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PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]

@ PorkrollPosadist @hexbear.net

Posts
36
Comments
583
Joined
5 yr. ago

Hexbear's resident machinist, absentee mastodon landlord, jack of all trades

Talk to me about astronomy, photography, electronics, ham radio, programming, the means of production, and how we might expropriate them.>

  • Featured

    Introducing: Fortress Fridays

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  • It doesn't look like I can bake the mods into the save. There are no "raws" in here at all. Just binary data files.

  • Featured

    Introducing: Fortress Fridays

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  • Looks like I just found a suit of copper armor your size.

  • Featured

    Introducing: Fortress Fridays

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  • Are we doing the graphical version?

    Yeah, I think this would be the most accessible option. Current stable - 53.06. The free version with text-mode graphics is still maintained and available in version 53.06 as well. If the saves are compatible (I believe they are), there is no reason to prohibit this either.

    I do think you should allow for some mods, why going for vanilla compatible?

    I'm not against mods. There are a few simple mods I'd really like to include (extra squad icons, audible alerts, reduced Z-level fog, enhanced UI (shows keyboard shortcuts for everything)). These need to be installed through the Steam Workshop though, which frequently malfunctions for this game in my experience. I needed to manually create a symlink to the Workshop folder make these work correctly. Raw mods no longer get baked into the save like classic DF, which complicates things because every player will need to install them.

    I plan on looking into if it is possible to manually bake the mods into the save. If this can work without needing everyone to subscribe to Steam Workshop items, I'll do it. I'll also take recommendations, but I'm not trying to change the gameplay mechanics too much (like adding new materials or workshops or creatures or "convenient" crafts like stone beds and corkscrews).

    I also never play without DFHack personally, but it is an extra thing everyone needs to install. If everyone is fine with that (it is fairly simple), I am not opposed in the slightest. Unlike workshop mods, I think DFHack just creates extra files in the save which are ignored by the game. The save should still work if it passes from a player with DFHack to one without, but functions like seedwatch which quietly keep the fort alive will cease to function for the period of that turn. Either way, I do plan on using DFHack to give the embark location a once-over to ensure it's viable, and we might use it occasionally to remove thousands of tattered socks if the game goes on long enough.

    Also, we're fresh out of starter dwarves unfortunately :P. We'll pack a crossbow and an immigrant will be assigned to do ranger stuff.

  • Featured

    Introducing: Fortress Fridays

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  • It works fine on either Windows or Linux, (including 3rd party memory-hacking tools like DFHack and Dwarf Therapist). I play on Linux personally. This is a game that renders all of its graphics in software and just uses SDL to open a window and put them on the screen (and process input events). It isn't going to be impacted at all by OS-dependent factors like video drivers, graphics libraries, or compatibility layers. It's basically like Doom in that regard (though the CPU and memory requirements are higher).

    From my understanding, a Mac port shouldn't even be too difficult (SDL and FMOD are both available). They just haven't gotten around to it unfortunately. It might still be possible to play in a compatibility layer like WINE (which officially supports MacOS, but I've never tried that).

  • Featured

    Introducing: Fortress Fridays

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  • I can handle the week of Christmas

    Assuming this means 12/19 - 12/26, the week when Christmas occurs

    NGL I'm a little intimidated by the siege changes, I'm generally really cautious and slow so it will force my hand but here we are I guess.

    I haven't got a proper siege yet, but generally I just let people wander around gathering webs in the caverns freely with open doors and it is usually fine.

    We might be better off limiting migration if we notice performance problems.

    Pop limit is a good thing to pin down, but fortunately I think it is one of the settings you can actually change at any time (doesn't make people go away if you lower it though). Performance has improved a bit so it is possible to run 400+ pop forts on a modern CPU, but 200 is probably a good tentative limit. If we become a Mountain Home, I think we should just retire and start the next chapter.

    would only veto a heavy one, that's a big pain.

    A feat I've never accomplished either. I will only consider it on a boundary, where some of the embark is heavy, if there is a compelling reason (e.g. we get free sand and infinite glass industry out of it).

    I can be the doc

    done.

  • Pong debuted [a few days ago] in 1972 — Atari's pioneering CPU-less video arcade game’s creation was the result of an engineer training exercise

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  • In addition to a handful of other uses, transistors are the fundamental building block of digital logic. They allow a circuit to perform logical operations like AND / OR / XOR / NOT. Even today, the most state-of-the-art computers are designed by composing these primitive functions (on the scale of billions of transistors in a modern CPU). In 1972, microprocessors were a very new technology, but all they did was essentially pack thousands of transistors into an integrated circuit which provided a collection of mechanisms for executing instructions and performing basic arithmetic. Intel's first CPU, the 4004, introduced a year earlier in 1971, packaged 2300 transistors in a single integrated circuit.

    For a lot of electronics and industrial control mechanisms, a solution could be implemented with a much more (schematically) simple circuit. There was no need for things like addressable memory, or reading and executing arbitrary instructions if your goal was e.g. to turn on a motor when a signal is coming from one of two sensors but NOT from a third. Such a circuit could be built from a handful of standard components, rather than a (at the time) state-of-the-art piece of silicon.

  • Locked

    Ponche de frutas navideño - Novo General Megathread for the 1st-5th of December 2025

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  • !!FUN!!

  • I MAY be alone on this but i think this whole “Signalgate” thing is a psyop made to make the app look bad and have the government look into it or shut it down

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  • Not to say that decentralization solves everything, but I see all of these centralized "but we do E2EE tho" apps as deeply flawed. Especially when they require phone numbers to sign up. You are just WhatsApp without Facebook's bad reputation! Assuming they are completely above board (not intelligence ops in themselves, but subject to legal pressure), we can take their word that there are no plaintext records the government can subpoena, but as a centralized service, they construct essentially one point the government needs to watch. They can correlate when messages are going in with when messages are coming out to assemble graphs of communications networks. With subpoena power, they can trivially figure out who the individual nodes are in those graphs, who they are communicating with, what their location is (they have your phone number), and with zero-day attacks at their disposal, they can exfiltrate the plaintext from end-user devices - if the social network information doesn't provide enough insight for them to roll up troublemakers without needing to burn these.

    There is an old manta among cryptographers and Free Software advocates that "there is no such thing as security through obscurity." I'm calling bullshit. While it is not a substitute for sound cryptography, the clever application of stenography goes a long way. Every day you can avoid being noticed is a day the investigation has been delayed. Every investigation which gets started late, or never starts at all, creates blind-spots to the state. Public key cryptography is a crucial tool, but there is a hyper-fixation on it while alternate methods are overlooked. Classic practices of tradecraft, like one time pads, dead drops, hiding messages inside innocuous mediums. The discipline to opt for radio silence instead of constantly dinging the "Revolution HQ" server with you E2EE messaging app as you roam from WiFi access point to WiFi access point. The pre-arrangement of signaling procedures, where an innocuous post on a mediocre blog, a classified ad with the correct words in it, or the arrangement of flower pots on a balcony can let somebody know it is time to move to phase 2, or establish a meeting in a predetermined location, or retrieve a package from a specific garbage can on the Hudson River Greenway.

    These apps are actually much more secure when being used by police and state officials. In this case, they don't need to worry about investigators with subpoena power. The threat model is simplified to the cryptographic fundamentals, and the security of the devices implementing them. Foreign intelligence is still a threat, but they don't have the blanket physical access to these networks that the US security state does.

  • Sunday is Gaming Day: What Are You Playing Weekly Thread

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  • These fucking chuds reelected a convicted vampire.

  • Sunday is Gaming Day: What Are You Playing Weekly Thread

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  • I've got some fortified (though not re-enforced) bastions protecting the enterance, but they aren't very tall and I still need to increase manpower. I currently have a squad of 8 with steel plate armor and various weapons. Goblins are about 6 days travel east, so I might have to provoke them.

  • Sunday is Gaming Day: What Are You Playing Weekly Thread

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  • Last week @context@hexbear.net broke the news (to me, anyway) about the Dwarf Fortress seige update, so I've been playing Dwarf Fortress. Spent some time messing around with the world-gen parameters, rolled about a dozen worlds, and found one I'm alright with (suitably deep). Along the way I tried a sinister embark an immediately got wiped out by nauseating muck. I also tried a volcano embark and discovered I was right on top of an active Kobold camp - which was cool, but impractical.

    There was an ongoing vampire problem which cost three lives. It turned out to be the Mayor, who has now been arrested by the Captain of the Guard and thrown in a dungeon where she can enjoy the craftsdwarfship of my metalsmith's chains for eternity. She only received a 400 day sentence though (she's immortal you idiots!) and is still the Mayor, so I walled it off. Hopefully the chuds don't re-elect her.

    The Fortress is up to about 85 residents with a stream of monster hunters passing through to visit the underground caverns. A few of them turn up dead now and then but my idiot Dwarves are still happily wandering to all extents of the underworld to gather cave spider webs so it must be Human stupidity. I was able to have my militia commander take a squad out to do recon in the caverns and they discovered a cave leading down to a second cavern level. After doing recon in the second level, I was able to choose a spot where I can build a "Great Hall" in-between them, spanning multiple Z layers with overlapping facilities and balconies. I'm planning it out to fit all 11 guild halls, plus a library, tavern, hospital, and dorms - but in a way these fit the architecture and aren't just extra rooms dug out when needed. Since about 30% of the caverns above are underwater, I'm trying to incorporate an underground waterfall and river as well.

    No seiges yet, but I have ample steel and a small castle on the surface built from bauxite blocks.

  • Locked

    Friedrich Engels - Novo General Megathread for the 28th-30th of November 2025

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  • It was the mayor omg

    She didn't confess to the murders, but the crimes here put her age at over 225. No natural dwarf can live so long.

  • Locked

    Friedrich Engels - Novo General Megathread for the 28th-30th of November 2025

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  • I was wrong :(

  • Locked

    Friedrich Engels - Novo General Megathread for the 28th-30th of November 2025

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  • Got his ass. (Pretty sure this guy is a vampire. They're not blue anymore.)

  • Airbus issues recall on 6000 A320 aircraft due to critical software issue

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  • REJECT RNAV, RETVRN to VOR/DME

  • "It's been a while, which Lemmy instances should I be on?" - Lemmy.World

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  • Lemmy.world is part of a network of "generic" Fediverse instances commonly ending with the .world TLD (mastodon.world is another example administered by the same people). They appear to be mostly concerned with growth, essentially following the tech startup model of growth -> ??? -> profit. The admins saw the Reddit Exodus as a good opportunity to expand their small collection of platforms into Lemmy, and by the numbers they were the most successful (though dozens of other instances were launched around the same time).

    In the lead-up to the Reddit Exodus, Lemmy dev Nutomic (IIRC) pitched Lemmy as an alternative on Reddit and the thread went viral. As a maturing Free Software alternative to Reddit with real-world use, and an architecture which mitigates many of the shortcomings of previous Reddit alternatives (e.g. Raddle, Voat, Tildes) it checked all of the boxes that tech-bro Redditors could possibly ask for in such a platform. It stood out to them as a viable solution for the same reasons it stood out to us five years ago. Tens of thousands of people created accounts on various instances and got to posting.

    Soon after, the Red Scare began. With the number of instances being launched and the number people signing up, people began taking notice. Not just on Reddit and Lemmy, but on other corners of social media as well. In various ways, people began pointing out that the people developing the alternative to monopoly capital social media were (gasp) Communists. This snowballed from curiosity and concern from people who weren't used to seeing open communists developing free software, to a full blown social hysteria - our own little Satanic Panic. Dessalines's thoughtfully written collection of essays transformed into the necronomicon. A collection of works which could be pointed to as proof of his and the project's deceitful nature, while simultaneously being a form of forbidden knowledge which could never be quoted with any amount of context. Thousands of people, including instance administrators, developed the mindset that they had been tricked into using Lemmy, and that rather than its obvious purpose of being a censorship-resistant social media platform which is also structurally resistant to corporate acquisition and consolidation, it is actually a nefarious organ of misinformation aimed at disintegrating the foundations of Western Civilization.

    A substantial part of the social media engagement strategy employed on platforms like Reddit is to make the users believe that by posting, they are engaging in an existential battle for civilization. With Liberal Democracy hanging by a thread, the smallest acts like upvoting the good ideas and downvoting the bad ideas can be all the difference it takes to tip the scales. Every day they spend in the posting trenches is a day that fascism is held at bay. Where the beleaguered city on the hill can stand one day longer against the endless hordes of tyranophillic Russians and Chinese. This attitude was carried over here by many of the Reddit converts, and places like Lemmy.world are the result.

  • Voyager 1 Is About to Reach One Light-day from Earth

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  • When you get to the gas giants these things are so fucking far apart it's crazy.

  • Voyager 1 Is About to Reach One Light-day from Earth

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  • About one day, as a matter of fact.

  • Locked

    Blue-ringed octopus - Novo General Megathread for the 24th-26th of November 2025

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  • Maple bourbon cheesecake was a hit at work today (I baked a test cake to make sure this recipe wasn't inedible AI slop before poisoning my family with it).

  • music @hexbear.net
    PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them] @hexbear.net

    Bambu - Chairman Mao

  • music @hexbear.net
    PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them] @hexbear.net

    Eminem - Mosh

  • music @hexbear.net
    PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them] @hexbear.net

    The Police - Walking in Your Footsteps

  • music @hexbear.net
    PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them] @hexbear.net

    Men at Work - It's a Mistake

  • music @hexbear.net
    PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them] @hexbear.net

    The Police - Bombs Away

  • El Chisme @hexbear.net
    PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them] @hexbear.net

    The workers don't want it either!

  • gamedev @hexbear.net
    PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them] @hexbear.net

    What can possibly go wrong... (do shaders even have a stack size limit?)

  • hexbear @hexbear.net
    PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them] @hexbear.net

    Mod statement on the lionization of Luigi Mangione

  • fediverse @hexbear.net
    PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them] @hexbear.net

    Social Media Beyond Corporate Control - Black Agenda Report

    www.blackagendareport.com /social-media-beyond-corporate-control
  • gamedev @hexbear.net
    PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them] @hexbear.net

    FediJam begins in 3 days

    itch.io /jam/fedi-jam
  • gamedev @hexbear.net
    PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them] @hexbear.net

    Babby's first vertex shader

  • gamedev @hexbear.net
    PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them] @hexbear.net

    Raycasting and overlay materials

  • mycology @hexbear.net
    PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them] @hexbear.net

    No Mushroom Hunting

  • gamedev @hexbear.net
    PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them] @hexbear.net

    An 11 hour video tutorial for Godot 4

  • askchapo @hexbear.net
    PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them] @hexbear.net

    Thoughts on an unofficial Mastodon instance

  • podcasts @hexbear.net
    PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them] @hexbear.net

    Community Podcast Recommendations