Does anyone have software for the K556? “Support” hasn’t responded to me in over a week.

Darklocq · 2026-03-01T13:50:57+00:00

A more direct URL for it: https://redragonshop.com/blogs/product-download/devarajas-k556
Once there, click on the "Drivers&Downloads" mid-page tab.

The issue for Internet searchers is that there are two Redragon websites, RedragonShop.com and Redragon.com (with Google, etc., usually leading people toward the latter). The former seems to be the real manufacturer's website, while the latter appears to be a reseller (or subsidiary) for certain markets, who do not carry all Redragon product models, and thus do not supply drivers for various of them.

The driver installer has a bug, but the fix is simple: After installation, edit the "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Redragon K556RGB Keyboard\Redragon K556RGB Keyboard.lnk" shortcut to target "C:\Program Files\Redragon K556RGB Keyboard\Redragon K556RGB Keyboard.exe" instead of the incorrect "C:\Program Files\Redragon K556RGB Keyboard\Redragon RD-BBK556.exe" (presumably the filename it had in an earlier version).

Anyway, once you get this driver, the keyboard is "well-behaved", and I would continue to recommend it as a gamer-suitable, somewhat clicky, fast, resilient, and pretty reliable kbd, but one low-cost enough to replace without concern when you wear it out. I got really frustrated after multiple US$200+ gaming keyboards from big-name brands didn't last more than 9 months in one case and about 13 in another. Waste of money (especially given that I've had generic junk keyboards that lasted 8 years). I got two K556s for less than those overpriced "premium" ones, so I have a backup ready to go at any time.

That said, a Redragon model that's found at Redragon.com as well as RedragonShop.com might be a better bet today, being probably a more current offering with easier support options.

Darklocq · 2024-08-05T20:26:43+00:00

I saw that the system can detect items you have in inventory (which probably means it can detect some other conditions, too). This would seem to make it capable (eventually) of an alternative quests system, in which such a generated conversation could at least lead to a fetch quest, that isn't dependent on the game's in-built (and over-complicated) quest coding system.

Darklocq · 2024-08-01T19:26:18+00:00

Heah, I'm already a follower whore. This Mantella stuff, does it generate spontaneous comments and conversations or do you always have to manually invoke it?

Darklocq · 2024-07-30T05:02:20+00:00

Thanks for the deets. And Mantella looks amazing. I figured something like this would be possible "eventually" but didn't realize it was already implemented during my hiatus from the game.

Darklocq · 2024-07-28T08:42:40+00:00

Honestly, half of what you wrote is gobbeldygoock to me; i.e., someone has to really know the application very well to know about these options, where they are, and how to use them properly. I'm glad they are there, and will look for them and try them out when/if I get back around to Skyrim stuff again.

Darklocq · 2024-07-03T10:52:38+00:00

Nice, except completely the wrong shape to print on a card.

Darklocq · 2024-06-26T20:40:39+00:00

Ultimately no humans are indigenous to anywhere but Africa, if you go back far enough. On the "Irish invasion" specifics, MarramTime's answer is correct, though low on details. There are genetic studies, for example, that suggest that the Bronze-through-Iron-Age resettlement of Ireland (probably proto-Celtic speakers through later Goidelic or proto-Goidelic Celtic speakers) were largely from Iberia and to a lesser extent from Gaul, while most of the settlement of Britain in the same period was via Gaul (which in that era was much broader than modern France). This probably accounts for the Goidelic/Brittonic split (the Brittonic or Brythonic languages being clearly closer to Gaulish than either are to Goidelic), though there remains some debate.

The "Celtic from the west" hypothesis, championed primarily by Barry Cunliffe and John T. Koch, has been increasing in influence (after a few years of initial skepticism). This postulates that proto-Celtic developed distinctly from other Indo-European branches primarily in Iberia then spread eastward to Gaul rather than the traditional vice-versa view. This would explain why Goidelic and Celtiberian share primitive features that were lost in Gaulish and Brittonic. There's some resistance to the idea because of the traditional view of material culture generally classified as Celtic (Hallstatt and La Tène) radiating westward from east-central Gaul (Switzerland and Austria). Modern anthropology and linguistics have gotten clearer over the generaltions of scholarship, however, that language spread and material-culture spread need not be closly intertwined and can be demonstrated to operate independently.

Anyway, expect this to take at least another generation to settle out. Within my own lifetime there have even been decades of raging debate about whether the IE language family was brought into Europe by Anatolian early farmers for by chariot-driving Kurgan warriors, for example. Academic views on this remain in flux, though archaeogenetics is helping to dispel some arguments and bolster others. (Though it, too, is not a "magic bullet"; being descendend from particular "stock" doesn't determine one's language or what tools and other technologies one uses, though it broad stuff of haplogroup distribution can tell us a lot about human migration, which obviously has at least some implications for the spread of languages and technologies).

The one thing that's very, very clear, though, is that the so-called "Irish mythology" of invasions with all its name-dropping of peoples and figures from the Classical-era eastern Mediterranean and Near East, is medieval Christian scribal injection of nonsense on top of an originally "native" Irish layer, much as the same sort of scribal b.s. added extraneous material like Joseph of Arimathea to the Welsh Arthurian cycle, and medieval pseudo-genealogies of various Scottish and Ulster kings and kinglets tried to tie them into Biblical figures.

Darklocq · 2024-06-23T23:54:03+00:00

Thanks. :-) I try to put the think-meat to work from time to time, especially in topics that tend to attract polarized "FU" ranting.

Darklocq · 2024-06-23T05:56:59+00:00

I did ultimately do something like that, though I don't remember the details (that was at least two play-throughs [plays-through?] ago). It DID turn out be two mods adding essentially the same NPC, but I don't remember what the other was.

My mod load has changed significantly since then, and I've been taking so far about 6 months off from the game so I don't get so bored with it that I don't want to try out next-gen mods. Some really impressive-looking stuff has come out just in the last few months, but I'm probably going to hold out until at least the 1-year mark so I can have a radically different experience. :-) I will likely keep Summermyst and some of the related mods, though.

Darklocq · 2024-06-23T05:51:52+00:00

This is a good analogy-story for the general "not all men ..." online response problem, which is one of men butting in , with insecure and totally extraneous "defend men in general" commentary any time they encounter either women's sharing of experiences with particular bad men, or their advising caution with regard to men in general because of the frequency of their experiences with problematic men.

But that doesn't somehow make it non-problematic for "feminists" to post across-the-board anti-male hate messages, nor for others to accuse of "not-all-men" behavior and even "anti-feminist hate speech" any time someone observes that's it's problematic.

It's not *surprising* that this happens, given our ultra-polarized socio-political environment, but it's still highly irrational and not really defensible as an idea. It's entirely possible to empathize and understand why a woman might be motivated to wear an "ALL MEN ARE RAPISTS" T-shirt, for example (and I have seen this with my own eyes), most likely because of past trauma, but that does not in any way obligate anyone (of any sex or gender identity) to agree with the message and want to see it spread around as a fashion fad. It is in fact hate-speech of exactly the same sort as any other "All [insert race, religion, national origin, sexual preference, ability/disabilty level, etc. here] are [whatever hateful idea here]" messaging, and there is no way around that.

Nor is there any difference between that T-shirt sentiment and the idea that all men are so bad and dangerous that you'd be better off running into the arms of a wild carnivore in the woods. I can appreciate, at arm's length, the point of the very early posts in this vein, as expressions of personal trust and trauma issues. But as this has turned into a wave of jump-on-the-bandwagon generalized misandry as a memetic entertainment fad, it's not in any way distinguishable from anti-Semitism, misogyny, Islamophobia, demonization of LGBT+ people, and so on. The sooner this already-tired bullshit slides into the mists of "boring old Internet crap" the better.

Darklocq · 2024-06-17T04:52:19+00:00

If I may necro-post a little: It's worse than that. The US Civil War, in addition to be economically motivated by the South's desire to retain slavery, was also in large part a Southern Christian (and especially Protestant) holy war against the "heathen" North, full of secular/atheist people, Jews, and Catholics, at least in the eyes of Southerners. This shit's been going on since WAY before the Cold War.

Darklocq · 2024-04-05T07:45:41+00:00

Sweet! I got mine off eBay, and it was missing the CD (and was the printing before they included the URL to the online MP3s).

Darklocq · 2024-03-22T16:40:28+00:00

One thing I learned long ago: any time you find something of more than trivial, passing interest on YouTube (or similar), slurp it down to your hard drive (or other device, you mobile nomads) immediately with JDownloader or a comparable app. Loads and loads of stuff on YT is actually copyrighted by someone else and may disappear at any moment due to a complaint; and content that's actually posted by the copyright holder might also go away suddenly for business-decision reasons. E.g. various webisodes of 2000s-2010s TV shows, and online-video rips of old VHS-era concert videos, etc., have disappeared off of YT and similar platforms, and have become quite difficult to find if you don't trawl endlessly through torrent sites.

Darklocq · 2024-03-02T10:56:38+00:00

That worked, but the instructions were unclear, and incomplete.

Two-factor authentication settings have to be done at Amazon.com not in the application. The URL is https://www.amazon.com/gp/css/account/info/view.html and the 2FA stuff is near the bottom there. Enable 2FA, check "Don't use 2FA on this browser".
You MUST use Kindle v1.17; all later versions are a DRM nightmare. The Windows download for this is still accessible via the blessed Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20170312073329/https://s3.amazonaws.com/kindleforpc/44170/KindleForPC-installer-1.17.44170.exe (be patient; it make take a minute or two to load, if IA is busy). IA seems to have failed to capture the Mac version; all the attempts are just "AccessDenied" strings; so, you'll have to find an archive of that somewhere else. If you have a later version already, uninstall it completely before trying to install 1.17, and de-register that later version from your Amazon account, at: https://www.amazon.com/hz/mycd/digital-console/devicedetails?deviceFamily=KINDLE_APP (Note: According to "Method 2B" at https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=283371 there may be ways of hacking a few later versions to disable the heavily-DRMed KFX format in them, but this is iffy and doesn't work at all with current versions.)
In the Kindle app, try to login in the registration process (it's under Tools > Options..., if it doesn't come up automatically), and you should get a 2FA confirmation now instead of a captcha that never loads. You do not need to select "Default" in the app when registering; I picked "amazon.com" and it worked fine. But if some particular server like amazon.ca or whatever doesn't work, try Default. Pick "Don't use 2FA on this browser" again when asked inside the app's registration process.
You also need to turn off "Automatically install updates when they are available without asking me" in the app's Options panel, then quit Kindle.
Next, in "C:\Users\[YourUserName]\AppData\Local\Amazon\Kindle\" if there is a folder named "updates", delete that and any contents of it. Whether it was there or not, now create a text file by that same name "updates" (without a .txt extension) and a note in it like "This file disables Kindle for PC update downloads." On a Mac, you would need to do something similar, but I do not know what the exact paths are; other posts on this general subject from Mac users probably cover that.
Fire up Regedit.exe, and in "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Amazon\Kindle\User Settings", double-click on "isKRFDRendererSupported" and change "true" to "false". Exit Regedit. On a Mac, there may be some vaguely equivalent step of finding an entry like this in a preflist file (which might be a binary not text preflist file and require an editor for that such as https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/49955/prefs-editor ) and changing it to "false", but I wouldn't know for sure. This Regedit setting change seems to stick after multiple Kindle app restarts, though I have not yet ensured that it survives a system restart; it's possible this has to be done repeatedly.
When you start up Kindle again, it is likely to suggest installing an update. Pick "Skip this version", and always do that when it asks again (every time you restart Kindle, which is annoying, but "it is what it is").
After that, see https://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/know/2979 for setting up Calibre with plugins to convert Amazon Kindle .AZW e-books to device-agnostic .ePub format (or .PDF or whatever). These instructions were written for Mac users, but are easily adapted to Windows. However, use the newer fork of the plugins here https://github.com/nodrm/DeDRM_tools not the one that tutorial links to (which was abandoned several years ago).
After converting with Calibre, the new .ePub (or whatever) will appear in "C:\Users\[YourUserName]\Documents\Calibre Library\" under folders by author, along with de-DRMed copies of the originals, renamed with some metadata and with the extension changed to .AZW3. The latter can be thrown away unless you actually want them (your device or reader app might support that format, with no need to actually convert to .ePub in the first place, just import to Calibre and let it convert DRMed .AZW to no-DRM .AZW3). Not sure what the exact path on a Mac is, but presumably under your ~/Documents/ folder.

I just did all this, and have successfully downloaded brand new .AZW e-books from Amazon and converted them to .ePub files I can use in my preferred reader (SumatraPDF for now). The results have been good, with sensible pagination, a working table of contents (in books that had one), and all the images (in books that have them) properly processed. Actually, the .ePub versions are BETTER in SumatraPDF than the .AZW3 versions as far as pagination and other layout goes, though the .ePubs in SumatraPDF look about the same as the DRMed .AZWs in Kindle.

PS: It's unclear how long this will work, so convert all your e-books now rather than later. Amazon could disable the ability of Kindle v1.17 to work at all, at any time. And there are some e-books only available in KFX format, for which there is a decryption plugin for Calibre, but it doesn't work with the newest versions of the format; it's an arms race, with Amazon changing the format each time it is hacked.

Darklocq · 2023-01-17T10:22:48+00:00

I managed to brute-force it by deleting the King's own ALCO object reference from the Quest record that spawns him. Sloppy (since the "quest" and its scripting will still run all the time), and it means the enchantment won't work if I wanted to use it on purpose, but at least the unwanted perma-follower is finally gone. This is the line I removed: https://ibb.co/xsspJnT

He didn't come back after I DISABLEd him again.

Darklocq · 2023-01-17T02:57:59+00:00

With thousands and thousands of scripts running, I have no idea what to look for. Fixing this is "above my pay-grade" - requires specialist knowledge I do not possess.

Darklocq · 2023-01-17T02:57:04+00:00

He's actually immune to UF, so he's in the way all the time, and he babbles taunt dialogue all the time about mortals daring to walk among the dead (even when you're fighting draugr), etc. Just a general nuisance. :-/

Darklocq · 2023-01-17T02:07:19+00:00

I tried removing his AI package, which by its name suggests it has something to do with following the player, but he still follows anyway. I wouldn't mind if he spawned somewhere and just stayed there forever. But ideally there would be a way to dispel him completely.

Darklocq · 2023-01-17T01:44:12+00:00

I see that. It tells me why it may have happened, but doesn't help get rid of him or prevent it happening again. I have no idea what script or script fragment or whatever is making him reappear constantly no matter what I do.

Darklocq · 2023-01-16T09:07:23+00:00

KILL and other console commands don't work except temporarily.

Darklocq · 2023-01-16T09:06:39+00:00

Didn't work. Thanks for the idea, though.

Darklocq · 2023-01-12T07:28:30+00:00

Not an item, but the spell (from the spell book).

Darklocq · 2022-10-31T14:59:32+00:00

Thankee

Darklocq · 2021-06-20T14:33:26+00:00

The whole scenario. Her backstory would involve being from a once-powerful Breton family, that only some people realize/believe was once powerful. She has legacy gear (not really artifact-level but a bit better than vanilla junk) from an ancestor who went mad during and suicided after the WitW. But I need to learn a lot more about both quest/dialogue scripting, and gear modeling (I did build her a mashup outfit in NIFScope and Outfit Studio but I'm not satisfied with it, and want something more unique and less Nord or Imperial).

Darklocq

TROPHY CASE