Blabberbox:Random blog-like posts from pftq.Share on Twitter

Nothing Lasts Forever

February 2nd, 2021 | Posted by pftq in Stuck in My Head | #
Nothing Lasts Forever by Benjamin Walfisch (@benwallfisch)
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Kagerou Project on Guitar

December 24th, 2020 | Posted by pftq in Stuck in My Head | #
Kagerou Project on Guitar Cover by Osamuraisan (@niconicosamurai)
202 unique view(s)

Vocaloid Piano Covers

December 24th, 2020 | Posted by pftq in Stuck in My Head | #
Vocaloid Piano Covers by tjpiano (@tojio_)
178 unique view(s)

Million Medley

December 12th, 2020 | Posted by pftq in Stuck in My Head | #
Million Medley by marasy8 (@marasy8)
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Drifting

December 8th, 2020 | Posted by pftq in Stuck in My Head | #
Drifting by Kristen Personius
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The Love of a Dunmer

December 4th, 2020 | Posted by pftq in Stuck in My Head | #
The Love of a Dunmer by Bosa (@JonBabbLiberty)
170 unique view(s)

Jet Set Radio Future OST

November 27th, 2020 | Posted by pftq in Stuck in My Head | #
Jet Set Radio Future OST by Hideki Naganuma (@Hideki_Naganuma)
172 unique view(s)

Yorushika Piano Full Medley

November 17th, 2020 | Posted by pftq in Stuck in My Head | #
Yorushika Piano Full Medley arranged by Polalice Alvireo (@PolaliceAlvireo)
178 unique view(s)

Past Becomes Myth

September 20th, 2020 | Posted by pftq in Stories | #
1. Kid watches people fly on TV. Parent: "Humans can't actually fly. Our bodies are too heavy. It's just a myth."
2. 1000 yrs later... Extremely fat kid watches people run on TV. Parent: "Humans can't actually run. Our bodies are too heavy. It's just a myth."
=======================================
Just a random idea for a comic that came to mind.
(but I do secretly believe we used to be able to fly)
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Nameless

September 20th, 2020 | Posted by pftq in Stories | #
Another mystery/horror story that came as a dream (and somewhat terrifying one at that)...

----------------------------------

A group of friends are traveling to a new city and staying there for a bit. It is a tropical beach city - a sandy, walkable, small town with low-rise, shack-like residences.  They play video games as a team online the first night and joke about why they bother to name the group if they can't beat anyone yet.  After midnight, they order food delivered on GrubHub, since it's too late to go out and fall asleep after eating.

The next morning,...[More]
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Unreal Engine 4 Notes

May 16th, 2020 | Posted by pftq in 42 | #
General notes and things I wish I knew as I delved deeper into #UE4:
- Package build by default includes unused assets, which can bloat the size of your game.  Go to Project Settings -> Packaging -> List of Maps to package only assets referenced by that map.  To be more aggressive and reduce unused assets in general (or to keep smaller backups), right-click your map and Migrate to a new project to create a new folder with only the assets used in your game.  More tips on this here.
- Shipping build will give you an instant 10-15 FPS increase, if you're trying to squeeze performance (ie for VR).  However, it disables using command line arguments (such as to create listen servers); the way to get around that is to build both shipping and dev in the same folder.  You can then create shortcuts to target the shipping or dev exe file depending if you want to launch server or client version of the game.
- Do not use numbers in the project folder name.  Otherwise builds will fail to run.
- Do not use Duplicate, as it moves the object slightly.  Use copy+paste.
- Never use...[More]
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Sims 3 Generations Build Mode OST

April 25th, 2020 | Posted by pftq in Stuck in My Head | #
Sims 3 Generations Build Mode OST by Steve Jablonsky (@jablonsky_steve)
215 unique view(s)

Programming for Holidays

April 12th, 2020 | Posted by pftq in 42 | #
In case anyone finds it useful, this is the code I use to automatically detect US holidays.  I don't claim credit for it - added bits and pieces over the years from various sources until it was complete enough that I didn't have to worry about it anymore.

[code]
        public bool isHoliday(DateTime date)
        {
    ...[More]
514 unique view(s)

Black Screen After RDP

February 16th, 2020 | Posted by pftq in 42 | #

Getting a Black Screen Trying to Login After a Remote Desktop Session


I recently started on occasion having a black screen come up when logging in.  This happens if I previously signed into Windows remotely.  The mouse is gone, keyboard does not work, etc.  It turns out this is caused by Nvidia's GeForce Experience ShadowPlay.  Disabling Shadowplay stops this from happening.

More details here:
https://superuser.com/questions/1026423/windows-10-black-screen-after-local-login-and-previous-remote-desktop-session
541 unique view(s)

SMF1 on PHP5

January 14th, 2020 | Posted by pftq in 42 | #
For those still using SMF1, PHP5 or later will throw a lot of deprecated errors and warnings, which quickly clog the error log.  This thread below isolates the 3 changes you need to clear them:
https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=534915.0

To stop error logging internally to SMF:
Quote
In index.php:
- Replace set_error_handler('error_handler'); with set_error_handler('error_handler',E_ALL & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_NOTICE);

To stop errors showing on the page itself:
Quote
In index.php:
- Change error_reporting(E_ALL); to error_reporting(E_ALL & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_NOTICE);

In SSI.php
Change
Code:
$ssi_error_reporting = error_reporting(E_ALL);
to
Code:
$ssi_error_reporting = error_reporting(E_ALL & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_NOTICE);
475 unique view(s)

UE4 Game Module Error

January 5th, 2020 | Posted by pftq in 42 | #

"Game module could not be loaded. There may be an operating system error or the module may not be properly set up."


After reinstalling Unreal Engine, my project stopped loading up. The above error message was extremely unhelpful, especially as any search for it online referred to moving DLLs around which had nothing to do with my issue. It turns out what was missing was the exact version of Visual Studio that I had when I last worked on my project. It has to be the exact version with the extras for C++ game development included. Any newer or older version still returns the same error. In my case, it was Visual Studio 2019 paired with Unreal Engine 4.23.1; it took me a few reinstalls just to figure that out because the help docs point you instead to Visual Studio 2017.
This is more a reminder for myself in the future to avoid losing a day to this again, but maybe it helps save someone else the time as well.
736 unique view(s)

Chrome Tabs CPU

January 4th, 2020 | Posted by pftq in 42 | #
Below is a blog describing a great fix for the excessive CPU usage Chrome has with multiple tabs open.  Specifically the Suspender extensions will stop any tab not in the foreground from continuing to use up CPU.
https://www.socmedsean.com/butchering-the-google-chrome-cpu-hog/

Despite having a quad-core CPU, Chrome somehow still uses up 100% of my resources especially if any tabs open are Google Drive / Sheets.
470 unique view(s)

As Soon as They Die

August 22nd, 2019 | Posted by pftq in Thought of the Day | #
How can you say you love someone forever if as soon as they die, you ditch them in the ground to rot and never look back? What kind of horrible, inhumane person does that?
592 unique view(s)

Modern Schools

August 9th, 2019 | Posted by pftq in Blabberbox | #
This is just my own personal preference in lifestyle obviously, but one of the thoughts I can't stand is how repetitive the life of a modern teacher must be, the dread of just living year after year on loop teaching the same thing but with no progression and not even the same students to share the journey.  To me, the thought of it is like being trapped in Groundhog Day.  You are the rock that never moves while all your students pass you by.  Fifty years can pass, your students already having lived entire lives, and when they come back to visit, you're still there doing the same thing, as if part of the historical scenery itself.

I kind of wish there was a more old-fashioned approach, where you and your teacher are both a team growing and learning together until the student finally one day becomes equal or even surpasses the teacher.  What we have instead with schools/colleges is more an assembly line where students churn in and out, the teachers sometimes...[More]
643 unique view(s)

Daydream Believers Cover

August 9th, 2019 | Posted by pftq in Stuck in My Head | #
Daydream Believer Cover by Youmou & Ohana
514 unique view(s)