KapteinB's recent activity

  1. Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of November 2 in ~society

    KapteinB
    Link Parent
    Did Donald Trump choose the wrong Dana White? Speculations emerge after US President offers White House Press Secretary role to UFC chief (India Times)

    Did Donald Trump choose the wrong Dana White? Speculations emerge after US President offers White House Press Secretary role to UFC chief (India Times)

    Donald Trump has reportedly offered UFC CEO Dana White the role of White House Press Secretary, sparking online speculation that he may have confused him with Dana W. White, former Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. Read to find out how the speculations emerged.

    5 votes

  2. Comment on Heroic Games Launcher: an open source, cross-platform launcher for GOG and Epic Games Store in ~games

    KapteinB
    Link
    Giving it a try, since I've been wanting to buy more games on GOG and fewer on Steam. Had some stability issues when I installed from openSUSE's repos, but the Flathub versions seems stable so far.

    Giving it a try, since I've been wanting to buy more games on GOG and fewer on Steam. Had some stability issues when I installed from openSUSE's repos, but the Flathub versions seems stable so far.

    2 votes

  4. Comment on Israel election: Inconclusive? in ~society

    KapteinB
    Link
    In big, improbable shift, UTJ said to consider supporting an Eisenkot-led minority government (Times of Israel)

    In big, improbable shift, UTJ said to consider supporting an Eisenkot-led minority government (Times of Israel)

    In what would amount to a landmark political shift, figures in the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party are reportedly considering offering support to a minority government led by leading opposition candidate Gadi Eisenkot without formally joining his coalition.

    10 votes

  6. Comment on Brazil election: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva beats Flavio Bolsonaro in shock upset in ~society

    KapteinB
    Link
    Trump calls Bolsonaro family ‘fine people’ as defeated Brazil candidate flees to US (The Independent)

    Trump calls Bolsonaro family ‘fine people’ as defeated Brazil candidate flees to US (The Independent)

    Defeated Brazilian election candidate Flavio Bolsonaro arrived in the US late on Tuesday, according to media reports, despite a court ordering he surrender his passports amid an ongoing corruption investigation.

    The right-wing politician, son of jailed former president Jair Bolsonaro, landed in Miami and was received by his brother Eduardo upon his arrival, sources told the BBC. His arrival in the US was also reported by Brazil’s O Globo newspaper, though there has been no official confirmation of his whereabouts.

    5 votes

  7. Comment on How is your current TTRPG campaign going? in ~games.tabletop

    KapteinB
    Link
    We just wrapped up a mini-campaign in D&D 5e. I had all players start as a level 1 bard, but let them multiclass freely, so we ended up with 2 pure bards, 1 bard/sorcerer, 1 bard/wizard, and 1...

    We just wrapped up a mini-campaign in D&D 5e. I had all players start as a level 1 bard, but let them multiclass freely, so we ended up with 2 pure bards, 1 bard/sorcerer, 1 bard/wizard, and 1 bard/druid/warlock.

    The premise was they had just signed a contract with an agent, and had to perform 10 successful concerts in 10 different cities in 10 weeks. I created a map of this region of our homebrew setting, created a little bit of lore for every city, and let the players themselves decide what city to start in, and pick their next destination at the end of each session. They failed one of their concerts, so they had to visit an 11th city, but was able to do so well within the in-game time limit.

    I was able to run the campaign episodically, which I'm quite proud of. 1 session per city! This made every session feel dsitinct and memorable, but meant there was very little combat, because combat is so very time-consuming in D&D. This also made it easy to explain why a character was missing whenever a player was unable to make it to a session.

    I had fun creating different mini-games for some of the sessions. Some highlights include a battle between two divine super-powered goats to decide the fate of followers of the Goat Lord for the next year, a couple espionage missions, interfering in a local election, chasing an orca-riding orc around an underwater city, a battle of the bands after a scheduling mishap, surviving kinetic bombardment while preventing the theft of a magical artifact, getting stuck in a time loop, and finally negotiating for their souls and future career with their agent (who of course turned out to be a devil in disguise). Oh and they organised a robot rebellion in the final city when they had mages blow holes in the wall surrounding the sealed district near the end of their concert.

    It's the most successful campaign I've ever run, and I'm very happy with it!

    This week we return to our regular long-running (also 5e) campaign, after our DM has had a well-deserved break. We'll be doing a Halloween-themed episode, which was a big success last year, and then back to our regular scheduling. It's set in the same homebrew setting as my campaign, but in a different region, so there's not a lot of overlap.

    1 vote

  8. Comment on Blackberry 10 Revival in ~tech

    KapteinB
    Link Parent
    I bought a BB10 phone for cheap after the OS was discontinued, just so I would get a chance to experience it, and yeah, it was pretty good! Anyone who likes the card-based multitasking should take...

    I bought a BB10 phone for cheap after the OS was discontinued, just so I would get a chance to experience it, and yeah, it was pretty good! Anyone who likes the card-based multitasking should take a look at Sailfish, but I have yet to see a better software keyboard than the one in BB10.

    I recently bought the new Jolla, so I probably won't be seriously looking into BB10 any time soon, but this is still cool to see.

    2 votes

  11. Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of October 19 in ~society

    KapteinB
    Link
    The Secret Terms of Trump’s Venezuelan Oil Deal (Pro Publica)

    The Secret Terms of Trump’s Venezuelan Oil Deal (Pro Publica)

    ProPublica has reviewed a copy of the 18-page strategic partnership agreement signed for the United States by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The document reveals carefully constructed terms that favor U.S. interests at every turn and cements the power of a small group of people handpicked by the Trump administration to govern and profit from the deal. The role of the Venezuelan government and the potential benefits to its people are largely absent from the text.

    8 votes

  12. Comment on Ukraine takes out six Russian Su-34M bombers with a single airbase strike, navy says in ~society

  13. Comment on Ukraine accuses SpaceX of crippling drone missions as ties with US worsen in ~society

    KapteinB
    Link
    Zelensky turns on Trump (The Telegraph)

    Zelensky turns on Trump (The Telegraph)

    Volodymyr Zelensky has turned on Donald Trump, launching a personal attack on the US president and pledging to resume strikes on Russian oil refineries.

    “The block [on attacking refineries] is out. We’re done,” the Ukrainian president said, defying a ceasefire declared by the US president.

    14 votes

  15. Comment on SpaceXAI joins Omacom and gives $1.5m Grok tokens for Omarchy in ~tech

    KapteinB
    Link
    First I hear of this OS, so the hype seems to have passed me by, until now. "If the application you need doesn't exist, have your OS create it for you" is a pretty cool approach. Will it work?...

    First I hear of this OS, so the hype seems to have passed me by, until now. "If the application you need doesn't exist, have your OS create it for you" is a pretty cool approach. Will it work? Probably somewhat? Just never look under the hood! In any case, it's nice that it's Linux and not Windows that might be the first big vibe-first OS. Maybe it will make a dent in the market share of Windows. Personally I'll never use anything powered by Grok.

    Grok 4.7 and beyond will be helping power our automated agents, like Omabot, who’s been reviewing the flood of PRs that keep pouring in. And it has its work cut out. We’re closing in on 7,000 pull requests from more than 550 contributors, and every one of them deserves a proper look. That’s not a job for mere humans!

    On my project at work we're currently 4 backend developers. Of those, only me is actually hired by the company, while the three others are consultants. AI has made all of them more productive, but as the person who's going to maintain this software for possibly the rest of my life, I do my best to keep an overview of how the software actually does and what new code is added, and that means sooooo many pull requests. Pull requests are 100% a job for mere humans! Unless we want it all to turn into a black box no-one knows what actually does.

    (Some days it feels like all I do is pull requests, and on those days I consider moving to the Arctic to become a turnip farmer.)

    And given where they’re headed, there’s a real chance we’ll soon be consuming tokens beamed down from data centers in space.

    lol

    Maybe Musk can use all that space AI to make his self driving cars work.

    10 votes

  16. Comment on Recommend me music similar to that of Tool? in ~music

    KapteinB
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    Give Haken a try. I listen to them at work for more or less the same criteria you have. Fauna is proably their most Tool-like album.

    Give Haken a try. I listen to them at work for more or less the same criteria you have. Fauna is proably their most Tool-like album.

    2 votes

  18. Comment on Unofficial Linux app for music streaming service Qobuz QBZ shut down after receiving cease and desist letter in ~music

    KapteinB
    Link Parent
    I switched from Spotify to Qobuz recently. Higher artist compensation was part of the reason, but I probably wouldn't have made the switch if I hadn't found a native Linux application (QBZ) in the...

    The use of the unoffical app unfortunately leads to streams not being counted with us and thus the artists end up empty-handed.

    I switched from Spotify to Qobuz recently. Higher artist compensation was part of the reason, but I probably wouldn't have made the switch if I hadn't found a native Linux application (QBZ) in the software centre. Got to use it for just a few weeks before it disappered.

    There's another client on Flathub named Qobine, but if it's true that artists don't get paid when using third-party clients (which is indeed strange) I may start using the web player instead. It's what I do at work, and it works well enough.

    3 votes

  19. Comment on What do you listen to while you’re reading? in ~books

    KapteinB
    Link Parent
    Prog rock/metal for me as well, same as when I need to focus at work. Doesn't really matter to me if it has lyrics or not, as long as I can't move along with the rhythm or sing along to the...

    Prog rock/metal for me as well, same as when I need to focus at work. Doesn't really matter to me if it has lyrics or not, as long as I can't move along with the rhythm or sing along to the chorus.

    These days Moron Police's latest album gets a lot of plays.

    1 vote

  20. Comment on Ukraine uses Pelican ballistic missile for first time in strikes on Russia in ~society

    KapteinB
    Link Parent
    Been a while, yeah. Life's been busy, I guess. I'll keep posting them now and then. And I'll keep not tagging them "politics" to keep mycketforvirrad busy.

    Been a while, yeah. Life's been busy, I guess. I'll keep posting them now and then. And I'll keep not tagging them "politics" to keep mycketforvirrad busy.

    2 votes