delphi's recent activity

  1. Comment on Everything is Chrome in ~tech

    delphi
    Link Parent
    It's not crashed more than Firefox or Chrome has for me. If you keep your tabs down and don't overload it with extensions, I think you can get it pretty stable - one of the biggest improvements to...

    It's not crashed more than Firefox or Chrome has for me. If you keep your tabs down and don't overload it with extensions, I think you can get it pretty stable - one of the biggest improvements to usability for me was to right click the tool bar where the address is, hit "customise toolbar" and drag in one of the programmable buttons - then set it to "Close other tabs". That way it's easier to keep your tabs corralled instead of letting them accrue

  2. Comment on Everything is Chrome in ~tech

    delphi
    Link
    If you're on Mac, there are alternatives. Safari may not have many power user features, but Orion - a browser made by the guys who also make the Kagi search engine - is a real powerhouse and I...

    If you're on Mac, there are alternatives. Safari may not have many power user features, but Orion - a browser made by the guys who also make the Kagi search engine - is a real powerhouse and I recommend it to everyone who's sick of Chrome.

    4 votes

  3. Comment on Tildes worldbuilding thread in ~creative

    delphi
    Link Parent
    Exactly the kind of frivolous insanity I can get behind. What kind of people would I find in the mall? Is the mall still being used as a mall, a kind of physical Amazon? What if I built a new...

    Exactly the kind of frivolous insanity I can get behind. What kind of people would I find in the mall? Is the mall still being used as a mall, a kind of physical Amazon? What if I built a new mall, would it immediately be linked to the Infinimall? This is a brilliant idea!

    2 votes

  4. Comment on Tildes worldbuilding thread in ~creative

    delphi
    Link Parent
    Frankly, Wikipedia! The fun part about worldbuilding is not only the different elements themselves, but especially how they fit together and what consequences they have. A simple concept can have...

    Frankly, Wikipedia! The fun part about worldbuilding is not only the different elements themselves, but especially how they fit together and what consequences they have. A simple concept can have big implications. Let's say that cars in your world need not petrol to run but for instance orange juice. What would this mean for the world? How would society form around this concept? How would resource wars be waged not around oil, but oranges? What parts of the world would suddenly be richer, which would be poorer?

    Wikipedia's a great resource for this because it links concepts together. You can get lost in so many rabbit holes and make connections between ideas that you'd never have considered before. Have a look, you'd be surprised about how strange our own world is!

    3 votes

  5. Comment on Tildes worldbuilding thread in ~creative

    delphi
    Link Parent
    Wow, that's a brilliant idea and a super cool way to tell the story! Would love to play this at some point, don't give up on this! It really deserves a go

    Wow, that's a brilliant idea and a super cool way to tell the story! Would love to play this at some point, don't give up on this! It really deserves a go

    2 votes

  6. Comment on Tildes worldbuilding thread in ~creative

    delphi
    Link Parent
    Superstore sounds really interesting. Do you have a list of areas in the store and what power they give? What kinds of powers would for instance the stationery section give you?

    Superstore sounds really interesting. Do you have a list of areas in the store and what power they give? What kinds of powers would for instance the stationery section give you?

    1 vote

  7. Comment on Tildes worldbuilding thread in ~creative

    delphi
    Link Parent
    That's such a cool idea! What would be the sort of biggest surprise for all the Rho civilisations reconnecting with each other?

    That's such a cool idea! What would be the sort of biggest surprise for all the Rho civilisations reconnecting with each other?

    1 vote

  8. Comment on Tildes worldbuilding thread in ~creative

    delphi
    Link Parent
    I am working on a novel, a comic book, few other things - but most of the worldbuilding I'm compiling in an in-universe encyclopaedia that has a little hidden story as well. It's not very far...

    I am working on a novel, a comic book, few other things - but most of the worldbuilding I'm compiling in an in-universe encyclopaedia that has a little hidden story as well. It's not very far along, but you can read it on https://almanet.cc/

    6 votes

  9. Comment on Tildes worldbuilding thread in ~creative

    delphi
    Link
    I'll kick things off by introducing my own world: Onyx Black. Onyx Black is a medium-hard sci-fi universe set roughly 250 years after the death of Earth, which occurred in 2119. Earth is gone, and...

    I'll kick things off by introducing my own world: Onyx Black.

    Onyx Black is a medium-hard sci-fi universe set roughly 250 years after the death of Earth, which occurred in 2119. Earth is gone, and human civilisation is extinct, but other civilisations thrive in the galaxy.

    About 60 years before the "present" in Onyx Black, these civilisations discovered the ruins of Earth. This discovery sparked a massive technological revolution because, before finding Earth's remains, they didn't understand silicon semiconductors and relied entirely on analog computers.

    I find the concept of digital computers appearing after interstellar travel and other advanced technologies really interesting. They had hyper-light travel and spacefaring capabilities, but all controlled through analog means - pre-discovery this was more or less a fantasy setting, and the introduction of digital computers has changed all that and led to a sort of "gold rush" in the galaxy. Aesthetically, this means Onyx Black is in sort of the 60s and 70s - an aesthetic I call IBM Noir, fusing elements of cassette futurism and low-tech cybercore (not cyberpunk).

    The stories I'm telling within Onyx Black are primarily about hubris. They now possess our technology, and while they appreciate and utilise it, they aren't necessarily good at using it, and they didn't learn the hard lessons we did. This creates a lot of interesting conflicts and scenarios. What could possibly go wrong by handing powerful digital computers to an interstellar civilisation that isn't quite sure what to do with them?

    24 votes

  10. Tildes worldbuilding thread

    ~creative Ask
    Let's Talk Worldbuilding! I really enjoyed doing this on the other site, so I'm bringing it here: Let's discuss the fictional worlds you've created! Share the worlds you've built in your notes,...

    Let's Talk Worldbuilding!

    I really enjoyed doing this on the other site, so I'm bringing it here: Let's discuss the fictional worlds you've created! Share the worlds you've built in your notes, writing, art, or wherever you develop your ideas.

    What is Worldbuilding?

    For those new to the concept, worldbuilding is the art of constructing a fictional world. This involves creating people, places, concepts, magic systems, technologies, creatures, histories – anything you can imagine. You then assemble these elements into a cohesive whole that can serve as a setting for stories, art, games, or any other creative project.

    If you already have a world, please introduce it in the comments! Ask questions about other users' worlds in the replies. This allows everyone to share their creations and potentially even get new ideas through discussion. You might even get a question you haven't considered before, which can actively help you develop your world further!

    If you're interested in worldbuilding but haven't started, feel free to participate in the discussion! Maybe you'll be inspired to create your own world. You can create anything you like, incorporating elements you find compelling, interesting, cool, or even funny – it's entirely up to you!

    If you have artwork related to your world, please share it! We'd love to see it.

    35 votes

  11. Comment on Blogs: Show your own writing and good posts you have found recently (February) in ~creative

    delphi
    Link
    I would hesitate to call my "side quests" section a blog, especially because I on purpose don't offer a feed to subscribe to, but I guess that descriptor is as good as any considering I post...

    I would hesitate to call my "side quests" section a blog, especially because I on purpose don't offer a feed to subscribe to, but I guess that descriptor is as good as any considering I post whatever I want and ramble about on there. Not all of them are finished thoughts, though.

    https://rmv.fyi/notes/i-don-t-do-computers - I get unreasonably mad at computer luddites

    https://rmv.fyi/notes/i-can-t-stop-thinking-about-the-bradwell-conspiracy - I get unreasonably mad at a very mid video game

    2 votes

  12. What is your strangely specific phobia?

    ~talk Ask (survey)
    For as long as I can remember, I've been unnerved by passive infrared motion detectors. You know the ones, those that have a milky-white lens and on occasion blink red when they detect motion....

    For as long as I can remember, I've been unnerved by passive infrared motion detectors. You know the ones, those that have a milky-white lens and on occasion blink red when they detect motion. They're absolutely terrifying to me and I don't know why.

    I got a few other strangely specific phobias as well - I hate bathroom extractor fans, specifically in bathrooms with high ceilings (which are very common here in Europe), I can't bear to be near industrial light signals even if they're off, and when I recently went to the US, the absolute ubiquity of emergency battery backup light fixtures paralysed me in more than one building. My worst irrational fear is that of horn-style speakers, especially in public spaces or industrial settings, and in those, especially those that fire downwards. (Incidentally, sirens on emergency vehicles, even when they suddenly go off, never triggered this phobia)

    So apart from my weird damage, I have to wonder - what are some of your weird uncommon phobias? I don't mean stuff like a fear of needles or spiders, those are quite common and well documented, but something truly odd you can't make sense of and you kind of know should not be able to scare or disgust you.

    38 votes

  13. Comment on What are your favorite static site generators for creating text based and fast blogs/web pages? in ~tech

    delphi
    Link
    It's not an SSG, but Kirby CMS is probably the best tool for this sort of thing I've found. It has a beautiful and fully customisable backend so you can make any type of content you want, and you...

    It's not an SSG, but Kirby CMS is probably the best tool for this sort of thing I've found. It has a beautiful and fully customisable backend so you can make any type of content you want, and you just simply pull it into also fully customisable "template" files - your page blueprint has a Content field for example, and in your page template you simply pull it in with <p><?= $page->content()->markdown() ?></p> or whatever you'd like to - full customisability, no database, flat-file, extremely fast and simple to use if you're even the tiniest bit familiar with web technologies and HTML/CSS.

    3 votes

  14. Comment on How do I get my iPhone to recalculate battery health? in ~tech

    delphi
    Link Parent
    I'll say that I was just a repair tech, not an engineer and certainly not a hardware designer. I can't tell you definitively if it's just cycles, but I have a strong suspicion that it isn't - MRI...

    I'll say that I was just a repair tech, not an engineer and certainly not a hardware designer. I can't tell you definitively if it's just cycles, but I have a strong suspicion that it isn't - MRI also reports (at least if you start the test from a Mac with the Diagnostics dongle and not just the web version they run on their iPads through the GSX service portal) cycles, max capacity, design capacity and current capacity in Ah. Since they obviously collect that data I suspect it's not simply a lookup table with number of cycles.

    Anecdote: When I got a new phone and was still with Apple, I ran a test to check if everything was all right and it reported as one cycle, 100% health, 2400 mAh maximum capacity, 2400 design capacity, but 2473 actual capacity. Makes sense to me, batteries are imprecise things that use chemical reactions to work, so I believe this is not calculated through cycles but cap readings.

    4 votes

  15. Comment on How do I get my iPhone to recalculate battery health? in ~tech

    delphi
    (edited )
    Link
    I've worked at Apple as a repair tech. Simple answer: You can't. It runs the calibration routine every time you fully juice up from dead, so you can at least force that, but there's no guarantee...

    I've worked at Apple as a repair tech. Simple answer: You can't. It runs the calibration routine every time you fully juice up from dead, so you can at least force that, but there's no guarantee that'll show on the readout. Similarly, if you go to an Apple store and ask them to run an MRI on your phone - a basic function test, Mobile Resource Inspection - they can get that number, but you can't, at least not easily.

    THAT BEING SAID, however, you're at 84%. That's kind of a magic number for iPhones, and it always has been, and even technicians decades my senior don't seem to know why. The iPhone just likes staying at that battery health level (or 83, i've seen that too) much longer than it would seem it's able to. I'm willing to call it an idiosyncracy, it happens, nobody knows why. When it eventually does go down, there's a good chance it'll jump straight to 79%, at least that's what the data we've collected at my apple store seems to corroborate. Don't think Apple ever acknowledged that in any official capacity, the repair manuals make no mention of this behaviour.

    If you wanna go the hard route, you can of course aggressively mistreat your battery. Put it on the radiator in your house while charging, or on a heated car seat. Charge whenever you can, especially above 50%, turn off the Optimised Charge setting in the menu, that sorta stuff. It's not gonna make the thing explode or catch fire, but it will reduce its life expectancy. But from my experience, 84% will stay a while.

    16 votes

  16. Comment on a/s/l? Tildes user survey question. in ~tildes

    delphi
    Link
    24/X/Western Europe. Any other non-binary people here? Would love to see a sort of Tildes Census, with respects to LGBT aspects as well.

    24/X/Western Europe. Any other non-binary people here? Would love to see a sort of Tildes Census, with respects to LGBT aspects as well.

    5 votes

  17. Comment on Single most useful program you daily use? in ~tech

    delphi
    Link Parent
    Not OP, but I'm constantly on a quest to find better Mac apps, and I personally can't stand Raycast. I've used it for two years before switching back to Alfred. I don't like that their extensions...

    Not OP, but I'm constantly on a quest to find better Mac apps, and I personally can't stand Raycast. I've used it for two years before switching back to Alfred. I don't like that their extensions are anaemic, that they insist on having every single feature and not be particularly good at any of them (window management, clipboard history), and that an AI search - which should just be a slot where you pop your own API key, especially for power users - is gated behind a stupid subscription, and no, the ChatGPT extension is not a valid workaround.

    4 votes

  18. Comment on Looking for a new mouse (maybe) in ~tech

    delphi
    Link Parent
    I don't like them, and that aversion is strong enough for me to deal with the shortcomings of the 2S (mainly the Micro-USB charging port). You should try both though, see which one you like. Most...

    I don't like them, and that aversion is strong enough for me to deal with the shortcomings of the 2S (mainly the Micro-USB charging port). You should try both though, see which one you like. Most electronics retailers have the 3S on display.

    1 vote

  19. Comment on Looking for a new mouse (maybe) in ~tech

    delphi
    Link Parent
    It's very... mushy now. Not as defined. Much less resistance. I think they changed it from being mechanical to being only held at the ratchet points through magnets, and I really dislike how that...

    It's very... mushy now. Not as defined. Much less resistance. I think they changed it from being mechanical to being only held at the ratchet points through magnets, and I really dislike how that feels. There's too much give between two distinct scroll ratchets for me

    2 votes

  20. Comment on Looking for a new mouse (maybe) in ~tech

    delphi
    Link
    I like the MX Master 2S. It lacks RGB, yes, but it's just a great mouse. Two wheels, horizontal and vertical, back and forward buttons, another customisable thumb button, nice and round, and a...

    I like the MX Master 2S. It lacks RGB, yes, but it's just a great mouse. Two wheels, horizontal and vertical, back and forward buttons, another customisable thumb button, nice and round, and a great scroll wheel they unfortunately ruined with the 3 and 3S model.

    6 votes