Music lover and English teacher with an interest in slightly geeky things

mastodon / blog / listenbrainz

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Cake day: Jun 08, 2023

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I don’t know who those people are. But I clicked on the link. The people in the photo, they look precisely as I would have imagined them.


Shmupdate:

GreyLancer (oldie but a goodie, too tempting to play on easy mode with rewinds so replay value is lowish, but was still very enjoyable.)

Crisis Wing (love the graphics, good difficulty levels for near-beginner.)

Radiant Silvergun (what the hell were they smokin at Treasure!? Even on very easy this is going to take me at least 25 hours to beat using every life/ship I can get. Probably double that! In the first hour of play I went from “well this is garbage” to "oh, I see, you just need to put in the time and effort and then it’s awesome.)

Still haven’t finished the boss rush on Andro Dunos II so those extra levels will be a mystery to me…

R-Type Dimensions EX is on sale right now, so I’ll probably buy that tomorrow.


Accelerated Mobile Pages

Main issue, for me at least, is about locking publishers into a Google-built version of the Web that generates less revenue for the publisher and sometimes uses more data for the end user.


Review: Kaze and the Wild Masks
Took a few minutes today to write a review of this game I played this year. It regularly drops in price to €5, so if you ever see it on sale, grab it for a lazy Sunday. [archive](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fbobbyhiltz.com%2Fblog%2F2024%2F10%2Freview-kaze-wild-masks%2F)
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I found Iconoclasts to be pretty uplifting to play. The ending is marvellously satisfying.

The Shantae games are good.

Disney Illusion Island fits in here too.


Excellent game. Still never quite finished it. I think have 3 screens left.


Handbrake is the tool that comes to mind. You’ve already mentioned FFmpeg which is what I always try to use.


I’ve always liked FF. We had FF1 on the NES back when but the battery in it was dead so we had to the leave the console on. My brother got through it after a good number of afternoons.

I never got into it though. I like watching it. I remember the obsession around FFVII.

Then I picked up one of those SNES Mini things that came with… FFIV. That one got me. I wasn’t surprised to find out that loads of people love that one in particular.


Butterball frozen turkeys are like 25% water, sugar, and salt. They’re nasty. That’s what I grew up on, And I thought they were the best of the best. One at Thanksgiving and another for Christmas! So great, plus the price is right, turkey is turkey, right?

My mother mocked me for buying something else one year, so I can understand why people would be shocked. The waited too long, they have no backup, they think that having meat is a requirement of a healthy meal…

But these birds aren’t worth the electricity used to freeze them.



I’m tracking sales on dekudeals for the moment but I did get copies of Raiden IV (which is definitely something I enjoy), Ando Dunos II ( still can’t beat the boss rush to unlock the last levels) and GreyLancer.

I’ll probably pick up Strikers 1945 II this week since it is on sale.

I’m just patiently waiting and also considering grabbing some physical copies of games that I’ve seen for sale on local marketplaces (Sophstar and Mushihimesama).


Not even a third of the way through… Holy crap.


I don’t want to make generalisations. I have worked with people from all around the world as a teacher at an international business school. A thing that comes up quite often is a certain close-mindedness of people in China. I never would have noticed this myself, but it was my own students from China that mentioned it to me. I’ve only been to China once for 3 weeks and I while talking to people I did hear some comments about other nationalities that made little sense historically. My friend that I was visiting there basically said that anything bad that happens in China is caused by foreigners or Uyghurs which sounds like BS to me.

Why a child, though? That’s some evil shit. Get that person’s phone and look at ther social media, I bet their WeChat is filled with anti-Japanese shit.

The majority of my international students are very worldly and open-minded, and every year there are more like them.


Loved Nier: Automata. I didn’t finish it completely, I think I got through Nines’ playthrough and stopped after that and sold the game.

That music sticks in your head though! Have you seen the Anime?


I’m trying to get into shmups. Just playing whatever I can find on sale on Switch. Mostly Raiden IV x MIKADO Remix on loop. I think I might be getting better!



You can still install Rockbox on many different MP3 players, that comes with little games like that…and Doom.


I’m still considering getting one of these


Some games it was just the difficulty that scared me.

There were plenty of jump scare games that definitely got me like the early RE and SH games. Even Metroid games got me when I was a kid.

I haven’t tried a horror game in more than 20 years though!


I don’t have a Steam Deck, but I’d imagine it has something to do with Windows or anti-cheat software of some sort. It looks like many of the Raiden series are not Deck Verified…

https://gg.deals/games/?platform=8192&title=raiden


Sharing this because of my recent growing interest in the genre and because this is one of the series that I've actually played a bit. Pre-orders are up on play-asia and elsewhere https://www.play-asia.com/search/Raiden+NOVA
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I was thinking of getting it, trying it, and holding onto it to resell. But, someone might be able to talk the seller down. Judging by the other items they are selling, not just games, it looks like this person caught the “import stuff from abroad” bug and it now unloading loads of merch at rather high and prices. I’m not going to barter though since it is available on play-asia for less.


Someone is selling Mushihimesama on my local marketplace. I know it is no longer in production or on the Switch estore. Is €55 worth it for this game? It is used of course.

Update: I see that it can be purchased new for 43 on different sites, so I suppose not…


Doesn’t appear that it is… But I’ll look it up anyway.


Haven’t heard the term “euroshmup” before. Also haven’t seen Sine Mora on any lists that I’ve been looking at either.


Sorry, but this is not what I need. I’ve seen this list and many similar to it. Just want a few names of games. Nintendo Life is a good resource, though.


Switch probably, but emulation is an option.


I don’t have much to go on, it has been more than 30 years since my arcade days. I’ve been making a list and am trying to prioritise purchases. I think Ikaruga will come first as soon as it is on sale again (which isn’t very often).

I don’t have a Steam account, but I’ll try your method anyway to see how it compares to what is already on my list.

Thanks.


I searched but did not see this community, thanks!


This is at the top of my list, so it will come sooner or later!

I don’t have anything substantial except fond memories or R-Type and Raiden, and a copy of Raiden IV that I tend to play on loop when I have days off.


Shmup suggestions
Recently I've been looking into expanding the number of shmups in my library. Which games should I prioritise getting? Any that I should avoid?
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(just gonna be annoying and note that the 404 Media article isn’t a true “paywall”, they addressed this on their blog: https://www.404media.co/why-404-media-needs-your-email-address/. If you create an account you don’t need to pay and they email the published articles in full every day.)


Still catching up on the many Switch games I’ve missed over the years. Super Mario Odyssey, Starlink: Battle for Atlas, and Metroid Prime Remastered are getting lots of play. They are all excellent. Starlink gives me motion sickness though, so I have to limit that to 20–30-minute sessions.


This is a bit of a TIL for me. Alberta and Saskatchewan, obvious. I didn’t know that NB had an active anti-trans policy in effect.


My scepticism is through the roof reading this. First, I find it hard to believe that he has two working units unless they are programmed to sit in front of a terminal and tap Y…

The rest speaks for itself: Musk likes to BS.



Ok. Makes sense. The video is geoblocked for me so I probably should’ve kept my mouth shut


Maybe just bad research. I haven’t tried, but I’m sure if you search for “how to protect yourself online” some of the SEO manipulating websites show up in the first results.


Prescription shenanigans and my mother’s GP
Hi all, My former family doctor has been doing some odd things these past few months. I moved away so I haven't dealt with this person in years. My mother, however, is at an age where having a family doctor is very important. Here's the deal. Among some other odd interactions, 2 events have happened that worry my mother and seem peculiar to me: 1. GP prescribed heart medication to my mother years ago. The proof is in the system. My mother still has the prescription because she is a hoarder. The pharmacy has the record. My mother recently consulted a cardiologist who is convinced that the problem that medication treats is not my mother's problem. Cardiologist asks, "who gave you this and why, I need to talk to them." Mother tells them. Phone calls exchanged. GP says, "no, I did not write that script." They refuse outright and have continued to double down on that statement ever since. That was *odd*. And it slowed things down for further treatment. But then... 2. Recently a new health issue lead my mother to the GP. The doctor prescribed medication for the problem. But, they wrote the prescription on a different doctor's pad. Not by mistake. They left the room and came back with the other pad. My mother noticed it go down but still went to the pharmacy. Sure enough, this doctor that my mother has never consulted is listed as the prescribing doctor. My mother read the insert for the medication and it notes not to take it in combination with other medications that she is currently prescribed. She has decided not to take it. I just wanted to bounce this off the wall here and see what any of you thought. Should I encourage my mother to find a different doctor?
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An old friend of mine that I’ve lost touch with is Chinese. They lived in Europe for a number of years. When they couldn’t get a new job their visa ran out and the went back home.

No problem getting a job. They had a place to live. Things were good.

But… When they left Europe they basically told their roommate, a student who was about 10 years their younger, that they were leaving and that’s it. They abandoned the apartment. This left not only rent up to the student, but also the €300 fee of changing the name on the rental contract.

If a police investigation is launched against someone in China, you can be damned sure they will turn up something. If this influencer ever saw a doobie they will find out, and if they never did drugs they will find an acquaintance who did.

I say this because one day when my friend left work there was a car waiting. It was the father of her roommate. Turns out he was a “special” police officer. He told them to get in and gave her a folder. The folder had photos of them, their friends, even me. There were notes on the friends, SMS and social media exchanges. This included references to drugs. He took them to a bank, told them to take out the equivalent of €900 (he had their bank statements already) or their family would hear about this…and then he left them there on the street.


Before you delete your comments and reviews change them to something very basic and neutral?


An animated series is also in the works, so there is also that to look forward to.


Dang. The fire got close to my family’s homes. 22 y/o probably won’t get max sentence but this will probably mess up his career aspects.


Yep. I have never had to use Discord. Or, I suppose I should say I haven’t had to use it yet. But when I see that a project uses Discord and not a forum or even Discourse, Matrix or IRC, I just hope I never have to ask for help.





[Discussion] Games you forgot you had
The other day my son was messing around on my PS4. He went into the library and launched **Geometry Wars³: Dimensions**. My wife and I heard the music and were like "YES!" and now our family is re-addicted to this game...after 6 years or 7 years of never touching the thing. What are games you forgot you had and "fell" back into?
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We hear a lot about this guy, why not a little more. This podcast is doing a series on Musk that is quite revealing, totally worth a listen if you are interested in business or tech. They are currently on part 2 of 4.
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How bilingual are you?
I was very lucky growing up, and my little middle school in my little village in Nova Scotia offered French Immersion (late, started grade 7). Sure, some of my teachers were anglophone, but the rest were Acadian. When I went to university I didn't think much about it, but soon discovered that I was functionally and operationally bilingual. I continued to study French at university where all of my teachers happend to be from *la belle province* and graduated. Now I'm a professor in France. I've been doing this for about 17 years. My students greatly underestimate their level in English, yet here I am correcting 750-word essays written by 1st year students who have only "studied" English for an hour or two a week since middle school. Are they good? Meh... But they are better than they imagine. Canada is supposed to be bilingual. I've seen different numbers fly around over the years regarding the percentage of bilingual Canadians. How about you, are you bilingual? How bilingual? --- Addendum: These maps are not directly related to the question, but I came across them while looking things up. This is from 2016. I like showing this to my students. They always ask me why I bothered learning French. ![](https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/982954d7-a767-4dee-82ef-b0fa7450b7e7.webp) And this is from 2021 and is a little bit related to my question, but only covers English and French. ![](https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/6ef04374-af9e-4c1c-a25a-02d5b0e98efd.webp) [source](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220817/dq220817a-eng.htm)
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You can't make this stuff up... > Jody Ledgerwood, a real estate broker from Cobourg, Ontario who played a behind-the-scenes role during the 2022 Freedom Convoy occupation, told PressProgress she attended two secret “Save the Children Convoy” meetings in Marmora and Mississauga this summer. > > According to Ledgerwood, at these meetings some Save the Children Convoy leaders shared a plan that allegedly involved three “phases.” > > “Phase one” of the plan involved sending a convoy to occupy Toronto’s financial district. When Toronto Police mobilized public order units to end the convoy occupation, a second convoy would surprise police and box them in, forcing police to surrender. > >“Phase two” involved surrounding eight federal buildings in Ottawa and detaining MPs, holding the elected officials in custody until they gave into the convoy leader’s demands. > > While phase two was unfolding, another group would simultaneously execute “phase three” by sending a final convoy to **confront the Freemasons** in the oceanside village of Tofino, British Columbia where they would “take the head off the snake.” How did the Freemasons get involved? I really need an [explainer video like the last time a convoy got to Ottawa](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2OlAXDW7W0).
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>“We want to parent our kids until they're 18 and ready to make decisions by themselves. Whatever decision they make later, that's a decision as an adult." The *harder* you parent, the stronger your children push back. For a group of concerned parents, they seem to know less than me, and I've only been parenting for about 6 years. Parental influence on behaviour begins dropping around the age of 6. At that point external influences, like friends at school, stat becoming more important. By adolescence it has dropped to around 50%. By 20 it is 0%. When you let a kid breathe and make mistakes, they will listen to you without needing overbearing control... Clearly, this whole thing stinks of money. They are buying targeted ads on FB and adding a layer of embarrassment that will see Canada mocked and ridiculed. This is a hate group.
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Choice quote: > Elliot McDavid, another convoy organizer who made headlines harassing Chrystia Freeland last year, believes the Government of Alberta is colluding with insurance companies to produce child pornography and has claimed children are being “hunted down like animals” and “thrown in a rail car” by “degenerates on horseback.”
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The Internet is not forever after all: CNET deletes old articles to game Google
>It is perhaps another sign of how bad things have become with Google's search results—full of algorithmically generated junk sites—that publications like CNET are driven to such extremes to stay above the sea of noise. [Archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20230811064558/https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/08/the-internet-is-not-forever-after-all-cnet-deletes-old-articles-to-game-google/) / [Archive.is](https://archive.is/nCVTw)
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[Archive link](https://archive.ph/dsTJg) Not a big fan of the title (asking question in the title isn't a great idea) but the conclusions give a good summary: >The Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) represents a significant step in Europe’s efforts to enhance cybersecurity. However, its potential implications for the open source software community have raised serious concerns. Critics argue that the legislation, in its current form, could impose undue burdens on open source contributors and inadvertently increase the risk of software vulnerabilities being exploited. > >New insights from GitHub’s blog post highlight additional concerns. The CRA could potentially introduce a burdensome compliance regime and penalties for open source projects that accept donations, thereby undermining the sustainability of these projects. It could also regulate open source projects unless they have “a fully decentralised development model,” potentially discouraging companies from allowing their employees to contribute to open source projects. Furthermore, the CRA could disrupt coordinated vulnerability disclosure by requiring any software developer to report to ENISA all actively exploited vulnerabilities within a timeline measured in hours after discovering them.
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Things got very out of hand last night. Tonight will likely be worse. I stayed up part of the night following this, and did hear some sirens from my house. I don't live near any of the places mentioned in the article. The **TL;DR** here is that protest that started in [Nanterre](https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/85799) has spread out to other cities. Police headquarters, libraries, bus shelters, stores, etc. have been burned or looted. Even mayor's offices were firebombed with mortars or fireworks. Vehicles have been burned out, construction vehicles are being used to destroy things. Chainsaws are being used to cut down streetlights in order to destroy cameras. There are some extremely chaotic videos. Over 600 people were arrested during the night, Macron is in meetings now to find a solution...[^1] The police officer has been taken into custody. For the moment, it looks like his career is toast. Despite what appears to be a spotless career, with some commendations, investigators have decided it was a bad shooting. His family was doxxed and moved to safety. His photo was shared on the web (later scrubbed, someone already jailed for sharing it[^2]). Many users commented on the officers tattoo of a [cross pattée](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_patt%C3%A9e) which is a right-wing symbol in France[^wing]. I have found no source confirming that the photo was of that police officer in question. The bodycams were not on during the incident. It appears that this was not intentional. They bought very poor quality cameras. [^1]: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230630-%F0%9F%94%B4-live-third-night-of-violent-clashes-between-police-and-protesters-in-france-hundreds-arrested [^2]: citation needed [^wing]: https://indextreme.fr/croix/pattee.html
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Yesterday while browsing the front page of that other site I came across a video of a TikTok user who finds people based on short videos. Their TikTok page can be viewed here: https://proxitok.privacy.com.de/@the_josemonkey (and they also have a webpage https://josemonkey.wordpress.com/) I find it amazing, geeky, fascinating, and **creepy** that a single person with a computer — not a government organisation — is able to do this. It all reminds me of that [Wired article from 2009](https://www.wired.com/2009/11/ff-vanish2/) about the man who tried to go off grid and was eventually found by internet sleuths. **TL;DR doxxing has never been easier, don't say or share anything on the web that you wouldn't want printed on the front page of a newspaper.**
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An official FBI document dated January 2021, obtained by the American association "Property of People" through the Freedom of Information Act. This document summarizes the possibilities for legal access to data from nine instant messaging services: iMessage, Line, Signal, Telegram, Threema, Viber, WeChat, WhatsApp and Wickr. For each software, different judicial methods are explored, such as subpoena, search warrant, active collection of communications metadata ("Pen Register") or connection data retention law ("18 USC§2703"). Here, in essence, is the information the FBI says it can retrieve: * **Apple iMessage**: basic subscriber data; in the case of an iPhone user, investigators may be able to get their hands on message content if the user uses iCloud to synchronize iMessage messages or to back up data on their phone. * **Line**: account data (image, username, e-mail address, phone number, Line ID, creation date, usage data, etc.); if the user has not activated end-to-end encryption, investigators can retrieve the texts of exchanges over a seven-day period, but not other data (audio, video, images, location). * **Signal**: date and time of account creation and date of last connection. * **Telegram**: IP address and phone number for investigations into confirmed terrorists, otherwise nothing. * **Threema**: cryptographic fingerprint of phone number and e-mail address, push service tokens if used, public key, account creation date, last connection date. * **Viber**: account data and IP address used to create the account; investigators can also access message history (date, time, source, destination). * **WeChat**: basic data such as name, phone number, e-mail and IP address, but only for non-Chinese users. * **WhatsApp**: the targeted person's basic data, address book and contacts who have the targeted person in their address book; it is possible to collect message metadata in real time ("Pen Register"); message content can be retrieved via iCloud backups. * **Wickr**: Date and time of account creation, types of terminal on which the application is installed, date of last connection, number of messages exchanged, external identifiers associated with the account (e-mail addresses, telephone numbers), avatar image, data linked to adding or deleting. **TL;DR Signal is the messaging system that provides the least information to investigators.**
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WhatsApp and the domestication of users
As [Seirdy notes](https://pleroma.envs.net/notice/AWn7NRQHKP0Do3VG6K): >It just keeps getting more relevant. WhatsApp, GitHub, Twitter, Reddit…each disaster worse than the last. The companies in charge know that the users will just take it after having their autonomy taken first.
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Unihertz Jelly Star - Smallest Android Phone Funding Campaign Launched
![](https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/5c7e6d80-2483-478c-bcec-906345913c3b.jpeg) ![](https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/30703893-23b3-4465-b7dd-cf86f8953858.png)
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