secret_online's recent activity
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Comment on Timasomo 2026: The Showcase in ~creative.timasomo
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Comment on Timasomo 2026: The Showcase in ~creative.timasomo
secret_online Link ParentYour second one is so close to my absolute favourite purple I've ever worn. If I saw that in-store or at a market I would be buying it instantly.Your second one is so close to my absolute favourite purple I've ever worn. If I saw that in-store or at a market I would be buying it instantly.
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Comment on Timasomo 2026: The Showcase in ~creative.timasomo
secret_online LinkLeadlight I made a Minecraft mod! The best way to experience it is to play it, but the second best way is to look at the screenshot gallery (and then read the behind-the-scenes of the...Leadlight
I made a Minecraft mod! The best way to experience it is to play it, but the second best way is to look at the screenshot gallery (and then read the behind-the-scenes of the screenshots).
This is the second "proper" Minecraft mod I've made (the first being Tiny Flowers), and once again I had to do something slightly weird with how things are drawn in-game. In Tiny Flowers I have to load different models for each flower and submit them to be drawn manually in order to avoid a combinatorial explosion that eats up memory and makes the game take 5 minutes to start up. In Leadlight I have to draw literal triangles in a game whose only shape is a square. Each segment of the window frames can be individually filled, and it can also connect to different sides, leading to there being lots of different shapes that need to be drawn.
I also had to do modelling and texturing for each of the different shapes of window frame. I find textures so hard to do, and what's in the mod now is like the 5th full revision of the textures. I do also plan on adding new frame materials for the other metals in the game, but this means doing more textures (doing a simple palette swap is not up to my standard, it really does not look good) and I really don't want to do that right now.
It was great having having this event to get the motivation and keep it going. I also entered my mod into Spooky Jam, since I figured stained glass windows could be used to make some spooky builds and I did make the mod entirely within October. I'll have to think about what I'll make next year!
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Comment on itch.io reveals just how much AI slop is flooding gaming storefronts in ~games
secret_online Link ParentI can definitely recommend watching this talk, it's such a silly story.I can definitely recommend watching this talk, it's such a silly story.
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Comment on Timasomo 2026: Week 3 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
secret_online LinkWell, I released my Minecraft mod: Leadlight. It's only available on CurseForge (and GitHub) right now, but once it clears Modrinth's moderation queue (estimated another couple of weeks) then...Well, I released my Minecraft mod: Leadlight. It's only available on CurseForge (and GitHub) right now, but once it clears Modrinth's moderation queue (estimated another couple of weeks) then it'll be there too (link for when that happens).
Most of my time over the past week was putting together the mod description pages and taking screenshots to showcase the mod. You can see the gallery on Curseforge for the proper images, but in this comment you'll get what nobody else (besides me) has seen: what's lying just outside the camera's frame.
- The kitchen was my first build, and it's just a few walls, a basic ceiling which you can't even see in the final screenshot, and the worst farm out the back to make it look like there's something there. In the foreground you can see a demo I was showing a friend, plus the inspiration for the garden fence.
- Speaking of the garden, it's actually pretty close to the kitchen build. It's also just above the chapel which is, again, just a plain box.
- The screenshot of a player placing a pane into a window was taken at a place I built to have at the original icon of the mod, but later changed to the rose window. It's a tiny monstrosity of block placements, and no angle could capture its true unbeauty. The trapdoors and stairs were to make the right shapes when looking out through the window.
- The rose window is just floating in the sky, with the barest minimum built around it. That's actually the reason why the gallery image is cropped to be square, you can see where I haven't built in the full screenshot.
- The art gallery window is just a segment of wall, open to the elements (and the local invaders).
- There are two locations that didn't get screenshots. After seeing the diamond frames being so good as a garden wall, I wanted to make a little scene like the Lizard Consulate from Divinity: Original Sin II (a game I love dearly. This is the only screenshot I could find online, which doesn't really show it off). I started in one place, realised how wide of an angle I'd need for what I wanted and abandoned it. I then went somewhere with the water colour I wanted, but abandoned that because I didn't want the mangrove in the background. You can see the items on the ground from when I
/killed myself.
I have some stretch goals that I'll be piecing away at, mostly adding new window frame materials. At the moment it's just Iron, but I'd like to do Gold and the 4 (actually 8, including waxed) types of Copper. I don't know how the game handles the aging of Copper, but I'm sure they did it in a way I can re-use.
Today's bonus image comes from debugging. In order to ensure I am drawing the glass correctly, I've been going into spectator mode, turning my speed right down, then clipping inside the frames to see where the vertices/edges/polygons are. Thanks to the near clipping plane of the camera, you end up with some crazy shapes.
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Comment on What is your passion? And why? in ~life
secret_online Link ParentI also very much enjoy lizards and related creatures, but am also acutely aware that I am not able to commit to caring for one for as long as it would deserve.I also very much enjoy lizards and related creatures, but am also acutely aware that I am not able to commit to caring for one for as long as it would deserve.
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Comment on I survived the certificate expiration of October 19th 2026 and all I got was to make a silly shitpost in ~tildes
secret_online Link ParentELI5 analogy: it's the stamp used to make the wax seal for envelopes sent over the internet. Every website can get its own seal to prove that its envelopes are real, and browsers will throw away...ELI5 analogy: it's the stamp used to make the wax seal for envelopes sent over the internet. Every website can get its own seal to prove that its envelopes are real, and browsers will throw away envelopes with bad seals. For security reasons, the stamps have expiry times built into them before they are untrusted and you need to get a new stamp before the old one expires.
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Comment on McDonalds and Star Trek's "Red Alert" sound in ~talk
secret_online Link ParentIn New Zealand we have the red alert sound, not the alternating tones in your second link. I suppose it makes sense that we'd have the same sounds as Australia, but it's strange that they're...In New Zealand we have the red alert sound, not the alternating tones in your second link. I suppose it makes sense that we'd have the same sounds as Australia, but it's strange that they're different to what seems to be the rest of the world.
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Comment on Tildes “orphans”, what do you do for Christmas? in ~life
secret_online LinkI live alone, which suits me quite well. My closest family has been travelling around the country for the past nearly 4 years, so it's pretty seldom that we're together at this point. In past...I live alone, which suits me quite well. My closest family has been travelling around the country for the past nearly 4 years, so it's pretty seldom that we're together at this point. In past years I have travelled to meet them if they're settling in a place for a while or other family, but I usually use Christmas day as a travelling day since the flights are cheaper and the roads are clear.
The social group in my apartment building gathers in the lobby with food and drinks on Christmas day. Last year I baked cookies and they were received well, so I'll be doing those again over the days leading up to it (I simply can't bear doing the baking and the decorating on the same day). Beyond that, I'm sure there will be lots of time to just relax or get out and walk.
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Comment on Timasomo 2026: Week 2 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
secret_online LinkMy Minecraft mod is now pretty much feature complete. You can grab the jar file from one of the build zips at the bottom of this GitHub Actions run, depending on which mod loader you're using....My Minecraft mod is now pretty much feature complete. You can grab the jar file from one of the build zips at the bottom of this GitHub Actions run, depending on which mod loader you're using. There's still more to do, but at least this is close to a version I can publish if the rest of the month falls out from under me.
My main focus last weekend was on textures. I spent an evening plus most of a day just doing textures. When I wasn't doing textures, I was redoing the UV mappings to make drawing the textures easier. But, I have textures. Blockbench allows you to have reference images behind the model that you can use to pick colours, so I added the textures for anvils (the shade I wanted the frames to be) and iron bars (a thin metallic thing whose style I could imitate). What I found worked best was using only 3 colours, as any more made it feel too contrast and noisy. There are actually 4 colours, as any inward-facing faces use a slightly darker 3 colour palette.
I'm still keeping my limit of only working on this mod over the weekends, but where's the limit on that? Does launching the game with the mod installed so I can build structures to take screenshots for the mod's listing page count? I think not, so I've been doing that as well. So far I have made a little cosy kitchen, and a sort of linked or wrought fence for a garden. The latter came about from just placing some of the frames and noticing it looked cool.
You'll notice that both of those screenshots have windows frames that are unfilled. I have one final decision to make with this mod; do I make the glass:
- 2px thick (so it's flush with the frame),
- 1px thick so it's slightly inset, has thickness, but is not aligned to the pixel grid (breaks the guidelines of Minecraft graphics), or
- 0px thick so it's inset, is pixel grid aligned, but has no thickness (like iron bars).
I still have not decided on this, and I need to make the decision before I take the actual screenshots and make the mod's icon.
Today's bonus image is a Creeper. Plain and simple.
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Comment on There's a new Elder Scrolls MMO in ~games
secret_online (edited )Link ParentI think you misunderstood what I wrote, but perhaps that's because I wasn't clear in what I was actually trying to say. To be clear, I am not calling you vacuous. I think the delivery of your...I think you misunderstood what I wrote, but perhaps that's because I wasn't clear in what I was actually trying to say. To be clear, I am not calling you vacuous. I think the delivery of your message was uncharitable, and there was maybe a different way of approaching the discussion that didn't lead to two people being defensive.
Generative AI exists, the same way any tool exists. We can't close this metaphorical Pandora's Box, not anymore. When we look at how past tools have been used by humans we see the line of acceptable uses of said tools be drawn somewhere around causing harm to other humans. As society has developed, and continues to do so, the definition of harms changes, and thus so does the line of what uses of tools are consided acceptable. Because we are individuals, we all place that line somewhere else. Sometimes the line is straight, sometimes it's wiggly. There is interesting, balanced, nuanced discussion to have in that space where people can learn from one another. Insulting opinions blocks those conversations, which to me feels against the spirit of this site.
To bring it back to the topic at hand, someone adding MMO features to Daggerfall, we do see the speed at which people build upon previous work to make a new experience. We see people attempting software projects that were seen as insurmountable before. We see people mixing and remixing ideas. We also see the unpolished nature, the fact it's raw output from the most sophisticated statistical engine we've made so far. We see the priorities of the people making these projects, and isn't there something interesting in that too?
These are different uses of the same tool. What do we, as a community of pseudonomous strangers on the internet, see as being acceptable, and what do we not? How does the use of Generative AI to make software affect the makers themselves? What stories are being told about these projects, and how does the way they're being told fit into the wider discussion around Generative AI? These are the things I would find much more interesting to see, beyond the inevitable "slop or not" comments.
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Comment on There's a new Elder Scrolls MMO in ~games
secret_online Link ParentI'm just going to reply to this to say that this whole conversation so far (including @Grenno) feels very un-Tildes to me. I come to this website for for interesting discussions where people can...- Exemplary
I'm just going to reply to this to say that this whole conversation so far (including @Grenno) feels very un-Tildes to me. I come to this website for for interesting discussions where people can have a discussion on nuanced topics without resorting to personal attacks.
As for the take itself, I believe it can be both. Generative AI is both individually empowering and a tool being used to fuel mass consumption of vapid Content™. A knife is used to cut onions and to stab people. A rock is used to sharpen other rocks to make primitive tools and to bludgeon. To say AI is just one thing is to ignore the the way the disgustingly rich are treating other human beings through this tool. To say it's the other is to ignore the sudden ability that people have to create software that was infeasible before, clones or not. To say it's either of these and not something else is to ignore the impact it is having on knowledge work industries in general, and I'm sure a 4th person could come in with a different perspective too. The discussion is nuanced, and worth more than insulting others' opinions.
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Comment on Deno is joining Cloudflare in ~comp
secret_online LinkI think it's a shame that development on Deno is being shut down, but to be honest I don't know what kind of company (I mention companies because that's where the big sponsorships come from) would...I think it's a shame that development on Deno is being shut down, but to be honest I don't know what kind of company (I mention companies because that's where the big sponsorships come from) would ever have used Deno as their JS runtime over Node. Node is more established, has a larger ecosystem of tools around it, and has clear management structure and funding for that provided through the OpenJS foundation. Having a series of standard library packages is neat (though Node had its own too, I guess), having a permissions model is great (Node now has one, opt-in), creating another public NPM registry is... a choice? But if I were the one deciding the technology stack for a company, I would be looking at which option is likely to be supported for a long time. That was never going to be Deno.
Anyone who chose Deno just learned they've got a year's worth of patches and security updates left. Anyone using Deno Deploy just learned they've got 6 months to move to CloudFlare or completely change their deployment. At least JSR is sticking around, but I get the feeling it'll be on life support more than active development. It's better than Deno just going completely under, I guess.
As an aside, I wonder what's going to happen to the lawsuit that Deno has against Oracle over the name JavaScript. They were asking for 200k in crowdfunding for discovery and received 44k. Will CloudFlare keep it going, or will they just quietly close it down and let Oracle still sit on the name? I also wonder if the legal costs contributed to Deno needing to be bought.
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Comment on Machinarium 2 | Announcement trailer in ~games
secret_online LinkOh I'm looking forward to this, I fell in love with Amaninta's games with the original Machinarium. Plus it means more music from Floex, which is always a joy.Oh I'm looking forward to this, I fell in love with Amaninta's games with the original Machinarium. Plus it means more music from Floex, which is always a joy.
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Comment on Timasomo 2026: Week 1 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
secret_online LinkI've decided that I should only work on my Minecraft mod (now officially called "Leadlight") over the weekends. This was a wise decision given how hectic my week was. I will be using terms without...I've decided that I should only work on my Minecraft mod (now officially called "Leadlight") over the weekends. This was a wise decision given how hectic my week was. I will be using terms without necessarily defining them in this (and future) update(s), so if there's anything you don't understand and you're interested in specifics, please ask. Just because I learned a lot of the concepts the hard (well, not truly hard, but not the easiest) way, doesn't mean you have to too.
The first thing I did for this project was some modelling. I took inspiration from how the game does the models for the base game, where it defines the north-facing side and the south-facing side and then uses blockstates to do the rotations. The simplest window frame shape I'll have is effectively just a bordered regular glass pane so I made a model for that in Blockbench (The UV mappings have changed slightly since making that). It's multiple boxes, and when I export I can turn on and off different segments. There are actually 5 models in there, the north, south, center, and the middle sections facing north and south for when the block is just a single segment. It's much easier to see why this is needed when displayed in-game. I also wrote some code to datagen all of the required blockstate and model files. I'm using the models from Blockbench as a template, with the datagenned model files using them as a parent and passing in the textures. This is so I can have multiple material types, but that's for weekend 3 or 4.
With the success of that, I decided I may as well do the models for three other window shapes: vertical, horizontal, and square. Technically, all of the models that I did for the large window shape could be re-used for the vertical windows, and with only a few additions I could do a lot of re-use for the horizontal and squares too. I went ahead and made the models for those and added them to the game. I also made a flat grey texture so I wasn't looking at colourful boxes all the time. I will need to come back to textures. Yes, I am putting it off.
A window frame is useless without glass to put in it, so I then went on a side tangent to create new items (which for now I'm calling "Cut Stained Glass Panes") that would be placed within each segment of the frame, and how I'd actually represent that in the blocks. There were a couple of iterations on the design, but I ended up on a data component that has a slot for top and bottom for north, south, east, west, and center. Having it as a data component means it's easy to attach to items, so ctrl+middle click in creative can pick up a window frame with knowledge of what each slot has. One of the last things I ended up doing over the weekend was actually adding interaction, so right clicking a cut pane into the frame would put it in the spot you clicked, and using an empty hand would remove it. Oh, and datagen for crafting recipes. The cut panes come from putting stained glass panes into a stonecutter, while the frames themselves have a recipe for the large frame, which is then used to craft the other types.
I was pretty happy with this progress for the first weekend, but since I still had some of the day left I decided to try drawing the glass. In terms of things I dislike in making mods, the thing I hate the most by far is anything to do with rendering (followed by making textures, then making models). Because I plan of having two more frame shapes with diagonal lines, I need to be able to draw a triangle. After much error (with some trial) I made every frame block (easier to start without thinking about the data each block has) draw a triangle. The problem was that as soon as you have multiple frame blocks it doesn't do what I wanted at all. Turns out, Minecraft really wants you to be drawing quads, not triangles, so I just added a 4th point that's the same as the 1st and everything is fine.
Of course, I don't just want a random triangle, I want shapes within the frame. This took some puzzling, such as getting some maths wrong and drawing in the wrong place, or doing the absolute beginner mistake of submitting your vertices in the wrong order so the faces are only visible from the wrong side, or, as you've probably seen from those screenshots, using the wrong path for the texture even though an hour ago you had it correct. But, eventually, I fixed it. I have a mod that works and has all of the basic features I want this mod to have.
I expect future weeks' updates to be more mundane than "I made what looks like most of this mod!". Like all software development, it takes 20% of the time to do 80% of the work, and 80% of the time to do
20% of the workthe other 80% of the work. As a reward for getting through this post, have a rendition of Piet Modrian's Composion II in Red, Blue, and Yellow. -
Comment on Was watching a history YouTube video when I realized they are all AI in ~tech
secret_online Link ParentAiSList seems to be someone's attempt at that, though the website is slopped and the source code for the extension itself hasn't been uploaded to GitHub. I only found out about it since it's been... -
Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
secret_online LinkI've continued the backporting of one of my Minecraft mods from last week, though this has been slowed by me making a new mod for TiMaSoMo (which I'll talk about more in the update topics for...I've continued the backporting of one of my Minecraft mods from last week, though this has been slowed by me making a new mod for TiMaSoMo (which I'll talk about more in the update topics for that). I'll be spending the weekends working on that mod, and the week days working on this one.
I finished the port to 1.21.11. It's all working just fine, but the biggest challenge is yet to come. I've had a taste of it so far, but 1.21.1 was released an entire year before 1.21.11 so there were a lot of changes to the game, and lots of them in rendering. I'm going to be saving those for last. Mostly my process is picking a file and then trying to get rid of the compiler errors one-by-one, and I don't know how many there are in total since IntelliJ isn't listing more than 101 problems in the problems tab.
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Comment on Jet Lag Season 19: Japanorama | Trailer in ~hobbies
secret_online Link ParentI want to call out this magnificent pun from Tom on the Layover Light episode 7 spoilers (Talking about the tripod thing that Sam and Ben saw with the rail workers)I want to call out this magnificent pun from Tom on the Layover
Light episode 7 spoilers
(Talking about the tripod thing that Sam and Ben saw with the rail workers)
[...] a theodolite measures angles and, uh, these days it's normally a laser thing for land surveying or something like that.
And you can tell the difference because a theodolite is on a tripod and a theodotite hangs down from the roof. -
Comment on Timasomo 2026: Roll Call in ~creative.timasomo
secret_online (edited )LinkSince my current creative outlet is working on my little Minecraft mods, I think it's time to make one more. You know, give myself even more ongoing maintenance. I want to do something with...Since my current creative outlet is working on my little Minecraft mods, I think it's time to make one more. You know, give myself even more ongoing maintenance.
I want to do something with stained glass panes, making them more like stained glass windows. The idea is that you'd make a frame block in one of a few set shapes, then fill in each section with different colours of glass. How will you make the frames? Don't know yet. How will you fill in the sections? Don't know yet. How will you change a section? Don't know yet. What happens if a side connection of the pane is made/broken? Don't know yet. That's all to figure out as I go.
I'll have some decisions to make early on about how to do this. I don't think I want to make it data-driven so other mods could add new glass types or frame shapes, which means that depending on how many possible combinations there are I might be able to use blockstates to render everything rather than a custom block entity renderer (like I have to for my Tiny Flowers mod). If there are too many combinations then I might have to use blockstates for the frames, then render the glass itself separately.
Quick edit: I ran some numbers. I'm using blockstates for the frames, then custom rendering for the glass. The number I got is large enough that it runs into precision issues and I can't trust it anymore. This is entirely my fault for reaching for JavaScript to do maths.
I'll be targeting Minecraft 26.1, though at the end/after the month I'll bring it forward to whatever version is the latest. I don't plan to port this back any further, since porting Tiny Flowers 2.0.0 back to even just 1.21.11 has been a massive pain.
Oh, and I need a name. Preferably before I create the project repository. I want something related to the craft of making stained glass, so the first thing I need to do is research (or outsource to the lovely folks here ;D).
Quick edit: currently thinking of "Leadlight" as a name, since that's another term for windows ("lights") with lead ("lead")
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Comment on Announcing the eighth annual Tildes' Make Something Month (Timasomo)! in ~tildes
secret_online LinkI'm not sure I'll be able to commit just yet, but that's what the next couple of days are for organising. Please add me to the list, if nothing else it'll be a reminder to see what everyone else...I'm not sure I'll be able to commit just yet, but that's what the next couple of days are for organising. Please add me to the list, if nothing else it'll be a reminder to see what everyone else is up to.
I probably should have named it in my original reply lol. It's called "Go to grape lengths", from 2022 I believe.
If you do ever figure out the colours, I'd love to know the formula. Your posts this year made me want to start making my own as well just so I have the shades I like lol