Posted around 22 Nov 2021 from the Graduates of Major Fediversity department · Link to this post

I managed to update the audio blog today. I've actually recorded a lot of updates, but they weren't up to my usual quality (and, since my usual quality is rambling without a script into a voice recorder, that takes some doing). But today I managed to buck the trend and talk about something semi-coherently for a few minutes. I'm sure this trend won't last

I go over my plans to re-enter the fediverse again. I tried getting into the fediverse several months ago by installing Matrix, but decided that I didn't like it much. I was ready to write off the fediverse as something that I don't want any piece of, but my stance has changed slightly. I'm still not completely sold on it, but I figured I could give it another shot if I could find some software that was less annoying. Pleroma seems less anoying, so I went with that.

Since I have no idea what I'm doing and I may or may not continue this project past the honeymoon period, I'm not going to announce my instance's name publicly yet, but I'm not hiding it, either. It's findable, but I want to make sure that I'm going to keep using it for more than a couple of weeks and I'm not going to get bored with it and delete the whole server out of annoyance.

Posted around 26 Oct 2021 from the Gradations aren't just for science any more department · Link to this post

-I've made several updates to [BROKEN LINK: video/index.html#episode2] over the last few weeks. Today I talk about how a game I really liked and a game I didn't really like all that much are related, but I never knew about it until years later. -I actually had to buy one of the props I used in this video, but it was a lot harder than I expected. This is mostly because I tried to buy it three times before someone actually sent it to me. As a bonus I bought a few more games from the same place and updated the game lists accordingly -Someone gave me a gift card, so I used it to upgrade my voice recorder so the audioblog sounds more like a person talking into a mic and less like a bad telephone connection. I tested it out by rambling for a few minutes about how I really liked (and still do) games that have fantastic backstories to explain what you're doing on the screen.

Posted around 30 Sep 2021 from the Flash Turnipseed department · Link to this post

-A while ago I decided that I wanted to try to make some videos related to video games without actually showing any video game footage. It's not the worst idea I've ever had, probably, but I figured it was time to see if I could make it work. I'm calling the series Episode 2 and the first clip is available here. -I also updated the audioblog with some thoughts about Little Free Libraries.

I probably won't be putting up a main page entry for every Episode 2 video I make, so if you want to keep up with those, I highly recommend checking the media RSS feed or visiting every day. Or maybe both, if that's what you're in to.

Posted around 21 Sep 2021 from the It's 'statistics', not 'sastistics' department · Link to this post

-I have a tendency to check my statistics a lot. Web hits, views, likes, et cetera. I realized, though, that I spend way too much time doing that, so I'm ceasing analyzing stats on my site, effective immediately. -I actually sold a few games from my collection and updated the lists accordingly. I know it's weird to collect things and then to sell them off (selling is the opposite of collecting), but there's a bubble of people paying way too many dollars for old video games, so I figured I'd take advantage of it and sell off some of my duplicates. So far it turns out that what I have to sell won't pay for my retirement.

Posted around 04 Sep 2021 from the Relentless Self-promotion department · Link to this post

• I picked up a GPD XD+ recently. I had a lot of trouble with it until I figured out that the 512GB SD card that I got with it turned out to be couterfeit. I got a real SD card and now I can properly run it through its paces.
• A while back one of the people I follow on Twitter got a little bit grumpy about people not engaging with their content. I had a lot to say about that and I decided to make an audioblog about it, too, so the thoughts don't get lost since Twitter likes to pretend that anything that happened yesterday or earlier doesn't exist.

Posted around 11 Aug 2021 from the Arguing with the dead department · Link to this post

• I finally decided to pick up the Final Fantasy VII remake. Since the 'remake' only covers roughly the first disk of the original game, I had originally thought about waiting until the whole thing was remade and then just get the inevitable box set/whatever form the final product takes. It's looking increasingly likely that the rest of the parts won't be done before the heat death of the universe, so I decided to go another direction. Also, the remake was on some kind of super sale. Updated the PS4 inventory page with a few new acquistions.
• A long time ago, a movie critic declared that video games are not art and could never be art. The Internet™ went bananas and yelled at him so much that he reiterated that point a few more times. I thought the thing to do would be to ignore him, which I did for a long time. I decided to write down my thoughts about it so that hopefully my brain will quit bugging me to do that every so often.

Posted around 29 Jul 2021 from the Odds and very odds department · Link to this post

• I picked up my first PS5 game, even though I haven't been able to get my hands on a PS5 yet (and, to be honest, I haven't tried very hard). So, naturally, I had to start a PS5 inventory page. I'm not too worried about playing this game in the near future. It's a game in a series that looked interesting enough that I started getting the games in anticipation of playing through them, but I haven't managed to do that yet. Now that the collection runs across three generations of console, maybe I should work on that.
• Updated the audio blog with an entry about difficulties I have [BROKEN LINK: audio/episode1/1059.mp3]. I've noticed myself recording a lot more audioblog entries than I post lately. I end up either second-guessing my material or deciding that the material might make a better blog entry and then never writing that blog entry. The good news is that I have a lot of outtakes that I can use when I do my year-end I'm-on-vacation-but-still-putting-out-content-supercut I'm kidding about and probably won't do.

Posted around 19 Jul 2021 from the Frank Bennedetto never gave me the five bucks department · Link to this post

• I found a few more miscellaneous Skylanders in a shopping bag that I picked up from a local thrift store a few years ago. ID'd them and updated the Skylanders inventory page for probably the last time. Unless I decide to put the various starter kits I have on there.
• Got my hands on a Super Console X for a pittance (and also $5). I wrote up my experience with the thing.

Posted around 12 Jul 2021 from the Coming in for a Skylanding department · Link to this post

Eagle-eyed visitors may have noticed a new inventory page, one for Skylanders. I never really intended to collect them, but for a while they were so cheap, it seemed silly not to. I'm kind of over it now, though, and inventorying them seemed the best way to get them organized for me to eventually sell them off. I also wrote a little bit about my Skylanders collecting experience

Posted around 24 Jun 2021 from the I say! department · Link to this post

It's been a busy few days, not that you can tell from looking around here. I started writing a few entries and recorded a lot of audio blog entries, but I second-guessed myself out of publishing all of them. Except for two audio blogs.

• I talk about the 'old Internet', and how nostalgia for it is real, but also that sitting around doing nothing about it is pointless.
• About nine years ago I figured I'd jump on the Let's Play bandwagon. I grabbed a friend and we had a blast making a whole lot of videos where we played a bunch of games. I talk about it for a while.

Posted around 9 Jun 2021 from the Williams - 1974 department · Link to this post

I've been kind of busy the last few days, but I wanted to wait to collect a bunch of updates so I could roll them all into one. Although, given the theme of the updates, maybe I should have broken them up into a few dozen tweets instead

• I had been moving away from my twitter account toward the middle-to-end of 2019, but then the global pandemic started and I started checking it again to keep up to date on that. Twitter has mostly normalized now, and the people I follow don't talk about much any more, so is it time to start moving away from it again? I ramble about it for a while.
• About a month ago I installed Matrix because some friends were asking me to join them on Discord. I try to not have notifications pulling me in a dozen different directions, so Matrix seemed like a good choice to maybe mitigate that. After giving it a try for about a month, I decided to write some thoughts about it.
• While I was on that subject, I got to thinking about the role that I play online, and wonder if I should more active in setting up and encouraging friends who don't have the means to set up their own services and websites instead of watching them join the mega-corp-services and doing nothing about it. Or something like that.

Whew! I'm exhausted.

Posted around 18 May 2021 from the From the Trollnsylvania Bureau department · Link to this post

• When I'm out in the wild and I run across a video game I've never heard of for certain consoles, I'll buy it, if it's not too expensive. Sometimes I get lucky and the game's a rare gem that's super-impressive to have in my collection. Other times I get games like Metal Mech: Man & Machine that I had somehow managed to miss completely up until now. Updated the NES Inventory with Metal Mech and a handful more games I picked up recently.
• A few times over the last few days I nearly broke one of my personal rules to engage with a troll. I got hold of myself and didn't do it, but I wrote myself a reminder to consult if I ever feel tempted again.

Posted around 12052021 from the May the trix be with you department · Link to this post

On a whim, I decided to install Matrix without having an end goal. Then I wrote some words about it I partly did it because I get requests to join centralized communication networks a lot. I have accounts on a few of them, but the concept generally annoys me. So, I rebelled a little bit and installed an alternative. Also I just thought the domain name sounded like it should have something like Matrix on it.

Posted around 23 Apr 2021 from the The 'b' in 'blog' stands for 'blog' department · Link to this post

Added two features the the site:

• I mentioned in the last bchlog entry that I had some self-inflicted computer problems. I actually found out that they ran a lot deeper than I thought. I wanted to write about my experiences, but it didn't seem to fit in any of the Usual Places™, so I made a section for articles that I wanted to write, but were less formal and more conversational. AKA a blog section (yes, I know I have the 'not a blog' category in the Articles, but that didn't fool anyone). I may even break with tradition and add an image now and again when appropriate. This isn't going to be a typical blog, I just didn't have a better name for it. It'll be updated whenever I have something to talk about.
• I sometimes pretend that I'm a video game streamer or a YouTuber, and that means that I have a lot of video capture equipment hanging around. Some of it works under Linux, but I also sometimes wonder if it will work with FreeBSD, since I'm using it a lot more for my daily computing. Information is sometimes hard to find online, so I decided that I would try some of the hardware I had laying around (and some I purchased specifically for this purpose) and see if they worked with FreeBSD, and then document whether they worked or not. After an initial flurry of activity, I don't expect that this page will get updated very often since I don't really have the resources to dump too many of my dollars into random hardware I found on Amazon or the clearance bin at Office Depot.

Posted around 19 Apr 2021 from the Stay awhile and listen department · Link to this post

Over the last week I've been dealing with some stupid self-inflicted computer problems. They're mostly resolved now (and I'll probably write up an article about them soon too feed the Content Monster™), but in the meantime I wrote a brief article talking about using the Creative Labs Soundblaster Z in FreeBSD. It's technically the Soundblaster Z SE, but since it's literally the same card, I'm not splitting hairs.

Posted around 1 Apr 2021 from the Unsolicited Advice department · Link to this post

I've had two issues swimming around my head for the past week or so. I originally recorded them as vlog entries, but I didn't like how they turned out, so I decided to make them into articles instead. They both involve unsolicited advice, so I thought I'd go for a theme.

• There's a Big Deal™ going on in the world of Free Software that's nearly caused a schism (and it still might, who knows?). If you haven't heard about it, then that means you're a normal person. I decided to weigh in on it anyway.
• I sometimes like to stream video games, though I don't do it as often as I'd like I have fun doing it. I stumbled on some unsolicited advice while doing something unrelated and while I think it was coming from a place of good intentions, the underlying message really bothered me.

Posted around 12 Mar 2021 from the Can I call you collect? department · Link to this post

• I was musing to myself the other day that I thought collecting video games wasn't as fun as it used to be in a lot of ways, but then I figured nobody else would know my thoughts about this very important topic, so I decided to write them down and share them with you.

Posted around 8 Mar 2021 from the rsync or swim department · Link to this post

• A few weeks ago I rebuilt a server after accidentally destroying its operating system and it started misbehaving. I thought I might have screwed something up, but it turns out that it wasn't my fault for once, but it was a mystery worth solving. The alternative was just being annoyed for a few weeks, I guess, but that's not a very exciting article.

Posted around 18 Feb 2021 from the CoC-au-vin department · Link to this post

• Made a substantial video for the vlog today (it'll go up on the YouTube channel sometime tomorrow) where I weigh in on Codes of Conduct. It's a lot longer than what I normally do for a vlog, and I also use two prominent free software peronalities as examples. Not to name call or dogpile or anything like that, but to highlight two examples of resistance that I think is actually endemic. I always worry about making things like this because I've convinced myself that I've probably misunderstood something about a marginalized group and something that I've said will hinder some efforts or make me come off as being clueless or 'mansplaining'. But then I also have to tell myself that if I don't get my thoughts out there so that the misunderstandings can be caught, dicusssions can be had, and understanding reached, then I'm not helping anyone at all.

Posted around 12 Feb 2021 from the No CIFS, NANDs, or Mutts department · Link to this post

• Several years ago I configured an Ubuntu machine to back up some files from a Windows share. Last week I managed to render ubootable by installing security updates. Since I had to rebuild it anyway, I decided to document my steps in case this happens again. Also, just in case anyone else finds themselves in a similar situation and decides that they want to follow in my footsteps for some reason.

Posted around 29 Jan 2021 from the Stay awhile and listen department · Link to this post

• I actually bought some games and updated the PS4 Inventory. I still haven't been able to find a PS5 in the wild, so I probably won't be starting up a PS5 inventory page any time soon.
• I've been posting a lot of Be a better tech support clips and posting them to the media RSS feed, including an epic two part story (which isn't really all that epic, but it was long!).
• I'm still in the 'holy crap, I have a ton of ideas and energy, so I need to get as many widgets done as possible' phase of the vlog project, which means that I've been putting out a lot of videos and trickling them out on my YouTube channel (the videos I posted today won't be live on YouTube for about a week). I won't be able to keep this pace up forever, so get 'em while they're hot!

Posted around 20 Jan 2021 from the It's about time department · Link to this post

• I had some time off earlier in the week, so I recorded a bunch of Be a better tech support clips. You can check out all the links in the Media RSS feed.
• I also recorded a vlog talking about some of my experiences with women in technical contexts. There's still a lot that can be said, and it's worth keeping the conversation going, even though issues may not be corrected overnight.

Posted around 14 Jan 2021 from the Acting actively interested in interacting with the interactive icons menu activities department · Link to this post

• Started a vlog series I'm calling 'Be a better tech support' where I talk my approach to being a better tech support person. I posted the first installment today. I probably won't bother putting every episode in the bchlog unless I have other updates that day. If you want to be notified when each installment goes live, I'd suggest using the media RSS feed. Or just checking back every day.

Posted around 12 Jan 2021 from the Updating updated updates department · Link to this post

• Posted two vlog entries, one where I encourage you to do something if you want to, and one where I tell you to make a backup or suffer the consequences.
• Decided to keep crossposting these vlogs to YouTube. Partly because the reach might be better (and I can advertise for my site), but also because I realize that there are a lot of people who will never visit my site no matter how much I ask them to.

Posted around 08 Jan 2021 from the Change isn't a four-letter word department · Link to this post

• I started vlogging on YouTube around a month ago. I mentioned that I would start posting the videos here if I ever figured a cost-effective way to do that. It turns out that my hosting provider sells blocks of storage for relatively cheap. So I squashed the videos down and put them on their own page.
• Since I'm vacillating between audio blogging and vlogging, it made some sense to give the multimedia stuff its own RSS feed. You can find it in the sidebar or you can find it right here.
• Since the articles and video pages are already getting kind of long, I added some quicknav boxes at the top of them so you can jump to the part you're interested in

Posted around 04 Jan 2021 from the We're gonna need a bigger keyboard department · Link to this post

You might remember a couple of weeks ago I decided I wouldn't get a Model M keyboard. And I didn't. I actually got one that was bigger and bulkier. I've clearly been bitten by some kind of keyboard bug.

Posted around 03 Jan 2021 from the Well what do we have out here? department · Link to this post

I spent the last month or so making vlogs for my YouTube channel. Today, I stopped. I wrote an article about why. I tied in an obscure 80's cartoon show and a less-obscure 60's scifi show. I didn't really go over it too much in the article (though I think it's implied strongly) this this is going to be a part of a bigger push on my part to leave as many walled gardens (i.e. social media) as I possibly can and limit their impact on me.

Posted around 01 Jan 2021 from the Tabula Rasa department · Link to this post

Since the bchlog was getting kind of long, I decided to archive the old entries. I was tempted to just have the bchlog stretch back to infinity, but I figured it was a waste of bandwidth sending out updates that nobody would ever scroll down to look at. The link is over in the sidebar if you really want to see last year's updates.