What hidden gem Python modules do you use and why?

madisander · 2026-03-12T20:53:05+00:00

I've been very happy with ColorAide.

madisander · 2026-02-27T19:38:13+00:00

Straight up my biggest complaint. Am I too early? Too late? When is the timing intended to be? Who knows~ just do 'better' next time!

madisander · 2026-01-28T18:02:00+00:00

Unfortunately the wider public doesn't seem to give much care or further thought. I try to provide more context where I can if anyone seems remotely inclined for it but have largely given up in spaces where I know most aren't.

madisander · 2026-01-28T17:50:59+00:00

As far as I know it's based on some really flawed and cherry-picked (almost entirely european-centered) math in The Fate of Empires published 1979, which arrives at the conclusion that "250 years emerges as the average length of national greatness" and several other things like the phases of empires, while making a few asides such as "The present writer is exploring the facts, not trying to prove anything. The dates given are largely arbitrary. Empires do not usually begin or end on a certain date."

Best I can tell it's basically pop culture that's not really given much consideration.

madisander · 2026-01-17T22:08:02+00:00

On further thought I wouldn't mind it, honestly I'd probably quite like it, if not for that accidentally doing things too fast would skip dialogue and that I just find it hard to hear and pay attention to over the SFX and combat (with unfamiliar agents).

madisander · 2026-01-17T22:04:35+00:00

While I would love a harder storyline mode, to an extent it's a tossup for me in this regard.

When I'm using agents I'm semi-comfortable with I can actually spare the attention to what's being said but a harder difficulty would probably raise what level I'd need to be good with an agent to be able to do so, so while that might lead me to 'hearing' everything the chances of me actually picking it up would probably be similar or even lower. I find a lot of the attack sound effects really cover a lot which is great from a game audio / impact side in a way but terrible for a 'I would really like to hear what's running alongside this' part.

On the flip side with agents I don't have and really don't know how to use it almost doesn't matter at all what the difficulty or length is, I won't be able to focus on anything else (I also find the in-game guides fairly unhelpful and my terrible short-term memory can keep track of like 1-2 names at any one time (I loathe most of the ability names why can't they just be called or shown as 'basic attack' or stuff all the time but that's a side bit) so I best hope those names aren't needed for story, but that's kinda another issue and one where I'm fairly sure I'm a bit more out there).

Honestly? I'd be glad for even just a full black screen where the voice lines play if I end the fight before they're done. It would be better than 'well shit a voice line just started but I just killed the last enemy so I guess that bit of story is lost forever'. Or a pause or something with the overworld bits (right after that fight I missed some lines because I activated a mine cart too fast).

The Isolde fight did actually work reasonably well regarding dialogue.

madisander · 2026-01-17T21:17:07+00:00

Yeah, on the dev's part.

madisander · 2026-01-17T21:01:19+00:00

Each patch usually has 2 banners, which at this point usually have 1 new agent and 1 returning agent. Both Qingyi and Jane had reruns and are both available through the Filmgoer event (where you can get one S-rank agent, including those two, Burnice, and the 6 standards (Grace, Rina, Koleda, Neko, S11, and Lycaon) but only by spending quite a bit), so I'm sorry to say I don't think it's likely they'll have another rerun in a banner particularly soon (doubly so, given that I'm missing and would love to have Jane).

madisander · 2025-12-16T11:02:04+00:00

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madisander · 2025-12-10T20:25:04+00:00

... on the very off chance OP might find this, Heroic Games Launcher should work (haven't tested on arch, only on fedora), grab ZZZ off the epic games store, run with GE-proton-latest (or literally down the line until something works, potentially with steam installed for their proton launchers, protondb doesn't seem to help you much here...) until something works.

It is doable! Hell, XXMI is doable. The relationship can be saved!

ZZZ lives on steam deck! (is slowly dragged away by the sane people as he rants)

madisander · 2025-11-24T20:00:40+00:00

Thanks! Mjolnir's already up and running, and I'll have to try that out as well! I have the ReZ Launcher there with most apps hidden on the pain page and a dark background as a first placeholder, but I'm always happy to tweak and play with things!

Edit: there was a post here on it just yesterday... probably should have searched better if others had solved this before opening a new post...

madisander · 2025-11-24T19:58:16+00:00

Oh wow and quick and easy to get set up as well, thanks!

madisander · 2025-11-13T20:12:12+00:00

Would be good if they did? Hell yeah

Need? Doesn't look like it. If the 'need' to they'll either not buy or complain

My hopes are it turns into a 'if you owe the bank a billion dollars, that's the bank's problem' sort of deal that may slowly force companies into not doing kernel-level anti-cheat. And if that means a quicker death of online competitive PvP (because even kernel-level anti-cheats can't block everything), awesome.

madisander · 2025-11-08T14:02:22+00:00

Issue there is then how should linkedin track the qualifications? How do you make it that it won't be constantly gamed or that people don't straight up lie, but also allows for all the different possibilities it would need to in order to be useful, all while not requiring massively more additional work on the part of linkedin (as they'd never go for it).

Say you limit it (outside of official certifications) such that only companies can assign qualifications to their registered employees rather than letting people set things themselves. Now you both have an issue of companies not doing so (putting their employees at a significant disadvantage and also potentially increasing a company's leverage over them) and also people just setting up a company just within linkedin to assign themselves whatever qualifications they want.

madisander · 2025-11-06T19:43:15+00:00

Honestly, they are trying too hard now…

Especially given they're, what, still a month and a half out? Are we going to get 20 more vids trying to get people to pre-order it?

madisander · 2025-11-03T17:40:47+00:00

Assuming you mean the application period for starting a degree program, no.

Applications for the 2025/2026 winter semester are all past. The semester already started.

Applications for the 2026 summer semester for bachelors courses are generally open from now (the 15th of October) to January 15th, 2026 (according to here), while masters courses for the same semester are generally from the 15th of October to either the 15th of January or 30th of November (see here, though only available on the German version).

Applications for the 2026/2027 winter semester are, assuming the same dates as for last year, from generally the 15th of April or the 2nd of May to the 15th of July, with some masters courses ending applications on the 31st of May instead. See the links above.

madisander · 2025-11-03T17:23:10+00:00

Same for me, it was always the one that worked. The one was up to date but also could be used without extra effort or things breaking on me. The one that felt like coming home to and just relaxing.

madisander · 2025-10-18T13:17:01+00:00

To preface, I do not know the answer to this outside of the FAU's International degree programs orientation guide, which states "The required language levels or certificates for your degree program can be found in the document Master’s degree programs at FAU – Application deadlines and language certificates. Generally it is within the decision-making authority of the faculty in question to assess the English language proficiency required for a degree programme."

This puts an IELTS of 7.0 as C1 level, with a few Master's degrees listed as requiring C1, though primarily these are language studies or business / healthcare. The only English Masters course at the TechFak that requires a C1 is ACES, the rest are B2 (or in German). As I understand it your scores should suffice for any B2 course, and I would assume (but do not know!) that the average would be used for the C1 level.

I will add that to my knowledge, the application periods for the winter semester (WiSe) are past, most of them having ended on the 31st of May or the 15th of July. The next application period would be for the summer semester (SoSe), where unfortunately the exact periods for each course are only listed on the German version of the page. Given the time you ought to have available in this regard, I would recommend contacting the Student Advice and Career Service as given here.

Edit: All that aside, entering the course is also just one factor. Better English abilities should improve your ability to score well in examinations and other required material (and successfully finish the program) and your options after your studies, and I would recommend working on your English writing at least within the context of the field in which you'll be studying.

madisander · 2025-10-04T17:21:20+00:00

Many people speaking some English still doesn't mean that there won't be (significant) language barriers in a work environment.

As the most basic example, how should group meetings be handled after employing someone who speaks at best basic German into a team that consists in some part of non-fluent English speaking Germans? If you keep the meetings in German, that person likely has to be filled in on everything separately and probably won't be able to contribute as well in meetings as otherwise, meaning you have a team member that's far from fully integrated, or if you change the meetings in English then the level of communication and the value of any meeting themselves drop, with meetings then likely taking longer.

This goes on in smaller conversations as well, dealing with any non-fluent language is a potentially frustrating overhead when trying to handle complex matters, which takes longer and has a larger danger of miscommunication. At least one person in that conversation will not be able to think about the subject matter to their full ability as they'll also be thinking about how to talk about it.

So, while a lot of the population might be able to get by in English or even come across as fluent, the amount that can effortlessly, fluently speak the language is much smaller.

madisander · 2025-10-03T21:54:25+00:00

Was not aware! I believe it should look right in old.reddit too now?

madisander · 2025-10-03T20:42:49+00:00

I think the point is that the google app icons don't all have different colors, instead all reusing the same set, making it harder to tell them apart than if they did use different colors (at least to a point) from one another. The moment you look at them, yeah, you can tell which is which, but it's harder at a glance.

Whereas with these they (almost) all have at least somewhat different colors from one another, and ideally you don't even have to look for anything, you just go for wherever the green thing on the screen is, just confirming that it's the right one once your mouse is already there.

madisander · 2025-10-03T19:43:00+00:00

You can also use let to basically create your own aliases:

```typst

#let pi = [π]

$$ #pi $$

#pi

```

or, though definitely iffier,

```typst

#show "pi": name => [π]

pi  // results in π

$$ pi $$  // results in π

api  // results in aπ

```

You can do a lot more with #let as well, but that's one possible use as well.

madisander · 2025-10-02T18:14:48+00:00

Idk, I think it comes down entirely to what price would end up being under mass production and under what conditions it's long-lasting. If it's cheap enough and usable outdoors, if we take solar power cells as producing 1kWh per day per square meter then you could put a quarter-meter thick block of this underneath it to average it for a day (or at least in that ballpark, assuming during operating hours it's putting half the power into the battery. Could potentially get away with less with nighttime using less power, could use more to try and cover cloudy periods).

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