Deimos's recent activity

  1. Megathread: April Fools' Day 2022 on the internet

    ~misc Text 221 words
    As is tradition, here's the (late) thread to collect this year's April Fools' events: Over the next day or so, the internet will be filled with jokes, pranks, fake "announcements" from companies,...

    As is tradition, here's the (late) thread to collect this year's April Fools' events:

    Over the next day or so, the internet will be filled with jokes, pranks, fake "announcements" from companies, fun interactive activities, games, and so on. A lot of these can be quite clever and interesting so I think posting about them in general is fine, but in the interest of preventing them from completely taking over Tildes, let's try to keep as many of them restricted to this thread as possible. Ideally, a separate top-level comment for each individual item would be good.

    If something particularly discussion-worthy comes up (like an ARG or activity that a lot of people want to talk about), a separate thread is reasonable, but please make sure it has the "april fools day" tag. That way, if anyone wants to avoid seeing the April Fools' Day threads, they can use the topic tag filters and filter that tag out.

    I'm going to use the "official" styling for this topic (that's usually only for ~tildes.official topics) to make it stand out more to try to encourage people to notice it. If you notice people making individual topics for April Fools' Day things that don't really warrant their own topic, please (nicely) encourage them to delete and post in here instead.

    34 votes

  2. Comment on How to install + serve Tildes directly on a VPS? in ~tildes

    Deimos
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Posting it here is good - I haven't been posting much recently, but I'm generally around and will see it if people message/mention me. Good to hear that it was easy to get running for you! Some...

    Posting it here is good - I haven't been posting much recently, but I'm generally around and will see it if people message/mention me.

    Good to hear that it was easy to get running for you! Some thoughts about the changes you're hoping to make:

    1. Google/LDAP SSO - I have no idea about this at all either. I feel like it probably wouldn't be too difficult, but it could depend on whether there are good existing libraries for it that you can get working easily.

      Tildes being set up as invite-only is probably helpful here overall, since you won't have to worry about disabling registration or anything like that. Depending how many people you need to give access to, it may be a lot simpler to just find a way to distribute invite codes internally than implement SSO.

      This one might end up being an issue with most of the self-hostable similar platforms available too, I don't know which ones (if any) would already have built-in SSO support.

    2. Embedding images - I think there are two different parts here, and the difficulty will depend on exactly what you need:

      1. The images need to be hosted somewhere, and Tildes has no functionality at all related to uploading/hosting images. So if you need the platform itself to be able to handle the hosting, adding that to Tildes would be a significant amount of work. Other platforms with uploading/hosting functionality (which is relatively common) would likely be a lot easier.
      2. If the images are already hosted somewhere and you just need to embed them, that should actually be pretty easy. The markdown library already has support for adding images with a syntax that looks like ![label](url), and Tildes is specifically stripping that out: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/blob/master/tildes/tildes/lib/markdown.py#L213-214

    3. Moderator-like actions/permissions - Yeah, this is definitely a rough part right now. The permissions have to be managed manually by inserting the rows directly into the database (in the user_permissions table), and there isn't really any documentation of what each of the permissions do.

      The valid permissions are listed here: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/blob/master/tildes/tildes/enums.py#L299-311

      Most of them should probably be pretty intuitive from their names, but figuring out some of them could be a little tricky and would involve looking in the __acl__() methods that define permissions for different objects. For example, if you wanted to know what the topic.edit_by_generic_user permission does (which is probably the most confusing one), you'd search for that string in the code and find this section: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/blob/master/tildes/tildes/models/topic/topic.py#L364-374

      That's in Topic.__acl__(), so that's adding permission to topics. In this case, someone is getting the edit permission on a topic if it's a text topic, posted by the user_id of -1 (the "generic" user that makes scheduled posts), and they have that topic.edit_by_generic_user permission.

      If you need to go a level deeper on that, you'd need to look at where the edit permission on a topic is actually checked, like:

    5 votes

  3. Comment on Tildes' 2022 Backlog Burner: Final Thread in ~games

    Deimos
    Link Parent
    That's exactly what ended up killing it for me. I was intending to get through at least a game per week from my backlog, but then I always just wanted to put my gaming time into Lost Ark, Elden...

    That's exactly what ended up killing it for me. I was intending to get through at least a game per week from my backlog, but then I always just wanted to put my gaming time into Lost Ark, Elden Ring, King of Fighters XV, Monster Hunter Rise, ...

    The last few months have been ridiculous for game releases, with so many major ones. I definitely still love the overall idea of Backlog Burner and want to do more of it sometime, but I think the timing was rough for this one. Whenever I was starting to play a game, I just couldn't get myself to start up Touhou Luna Nights (the second game on my list) instead of all of those other options I really want to keep playing right now.

    6 votes

  5. Comment on Steam Deck launch day megathread in ~games

  6. Comment on Putin declares "special military operation" in Ukraine in ~news

    Deimos
    Link Parent
    Yeah, I'll see how active the thread actually ends up being today, and dial it back if it's going to be too many posts. It's a tricky balance: on the one side you can have too many threads, but on...

    Yeah, I'll see how active the thread actually ends up being today, and dial it back if it's going to be too many posts. It's a tricky balance: on the one side you can have too many threads, but on the other side it makes it harder to find the most up-to-date info/discussions, especially for someone that might be coming into a large thread that's been running for days.

    We'll see how it goes, I can always merge multiple threads into one if needed as well (though that can be weird in different ways too).

    6 votes

  7. Comment on Putin declares "special military operation" in Ukraine in ~news

    Deimos
    Link Parent
    I'll get a daily megathread scheduled for it in ~news for the next while, posting at 14:00 UTC (so the first one will post in about 6 hours).

    I'll get a daily megathread scheduled for it in ~news for the next while, posting at 14:00 UTC (so the first one will post in about 6 hours).

    14 votes

  8. Comment on The plot to destroy Ukraine in ~misc

    Deimos
    Link Parent
    The site you're linking to seems to be serving malicious ads and/or malware, so I need to remove this comment. If you have a better link to replace it with or can delete the link, I can unremove...

    The site you're linking to seems to be serving malicious ads and/or malware, so I need to remove this comment. If you have a better link to replace it with or can delete the link, I can unremove the comment.

    7 votes

  9. Comment on Tildes' 2022 Backlog Burner: Week 1 Discussion Thread in ~games

    Deimos
    Link Parent
    I wouldn't compare it to either of those, it's more like an extremely simple roguelike. The entire game is a constantly-getting-stronger swarm of enemies moving towards you, and you just control...

    I wouldn't compare it to either of those, it's more like an extremely simple roguelike. The entire game is a constantly-getting-stronger swarm of enemies moving towards you, and you just control your character's movement while all of your abilities auto-attack. Enemies that you kill drop exp gems, and every time you level up you get to choose an upgrade. The whole game basically comes down to seeing if you can keep increasing your power faster than the swarm's increases. If you can last 30 minutes, you win.

    It's way more fun and addicting than it has any right to be, for how simple it is. I'd definitely suggest trying it out, it's only $3 and everyone I know that played it has gotten a lot of enjoyment out of it. I played a lot for a few days, but still do a random run here and there, and will definitely play more as they keep adding new stuff to the game (it's in Early Access).

    3 votes

  10. Comment on Tildes' 2022 Backlog Burner: Week 1 Discussion Thread in ~games

    Deimos
    Link
    I ran into an unscheduled obsession with Vampire Survivors for a few days that delayed me, but I finished my first game last night: Cyber Shadow Deimos Rating: 4/5 Details about my rating scale I...

    I ran into an unscheduled obsession with Vampire Survivors for a few days that delayed me, but I finished my first game last night: Cyber Shadow

    Deimos Rating: 4/5

    Details about my rating scale

    I try to rate games I play on a fairly vague 1-5 scale:

    • 5: One of my favorite games. I think everyone should play it and I'll strongly recommend it to anyone, unless they really hate some aspect of it (genre, setting, etc.)
    • 4: A great game, but has something that stops me from recommending it unreservedly. I'll still highly recommend it, but probably only to people who enjoy that specific style of game.
    • 3: Still a good game, but significantly flawed. I still enjoyed it and would recommend it to others, but would suggest similar "4" or "5" games as better choices than it.
    • 2: Unenjoyable to the point that I probably didn't finish the game, or even stopped early on. I'd discourage others from playing it, but can still see why some people might want to.
    • 1: So bad that I don't think anyone should waste their time on it. I'm honestly not sure if I've played a game that I'd give this rating to recently, because they're usually obvious enough that I can avoid them myself.

    I really enjoyed this game overall, but it definitely won't be for everyone. They had a very clear goal of making a modern game that feels like an extremely high-quality NES game (specifically a Ninja Gaiden game). If you have fond memories or feelings about classic NES series like Ninja Gaiden, Mega Man, and Castlevania, you will probably love this game. If you don't, it probably won't be enjoyable.

    You'll also need to have a high tolerance for difficulty. I finished the game in just over 8 hours, and had 247 deaths. That means that, on average, I was dying about once every 2 minutes. There are some really difficult sections that I had to retry many times, and I definitely got pretty frustrated on some of them. That said, none of it ever felt unfair, and a lot of it was just needing to be patient and careful instead of trying to rush through harder sections. Finding good times to use abilities made a big difference too, some parts became much easier with a few well-timed abilities. I think they probably could have been a little more generous with checkpoints in a few areas, but it was all achievable overall and felt good to make clear improvements on sections until I was able to get past them.

    They absolutely nailed the style of the game they were going for. The pixel-art and music are both exceptional, and the levels, enemies, and bosses are well-designed and interesting. I missed a lot of secrets (finished with 67% items), but the ones I ran across were neat too. The story was nothing special, but that's not what I'm playing for, and they did a good job of the NES-style cutscenes.

    The general gameplay feel was great, and I especially think the set of abilities was well-done. The dash-attack was definitely the highlight for me, and the ability to parry projectiles opened up some new approaches (though I wasn't consistent enough with it to rely on it for much). I wasn't a big fan of the pogo-stick-ish attack, but there was really only one section it was needed heavily (and that was one of the ones that I had the most trouble with).

    So that was a good first game for me (and if anyone else is interested in it, it's currently 30% off on Steam/Xbox/eShop for a few more days for its first anniversary). My Backlog Burner theme is "indie 2D retro side-scrollers", but I haven't decided what game I'm going to play next yet. Something less difficult.

    7 votes

  11. Comment on Nintendo Direct - February 9, 2022 in ~games

    Deimos
    Link
    A written version with all the individual trailers, if anyone wants a more easily-skimmable version: Everything announced in the Nintendo Direct

    A written version with all the individual trailers, if anyone wants a more easily-skimmable version: Everything announced in the Nintendo Direct

    17 votes

  12. Comment on Nintendo Direct - February 9, 2022 in ~games

    Deimos
    Link Parent
    Live A Live being a remake in their "HD 2D" style is really interesting too, I hope it works well. There was a surprising number of Square-Enix re-releases/remakes shown, the Chrono Cross one has...

    Live A Live being a remake in their "HD 2D" style is really interesting too, I hope it works well. There was a surprising number of Square-Enix re-releases/remakes shown, the Chrono Cross one has potential to be a big deal too.

    I'm interested in the Fire Emblem musou game too. The games are all pretty similar, but they're usually fun to play for a while, and FE seems like a great theme to use for one.

    3 votes

  15. Comment on How to install + serve Tildes directly on a VPS? in ~tildes

    Deimos
    Link Parent
    Personally, I run ansible on my local machine, which does all the necessary setup commands over SSH. You can set it up to run entirely on the VPS, but I think it's more complex. I probably...

    Personally, I run ansible on my local machine, which does all the necessary setup commands over SSH. You can set it up to run entirely on the VPS, but I think it's more complex. I probably wouldn't do it that way unless you can't do it from your local machine for some reason. The prod playbook is the one you want.

    Also, I'm not sure why I said Ubuntu 20.04 above, the OS should be Debian 10 ("buster").

    4 votes

  16. Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music

    Deimos
    Link Parent
    Thanks, I'm really enjoying this album. If you don't already know them, you'd probably also like this band/album: Ozric Tentacles - Space for the Earth. It's one of my favorite recent psych-rock...

    Thanks, I'm really enjoying this album.

    If you don't already know them, you'd probably also like this band/album: Ozric Tentacles - Space for the Earth. It's one of my favorite recent psych-rock albums.

    2 votes

  17. Comment on How to install + serve Tildes directly on a VPS? in ~tildes

    Deimos
    Link Parent
    Oh, thanks - I'll test that out later today and merge it. I guess that wouldn't have been affecting me because I already have the folder?

    Oh, thanks - I'll test that out later today and merge it. I guess that wouldn't have been affecting me because I already have the folder?

    5 votes

  18. Comment on How to install + serve Tildes directly on a VPS? in ~tildes

    Deimos
    Link Parent
    Please let me know if you run into any difficulties with it, or if anything else ends up being necessary. I'd like to add a document to the repo that just has the specific steps needed to get it...

    Please let me know if you run into any difficulties with it, or if anything else ends up being necessary. I'd like to add a document to the repo that just has the specific steps needed to get it up and running.

    7 votes

  19. Comment on How to install + serve Tildes directly on a VPS? in ~tildes

    Deimos
    Link Parent
    Is there something specific that's broken in the Vagrant method for you? That's how I set up my own local dev environment, so it's still working for me.

    Is there something specific that's broken in the Vagrant method for you? That's how I set up my own local dev environment, so it's still working for me.

    4 votes

  20. Comment on How to install + serve Tildes directly on a VPS? in ~tildes

    Deimos
    (edited )
    Link
    Vagrant/Virtualbox is only for local development, so that you can have all the right versions of everything inside a single contained VM. You don't want to use those if you're actually trying to...

    Vagrant/Virtualbox is only for local development, so that you can have all the right versions of everything inside a single contained VM. You don't want to use those if you're actually trying to host an instance of the site.

    If you're setting up a VM specifically to host Tildes, you can just install Ubuntu 20.04 Debian 10 on it and then run Ansible on it directly to install and set up everything it needs. I think there might be a couple of manual steps necessary like cloning the tildes repo somewhere and creating a symlink to it from /opt/tildes, but almost everything else should be done by Ansible. That comment of mine that you linked should have the manual steps in it, but it's mostly obsolete things related to Salt (which was replaced by Ansible) that you can ignore.

    I think the tildes.net domain is probably hardcoded in various places still too, so you'll probably need to do a search and replace on that with your own domain, but that should be pretty straightforward.

    9 votes