A geek, coder, gamer, tinkerer, husband, father, server admin, web developer, and American cyborg, though not necessarily in that order.
@prologic Hmm... Interesting. 🤔
They definitely made some bold decisions with it, but I'm always skeptical of crowd-funded hardware projects...
@JasonSanta For sure. Even the self-hosted version is pretty easy to deploy, but I'm plenty satisfied with the web-based PWA. 🌤️
I forgot to note it here, but last night I opened my first bug report for the Old School Essentials Online Rules Reference, a modern set of rules for playing classic D&D-like games (and one which helped inspire my own system).
@JasonSantaI was aware of it, but I hadn't looked at it yet. Pretty cool!
@lyse Nice color on the clouds.
@jecxjo Where would the world be without Real Heroes (TM) like that? 🤣
This has become my new favorite way to get my local weather forecast (although I don't think it works outside of the US): WeatherStar 4000+.
It emulates the feeling of watching The Weather Channel's "local on the 8s" circa the late 90s / early 2000s, but it's interactive, on-demand, and even includes a replica light-jazz soundtrack.
I installed it as a PWA on both my laptop and my phone. 😁
Also, it can be self-hosted, but the original author's site has been good enough for me (so far).
This was hilarious: https://minesweeper.mikelacher.com/
📽️ Phantoms (1998) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6i2zB2NsW8
"It's just a Bundt cake, it's just a Bundt cake..."
(And, incidentally, Affleck is the bomb in this.)
@david Thank you! I'm not brave enough to play in public, but I know several people who do. I basically only play with friends or friends-of-friends.
@prologic Yes, @david is correct - it is a website with (most) everything one would need to run a fantasy tabletop role-playing game, either in-person or online. I use a service called Roll20 which provides a "shared" tabletop with virtual maps, dice, and character sheets that all the players can see (and I can control). It's really alot of fun - it's basically adult make-believe, but with a shared set of rules and a "game master" to keep the story moving. 😁
@jecxjo LOL, you aren't the only one who remembers it: see https://github.com/ZuraGuerra/beat_time and https://hackaday.io/project/193777-the-curious-case-of-swatch-internet-time 🕚
@prologic It depends on which part you're asking about...
First some quick context: I've been into tabletop role-playing games (ex: Dungeons & Dragons) since I was a teenager, and I've been playing and/or running games for most of the last decade (mostly on Discord for the past few years, as my players are scattered around the country).
The Planar Vagabond's Guide to the Multiverse is a website where I've collected much of the material I've written or adapted into my custom RPG ruleset, HOSR (Heroic Old-School Roleplaying), and I just published some new stuff there. 🤩
While most RPGs are played as "campaigns" (over multiple gaming sessions), a one-shot is an adventure that can (theoretically) be finished in a single-night (3-5 hours of gameplay). I've done horror-themed one-shots around Halloween for years, typically based on the classic gothic adventure, Ravenloft. But this year, I'm running something new(-er) called Escape the O.V.T.!, and I'm being intentionally cagey about it because I want it to be a surprise for my players.
Does that explain it? I'm happy to go deeper on any of it. 🙂
Today, I released a new update to my TTRPG project, The Planar Vagabond's Guide to the Multiverse, adding a handful of new spells, monsters, magic items, and races.
Plus, after nearly a year away from playing, I'm super-excited to run an all-new Halloween survival-horror one-shot this year called Escape the O.V.T.!
"Who will survive, and what will be left of them?"
Everything about time management is a pain for developers: time zones (and the locales that ignore them or go half-way), leap seconds, all of it is messy and weird and human. And DST is the worst aspect of it by far.
My first professional coding job as part of a team was in a Java shop, and there was a running joke along the lines of "Only Java would have a class called SimpleDateFormat which is anything but simple."
@prologic Yes, welcome back. Great pics, by the way. I know you said at least some of it was crowded, but it looked very tranquil.
@zyak That's a good idea. I'm updating the twtxt rendering on my site, and I think I'm going to add a toggle to show / hide replies. Thanks!
@movq Thanks, that was a good read, really took me back. 😍
"One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach... All the damn vampires."
@movq OS/2?
I hadn't thought about that in 20+ years... In high school, I had a friend who was a die-hard OS/2 Warp fanboy, but I never got into it (and wound up jumping ship to Linux in college).
"Hey, you know what they say: See a broad to get 'dat booty action, lay her down, or smack 'em, yak 'em!"
@prologic Nice! Looks tranquil.
@lyse Agreed, and I have an extensive library of "my own" files. However, we bought into the Google Home ecosystem some years ago (we have those little hockey-puck-shaped speakers throughout the house), and the only way to get multi-room streaming to work with them is to use a streaming service that they support. Hence, YT Music.
I've been expecting Google to EoL those speakers for the past few years, and figured I'd finally pivot to something self-hosted once that happens. But not yet!
@david My email is hey (at) itsericwoodward.com, if that works. While I agree it doesn't help test federation in the short term, right now I don't really have a frame of reference for how it should work, which makes it doubly hard to setup. 🙂
TBH, my biggest concerns with running my own instance is with DNS, just because of the "unique" way my home network is setup (plus, it's always DNS...).
Agog to be the 4,960th 🐲 on BackerKit for Deathbringer TTRPG by Professor DM. 🤘
@david To be honest, I'm a bit tor: part of me wants to set it up on my main application server (alongside gitea, TwtKpr, and a few others), but part of me wants to run it on a Raspberry Pi with Docker (because why not).
I'm also something of a bad geek in some areas, and IRC was never really my scene, so I don't have a ton of experience with it (I went straight from BBSes to WWW)... Maybe I'll take you up on that offer of an account at https://chat.ratha.us/, just to get my feet wet... (if it's still open) 😁
@prologic Happy belated birthday to you, sir! 🎂
@david Right? I loved seeing it on the big screen. It was even the Director's / European cut, with the little Nazi-killing bit in the middle. "It's a kind of magic!" ⚔️
@lyse Yeah, it's what we use for streaming. We've had a YouTube Faamily plan for years (we originally signed up to keep the ads away from the younglings), and it's included as part of the deal. I also have some hard-to-find music I uploaded to it back when it was Google Play Music. Still, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, per se.
@klaxzy Absolutely! "Angel Dust" was (and still is) my absolute favorite album of all time, from any band. It is (and remains) that damn good. 🤘
@lyse Added to the calendar, thanks!
Hey, folks. Sorry to disappear for the last couple of weeks.
Last weekend, I took the family to Atlanta, GA for a visit to the Georgia Aquarium and the Center for Puppetry Arts, both of which were fantastic (pics forthcoming). Unfortunately, amongst the souvenirs we brought home was the worst sickness my wife and I have had in years, which basically laid us both out until Thursday, and we've been recovering since.
On top of it, just before we left, I accidentally broke TwtStrm (my WIP TwtTxt reader), so I didn't even have a functional way to keep up with the only "social media platform" I actually give a hoot about (nor a functional brain to try and fix it).
As of this morning, though, I'm happy to report that we're basically all better, and TwtStrm is back to working. I'm actually hoping to get some code written this weekend (and maybe even try to get Parley running), but we'll see how things go. 🙂
🎶 "Regina" - The Sugarcubes https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=QpEz9pfJS7g&si=lKj-diIWGoi5BrWJ
Tonight, my son and I attended a screening of the original Highlander (1986) at my local indie cinema, the Independent Picture House in North Charlotte (about 35 minutes away by car). Very cool place with a great atmosphere, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing one of my favorite films in an actual cinema, even if it was 40 years after its release.
We already have tickets for Psycho (1960) and Chopping Mall (1986), both playing next month. 😎
🎶 "Falling to Pieces" - Faith No More (1989) https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=j5Z8X-dm3w8&si=Ig-oAL4kpDHcy5QF
#TFW your code works, even though you don't know why it works, because as far as you can tell, it shouldn't work at all. 🤔
@lyse Great photos!
The well sounds really cool, but I've always been a physics geek (ex: putting coins down those spinny funnels they used to have in the malls for collecting donations). I would have probably spent hours just there!
Thanks for sharing these.
@prologic I am very interested, but I need to setup a docker-capable machine first (I've always kinda shied away from using docker as it adds an extra layer of complexity to projects). I've got a couple of raspberry pis floating around the house, let me see what I can put together.
@prologic Sure, thanks! I'm interested to see how it works (although I admit, I ever spent much time in IRC because I never knew anyone else who had much interest in using it).
@prologic Amazing! Do you ever sleep? 😄
I recently installed Quake on my laptop (via vkQuake), and have really been enjoying playing it again.
When I was at University, we had a lab full of shiny new Windows NT 4.0 workstations that we immediately installed it on, and spent many a late evening fragging each other.
But tonight, when I defeated Chthon for the first time, it occurred to me that I had never actually played the single player mode all the way though (not even the first episode). So now I'm 2 missions into Episode 2 with plans to finish it over the next week or so. #LifeGoals
@prologic And don't think that it goes unappreciated. 😁
@prologic @david @movq No, I dig it - I absolutely love the slower pace here compared to even the Fediverse (and especially compared to corporate social media, which is always trying to sell something).
I did have a bit of a "down or just me" moment, thinking I might have broken my client (since it's still WIP and it's happened before), but beyond that, it was no worries. 🙂
I've been meaning to post another #Magic update...
Two Sundays ago, I had plans in the evening, so I could only play a single game, which I (surprisingly) won with my new #Dune deck (it played much better this time, but still suffered for the lack of flying defense).
Then, this past Sunday, I won the first game with my tribal Mutant Ninja Turtles deck (which still needs some tweaking, but held its own throughout), only to lose the next two games, both with my Avengers deck (which had been doing very well until this weekend).
Still, a win is a win. Tweaks will be made, and with any luck, the next game(s) will be even better.
Wow, twtxt suddenly be all like... https://itsericwoodward.com/images/gifs/tumbleweed-1.gif
While I was at Magic, my wife captured this photo of the princesses, Peaches and Astrid, resting together. Sadly, it didn't last, and it was soon time to return to Crazytown, but for a brief, shining moment, there was peace and quiet.
@prologic That sounds amazing. I look forward to seeing it!
@thecanine @prologic I get the lulz every time an AI company complains about getting scraped... 🤣
🎶 "Aneurysm" - Nirvana https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE3ynTXTm_8
Belated #Caturday memory: That time that Bonnie Prince Shadow declared himself king of the maneki-neko in an attempt to overthrow Emperor Maximilian I.
He gave up on the insurrection when he realized that waving was all they could do.
My long weekend has finally arrived!
To celebrate, I busted out FCEUX (an NES emulator) and killed some ghouls in Castlevania 3, stomped some koopas in Super Mario Bros, and even hit a homerun in Base Wars (one of my personal faves, a baseball game featuring fighting robots).
I'm about to switch to MAME to play some arcade classics in preparation for an outing tomorrow night to an arcade bar (for my son's birthday).
And I don't go back to work until Wednesday! Woot!! 🤘
@movq I was in high school when it first came out (the optimal age), so I was able to see it in the theater a couple of times.
Since then, I've seen it dozens of times, and owned it on VHS, DVD, and Blu-Ray. Excellent movie.
But that soundtrack... One of the top 5 albums of the decade.
@prologic Congrats on expanding your brand. 😁
Good find, @thecanine!
@movq It's still excellent, IMHO, and both very, very 90s and way ahead of its time. 🐦⬛
🎶 "After the Flesh" - My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgtkvcKmABM
"I am the new way to go, I am the way of the future."
@GabesArcade I have the Atari800 emulator installed on my laptop along with a copy of the game.
But the easiest way to try it now is probably via the Internet Archive, which allows you to play it in the browser: https://archive.org/details/a8b_M.U.L.E._1983_Electronic_Arts_US
The manual is there, too: https://archive.org/download/agm_mule/mule_text.pdf
For the first time in probably 30 years, I played a game of M.U.L.E. tonight (and won!).
Granted, it was a beginner-level game, with a beginner-level alien against 3 computer players, but... I'm just sayin'.
I even lost one of my tracts of land due to it not being "recorded", and I still won.
Take that, Mechtrons!
@lyse Their stance makes absolute sense to me, given their stated objectives, and they make some really great points. Thanks for sharing that.
@klaxzy What do you mean, it's the most people we've ever had... since Jul 11, when the search site was relaunched. 😁
@movq That's a clever idea - I had never considered adding an empty commit before, but I can see the value.
@movq Glad to hear it. Hopefully this, too, shall pass.
Maybe the bots will get tired of web-surfing, or the companies paying for it will all crash, or we'll find a way to protect our content while still being able to share it, or maybe we'll just all suddenly learn to live together with the bots in peace and prosperity for all. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ 🤞
@GabesArcade On behalf of her royal highness, we thank you for your kind words.
In #Magic last night, I debuted my new #Dune deck with an underwhelming performance - perhaps unsurprisingly for a desert-focused deck, I faced a real drought, starting the game with only 1 land in hand (even after a mulligan) and not pulling another land until turn 4(!). Because of our house starting mana, I wasn't totally sunk, but everything I got out was just luck. I did die last thanks to my big wurms (so I guess I was 2nd place?), but still... underwhelming.
For game 2, I wanted to bring the thunder (especially after my pitiful performance last week), so I dusted off my Night of 1000 Squirrels deck (headed by the infamous Chatterfang, Squirrel General). By turn 3, the #squirrel army was forming, and thanks to well-timed casts of Fog and Make a Stand, the squirrels managed to overrun everyone just a few turns later.
Another fun night overall. I won't be able to play for the next few weeks, so I'm glad this one ended with a win. 😁 #mtg
Today, we have a pair of pics presenting the preening Princess Peaches posing in pink (from earlier this year, when it was cooler and she was wearing t-shirts). #dogs https://itsericwoodward.com/images/e07cf394.jpg https://itsericwoodward.com/images/c088f1f9.jpg
@david Thanks, I do... IIRC, they're a good site for spoilers for upcoming releases.
I took the day off to get some stuff done around the house, but I wound up spending most of the day making #Dune-themed proxies for #Magic.
I had hoped to print them out for tomorrow night's games, but I'm up to 20 cards and 20+ tokens, so... we'll have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.
Here's a couple to share and enjoy:
@prologic Sure, I'm curious to see what you're offering.
My email is hey (at) itsericwoodward.com.
@prologic Potentially, depending on the features supported / hardware used.
I've long wished for an appliance (like a video game console) that hosts my essential services - email, shared files, social media, etc. - but which "just runs" in a box behind the TV.
So what do you have in mind? 🤔
🤣 Total Eclipse of the Heart (Literal Version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl9pzyv3-20
@movq @david @thecanine Yeah, I'm with you. It is just a tool, but it's a tool that burns rainforests and boils lakes when you use it, owned by some incredible awful human beings, and built on the backs of an increasing number of crippling mass-scraping campaigns. These costs are just too high.
I have to use it at work, but it's "the new norm" in software, so I'm hoping to use it just enough to get by until either 1) the bubble pops (and we don't have to use it anymore) or b) I retire. And actually, 1) happened for a minute back in June when M$ increased the prices of tokens, so it's certainly possible it could happen again.
All that having been said, I think the technology itself has some interesting uses, and I'm looking forward to the day when I can host some open source models on local hardware. But I can wait.
And yes, the site is unreadable on mobile, which is kinda wild for 2026. 🦆
@david Everyday, which is why we love him. 😁
Went 0-for-3 tonight, first time in a while. I was doing well both of the first two games, but the 3rd game... Well, the less said the better.
For next week, I guess it's time for the return of Chatterfang and another Night of 1000 Squirrels.
Just remember, they brought it on themselves...
For this special International #Caturday, here's some pics of Emperor Maximilian I posing on his cat tree. #cats
https://itsericwoodward.com/images/e7eb3ea8.jpg https://itsericwoodward.com/images/b8d24b7a.jpg
@GabesArcade Thanks!
I can't claim the art (that came from https://www.charlesgeart.com/projects/3qKQqg), but I think it makes for a slick design overall.
@movq True enough. I guess it's just the worst kind of "groupthink", silently correcting "mistakes" (aka minority responses).
This would seem to imply that the answer being shouted by the most voices in unison is "correct". How could that possibly go wrong? 🙃
Just printed and sleeved some proxies for tomorrow night's #Magic games, including this one from my Guardians of the Multiverse deck:
https://itsericwoodward.com/images/408216dd.jpg
He's Spider-Man Supreme, from Clash of the Champions - a Spider-Man from a universe where Peter Parker is also the Sorcerer Supreme of his Earth. He's one of my favorite characters in the game, and I thought he'd be an appropriate proxy for Cosmic Spider-Man (the best card from the Spider-Man set, but only really useful for a tribal Spiders deck).
@movq On the bright side, it decided not to trust your website. It didn't poison the bot, per se, but it did "determine" that the information presented on the site was unreliable. Maybe that means it won't use your site as a source?
"I got moths. Big, mutant, junkie moths!"
@david @prologic IDK, some people like to use their social media feeds as soapboxes or megaphones, others as public(-ish) speaker phones (I know I tend to oscillate between these two extremes myself).
Speaking for myself, I tend to be more of a lurker on most social platforms, but something about twtxt makes me want to engage with the people here. Maybe it's the quality of the individuals (❤️), or the relatively laid-back pace here compared to the attention economies of other platforms...IDK what it is, but I like it. 🙂
Thanks, it was a good time.
I was actually talking with my mate this evening and he mentioned that this was the 3rd disc he's lost at that hole. 🫨
The next time we play there, I may suggest that we just skip it (or start just beyond the "bad zone").
@prologic Everywhere I look. 🙃
@prologic Nice choice!
I was always partial to those 194x-style "bullet hell" games. 🛩️
Seen on the Fediverse:
"The tragedy of the Internet is that it has promoted the village idiot to the level of bearer of truth.” - Umberto Eco
I finally managed to get back out disc golfing today at Vietnam Veterans Park and had a good time despite losing a brand new disc on hole 3 (on its 3rd throw ever, my glow-in-the-dark Lynx disappeared into an overgrown creek-bed and was swallowed by the underbrush). After my buddy lost a disc on hole 4, we were kinda demoralized and both threw for crap the rest of the course, but it was still a nice day to be slingin' in the sun...
🎶 "Triple Double" - Girl Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0yY0zxk-18
@david I don't know what you mean, we never bribe our photo subjects with treats. 😁
She usually keeps most of them on all night, although her rear-end is prone to escaping.
From back in October, this is the Princess Peaches showing off some of her "Pibble-Js".
https://itsericwoodward.com/images/27491ef0.jpg https://itsericwoodward.com/images/a8105123.jpg
I'm still on a deckbuilding kick, so I was thrilled that we managed to get 3 games of Magic in last night.
In game 1, my Marvel Villains deck couldn't stand up to Doctor Who's Missy and her army of Cybermen (and Daleks). Since someone else was playing a dark lord Sauron deck, I guess that means she's even more "villainous" that anything Marvel or Tolkien could offer.
For game 2, I ran my Guardians of the Multiverse deck (formerly known as The B-Vengers or Marvel Heroes 2: Electric Bugaloo). It was working well, and I had quite an army going, but I was still one turn from a win when an opponent's tribal elf deck went off, killing everyone with 19 19/19 forest-walking elves. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Then in game 3, I ran my Avengers deck, and finally got the win thanks to a Heroes' Podium, a pair of Hawkeyes, and a flying, shield-wielding Captain America. Assemble, indeed.
Last night will likely be my final Marvel-only game night for a while. I still need to test the decks out some more, but they're basically complete (I don't currently plan on adding any more cards to them). Plus, while I'm on this kick, I'd like to finally finish my Sauron deck, and I've got some cards on order for both a Dune-themed deck and a couple of decks inspired by the old-school Beatdown Box.
Although I was initially concerned that adding modern Marvel superheroes to the high-fantasy worlds of "Magic: the Gathering"" would be too aesthetically dissonant, instead it's gotten me back into deck building in a big way.
Since the set was released last month, I've built: a 5-color Super Villains deck, two 5-color Superheroes decks, plus a 5-color tribal Mutant Ninja Turtles deck (built from the best cheap singles from the TMNT set from earlier this year, a set that was a bit more dissonant, but still weird enough to be fun).
And then there's the proxies...
@javivf Oh, I like the looks of that.
GTD was undoubtedly the best developed task-management system I ever got into (and I tried a bunch in my time), but even it wound up being too much work for me to keep up with. An app like that might streamline it enough to make it usable. Thanks for the link!
For this week's #Caturday, I have an image that requires a bit of backstory...
Shortly after Emperor Maximilian I retained us as his caretakers (over 8 years ago), we would often return home from our travels to find a handful of pairs of socks scattered around the floor, typically taken from our son's sock drawer (which was usually overflowing and therefore often left slightly open). We weren't sure if it was Max (as he was not the only cat in the house) until the day we came home to find this: https://itsericwoodward.com/images/5f3931ff.jpg
@prologic Congrats! 🤘 That sounds disturbingly low-level to me, but I know that it's no small feat.
@lyse @movq @klaxzy @david I'm in a similar boat, they pushed us to use it, then pushed us to keep our usage below a certain threshold (although they do allow certain "power users" go beyond the limit, LOL). I dragged my feet at first, but they finally broke my spirit about a month before the limits were put into place. Unfortunately, I've been doing more managing than coding lately, so I mostly just use it for creating JIRA tickets (I find it to be very good at producing "Agile artifacts").
@prologic Copyright infringement is still your best entertainment value.
@david Thanks, and affirmative. The cats are Bowie, Bugsy, Emperor Maximilian (Max), and Shadow. The dogs are the Princesses, Astrid and Peaches.
'Tis a zoo, sometimes.
Since I missed another #Caturday, I thought I'd introduce the 6th (and most recently arrived) mammalian quadruped with whom we share living space, a young lady known as The Princess Astrid.
https://itsericwoodward.com/images/6a8a1bca.jpg
She's technically our grandpuppy (being our daughter's "daughter"), but we considered the pibbles to be sisters, and they truly do love each other.
@movq Thanks for that. I'd been hearing about this in the context of browser plugins turning computers into residential proxies for web scrapers, but I hadn't considered that a TV could be used the same way. ☹️
@movq I'm with @prologic on this one... I spent nearly a decade as an "enterprise" Java developer (servlets and JSPs and Spring, oh my!) before I finally swore it off, and I've been Ora-clean ever since (8 years and counting).
I won't go back.
@movq That's crazy... Do not want!
@david @prologic No worries, I was just trying it on for size.
I played it again today (10/12 on first try), but I can't say that I love the format of the "share link" (the unnecessary yellow and green circles).
I think if I did want to post daily scores or something (for posterity), I'd likely setup a separate feed just for my "achievements". 😁
Free daily 3D mini golf in the browser? I smell a new obsession...
putt.day #62 ⛳ 10/12 Eagle 🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡🟢 https://putt.day/s/1VAFIDIxqpbT
@david @GabesArcade Thanks.
The cats don't actually care much (since they're cats), but Princess Peaches is prone to bouts of extreme jealously, and has been giving me the side-eye for sharing pictures of the cats rather than her.
I say the world needs both more princesses and more Peaches! 😄
Since I keep missing #Caturday, I figured I'd change it up today with pics of our pibble, The Princess Peaches, framed by the light of the window.
@prologic TBH, I was just going to try and reverse engineer it from the Go source files, but any other docs you can provide would be helpful, for sure! 🙏
@aelaraji @david @prologic It looks like tab stops to me, every 8 characters, and the tab character jumps to the next stop (hence different tab widths based on where the tab occurs in relation to the next tab stop).
@prologic I really like how these two apps pair-up. Seeing as I'm still tweaking TwtKpr, I'm considering adding support for the same APIs as twtd (so maybe it can be used as another backend for Twtxt.App). 🤔
I hadn't really planned on spending the evening fighting with RegEx...
I guess sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you.
@aelaraji Greetings!
It looks like that post is dated for 2027:
https://itsericwoodward.com/images/59b6fc28.png
I can see it in your twtxt.txt file that way as well:
@prologic Why, thank you. We're quite pleased with him as well. 😊
For today's (belated) #caturday, here's a recent pic of our chunky-buddy Bowie in his house at the bottom of the cat tree in the kitchen.
Enjoy!
For game 2, everyone else brought out bigger guns - tribal dragons, tribal giants, tribal spiders (led by the completely broken Cosmic Spider-Man), and Atraxa (equipped with Captain America's shield, no less), while I ran my new (also unlisted) 5-color tribal Super Villains deck (fronted by the Super Skrull). Although I got off to a slow start, it kept me mostly under the radar, allowing me to ultimately win with the Villains by goading everyone else's creatures into attacking each other on one turn (via Maximum Carnage), and then killing off the remaining players over 3 combat phases on the follow-up turn (Full Throttle).
Boo-yah!
Perhaps unsurprisingly, last night's Magic games were dominated by the new Marvel set.
In game 1, I was running my new (unlisted) 5-color tribal Super Heroes deck (led by Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD) against a lightly-modified Avengers Assemble deck, a tribal Super Villains deck (fronted by Thanos, the Mad Titan), and 2 "classic" magic decks (Fractals and Artifacts). The heroes held their own quite well, but that game went way too long (thanks to Thanos snapping away half the board every other turn). It finally ended when everyone quit after yet another board wipe (giving the wiper her first win).
@lyse I can't take credit for that word, that was a @bender original. However, I did hashtag it on Masto in hopes of possibly inspiring someone to learn about what truly decentralized social media looks like (and maybe even come join us). 😊
What a week!
It looks like I mostly missed the #twtxthashgeddon (so happy belated twtxthashgeddon day, to those who celebrate), although I'm glad that [twtxt-lib](https://twtxt-lib.itsericwoodward.com/#overview) appears to have come through it more-or-less unscathed.
Also, today is (was) July 4th, so happy US Independence Day (to those that celebrate). I didn't feel much like celebrating, myself, so instead I went and played Magic (results tomorrow).
Finally, today is (now) July 5th, so happy X-Day (to those that celebrate). I can't help but feel like this would be a great time for the saucers to come.... Just sayin'. 👽
BTW - welcome to twtxt @GabesArcade!
@prologic Excellent, thank you for this!
Apologies for the late #caturday post, but I figure it's more of a state of mind, like that time Shadow temporarily "borrowed" the dog bed (and discovered how comfy a blanket pile can be)...
Great, another privacy-destroying bill in the name of "child safety"... Must be a Thursday.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/kids-act-would-require-age-checks-get-online
Happy Summer Solstice and/or Father's Day, to those who celebrate.
I spent mine setting up a gift from my wife, a Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite, and then watching a couple of movies that really brought the colors out: Flash Gordon (1980) and Dune (2021) (with Rifftrax commentary).
I'd call that a good day.
For this week's (slightly delayed) #caturday post, we catch Bowie as he contemplates whether to play Arkham City (again).
https://itsericwoodward.com/images/ec5153b8.jpg
Spoilers: he opted for a nap instead (as is his way).
🎶 "Woken Furies" - Gunship https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDb6eNUPScU
The perfect music for late-night urban roving.
But also: "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum."
And: "You know, you look like your head fell in the cheese dip back in 1957."
And: "Brother, life's a bitch... and she's back in heat."
And: "There's gonna be hell to pay. 'Cause I ain't daddy's little boy no more."
Just finished watching They Live (1988) again, one of my favorite movies, and one that has (sadly) remained relevant for nearly 40 years (some might even argue it's more relevant today than ever).
Obey. Consume. No independent thought. Honor apathy. Do not question authority.
They live, we sleep.
Been digging Susam Pal's Wander Console: https://susam.net/wander/
I like the way it combines human curation with algorithmic randomness, allowing you to visit other #smolweb sites without leaving "home".
Like this one - The Oldschool PC Font Resource: https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/
I plan on adding one to my own site as part of its next update.
In Magic today, the Phyrexian Invasion failed in the first game, but the second game was EPIC!
I played my (unlisted) Dragons 2: Draconic Boogaloo deck, and...
Turn 1: Nothing special Turn 2: Miirym (when a dragon enters, copy it) Turn 3: Tiamat (choose 5 dragons from deck, put in hand) Turn 4: Klauth (when dragons attack, create mana equal to their total power) I attacked with all 5 dragons, which made 28 mana x2 = 56(!) mana. Then (still turn 4) I played Scourge of Valkas (when a dragon enters, deal damage to target equal to number of dragons) + 5 other dragons, dealing 6 + 2 x (7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17) = 270(!) direct damage (more than double enough to kill the other 3 players).
Damn fine win, if I do say so myself.
In today's #caturday image, Emperor Maximilian the First tries to teach his subjects how to play Sequence, despite never having read the rules himself...
9-year-old me found this on the Fediverse last night:
https://restorationgames.com/thunder-road-ignition-pre-orders-open/
He said it was "rad", and wouldn't shut up about it until I preordered it.
Now hopefully he'll stop asking for things for a bit so my other ages can have a turn...
For this week's (slightly late) #caturday, I'd like to introduce our 4th and final feline resident, the old boy we call Bugsy. He's been with us for 8 years, and we think he's 13-14 years old (but he's not saying).
He used to sound a bit like a cartoon gangster (hence the name), but as the years have passed, he started to sound more like late-stage William Hickey (Uncle Lewis from Christmas Vacation).
He's our sweet little old man, and he is loved.
Well, that might work... https://codeberg.org/awful-systems/AAA-NO-SLOP.md 🤣
Played some games, boosted some toots, tweaked some code... now it's time for bed.
Apologies to anyone who's seen an uptick in twtxt pings from me today... I've been working on shoe-horning my twtxt reader (TwtStrm) into my editor (TwtKpr, aka the express-twtkpr npm library), and it kind ran amok a few times. So again, sorry - I've added a minimum 10-minute cool-down period between pulls which should help (I hope 🙂).
Last minute entry for #caturday (at least in this time zone)...
This is Shadow. He's an incredibly sweet boy who likes long walks (on your shoulder), loving on his puppies, and laying in his bowl(s).
https://itsericwoodward.com/images/17a03702.jpg https://itsericwoodward.com/images/c4b3ce57.jpg https://itsericwoodward.com/images/4bbc4698.jpg
I'm thrilled to be the 10,082nd 👻 on BackerKit for "First in Fright: The FANGORIA Compendium"!
After I'm gone, and the years have passed, I hope people will remember me not just as a man, but as a hoopy frood who really knew where his towel was.
It looks like someone forgot to check their email template... 😁
I went 1-for-2 again at Magic today, winning the first game with my (mostly standard) Fallout "Hail, Caesar" deck by creating a swarm of soldiers and slapping people across the face with them (LOL!), before quitting the 2nd game for lack of time after my board got wiped (I mean, I might have lucked into something eventually, but it was getting late, so I dropped out).
I hope to play more regularly going into the summer, but who knows.
I really dig #caturday on the Fediverse, so I thought I would start doing it here as well.
For this week, I'd like to introduce my spirit animal, Bowie.
https://itsericwoodward.com/images/4dde8634.jpg
May his supreme laziness (and fuzzy-chunky-monkey cuteness) serve as an inspiration to you, too.
Reached a new high score on "River Raid" on the Atari800 emulator.
Overall, a most productive night. 😁
Looking back on an old project, while keeping an eye to its future...
I'm pleased to announce that express-twtkpr (my ExpressJS library for hosting, editing, and posting to a twtxt.txt file) continues to crawl towards a full release with another (pre-alpha) update published to NPM. This update includes a whole new plugin system, and even a (little) more documentation. Check it out, if you dare (and use it at your own risk): https://www.npmjs.com/package/express-twtkpr
And speaking of plugins, here's where the fun's at: announcing express-twtkpr-core-plugins, a set of 3 plugins for your TwtKpr install: emojiButton, uploadButton, and postToMastodon. Like express-twtkpr, this set of plugins is still in pre-alpha, and lacks documentation, examples, tests, installation flexibility, or polish (so also use them at your own risk). Other than that, they work great: https://www.npmjs.com/package/express-twtkpr-core-plugins
https://itsericwoodward.com/images/bba54e39.png
https://itsericwoodward.com/images/e472ea48.png
https://itsericwoodward.com/images/65b23473.png
Stay tuned for more! 🤘
Agog to be the 2,644th backer 😎 on BackerKit Crowdfunding for Old-School Essentials Demonic Grimoire! https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/exalted-funeral/old-school-essentials-demonic-grimoire
My first game of Magic ended with a truly EPIC TURN yesterday...
It was a 5-player game, and I was running my (unpublished) Superfriends deck (mostly Planeswalkers and counter manipulators). After some ups and downs, I was able to pop the ultimate abilities on a handful of PWs all on a single turn, pumping my Bioessence Hydra to 110/110 (!) before tapping it twice to kill 2 opponents, and then following that by destroying all of the lands of a 3rd opponent and stealing all of the creatures from the 4th, at which point the survivors decided to quit. As I said, EPIC TURN!
Game 2 ran long, so I dropped out. But that first game...
I won our only game of Magic for this week with my (yet-to-be published) "Bolas Triumphant" deck: 5 players over 3 hours, including 4 board wipes (one of which came from my Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh), and I even got to cast Omniscience via a Fae of Wishes. I can't speak for everyone, but I know I had a good time. 😁
Also, this really speaks to me (or maybe it speaks for me): https://neilzone.co.uk/2026/04/just-let-me-compute-in-peace/
"There is sauerkraut in my lederhosen."
Message on my watch this morning: "Last week's goals slipped away. No worries, this week is yours!"
Thanks, watch. Where would I be without you?
TIL that SSH actually stands for Secure Snake Home, a massively multiplayer snake game playable via the SSH protocol: ssh snakes.run
Of course, no one else was online when I was playing, so...
I went 1 for 2 at Magic this week... Temmet made a good showing the first game before being overwhelmed by an infinite number of Wylls (aka Fred Durst, on account of all his "rollin', rollin', rollin'!"). As a result, I unleashed Chatterfang on the group for the second game, and he lead his squirrel army to victory once again. Good times!
For the first time in years, I managed to get out and throw a round of disc golf. Had a good time playing Vietnam Veterans Park in Kannapolis, throwing +10 over 9 holes, with my only par being thanks to a 40' "putt" with my MRV. And the weather was perfect.
I hope to play another round soon.
Went 2/3 at Magic today: Prosper dominated game 1, Ash and his Knights came within a single planar die roll of winning game 2, and then Atraxa came up with the win in a fairly tight game 3. All in all, not a bad afternoon of Magic.
I'm happy to report that, earlier today, I published an early version of express-twtkpr: an ExpressJS library that enables hosting (and directly posting to) a twtxt.txt file. It works great (otherwise you wouldn't be able to read this), but it's still in alpha and lacks documentation, examples, tests, installation flexibility, or polish, so please use it at your own risk. Enjoy! https://www.npmjs.com/package/express-twtkpr
New library alert => Last night, I published twtxt-lib, a new isomorphic TypeScript library for parsing and interacting with twtxt.txt files. Check out the demo at https://twtxt-lib.itsericwoodward.com/!
Last night, I beat Castlevania SotN. Tonight, I won the Superbowl in NFL Blitz 2000.
Clearly, my mad PS1 skillz are finally at their peak...
Another successful playthrough of Symphony of the Night draws to a close... And Richter's story begins once again...
What a horrible night to have a curse...
Spent most of the long weekend working on a few coding projects... specifically, I pushed some updates for TwtKpr to my test instance before spending some time working on the build process and demo page for my new twtxt-parsing library... which lead me to make some changes to my existing fluent-dom-esm library.
So, nothing actually got finished, but the incremental updates continue...
New post: 2025 - A Year in review (https://www.itsericwoodward.com/journal/2025/12-31-year-in-review.html)
Happy New Year, everyone!
Day 6 of AoC, and I'm all caught up. 12 puzzles down, 12 more to go!
Working on day 3 of the Advent of Code 2025: https://adventofcode.com/
My solutions repo: https://git.itsericwoodward.com/eric/aoc-2025
I like to read through old RPG books and zines for inspiration for my games, and lately I've been enjoying the Arduin Grimoire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduin), one of the earliest 3rd-party zines (coming out during the initial run of OD&D). It's filled with a bunch of unique ideas (some better than others), entirely too many charts, and is very much a product of its time, but there's something about its "raw"-ness (and its variety) that I still find appealing.
I wound up running 2 out of 3 of the one-shots, both Halloween games based on Ravenloft / Curse of Strahd, and both rousing successes (for the players, not so much for Strahd).
Since I'm on something of a gaming kick, I think I'm going to try and finish plotting out the rest of the fae adventure I'm running for my kids, while also (hopefully) finishing my super secret astral gaming project.
Can I do it? Stay tuned and find out!
After taking most of the year off from role-playing, I've got 3 one-shots coming up in the next month, all of which need some tweaking before I can run them (as do my homebrew rules).
Plus there's a "build a game" code challenge at work, a pair of media boxes I need to rebuild, a pair of dead machines I need to diagnose, and I'd like to (eventually) get my twtxt apps to a "releasable" state.
So many projects, so little (free) time...
♫ MTV's Amp: Season One Playlist ♫ https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBXO-yEpu7qfeUQoFVHFsZuHdHAxOW6O8&si=m2TxRaKYBwXoKrYx
Shuffle. Jam. Repeat.
I finally solved the loading issue in my WIP reader, TwtStrm (and apologies again to anyone that got spammed while I was diagnosing the issue).
After another round of coding this weekend, I'm happy to report that it now renders all the twts (with markdown parsing), complete with localstorage and server-based file caching.
I finally resolved my issues with hashing twts... with REGEX!
Dates in JavaScript are truly strange creatures.
Apologies if I've been spamming anyone out there in twtxt-land today.
I've been working on a couple of twtxt-related projects, and one of them is a reader (tentatively called twtstrm) written in JS. I used dummy data for the first few stages of development, but now I'm at the point where I need some real data, and that meant hitting up my actual following list.
Of course, it didn't help that I had a typo in my If-Modified-Since headers, but all that has since been resolved.
Anyways, if I accidentally spammed you with requests today, I am sorry, and it shouldn't happen anymore.
We thank you for your patience, and apologize for the inconvenience.
Yesterday, I published my first package on JSR: https://jsr.io/@itsericwoodward/fluent-dom-esm.
Then today, I pushed an update to my site to show my twts (including a schnazzy little animation to add them): https://itsericwoodward.com/
Overall, a most productive weekend.
👓 "How to Make an Apostrophe in HTML: The Complete 2500 Word Guide" https://thelinuxcode.com/how-can-i-make-an-apostrophe-in-html/
I had some trouble with my nginx reverse proxy, but after much tweaking and fiddling, I now have the prototype version of my node-based twtxt editor up and running on my site! 😎 #twtgoals
I finally have my new (top-secret) twtxt client in a working state. Next comes the deployment, which I hope to finish tonight. Release date: TBD. Stay tuned!
Timeline Sandbox 
