Craig Maloney ☕ ✅ @craigmaloney@octodon.social

Hey folks,

If you have some spare Liberapay cash laying around would you please consider sending it to Sophie Lagace?

https://liberapay.com/SophieLagace

She outlines the reasons in her blog post here:

https://mechanteanemone.wordpress.com/2018/04/24/hard-times-and-good-friends/

Suffice to say they're going to though a rough patch and could use the financial support.

Thanks!

New here? Not sure where to start? This intro by @noelle might help out:

https://gist.github.com/joyeusenoelle/74f6e6c0f349651349a0df9ae4582969

Also I'd like to send you a quick "hello" and a note that if you're on octodon.social that our beloved administrator is @CobaltVelvet. She runs this place and keeps it tidy.

It's also not free as in beer so if you'd like to keep this place running please feel free to help out her Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/CobaltVelvet

(note: I'm not an admin here, I just like this place)

There are many things that I find substitutes for:

* Linux / LibreOffice instead of Windows / MS Office
* Bandcamp / Music library instead of Spofity
* DRM-free books / MP3 audiobooks instead of Amazon / Kindle

So it should come as no surprise that I've figured out how replicate the experience of basic cable:

Over the air antenna and a Roku emulates about 36 channels of programming I couldn't care about and most of the content I do care about.

It even has odd artifacts.

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2018/06/twitter-is-a-garbage-company-and-jack-is-fawning-at-the-feet-of-fascists/

Just so you know, Twitter is a fucking garbage fire.

I think Boards of Canada must be electronic music's version of Meshuggah: so many bands adopting the style.

I'm finding that writing for 10 minutes a day is really paying dividends for me. I'm already on chapter 5 of a book that I've been meaning to write. Hoping to have this released by the end of the year.

Trail of Cthulhu

http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/category/products/trail-of-cthulhu/

Trail of Cthulhu was my first exposure to the GUMSHOE system. The premise is simple: clues that move the story are always be available to the characters. It answers the question of "I roll for [important clue] and failed. Now what?" Instead, clues are available but they might have major cost, or your characters may need to do more digging. It also adds stability to the sanity mechanic so the feeling of decay in your character is palpable.

#stuffilike

One of my hobbies is looking at printed books of clearly public domain material and laughing hysterically at the copyright page claiming that no part of this book may be redistributed blah blah blah.

Be grateful that I don't have the hobby of finding the publisher of such copyright maximalist garbage and shoving said pages up their respective bottoms.

Yet.

There is nothing worse than a cover of John Cage's 4'33".

Eclipse Phase

http://eclipsephase.com

"Eclipse Phase is a tabletop roleplaying game of post-apocalyptic transhuman conspiracy and horror.

Players take part in a cross-faction secret network dubbed Firewall that is dedicated to counteracting "existential risks" — threats to the existence of transhumanity, ..."

It's also released under a CC-BY-NC-ND license.

The publishers are super awesome as well. Definitely one of my favorites.

TFW you spend most of the afternoon trying to get something to work, only to realize that what you're going isn't even close to what you should be doing (and it works when you change things to how it should work).

https://patientzero.bandcamp.com/track/1-1

#music #ccmusic

Showing up to a project and telling folks they're not using tools that you feel they should be using is akin to showing up to a protest and refusing to participate because you can't stand the smell of the markers.

I love Open Source Software. I pay money to the FSF. I've been using Linux full-time since 1994-5.

I worked for Sourceforge from 2008-2010. When the site burped while I was on-call it was me up at 3am making sure shit was working again.

I run my own servers. I serve my own email.

And yet there are certain services that I would rather other folks run because I don't enjoy being a full-time administrator.

Sometimes I just want to get shit done as best I can.

Bias toward free, but pragmatic.