Here to talk about fighting games, self hosting web apps, and easy weeknight recipes.

My mastodon account: @tuckerm
My blog: https://tuckerm.us

  • 3 Posts
  • 64 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • The Juicero was seriously a major point in my personal ideological journey. Around 2013, I was still very convinced that Silicon Valley (and VC-backed startups in general) were a source of innovation that could do a lot of good in the world. I was starting to question that a little bit because I had noticed that every new startup was described as “like Uber for <other thing>,” but I still largely believed that most SV startups were innovative and improving people’s lives, or at least had the potential to do so.

    And then the freaking Juicero came along, and I was like, “What the fuck? Do these people actually have no idea what they’re doing? Oh my god, they don’t.”

    Look, I’m not saying that if the Juicero didn’t exist, that I would be some Elon Musk fanboy right now. Something else probably would have woken me up instead.

    But in this timeline, in this current universe we are in, the Juicero made me see things differently. No one wants to believe that they were changed by the Juicero… but I was. And I… I… I don’t know how I feel about that…




  • I’ve been loving RFF the last few months, it might be my favorite new thing I’ve found since I switched from Twitter to Mastodon. It also always shows you the artists’ fediverse usernames so you can follow them, and they usually have a Bandcamp link if you want to buy an album.

    They recently said that they could use some volunteer help. I haven’t been able to check out what they need yet, but their matrix channel is #radioFreeFedi:matrix.org, I think that’s where they organize things.


  • Two reasons:

    1. I live in Utah, where the Mormons are, and they get very offended by swearing. Although there are some ways in which I will definitely not accommodate their religious beliefs, I also think it’s healthy to meet other people at their comfort level (if it’s reasonable to do so). On the one hand, I understand the idea that we shouldn’t have to change who we are in order to make other people comfortable. On the other hand, I do think that if you take that idea too far, it can be a kind of antisocial behavior. When in Rome, as they say.
    2. It has more impact if you don’t do it often. Think about a Quentin Tarantino movie. By the time Samuel L. Jackson has said “fuck” for the 157th time, you’re just used to it. The word doesn’t even stand out anymore. But now consider the end of The Princess Bride, which has one swear word in the entire movie: “I want my father back you son of a bitch.” WHA-BAM! Hits like a freight train every time!

    For the follow-up questions, kind of the same answer to both of them. I feel like not swearing – or, swearing less – requires me to be more precise when I’m criticizing something. Instead of just saying that something was “like shit”, I have to give a more specific criticism. So that’s the change that it has made, and no, it hasn’t stopped me from expressing something.




  • I’ve found that, currently, this kind of works and kind of doesn’t. I’ve boosted a few lemmy and mbin comments from my Mastodon account, and it shows up in feeds just like you would expect it to. Unfortunately, the parent post of the thread only shows as a link to the lemmy/mbin thread, rather than showing the full text of the original post. So it’s hard for people to see the context of the comment.

    Mastodon appears to see lemmyverse comments the same way it sees Mastodon comments, but the top-level post that started the thread is somehow different.



  • I think it’s worth as a long-term goal for the Fediverse to entirely separate the “view” aspect from the “content” aspect of platforms where reasonably possible

    This perfectly describes my ideal fediverse, too. Pretty much everything we’re doing here is posting text; it can be a comment on someone else’s text, or a comment on a video, or a top-level post in a community, or a top-level post on your microblog (which is basically your own community where you’re the only top-level poster). IMO the type of fediverse server you choose should be based on which one has the best UI for the viewing and posting you’ll be doing most often, but they should all be able to show everyone else’s content as much as possible.

    If I need to, I’ll create separate accounts for separate interests, like one for games and one for professional things. But I’d like to use the same account for following indie game developers (on Mastodon) and gaming communities (on Lemmy) and commenting on game review videos (on Peertube).


  • I also want interoperability between microblogging and threaded services, but unfortunately I’m a little skeptical about the account mirroring concept. Or, at least, I’d like more details about it.

    Do users need to opt-in to have their accounts mirrored, like how they do with brid.gy right now? If there are a bunch of users with Bluesky accounts that don’t have Frontpage accounts, that would mess with the ability to have all comments showing up between the two services, and it would prevent some people from posting a comment on someone else’s comment if one of the commenters has not opted-in to have their account mirrored. Or, can a plain Bluesky account comment on Frontpage threads, but not start a thread?

    I like the idea of being able to quote-post link aggregator threads to your Bluesky account, but I think ideally this would only require one account. Which would mean you could also use your Bluesky account to start a thread on Frontpage.



  • (Disclaimer: haven’t read the article yet, definitely going to get to it later today.)

    This is kind of thing where I am so torn between philosophy and pragmatism.

    1. Morally, bodily autonomy is very important. Framing this as “right to repair for your own body” is a fascinating way of thinking about it, and makes a clear, ethical argument in favor or DIY medicine. And that’s on top of the fact that we shouldn’t have to rely on giant corporations for our health.
    2. The potential consequences of this are terrifying, not just for misinformed people, but their children as well.

    On a meta note, 404media continues to be the best subscription I’ve ever paid for.



  • I’ve been using a PS5 controller lately. I’m on Windows, but I think it works on Linux. I also launch every game through Steam, which handles compatibility issues well.

    The Steam controller is my favorite, but I wanted something that I could buy replacements for, so I started using a PS5 controller. The touchbar is not really useful (hard to reach and pretty imprecise), but it does have a gyro for aiming in FPS games. And I play a few racing games, so I wanted analog triggers, which the Switch controllers don’t have.

    I bought an upgraded one from aimcontrollers.com, just to get some clicky microswitches on the d-pad, face buttons, and shoulder buttons. I hate how much I paid for it, but I do love some clicky buttons. Having looked at their site just now when posting this, apparently they now offer hall effect joysticks, too. So I might need another one. 😬

    edit: Just realized that this was posted in linux_gaming. Well, I’m still pretty sure that PS5 controllers work on Linux. And I’ll be switching soon anyway, since my perfectly good PC doesn’t meet the requirements for Windows 11.




  • I remember seeing this on the news a few years ago. If I remember right, they were interviewing a design firm that does interior design for fast food and fast casual restaurants, and they were talking about all of this. I was really surprised at how candid they were being, since you would think that they would want this to be an industry secret.

    The high stools with no back, the music that is too loud, the lights that are a little too bright and kind of hanging down in your field of view: all intentional, so that you’re just ever so slightly uncomfortable and you leave a few minutes sooner.


  • I’m certainly close right now. I bought a laptop from System76 in December (the Pangolin). It has not, any any point, worked acceptably. First the USB ports would frequently disconnect and reconnect. Then the trackpad started freaking out, registering constant false clicks and not letting the cursor move.

    The first time I sent it in, they shipped me back someone else’s computer.

    When I did get my own laptop back, I found that the trackpad issue hadn’t been fixed. Then it stopped waking up after being suspended.

    So I sent it in again, and got no updates from them for 30 days. They said their usual turnaround time was 7-10 days. And the first time I sent it in, it took them about a week to send it back. Well, to send a computer back. So something was wrong here.

    On top of that, the support ticket has a “Last Updated” timestamp, and it kept changing every couple of days. I asked them for details, and only received generic “sorry this is taking a while, we’re working on it” responses. I specifically wanted to know why the “last updated” timestamp was changing every few days, because of course I’m imagining that they’ve shipped my computer to someone else.

    I finally responded in all caps, asking where my computer was for that unexplained month, and why the timestamp kept changing. The support agent replied:

    Your computer was at our warehouse waiting to be worked on.

    Bless up,

    (Support agent name)

    Bless up? Fucking asshole.

    I always want to be patient with those working in customer support. It’s difficult and often thankless job. I know how unfair it is when a customer blows up at someone in customer service, not to mention how unhelpful it is. And usually the customer is yelling at someone with no power to fix the situation. But this System76 thing is getting ridiculous. They’re literally just not responding to emails and dodging questions when they do respond.


  • If it’s a new book and one that I think other people may be interested in borrowing, I’ll get the hardcover for the extra protection.

    However, there’s a used paperback store down the street from me that has a whole bunch of heavily used paperbacks for like $1 each, and those have definitely been dominating my collection lately. Sometimes I’ll just pick up a dozen of them. That little store is one of those treasure troves of unexpected things, even though when you find one of those treasures, you might need to flip the pages carefully to prevent it from falling apart.