused to open. The phone was charging, the icon on the infotainment showed CarPlay, but it would hang for ~10s and close with a "no devices found, check cable, etc.". Android Auto worked for years without hiccups.

Nothing changed after a factory reset, reboot, etc. of the infotainment as many recommended.

I saw an offhand comment with how a VPN can cause problems. I'm connected to one 24/7 and I'm sure it worked earlier when I didn't set it up yet. I disconnected from the VPN and CarPlay immediately worked. The VPN I use has a "Allow LAN connections" setting which made disconnecting from the VPN unnecessary.

Wanted to throw this out there for people troubleshooting in the future. Not sure if this is specific to Honda or Apple, but my money is on how Apple devices do networking.

Haven't been following the macOS updates closely but a big feature I'm looking forward to in macOS 26 is Apple's container solution as an alternative to Docker.

The "container" command line tool: https://github.com/apple/container

The underlying Containerization package: https://github.com/apple/containerization

The main improvement over Docker on Mac is that it uses separate lightweight VMs per container, instead of one shared Linux VM hosting all containers. This means the RAM allocation can be dynamic instead of the user having to decide how many total GB to allocate for the Docker VM. So if I'm running a lot of containers I expect it to work without manually changing settings, and if I'm running only a single container then I expect it won't waste resources with allocated-but-unused RAM.

Currently these repos are on version 0.4.1 and 0.8.1 respectively, which tells me they're not ready yet. Hoping they're ready around the time macOS 26 releases to GA.

I have recently found myself wanting to learn to draw. I have very minimal visual arts skills, and feel much more comfortable with a musical instrument than a sketchbook. I would like to change that, not to become some exceptional artist or anything, but because I like the idea of being able to just sketch and draw and doodle in my spare time.

I have an iPad, Apple Pencil, and ProCreate, but I don't really know where to begin. I would be most likely learning to use ProCreate at the same time as learning to draw, although I don't know if that's a bad idea or not.

Are there books, online courses, YouTube videos that you would recommend for a complete beginner?