1338's recent activity
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Comment on Announcing the eighth annual Tildes' Make Something Month (Timasomo)! in ~tildes
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Comment on Sweet Shop now available for iOS and Android in ~comics
1338 Link ParentToo bad, I was intrigued that an app for buying sweets would be worth postingToo bad, I was intrigued that an app for buying sweets would be worth posting
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Comment on What do you listen to while you’re reading? in ~books
1338 LinkI usually listen to some instrumental or classical music, often like jazz piano. Really it's usually whatever youtube has at the top of the page when I open it (because this is 90% of what I use...I usually listen to some instrumental or classical music, often like jazz piano. Really it's usually whatever youtube has at the top of the page when I open it (because this is 90% of what I use youtube for) and looks long enough and like a real performance (not an AI generated 10 hour loop).
Unless I'm reading a star wars book, then I'll specifically put on one of the orchestra performances of the star wars soundtracks.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
1338 Link ParentI'm not far enough to really say as I haven't unlocked faith yet. The main bottleneck so far has just been stamina, feels like I'm constantly walking back inside to sleep. My experience in the...I'm not far enough to really say as I haven't unlocked faith yet. The main bottleneck so far has just been stamina, feels like I'm constantly walking back inside to sleep. My experience in the first one is that faith is hard until you unlock the right prayers and then you can quickly end up with more than you need. I'm hopeful they've mediated this one a bit more where it's not so feat or famine, but I can see faith is used in even more places than the first one so I'm sure it's still going to be a bottleneck.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
1338 LinkStarted Graveyard Keeper 2 today. Been excited for it since I found out about it and so far I'm very happy. I love how much they keep to the root, it feels very much like a "2" with the same core...Started Graveyard Keeper 2 today. Been excited for it since I found out about it and so far I'm very happy. I love how much they keep to the root, it feels very much like a "2" with the same core gameplay, familiar assets, and overall feel. But it's clear there's a bunch more meat added to it just by scrolling through the skill trees. They've addressed some of the pain points and the tutorials feel a little more clear (though they've kept the whole 'you have to remember what this symbol means' annoyance). But my absolute favorite thing so far is that you finally aren't stuck in just the village, the worst part of graveyard keeper was how claustrophobic the map felt (even though the DLC expanded it a bit). The voice acting is a bit odd though, I might switch over to mumbling mode.
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Comment on The Sea Library - borrow books about the sea from a library by the sea in ~books
1338 LinkThat's a very unique and cozy idea. I would consider emailing, but shipping to the US from Latvia would probably cost more than buying whatever book on ebay. And sadly it looks like she stopped...That's a very unique and cozy idea. I would consider emailing, but shipping to the US from Latvia would probably cost more than buying whatever book on ebay. And sadly it looks like she stopped the "project" last year to instead work on writing a book, I can't find a single post from this year. But that's certainly less melancholy than all the unique projects on the internet that were last updated like 15 years ago.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
1338 LinkI've been working on my maptile gateway service pretty heavily lately. Hard to believe it's over 2 years old now. And I'm pretty sure nobody is actually using it for anything -- I'm bad at...I've been working on my maptile gateway service pretty heavily lately. Hard to believe it's over 2 years old now. And I'm pretty sure nobody is actually using it for anything -- I'm bad at marketing. But I've engineered the shit out of it a this point. I've had to make a few breaking changes recently, so it's a good thing I still have that flexibility.
Recently been going through some iterations of using Claude to help me find bugs, especially edge cases that could lead to panics or failed reloads. It's quite good at finding cases I never would have found myself.
I am hitting the point where I'm running lower on features that feel good to add. I don't want to turn it into yet another tile server, the niche of a tile gateway feels more interesting to me. On the other side, one feature I could add would be some form of rate limiting or abuse blocking, but that feels like an a hard problem that's better solved with one of the well established tools... and I quickly get into some philosophical arguments about hypothetical users. There's of course integrations I could add, to platforms I've never used nor especially have interest in learning (such as Azure or GCP secrets managers), but those would mean extra dependencies and difficulties testing.
Once I run out of bugs to find, I probably should call it a 1.0 and figure out how to advertise it - or, I guess, be satisfied with it not getting used.
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Comment on Anyone have a pebble? in ~tech
1338 LinkI'm wearing my time 2 now. Pretty happy with it. Hit a couple smaller glitches earlier but haven't had any issues at all. I got tired of the silicone band and replaced it with a more traditional...I'm wearing my time 2 now. Pretty happy with it. Hit a couple smaller glitches earlier but haven't had any issues at all. I got tired of the silicone band and replaced it with a more traditional one, which makes me regret getting the blue racing stripe. The battery life is great, it's nice being able to not think about it for weeks. I think 90% of what I use it for (besides glancing at the time) is controlling media. This is more or less my first smart watch
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Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: September 2026 voting topic in ~games
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Comment on Nintendo - Customer appreciation sale in ~games
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Comment on Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg put on 'leave of absence' in ~tech
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Comment on UN votes to adopt new world map to reflect Africa's true size in ~humanities
1338 Link ParentI wish the reporting explained what it actually means besides "new world map." There is no singular map, which projection should be used always depends on what you're measuring or displaying. It's...I wish the reporting explained what it actually means besides "new world map." There is no singular map, which projection should be used always depends on what you're measuring or displaying. It's not like the UN is banning using British National Grid for GB statistics or UTM grids for tiling accurate global data.
Have to go to UN.org to find any better explanation
The resolution does not ban the Mercator projection or impose a replacement. Instead, it encourages governments, schools, international organizations and technology companies to use the Equal Earth projection and other so-called equal-area maps when relative size matters, and to teach the limitations of any flat map in representing a spherical planet.
Which means this resolution is way overblown in the news and internet reaction. There's no new official world map. It's just saying to use equal area maps when you have a use case where you want equal area. And seems it's not even adopting that specific projection, just calling it out as a goto example. So it's very little besides bringing awareness to the distortion inherent in all map projections (especially Mercator due to its excessive use)
But reading the US's official reason for voting No makes me support it automatically.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
1338 Link ParentThat's pretty much the approach I'm taking. But I have 200 undeleted entries in my password manager and 1400 unique domains have sent emails to one of my affected emails. About half of each I can...That's pretty much the approach I'm taking. But I have 200 undeleted entries in my password manager and 1400 unique domains have sent emails to one of my affected emails. About half of each I can (relatively) easily rule out, but it leaves me so many places to deal with. Between the sites that have decided to expire my old password or enforce 2FA, sites that have decided to go passwordless, and the sites that give you no way to change your email without contacting support (wtf petco) it's already eating up hours of my life.
I think the complexity in the refund is because verisign has to go through all the registrars, they can't just refund me directly. And how much verisign charges often isn't the same as how much the registrar charges.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
1338 LinkMy next project is going to be one I really don't want to have to do: finding a new domain name, committing to an email provider (probably Zoho), and then figuring out how to change my email...My next project is going to be one I really don't want to have to do: finding a new domain name, committing to an email provider (probably Zoho), and then figuring out how to change my email address on every website I've made an account with over the last decade. Oh and change some web hosting to a new domain too.
I have a 3LD .name domain I got a long time ago and have been using as my primary email domain since. Unfortunately, I got notified by 007names this week that Verisign has decided they no longer want to offer 3LD .name domains and are destroying all such registrations in February. Never mind that my registration last way longer than that, never mind that it's less than a year's notice, never mind that there's thousands of other domains they're deciding to just throw in the trash. I even have a legacy free GSuite account using that domain that I'll effectively lose since there's no way to switch the domain under those.
It's fucking bonkers this random corporation can just decide they want to steal away these domains people have had for decades, and the really fucked part is that you know they'll offer those 2LD domains for registration and some asshole is now going to be able to steal who knows how many accounts from people like me from all the sites that don't get updated, since the internet has for some reason decided that email is somehow magically secure.
The email I got notifying me of this even ends with saying that Verisign hasn't even figured out how to handle refunding all the paid registrations that expire after the drop-dead date in February (aka most of them).
I'm just flummoxed. How the fuck am I going to find all the places I've used this domain? And how is Verisign just able to decide to just take back registered and reserved domains. I haven't done anything to violate any policies, I haven't failed to renew, I've bought multiple years at a time, I'm not an asshole parker, I've done everything right. DNS is such critical infrastructure and we just let them do crap like this? I know it's nothing like entire cities going without power for months, or lead in the water, or having your home bulldozed, so of course ultimately minor. But still, just frustrated there's nothing I can do besides spend probably at least 100 painful hours working on this.
And why the fuck doesn't email have a way to put in place a proper redirect? I can have USPS forward my mail and notify senders so at least people who pmail me in that period get my new address. With email all I can do is forward, which doesn't nothing for me when I'm going to lose the domain in a few months.
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Comment on What is the oldest file you still have? in ~tech
1338 LinkI have some old family photos taken on one of the early digital cameras that used large memory cards or sometimes floppy disks. I also have schoolwork from mid-00's, most amusingly including the...I have some old family photos taken on one of the early digital cameras that used large memory cards or sometimes floppy disks. I also have schoolwork from mid-00's, most amusingly including the very first programming I did, using Karel J Robot
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
1338 LinkI've circled back on my older project recently, the map tile proxy/cache/gateway service. I hadn't worked much on it the past year, sort of let it in a weird pre-1.0 purgatory. But decided to take...I've circled back on my older project recently, the map tile proxy/cache/gateway service. I hadn't worked much on it the past year, sort of let it in a weird pre-1.0 purgatory. But decided to take a break from Brack to circle back on it. I've primarily been doing hardening/testing/productionizing things like upgrading dependencies, adding a helm chart, an e2e test harness (that runs against the binary itself), and making sure it shuts down gracefully. Also been adding in some functionality I hadn't gotten around to like some usage analytics (so you can have a Clickhouse table that shows Bob used 500 map tiles last month) and JWKS. Been nice to pick things up again, it's shocking how much Go context slipped out of my brain since 2024.
I've also been iterating on my Book Tracker app. Hit some weird hiccup with the initial cold-start time (since it stores personal DBs on Object Storage and has to retrieve them when there's activity) causing some time outs. I decided to put in a proper loading screen and an async API vs having requests hang, but it doesn't seem to want to work right in prod (works perfect locally of course). Been mostly hitting my head on that, then the weird slowness disappeared so I'm still not totally sure what's going up. I added in instrumentation of the backend with NewRelic's free tier but haven't found a smoking gun yet. A bit frustrating. Only feature I've worked on the past couple weeks is adding the ability to generate an automatic description/alt-text for shareable chart images (so I can share my month's recap without needing to do a bunch of typing).
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
1338 LinkI most recently finished Vampires Anonymous. It follows a pair of vampires, one of whom decides to swear off blood and drags the other to Vampires Anonymous (as in AA for blood). They're also...I most recently finished Vampires Anonymous. It follows a pair of vampires, one of whom decides to swear off blood and drags the other to Vampires Anonymous (as in AA for blood). They're also being hunted by a mental patient and an incompetent cop. In this world, 95% of the population is male and they're all gay. The female 5% are child abusing, conversion camp supporting, night-bitches. It's about the furthest you can get from the Bechdel test. The first woman doesn't appear until midway through the book, and then there's never another woman in the same scene for her to even talk with. The plot is rather nonsense, the bad guys never get any clear motive for what they're doing. The characters are flat and homogeneous. And it's not even particularly erotic or anything, like PG-13 style innuendo and early cuts to black. I don't say that to suggest it would somehow justify the flaws, but it would at least help make them make sense. It was written in the 90s so the metaphor of Vampirism to HIV of course applies, and there's a clear metaphor between VA and forced-closeting and conversion therapy. So I'm sure there is an audience, or at the very least was an audience, that would appreciate the book a lot more than me.
I'm now going back to Star Wars, working through the lot of mostly early EU books I got off ebay, with The Truce at Bakura.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
1338 Link ParentI listened to the Thrawn books through audiobook and have a copy of the trilogy on my bookshelf waiting to read through someday. It's interesting to me how much of an impact Thrawn has on the EU,...I listened to the Thrawn books through audiobook and have a copy of the trilogy on my bookshelf waiting to read through someday.
It's interesting to me how much of an impact Thrawn has on the EU, like he has more of a rep/impact than the freaking emperor. I get it from the real-world side (an early big hit, the first pure-EU big bad, and the trilogy showed what the EU could be), but in-canon it just feels silly it at times.
I'm more in the "Thrawn is overrated" camp, the whole "I perfectly predict what is going to happen by appreciating art" is very... well, Mary Sue is one term for it.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
1338 Link ParentIt's a webapp. I have an android app version I've been playing with, but it's not offline.It's a webapp. I have an android app version I've been playing with, but it's not offline.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
1338 LinkI've been working on my book tracker app, largely polishing the sharing features for turning your charts into images that are easily posted on social media. And starting to plug away at the giant...I've been working on my book tracker app, largely polishing the sharing features for turning your charts into images that are easily posted on social media. And starting to plug away at the giant backlog of bugs.
I'm also currently working on a feature to help you come up with a rating for a book after you finish it. It basically uses the eye-doctor approach of "better A or B" where you rate the book relative to other books you've read.
I'll try writing something, I haven't done so in like a year now.