zoroa's recent activity
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
zoroa LinkMy internet went out over the weekend of 2025-03-09, so I ended up playing a couple offline games that I happened to have installed on my PC: Artis Impact (demo), Parcel Corps (demo), Haste:...- Exemplary
My internet went out over the weekend of 2025-03-09, so I ended up playing a couple offline games that I happened to have installed on my PC: Artis Impact (demo), Parcel Corps (demo), Haste: Broken Worlds (demo).
Artis Impact (demo)
Artis Impact's demo was the highlight of my weekend. My save says I spent 4 hours playing it, and I want to find the time to put in more. This game felt like someone took the template of a JRPG, took out the annoying parts, injected writing that makes you care about the characters, and then slapped on some of the most stylish presentation I've ever seen in a pixel art game.
The presentation of this game is off the charts.
The art style is very evocative of late 90s / early 2000s anime, both in the line work and color pallets (lots of pastels), crunched into top-down perspective pixel art. But the developer will often break that top-down perspective for emphasis in dramatic moments: wide pans over landscapes, a tracking shot as the main character races through the woods, a pitch black frame illuminated just by the light of robots and sparks flying off a sword, etc...
There is so much high quality animation in this game. Tons of objects or people you interact with come with illustrative animation (sweeping, cooking). There's so many interactions that most pixel art games avoid animating beyond a start and end frame, that get fully animated here (opening a door, sticking an object onto another, sitting down). And they're all so detailed and fluid that the developer can use them convey more about the characters: e.g. the main character has to climb onto the upgrade station to use it for her sword = she's probably not that tall. I don't understand how the solo developer was able to budget the time to make all of this, but I'm glad they did.
In the more important story moments, the game shifts to cutscenes told through manga panels. This impressed me both because of its effectiveness and its pragmatism. Fully animated cutscenes are insanely time consuming to make, but producing a cutscene with just still full-frames loses a lot of the expressiveness that video games offer. Manga paneling, especially used in concert with the techniques you gain in a digital medium, provide the dynamism that you lose with full still-frames, but are still way less time consuming to make than fully animated cutscenes. With the end product producing some of the demo's most striking moments.
I am a chronic dialogue skipper. There's games I've quit playing because they wouldn't let me speed through cutscenes and dialogue that were just diagetic exposition dumps and objective lists. There has yet to be a single piece of writing I've wanted to skip in Artis Impact.
Artis Impact's writing is relentlessly used as a vehicle to explore perspectives of its characters and its world. It's a sci-fi game that manages to not overwhelm you with exposition and technobabble. Conversations are so character driven, even in the main story, that I never wanted to skip and miss an interesting interaction that would round out my understanding of the main character or supporting cast.
I found this game really funny. At points, it had me laughing more than any game I can remember. The presentation plays a big part: the manga paneling in cutscenes lets the game play with timing and delivery in ways games without voice acting often can't. Letting the game more effectively explore the humor across the main character's silliness, her companion's snark, some satisfying schadenfreude, and even just some absurd situations you find yourself in.
If I had to point to a potential weakness in this games' writing, it'd be Billy. In a game with characters that are varying degrees of nuanced and well rounded, Billy is a flat caricature of a bro . He's so bro-y that interacting with him feels like jumping into a satire. The game does build on this for some payoffs that, admittedly, were pretty funny. But Billy sticks out as a character who is sometimes tonally dissonant, so much so that the things he says in his introduction left me with raised eyebrows and momentarily questioning whether I misjudged what kind of game I had been playing.
I think this game's pièce de résistance is how it rewards your curiosity.
Examples of the different ways the game rewards your curiosity. While they aren't groundbreaking, much of the joy I found was in discovering them myself. Marking the details as spoilers in case anyone ends up playing the game.
Like any other JRPG, you can walk up to items or NPCs and Artis Impact will give you the oneliner about that thing.
But fairly often , you get a bit more.
Walk up to a sack of flour, and you can give it a cathartic SLAP complete with animation and sound effects. If you see a chair or a stool, there's a good chance the game will let you sit down in it. Revisit an area you've been to, and you might see new people standing around having a conversation you can overhear.
The game is full of "micro-interactions" that go a long way in immersing you in the world and making it feel lived in.
But the well goes even deeper.
Talk to the right person, interact with an object the right way, or enter the right section of the map, and you might get a fully produced cutscene with manga panels. These cutscenes are some of the strongest moments in the game since the developer is able to use them as a playground to expand on anything they want with no obligations to advance the story.
The parts of this game that I remember giving me my hardest laughs, or my most profound insights into a character and the world were moments like this. Not to say that the game is otherwise devoid of these moments. But instead, the agency the game handed me to make these moments happen intensified my emotional response.
You never know how the game will respond to you poking around the world. Only that there's a good chance it will, and you'll be happy you put in the effort. Which reinforces the feedback loop that makes you want to keep poking.
The developer seems cognizant of how strong this loop is because they leverage it in a system I've never seen in another game: "slow travel". Sometimes, the game puts up a 1-2 minute timer and just makes you wait in the small playable area of your vehicle as you travel during the main story. I thought I would find this frustrating, since I usually bemoan forced pacing mechanisms in other games for keeping me from the content I enjoy. But the strength of the Artis Impact's interactivity made these moments worthwhile. The timer forcibly grounds you in the moment, building anticipation for your destination. And the only gameplay available to you is to walk around and enjoy interactions with the stuff or people around you.
The turn-based battles are by far the weakest part of the demo. I'm a random encounter hater, and love that there are none in this game. But the battle system had the depth of a puddle. It was just "use strongest move" in battle and "make stats go up" outside. In classic JRPG fashion, the skill descriptions don't adequately explain what moves do. The UI does suggest that there's a lot to the combat that just wasn't introduced in the demo, so I won't fully rule this out as a dud.
I've been aware of this game for almost a year, and probably had this demo on my computer for just as long. I'm kicking myself that I didn't play this sooner. It's exceeding rare for me to find a game, let alone a demo, that gives me the laughs, the feels, or the attachment to a cast as quickly as Artis Impact has. The game has soared to the top of my wishlist, because I think I could justify putting just the demo up on my list of favorite games I've ever played.
Parcel Corps (demo)
Nothing much to say, I didn't click with this demo at all. It's a bicycle courier game, that seems to have surprisingly deep mechanics for riding the bike. But neither the story, the writing, nor the art felt compelling enough to make me want to invest the time to master the bicycle mechanics. And I was running into pretty frequent stutters, which sucks in a game where the fun is in the movement.
Haste: Broken Worlds (demo)
I'd been aware of this game for a couple years now after seeing the developer post about it in early development. It's just a game about running fast across a track, and even back then the gameplay was something I knew I would enjoy. And I did! The running is the most fun I had with the demo. But that fun gets let down by the game they had to build around that mechanic, and also by some "legibility" issues during gameplay.
Haste: Broken Worlds is a roguelite whose structure feels heavily inspired by Hades, down to the randomized story NPC appearances during runs and even the art style of the character portraits in conversations. The comparison to Hades is not a favorable one for me though, since it highlights all the ways where I think borrowing from Hades' structure fails in Haste.
There's very little depth to the builds you can make, since the items you find are somewhat underwhelming and you lack any real ability to increase the chance of getting items that work well together. Many challenge rooms (timed search for an exit on a lava filled map, a map whose gimmick is how dark it is) are very frustrating to play and provide subpar rewards. The story through lines that thread across NPC interactions in Hades don't seem to have an analog in Haste: Broken Worlds.
Maybe the game succeeds more at being a roguelite in the full release, but the experience so far hasn't brought me the joy that I usually get from playing games of the genre.
The core gameplay loop of running, launching off slopes, and controlling your landing is very fun but also demands a lot of my attention. The game does an exceptionally poor job at communicating all the other important information that I need as I focus on controlling my character:
- The tracks themselves can be very hard to read.
- Lots of hazards (edge of the track, holes in the middle of the track) can get hidden behind terrain until it's too late to react optimally.
- The tracks can be so wide that you don't notice it curving under you. This can lead to frustrating situations where you take a sharp turn to dodge an obstacle and suddenly find yourself about to run off the track. Or the especially fun situations where the track is curved in a different direction than the game starts you in, so your initial forwards movement sends you flying towards the edge.
- One of tracks is almost completely black, which compounds the above issues and seems like an accessibility issue.
- It can be pretty hard to tell how fast you're going. The game grades and rewards you based on how quickly you complete a track. There isn't much visual feedback that would help you distinguish between a speed that would get you the lowest score, or the highest score. Both feel very similar to play. So you can complete a track thinking you're doing pretty well only to get slapped with a low grade. The game does give you a speedometer, but it's tucked in the corner of the screen and is somewhat inconvenient to look at if you're going fast.
- Item descriptions can be confusing and it can be hard to tell that they're even doing anything.
The demo teaser shows a bunch of content that I saw none of in the demo, but I don't know that I was inspired to pick this up at release. I might check it out again in a few years if it's on sale.
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Comment on Tildes Video Thread in ~misc
zoroa LinkA 1.58-Dimensional Object by Numberphile A video where a mathematician leads you down an exploration from fractals to a generalized definition of "dimensions" that goes beyond whole numbers. It...A 1.58-Dimensional Object by Numberphile
A video where a mathematician leads you down an exploration from fractals to a generalized definition of "dimensions" that goes beyond whole numbers.
It gave me that aha moment you get from seemingly unrelated areas of math connecting in a surprising way that deepens your understanding of both.
This site lets you spy on people. Are you one of them? by Christophe
(non-clickbait title: A camera in your vicinity might be publicly accessible on insecam)
For over a decade, Insecam has compiled unsecured security cameras from all over the world. What’s it trying to achieve?
Insecam is a strange corner of the internet. It’s a site that compiles live feeds from IP cameras — internet-connected devices often used for security — that aren’t protected with a password.
The site’s creator states that any cameras that invade someone’s private life are removed. But the end result is still an eerie platform for peeking into life in real-time around the world.
I set out to try to identify where one of these cameras was streaming from, and help its owner take it offline.
MinnMax Jumps Into A Lake's Ice Hole by Minnmax
MinnMax is an independent media outlet that focuses primarily on games. But once a week, they have a show called "New Show Plus" can lead to them branching out of games and doing something that their community votes on:
MinnMax's Leo Vader and Ben Hanson visit Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis and jump into a hole carved into the ice, when the outside temp is 5 degrees. Sarah Podzorski joins to record the entire, absurd endeavor. This is what we're calling a "Charge Shot" episode of New Show Plus, where occasionally we'll put something in the poll for Backstage Pass Patreon supporters that's a bigger/more extreme idea for a show but we'll skip a week or two of regular New Show Plus to make it happen.
A Beginner's Guide to Asian Sauces by Doobydobap
Been working on getting better at cooking, and ended up sitting through this 40 minute video about condiments. I found it informative, enjoyed the example dishes that were paired with the sauces, and the presenter is very funny.
Annyeong Doobies! I hope you enjoy this guide to Asian Condiments. There's a lot we cover in this video, so if you have any questions I'll try my best to answer them all in the comments below. I'd also love to know what some of your staple condiments are in your country, so please share :}
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
zoroa LinkI built a NAS Background I picked up an HP Elitedesk 800 G4 Mini to use as a home server almost a year ago, and set up Home Assistant OS through Proxmox (RIP tteck). I had wanted a NAS for a long...I built a NAS
Background
I picked up an HP Elitedesk 800 G4 Mini to use as a home server almost a year ago, and set up Home Assistant OS through Proxmox (RIP tteck). I had wanted a NAS for a long time, and bought that model because you can install 4 drives into it (2 m.2, 1 SATA 2.5" SSD, 1 m.2 drive in the network card slot with an adapter). But the entire project went on hold for a couple reasons:
- The OEM caddy for the 2.5" drive physically blocks one of the m.2 slots. Every post that I've seen where someone tries to use both involves 3D printing a new caddy, which I don't have access to.
- I didn't have any large spare SSDs available to put in the server, and SSD prices seem to have climbed back up since I last bought.
- All the adapters I found to fit an SSD into the network card slot wifi card slot required a chassis modification I didn't want to do.
Fast forward to this past January, and I stumble on a post of someone stuffing 4 SSDs into the same computer I have while managing to find an adapter that fits an SSD into the wifi card slot without chassis modification. This was a kick of motivation that made me realize the very obvious fact I don't need a NAS for bulk storage and OS drives for bulk storage, so I can move my largest capacity SSDs into the NAS and replace my OS drives with much smaller capacities. I still did need to buy one SSD, but that was better than three. And while I didn't want to mangle the chassis of the computer, I was fine with mangling the SSD caddy to make everything fit.
The Build
This should've been simple. Just:
- Move the data off my 2TB drives
- Cut out the bottom from the SSD caddy to make space
- Install the SSDs
- Set up the NAS software
- Profit
It wasn't that simple.
Moving my data off my existing 2TB drives was a journey in realizing my only spare storage capacity was scattered across multiple smaller SSDs, trying to delete as much data I didn't need, attempting to compress 100s GB of data, noticing after 2 hours that the compressed archive was bigger than the data I was trying to compress, realising that compressing compressed data (i.e.
.mp4,.mp3,.jpeg, etc...) yields little to no space savings, and finally settling for spreading out those files anywhere they would fit.Modifying the caddy was initially pretty straightforward, and I was pretty quickly able to get everything installed onto the motherboard so I could boot the device. And... the SSD in the network card slot wasn't detected by the server. I figured this might be a case where plugging in one SSD disables PCIE lanes elsewhere on the motherboard. So I emptied out all the drives I just installed, and repeated the cycle of installing one drive and booting to check that it showed up. All the drives were functional. Assuming that maybe I had a faulty connection at the start, I reinstalled all the components into the chassis, closed it, and booted it up again. And the network card SSD is gone again! It turned out that installing the 2.5" SSD caddy seemed to cause the network card SSD to malfunction. I'm pretty sure the caddy was shorting out the SSD, because it eventually died. I ended up cutting the caddy in half to guarantee that no part of it could get even get close to my storage devices, which seemed to solve the issue.
The rest was pretty smooth sailing. OpenMediaVault was very easy to set up on Proxmox, and seems to work fine after using PCIE passthrough to give it access to the SSD controllers.
What did I learn
- I still don't have the mastery over home server administration that I would like, but getting stuff running is a step in the right direction.
- If you aren't using bluetooth or wifi, you may be able to repurpose your network card slot as extra storage.
- It's probably worth having a couple spare terabytes of storage available in case I need to move stuff around.
- Bridging contacts on your SSD is bad and might kill it :D
I built a standing deskI bought a surge protectorI built a standing desk to help me be less sedentary when I work from home. Thinking about cable management threw me down a rabbit hole about surge protectors, and learned some basic facts that I probably should've known years ago:
- Surge protectors are differently rated (in Joules [J]) based on what you're trying to protect. My understanding is that you want 3000J+ for PCs.
- You should think of your surge protectors as a consumable that needs replacing every couple of years.
- It might be worth going for metal (instead of plastic) to reduce the chance of the surge protector catching fire (no clue how necessary this is, I might've been reading documentation from a manufacturer trying to upsell me).
- If you're doing cable management under a desk, you might want to look into rack mount surge protectors since the plugs come out the sides instead of straight down.
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Comment on Tildes Video Thread in ~misc
zoroa Link ParentDamn beat me to the punch. This entire channel is great, especially if you're looking for content that isn't Youtube-y (surprised face thumbnails, titles that omit relevant info to drive clicks,...Damn beat me to the punch. This entire channel is great, especially if you're looking for content that isn't Youtube-y (surprised face thumbnails, titles that omit relevant info to drive clicks, mid video sponsors, etc...)
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Comment on Common Side Effects S01E01 - Pilot in ~tv
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Comment on Steam Next Fest 2025 - February 24 to March 3 in ~games
zoroa LinkAnyone else noticing a bunch of Next Fest demos with very obviously AI generated store assets (banners, trailers) or sometimes even AI generated game assets? It's been sucking out a lot of the fun...Anyone else noticing a bunch of Next Fest demos with very obviously AI generated store assets (banners, trailers) or sometimes even AI generated game assets?
It's been sucking out a lot of the fun I find in browsing the event.
I'm somewhat curious if this is a widespread pattern, or if it's just something going on with my recommendation algorithm that I can filter out.
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Comment on Do you have a game that you love from “before your time?” in ~games
zoroa LinkTrails of the Sky: First Chapter is a game that came out a decade before I touched my first PC game, but that I continue to think about regularly 1 year+ after playing it.Trails of the Sky: First Chapter is a game that came out a decade before I touched my first PC game, but that I continue to think about regularly 1 year+ after playing it.
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Comment on Obsidian is now free for work in ~tech
zoroa LinkIs it weird that I find this very concerning? I found comfort in how clearly aligned user and company interests appeared with the previous licensing model (happier users = users buy commercial...Is it weird that I find this very concerning?
I found comfort in how clearly aligned user and company interests appeared with the previous licensing model (happier users = users buy commercial licenses = more money). Making the commericial license optional obscures that alignment, and makes me worried that Obsidian may start drifting towards wanting to make software procurement departments happy instead of users (a la Microsoft Teams). Especially since this change seemingly continues the pattern of Obsidian services becoming cheaper for users (e.g. introducing a cheaper "Sync" plan).
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Comment on After almost a century, the bike valve is finally getting an update in ~engineering
zoroa Link ParentI've seen it a couple of times in blogs by software engineers, but this is my first time outside that context. It surprises me each time how disheartened I feel to see someone cite an LLM as a...I've seen it a couple of times in blogs by software engineers, but this is my first time outside that context.
It surprises me each time how disheartened I feel to see someone cite an LLM as a primary source.
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Comment on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS is reaching end of standard support soon: April 2025. Plan to upgrade soon! in ~tech
zoroa Link ParentUbuntu is the only distro my job supports for work devices.Ubuntu is the only distro my job supports for work devices.
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Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime
zoroa (edited )LinkI'm primarily a manga reader, but once or twice a year I get the urge to binge some anime. A couple weekends ago was that time for me: Overlord I watched through all 4 seasons off a vague memory...I'm primarily a manga reader, but once or twice a year I get the urge to binge some anime.
A couple weekends ago was that time for me:
Overlord
I watched through all 4 seasons off a vague memory of someone saying Overlord was good. I don't know that I agree...
The main character spends most of a series feeling more like a plot device than a character. He has no room for character growth. He's absurdly powerful, and so much of the show's comedy is rooted in everyone thinking he's a genius leader when he isn't. Despite his power, he never makes any meaning progress in four seasons towards his main goal: figure out if he was the only person transported from earth to the new world. He's reduced to a plot device that moves the story between the subplots of the side characters we meet throughout the world. Those subplots were by far the most enjoyable part of the show for me, since the main character's role as their near-omnipotent antagonist pushes side characters to have meaningful character arcs.
The series is pretty funny. I regularly laughed at the recurring gag where the main character has to coyly get his subordinates to explain their new plans they form after they grossly misunderstand him. But the comedy also was an acute reminder of how tired I am of harems in anime, and so much of the humor in this show is based on this.
Overlord had me completely checked out in season 4. Until then, the main character acted as an anti-hero, who performed acts of great kindness in contrast to some "restrained" acts of evil. That dichotomy added some depth to how the main character approached different situations in the plot. In Season 4 this devolves into the main character repeatedly committing evil on a scale we'd never seen before for basically no narrative payoff.
World Trigger
I watched through all 3 seasons of World Trigger and enjoyed it. It's a very standard shounen, but the plot, world building, and action were still fun.
I really enjoyed watching the main character grow across the seasons.
He's very weak and not particularly smart, so he has figure out how to overcome his lack of talent to still be a productive member of his team. His weaknesses are constantly under a spotlight, since both of his best friends are among the strongest characters in the show. This makes the payoff of watching him succeed really satisfying.That said, watching the first season was rough. Each episode felt like they were trying to stretch as little content as possible to fill the 23 minute runtime. Thankfully, there's a very noticeable quality jump in the series starting in season 2 when they move to 13-episode seasons.
Yu Yu Hakusho
I watched through the first 2 seasons. Yu Yu Hakusho was completely new to me, but the experience washed me with nostalgia towards anime as a medium.
I didn't realize how much I missed about the presentation of old anime: the square aspect ratio, low resolution, cel animation, and even the very specific shade of blue it felt like every anime used to use for sunny skies.
The plot itself was fine. I was confused at the start since I'd thought Yu Yu Hakusho was a battle anime, but show starts more like an action-y sitcom. It ends up becoming a very standard battle anime complete with a training arc and a 40 episode tournament arc.
Spoiler for a theme tackled in season 2
I was surprised at the surprisingly mature way the show approached the main character's grief at losing someone close to him.
Major spoiler for end of season 2
It's a shame that the show almost immediately undoes this by resurrecting the dead character.Pluto
Wow.
This show is a masterpiece.
Lately, watching anime has been my "second monitor" activity. I watched the first episode of Pluto, and decided that I needed to carve out time to give it my full attention.
My reward was an anime that fires on all cylinders. The plot, world, characters, and themes all feed on each other to grow into a whole more coherent and well executed than most of its peers.
The series poses the thematic question "What does it mean to be human?" in the first episode and uses that question as a springboard to explore other ideas like the impacts of war, the Self, solipsism (or empiricism? I'm pulling on high school philosophy knowledge), etc... These themes add layers to every scene which reward you for digging further into the plot's murder mystery that's plenty interesting on its own.
The series managed to make me care about a decently large cast of characters.
The animation and cinematography are superb. I loved how the format, 8 1-hour long episodes, gave the show runners space to pace out episodes in a ways you typically can't in your typical 24 minutes.
A measure I use to gauge the "quality" of an anime is how easy it is to recommend. With most series, I end up with pretty specific audience qualifiers: "If you like slice-of-life romance anime, you'll like
<anime name>". Pluto is an easy recommend to anyone who just likes good media.
edit: plat -> plot
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Comment on Time for a new mouse? in ~comp
zoroa Link ParentMy current mouse, the Zaopin Z2, markets itself partially on the fact that the switches are swappable with no solder. The mouse is one of the numerous budget, high spec gaming mice that have been...Does anyone have recommendations for repairable mice?
My current mouse, the Zaopin Z2, markets itself partially on the fact that the switches are swappable with no solder. The mouse is one of the numerous budget, high spec gaming mice that have been appearing in the last few years. I got it after my g305 started having issues.
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Comment on You've never seen (or heard) a game quite like 'Skate Story' in ~games
zoroa Link ParentIf you haven't already heard, the studio that made GRIS just released a new game called Neva that's very much in the same spirit.And maybe finish GRIS one more time.
If you haven't already heard, the studio that made GRIS just released a new game called Neva that's very much in the same spirit.
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Comment on You've never seen (or heard) a game quite like 'Skate Story' in ~games
zoroa (edited )LinkI'm really excited for Skate Story. I love games that use strong aesthetics to build atmosphere (think Gris or Journey). Skate Story's trailer oozes aesthetics and atmosphere that made me want to...I'm really excited for Skate Story. I love games that use strong aesthetics to build atmosphere (think Gris or Journey). Skate Story's trailer oozes aesthetics and atmosphere that made me want to play despite not caring about the subject matter, skateboarding. The game has been my most anticipated every year since the trailer dropped in 2022.
I thought this video was worth sharing because it does a really good job at showing what I find exciting about Skate Story. And Skill Up is a reviewer who tends to value many of the same things as me in games, so I'm taking his excitement as a good sign for the game's quality upon release.
Sorry for keeping the clickbaity title. The video author tends to avoid clickbait titles (most of their reviews are a variant of "I recommend <game>"). On the rare occasions the titles deviate from that pattern, it's usually for good reason.
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You've never seen (or heard) a game quite like 'Skate Story'
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Comment on Recommendations about which Android texting app to use? in ~tech
zoroa Link ParentI think its been over a decade since I've used a default Android messaging app. QKSMS is what i currently use, and have used for the last 6 or so years. It does everything I want (SMS + MMS). I...I think its been over a decade since I've used a default Android messaging app.
QKSMS is what i currently use, and have used for the last 6 or so years. It does everything I want (SMS + MMS). I really like the message scheduling feature.
Before that, I really liked Textra and I even paid for the upgrade. The killer feature for me was the custom vibration patterns. I believe you could set them on a per conversation basis. I don't remember why I switched.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
zoroa LinkFoot Pedal (This is more a basic electronics project than a software development one) Problem I'd been thinking about getting a foot pedal to use with my PC for a couple months, but I wasn't...Foot Pedal
(This is more a basic electronics project than a software development one)
Problem
I'd been thinking about getting a foot pedal to use with my PC for a couple months, but I wasn't particularly enthused by the selection I saw for purchase:
- It looked like most of my options used proprietary configuration software - I don't have much faith in the continued availability of the configuration software, especially from the lesser known companies that produce the cheaper pedals.
- Wasn't a huge fan of the build quality I was seeing, which made me concerned about repairability.
Requirements
- Configurable with open-source software - I generally trust that open source software will be kept available and functional in the long term.
- Repairable - I expect that the foot pedal itself would be the primary point of failure, so I want to be able to swap it out.
Plan
My idea was to approach this like building a mechanical keyboard:
- There's a ton of resources available for building or buying keyboards in a ton of different form factors.
- Via is a popular open source keyboard configuration software that I already use for my current keyboard.
- Repairability is part of the culture of the hobby (replacing switches), so there might be a way I can tap into this to make it easy to swap out the pedal.
This approach reduces the hard part of the project to "How do I connect a pedal to a mechanical keyboard?". My insight was that pedals for digital pianos and mechanical keyboard switches work exactly the same way: it's a basic electrical switch. So I just needed to get a keyboard switch, remove the stem and the spring, and then solder a connection from the metal leaf inside the switch to a female TS jack . This would give me a "Keyboard Switch to Female TS Jack" connector that lets me connect any digital piano pedal to any mechanical keyboard.
I expected the solder joint to be a weak point, so I hoped that filling the keyboard switch with epoxy afterwards would reinforce the solder joint.
Materials
- 1/4 inch Female TS to Banana Plug Speaker Cable
- The banana plugs are irrelevant, I cut them off to expose the metal wire. I got this to make my life easier by having 2 discrete wires I could work with.
- Compact Sustain Pedal with Polarity Switch
Epoxy(Never ended up using)- One Mechanical Keyboard Switch
- Any switch should work, so long as you have access to the metal leaf when you open the switch, and the switch is compatible with the keyboard you want to put the switch on.
- 9 Key Macropad, Via Compatible, Hotswappable Switches
- This would work with a single key macropad, but the 9 key I found was very close in price to the single-key keyboards I saw with similar features.
Challenges
- Wires were WAY too big - I didn't put much thought into the wires of the female TS jack I bought, and ended up with wires with a low gauge (=thick wires).
- I had to remove some of the plastic inside the keyboard switch to make space.
- The TS jack's wires barely fit through the opening for the keyboard switch's stem.
- I had planned to pour epoxy through that opening to reinforce the soldering I did, but the thickness of the wires left little space to make that happen. I abandoned the idea since it seemed like more trouble than it was worth at that point.
- The wires were stranded , so I had to be careful that a rogue strand didn't cause a short circuit.
- The wires were so thick that it was difficult to maneuver them in place for soldering.
- I had poor soldering equipment - My soldering iron is super old, has a tip that needs to be replaced, no temperature control, etc...
- I was constantly having issues just getting the solder to melt
Improvements for next time
- Use thinner wires
- Get better tools
- A better soldering iron (or at least better maintained) would have made a world of difference.
- I might've been able to completely avoid soldering if I used something like solder seal connectors or even just heat shrink.
- Aesthetics of the "Keyboard Switch to Female TS Jack" connector
- Getting rid of the stem of the keyboard switch means that you'll have a switch on a keyboard without a keycap
- It might be worth using a keyboard switch with opaque housing. Both to color match with the rest of the keyboard, and hide the soldering.
- Filling the switch with an opaque/colored epoxy would also help hide the soldering
- It might be worth leveraging some techniques used to build DIY keyboard cables to make the wire connecting the switch to the Female TS Jack look more premium.
- Getting rid of the stem of the keyboard switch means that you'll have a switch on a keyboard without a keycap
Miscellaneous Notes
- You probably want to get a piano pedal with a polarity switch. There isn't any standardization on whether digital pianos expect a pedal that is "normally open" (actuating the switch lets electricity flow) or "normally closed" (actuating the switch prevents electricity flow). Polarity Switches let you swap between both modes, so that you can be sure that you can make the switch behave as you'd expect.
- The "Keyboard Switch to Female TS Jack" connector feels like an idea that someone could refine and commercialize.
- This may be a use for "defective" keyboard switch housings, since you don't need a spring or a stem.
- It's a straightforward sell to mechanical keyboard users, since they can just add it onto their current keyboard in lieu of a key they seldom use.
- Could be sold alongside a more complete kit that includes a keyboard PCB, the "Keyboard Switch to Female TS Jack" connector, a housing for the PCB, and a piano pedal.
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tech
zoroa Link ParentZendesk characterizing the people the researcher contacted as "third parties" feels disingenuous too. They're the potential victims of the exploit that Zendesk was refusing to remediate.Zendesk characterizing the people the researcher contacted as "third parties" feels disingenuous too.
They're the potential victims of the exploit that Zendesk was refusing to remediate.
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tech
zoroa Link ParentIn the same vein, the only times I've voluntarily engaged with Twitter in the last 5 years are have been to use it as an intermediary between myself and a business. For example, the most reliable...In the same vein, the only times I've voluntarily engaged with Twitter in the last 5 years are have been to use it as an intermediary between myself and a business.
For example, the most reliable way for me to diagnose whether an internet issue was my fault or my provider's fault has been to go to Twitter and search for tweets that mention their support handle. I can only remember a single time when a service issue with my ISP was marked on their outage map when I went to check.
@feanne The art in Artis Impact reminded me of some of your itch.io games you shared on Tildes last year. Pinging you just in case you're interested.