Category: Opinon

Minty Fresh Linux

Recently, I had to help setup a relatively old laptop for my mom. She was having troubles with her current one. Fans were failing, etc. 

The plan was I would install Linux Mint on an old laptop that previously had Ubuntu on it and I would give her that. She didn’t care what OS it was as long as it behaved familiar to what she was using before, and was capable of running her Windows app. That being said, she was fine with open source alternatives. Later, I discovered an old laptop of mine that had Windows 11 already on it. My plan was to Mint on that laptop as a warm up before dealing with the one that went to mom.

Unfortunately, I had trouble getting to the boot menu. It kept going straight Windows no matter what I did. Like, I tried absolutely everything. It got to the point where I was getting sick of hearing the startup sound. This isn’t the first time I’ve run into this issue and is why I stopped using it. So I shared my frustrations to mom and told her the change of plans. She would be getting the one with Windows and I would install Mint on the one with Ubuntu.

Thankfully, she understood and was just happy to start fresh. As for me? Well, I’m happy too. As much as I love macOS on my Mini, I do miss Linux ad I’m glad to have gone through all this effort to get a fresh install of it on this laptop. No bloat or spyware. Just my personal computer.

One Simple Question

I tend to watch debunking of varies “genres” as a bit of guilty pleasure but also as a learning experience. Debunking Flat Earthers (or Flerfs) is no exception to that.

In the wake of Artemis’ successful go around the moon, Flat Earthers have come out of the wood works to cry foul yet again. But it’s already proving a little bit more difficult for them. Instead of coming right out and striking back with their usual talking point, they were left more confused than anything.

One of immediate questions during the launch was why they kept cutting back to the rocket as it flew further away. Or why was the just quality of the live streams? Why fallback visualization of Artemis when they couldn’t pick up any live feeds? And don’t get me started on the delays that caused April 1st, 2026, launch date. All of these are fair questions that I’m sure any laymen would ask. That’s why most of these debunking channels are geared more as edutainment than pure mockery.

Visualizations

I think the fallback visualization was the biggest surprise to them. Because, well, it’s obviously CGI and it makes no attempt to hide it. It literary says, “visualization” on the top left hand corner. Their whole conspiracy hinges on CGI and there it is. Open and honest about what it is. But that’s just a visual representation of the ship based on telemetry data for when they lose connection with the live feed. Hardly the crew in front of green screen. Frankly, it’s amazing they were able to get any live footage at all. Deep Space Network isn’t exactly 4G.

What many don’t know is that local news stations had to do something similar for the Apollo missions preciously because NASA didn’t have the technology to pull off the visualizations we see today. Flerfs argue that NASA hired Stanley Kubrick for Apollo 11 but what’s often overlooked is that 2001: A Space Odyssey came out a full decade after the Moon landings. The technology to pull off what they claim to have happened just wasn’t didn’t exist at that time.

Hell, I didn’t even know this! They didn’t go live until they were on the ground.

Soviet Union

But while one could easily go in circles explaining the technicalities of why it wasn’t the fake, one fairly new revaluation pretty much destroys the whole conspiracy theory. If it was fake, why didn’t the Soviet Union speak up? That’s the simple question. One has to remember the whole reason we had the space race in the first place was because Russia spooked the living shit out of the USA with Sputnik.

So if anyone is going to cry foul about Artemis today, it would be Russia. They have every motivation to do so.

To the Moon and Back

During the first two weeks of April, 2026, we saw the crew of Artemis II make their way around the moon and back in ten days. They actually accomplished that in nine! Which is impressive in it’s own right. Just like that, I think it’s safe to say these people will go down in history as legends. The success of this mission has basically kept it off of Congress’ chopping block even as the current administration seeks to find new ways of further dismantling NASA.

Recently, I’ve spent the last year digitally collecting everything NASA after I discovered First Woman comic and later D&D campaign created under the previous administration. Obviously, both got axed under this regime because heaven forbid we have a little representation and fun. Sure, the latter is at least still there but I doubt we’ll be seeing any updates.

So I didn’t think much of Artemis II. Barely knew it even existed, if I’m being honest. This was even more compounded by later delays that lead up to its eventual April 1st launch. (Which Flat Earthers have been exploiting that fact.) Knowing this administration, I just took the piss out of it. So when it actually happened I was like, “wait, they’re really doing this!?” And my cynicism faded away into optimism and hope. And that’s what we all need right now.

This new regime wants us to live in fear. And they’re very legit reasons to be afraid. But Artemis, just like Apollo before it, shows what happens when we put our differences behind us and work together.

Project Liger Zero

Recently, I just got started working on Project Liger Zero (or TSO LZ), a prototype aimed at recreating The Sims Online using Godot. In order to make this all work I’m using 2dog, a library that uses libgodot in order to reverse the workflow, letting .NET take control of the engine. You can still make use of GDScript or C# for scripting but this brings with it more advanced capabilities of .NET to Godot. Which is useful for both complex games like this or simple ones.

Unlike past projects, I’m taking a slightly different approach to this. Since Godot has a basic multiplayer framework already built-in, I’m going to focus on creating a foundation for testing networking with a simple map view and later lot using Kenny’s game assets as a substitute. That way I won’t be going in completely blind when it comes too finally using TSO’s contents. Not that it doesn’t do that already to a slightly lesser degree.

You see, Godot is rather strict about file I/O. That’s good, don’t get me wrong, but it does make creating a project like this rather tricky. In order to get around that, I figured you can simply place or put a symlink to TSOClient in the game’s user data directory. The first thing I did was to see if this even works is to have it show the TSO version you have on the login screen. Map mode does something similar, if TSO is found it’ll play music from the game. So it is completely possible.

Behind the Name

It’s been a while since I’ve used a code name for a Sims project. Mostly just been reusing the classics cause I couldn’t think of anything better. But this project is certainly different from the rest. While 2dog is just as bleeding edge as my failed attempt with Zig, I at least know C# and Godot.

So when it came to time to come up for name, this needed to be special. Then I remembered Zoids: New Century. It was one of the many animes I grew up with and have been itching to see it again. As a kid, I wanted to be in the mecha the main character had soo bad. So I named this project after it: Liger Zero.

That brief backstory aside, it’s just a cool name to give a game client.

Not Just for TSO

I’ve seen a few recreation projects that eventually grew up to become their own thing. They all reached the point where the game evolved into a versatile engine. Probably the best example is OpenTTD.

So even if all else fails, all this effort doesn’t go to waste. That’s my plan for Liger Zero.