dotcomboom | μblog

(This page's just a place for me to throw ideas on a table and write a little. Don't expect very long/in-depth/well-proofread stuff here.)

1/22/2020; Wednesday, 2:49 PM

Hey, hi. Been a little while.

I have now churned out some of the first major updates for the year, including a brand new about page and an index update. As well as that, I put out the first of hopefully many more posts on the Somnolescent blog. I've been kicking around some ideas for bringing back Discount Store Tech Reviews from the early days, but it's all TBD.

I got into an alt rock indie band called Shaimus recently, known for a couple tracks in the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games (two series I have not yet gotten into; to this point I've only played DDR) and this masterpiece of a video. I never considered myself a rock guy but it's genuinely banging, boppy and sometimes airy stuff; highly recommended. In fact, I'd suggest listening to all three of their albums. They're excellent. I'll be writing an excerpt on Like a Fool for a Somnol post coming up very soon.

Alongside that I've been digging deeper into C418's work the past couple of days, namely his 2013 album One. If you're familiar with the Minecraft soundtrack do check his other stuff out, it's good. While I'm talking about music, there's a section for that on said about page, so check that out :^)

I've been keeping myself busy with schoolwork and sessions of Animal Crossing: New Leaf with the gang in between. I'm not expecting to be crazy active development-wise but I'll be getting up to speed on something soon enough, I'm sure. I've also been thinking of fleshing the microblog out so it isn't a whole ton of stuff on one single page, with the embeds, images and all that; perhaps split up by month. Expect something along the lines of that soon.

You felt something alone
You keep to your own
We'll never know will we dear?

Steps you took from the start To be where you are But I don't know where you've gone And like a fool I look around For the answer with my head in my hands So I have to close my eyes
To all but my own world because The more I find, the more I realize I am, Just a rebel and a fool

1/4/2020; Saturday, 9:54 PM

The past couple days, I have been working on a Discord rich presence application for Mario Kart Wii's online multiplayer through Wiimmfi, a Nintendo WFC replacement. Despite how hacked together it is, due to the lack of a web API on Wiimmfi's part and some markup that's kind of a pain to parse normally, I'm satisfied with how it came out.

Mario Kart Wii Rich Presence

You can get it and read the readme on its GitHub page here. If you're not Python-savvy, I've compiled executables for Windows and OS X with pyinstaller.

1/1/2020; Wednesday, 8:20 PM

First post of the new year! Am still trying to get back to grips after all of the holiday nonsense. Photos from my walk yesterday are now here and on my Flickr, with some really nice sunsets. I fiddled with them a bit and ran some color adjustments. Good stuff.

SPEAKING OF WHICH look at this! Lynx lad's real! It's honest-to-goodness official!


Apricot saying it's 1/1/2020 is still super weird. I'm just gonna change that to say 1/1/1998+2 to ease my conscience.

12/24/2019; Tuesday, 10:17 PM

Merry Christmas Eve everyone. Some real good stuff™'s coming next year that I'm excited about, and in about a week I'll have milk from last decade. Nice. I'm hoping everyone's been having a pleasant time this season.

A day or two ago, I set up my Flickr account, another place where I'll keep and share my photography. The backlog's there, with some tagging and stuff, so check it out and give me a follow perhaps. One of my pictures from Wisconsin blew up (at least to my standards) for being my submission to Flickr's Your Best Shot in 2019 group, so that's cool. It was a tricky pick, to be honest, but you don't get to go to a place like Cave Point every day.

Oh yeah and I beat my webmaster at SNES Ghost Valley 2 today so

(It's privated now, but come midnight this embed's going to turn into the Uno soundtrack automagically! Isn't technology wonderful?)

12/21/2019; Saturday, 2:05 PM

Semester one finals are finally over, and what's more, I've gotten Windows Spotlight Extractor to a solid 1.1. I uploaded the current version of AutoSite to the site (about time), and am prepping for a proper rewrite of the page and readme.

I've also posted a couple of my projects, namely Pituophis and Windows Spotlight Extractor (currently pending as I'm writing this), to CodeProject, which is a site I've looked to for .NET libraries and docs in the past. More of my stuff will go up there as well because the more reach the better, especially when AutoSite goes gold.

I've been in a very experimental mood lately (combined with lynx fever™ :OOOOO) so expect more stuff from me over break (with some photography opportunities in store, I hear). Am expecting to play a lot of WiiWare and Wiimmfi as well, because Tetris Party is fun and Uno's ok. (I'll beat you at SNES Ghost Valley 2 next time, Cammy >:3c.)

Speaking of which! Through a relatively straightforward process (I did get tripped up by not realizing you had to extract the .app files as well with ShowMiiWads) I've extracted the Uno soundtrack. A real funny thing about that is how when Gameloft developed the game, they didn't use BRSAR/BRSTM files (as is usually standard for Wii titles), but ogg files right in the open! The full Uno OST's going up on my channel on the 25th, but you can get at the oggs now if you're so inclined.

12/13/2019; Friday, 5:00 PM

Eurasian Lynx


12/9/2019; Monday, 9:58 PM

THE SOMNOL BLOG'S ON WORDPRESS, LADS. Nucleus, our old CMS, was being a pain and we made the transition over early. You might not see much of a difference at first glance, but it's a huge upgrade with proper avatars and a editor that doesn't suck. End of the year posts are trickling up, so make sure to keep up with it. Bless Gutenberg.

As for this place, I'll still update it. I always had the group blog reserved in my mind for more fleshed-out content, and while much, much more's going to be coming from me there throughout 2020 (starting with my end of the year post, as I said, keep following) this is more unfiltered.

Thaaat said, I've been neglecting the microblog. Not a lot's been happening to talk about as it's mostly pre-finals work. Maybe it's not that; maybe it's that I haven't had the time or thought to write them down. But hey, I managed to finally draw a particular lad so that's something, and mariteaux's stream has gotten me into playing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon again. Facing my fall 2015 fears, once and for all.

Anyhow, the next thing I'll probably jot down is the end of the year post, so again, keep a lookout. I can't explain in words how much being in Somnolescent's been influential to me, but I can try.

12/14 Edit: End of the year post is here.

Headed west now from the blighted plain
It's kind of gorgeous in a georgic way
Staring outside, watching every change
I think it's just a type of way to explain how I miss you

11/28/2019; Thursday, 10:35 PM

AutoSite 1.0 RC1 is here. I had gotten quite a bit done on it within the past days with fixes and things, and I finally implemented packs. It's not up on this site yet, only GitHub for now as the page is due for a rehaul, but in preparation /autosite is indeed now the main URL. As always, the project board has what's loosely in store.

Additionally, the promised photography update came up a couple days ago along with full-def versions of all images thus far, thanks to ImBatch's neat Optimize for Web functionality. (Speaking of which, it's a new addition to Bookmarks, a page I've been updating frequently.)

I had an SSD fail in my desktop yesterday, but the important stuff was either synced on my other machines (Syncthing :) or rested on a 1TB internal hard drive anyway. Didn't take long to get back up and running with a new drive, which is good.

Just before that, I bought some Vansire albums, something I'm happy about. Not physical, off of iTunes, but I'm sure that'll come later since the idea of building a CD collection appeals to me. I had wanted to tinker with Windows Media Player to try and get a Discord Rich Presence going for it, but information is scarce about how you could interface with it without embedding it entirely through its ActiveX/COM control.

Furthermore, I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving, ate popcorn/pretzels/jelly beans and played lots of Mario Kart Wii.

Backlight spies on more than some
I’ll retrace steps to where I’m wrong

Building islands for the young Taking pictures in the sun I am one

11/23/2019; Saturday, 7:52 PM

The robotics qualifier went great! We were placed at 15th out of 28.

We had five matches: first match, we lost time by a failing USB extension cable to the controllers, but did end up tying. The match I drove in, the awe of the autonomous parking perfectly (the only thing autonomous does right now, netting us 5 points in the match) made me lose a few seconds when it was actually time for the driver-controlled period. I still need practice actually driving, since I'm mainly on the software end.

I joke about our team being 15th place, but considering that it's the first qualifier and our autonomous wasn't even functional going into it, it's pretty dang good even just to be average. Seems like a stretch to say but there might still be a chance we might get to state!

Was pretty cut off during the time, since the school that hosted the competition had a guest network which blocked Discord and even XMPP for some reason. Even Hotspot Shield, what I use sometimes to get around this stuff didn't work. Was odd and I'm just glad I my school's filter isn't that strict. I did catch at least the very tailend of mariteaux's stream, fortunately.

ALSO: By the time you read this I likely will have uploaded all of the Astraware and PopCap titles to w2krepo in its own folder. If you have a Palm or Pocket PC, you're free to download and enjoy. Very certain they're demos. The ones I've tried aren't compatible with Mobile 6.0 Standard, unfortunately, but if you've got a touchscreen device try em out. There also happen to be a couple PC trials, so do get your 10 plays of Bookworm Deluxe worth.

Family streaming through the door
An empty parking lot at four
In a hammock chasing jets
Finding extra time to dub cassettes

11/22/2019; Friday, 7:46 PM

Happy weekend, fellas. Past week could probably be best described as reflective. The finals-bug isn't biting me quite yet, still have a week or two before I'll start worrying about that, but otherwise school does tend to leave a bite. Focusing more is something I'm still working on (evident by the Algebra 2 assignment I still need to finish to the right of me). I did fiddle with this thing called Notion a bit which is kinda like OneNote on steroids, and that's what I'll be using to plan assignments out. Works well, but I still get funny looks from time to time for using it.

I did learn some neat things about Vansire this week: their name actually came from an RNG that spat out an obscure name for a type of mongoose.

Good name for a band ngl


Speaking of Josh Augustin, one of the duo, I've discovered he does some of his own stuff too. Some beats, some vibes. It's pretty good. Four Portraits, Force Majeure, and Josh's cover of Susie May (embedded) have been frequent listens as of late. Been poking at the idea of grabbing some albums on CD or cassette, since Spotify ads are distracting and kinda creepy and the artists and bands I listen to absolutely deserve more than what they get from streams.

After a code sprint last weekend and some work in-between, AutoSite (formerly AutoSite XL) 1.0 RC1 is nearing closer and closer to being ready. Know that likely its release will be through Github, and I'll post here when it's ready. When 1.0 does eventually go gold (frankly, could be in 1998+2), it'll end up on this site with hopefully a much more fleshed out page. As for what'll happen to the original Python 3 AutoSite, I've renamed its repo to AutoSite-Legacy. If you want to keep track of my progress, here's your place. (Or check back here!) Remind me to add some easter eggs.

I've still been taking my Motorola Q9h around as a digital detox. Sometimes I miss the ability to pull out my phone and talk a bit on Discord still (some days, I do use my Android just for that, but the past couple days, I haven't been carrying either around), but I generally use my laptop for that anyway. The new Moto Razr was officially announced earlier in the week, and while all I could stare at was the price tag (I remember making fun of the iPhone X being $1000, but this is ridiculous), thinking about it a little more I'd kinda dig it if it wasn't $1500. Here's for waiting on AliExpress to catch up.

I did do recent site updates last week, and I still have some Astraware stuff to upload to w2krepo. I should mention that if anyone has especially Windows Mobile and Pocket PC software send me an email and I can get it in, maybe use it for myself. Software's getting really hard to find for especially non-touchscreen devices. Additionally, I did do a photography walk maybe a month ago(?) and I've recently remembered that I do have some stuff yet to cherry-pick and upload. Will be uploaded in time.

Tomorrow's an FTC qualifier my school robotics team is going to. Our robot's a rectangular (with corners cut off) wooden thing with omniwheels on each corner. Teleop seems to be working great outside of not having limits on how high the linear slide can go or how far open the grabber can go. Autonomous is going forward for a second. I think, haven't been able to test it. Wish us luck, we'll need it. :blobokhand:

Also tomorrow: mariteaux's going to stream, so catch that if you can. I hear he's digging through Steam for something...

In other bulb happenings: the switch of the group blog to WordPress is gonna become a thing, so here's looking forward to that. Nucleus was-- is, a neat setup, but things such as botted comments, odd previews and other quirks have made another option more appealing. mari's also been using it for his project on the band Failure, Otherwhere, adding to the appeal. Before then, a recap is due soon and we've all been getting stuff prepared for the anniversary of the group's first official year online come December.

Not everything I throw up here's going to be this long of a ramble, but that's what's been going on and what's coming.

Life’s a force majeure
When you feel unsure
Of the path you’ll take