Void Linux Ghast • 1 year ago • 100%

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/117605 > Got bored and made a custom `/etc/issue` file for my Void Linux machines. It displays a colour Void Linux logo along with kernel version, tty number and date on login. The file is [here](https://paste.sr.ht/~justinesmithies/2b16b8b77d59ca5d7a575e2fb0a8b27887325cb0) just copy it to `/etc/issue` or you can preview it using agetty. > Feel free to change it to suit.

Serbia Ghast • 1 year ago • 100%

Anyone going to Beerfest in Belgrade?

Linux Ghast • 1 year ago • 100%

It's an old piece, but still relevant.

Piracy Ghast • 1 year ago • 100%

gitlab.com

Ahoy new mateys! Just thought I'd repost a couple of little bash scripts I use to download and watch series. [notflix](https://gitlab.com/andonome/dots/-/blob/master/scripts/notflix.sh) This one searches for torrents, then live mounts the first result, e.g. : `./notflix.sh nina paley sita` That command should play *Sita Sings the Blues*, by Nina Paley. Requirements: vlc or mpv, and either btfs or peerflix. [torrench](https://gitlab.com/andonome/dots/-/blob/master/scripts/torrench.sh) This one searches for a torrent, gives you the top few results, and starts torrenting what you select using transmission-cli. Requirements: transmission-cli Also, if you're on Debian et al. you'll have to change where the script says `systemctl start transmission` to `systemctl start transmission-daemon`.

RPG Ghast • 1 year ago • 100%

www.revenant-quill.com

This looks like rather good advice, and I like the comparison to brutalist architecture. It feels like it fits, because so many seem to think brutalist architecture is ugly. Personally, I like how functional it is; and similarly, functional (if plain) adventures make for good sessions.

Void Linux Ghast • 1 year ago • 100%

It's been some months, and kdenlive is still listed as orphaned. Anyone know how packages become un-orphaned? Also, if anyone else is having the same problems, this fork worked for me (the missing dependency is `glaxnimate`. > https://github.com/classabbyamp/void-packages.git new/glaxnimate

RPG Ghast • 1 year ago • 100%

# Story Points Story Points let a PC start without any backstory - instead you get 5 Story Points, and spend them to: - know an obscure fact - know a language/ culture - introduce an ally to help with the current mission - et c. By the time players spend them all, they should have a chonky backstory *which was always relevant to the current mission*, so no info-dumping required. - If all your points were spent introducing cousins and siblings, we have established the character has a big family. - If all your points were spent knowing languages, and knowing highly obscure knowledge, we have established the character as a very clever, and well-travelled person. ## Good features - Speeds up game (no lore dump!). - Players are less pissed about their characters dying early on session 2 they haven't invested the work of writing an essay on their origin story. - It's probably the most popular part of the game whenever I receive feedback from someone *reading* (not playing) the game. ## Bad features **Nobody spends Story Points** It doesn't replenish, so players hoard the points, refusing to spend them. ### So far, I've tried: - granting 1 new Story Point over a long Downtime period. - granting XP in return for spending Story Points - adding a [one-page rules summary](https://gitlab.com/bindrpg/core/-/jobs/artifacts/master/raw/resources.pdf?job=compile_pdf) to the table, including notes on what you can spend Story Points on. - demanding all new characters come from the pool of allies created through Story Points, meaning that: * it's better to have more allies, so new people have a wider pool of characters to select from, and * new PCs are never entirely new - they're known to the party. ...nothing works. Everyone likes it in theory, nobody uses it in practice. The only idea so far is [massively raising XP rewards for spending Story Points](https://gitlab.com/bindrpg/core/-/issues/38#note_1422774164). Is there another rule, or a better way to present this system, which would encourage actual use?

RPG Ghast • 1 year ago • 100%

Well, it's not new - I've just ported it from Gemini, so it's new to the web. Hugo compiles the website from Markdown documents. It runs on a raspberry pi, which spends most of its day telling robots that `admin.php` is not available.

RPG Ghast • 2 years ago • 100%

Download the spreadsheet, type in your name, and you'll find a randomly generated spreadsheet. - Your name becomes a seed for a hash. - The hash creates a random numbers through modulos. - The modulos become D6 rolls. It's taken a few days to make, and the results are interesting - having to put every rule in the game gives a new perspective on the rules. I'm not a big fan of spreadsheets - TTRPGs feel like a little haven away from the screen. But sometimes in-person play isn't on the cards. I think a heavily-automated spreadsheet makes a good introduction to a game's rules. You just click on all the yellow-coloured squares, and fill in what you can until you don't have any XP left.

I like how [the midnight pub](gemini://midnight.pub:1965/) allows people to leave comments at the bottom of articles. Are there any other gem servers which allow replies don't depend upon coding knowledge? I just do basic hosting on Arch. I'm hopingt to allow general replies, like [geddit](gemini://geddit.glv.one).

Gaming Ghast • 2 years ago • 90%

www.nvidia.com

Looks snazzy AF, but no Linux version yet.

Void Linux Ghast • 2 years ago • 100%

peertube.linuxrocks.online

I'm not a big fan off some of the Void Distro-reviews which just show the installer, so I've made a review of how it looks after a few years of daily use. I've missed out a load of nice features, because it's already a fairly waffly review.

gitlab.com

The first time this runs, it'll ask for details, but after that it should just upload your video. The information it needs is dumped into a file, to be sourced later, so if you want to change a variable, you can just remove that line of the file (`pt_info.txt`), and it'll ask for it again. A few notes: - The name of the file becomes the title of the video. - You *need* a second argument, which is the video's description. - You'll need fuzzy-finder (`fzy`) so it can let you select things. - If you don't have `pass` installed, it'll store your password in plain text. - If you do have `pass` installed, it'll remember what your passwords name is, and just use that. - It only takes 1 category ('education', 'sports', et c.), so all subsequent videos will have the same category unless you change that. - The default licence is CC0. (fuck copyright) Example: > ./ptup.sh myVideo.mp4 "This is my description of my video." It's only been tested once, so I'd give it a 50/50 chance of working.

Asklemmy Ghast • 2 years ago • 100%

Possibly stupid question, but why not stop e-mail spam in the same way we do IMs? I don't see how I could ever get spam-messages from, e.g. an xmpp account. Worst-case scenario is that I get a bunch of 'subscription' requests, and I can only add friends when I trawl through the requests, or if I know they're adding a request at the time, then look out for that request. Emails seem to let everything in, with a reliance on the admin to sort this out. Why not do the same thing? Specifically, I'm thinking of writing a script: 1. If this person's in my contact-list, they're cool. 2. If they're on the shit-list, they're deleted. 3. If not, they get into the 'waiting room'. ... then set up a shortcut to put someone on the shit-list. So there's no more 'you've got mail' notifications from random spammers, and I can review it once a week or so to pull the good-guys out. Seems like a good idea, but then I wondered, why hasn't this been done before? If the script works, it seems like someone could do the same thing with a GUI.

RPG Ghast • 2 years ago • 80%

Given the price of art, I've been playing a whole heck of a lot with Machine Learning (ML) images (along with ever other indie RPG designer out there), and the results are bad. This one is Midjourney, which seems to be one of the better generators. If the problem is just my lack of skill, that still sounds like a problem. If I have to hire a professional, I'd rather just hire an artist. I'm writing a campaign about Vampires in Belgrade (Hungary) in the year 1230. Starting with something without too many parts, a young Tzimisce vampire in the story (well, he was embraced young), has a ghouled raven he speaks with. > dark ages boy speaks to raven in the moonlit rain  Oh dear... it doesn't know that human boys are bigger than ravens. So it's beatuful, and enchanting, but doesn't convey information, and the kid looks like 'the little prince', not like a sinister flesh-crafting vampire. Making some variations, I finally got here:  It's better, but the raven also looks like a humming-bird, and the moon looks like someone spilled it. It really conveys nothing more than 'boy and raven', so it's not about to enhance the passages - and RPGs really do need good images, because every one conveys a boat-load of strange ideas. Next up, what about a that scene where a vampire-hunter finally tracks down the coterie's lair? He finds them by sunset and has to flee before they wake up, but he'll be back tomorrow to kill the lot. He rides a horse, and has an ovcharka (bear-hunting Russian dog) by his side. The coterie will find signs of his passing, such as footprints. After some bad images, I finally left the dog out - most of them blended the dog and horse into a single image, if the dog appeared as anything more than a shadow. > Slavic, of-the-night, noble hunter reading tracks, horse, footprints, village, 1300s  So we have a ruddy-great horse dwarfing the world in one, and lots of horse-butts which look out of place. Time to make lots of variations again. > Slavic, of-the-night, noble hunter reading tracks, horse, footprints, village, 1300s  ... so now we have more of a centaur-creature as the horse blends with the man. ## Overall RPG images should explain things, and the explanations should involve the interactions of multiple elements, such as one person shooting an arrow at another, or threats, or setting a building on fire. AI seems to mix styles well - want a vampire drawn by Picasso? I'm sure the results would be stunning. But if interactions are missing, I don't see how anyone can use these results. ### Machine Learning In General I suspect machine learning will simply not work in our lifetimes. Consider the story of machine learning when translating: 1. You make a basic dictionary, so you can type 'cat', and it gives you 'le chat'. 2. You give it rules about nouns and adjectives - now you type 'the black cat', and it returns 'le chat noire'. It gets 5% of language, then 10%, then 20%, and it's tempting to imagine that 99%-accurate translations are coming soon, but they're not, because if we go to translate 'James is right, Alice is left', the machine will return 'James is correct', because translating this statement does not rely on rules, but on understanding intention and meaning. Those hold-out sentences may require that we start by programming real AI, with real consciousness, and *only then* teaching it multiple languages.

RPG Ghast • 2 years ago • 100%

gitlab.com

The artist Vladar's putting together (mostly) generic fantasy map-pieces. It's CC-BY, so it's open for commercial use. I've commissioned it for my own RPG, but all the pieces should work for anything faintly related to Gygax. There are more pieces to come, and of course it's open, so if anyone out there can do drawing, feel free to add a wall/ mace/ dead goblin in a new file.

RPG Ghast • 2 years ago • 100%

gitlab.com

If anyone's into the Classic World of Darkness, I'm translating the Dark Ages core rules into LaTeX so anyone can hack about with them. Plans (in various stages of completion): - Include a 'Dark Ages' option, which makes things look like the Dark Ages books, and changes rules, like replacing 'driving' with 'riding', and switching examples. - Include a 'Vampire' toggle, so that Vampire-specific rules, like Disciplines, or lists of clans, get included just when that toggle's on. - Add Contest rules instead of Combat rules (mostly done) because I don't like how WoD does combat. I've always found it weird that WoD repeated the rules for each game. This way, there's no repetition in the writing (just the output). No idea if I'll have time to finish the project, but if anyone else lives in the small Venn intersection of LaTeX and old WW books, PRs are very welcome.

RPG Ghast • 2 years ago • 100%

gitlab.com

 I'm making a dungeon generator, partly for fun, and partly to learn python. I want the output to be plausible, so it'll lay down in three stages: 1. Make random mine/ natural caves/ fortress 2. Add a civilization like dwarves/ elves/ gnomes to add rooms, traps at the entrance, maybe a library, and art (i.e. treasure). 3. Make an invader, e.g. necromancer, goblins, or mad wizard. At each stage rooms change, so the necromancer will turn dwarves into undead dwarves, and goblins will turn nice spaces into nasty spaces, and maybe set more traps. Atm it's in early stages, and uses graph-easy to output a conceptual map.  PRs and coding suggestions very welcome.

Asklemmy Ghast • 2 years ago • 100%

Love, Death and Robots just ended with a little NFT QR code, and before that I saw a message for Ukraine-war NFTs. I don't know what that last bit even means, and I'm so fed up of this bullshit. The plan's to make a protocol for a replacement, just to demonstrate how stupid the entire thing is. Here are NFTs stated goals: - show ownership of art, verified on a blockchain. - allow transferance of ownership Here's why NFTs are bullshit: - you don't need to gind CPUs to have a blockchain. - URLs verify an image - none of this shows ownership. # The New Protocol - Stick image sha256sums in a git repo, verified by gpg keys (now we have a blockchain). - Allow a few people to verify image ownerships, gpg keys (verify other people's stuff if you like, so it's a standard ring-of-trust situation). - Don't bother with proof-of-work. Just let the shasum rest. - Only merge images into the main branch if there's a requested sale (otherwise it gets full of crap). - Display ownership with exifdata. Here's the [repo](https://gitlab.com/andonome/artblocks), just as an example. # Questions - Does this cover 100% of what NFTs were supposed to cover? - Is there an even simpler way of doing this? - Can I add stuff with git-lfs without also downloading it (so the repo remains small, even with 10,000 images)? Just to reiterate - this is a solution to a problem nobody has. It's not a real suggestion, just a proof of concept to show that art-transferance could be handled better with some gaffatape and a git.

RPG Ghast • 2 years ago • 90%

gitlab.com

Dice rolling programs take too long. Some demand syntax like `/roll 2d6+2`, and I think 'you should know that 2d6 is a roll without my typing `/roll`, and also everything I roll has been d6's, so obviously if I type just `3`, I mean '3d6'. So I wrote one with defaults. This is my second python project, so the code isn't pretty, but it does the job. You write: > "" 2d6 Result: 5 > d8 2d8 Result: 12 > 3+1 3d8+1 Result: 8 If you give it a target number (TN), all rolls will tell you whether or not you've reached that TN. If you give it a difficulty, it'll tell you how many dice have landed on that number or above. You can input these things in any reasonable format: > tn=18 > TN 12 > difficulty = 4 > dif 9

Void Linux Ghast • 2 years ago • 100%

I set up a new machine with Void, and it took an embarrassing amount of time. I wanted a script to install Void with 1 line of bash from a live iso, so I could look cool next time. Here it is: > # xbps-install -S curl > # curl https://malinfreeborn.com/autovoid.sh | sh The idea is to place the script on a public site, execute it, then get the following: - a full WM - all dotfiles set up - all home files ...basically, a full setup. ## Results It's 2 lines of bash, rather than 1, which is less cool. I remove the need for a password by making the system auto-login to a user in the wheel group. I've tried adding the option to set a variable, `password="mypassword123`, which would then automatically add that variable as the main user's password, but something's gone wrong there. The user gets ssh keys pulled from gitlab as a kind of backup.  ## To Do - Atm I can use unison to pull in ~ files from my server, but it'd be nicer to have this done automatically, before the reboot. I guess that'd require another line for authentication. - See if something can pull the script without curl, so the script can be a single line of bash - I might see about puting in arbitrary usernames/ hostnames later. - Any other suggestions?

Git - version control system Ghast • 2 years ago • 100%

And if I sign them after, with `git commit --amend -S`, will that cause problems for later pulls or pushes with subtree?

Piracy Ghast • 2 years ago • 100%

I'm running a similar script, and it's great. Takes a minute to find less popular films, but broadly works fine.

RPG Ghast • 2 years ago • 100%

peertube.linuxrocks.online

This is my method of constructing 'adventures', and it's been working really well for the past few years.

RPG Ghast • 2 years ago • 100%

It has a couple of reviews, a few articles on RPG theory, and a few open source resources like brush-sets. gemini://ttrpgs.com

I have files marked with a line like this: `date: 2021-01-01` I've been usinng Solderpunk's RSS feed generator so far. => https://tildegit.org/solderpunk/gemfeed.git Link But it only does date by file creation date, which doesn't work for me. Any gemini RSS feed generators where the date can be drawn from a variable?

Just wanted to share my workflow. I got a Markdown to Gemini translator at [idiomdrottning](gemini://idiomdrottning.org:1965/gemini-pandoc). A script then uses `git subtree` to pull those commits in from repos which just have writing. The main bonus is that the Markdown can have a paragraph split into different lines, which works easier with git. The end result is I can write in plain markdow, and it'll automatically be presented both in the Gemini capsule, and then on the website, which uses Hugo to render markdown into html. Since Hugo already uses tags for topics, I got Gemini to recognize those tags. It's made the capsule a little cleaner, since the posts are no longer jumping between Ayer's Logical Positivism and Terminal APIs. I've ended up adding writing pieces Gemini that I wouldn't put on the web. I'm not entirely sure why - I guess it just feels like it's public, but not *too* public. [=> Bash script](https://gitlab.com/andonome/gemini-mf/-/blob/master/update.sh) [=> Site](gemini://malinfreeborn.com)

Linux Ghast • 3 years ago • 90%

I take lots of notes, so I've made them into a cheat sheet, and stuck them on my website. ## Why not use existing documentation? I want a more chronological order. If you `curl cht.sh/git`, you find `stash` is covered before committing, and there is no init or clone, so at that point you don't actually have a git to work with. I'm also not a fan of documentation explaining what something does. This is meant to be for people who already know what something does (why else would you be looking for docs on it?), and just want to know the basic commands to set up and start. I want docs that give you the bare bones in ~5 minutes, with the assumption that man pages and Stack Exchange will take care of advanced usage. I've worked on making it more accessible, but it's still a work in progress. If you'd like to make a correction, or add a program, the whole thing is on a git, [here](https://gitlab.com/andonome/lk). PRs are welcome.

Port 1965 is only going to one place, so how can I make sure it's going to the right place? I currently have agate running on a raspberry pi with Arch Linux Arm running agate for the first site.

The 'gemini universal search' hasn't been updated since December. Post your new/ updated Gemini sites.

RPG Ghast • 4 years ago • 100%

belgradecats.tk

I've made a collection of RPGs with a git. If you find any I've missed out, do message me or (better yet) add it yourself.

RPG Ghast • 4 years ago • 100%

theangrygm.com

Sorry about the last post - I pasted from the wrong clipboard. Anyway - RPG mechanics for exploration, is that a thing?

RPG Ghast • 4 years ago • 100%

After a year of using Latex as my writing and layout tool for a homebrew RPG, and writing stories for WW's Vampire, here are the main results and differences: ## No finished product Standard publishing usually requires a book be done in discrete stages. The book must be completed before proof-reading, and proof-reading must be done before the index. Latex automates the index, glossaries, table of contents, et c., so nothing has to be done discretely - you can add a random paragraph, and feel certain that the index is still fine. **The downside** here is that some people *need* to be told their work is complete if they are going to finish it. And indeed I've been unable to resist adding or fixing things every couple of days for the last year. It's good for the book, but bad for the author. **The upside** is 'continuous integration' - during playtesting, any time a spelling mistake or botched rule came up, I could fix it instantly, without worrying about checking references. ## Macros are great, YMMV Every RPG has unique needs, so the major publishing tools will likely not cater well for those little pieces, like the exact format of an encounter table, or a stat-block for a vampire, or whatever. LaTeX lets you set a unique command for anything, so any work which you can explain to a computer can be done for you. **The downside** is that this has a far steeper learning curve than most tools. I wouldn't say LaTeX is inherently more difficult than learning Scribus or InDesign, but I think it's fair to say that macro-use is diving in at the deep end of the pool. **The upside** is that once you've set up a macro well, you can save a lot of time that might have been spent messing with box-positions. Currently, if I need a generic goblin for an adventure, I can type `\gobiln`, and a random goblin gets generated, with a random goblin-appropriate weapon and plausibly-goblin stats. [Example of customizable layout environments](https://github.com/rpgtex/DND-5e-LaTeX-Template) [Example of stat-block macros](https://i.redd.it/ng82unzqxru41.png) ## No Front End You can edit LaTeX with any number of tools, like Overleaf (website), TeXStudio, vim, et c. You can also add any tools which work well with text to your workflow, such as using git to control your versioning. **The upside** is that I can use my favourite text editor, and when a friend helped me on a project, he got to use his own favourite LaTeX editor. **The downside** is I now keep 2 sets of documentation on 'how to join the project' - one for working on Windows, and another with my own setup. ## Versioning Using simple on/off switches, a book can easily have multiple versions. The core book has a 'reference' version with no images, and much shorter examples. It's about 40 pages shorter than the full core book. Some adventure modules also have a 'hardcore' mode for higher level parties, so a single adventure can be used for both 'high and low level' parties, without rewriting the entire thing. ## Referencing II: Beyond the Index People are familiar with standard referencing, but using LaTeX has made it possible to create summaries which would be prohibitively expensive with standard typography tools, even for a large company. I can't speak to everyone's use-cases obviously, but personally I wanted: - A miniature table of contents per Quest - The table of contents needed slightly different titles from the actual Encounter titles - A further Appendix, listing out each encounter by *where* the encounters took place, not based on which Quest they were a part of - But also the Appendix needs a note about which Quest the encounter is a part of. The result is clean, easy referencing, done automatically. [Example Auto mini-toc](https://belgradecats.tk/pdfs/aif.pdf#subsubsection*.247) ## The Curse of Images in columns LaTeX can place images on the page in an intelligent and pleasing manner... unless you're working in a two-column environment. Inside columns there is no way to guarantee that an image will be placed in a sensible position every time you make an edit and recompile. I've read through the documentation, and read every Stack Exchange debate on the subject. I'm convinced it's not possible to do this well. The only solution is to manually check the document when making changes above an image, or to have images placed *outside* the columns. Placing images in columns and having the text wrap around the image (so the text curves gently around a fighter's broad sword), in that fancy way that RPGs love so much, is such a faff that it's probably not worth doing. It's reasonable to say that this feature is simply 'absent'.