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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • I’m sure it’s not possible for everyone - but I essentially did this some years back - though more with Premiere than Photoshop - and therefore more Cinelerra/Kdenlive than Gimp/Krita.

    I ran a dual boot system from about 2008 until about 2015. If it could be done in Linux/FOSS, it was. If it couldn’t, it was done in Windows/Adobe software.

    I was self-employed, though I often did subcontracting work for a handful of media/umbrella organisations - so sometimes I had to use Premiere or Sony Vegas to carry on half-done projects I was handed.

    Bear in mind this was when you bought Adobe software and didn’t rent it - and you could also keep running an older version for years.

    Anyway, over time I used the Windows partition less and less, until I got rid of it entirely when I got a new computer.

    I had to work a bit harder one year, and I did miss out on a few projects - but mostly, I could do everything I could do previously, but it took a bit longer for a while until I adjusted to a different workflow.

    After that, you’re just saying “That’s a £2000 job”, “That’s a £200 job”, and meeting a deadline. Nobody really cares if it took 7 minutes longer to do, and I saved a lot of time not using Windows any more.

    Editing (and other design stuff) is a far smaller part of my overall work these days, but I still do a good chunk of projects over the year, and I’ve been 100% Linux for almost 10 years. No regrets.




  • To a degree, yes, but don’t expect magic. Some laptops have a waterproof membrane under the keyboard, so if you’re lucky, and it does, you may be able to just pop the keys off and dry the membrane out, and make sure no liquid creeps round the side into the electronics.

    Otherwise you may have better odds if you open up the case and mop up any/all loose liquid you can get to with a microfibre cloth, as soon as possible, then try and let it air dry for a while.

    A sealed bag with dried rice and your electronic object may absorb a bit of leftover moisture, but only to the extent that it will equal the moisture level in the sealed bag - the dried rice will gain a little extra moisture, the object will lose that bit of extra moisture.

    Try to resist the urge to turn it on to check if it’s working until you’ve got all the moisture out.



  • This won’t apply to everywhere, but near me (in the UK), the council removed some of our bus lanes and cycle lanes last year, to appease some angry car babies, and possibly Rishi “We’re a nation of car drivers” Sunak.

    It’s now difficult to safely cycle to the city centre.

    At commuter times, the bus can now take 45 minutes for a 40 minute on-foot journey. Used to be 10 - 15.

    The buses also get stuck in traffic at various earlier points in their route, so may be 10 - 30 minutes late or cancelled. This was already a problem, because the bus company is appalling, but it’s got worse since some of the bus lanes are gone. Very little chance of using this to get to work on time, or to get to the train station if you’re working out of town.

    I’m not surprised bus and cycle usage is down. I walk instead, but I imagine many others can’t afford the extra hour of travel time every day and are now driving again.
    :(



  • I can’t personally, but I’ve installed/set up Linux systems for quite a lot of older people, and I think only one of them ever uses the terminal for anything. The rest just… use the computer.

    On the whole, they’re pretty much just using Libreoffice, Firefox and a few other bits these days. If something needs the terminal to fix, we’re already past the point where they’ve phoned me to pop round and fix it.

    These used to be Ubuntu systems, but I switched them all to Mint after having endless Snap permission problems with printers, USB sticks and other peripherals. Once up and running, it’s pretty low maintenance.

    I guess they don’t need to use the terminal, because I’ll go and do it if it’s necessary - but we are looking at once every few years. Not a lot of tech support needed.

    On my own machine, I probably use the terminal every day.






  • The “Fonline” engine fodev.net or fonline.ru was (almost) able to create a fully functional Fallout game, with zoom, higher resolution sprites or isometric 3D models, whilst retaining the look, feel and controls of the originals.

    The main problem (from my perspective) was that it was designed as a “multiplayer-first” engine with real-time pew-pew-pew combat, and getting it to do anything singleplayer and turn-based needed quite a lot of work at the time - and engine updates weren’t often backwards compatible, and the documentation was often only in Russian. A lot of half-finished projects showed great promise, but then broke and fizzled out.

    I think it’s still in development. Last time I looked, they were “refactoring” all the code (including fixing all the single-player stuff). It still holds promise for the future.



  • I got detention off of a teacher for saying “Hitler the Shitler” or “Hitler is a Shitler” or something suchlike during a lesson, even though several other kids had already said it and didn’t get in trouble.

    Technically, the detention was for swearing, though I chose to interpret it as “Miss Teacher loves Hitler and he is her boyfriend”.

    I instigated a petty campaign of cartoons, blackboard messages, textbook graffiti and just general rumours that this poor teacher was genuinely a Hitler-loving-Nazi, and had a Hitler shrine in her house. As I was generally honest, well behaved etc, it was readily believed and spread quickly.

    As she was relatively unpopular as a teacher, many of the other students joined in, goosestepping past her in the corridor, nazi saluting behind her back etc.

    After a few weeks, upon entering the classroom to find a full blackboard chalk cartoon of her and Hitler getting married, she started crying and shouted at us and we all felt awful.

    I apologised to her after the lesson, and she actually apologised for unfairly singling me out for punishment “to set an example” and oddly, we actually got on pretty well after that, and the Hitler jokes faded out naturally.


  • Don’t worry, it all balances out - his family just min-maxed his character into music. Most of his stats were comically low. For example, Mozart was really bad at ordering food from a drive-through or even ordering a takeaway by phone or through an app.

    Other things Mozart was shit at:

    • Using a mobile phone
    • Riding a bike
    • Driving a car
    • Microwaving his own dinner
    • Using a computer
    • Assembling flat-pack furniture
    • Mariokart
    • Wiring a plug
    • Installing Linux
    • Fastening velcro shoes
    • Using self-service at the supermarket
    • Using a toaster
    • Celebrating his 36th birthday

    He couldn’t do a single one of those things. You can probably do at least two of them. So what if he beats you at music?




  • In response to your update, the individual setting with the program is a sort of “override” to the defaults.

    If you go into:

    Steam menu at top > settings > compatibility

    You should see options for:

    • enable steam play for supported titles
    • enable steam play for all other titles
    • run other titles with [proton 8.0-5]

    To the best of my knowledge, any title which is pre-checked by Steam (and has a green tick or whatever) is covered by the first option - this will automatically install and run using the version of Proton it was first confirmed to run with. If it ran fine with Proton 3.0-0 or whatever when it was first tested, it possibly still uses that version. Some certainly get rechecked with newer versions. It’s worth noting this is confirmed to work on Steam Deck (with its AMD graphics) - sometimes the default checked version will not work so well when you play on the desktop.

    The second option allows you to set a default Proton version for all other titles - if you’ve not adjusted this, it’s possibly set on an older version.

    You can override this on a game by game basis (as you have been doing already) - for example, on some games, steering wheel controllers work on 6.3-8, but not the newer version 7/8 etc. So my default is everything runs on the newest Proton, except I override some driving games to run on an older version.

    [Edit]The point of this being, Cyberpunk, as a confirmed working game, will have defaulted to the version which works with the Steam Deck, without you doing anything (Leaving the “run with steam play” unticked) - that version may not be best suited to a desktop/laptop running Nvidia graphics. Changing the version manually overrides the default version… and I hope it’s all working well for you :) [End edit]

    There’s a brilliant and in depth guide on the gamingonlinux website, which is definitely worth a read if you’ve got time: Gamingonlinux Steamplay guide