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

mastodon / blog / listenbrainz

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  • 73 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 8th, 2023

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  • I file all of this under “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

    • Qwant has claimed since 2016 that they have an index. That lie has earned them investments and funding. They do not have an index and they’ve said so after the fact. They also give data to Bing. They are not private but they say they are because the data they share is anonymized.

    • Ecosia is just a Bing frontend like DDG. Caron offsets never work. In order for Ecosia to work you need to see and click on some ads, so anybody using adblockers will not be helping. Their servers aren’t green either.

    • This is because Bing is going to raise their prices and now these companies need to lure in new investors to keep the lights on. It isn’t about sovereignty or data privacy; it’s just about money.



  • Platformers are amazing. I think I like most of the big series that I’ve played—Mario, Sonic, DKC, Crash, Mega Man, etc.—and I really enjoy indie platformers.

    Recent indie games that have taken the tried and true formula of unforgiving precision platforming to the extreme are also amazing. Celeste is a gorgeous games, Kaze kicks ass and retro throwback games like Byte the Bullet and Bzzzt are soooo satisfying.

    I like a good pick up and play game, platformers fit the bill.

    Once muscle memory kicks in, you’re golden. As long as the learning curve is right.

    Going back and playing the first levels with the skill gained by completing the game is such a good feeling.

    For me, SMB Wonder is a 10/10 platformer if we’re looking at recent 2D only. I don’t know many 3D platformers, but Crash 4 is a must play (I think that’s the most recent 3D platformer I’ve played).



  • If you’ve just installed Ubuntu, stick with it for a bit. Get things set up the way you like them. Make a mess if you must. But don’t switch because someone on the internet said one is better than the other. Lots of the Linux sites are just content farms (that 9to5 site) and copy other sites and then people read those and they suggest what they read.

    Mint does have some bespoke tools that users like, but those tools can be installed on other distros.

    Anyway. First, play around, make a mess, clean it up, get used to it. Then figure out how to backup the configs before you reinstall a new distro.

    Other beginner distros are Zorin and Elementary.

    I’m a Debian user myself, but I’ve been around and have tried many different distros, WMs, DEs, etc. over the past 19 years. Keep messing around and you’ll find your comfort zone.



  • Wow, LXQt is just motoring along aren’t they. I use LXQt as my daily driver, but on good old Debian Stable I won’t be seeing this for years haha. Looks like it is only available in the AUR and on Pisilinux (which is cool because it’s only just been released!).





  • 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.






  • 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.




  • 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).