Notices by Adam Nelson (arnelson@fosstodon.org)

@youronlyone Most of the core D&D rules (the "d20 SRD") are open-source, under the Open Game License. This is why systems like Pathfinder can copy most of the core mechanics and terms.

@icedquinn If there were decent open-source tooling for ASN.1 that only supported a reasonable subset of its features, we would never have needed Protobuf.

It's been a while, and the Deno ecosystem has improved a lot. Drizzle looks promising as an ORM layer (better than my hacked-together one), and more Fediverse projects in Deno are popping up (#Fedify looks really cool!). But I'm rethinking Deno.

There were 3 things that drew me to Deno initially:

- Ease of install (just run the app from a URL)
- Cloud platforms (Deno Deploy w/ Deno KV)
- JavaScript (I know the language, and it has a big ecosystem)

But all 3 didn't work out the way I planned.

I've been thinking about restarting work on #Tapir. Development stopped because I hit a wall with the database system. Writing Tapir in #Deno was a long sequence of yak-shaving without much payoff; most of my dev time was spent implementing JSON-LD, Web Signatures, and a database layer that *should* have been a library if Deno had better Node compatibility at the time.

@youronlyone @evelyn This is advice that I've never heard before, and it seems wrong. Modern Windows really doesn't need antivirus (or any of the other categories; I know dedicated anti-spyware software exists but I don't think there's a meaningful difference between "virus" and "malware" here); Windows Defender is often good enough, and your best anti-malware tool is always adblock. Most modern "antivirus" software is itself a scam.

@icedquinn Now I really want to see this. It sounds just cursed enough to work.

https://github.com/ar-nelson/uxnpi

Uxn on the GPi Case 2W is finally usable! I have Fourtette (https://github.com/nf/fourtette) working now, fully playable! Though only at 1:1 pixel ratio and with no audio.

This is running directly on the bare metal of the Pi Zero 2W, using Circle for graphics and USB gamepad drivers.

#Uxn #RaspberryPi

It's good to be back.

#PAX #PAXEast #PAXEast2024

RE: https://discuss.online/post/5772572

I can imagine a kind of anti-spam federated reputation system that would work for the Fediverse, assuming anyone actually adopted it.

- Users can "Vouch" for others. A new activity type, it means you know the subject well enough to say they're a real person and not an outright troll
- For closed-registration servers, registration is a Vouch from an admin
- You can filter posts by users that aren't vouched for by someone N degrees of separation from you

#Fediverse

I forgot how handholdy FireRed was. I think this game was the point where Game Freak started adding unskippable tutorials to everything. There's even a detailed help menu you can bring up at any time with R.

#Pokemon #OhmorisChallenge

Say hello to Ludwig von Squirtle! Picking Squirtle will make Brock easier, but then I can't use it for the rest of the game...

Here's the rules I'm using for this challenge:

- Box entire team after each gym
- Can only catch 1 of each Pokémon
- Team size is max(3, gym leader's team size)
- For Victory Road onward, build a team of the 6 MVPs from previous teams

I'm going to post a lot more than usual, so if it gets too spammy for you, just mute #OhmorisChallenge.

#Pokemon

Here's the whole team for Brock. It's mostly garbagemons, since Ludwig von Squirtle can solo Brock without even trying. No point including anything on this team that I might want to use later. (Catching Weedle was a real pain, though.)

Time to go beat up Gary.

#Pokemon #OhmorisChallenge

When I was 8, and I ran into this kid who said "Yo! You can't jam out if you're a Pokémon trainer!," I had no idea what that meant. I figured it was some slang I'd understand when I was older.

I'm 33 now and I still have no idea what it means.

(Screenshot not mine since I didn't think to screenshot this)

#Pokemon #OhmorisChallenge

Did you know that FireRed moved Nidoran to Route 3?

Because I didn't. Or at least I forgot after 20 years. I spent so long hunting for it on Route 22 before I finally realized something must be different. Catching a Nidoran♂ on Route 22 was always the first step on a Red playthrough as a kid.

At least Pikachu is still in Viridian Forest like I remember. After 15 minutes of searching, I was starting to wonder...

#Pokemon #OhmorisChallenge

That could have gone better. 😬

The only thing that saved me was that Bulbasaur doesn't know any grass moves at Level 9.

But this is the only hard fight in this section. The rest is just grinding and searching for rare Pokémon for future teams. I'll need a Pikachu for Misty and a Nidoran for Lt. Surge.

#Pokemon #OhmorisChallenge

Finally using my blog again, more random programming language ideas: Maybe Everything Is a Coroutine - https://adam.nels.onl/blog/maybe-everything-is-a-coroutine/

Every time I see the word "megacity" in a YouTube thumbnail, I pronounce it the way Megamind pronounces Metrocity.

@icedquinn Memory locality, mostly. If you store all of your hexes in a big 1D array in Gosper order then nearby hexes are usually nearby in the array.

But also just because it's cool.

@icedquinn For extra fun, try Gosper spiral coordinates--represent each hex with one number!

Also known as spiral honeycomb mosaic: https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/71785/converting-between-spiral-honeycomb-mosaic-and-axial-hex-coordinates

(Someday I'll find the motivation to work on my hex-based Terraria clone engine again...)

@kaia Hey, I had one of those! It's a great device, i wish they still made PDAs like this.