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Oh yeah I just remembered that a few months back on Fedi, someone asked if there was a tool that would convert pixel art to ASCII art with specific mappings of colors to symbols. I didn't know of any such tool, but I thought it would be fun to implement, and so I did. You can access it through here.

A video of it working here:

https://files.catbox.moe/py6qe4.mp4

I didn't spend much time making it pretty because I wanted to make it quickly... and then when I was done there was not much motivation to work on it any longer, lol.

I don't really have anything else to say, I just remembered the forums exist.

2025 was a bit of a mess. I blogged about it. Holding out for 2026 being less of a mess, though I'm not exactly faithful that's how things will turn out.

I have a little ask box on my site as a lot of you already know, a while ago I made a little widget that I have pinned to the panel at the bottom of my desktop and it notifies me whenever there's something new in the inbox that needs answering!

I posted about it on Bluesky a couple of times before, but I've updated it yesterday to look a little better, with little dividers, text that actually wraps around, a scrollbar, the works. Happy with it! :)




I use KDE, so I can make little widgets, called plasmoids, in QML.


QML supports adding JavaScript functions and expressions as properties and event callbacks, so all the code for fetching new questions is coupled right with the UI stuff which I think is neat.

One thing I kinda want to do now is allowing myself to answer these incoming questions right from the widget, because as it stands, I'm still using this one script I'd written that makes me select a question via fzf and write an answer via nvim @_@

During the whole time these forums were dormant I did not even get to post about my hyperfixation over the Powkiddy V10 and the Nintendo 2DS XL I bought over the last year.

They're actually so much fun in their own different ways. The Powkiddy V10 is, like many devices of its class, meant for retro emulation for consoles up to the PlayStation, and its aspect ratio of 3:2 is perfect for the Game Boy Advance specifically, where it can perfectly upscale by 2x with its resolution of 480x320... but it is an ARM Linux machine, so you can plug a keyboard and tap away at the terminal, and you can run Linux native games as well, which allowed me to port a game I made in 2019



The Powkiddy does not have Wi-Fi built in, which is kind of crazy in $current_year, but you can plug a Wi-Fi dongle onto the USB-C port and that actually allows system updates and this little thing called PortMaster, where a bunch of people already put in the work into getting games like Balatro, Celeste, Deltarune and a whole lot more, working on these things.

I only found out about these devices and the fact there is a whole community dedicated to them last year. I am kind of itching to get a few more, different models, of these kinds of devices soon, they're a lot of fun to play on and hack into.

I've been playing ATLYSS again lately, since it's gotten an update... Made a new character after the patch, and she's already my highest level character, a Lv. 25 Mystic. I also finally beat the Colossus, which I hadn't been able to do yet...

It's a lot of fun! It's become another one of the games I play to pass time while I listen to podcasts in the background. It's really easy to get in a flow state while playing, really great.



Still didn't get to explore much of the new content in this latest patch. I did fish for a while with some friends, though the fishing mechanic seems a little superficial... It's not the new Webfishing for sure ;D

When I'm playing brain-turned-off games, I usually listen to podcasts and the sort, usually news commentary, but given The News these days, it's not always ideal to just listen to those sorts of things :-[

A couple days back I stumbled upon the Adventure is Nigh! series, which is a D&D podcast, and those tend to be fun, and indeed I quite liked tuning into the first few episodes.

I'm still searching for more sources of background noise for my future gaming and perhaps artistic endeavors, what do you usually listen to?

[2025-07-14]

I'll use this thread to notify of changes, since those shouldn't warrant new threads every time.

2025-07-14

• Added "Pronouns" field to profiles
• No longer warn about old threads, as the forums were inactive for two years, and I don't want to discourage replying because of this.
• Background images appear on the member list as well

I wonder if anyone here has opinions regarding that clusterfuck of a series...  :-X

The combat is definitely fun, though a lot of people seem to disregard it as just mindless button mashing. I personally disagree, it's frantic and satisfying and still requires some strategy, especially when bosses get difficult. XIII-2 took everything XIII did right in its battle system and refined it, and that's the one I've been revisiting these past few days.

I did a little hacking around in the profile template and now you should be able to set a custom background image for your profile.

Go to Profile Details and set a custom URL for your Background image like so:



And it should work!

meow  :)

These forums get a lot of views from guests, like a lot a lot. Thing is that these are probably all AI scrapers.

While my intent has initially been to keep all content in the main boards public for all, this was a little before the AI bot situation got really bad.

I still do want to keep things here public, but I need to figure out how to cut traffic significantly.

[COMMON RANKS]

Figured I'd start a thread to share details about my a location in my lore, Atrea, and the residents therein, Atreans.

Though it has not always been this way, Atrea functions in a sort of caste system categorized by a few differing anatomical features that Atreans sport. The most obvious of these features is the amount of ears Atreans have, and that is what gives each rank its name.

COMMON RANKS
Binaureans - These have two ears, their bodies usually sport more muted colors, they do not glow. These are the lowest class, common workers, the strong base over which Atrean society functions. They're physically strong and incapable of magic.
Tetraureans - These have four ears, their bodies are usually dark and have glowing spots at the tips and as face markings. They're usually in charge of matters of protection. Tetraureans fill the roles of the guard and some are sent out of realm to take care of magic-related crises that can destabilize Atrea. They're capable of some magical feats, but need tools to channel that power. Hexaureans are given weapons crafted with this express purpose.
Hexaureans - They have six ears, their bodies sport bright and vivid colors which glow in almost their entirety. They're usually tall and slender, and their bodies are frail. They're capable of incredible magical feats and do not need tools. They represent the elite in the caste. They've established their place as the governing body of Atrea and are responsible for planning and laying out Palaces and Temples for construction, which is then delegated to Binaureans. Despite the fact that Binaureans, Tetraureans and Hexaureans all have the same cognitive ability, Hexaureans tend to be much more intelligent due to the governing body's focus on education towards the higher ranks.
Octaureans - They have 8 ears, their bodies are void black and their eyes glow crimson. They do not participate in society and are left to rest in high towers. They are to be left alone. They're powerful enough to shatter any other Atrean with their voice alone.


To do:

• Species sheet
• List of districts
• Roles
• The Odd-Eared Atrean Society

I picked up my tablet again after nearly two months a few days ago and I thought it would be fun to draw a little anthropomorphized car...




I ended up liking them a lot x3

Despite the nuclear end to the Discord server, I'm still around, racc.at is still around, and the forums are still around, for as long as I can keep them up.

You can still reach me through all the same means. I haven't been doing the best mentally, but keeping myself isolated will not help.

Threads in these forums have thousands of views, and that's despite the fact that there has been zero activity since last year. This place is flooded with scrapers (but at least there is no spam.)

I need to figure out how to use stuff like Fail2Ban, I guess. I'm not necessarily a fan of all these inflated numbers on the very much dead forums.

Show off your desktop, your home screen, or whatever else you land onto whenever you start using your preferred device.

This was my Ludum Dare 54 project. It's available to play on itch.io, as well as on my site, which also has a version with a leaderboard system.

The source code for the initial jam version is freely available on GitHub, and I encourage you to clone and study it if you want to. I think I managed to keep the code relatively clean throughout the whole jam, so it should be simple to get a grasp of how the game works. If you're reluctant on collaborating in GitHub projects, then let COSMOSTRIDE be your first go at it. ;)

I have a draft for a post-mortem in the works, which I'll post to my blog once I'm done.

Here's a silly little render of the spaceship I used for my site's Games page.



I hope to be able to continue delivering for the next Ludum Dare events, I finally managed to start a streak and I hope I don't lose it!

Since the 3rd of September, I've been hosting Drawpile sessions on the Racc.at server every two weeks on Sundays. These sessions and older ones are all posted to the drawpile page on the website, but I'll also cross-post them here to open them up for comments from members, as well as adding information such as links for each participant.

I'm wondering how many screens y'all got for your computing; I, myself, only have room for one monitor on my desk (I'd probably have space for more if I kept the tower on the ground instead of on the desk.) so I only use one monitor, two if I have my tablet plugged in, which most of the time is on my shelf.

If you have a multi-monitor setup I'd also love to know what you keep where, if you have one "main" monitor and leave the other for background things, like messaging apps, or if you juggle tasks between both monitors indiscriminately. Lemme in on your workflow.  :)