Deleting posts

 This is my personal blog, not my professional one. As such, from time to time, I may delete posts.

I often use this as a place to store my thoughts and ideas that are not yet refined enough to go onto my professional blog. As such, I will post something that, the following day, week, or year, I will simply no longer agree with. When this happens, I will make further refinements, and a new post; and delete the old post.

Re-writing Romance of the Three Kingdoms

So here's an idea, I wanna re-write Romance of the Three Kingdoms (RTK) to be more memeworthy. Basically I wanna take the story of RTK, strip it down to something you could read in like 5 or 15 minutes, and make it funny. Anyway. I've written a few scenes already.

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Zhao Yun then tucked the infant under his armour. As he rode away, the infant bounced around until he was on his back. As the enemies closed in, Zhao Yun yelled "I am Zhao Yun, a great warrior" as he defended himself. Meanwhile, without Zhao Yun noticing, the infant yelled "I am Liu Shan, the most intelligent person ever born, and the best warrior to ever be sent to this earth!" and pulled out a dagger to defend himself. The two of them then fought off all the soldiers, with Liu Shan himself killing no less than a dozen of the biggest baddest enemies. 

As they arrived, Zhao Yun handed Liu Chan over to Liu Bei. Liu Bei said "Oh Zhao Yun! I could have lost you! You are more important to be than any infant!!" and threw Liu Chan to the ground. Liu Shan hit the ground head first, and said "duuuuhhhhh" then crossed his eyes and began to drool. 

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"We must surrender" one advisor yelled. "No, we must fight" another responded. Emperor Liu Shan just said "duuuhhhh" and continued to drool. 

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"It has been three visits brother! we should go back!" Zhang Fei said. Just then, a sudden wind picked up, and a strange noise. Then, out of nowhere, a strange blue box, appeared in front of Liu Bei. A man walked out and looked at Guan Yu and said "Yes, I am Zhuge Liang. Yes I'm here to serve Liu Bei. I know your name because I know everything." he turn turked to Zhang Fei "No, this isn't a trick. Yes I respect your prowess. No I don't want to duel with you. Yes I'll obey your brother. Please calm down." Zhang Fei then let out a stiff breath, before Zhuge Liang turned to Liu Bei sand said "Yes, it is true. Yes I know you waited 3 times, sorry, bad timing on my part. Yes I'm ready to go right now. Yes I have a plan, we have to divide the land into three kingdoms." Zhuge Liang then began walking towards Liu Bei's adjutants and horses. "Oh, and don't worry. He'll calm down in about 2 minutes. Allons-y" he said as he walked off into the distance. "WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE!" bellowed Zhang Fei.

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Lu Bu and Ding Yuan approached. Lu Bu was wearing marvelous boots, a flashy cloak, a shiny necklace, a magnificent bracelet, a wondrous hat, and a prestigious halberd. Dong Zhuo said to Lu Bu "I have this horse. It is as fast as the wind" Lu Bu looked at the horse. Dong Zhuo then began to add "I'd like to give it..." when suddenly Lu Bu stabbed Ding Yuan with his halberd. Dong Zhuo was aghast. Lu Bu just grabbed the horse and said "Ok. Lets go." Dong Zhuo said "w-w-what was that!? How did you know what I was about to offer" Lu Bu just looked at him in the eye and said "How do you think I got this Cloak from Ding Yuan"

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Wang Yun approached. Dong Zhuo was standing beside Lu Bu. Wang Yun then placed his hands on Diaochan's shoulders and said "I...", when suddenly, Lu Bu lopped off Dong Zhuo's head. Wang Yun was speechless. Lu Bu just held out his hand, which Daiochan took with a smile, before saying "Ok. Lets go." 

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Plan for making my video games.

There's been some confusion among some when I've mention I plan to make some video games.

I've posted about this idea before. here, and here.

Basically the confusion comes over my timeline and when I plan to do the various parts of the game.

It seems the major confusion point is that the final step, after everything is done, is to find and learn a programming language. This will only happen after the entire game works via pen and paper.

So, just like my fictional couch, which I had to get for ~reasons~,  I'm now making an equally fictional pen and paper game.

deals I've made

I was reading this article: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53527485 about a deal made in 1992.

That's 28 years ago.

It hit me that I might have made deals with people that I do not remember. As such, I wanted to outline all the deals/debts I've made that I remember:

Coffee and Beer:

I owe a lot of people either a beer, or a cup of coffee. I don't remember everyone, but do know there's quite a few of em. Kyle, Cam, Bear, and many others are owed a coffee or a beer. I think Kyle and Cam may be owed two in fact. 

Five Bucks:

A guy on twitter. Will try to remember his name and link him to the post. Lost a bet about electoral reform. 

$1 Transportation Cost:

Argument I made in high school. I admit now I was wrong about it. Think I made the argument to 10 or so people, I'll offer each of them a coffee/beer if they want to redeem my offer instead. 

$100,000:

I've told various family members that if I win the lotto they get at least $100K. I plan to stick to that.

"$1,000":

At various times I've told people that if this lotto ticket wins, they get $1K. None of those specific tickets were winners, and the offer was not for future ticket purchases. 

Shit for entertainers (house, car, etc):

I've offered that if I ever win big on the lotto (IE, $50M) that I'd buy them, or, help them buy, various items, such as a house, car, or silent AC unit. These offers are still up, even if I don't follow the entertainer anymore. 

And that should be it. If I've made an offer to you, let me know ASAP. If I recall any offers, I'll add them as comments to this post. 

successor to rome

Countries that have claimed to be, or, have implied themselves to be, successors to the Roman Empire:

Austria (Claimed successor of HRE)
Bulgaria (Claimed rival and successor of the Byzantines)
France (Claimed through Charlemange)
Germany (Implied through HRE successorship and Kaiser title)
Greece (Claimed successor of the Byzantines)
Italy (Mussolini claim)
Romania (Implied through ethnicity claim)
Russia (Claimed successor of the Byzantines)
Serbia (Claimed rival and successor of the Byzantines)
Spain (Implied pretender successorship of the Byzantines)
Turkey (Claimed successor of the Byzantines)
United States (Implied through governmental structure claim)


Teddy's Judgement:

Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Serbia, and Spain are all too weak, in the modern day, to be the successor of Rome, and, importantly, none of them are very 'Roman' culturally or structurally.

Italy's claims seem to have been an afterthought, and its founding did not see any such claim, thus weakening the claim.

Turkey and Russia are vastly different culturally and politically than Rome ever was. Both their claims are weakened by this and the fact that they both earned the claim at the same time (IE one would need to annex the other for the claim to be more serious)

France and Germany's symbolism, political structure, and culture, can be compared to what existed in Rome, and, if they were the only such claimants, they would probably have the most serious claim, however...

The United States can legitimately, in my opinion, be seen as the successor to the Roman Empire. Not only did it model itself on the Roman Republic explicitly and directly, something all the other claimants failed to do, but its standing in the world for the past 100 or so years matches the way many in the world contemporary to Rome, viewed Rome. IE "Wow! they are the strongest nation in the world, except for maybe China"

So my new computer is 'ready'

The computer I mentioned earlier, is ready.

Robb gave me a Mobo, RAM, a CPU, a heatsink, and a graphics card. I attached the RAM, the CPU Heatsink, and the Graphics card.

I also purchased a new case that can fit all of this, as the one I had could not. I purchased a PSU that can power the monster GPU. Robb sent along a M2 SSD he had, that I plugged in. I also purchased my own SSD, and later, will purchase a HDD. I scavenged a optical drive from one of my dead computers, as well as numerous wires I'd need to connect all these things to one another. I purchased 2 HDMI cables, along with 2 HDMI-to-DVI converters. 15 minutes before I began writing this, I realized I do not need one set, but, that having it, would enable me to easily upgrade to 3 monitors later.

Everything is thus connected and ready. Mobo switches are properly set, PSU is set to 115 volts, and is currently set to the 'off' position.

When I am done writing this, I'm going to unhook one of my monitors from this computer. I'm going to then grab a spare keyboard, and spare mouse I have. I'm going to plug them all into the new computer. I'm then going to plug in the proper power plug to the PSU.

Then I'm going to flip the switch on the PSU.



Let me go off on a tangent for a moment.

There's a problem with all of this.

I'm convinced it wont work.

Oh sure, I'm estimating a good 37% or so chance that it WILL work. And my hope is as follows:

I flip that switch, and the computer does what a lot of em do when that happens, whurs on for a second, then turns off. Then I hit the button on the front of the case. Having correctly connected the case to the mobo, and, the mobo to everything else, the computer purrs to life. It's as slick as ice and fast as a schumacher. It purrs like a kitten, brings me nothing but joy. Installing the OS is easy, simple, and fast, and getting fully back online (including logging into google, discord, facebook, and all the other basics) is just as easy and fast. I'm able to download 4 full video games overnight (things like skyrim, civilization, stellaris, or mass effect) and wake up tomorrow to a fresh new computer just waiting for me to have fun.

Sadly. I doubt that will happen.

See, when I switched to linux, I wanted to make sure the game I was playing at the time, Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIII, would work on linux. Everything said it should. So, I switched. And, it did! It continued to work right up to its final-ever patch. When it broke. Why did it break? unclear.

Also, Minecraft broke. Worked for a bit, then, rip. Middle of a game, stopped working. Minecraft's problem was related, somehow, to "Vulkan". While I may know enough to operate Linux, I'm really not all that sure what that is, but, I do know, that officially, my current/old graphics card can not handle Vulkan.

That didn't stop me from running some stuff that required Vulkan, but it certainly did stop me from running other stuff that required it. My suspicion is that whatever broke RTK13 will be fixed if I can get a better Graphics Card.

...however...

I'm not sure. I'm the most recent person to try to play the game on linux (and write about it on protondb) so it is very possible that the game will, in fact, not work on my new computer.

This, would be a bummer.

Additionally, some of the other games that do not work for me, may continue to not work (properly) on the new computer. Stellaris has an entire megathread about it.

But, I would at least be better off than I am now...

...If the computer works...



See. I may have plugged in something wrong. A lot of those case plugs are tiny. 1 prong thick! My case is also very snug, but very wide, meaning that it was very hard to see what I was doing. Maybe one or more of them went into the wrong slot. I did consult the MoBo manual, but I've been known to make stupid mistakes. That goes as well for everything else I had to plug in. Not to mention that there is still a ton of cords in the case just kind of, hanging there. Clearly this case was designed for a computer made 20 years ago. It fits. But it does not fit well. And I don't have many options for what to do with all this spare cabling. It's quite possible that one or more of them will end up in a place they should not be, and damage, if not destroy, the computer.

Assuming I've plugged in all the cables right, I could have destroyed the MoBo. I put the CPU in myself, along with the heat sync, and graphics card. It's quite possible that at some point in the past 6 months I managed to damage one or more of them.

And all of that assumes that the electrical power the machine would need to suck out of my old and poorly-wired electrical sockets won't flip the breaker.

Even if it does work, I will need to re-organize my entire desk to somehow make it fit.




So I have a computer that probably can't play the game I want, probably will flip the breaker, probably will not even start, and probably will catch on fire the instant I flip the PSU on. Or. At least. That's what I've somehow managed to convince myself. It's why I'm not rushing to finish the computer, and it took this long.



Regardless.

Today seems like an excellent day to try the new computer. So. If everything goes to plan, that's exactly what I'll be doing as soon as I finish this post.

Twitch streaming & lack of quality options

NEW UPDATED VERSION: http://pellakensblog.blogspot.com/2021/04/lack-of-quality-options-when-twitch.html

Hello streamer! You are reading this because I (or someone else) has linked you to this post. You've started a stream that has no quality options!

What are quality options? 
On any stream you watch, at least on desktop (I don't use mobile) you can click the little gear icon. In that menu is a "Quality" option. If you have no quality options, the only options available will be your native streaming rate, and "auto"

What is encoding and transcoding related to this?
Words describing the same thing - quality options.

What does it mean if someone says I don't have quality options?
That they'd like to use these options, but you do not have them.

Why don't I have them?
You are not a twitch partner. Non-partners only get quality options "sometimes"

When do I get them?
Whenever, based on a random chance, based on how busy twitch is. This is why, if you start at a specific time of the day, you will often have, or, often not have, the options.

How can I get them if I do not have them?
You can re-start your stream. This re-rolls the random chance. Many times, a single restart will generate the options, sometimes it make take many restarts (20 or more) pending on how busy twitch is, and how lucky you are with your random chance.

What can I do if I can't make them appear?
Viewers use these because their internet connection is simply not fast enough to watch your stream at the bitrate at which you are streaming. Many guides suggest streaming at a bitrate of 6000. Sadly, many of the "old standard" internet connections - which were considered fast a decade ago - can not handle 6000 bits. Many people in rural areas are therefore stuck on slower connections. If you do not get quality options, and, do no change the bitrate you are outputting, they will be unable to watch your stream. To change your broadcast bitrate, you will need to change the settings in your broadcaster program (OBS, xsplit, streamlabs, etc)

What rate should I set it at?
Sadly, I can not answer this. There will always be people with connections too slow to handle whatever you are streaming at. Setting it at 4000 or 3500 seems to enable most people to watch.

What about my stream quality?
Sadly, you are going to have to make a choice. There are those who will not watch streams that are below 1080P at 60fps. and there are those who do not have an internet connection able to receive that much data. If you are unwilling to restart your stream until you get quality options, You'll have to decide which group you are going to exclude.