Ask Lemmy

Lately, I haven’t done anything fun besides reading tons of yaoi manga and wondering why the hell my life can’t be like that.

I like using AI to make save editors and to improve my games. When I have better local AI models and hardware, I will have an assortment of old games recompiled, and QOL'ed. If I get enough money, maybe buy some of the niche IP and re-release ancient content onto Steam and GOG.

While the AI is at work, I am replaying some games that don't need much VRAM to run. Hopefully, I will get some GPU upgrades so that I can play the more hardware intensive games I haven't tried yet, without stepping on my AI's toes.

Current games being played is AstLibra and Unsighted.

If you enjoy the oldschool Ys games and also liked Muramasa: The Demon Blade, I recommend AstLibra. Unsighted is more a mashup of Majora's Mask and Dark Souls, with a time loop. NPCs die out over time, then when the protagonist expires from running out of anima, the loop begins again.

been working on a mod manager for the steam frame since mo2 just enough of a pain to get running that it motivated me. working out overrides for the vfs now so files don't get clobbered, then gonna implement mod order for bethesda games and fomod support

technically it'll work on any linux machine (no windows support, the vfs relies too heavily on linux), but it's meant to be easy to use in vr rather than compete with mo2 and vortex on features.

still gonna get mo2 working, though. i can't let it win. mo2-lint claims it installs an aarch64 version on ARM machines but the frame doesn't seem to like it.

Going to swimming pool with my kids is the highlight of the week.

Started an intro to improv course last week, which was actually pretty fun! Going to have to sit tonight's session out due to recovering from illness the past couple of days 👎

Beyond that, slowly making my way through a series of poker-card sized collages (trying this thing where, instead of just letting my dumb ideas float around unattempted, I actually commit to some of them and try to see them to completion. Outside of the collages, progress is meh). Next thing is to sit down and write more poems to read at open mics for shits and giggles (was on a bit of a roll for a bit, then slowed down significantly).

Reading purely for pleasure again—found a book club of sorts sometime in March, around when it started, in a chatroom and decided to follow along, mostly lurking. Took me a bit to actually and regularly read when I first started, despite having the first couple of books in my possession for weeks; I had actually decided to purchase at least the first few so I wouldn't have to worry about holding on to the books for so long—keeping ready availability—even if not the most economical option. Not having to pick a book for myself helps.

I hope to branch out into other things—perhaps writing or other forms of art.

Ocarina of time on PC. Haven't played it in 20+ years, on N64

I've started making a new game. Yes I know I have 3 unfinished games in the works. Yes I know that AI slop is drowning the indie game market. Yes I know there's a very good chance that nobody in the world will ever play my game but me. Yet, I persist. This one's going to be fun.

I bought a shit ton of RAM and installed LLM onnmy computer. Now I torture it with questions "What happens if USS Enterprise mets Warhammer 40k"

Wildlife photography; lizards and birds mostly.

Check my profile for the ones I've been happy to post so far.

Been (lead) rock climbing a lot lately

Touring Japan. Just got back from Kusatsu after a 2 night stay at an onsen ryokan. Currently taking the bullet train from Little Edo to Tokyo Station because the insanely expensive JR Pass would go to waste if I didn't go for an overkill ticket for a roughly 40 mile trip.

Same thing we do every day, Pinky, listen to music, have fun with the kids, snuggle hot wife, and try new coffee beans.

I've been acquiring pins and patches and such for my battle jacket

These are both sort of in-progress pics (as if a battle jacket is ever truly finished,) I've added a couple more band patches to the front and finished adding the pyramid studs around the bottom edge, and the fish wasn't sewn on for that pic of the back but is now

It's at a place where I'm pretty happy with it now, but still on the lookout for more things to add to it.

I'm enjoying WoW Forever a lot more than I thought I would.

• Running might be my most fun and healthiest hobby recently.
• Really into running public and local servers but it’s sort of arrived at the stage where I don’t need to touch them much.
• Got into my PSVita, Gameboy, and iPod again. iPod is by far the best because it has a week of power so I can always have music. Also have been keeping a small camera on me as well. Diff vibe than phone photos and longer battery.

Ao3 is down so my usual option of reading niche fanfiction is suspended. Either I am dancing/hyperactively pacing to 2010s Childhood fandoms playlists or trying to write random thoughts in Latin (with effort). I sometimes watch the stuff in my Watch Later but they keep on piling up...

I realized I was manually maintaining too many packages in the AUR, so I built an autoupdate pipe. Decided to read the Shangri-La Frontier ranobe because the manga is at a pretty interesting point right now. But I got disappointed quite quickly. Was building another censorship bypass so that I could watch YouTube and use Telegram. Ordered a broken Mix Fold 4 from a local flea market to debug a LineageOS build before installing it on my main device. Can't wait. I think it's going to be the best weekend.

Playing piano. I started learning almost 4 years ago and have a chance to play Scott Joplin’s Bethena on a grand piano next week if I can get it ready in time.

It’s a little rough right now but I’m having a blast practicing it so I’m happy either way. I haven’t been challenged in a way I enjoy like this in a long time.

A little weird maybe, but…exercise.

A nice workout session gets my brain to making the happy juice.

Other than that, the usual…modular synthesis, beats, poetry…

I recently got a Game Boy cartridge reader. I’ve been playing around with using it to put together full color photos with the Game Boy camera. It’s really finicky, but fun when it comes out well.

Got into Magic the Gathering (MtG) a few months ago because I have no other social hobbies lol. Surprisingly fun! Not the cheapest hobby... but good way to spend disposable income I guess. Had I known I'd enjoy it (should have figured from my Slay the Spire game hours...) I should have gotten into it quite a bit earlier, cards used to be cheaper back then. There's a local game store which has weekly events so there's that

Recently there was a new set (Star Trek) where I played the prerelease, and there was a guy at the prerelease who is a massive Trekkie and wanted to collect highly thematic cards (which I traded quite a few with him), so I was happy

Jiu-Jitsu! It's rough, but tons of fun. Builds friendships really quickly too. Not for everyone but it's a ton of fun for some of us.

I recently got a used Donner Hush X Live in mint condition off of marketplace. I’m a keyboardist but I play guitars on my music as well. I already have a headless 8-string guitar but it’s too unwieldy if I’m not playing heavy chug-y stuff.

It’s technically a travel guitar that you can break down into 3 pieces and stuff into a case the size of a bandminton racket bag. Since I already have my own plugins and effects pedals, I don’t really need the speaker attachment, so I only have the top brace attached and it looks like I’m playing half a guitar. It’s a fun little instrument and definitely live worthy as long as you’re not a snob for branding.

I signed up for pickleball. Gonna give it a try.

Just played HOMESICKNESS. Made me cry. Really good. Recommend.

Luanti, the free and open source survival game engine formerly known as "Minetest"!

I'm pretty late to the party on this one, because I've been hearing about this project for years. But I've finally gotten into trying it out and it has been a ton of fun!

At a basic level you can think of it as a free and open source reimplementation of Minecraft. But there's actually a whole lot more to it than that because Luanti isn't just a single game with a single set of entities and rules, but actually an entire platform for making a wide variety of voxel-based games. It's extremely modular and all written in Lua, so there are a lot of opportunities to customize the experience and every server you join can be wildly different. There's everything from classic Minecraft-esque survival and create experiences, to Factorio-esque automation games, and even weird little experiences and silly PvP servers.

So there's a lot of stuff to explore in the Luanti community, and I've been having a lot of fun with it. I've joined other people's servers, I'm self-hosting another one for my friends, and I've even started hacking in some mods that I think will make the game even more fun for our group.

I can totally recommend it to anyone who has even so much as a passing interest in Minecraft-like games.

Outside of that I've been enjoying other video games lately, including Zelda Ocarina of Time Switch 2, Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition, and Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart.

Researching transition. Also plan on going clothes & accessory shopping with my friend. I have never wanted to do that or gave a shit and suddenly I'm kind of excited about clothes shopping. Still kind of limited on what I plan on buying because ATM I just look like a scrawny guy and I'm not brave. But some accessories, hats, rings, gloves, etc are planned purchases. And I'm really excited!

Also since learning I'm trans I suddenly want to actually do things again in general: I've been playing my video game backlog more actively. Playing the new Quake 1 expansion Dawn of The Machine. Its pretty good.

Been a little light on the socializing as of late.

Other than that though unfortunately a lot of more boring stuff relating to insurance, chores, diet planning, my car, and work.

Bit of trolling on Lemmy, got a few likes.

I listened to a fantastic audiobook this week, I'm one book away from reaching my goal of 50 this year!! I hadn't seriously taken up reading since high school so before this it was maybe like 2 books a year if lucky. I joined a book club and made new friends. That's been great.

I've also been practicing video editing for the group I organize with so that we can up our social media game. That's been a huge learning curve but very fun.

Switch 2. I haven't bought a Nintendo product since the Wii.

It's way better than I expected and I have enjoyed it a lot

I found a little underground music club about 20 minutes from my house that hosts both local and national touring acts for dirt cheap. For 30-40 bucks I can get three hours of live music in an intimate setting and enjoy the vibe. Been trying to go at least once a month. Doesn’t matter if I know the acts; I get to experience new music and support upcoming artists.

Meshtastic!! I did not get the hype but...its like knitting for nerds. Or something. Its just fun. And theres a good community around me I had no idea.

Sure its cheap electronics from China, maybe a bit wasteful. But fun to do.

Reading TTRPG rulebooks. If you have the mentality of "any interaction with the system is play", I've been playing quite a bit even though schedules and conflicts abound. The most recent one I'm going through is Ker Nethalas: The Midnight Throne, which is a solo dungeon crawler.

Getting my wood shop set back up after moving earlier this year. It's really nice to be back to building things.

Making another keyboard. I recently made a folding wired keyboard for work, and now in making a single piece wireless one for home. I've needed 3D printed parts for this and found a nice guy locally who charges a tiny amount and prints the parts for me.

Stumbled onto plans for a small trackball too. Got all the parts together and now in waiting to make this after my keyboard is done.

Progressing through Silksong Act 3 and loving it. Not getting enough time for this.

I put Opengym on my home server, and having a great gym workout tracking app is somehow making the exercise more fun.

I've been on a hot streak of good movies. Getting through movies and podcasts I enjoy is the single biggest impact on improving my mental health and mood on a daily basis.

I sorted out my automated offsite backup properly. It was holding a lot of outdated junk files and costing me money in Backblaze storage. Also got multiple monitors feeding back alerts to my Mattermost deployment (I use this as a knowledge and file dump, so I see the alerts here regularly).

I want to start writing academic material for my area of work. I think this could be a decent side hustle, but can't find the motivation to look at work content in my little spare time.

Now that I come to listing it out, I've gotten a bunch of stuff done in the last couple of weeks..... Didn't realise since it always feels like I'm overloaded and short of time.

Playing bass guitar!

Picked it up in May after not playing anything since tuba about 3 decades ago. Getting used to fingering notes across strings and frets took forever but I'm making huge strides now. Even played with a few friends at a smalll gathering last weekend.

Replaced my strings for the first time today and did the setup adjustments. Doing the setup myself was a good choice as I'm getting a lot more familiar with how the thing works by messing around with it.