Recent Posts

451

DC Gamer Club / Story Synth - web tool for card-driven roleplaying

« Last post by wraith808 on November 25, 2020, 10:16 AM »

One of this year's Golden Cobra winners was a web-based tool enabling remote play & card driven setups. This would work great for rapid-prototyping deck & oracle based games (first example off the top of my head would be The Quiet Year). Setup is done by dropping a list of cards into a google doc and then passing a link to the doc into the website; this also creates a persistent link for everyone, bypassing the need for a screenshare.

Some fancier formatting in the sheet can display different prompts as time passes (including different prompts to different players - already thinking how this could be used for a Murder Mystery Dinner Party),

I'm sure there would be all sorts of other uses, including perhaps prototyping board games, so passing it along!

https://storysynth.org/#/

Demo game https://monster.diegeticgames.com/#/ & spreadsheet

452

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by wraith808 on November 22, 2020, 04:37 PM »

I suspect it could be adequately handled by XML

-40hz (November 21, 2020, 09:56 AM)

If XML were a contender markdown et freres would never have been invented.

The number of commands most people need is small, it's just that markdown doesn't include them all, and some of its choices are distinctly odd and hard to use. Apart from other features which presumably fitted Gruber's original idea of purpose and target users, but aren't wanted by most WP users.

-Dormouse (November 22, 2020, 04:08 PM)

Yeah, that was my thought too.  The few that do use a plain text format other than markdown (and sometimes in conjunction with markdown) use json or protobuf that I've seen.

453

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by wraith808 on November 20, 2020, 06:46 PM »

With any particular outcome in mind?

-Dormouse (November 20, 2020, 04:41 PM)

I was thinking that it would help you to know where you stand, and if you were covering all your bases with your approach. But if they are less than helpful, I can see why you'd not do that.

454

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by wraith808 on November 19, 2020, 05:38 PM »

Could you perhaps post your thoughts on some Obsidian forum to see if someone can validate your approach?

455

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by wraith808 on November 19, 2020, 03:11 PM »

Why do we write and write and curate and write?

-superboyac (November 19, 2020, 12:04 PM)

Virtually all the money I've ever earned has depended on my writing. Curating too.

-Dormouse (November 19, 2020, 02:37 PM)

I'm not in that position, but I've made quite the bit of side hustle money with my writing.

456

General Software Discussion / Re: Apple's latest macOS release allows its own apps to bypass firewalls and VPNs

« Last post by wraith808 on November 19, 2020, 08:08 AM »

That was my process also.  I'm still thinkning about pre-ordering one, though.

457

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by wraith808 on November 19, 2020, 07:53 AM »

As you know, I have a much more nuanced approach to databases.
I'm OK with Writemonkey 3 with its coterminous files. I have my data in files and the extra features that come from the database (which include, I assume, its very good folding). Most writing programs have some sort of database; some also have files and some save much of the data in files.

-Dormouse (November 19, 2020, 04:01 AM)

I'm actually not opposed to databases as it might seem.  I don't care about something being in a db, if I also have it in files.  It's the reason that I still use Scrivener, Writemonkey, and Cintanotes.  In all three cases, I have the content of the database/project replicated in plain text elsewhere.

Obsidian has never been totally clear about what is saved where. Some is saved in the vault folder. But a large part has been moved to a json in a system folder.
It talks about vaults, and how every fault is totally separate, but then the data from every vault is in the same system folder in readable format.
It seems hard coded to only look at one location. If it's empty it writes another set.
And it has just announced saved searches. So a reiteration of the same question in my head - 'What is saved, where?'. I'm sure the answer will be that central json, but I'll have to run a few searches and do a file check to see exactly what's there. And will only be quick because I will know what I'm looking for and can do a search.
For me, it's straightforward poor design and not thinking through the implications of choices. Fixing a small immediate problem - today easier, tomorrow harder, and just don't think about next week.

Most of the immediate problems can be overcome. I control what I use it for. I can remove and encrypt the system file between uses (though that would always irritate me). And I can to a detailed test of every update (though they are weekly, more or less; I think I'll make it less going forward, updating is starting to feel too much effort for a small gain).
The big question about any developing software is where it's going to end up and how confident you can be about both quality and direction. This is where I now favour your Frankenstein model, though my version may look completely different to yours. Obsidian might be some part of it, maybe.

-Dormouse (November 19, 2020, 04:01 AM)

You bring up some good points.  I haven't opened Obsidian in a long while; at the time that I did it, it seemed that all files were in the Obsidian folder, i.e. if I created files in VS Code, Obsidian seemed to pick it up and pick up the changes if I had both open.  I apparently (a) haven't  kept up with Obsidian changes, or (b) was just unaware that it stored other files in other locations.  That's really concerning to me, and I might just go ahead and uninstall it as it's sort of withered on the vine in my workflow.

458

General Software Discussion / Re: WoX Launcher

« Last post by wraith808 on November 19, 2020, 12:15 AM »

It’s “Wox”.

-Tuxman (November 18, 2020, 11:30 PM)

Opinions vary on that regard.

https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox

Check the spelling there.  It stands for something, and the X is in the middle of the last word and they capitalize it- like eXtensible or something.  And I like that spelling.

As Everything is only a plug-in, it should be possible to not use it. Untested yet.

-Tuxman (November 18, 2020, 11:30 PM)

No, it's not.  It uses Everything for the search.  From the requirements page:

wox*.exe is just the wox installer itself without everything.exe and python.exe. require everything version > 1.4.1.

Emphasis mine.  I guess you could disable that plugin (which is one of the Core Plugins), but what would you be left with if you can't do the basic search functionality?  And you'd have to know what you're doing to disable it before first start up.  Seems pretty safe to say that Everything is a requirement.

Update: Found the reference to the name when I was going through the code:

You can call it Windows omni-eXecutor if you want a long name.

Note the capitalization

459

General Software Discussion / VSCodium

« Last post by wraith808 on November 18, 2020, 10:06 PM »

https://vscodium.com/

Has anyone taken a look at this?  I've been using VS Code a lot (it's taken over from Sublime Text) and saw mention of this.  From the site:

Why Does This Exist
Microsoft’s vscode source code is open source (MIT-licensed), but the product available for download (Visual Studio Code) is licensed under this not-FLOSS license and contains telemetry/tracking. According to this comment from a Visual Studio Code maintainer:

When we [Microsoft] build Visual Studio Code, we do exactly this. We clone the vscode repository, we lay down a customized product.json that has Microsoft specific functionality (telemetry, gallery, logo, etc.), and then produce a build that we release under our license.

When you clone and build from the vscode repo, none of these endpoints are configured in the default product.json. Therefore, you generate a “clean” build, without the Microsoft customizations, which is by default licensed under the MIT license

The VSCodium project exists so that you don’t have to download+build from source. This project includes special build scripts that clone Microsoft’s vscode repo, run the build commands, and upload the resulting binaries for you to GitHub releases. These binaries are licensed under the MIT license. Telemetry is disabled.

If you want to build from source yourself, head over to Microsoft’s vscode repo and follow their instructions. VSCodium exists to make it easier to get the latest version of MIT-licensed VSCode.

Just wondered if anyone had seen/used it.

460

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by wraith808 on November 18, 2020, 09:55 PM »

@Dormouse- that's a no-brainer for me too.  It's one of the reasons that I stopped depending on Obsidian pretty quickly, and moved over to the Frankenstein model that I have (Using Foam and Memo extensions).  But the plugins with Visual Studio Code has been working really well for me.  I wish that I had the ability to embed references- it's one thing that would have solved some issues I've had.  But it has worked out fine, especially with previews inline.

And for anyone using VS code, I just found a new model built on top of it - Dendron (https://www.dendron.so/).  I can't say too much about it yet, but I'm definitely going to take a look to see what's different between that and the others.

461

General Software Discussion / Re: Listary 6

« Last post by wraith808 on November 18, 2020, 09:40 PM »

Going to continue this in its own thread: WoX Launcher.

462

General Software Discussion / WoX Launcher

« Last post by wraith808 on November 18, 2020, 09:40 PM »

Tuxman introduced WoX (stands for something- I saw it somewhere, but I can't find it right now) in the Listary 6 thread, and I started to look into it.  I'm running it and FARR right now, and I like features from both.

FARR has more options for customizing your search heuristics and such.  It also has everything built into the application, and you don't need any dependencies.  WoX needs .NET (not a big deal as everyone on Windows has it), Python, and Everything.

Both of them have a lot of options in regards to interface design, so that's a wash between the two.  Both can be portable or installed.

The plugin syntax for WoX just makes more sense to me, but I'm sure it is a matter of developer preference.  WoX is faster at searching, but this is because WoX farms out a lot of its search capabilities to Everything.  FARR allows more customization of the heuristics and search behavior, which is a definite plus- the only nod to this functionality that WoX provides is the ability to pin a search result to the top of the search, so that the next time you search, it will be favored.  Not ideal.  But in its favor is the fact that WoX is open source- this makes it easier for me to understand things about the software, which is a bonus.

It's definitely not an instant win for either which is a surprise- I've given other launchers a try, but WoX is the first one that I've seriously considered.  I'm running both in parallel, so I guess I'll make a choice as time moves on.

463

General Software Discussion / Re: Listary 6

« Last post by wraith808 on November 17, 2020, 06:32 PM »

except that it uses Python for those

-Tuxman (November 17, 2020, 04:53 PM)

Not just Python.  You can use a variety of languages it appears.  It's interesting that it uses Everything for the search functions.

464

General Software Discussion / Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

« Last post by wraith808 on November 17, 2020, 06:31 PM »

Good idea, actually. But the relevant problem might be that I need more users first, because right now nobody would even care.

-Tuxman (November 17, 2020, 06:24 PM)

I tooted on Mastodon about it, and a couple of people boosted it.  Not sure how many people actually came here to download though.  I like the fact that it doesn't have external dependencies, personally, even though it really doesn't matter with youtube-dl since I already have Python on my machines.

465

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Battery indicator in Window Titles

« Last post by wraith808 on November 15, 2020, 01:05 PM »

To me, Avira seemed more like a virus than many of the virii it protected against.

-wraith808 (November 14, 2020, 05:30 PM)

Yes, I'm coming around to that POV. What would you recommend?

-SleepingWolf (November 15, 2020, 10:10 AM)

I use Malwarebytes personally, and it hasn't been too intrusive.

466

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Battery indicator in Window Titles

« Last post by wraith808 on November 14, 2020, 05:30 PM »

To me, Avira seemed more like a virus than many of the virii it protected against.

467

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by wraith808 on November 14, 2020, 05:27 PM »

Just out of curiosity …

What are people doing with all this information they’re curating and cataloging with these various pieces of software? To what purpose? Or maybe even: to what avail?

I’m more curious about the individual “business” use cases rather than the supporting technology. Technology and solutions that offer varying degrees of utility aren’t that difficult to run down. God knows there’s tons of software out there. But the reasons to employ said technology can sometimes be less obvious. At least to me.

So help me out. What is/are your goal(s). What’s it all for? What are you guys doing with all this information you’re gathering? 

-40hz (November 14, 2020, 10:58 AM)

Writing, Research, and Project Management for Technical projects for Home and Work
Writing, Research, and Project Management for Non-Technical projects for Home and Work
To-Dos and Notes from my general days
Pretty much everything at this point.  As Dormouse says above, I'm already in it for my projects, so it's just second nature at this point to use it for anything that comes up.  Doctor Appointments, Maintenance Directory and Logs, etc.

And my notes are pure MD.  I have other documents linked in the repository, but everything as far as the notes is just MD.

468

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by wraith808 on November 12, 2020, 09:39 PM »

I just know that it's going to take a long time.

-wraith808 (November 11, 2020, 10:24 PM)

It didn't take very long for me. I think by the time it told me to reboot to perform the upgrade, it was finished with the process in less than 5-10 minutes.

-Deozaan (November 12, 2020, 07:54 PM)

I haven't gotten the latest before this one.  So I have to get that one first.

469

fSekrit / Re: fSekrit 1.40 quarantined by Windows 10

« Last post by wraith808 on November 12, 2020, 12:28 PM »

...maybe a 1.41 release would help, where the only change would be "now without compression, with greetings to AV software"?

-brotherS (November 12, 2020, 11:51 AM)

Agreed!  I could compile it myself, but I'm too lazy 

470

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by wraith808 on November 11, 2020, 10:24 PM »

I need to update, but I keep putting it off.  I just know that it's going to take a long time.

471

fSekrit / Re: fSekrit 1.40 quarantined by Windows 10

« Last post by wraith808 on November 11, 2020, 04:16 PM »

Not sure if current issue, but I was having the same issue awhile back with the compressed version. With or without contents made no difference, but the compressed version got ate immediately. I finally compiled a fresh uncompressed copy, and haven't had an issue since.

Seems like anything packed with UPX makes AV go squirrel shit.

Just a thought..

-Stoic Joker (November 11, 2020, 05:40 AM)

Do you have a copy of that?

Also submitted reteam.org as a FP.  Malwarebytes blocks it.

472

fSekrit / Re: fSekrit 1.40 quarantined by Windows 10

« Last post by wraith808 on November 10, 2020, 06:55 PM »

Report it, I guess?

-wraith808 (November 10, 2020, 09:57 AM)

Since the file contains personal information I'd rather not send it to Microsoft. 

-brotherS (November 10, 2020, 02:15 PM)

When I reported to get it unflagged by Symantec, I sent them fsekrit, explained what it does and that the flagged exe was created by this software.  They unflagged it, and I haven't had any problems since.

473

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Battery indicator in Window Titles

« Last post by wraith808 on November 10, 2020, 12:38 PM »

The command that he put in his post can be run from the command line- have you tried that on the computer in question?

474

fSekrit / Re: fSekrit 1.40 quarantined by Windows 10

« Last post by wraith808 on November 10, 2020, 09:57 AM »

Report it, I guess?

475

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by wraith808 on November 04, 2020, 09:52 PM »

So you're telling me that he's on the far side of the truck, stretching his arms all the way across the back of the vehicle so that his right hand is that close to the near side of the truck? I don't believe it. It defies reason. I think Shades is right.

Further evidence that it's not true: There's another guy in the photo who is actually on the far side of the truck, pushing. He is, visually, just under the arms of the guy in the truck bed. His right hand is at the very edge of the far side of the vehicle. And he's not as high up as the guy in the truck bed, who would be standing just a couple feet behind him if he were not in the truck bed. And the far side of the truck bed occludes our view of his body, but not the legs of the guy who is in the truck bed.

All evidence in the photo affirms that one of the people attempted to push the vehicle is doing so from inside the truck bed.

But even if it is true that the guy who appears to be in the truck bed is actually on the far side of the truck, having to lean that far to the side would certainly remove virtually all of his leverage. So it just shows that no matter which is true about the position of his feet, he's not being very helpful in actually moving the vehicle.

-Deozaan (November 04, 2020, 09:02 PM)

I'm just saying that it's not what it seems.  I don't remember the exact explanation.  I'm sure if you look up the meme you could find it.