author: cobradile94
Got a free Somy Trinitron the other day! It’s a really small PVM model, but it looks fantastic! Right now I can only use S-video on it and the only thing I have that uses that is my 3DO, so been playing a shit ton of that lately.
I’m thinking of getting into self-hosting my websites, capsules and gopherholes, and eventually stuff like peertube, owncast and proxys for my older computers. What would be the best place to get started for an absolute beginner and what are some good environmentally conscious options?
I’ve upgraded my iBook G3 to MacOS 9.2.2, and am going to revamp my website using it, and making a hypercard stack and vrml website while I’m at it!
I’m going to Italy tomorrow morning, I can’t wait! 🇮🇹
We’re going to visit family in Molise for a few days. It’ll be nice to get out.
I found a shop in my city that sells Laserdiscs! It had tonnes of them, so I impulse bought 6 films, as well as 3 on VHS!
I got a Cybiko, and I’m really impressed with it. There are so many apps for it, and I’m surprised at how powerful it is considering the screen and speaker. It’s only slightly less powerful than the GBA! (at least far as CPU and RAM are concerned)
Only issue is the storage is tiny, I imagine even for the time, and the batteries on my unit have corroded, so I’ll need to get new ones,
Had a lengthy spoken conversation with some people in Italian for the first time in years. I was very rusty, but I enjoyed it!
I’m thinking of getting myself a Cybiko…
My deck just ate one my my mixtapes… :|
A texture artist emailed me to say they loved my game and they gave me a texture pack they made (and selling for like $10 on itch) for free to use in my next game! That was really nice of them! The textures in question are great, and I can definitely make use of them!
Also they said they heard I was developing a sequel. Guess rumours have been going around. They are half-right, so…
I managed to get a Toshiba Tecra M2 laptop, which is close to the limit you can get to specs-wise with Windows 98! It’s really powerful, but unfortunately, the seller, for one reason or another, replaced the hard drive with a flash card, which seems to be causing the OS to be super unstable. Programs constantly crashing and the OS itself locking during or straight after boot. I have a Thinkpad 660E with the hard drive intact running the same OS, and it doesn’t have these problems.
I decided to treat myself and buy a TEAC W-1200. The build quality is excellent and the sound quality is the best I’ve ever heard come from a cassette!
I’ve sold over 100 copies of my game, a famous Goldeneye speedrunner has it, and Zoom Platform is going over it to get screenshots and artwork. I have so many eyes on my game right now, by far the most on anything I’ve made and I’m in a state of almost constant anxiety. I’m scared people will somehow see a glaring bug that I, my friends and my QA missed during development and leave a bad first impression, request a refund or public shame the game. I dunno if anyone else has experienced his kind of thing before, but I’m way out of my comfort zone…
Zoom Platform signed me on to publish my game on their platform and potentially release the game physically if it sells well! This is really exciting!
I dunno if I can mention who yet, but I applied to get a potential publisher to distribute my game physically. They accepted my application, and we’re in the process of getting me signed onboard!
I watched my brother play my game, and he seemed to enjoy it and was really engaged in it.
I had a conversation with the developer of an upcoming game that is competing with mine. Just had a chit-chat, and it’s helped me reflect on my game, and made me realise how much of an achievement it is, especially as a first commercial game using an engine that wasn’t made for it.
I went to a wee LAN party today. We played Worms Armageddon and Unreal Tournament. I had a blast!
I got the Android port of my game fully working, and completed a level with it. I’m going to bundle it on Itch, and on the CD release.
I managed to get Operation: Pinkeye running on my Android phone. This opens some doors…
Someone commented on my Steam discussions page that I’ve been doing a great job fixing the game and improving it, and that meant a lot. I’m glad the work I’ve been doing on it hasn’t gone unoticed!
So it’s looking like I won’t be getting paid my revenue from game sales until the 30th December. Thanks Valve, it’s not like people have energy bills or any festive holidays to pay for or anything…
I’ve started building a wee robot with Arduino. I found someone to help me learn the ropes. I got all the parts I need and managed to make something that works. Still need to get controlled wirelessly and powering from a battery, but this is still really exciting!
Hey, anyone know of a Gemini browser tfor Windows 9x? I recently got my Windows 98 laptop connected to the internet and want to try and browse Gemini with it!
I got a negative review for my game, and man did it send me in a deep depression. I slept rough for days…
I fixed every bug the review mentioned since (except for mouselook, it works fine for me, and I haven’t heard anyone I know complain either, so can’t recreate), but it feels like the review has really knocked my confidence down.
I just released my game, Operation: Pinkeye!
For those interested, there’s more info here: https://stormplay.scot/games/pinkeye/
Hey, is there anyone doing the 5 questions thing? I was having fun doing Cristina and Bronzie’s, but they’ve stopped. I want to do more of them.
I’ve started volunteering for a donation funded media broadcaster, and had a tour of their studio today. It looks intriguing, and they have loads of gizmos, old and new, to work with, including formats I’ve never heard of!
I finally got my game finished! I'm going to playtest the hell out of for the next 2 days to make sure everything is in place, and then send it to Steam for review on Monday! Feels weird to be done with it after spending several years on it.
I got a CRT monitor yesterday. I’m loving it. I find I actually prefer watching videos and DVDs on it as opposed to my LCD, even though it’s letterboxed. The colours just seem much better on it!
Yesterday, I went to a Comic-Con with friends I haven't seen in about a decade. It was really nice seeing everyone again. It's definitely lifted my mood. Took photos with my analogue, camera, too! Hope they turn out well...
I just came up with an idea for a Gemini browser. I saw somebody work on a client where they converte gemtext to HTML, for example converting => to <a> tags. What if we went further and we grabbed any image links and made them <img> tags, and have the browser have a random Neocities-like background. We could have a browser that makes Gemini look like Web 1.0! I would love this, what would you guys think?
The Italian Cartoon Network has been doing a stream of episodes and clips from The Amazing World of Gumball. I’ve been watching it a lot and it seems to be helping me with my Italian listening comprehension.
I was due to give a wee demonstration of my game for an online Scots language event, and I planned to reveal the new trailer for it. I rehearsed it last night with the host of the event and everything went well and the host gave me pointers.
Fast Forward to tonight, and Zoom decided to crash every time I tried to share my screen, it had worked perfectly until today. I didn’t think to upload a copy beforehand, so spent most of the event waiting for it to upload to Youtube. We just barely got it in the last minute of the show!
Was kind of a disaster, but hey, wasn’t my fault! I should upload whatever I stream next time to avoid what happened in the future…
I’m starting to have a much easier time understanding videos in Italian now. I was watching a clip of a Simpsons video in Italian that someone shared, and I understood about 90% of it without subtitles or needing to rewind! I can understand most native content, too. Been watching a few tech\history videos lately.
I just learned about people who make fake retro console restoration videos. Absolute scum of the earth…
I found the cause of and fixed the last major bug in my game, and I finally have the sound files from the studio recording. September release here we come!
😀 👤 👨🏫 🇷🇺🔍 💪 🔠 🔘 🐢 🙂📛. 📶 👌 ❗
I’ve been interacting with Italian communities lately as a way to practice my skills, and all of them really make me feel welcome. Far more so than most English speaking communities I’ve tried out. Vi voglio bene!
I just found out all of the major supermarkets where I live have stopped selling DVDs, CDs and Blu-Rays… There goes the last thing that makes them remotely worth visiting…
We have been with limited power and internet for the past week, and I’m honestly bored out of my mind! I can’t watch a film or play any console games, I’m stuck with whatever I’m able to do on my PC.
I’ve decided to play through a bunch of classic Lucasarts Point and Click games I have to pass the time. Recently beat Sam & Max Hit the Road. Loved it!
There seems to be a problem with one of my certificates? When I try to go on Station on Lagrange for Android, I just get the “join station” link, but when I click on it, it brings me to me profile, with no option to post.
I finally got my game complete and glitchless enough for Magazines. I had to meet a deadline on the 10th and I just made it! 😮💨
An update broke the Kinect motion capture software I was using before, so had to use a trail for another one (ipi Mocap Studio), and wow it is so much better! Barely need any cleanup at all! Can only use it for 30 days, but the site says nothing about not being allowed to use what I make in that trial period for commercial use, so…
Well, I’ve tested positive for COVID. Had a good 2-3 year run without catching it.
Getting a wee bit concerned about my game’s sound situation. He hasn’t been responding to my messages, and I don’t have any backups myself so I can get someone else to do it. I have some deadlines coming up soon as well…
I watched the Sonic Frontiers gameplay preview, and honestly, it doesn’t look that bad to me. In fact it looks fun! What are people so up in arms about?
Someone is making a port of Cuphead for the Dreamcast: https://www.thedreamcastjunkyard.co.uk/2022/06/somebody-got-cuphead-playing-on-sega.html
I found out yesterday that the server my capsule is hosted on has a guestbook feature! 😁So I added it to my capsule
I started watching The Jungle Book on Laserdisc. It looks and sounds great but unfortunately, side A is scratched, and it’s caused one of the scenes to keep skipping and pausing… I thought my player was going to give way trying ti play it!
I dunno if it’s my browsers I use or the capsules themselves, but sometimes when I try to explore Gemini using LEO or Gemini Roulette, some links don’t work at all, and it really gets in the way of the fun…
My throat has been sore all day, I think I have tonsillitis…
I opened up a minidisc and put some songs on it, and noticed one of them kept skipping. I listened to the source file. Sounded fine. The rest of the tracks played fine as well, so I decided to copy it over again, and now it plays perfectly.
I have no idea what happened.
I got a new phone today. (Galaxy Z Flip 3) I didn’t sign into anything when setting up and then immediately proceeded to “ungoogle” the phone, deleted the Google apps and set F-droid as my main storefront for apps. (Set up Aurora as well for apps I can’t get on F-droid)
I got Spiderman on VHS from a market yesterday, and noticed the lid had snapped and was hanging on one edge, so I grabbed the lid from a donor tape I didn’t want, and did a swap job, and it worked, though it no longer snaps back into place, but that doesn’t seem to affect anything. The film plays fine, btw. It’s Open Matte and the transfer is fantastic, almost DVD quality!
I was at music practice, when someone I know from there approached me and asked if I’d be a drummer for his band. I figured why the hell not?
He then said that he wanted to contact me online, but couldn’t become I wasn’t on any social media.
I thought to myself “Mission accomplished!”
I got a cassette tape job lot a while back, and went to open up another tape in it and realised that it was a type II! I don’t know how the compatibility with tape types work, but it worked no problem with my deck. So I put some songs on it, and sure enough, there’s definitely less hiss than Type I!
I saw Aladdin (cartoon movie) for the first time yesterday. Loved it!
Since quitting social media, I’ve noticed that a lot of people who still use it are unnecessarily aggressive and sometimes quick to insult in an argument. Would make sense given that social media makes us angry for engagement. I don’t know if correlation equals causation here, but on the SmolNet and BBS, both of which are full of people who hate social media, it’s way more chill. Arguments happen, but they fell less heated and usually end on good terms.
I’ve found myself to be a lot less judgemental and short tempered in general, too.
Just finished watching Aristocats. I thought it was excellent!
I’ve noticed that since I’ve been using a dip pen for my diary and taking notes (Which I’m getting the hang of now!). I’ve been looking forward to writing, and sometimes if I have ink left, I try to find an excuse, any excuse, to write something.
I was watching the special feature on my Toy Story Laserdisc about the making of the film. As a game dev, I found it super fascinating! A lot of the things they were doing I also do!
The recording session went very well. We all had a blast, and the dialogue turned out great! 😁
I have a voice recording session with some actors I’ve casted for my game tomorrow. It’s the first time I’ve ever done something like this. I’m really nervous but at the same time, excited!
I finally got my hands on a Laserdisc player! (CLD-950) Been watching some films on it, plays great!
I just watched The South Park movie. I’m not normally a huge fan of the show, but I love the film!
I got a dip pen set while I was in Italy a could of weeks ago and have been using it to write my diary. It makes you realise what we take for granted with modern pens. I love it, though. Really makes writing feel like a craft!
I’ve been going down a rabbit hole of modern attempts at inventing new time measurements. Like decimal time, metric time and beats, I honestly kind of want to start using them.
I was about to digitise a MiniDV tape I made over the past year, and the tape inside snapped. :| Hope I can find a professional to fix it without messing things up.
Just came back from my Holiday. We had to spend a night in Germany because our first flight was late and we missed our connected flight. Was fun otherwise, got some good Italian practice in. Feels like we’ve been in Germany/Italy for way more than a week. I’m still getting used to life back home.
My “new” camera arrived. It turns on, reels the film in, and all of the mechanics for the lens seem to work. So far so good, though it seemed slower at taking a photo than the previous one. I hope that isn’t anything to worry about.
I managed to win a camera of the same model that got ruined in Italy off eBay for £15! They say it’s untested, but in good condition. Hope it works!
I came back from my holiday in Italy. It was fun exploring the second hand shops! They have all sorts of things that thrift stores never do at home!
Although when I went to get drinks from a convenience store, and stuff them in my bag, it leaked, and totalled my film camera and most of the photos I took… I hope to Christ it can be fixed…
I’m going to the airport to fly to Italy first thing tomorrow. Kind of nervous, because it will be my first time going on a flight by myself. 😬
I’ve been delving into 3DO homebrew, have managed to load some images and make the controller cycle through them. Compared to the PS1 and Sega Saturn, the 3DO dev has been a much smoother experience so far. The community welcoming and helpful, too!
I got this game called “Virtuoso” on the 3DO the other day. The game is objectively terrible, but I can’t help but love it for how quirky and how early 90s it is!
I’m going through my backlog of games, and played through Parappa the Rapper 2. Feels like it improved on everything from the original, and it has an amazing soundtrack! The game does crash on me on one specific cutscene, though.
I just watched the Simpsons episode “Homer Badman”, and it’s literally a manifestation of what we call “Cancel Culture “ today.
Watching some of the last films to get released on VHS makes you realise how the films weren’t made with 4:3 in mind. I’m watching Spiderman 2 and there are loads of shots where the characters are cut off at the sides and some of the text doesn’t fully display. Either that or was just lazy pan and scan. Probably a combination of the two.
I’ve started to watch video tapes (Currently in a Simpsons mood) before I go to sleep instead of using my iPad. It’s nice.
I just learned how to connect to my phone from my PC via SSH and selfhost static sites on it. I’m not sure I’ll use it any time soon when I have the hosts that I have rn, but I’m very glad I decided to learn the skills. It was so much fun and I have a new found appreciation for Android phones!
I’ve finished all of the levels in my game, and now I’m just cleaning things up squashing bugs and preparing to film the cutscenes. It’s pretty exciting!
So I ended up winning a job lot of 20+ new blank VHS tapes for £10 in an eBay auction I forgot all about. 😅
So I have a whole cabinet full of blank tapes… now what?
A newspaper here published an article online calling Scots a dialect, and it received enough backlash for them to change their wording. This is the first time I ever recall that happening. Looks like the general attitude towards Scots is heading in the right direction!
My boank VHS tapes arrived, and I made my first video mixtape! (I downloaded my all time favourite Garry’s Mod videos and made a compilation of them)
It was good fun, and I can’t help but keep rewatching it! (Just like my audio mixtapes, I guess)
I decided to try out Lagrange on iOS. I’m not actually a big fan of it on other platforms, but as a Gopher browser on iOS, it’s pretty good! Feels like I’m exploring the gopherspace in the same way I do Gemini on Elaho!
Turns out there’s a massive abundance of new old stock blank VHS tapes out there! Manager to get a bunch of them without really breaking he bank!
I found a Sony VCR (SLV-E730) at a Charity Shop. It looked very high end and had a SCART in! Also came with some 007 tapes, All for £50! I couldn’t resist! I’ve been waiting to get a good deal on one for a couple of years! Feels amazing to finally have a proper deck! Also found a site that lets people in the British Isles get new VHS tapes, so I plan to make video mixtapes with it! So excited! 😁
Hey, I’m trying to find this word game on Gemini where you have a “wheel”(?) and you need to make words with the letters in the wheel, and it must include the one in the centre. Anyone remember what it was called or have a link?
I just realised that I have an irrational hatred for thin clients, and I’m not sure why.
Does anyone else get depressed during the new year? Like you desperately want to go out and/or do something exciting, but nothing does the job?
I got my covid booster shot yesterday, my head and arm hurt now…
I’ve been looking at prices of Nintendo 64 games I want to get, and prices for even common games are so extortionate now! It’s really getting out of hand! :(
I’ve noticed that since I’ve mostly quit mainstream social media, my days feel a lot longer and I have more time to read books/magazines, watch films and most importantly, play video games. I feel my mental health has improved drastically since!
I was browsing Midnight Pub, and found this post: gemini://midnight.pub/posts/701
I did the same thing on my iPad as the OP and have been experiencing the same thing, almost like withdrawal. Even inspired me to make a post on my GemLog about it.
Anyone here had a similar experience?
So I’ve been using Librewolf, a Firefox fork that removes any telemetry and deletes all cookies, for a good while now. Long enough to confidently say that when a website says it needs to use “essential” cookies to run the site properly, it’s an outright lie. I’ve yet to have a site not work for me.
I got a blister on my right index finger from practicing the bass today, and it hurts to even type on my PC, so I might have to take it easy with game dev for a bit.
Someone made a dedicated browser for websites on the Yesterweb ring, and a forum where it’s members chat, called Yesterweb Surf+. I love it! Only thing is I think it’s Electron based…
I was making a Minidisc full of Christmas songs, to help get into the Christmas spirit while I’m away, and just listening to the songs I was copying over was enough to get me excited for Christmas!
So a few years ago, I decided to avoid using Google as my primary search engine, and instead use Ecosia and DuckDuckGo, but with the expectation that I will need to fall back to Google for some searches. I just realised, a few years later, that I’ve rarely if ever done so. Ecosia/DDG give me the results I need on a daily basis. Feels good not using Google at all, tbh.
Got to try out a full drum kit yesterday, and had an absolute blast playing songs in a band! People seemed really surprised when I said I’ve only been playing for 2 months. Got to play Bass, too, that was fun!
I joined a Discord server for a local filmmaking meetup group, and they’ve been very helpful with giving advice and helping me in general with making my first projects! I aim to make films in Scots, because there’s a shocking lack of them out there especially given the language has nearly 2 million speakers!
I’ve started to go through my backlog and play through all of my games. I started playing Superhot. I forgot how much fun the game is!
Remini is down :(
It’s the only way I really look at anything Reddit any more, so that’s a bummer
I beat Cyberpunk 2077 again (I rarely do that with games), on very hard, and unlocked and beat the secret ending. It was thrilling! I think I’ve finally had enough from the game and am going to move on to something else. I genuinely don’t get what people hate about the game, but I think it’s the best game I’ve played in a long long time!
Probably isn’t a hot take here, or be the first to say this, but I’m getting super sick of the big web. It all feels so artificial, like everything is just done for money and nothing else, and the regular people on social media are just doing things for clout and the memes are samey, make no sense or just generally not funny at all. It all feels so fake.
The only area I go on the web nowadays by choice are Neocities/Wiby.me sites. Good to at least see a community on the web trying to keep what creativity and thrill of exploration there is on the web alive.
I got a CD that came from a magazine from a charity shop the other day, and I’m fascinated by it. I’ve seen it’s one in a line of many CDs. Feels like the music equivalent of a demo disc. They have songs from what were then new albums, and is a great way to discover new artists!
I finally saw No Time to Die. Loved it! It was a lot less serious than Daniel Craig’s other films, gave him a personality and one-liners. Would thoroughly recommend it!
I’ve starting using IPFS as a way to self host images and videos for my site without needing my PC on 24/7, seems pretty neat.
I’m going to see the 1st Harry Potter film in the cinema tomorrow, they’ve remastered it for the 20th anniversary. Figured why not, since I never saw it in the cinema originally.
I just found a shop in a shopping centre that still sells VHS tapes, and they had tonnes! I bought a good few for like 20p each!
I’ve finished modelling all of the levels for my game. Was planning to release in Spring 2022, so now I have plenty of time to polish up the gameplay, add more weapons and film cutscenes. It’s getting exciting!
I’ve began to notice that since I’ve been using Station, I don’t care about how many likes or followers I get, like I did when I was on big tech social media. Instead, I look forward to seeing people’s replies and actually having a conversation. Makes me think how social media has never been about being social, but rather it just being a popularity contest. Anyone else notice this?
I just beat Cyberpunk 2077. I did all of the side gigs and objectives that were actually beatable (Some weren’t!), and went through multiple endings thanks to quicksaves. The game seems to get a lot of flak online, but honestly, I loved it!
I went to my first D&D game this evening after a friend suggested it to help me get out more. I had an absolute blast! Definitely going back next week!
In an ultimate crossover of old and new tech, I’ve made a Mixtape of songs from Spotify, so I can take those songs with me when I go out without needing to install the app on my phone! It was the first time I made a tape on my new stereo, and I have to say the quality is really good, probably the best I’m going to get from a Type 1.
I finally got a boxset of Digimon Adventure Tri on Blu-Ray and watched it. Loved it!
Things are finally back to normal for us. We had no internet for a week due to a power cut basically destroying our router, and then Ubuntu suddenly had a problem with my Nvidia GPU, making me completely reinstall the OS (Someone once told me the Nvidia drivers on Ubuntu were good. They lied).
But here we are, finally, with internet, and a working OS that isn’t Windows 😮💨
I got my new PC up and running, and I wiped my hard drive for it, thinking the asset files for the game I’m working on would be backed up by MEGA, ready to download on the new PC. The cloud drive was over a month out of date, despite having the client running constantly . If it wasn’t for the git repository for the game itself, I’d have lost 3 levels and dozens of props. Needless to say, I’m really mad.
I decided to get into the new Digimon Card Game and went to a weekly event in a shop at my town and played some games. Had a blast! 😁Met some potential friends, too
Just built my computer, or most of it. It started up! I’m so relieved! I’m going to get a case and PCI exhaust fan before I really started using it, though.
I got myself a Sony CFD-S70 cassette stereo today, it was the last one the store had (and apparently in other stores around the country). I heard that for a (relatively) new cassette deck, it was good, and sure enough, it’s pretty good, even through headphones! Have yet to notice any wow and flutter. Speakers are a bit tinny, though.
Just ordered parts for my new PC. Gonna have 16GB ram, an RTX 2080, a BD-XL M-Disc drive and a Ryzen 5 CPU, all enclosed in a 90s style case with an old IBM keyboard! It’s going to be the ultimate sleeper build! 😛
I got my iBook today. Turns out MorphOS requires a G4 minimum and the only Airport card that supports MacOS9 doesn’t support WPA2, so the laptop isn’t as useful as I thought.
However, I’ve been having a blast trying old Mac software and games, so I’d say it was still worth it!
I ordered an iBook G3 clamshell from eBay. I’ve always wanted one since I was a kid, so I’m very much looking forward to getting it! I heard you can actually install AmigaOS on it since it uses PPC, so I’m definitely going to look into dualbooting it with MacOS9!
Hey, is it possible to log into the same Station account on other computers/browsers? How would I do it?
Seems one of my favourite capsules (gemini://tilde.team/~sumpygump/explore/) has stopped working properly. (It’s supposed to give 3 random Gemini links a day). I hope it gets fixed soon!
I’ve noticed that since I’ve started using the SmolNet, my habits have changed. I’m on the clearnet a lot less, and certainly using social media a lot less! I used to go on Reddit and Youtube on my iPad every night in my bes, but now I barely touch them. Not out of spite or anything, but because I’m genuinely not interested in using them. Instead, I spend my time browsing Gemini and Gopher, and checking on places like this. I feel more connected to this community, and I’m not so scared about sharing stuff here. I also feel like modern social media has too much stuff on it and feels overwhelming, if that makes sense.
Anyone else noticed anything like this?
My iPod classic broke beyond repair, so I’ve decided to get into Minidisc instead or getting another. I just won an auction for a NetMD player, that comes with a carry case, and 15 blank discs for less than what a base unit costs! I’m so excited to jump in! :D
I just started BBSing, and found a community that I really clicked with and spent all night chatting with them! Thanks for those here who pointed me to the right places to get me started!
Hey, I want to get into telnet/BBS. What’s a good place to start for absolute beginners?
I just found out that someone is making a wap/wml browser (wApua) for Linux, and learned how to make a wml page myself to go with my http site. Makes me wonder if WAP will ever make a Gopher style comeback, because the tech is definitely interesting in it’s own right!
I also found winWAP for Windows, but does anyone know of any wap/wml browsers for iOS and Android?
Does there exist a web browser that can not only browse Gemini and Gopher, but also the SpartanWeb, a.k.a. the net with all the big commercial sites filtered out, similar to what Wiby.me does? If not, there should be!