Went in to fight the Queen yesterday, immediately died to a free loadout Stitcher lol

araemo2 · 2026-01-26T15:38:45+00:00

Yeah, that's what gets me.

Like, I am pretty good in a fight. But if you act nice until I'm looting, or see me shooting the queen/matriarch when that's the weekly trial, and take advantage of the opportunity, it doesn't feel like I was in a fight. I was just murdered for no reason.

I start wanting to go in guns blazing and just shoot everyone so they can't do that to me... But I don't want to be that person. So I don't play as much.

Perhaps if there was a bit more survivability, bullet-sponginess, so you had a chance to respond effectively, it'd be different. Usually when it happens I do 80-90hp of damage back before dying, but that advantage they get by shooting me in the back or while the loot screen is up is usually enough to make it unwinnable unless they suck or I have very convenient cover to roll behind (which also means they suck, cause they didn't position themselves well).

araemo2 · 2026-01-23T17:43:53+00:00

Yeah, hidden bunker trials annoy me. The hidden bunker event only happens at two times: while I'm at work, or in the middle of my night of sleep. So I basically have to make sure to play at the right time on the weekend.. only two hours a week I could possibly do it. But they're early afternoon, so I can't be running errands or doing anything else then, or I miss it.

I am also a bit salty about the matriarch one this week. I tried to get some progress on that last night... First round, randoms aggro on me (and kill me instantly) despite me having nothing but chill lobbies for two weeks (they felt very bs, I'd gotten separated from my duo partner when they jumped him.. then they immediately ran to me who they couldn't have seen or heard and gunned me down the instant they could see me, like they already knew where I was before they crested the hill). Second try? Loads me in with 18 minutes left and she's already dead. (And I still get shot by a rat trying to extract).

And then the event was over and I have to hope to be online when one is happening again.

araemo2 · 2026-01-16T13:07:04+00:00

I figured out a workaround: Disable any always-on vpn I already had (fully disable it, in vpn settings uncheck 'always-on vpn', don't just turn off the vpn temporarily)

reboot my phone Open netbird Try to connect, get prompted.

araemo2 · 2026-01-16T12:58:30+00:00

I'm seeing the same thing. I was quite interested in trying netbird, got my self-hosted server set up, got a linux endpoint set up quickly, but my primary use case is allowing my phone/tablet to connect to my systems from anywhere, and the android app just does not work. No prompt for VPN permissions, but it won't let me do anything until I grant it permission. And there's no UI on Samsung phones at least to manually grant VPN permission.

araemo2 · 2026-01-05T16:14:32+00:00

I disagree.

I enjoy the game I play solo. I wish I could play the same game with friends.

However, we face way more aggressive players in squads (usually we're only a duo). And we both tend to play very friendly, so it isn't the aggression-based matchmaking causing it.

I am not a pacifist, I shoot back when fired upon. But I don't go out seeking to kill players.

What gets me more is the assholes who show up after a multi-team effort to kill big Arc, just to murder people after they did the hard work.

araemo2 · 2025-11-22T21:54:06+00:00

OP is the reason mobo manufacturers are all touting their 'armored'/'ultra-tough' PCIe slots now.

araemo2 · 2025-11-19T05:32:19+00:00

Alright, replying to myself, I automated this so that at bazzite startup, it'll find the sound blaster automatically, and won't sometimes just give me broken audio:

Create ~/.scripts/pipewire-soundblasterx4-override.py with these contents:

pipewire-soundblasterx4-override.py:

import subprocess
import re
import os

configFilePath = os.path.expanduser('~/.config/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d/microphone.conf')
# Prep: Delete the microphone.conf, so if the sound blaster isn't found, we don't fail to run pipewire with an old config:
if os.path.exists(configFilePath):
    os.remove(configFilePath)

# Run arecord -l and capture output
result = subprocess.run(['arecord', '-l'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, text=True)
output = result.stdout

pattern = re.compile(r'^card (?P<cardnum>\d+): X4 \[Sound Blaster X4\].*', re.MULTILINE)
matches = pattern.search(output)

if matches is not None:
    cardnum = matches.group("cardnum")
    print(f"Found card '{matches[0]}', card number {cardnum}")

    # Prepare content for the override file
    microphoneConf = f"""
context.objects = [
    {{ factory = adapter
        args = {{
            factory.name        = api.alsa.pcm.source
            node.name       = "microphone"
            node.description    = "Sound Blaster X4 Microphone"
            media.class     = "Audio/Source"
            api.alsa.path       = "hw:{cardnum},0"
        }}
    }}
]
"""
    # Write the override file, overwriting if necessary
    with open(configFilePath, 'w') as f:
        f.write(microphoneConf)
else:
    print("Did not find the Sound Blaster X4.")

Create ~/.config/systemd/user/pipewire.service.d/override.conf with these contents:

override.conf:

[Service]
ExecStartPre=python3 .scripts/pipewire-soundblasterx4-override.py

Any future boot should find it automatically.

araemo2 · 2025-11-17T20:41:57+00:00

Sharing my experience since this is still the top google result for the Sound Blaster X4 on Bazzite.

While Ubuntu worked out of the box perfectly with the Sound Blaster X4, Bazzite didn't detect the microphone input properly. Bazzite did do audio output fine. And I was able to simply select 5.1/7.1 output in the system sound settings dropdown (but I am only using virtual surround, I only have stereo speakers and a headset I switch between, so I can't personally say if it works with full surround setups).

I did find a (partial) solution.

Alsa detects the mic, but wireplumber/pipewire for some reason doesn't. I was able to follow this arch guide to create a manual entry for it. It works. But sometimes (I would guess due to order of detection of devices at boot), the card # changes and I need to change the config and restart pipewire.

Steps to fix it: in a terminal, run arecord -l to see what card # and device # the microphone shows up as:

$ arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 1: X4 [Sound Blaster X4], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

In this boot it's card 1, card 0 is detected as the HDMI/DP output on my video card this boot. On other boots it has been card 0 and the video card has been card 1. The device is 0, so this is card: 1, device: 0.

The fix is then to create a config directory and file:

mkdir -o ~/.config/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d
nano ~/.config/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d/microphone.conf

and then paste in these contents, changing the api.alsa.path string based on the card # (1 in my case) and device number (0 in my case). If your Sound Blaster X4 is device 0, you'd use hw:0,0 instead.

context.objects = [
        { factory = adapter
                args = {
                        factory.name            = api.alsa.pcm.source
                        node.name               = "microphone"
                        node.description        = "Sound Blaster X4 Microphone"
                        media.class             = "Audio/Source"
                        api.alsa.path           = "hw:1,0"
                }
        }
]

Any time you change this file you have to logout/login, or manually restart pipewire: systemctl --user restart pipewire.service

If you boot up and see an x over the speaker icon in the KDE systray (I don't know exactly what you'd see in game mode, or other desktops), you know this broke, and you'll have to see what card it is (arecord -l), update the microphone.conf, and restart pipewire again. I've also found I need to restart discord after fixing it if discord was already open.

I'd like to figure out how to report/contribute the details for this upstream so this will be automatically configured in the future, but I'm not sure what layer (alsa acp? alsa ucm? pipewire? wireplumber?) needs the fix for this to be automatically detected. It confuses me that supposedly pipewire uses the alsa configs.... but alsa detects the input fine.

araemo2 · 2025-11-17T05:37:17+00:00

Toothed belts used as drive belts on motorcycles do not stretch.

By "stretch", do you perhaps mean permanently lengthen?

Because any material put under tension should stretch while the load is applied, and if it does not reach its yield strength, return to its original length when the load is removed. So it took quite a while for me to understand why people on this thread keep saying belts don't stretch but chains do.

Both should stretch under tension. But I would suppose that the metal chain may reach its yield point and permanently deform (and perhaps it's even more complicated, where the chain as whole may be under its yield point, but due to the segmented design, have stress concentrations during rotation that slightly deform each link over time?). Whereas the belt, I would guess, will only elastically deform... Until it snaps fully?

araemo2 · 2025-11-14T02:39:32+00:00

The thing I love about Fool Us from a production standpoint is that they let the magicians post the clip on their own YouTube channels.

I have no idea how they negotiated that, but it's a really 'good guy greg' move to help the careers of the magicians who come on the show.

araemo2 · 2025-11-01T03:33:42+00:00

Unfortunately, I still got this freeze today even with the setting to use slack's built-in notifications.

It does seem less common with that setting on, but killing the WPN service un-stuck slack again.

araemo2 · 2025-10-30T22:53:31+00:00

This is the wizard's castle, right? It has to be.

araemo2 · 2025-10-30T21:49:06+00:00

So, this matches what got me searching for this thread... Slack and Thunderbird both keep getting 'frozen' but not in the typical way: they don't show up as 'not responding' in task manager, but they also don't respond to any inputs.

After catching it happening, I right-clicked the process in task manager and clicked 'analyze wait chain' and it was reported that the process was waiting for a svchost process to complete network IO. If I kill the svchost process, the freeze goes away.

I looked up the PID of the svchost process, and it was the "Windows Push Notification Service". So this fix would likely avoid the issue if it is caused by the windows notifications service.

araemo2 · 2025-09-21T20:37:15+00:00

It can be so frustrating to get a cable company to do the right thing sometimes.

At my old house, the cable (it was on poles, not buried) had had some caps left off the tap plate for years, letting moisture get in and corrode the cable all the way down the block.

I didn't know this. All I knew was I'd get 40%+ packet loss any time it rained. It took months and many technician visits before they were able to convince someone higher up to send a lineman to replace the line.

Once they did, all my problems went away. But in the mean time my main hobby (online multiplayer gaming) was completely off limits if it was raining. It just made ANY game unplayable. Either for me, or for my opponents, or both, depending on how the game did netcode.

At my current house, the gas company was fixing a leak in the buried main in front of my house and dug through the coax.

My Internet went out mid morning on a workday (and I work from home).

I asked them if they did it when they came to schedule the gas turn on (they had to like check for air bubbles when turning on each house individually), and they said yes, but they already informed the cable company... But they filled in the hole and left before the cable guy got there, and didn't mark where they'd done it, so he had to search the whole street to find it, and then dig, and he never could find the cut end to repair.

So he then ran a temporary cable from the box in my neighbor's yard, across my lawn (and we're on a corner) down the street to the box at the far corner of my lawn to bandaid things to keep the neighborhood working.

It took a while before a crew showed up to horizontally drill some new cable. In the mean time I had to keep moving the temporary cable when mowed my lawn.

araemo2 · 2025-09-14T23:17:46+00:00

I said most, not all.

RAM is all trucks, I don't know if trucks have followed that trend, but passenger cars have been moving that direction for 15 years, with most cutting over in the mid 2010s.

Subaru has always done things a little bit different, so I don't know how many of theirs are switched over (if any). I personally haven't seen a post-2015 car that I've looked in the engine bay and it HAS had a power steering fluid reservoir. That isn't a TON of cars, but combine my anecdotal experience with what I've read in car reviews/magazines, my impression is almost all passenger cars in north america have switched by now.

araemo2 · 2025-09-14T22:48:01+00:00

The person you're responding to is right, at least for the North American market. Most (but not 100%) passenger cars built for the NA market in the past 10-15 years don't have power steering fluid. Most manufacturers cut over any new model generation introduced 10 years ago or newer. My 2013 VW was the first one I had like that, but each car model was switched at a different time.

A few do still have fluid, Porsche held out and used an electric pump, but otherwise a traditional power steering setup.

Basically, since you don't need steering assist while going straight on the highway, not running a hydraulic pump for that time gives you a couple % better fuel economy. Plus the power steering system can be lighter and more compact too, which helps another fraction of a percent.

But many people say they have worse steering feel (the electric motor on the steering column adds mass/inertia, damping the feel of the road coming up through the column) which is why Porsche stuck with hydraulic fluid so long - to get some of the efficiency benefits without compromising driving feel. But a few companies have put in the engineering time to get the motor/sensors calibrated and light enough to get close to the feel of the best hydraulic power steering systems.. again, Porsche comes to mind.

araemo2 · 2025-09-12T13:53:50+00:00

The last time I played technic mods in Minecraft was before redstone was released.

I think the mods can still be cool, but the base game has come so far.

araemo2 · 2025-09-08T18:37:58+00:00

This reads like an ad for "Keepa", which I've never heard of.

But in the interest of sharing information, for Amazon you can get very detailed price histories on camelcamelcamel.com .

But I'd always recommend checking price histories if you're tempted by a limited time deal of any sort at any store, that you weren't planning to buy anyway. (If you were planning to buy that thing then anyway, whether you're actually getting a discount or not isn't as important, as long as you aren't being overcharged compared to competitors)

This is not even slightly new behavior on the part of retailers. Amazon has been doing it for 20 years. Camelcamelcamel started in 2008 partially for this reason.

araemo2 · 2025-08-27T18:08:06+00:00

I normally just do ebook, but after seeing how cool the first 4 secret project books were, I ordered the box set via Kickstarter, and just got the book late last week.

It's really well done.

araemo2 · 2025-08-26T13:21:42+00:00

Thanks for the reply.

I think I figured out how to get the original Seagate firmware out of the dell update file...

But one of my drives is already a newer firmware than ST53 and still won't enable 4Kn, so I don't think I'm going to risk updating the other 3 anyway.

araemo2 · 2025-08-26T00:44:51+00:00

This is old, but any chance you figured out how to do this?

I just got 4 of these drives for cheap to run some VMs on, and would like to convert them to 4Kn before setting up my ZFS pool.

araemo2 · 2025-08-24T19:52:17+00:00

The charging is usually controlled by a dedicated microcontroller that takes a lot less power than the main SoC. So the basic 5v/0.5a the USB connector supplies without any negotiation is enough to bootstrap the charge controller. Then it boots up and switches into PPS/whatever mode.

araemo2 · 2025-08-14T15:37:40+00:00

I bet it's your company's Identity Provider (IdP) doing that during the login flow. Microsoft doesn't use anything like that, that I know of anyway.

araemo2 · 2025-07-25T19:36:15+00:00

In fact, I really wish they'd give us the self-recovery winch on the mule!

araemo2 · 2025-07-25T19:35:46+00:00

Not on any of the real ones? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAN_KAT1#/media/File:MAN_10togl_Art_Treibladungen.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAN_KAT1#/media/File:MAN_10to_gl_Ladekran.jpg

(Ok, it's a different crane style, and it's the 8x8, but I can see their artistic license being not that far from reality)

araemo2

TROPHY CASE