Stuart Langridge @sil@mastodon.social

Stuff that's fun can't be scaled.
Stuff made for scale can't be fun.

So if you want to keep the fun, don't get big. If you want to get big, don't try to be fun.

First two puzzles done in https://adventofcode.com/2018

Massively annoyed at apps that go "beep" so I know _something_ is alerting me, but I have no idea what it is or what the alert was for. Use the damn system notification system!

Well, now I have two accounts. So I'm likely to be talking about roleplaying stuff more as https://tabletop.social/@sil, I imagine, unless I get really annoyed with this two-accounts thing and abandon that.

I am not, it seems, the first person to ask this. Or even the ten-thousandth person to ask it, looking at the github issues list. And it looks like there isn't really a good solution. Some instances show their local timeline on their /about page (tabletop.social doesn't; I don't know whether that's admin choice or not); you can't follow a whole timeline from another instance (many bugs requesting this have been closed). The answer is: have two accounts. I am sad about this answer, but OK, fine.

Mastodon help required. I've got an account here on mastodon.social. I'm interested in another instance, tabletop.social, which is about RPGs. What's the best way to get a sense of what's going on there, find a place in that community, etc? I can create a second account there, but doesn't Mastodon's nature mean I don't have to? I can browse their timeline (e.g., http://www.unmung.com/mastoview?url=tabletop.social&view=local) and follow individuals; is that the way to do it? Bit confused.

But... this is all new-Doctor unsteadiness, which everyone goes through. So far I haven't seen anything to suggest Whittaker will be bad, which I like. And the line about the sonic screwdriver now having Sheffield steel in got a grin. I was worried about Walsh, but he seemed fine to me. And I was glad Ryan didn't get a "now I can ride the bike through the Power of Heart now me dead nan's with me" scene like some crap Hollywood film. So, tentative thumbs up so far, I think. 2/2

So... not bad, I thought. Which is a good start for a new Doctor, since they always take a while. Felt a bit like mid-season monster-of-the-week filler rather than a Big Intro, which turned me off a bit since Whittaker doesn't seem as cool as 12/11/10 yet. And the crane-top "we can honour who we've been while choosing who we will be next" speech seemed a bit blunted by Chibnall using it to have a go at critics; he's justified, but don't ruin big speeches with it. 1/2

Had a brief look at Solid, TBL's decentralisation thing on the web. First impressions: I don't really get it, it needs UX design, and TBL's icon skills haven't improved since the early web in 1993 :)

It's healthy masculinity to admit to liking Toxic? It's about her second best song, behind Oops I Did It Again. Sadly, like Rihanna, I like her early stuff more than the later.
https://pinafore.social/statuses/100810895084731139

Today I discovered that people play RPGs online! By video! I had no idea such a thing even existed. Of course I seem to have discovered this just as some massive scandal has erupted around the roll20 site, so it's hard to get a sense of what's good and who I might play with. (Also, I'm a serious beginner, since the last time I played was in about 1990, which means I'd need a group who were OK with that, and don't play in US evenings. Which is hard to find.)

@nolan Pinafore bug report. While replying to a toot, either hide the new toot button, or (better) make it be a "send this reply" button. I've wrongly hit it loads of times :(

Have just finished both chapters of Cube Escape: Paradox. If you haven't played the other Cube Escape games (which are free) the storyline won't make a lot of sense to you, but the puzzles are still fun. Give them a try. Best surreal room escape Flash games I know. http://www.cubeescape.com

wrote this up in a stack exchange answer so hopefully future people will discover it: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/466757/191170

Grr, systemd-resolved and dnsmasq are having a war to use all my CPU. Most of the SO answers (https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/304050/how-to-avoid-conflicts-between-dnsmasq-and-systemd-resolved) are "disable systemd-resolved! manage DNS yourself!" which I don't want to do; I didn't install dnsmasq because I care about running my own DNS server, lxd installed it and so I can't remove it. But this seems to be a lxd problem, and there's a lxd solution! This seems to work: https://lists.linuxcontainers.org/pipermail/lxc-users/2017-April/013158.html

Excellent piece from Ethan Marcotte about accessibility on the web. Accessibility is not a problem that a framework can solve for you; it's like the quality of the writing in your copy, not like automatically compressing your images. Expecting software to do the accessibility work for you is like expecting the MS Word grammar checker to make you Jane Austen, and it won't. It's a craft, not a build step.

https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/accessibility-is-not-a-feature/

Darn. There is a secret phone settings menu on my Sony Xperia Z5 Compact, obtainable by dialling *#*#4636#*#* in the phone app, and in there is a "Wifi Calling" switch which I can turn on. But it doesn't stay turned on; if I exit the app and go back in it's off again. Bah.