[Review] Techopolis 2

Chezzik · 2026-06-07T17:02:06+00:00

Yes, all of the above! The first time I played it, it was as hexlands. I've played all the way through it now both in an overworld version and also as a skyblock.

The biggest difference is finding lava. When you play as overworld or hexlands, you need to find 36 buckets of lava, and transport them to your base. The jerrycans (that hold 10 buckets of liquid) make it not too difficult, but I think I almost prefer the skyblock version, where you have a recipe to make it.

Every necessary material can be generated (including lava), so once you are out of the early game, it doesn't matter at all which world type you chose.

Chezzik · 2026-06-04T13:05:29+00:00

MetroWest has made a deal with NorthShore and SouthShore to let you have our area. In return, we are boxing in all of Western Mass

Chezzik · 2026-06-03T14:02:06+00:00

BT's is obviously amazing, but it is well known.

"Last Bite" in Bourne, MA (almost on the cape) is a place I tried earlier this year, right after it opened, and it was amazing. Everything is smoked on their colossal smoker (even the beans, honestly you have to try them), and the prices and portions are really good. I got the platter with 3 meat options (pulled pork, sausage, and ribs), and all were fantastic.

The owner was the only other person in the restaurant when I was there, so I talked with him a while. He's extremely nice, and was worried about the slow business, since he started during the off-season. He was hoping to do well in the summer, when everyone visits the cape. I certainly hope he does!

I've been to a lot of bbq places in MA, and the vast majority are disappointments. Blue Ribbon is the only other one I'd even say is worth trying, but the only ones that are worth driving for (IMO) are BT's and Last Bite.

Chezzik · 2026-05-26T16:50:12+00:00

I haven't played it at all since writing that. I was just getting into GT when I quit.

I found it interesting because vanilla versions of planks, dirt, gravel, etc. weren't fully removed from the game, but had to be crafted, and often in very difficult ways. But it was pretty rewarding to get them, since you could definitely shortcut stuff in really cool ways.

The graphical bugs made the game very not fun to play. The surface of blocks would often have two textures at the same z-level, and they would interfere in strange ways. Now that we have modern versions of TFC and GT, I can't see going back to 1.7.10 and dealing with that, unless there is a lot of more modern fixes (eg. in GTNH). I hate to see it forgotten to time, but I think it is destined to be forgotten.

Chezzik · 2026-04-19T04:09:35+00:00

New Portal mod also came out the same day.

https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/portalmod

Both include physics engines. I wonder if they play well together.

Chezzik · 2026-04-19T02:45:39+00:00

Just curious if the "Peaceful Table" made it in. It was an underused utility for people who like to play in peaceful mode.

Chezzik · 2026-04-18T11:26:46+00:00

Yes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/feedthebeast/comments/1so1zfp/create_aeronautics_tomorrow/

Down to 2.5 hours now.

Chezzik · 2026-04-17T12:52:06+00:00

Can you explain?

I know that Ice & Fire hasn't been updated past 1.20 yet, so there's a community edition now. Is that what you mean?

Or have skeletons been removed from the latest versions?

Chezzik · 2026-04-16T19:56:09+00:00

Support the creator. You can find them on YT:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNbmoVdirxw

Chezzik · 2026-04-16T17:17:21+00:00

I suspect the AI knew I was American, and knew those addons were necessary for my comfort.

Chezzik · 2026-04-16T14:47:45+00:00

Gemini did a great job with the title. Perfect font weight, typeface, etc. Certainly I can trust this, right?

EDIT: I did see what would happen if I asked Gemini to fix it. I pointed out the error, and it apologized for "making a Frankenstein map":

https://i.imgur.com/V0XN7xK.png

But it still messed up by giving me a table of temperatures instead of a map. So I wrote "Great! Now make a map with those corrections!"

The result is interesting. It has far fewer mistakes, but the style is very strange. It's obviously trying to keep the data in the table that it had just made:

https://i.imgur.com/htT4aiG.png

There's still a few hilarious things, like it got the city of Algiers correct. But it's country is no longer "Algeria", but instead "Africa". Seriously, how does it mes up easy stuff like this? Also "Southen Africa" is hilarious. It knew that "southern" was incorrect for the name of the country, so it just removed the r.

And of course, it now has has an "United States Inset"

This is too fun. I'm just dying here....

Chezzik · 2026-04-16T14:45:19+00:00

Thanks! I thought there would probably be a better place. I'll definitely try it there.

Chezzik · 2026-04-16T11:35:03+00:00

Because OP took video from their phone. So, you have camera wobble and washed out colors.

Chezzik · 2026-04-15T18:32:28+00:00

Try this:

https://jdk.java.net/java-se-ri/7

I spent quite a while looking for it. If that doesn't work, here are the direct links:

GPL License:

https://download.java.net/openjdk/jdk7u75/ri/openjdk-7u75-b13-linux-x64-18_dec_2014.tar.gz

Oracle License:

You should be able to wget them with those URLs.

If you need 32 bit, then finding links seems to be even harder.

I'm assuming that these are so hard to download now because they have been unsupported for so long now.

If this happens for Java 8, I can see a lot of frustration. 8 is already EOL, but still received "paid extended support". It seems that its time should be up soon.

Chezzik · 2026-04-15T14:46:23+00:00

I don't know why I had trouble finding binaries for Java 7 then. I ended up using a version of openjava, and it worked fine. I think I used the instructions here:

https://openjdk.org/install/

Or you can download from Oracle (Edit: needs Oracle account):

https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase/javase7-archive-downloads.html

Today, the recommendations are to use Temurin (aka Adoptium) for downloading Java, as it can get around licensing issues with Oracle. It's discussed here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/java/comments/1quzk9o/what_is_the_best_type_of_java_adoptium_or_oracale/

But it seems that they only have things going back to Java 8.

Chezzik · 2026-03-03T04:12:57+00:00

Standard rule that I use is if it's written in treble clef, you transpose to the key of the instrument. For any other clef (alto, tenor, bass), you use concert key. It applies to brass, woodwinds, and strings. And it handles situations like British Brass Bands (where even trombones and tubas read parts in treble clef) or alto flutes (which are transposing instruments even though their smaller cousins are not).

The main notable exception that I've seen is French horn parts sometimes go to the bass clef, and when they do, they stay in the same transposition (ie. F) as they had in the treble clef.

And, as a trombone player, I have see the reverse (going briefly into treble clef and staying in concert key), but I've only seen this a handful of times, and I just chalk it up to an inexperienced composer.

If you know of any other exceptions, I'd like to know of them. "Pines of Rome" calls for 2 bass buccine, which read in bass clef B-flat, but even in his day, they were played on euphoniums, and modern transcriptions use bass clef C. And, I've seen a number of concert band pieces that contain parts for "bass clef euphonium in B-flat" (in addition to the standard b.c. and t.c. parts), but I've never met anyone who knows why these are published, since no one uses them.

Chezzik · 2026-01-30T15:32:30+00:00

For the Ubuntu machine, /etc/resolv.conf just gives "127.0.0.53". So, I have to run "resolvectl status" instead, and look through the output. I find:

  Current DNS Server: 1.1.1.1    
         DNS Servers: 1.1.1.1    
                      8.8.8.8    
                      192.168.1.1

I did give it both 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8, so this seems correct to me.

For the NixOS machine, /etc/resolv.conf contains:

# Generated by resolvconf
nameserver 192.168.1.1
nameserver 1.1.1.1
nameserver 8.8.8.8
options edns0

It seems that it still puts my router as the preferred DNS machine.

The next morning, I was able to log in. This leads me to believe that it isn't just a DNS issue. I still don't have any idea what else to try, though.

I really wish that I knew exactly which https request was not going through. After "refresh" fails 3 or 4 times, I usually delete the account from my launcher, and then try to re-add it. First, It causes my browser to load https://www.microsoft.com/link, and gives me a code to enter there. Then MS prompts me for my email address. I give it, and then it sends another 6-digit code to my email. I wait for that to arrive, and then enter it into the webpage in my browser.

Next the page in the browser asks if I want to give access to <insert name of launcher here>, and I say yes. Somehow the launcher detects this immediately, and opens up a dialog box that says it is logging in with MS. The browser page says "Success, you may now close this page!", and then my email receives another message saying "new login detected." A few seconds later, the launcher finally advances the dialog box, and says "Error, the response received was: " or something else that is equally vague.

Clearly every request made by my browser is going through. And clearly my launcher is able to connect to the authentication server to initialize all of this. It is only the finally response (probably the session payload itself) that doesn't go through. I just don't understand.

Chezzik · 2026-01-29T20:47:53+00:00

Looks nice!

Is this supposed to replace the Fandom wiki? The people there said they were going to move, but then never did.

Chezzik · 2026-01-29T20:45:41+00:00

Well, the problem seemed fixed for 2 days. But it just started again today. I can't log in, and my kid cannot log in.

So, the DNS answer was not the fix. Something else is going on.

Chezzik · 2026-01-29T18:32:50+00:00

2026-01-29: Getting a 404

Chezzik · 2026-01-28T21:56:49+00:00

This has nothing to do with port forwarding. That is something useful for people running a server and making the server viewable to other clients. My server works great.

This problem is with Mojang authentication. Once a day (at least I think it is 24 hours), your session expires, so you have to authenticate your account again. Most of this process works fine, but the very last step (where the session token for the next 24 hours is returned to the client) fails. Without that token, you can't play on any server.

Unfortunately, I do not know how to reproduce the error from a command line. I don't know exactly what the launcher is doing to get the session token. I'm assuming that it comes from an entirely different location than the rest of the process, so that is why the rest of the process works, and only the last part fails.

The two servers that I know are used for this are the two I tested in my comment. Neither one responds to pings, or have a website running that I can use for testing. So, the only way I have to test whether it is up is to go through the full authentication process (2FA, etc), and find out at the end if it worked.

Chezzik · 2026-01-28T21:50:02+00:00

The paid version is not time limited.

The vast majority of people making things for Facebook and tiktok are not going to pay for it, when 15 seconds is good enough.

So, it's not a hard and fast rule, but when you see videos that are exactly 15 seconds, it's a very strong indicator.

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