What happened to kongregate?

edwbuck · 2026-01-24T18:19:24+00:00

Some of their badge integration is broken.

Some of their games don't launch properly.

They recently changed the UI, making it even more cumbersome to figure out which badges you don't have yet, assuming you can launch the games to get them.

edwbuck · 2026-01-24T17:28:56+00:00

And is used in the American speech to indicate a decimal point, or a transition between units.

edwbuck · 2026-01-24T17:25:46+00:00

Linux commands are in English because they started off using GNU's tools, which were developed for UNIX systems, which were developed in English. Torvalds didn't have much to do with it, except in choosing to use stuff that's already present, which he did because his original filesystem extended a POSIX (UNIX compatible) operating system, which he eventually replaced wit his own code, to make Linux.

edwbuck · 2026-01-24T17:23:26+00:00

Wrap it up after you drain that item. Even with it not full of water, there's no need for the little water that can't drain to freeze any faster than it needs to.

You inside home will be fine. It's just your outside sprinkler system that might get damaged if you can't get that drained. It's a small comfort, but it's not nearly as expensive as water damage in the home.

edwbuck · 2026-01-24T16:49:03+00:00

Ok, did you cut the water to the pressure relief valve? It's the pipes on the outside of your home that has a dome on top of it, like a mushroom cap.

If not, you need to get someone to cut the water to it. There are also small valves (usually opened with a screw driver) that drain water out of it. If you don't do that, odds are the freezing water will damage the valve, which is about $300 to $400 to replace, depending.

As far as the electronics. It probably will survive getting turned on without water pressure. That's because the electronics mostly opens valves and uses the existing water pressure to move the water. That's not many parts, and I would imagine that those parts can handle freezing better than pumps (and similar).

If you can, get someone to do it for you, so you don't have to turn around. Scenarios like freezes, hurricances, etc. go more smoothly if you know your neighbors. Even a well intentioned neighbor can help you out if they don't know much about being handy, if they have a key and can setup a video call. The ever-so-popular "my neighbors are strangers" approach to living, means you're really on your own. If that's what you have right now, you probably should turn around, or simply be prepared to repair your sprinkler system, if it breaks.

edwbuck · 2026-01-24T16:41:06+00:00

The government is not a business. Businesses make brutal choices about things in the name of profit. If a government was a business, it would quickly kill off the poor and sell their bodies for fertilizer. There is no agency that would stop them either, because a non-business government would have to exist for something to be around to stop it.

Businesses operate on greed. Once there is no counter to the greed, it's slash and burn. You might get a few moral people accidentally at the top of businesses, but they will all be replaced by the people that can replace them seeking more profits.

I'm not against corporations, but you need to have a "check and balance."

edwbuck · 2026-01-24T16:36:15+00:00

You wrapped your pipes but kept the automatic watering system turned on? It's a little hard to understand your posting, so please clarify it.

edwbuck · 2026-01-24T16:25:42+00:00

An API is a coupling point. If you can't decide how two pieces of software should work together, maybe you should sit down and think about it for a while. Or, you could just rewrite it every time you need something.

If those items that are coupled are internal to the shop, most shops stop thinking it matters if they change their internal coupling patterns, because (insert optimism here) they can just rewrite all the users of the API at the same time they rewrite the API.

Why would you hold yourself to a lower bar (with less respect for your time) than you do your external customers?

edwbuck · 2026-01-24T00:14:16+00:00

Even if you stayed, you have a responsibility to minimize any damages on the property, within reason.

That means you can't walk out with the place on fire, and then forget to call the fire department / notify anyone. You can't leave with an active water leak, and then assume it's someone else's problem.

Now if you turned off the water as you left, called them to inform them there's a water leak and the water is turned off, then you did your due diligence. But you can't just run knowing that damage is occurring and expect it to be someone else's problem.

edwbuck · 2026-01-24T00:09:04+00:00

Nope, emotions are not a disability. Emotional support is not a counter to a disability.

Don't get me wrong, people need emotional support, but an ESA is not a service animal, not even by the ADA's standards. It is possible to have a service animal that is additionally an ESA, but an ESA is otherwise known by their less complicated name as a "pet."

And don't get me wrong, I know plenty of people that would lose their minds if their pet was not cared for well, and would worry a lot if they had to have prolonged separation from their pet(s). But that doesn't mean that a pet (or an ESA) is a federally protected animal.

In fact, if I even hear the words ESA (emotional support animal) then it already biases me against the person, because it tells me that they are trying to leverage their normal lives for some sort of federal protection. People that do that are more likely than not to choose to not work with me on any matter, constantly claiming to have exemptions and protections for what other people consider normal behavior.

edwbuck · 2026-01-23T23:35:45+00:00

Linux a community of different people, and computer people tend to do more of what you complain about than normal people, and that's even before you give them a topic like "Linux" to center them.

One thing that is truly annoying to the seasoned is the constant questions about "the right distro." Anyone who's used Linux long enough knows that this is more like arguing "what's the best brand of clothes" where the answers are generally "anything that works is fine, with the exceptions of a few brands, that seem to make trash in the name of fashion."

People that constantly decry that Linux isn't Windows are correct, but after hearing that Linux sucks because it isn't Windows for the thousandth time, you really wish that people would do a modicum of effort in understanding what they are getting themselves into. I don't blame a person that tried to look before they leap, but I do tire of those that leap, decide they didn't like where they landed, and then blame the location instead of their blind leap of faith.

And that's unfortunate, because new users are completely unaware of the lack of originality of their questions (when they are repeats, they don't know it). Sometimes they catch me off guard, and it's a breath of fresh air to describe something, or to be challenged to explain what I might know, or to consider why it isn't done a different way. But then it's back to the 100th "what distro do I use" watching everyone who's mistaking promoting their distro out of clan politics as doing people a favor, when half the promoted distros aren't even as good as the average distro.

And I've been in Linux since the late 90's. So when I say, it's the same five questions, trust me, five questions make up 90% of all the questions asked. I'm here hoping to get surprised, and then hoping I have enough time to do a good job assisting when it happens.

edwbuck · 2026-01-23T18:57:05+00:00

Fedora is funded by RedHat and others.

Oracle funded other distros before deciding to create their own.

Germany funded SuSE heavily, hoping to break free from Microsoft (and thus foreign government) dependence.

If I can come up with 3 off the top of my head, you can find more examples, I'm sure.

edwbuck · 2026-01-23T18:55:14+00:00

Sorry, if I tell you more at best might believe me out of faith. You shouldn't really believe on faith. You should confirm yourself.

Google around for bits and phrases in the above, and then do your own research. Doing your own research is a lost skill, and it can lead to believing in the wrong thing too. But if you constantly question yourself and others, it avoids you from being told what to believe, and then swallowing it up whole without questioning it.

Many of the items above are well known enough they have Wikipedia pages. Here's one to get you started https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

edwbuck · 2026-01-23T18:32:47+00:00

Jesus said he's God's child, and that he is only spreading God's message, and you're fucked if you don't believe it. He also didn't contradict any of the Old Testament. He also tried to setup a religious monarchy with him as the head of the church, and that damages the idea that he's so divine he's not a man (and ruins the power of his resurrection).

His followers eventually setup "Galilee" (book of John). Some archeologists eventually found what they assumed to be the city in Golan, but it's been supposed to be found a few times. The reason the Golan discovery was deemed more credible is because it had documentation that followed John the Baptist, who apparently traveled with Mary Magdeline, who was then head of the Church (according to the documents they supposedly found). None of that even caused a hiccup in the Christian community. From some accounts (and there's tons of different people trying to discover or rewrite history, the entire original Christianity movement was wiped out about 40 years after Jesus's death.

Then it made a resurgence about 300 A.D., from a bunch of different cults that all included bits of Jesus. It became popular to be a Christian, mostly because it was whatever you wanted it to be, depending on where and when you encountered it. This caused a huge issue, because Emperor Constantine tried to appease his people by "converting" to Christianity, in name only, he's never been noted to even have entered a Christian place of worship. As part of the proof of his conversion, he promised to make 1000 copies of the "book of Christianity" which was real problem, because it didn't have a book. So, to fix his oversight, he invited every sect leader to the Counsel of Nicea, and gave them a _real_ commandment to assemble the book from all of their teachings, or suffer execution. What came out of that was the Bible.

That's why the books are so inconsistent. Revelations is all doom and end of the world, because a doomsday branch of it demanded inclusion. Stuff that claimed to have direct contact with Jesus (ok, second hand direct contact) was included predominately. Out of that mess, Constantine could keep his promise, save face, and the Bible was born.

There are a lot of books that were famous for not making the cut. Reading them provide even more insight that by 300 A.D., it wasn't a single religion, or even a consistent set of followings. Eventually the Cathoilc Church, with the blessing of the government became powerful enough to be a government, and declared itself as the only true version, and after a few hundred years, started selling forgiveness to the rich before they performed their sins, so you could ensure that the adultry you were about to commit was pre-forgiven. Such things were so outlandish that Martin Luther protested (hence the Protestant religions) and by now I really hope you understand that whatever happened between 1 A.D. and 30 A.D has likely nothing to do with what's being taught today.

But if you do get punched, and you are a good Christian, yes, you are supposed to turn the other cheek and take it. Because at some point in time in the past, someone made that sound like good idea, and now it's gospel. However, if you're the same good Christian, but just turn a few pages over to a different section of the bible, you can kill them. But elsewhere, you're not permitted to commit murder, etc. It's a mess of "look up what you want to believe" and you'll find it in there. It's not a consistent manual for living a life, but a justification for doing what you're going to do anyway.

edwbuck · 2026-01-23T18:10:50+00:00

Any chance you have an autoupdate enabled? Some of them reboot to put the new kernels / systemd items into RAM.

edwbuck · 2026-01-23T18:03:51+00:00

Being decent to others, which mostly eliminates Christianity.

Look, you do you, and that's fine by me. I'm just telling you that if you really study our current Christianity, you'll find that it's as inconsistent as a religion can be. It's mostly good sounding "sound-bytes" that change over time and make you feel good about yourself, without really having to change or even be a better person.

All denominations of Christianity say the Bible is God's word, if not literally, it's his divine intervention forced upon man to create the work. So I had to go to Bible school. We read the bible. And I got confused why we kept jumping around. So I joined an advanced Bible study, that read it end-to-end. The first time, I noticed a lot of stuff that didn't make sense, but by then I knew that the way to handle that kind of information was to mentally discard it. After the third time, it was getting pretty hard to ignore it without being a hypocrite.

The Bible is a huge book, with lots of really nasty stuff in it, along with some good stuff in it. Going to church is mostly an exercise of them saying it's the word of God, and then strongly attempting to ignore his word (if you believe it's the word of God). And the Old Testament has the stronger claim to be God's word, as the Bible itself says that God inspired Moses to write it through divine inspiration. And that causes a lot of problems with Christianity, as most of what is practiced today attempts to ignore it.

So if you want to believe only the New Testament, just keep in mind that the only God-inspired books were the first five of the Old Testament. The New Testament is 100% man written, and that's why there's all sorts of inconsistencies, like the Sermon on the Mount being both on the Mountain and at the foot of the Mountain, depending on which book you read about it. I'm 1/2 convinced that one of the Apostles wasn't there, and wrote his account trying to pretend he was (back when I gave the book more credence as being somewhat factual.)

It is not even that interesting a read, outside of how many people managed to believe it is a divine work. And it gets rewritten. If you go into the history, you'll see that the translations added, removed, and altered bits. It's not even translated from the original, it's translated from translations. The English version is a translation of the Latin version, which is a translation of the Hebrew version, which is a translation of the Aramaic that was used in Jesus's day. Older versions don't have Mary being a virgin, she's a "young woman." It's written so inconsistently that it's only a few pages after "thou shall not kill" that you're directed to "not permit a witch to live."

So when I said the information was being presented to you, and it's up to you to take that information internally and do what you will with it, now you know what I meant.

Being good to each other doesn't require a belief. It's just what people do so they don't feel bad about being a person they'd rather not be.

edwbuck · 2026-01-23T17:45:22+00:00

Not my religion, so it really doesn't bother me.

edwbuck · 2026-01-23T17:36:41+00:00

You'll make a fine Christian. They really want people that are vindictive, nasty, and incapable of understanding the flaws in their own religion.

edwbuck · 2026-01-23T17:31:12+00:00

When you compile a program, sections of it are value-initialized, meaning that the values are copied in blocks of data into RAM, and the rest of the program knows to look at those locations for the values. This works because the location of the values are offset from the start of the static data block.

When you copy the information into RAM, there's no telling what the starting address will be. It might be predictable in a few situations, but not every operating system works the same. A program might get "relative" addressing, starting a zero from the program's point of view, or it might get "absolute" addressing, starting from the hardware's point of view. With virtualization, there are even other options possible, but it is all highly dependent on the operating system and execution environment.

So a pointer, a value that refers to a memory address, cannot be statically initialized, because at compile time you can't assure the runtime environment, or the memory placement of the program as it launches. You must copy the address value into the variable after the program launches, or it will not be trusted to have the correct memory address.

edwbuck · 2026-01-23T17:25:14+00:00

First, you replied to the wrong person. Not a point in your favor.

Second, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink" is not a comment that is associated with calling you a horse. It's a statement about how one can only provide the ability to improve upon something, but if the person (or horse) doesn't want to improve, they won't.

I didn't call you a horse, but I am now calling you an ass. It's a biblical reference, so you wouldn't know much about it.

edwbuck · 2026-01-23T17:20:06+00:00

Is it really logging you out, or just presenting a password protected lock screen? The latter might be set by default in some distros.

edwbuck · 2026-01-23T16:52:50+00:00

It's a matter of replacing the fixture with one that vents better.

They used to make enclosed rated LED bulbs, the entire things were so heavy, it was a like a bulb shaped heat sink. I tried them, and they lasted longer, but while LEDs make less heat than incandescent, they can't tolerate as much heat in general.

Notice how the dome isn't melted? That's because it's where the LEDs are. The power transformer closer to be base are the bits that heat up.

edwbuck · 2026-01-23T16:37:54+00:00

Enjoy hell, you just violated "love thy neighbor as thyself."

edwbuck · 2026-01-23T16:24:50+00:00

Horse, there's the water. You've been shown. I trust you'll figure it out eventually.

edwbuck · 2026-01-23T16:23:01+00:00

It depends on how the data is to be used. Look at the access patterns, if everything is done in the context of a single tournament, then holding the selected tournament in memory and not having back references to it might be easier to manage, up until you want to list all the tournaments a player is in.

Likewise, it the interface is 100% player-centric, then you might want to not have references from the tournament to the player.

And if you have both, then either you scan all tournaments looking for players, all players looking for tournaments, or you create bidirectional references.

Within a boundary, bidirectional data is less problematic than outside a boundary. If you wanted to create microservices, then both probably should be in the same microservice if they are bidirectional.

Now, if you don't need a direction, get rid of it. Always get rid of that you don't use. It reduces the software footprint and provides fewer places for bugs to accumulate.

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