Lyons in Beta

Hot water heater temperature controls are weird

2026-09-22T02:36:00Z

Before I make fun of a silly thing, let me say: buy and install water-leak sensors in your home. Not this weekend. Not tomorrow. Not later today. Right now. If you don't know where to start you can start with Wirecutter^[1].

💧💧💧

My hot water heater had to be replaced this week. While I could complain or compliment a number of things from this experience, there is a specific one I just can't let go^[2] and that is the baffling way temperature is indicated on a hot water heater (at least in the United States).

"Scalding risk increases with hotter water", which is why you should never go above HOT℉.

The settings are roughly:

LOW ~80℉
HOT ~120℉
A ~130℉
B ~140℉
C ~150℉
VERY HOT ~160℉

But why not numbers? Numbers that represent temperatures?

According to all the plumber forums, it is apparently to reduce complaints from customers that the temperature in the tank may vary by as much as 30℉ by the time it gets to the fixture (which admittedly is a lot!) but... who exactly is this keeping out of the support queue?

The manufacturer is required to put the approximate temperatures in the manual, and anyone who is going to measure the temperature at the fixture is going to look up what the codes on the equipment mean because they are not printed on the control. So I guess this prevents someone from calling to complain who is willing to take the temperature of their water, but not willing to RTFM to compare against. My plumber even told me they set my new unit to the legally required temperature, which is probably the one most people leave it at and then never think about again until it breaks.

I'm sure there are some people fiddling down to save pennies when they're away from home or up to "better purify" their water, but I really don't think slightly obscuring the approximate temperature targets is going to slow that person down from writing an angry email.

Anyway, I was struck by this silliness while dealing with an otherwise very stressful situation, and I thought it was worth sharing, by which I mean go buy and install water-leak sensors.

I went with Yolink because I already had other Yolink sensors. #notSponsored ↩︎
Other than how you should really buy and install some gods damn water-leak sensors. ↩︎

Analog Defaults

2026-09-13T20:28:00Z

I've written about my app defaults before, then recently I saw that Brad (of Pen Addict fame) started keeping track of his Analog Defaults on the Pen Addict website^[1].

I love stationary as a concept, but I do so little on paper I tend to not invest in very nice tools. My partner has gorgeous pens and pencils and highlighters and all manner of journals and paper types, all of which she uses. Which is exactly why she has that stuff and I don't; I know I won't use it.

I want to use it. I (used to) buy it swearing that I will use it. But I almost never actually do. Like a lot of ~~big dumb idiots~~ people, I struggle with "ruining" the good paper or "wasting" the good pen/pencil/eraser so I just... don't. I don't use them and then I feel guilty for not using them and my solution to that conundrum is what lead me to wanting to post my analog defaults.

At my desk

Pencil: whatever happens to be handy.
Paper: the cheapest printer paper available.

Away from my desk

Pencil: Bullet Pencil.
Paper: Field Notes or a stack of plain 3x5 cards held together with a binder clip.

I splurged on a bullet pencil because I don't like mechanical pencils and I wanted to be able to travel with a pencil that would stay sharp. You can also refill it with any cheap, standard-sized pencil that is to hand so I'm not afraid of "wasting" it.^[2]

✏️✏️✏️

Even I, with my annoying hangup about "wasting" the good stuff, can write, sketch, or doodle with these tools because they're cheap and meant to be used. Expensive stuff is also meant to be used, but one hangup at a time!

Or analogue if you're Robb Knight, which is who introduced me to Brad's post. Though I do see Robb's URL is spelled in the American way... ↩︎
Which I now realize I need to replace because the version I bought contains lead! 😱 ↩︎

pixel_area

2026-09-11T05:55:00Z

I have been considering whether or not I wanted to add my website to any of those cool, retro, small web, web rings. And now I have.

pixel_area coordinates: X: 66, Y: 66^[1]

Check out some random pixels then grab one for yourself before they're all gone!

For reasons I can scarcely understand, the "execute order 66" scene from Star Wars Episode II took deep root in my brain and any time I have to pick a number there is a decent chance I will choose 66. ↩︎

Megabonk

2026-08-31T03:32:00Z

I finally played Megabonk, a... sigh... "Vampire-Survivors-like"^[1] in glorious 3D.

I played Vampire Survivors when it was newish and there was a ton of hype around it. I distinctly remember thinking how interesting the concept was, how clever the idea was, and how difficult it must be to balance a game design like that. But what I was most struck by was how utterly forgettable it was to me.^[2] For the first couple of days I was playing it on my steam deck (the ideal way to play these kind of games) as often as I could. Then I didn't play it for a few days and almost didn't realize it. Repeat that loop a few times with the didn't-play part getting exponentially longer each time and before I knew it I was no longer playing Vampire Survivors.

Fast forward four years and I'm hearing an awful lot about this 'Megabonk' game and how super fun and addictive it is. Eventually I gave in to my curiosity and the imagined peer pressure and looked it up. "Overwhelmingly positive reviews," eh? "Improves on the Vampire Survivors formula dramatically," hmm? "On sale for $5," is it? Well, I guess I can give it a try!

I distinctly remember thinking how well the game translated to 3D, how good the execution was, and how difficult it must still be to balance game design like this. But what I was most struck by was how utterly forgettable it was to me. ^[2:1] For the first couple of days I was playing it on my steam deck (the ideal way to play these kind of games) as often as I could. Then I didn't play it for a few days and almost didn't realize it. Repeat that loop a few times with the didn't-play part getting exponentially longer each time and before I knew it I was no longer playing ~~Vampire Survivors~~ Megabonk.

I can't say I dislike bullet heaven games because I enjoy them while I'm playing them. I just feel virtually no draw to keep playing them. I don't know that this is such a bad thing. Maybe it is a sign I don't have a gambler's addictive personality. Or maybe in another few years I'll spend another few dollars and try another game and maybe, just maybe, that'll be the one that sticks.

If I don't forget.

"Bullet heaven" is such a better genre name I cannot believe there is even a debate. The audacity to elevate a title to the likes of "Metroidvania" or "Doom clone"! ↩︎
Emphasis on the ME in that sentence. I'm not judging anyone who loves these games. ↩︎ ↩︎

A case for my case

2026-08-23T01:40:00Z

I was gifted a pair of Bose QuietComfort earbuds for Christmas last year. They work well, sound good, and actually fit my ears when many earbuds don't. I use them a lot, so they are in my pocket almost constantly. They have a nice, small, smooth case so they slide out of a pocket easily. So easily.

Way too easily, actually. They kept falling out of my pocket and either being left where I was sitting, or worse, clattering horribly to the floor. I wasn't afraid of losing them as much as I was afraid of the case breaking. I started trying to think of ways I could make the case textured or otherwise less slippery when it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe... someone would make and sell a case for my case.

Yes, of course there are case cases. Capitalism! I don't know why I was unsure for even a moment that such a thing would exist. I am glad my first impulse was "think of something clever" and not "buy a thing" but in the end buy a thing, I did!

And just look at this thing! 😍

I love it almost as much as the earbuds themselves. When I started looking at available options there were so many rough-and-tough cases, carbon fiber, solid (and mostly boring) colors, and all other manner of formless function. But among the mundane and unremarkable were a few fun options and among those few this little shiba inu^[1] is obviously the best. As it is probably about 8¢ of plastic it only cost $8 which has been a damn good ROI considering how well it works and how much joy it brings me. Since I put this case on my case it hasn't fallen out of my pocket even once, and when I do take it out I an delighted every time.

Sometimes a problem can be fixed cheaply, easily, and adorably. You don't have to choose.

The listing called it a corgi, and I guess it could be but come on... it's a shiba. ↩︎

Beat Weaver

2026-08-21T17:40:00Z

Game developer, musician, and fellow Sunrise Robot alum, Echolox is making a multi-track rhythm game and the demo is out now.

Beat Weaver on Steam

I have put thousands of hours into rhythm games but only the plastic-toy-instrument variety. The idea of playing a rhythm game using a gamepad has always struck me as bizarre; almost like learning to use a stenotype. But that, of course, is just me being closed-minded. I have actually played lots of rhythm-y platformer games using a gamepad, and I love those! So why not give this a try? But oh no! I'm kind of terrible at rhythm games on a gamepad! And that is where Beat Weaver shines if you're new to this genre.

Your Rockbands and your Guitar Heroes are kind of not fun at all to play if you don't have some minimum level of skill. The game makes sad instrument noises every time you screw up and you don't get to hear the cool music and you fail completely after not too many errors. Even on the lowest difficulties you have to learn to use the plastic-toy-instrument and you're going to hear a lot of sad instrument noises before you hear much music. Boo. Boo! the crowd shouts.

Beat Weaver on the other hand, asks you to play all of the instruments and do the vocals all at the same time. Which actually makes the game more approachable. I swear! Let me explain. The goal of any song is to unlock the 🎶 full mix 🎶 and stay in the 🎶 full mix 🎶 as often as possible. That means you will be sliding back and forth between tracks and pressing buttons to make music happen. Once a track is unlocked it auto-plays for a little while which frees you up to move to other tracks to unlock the 🎶 full mix 🎶. The result is that you are almost never playing the game in silence because you made a mistake or two or ten. This is also where the creative expression of a multi-track rhythm game comes alive that a Rockband-like can't have.

Maybe you don't like the vocals on a song? Don't play them. Maybe you love the synth and vocals but don't care about the drums? Awesome. I love that for you. You can play the tracks you want to play as much or as little as you want and still finish the level. Maybe you don't even care about unlocking the 🎶 full mix 🎶! This is not something I ever thought about being possible in my plastic-toy-instrument games. Now I see how fascinating of a differentiator it is. Unlocking the 🎶 full mix 🎶 is the explicit goal, and chasing the highest possible score is the implicit goal, but neither are required to have fun and make music. I did not know rhythm games could work this way!

I used to scoff at gamepad rhythm games, but Beat Weaver has shown me the neon lights.

Pay the compliment

2026-08-20T01:56:00Z

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single trip to Home Depot for a project, must be in want of a second trip to Home Depot."^[1]

Inevitably, the additional trip is needed for whatever that was forgotten, or the wrong size, or not enough, or whatever.

On one such recent^[2] (second) trip recent to Home Depot for whatever I parked close to the garden center so I could quickly pay and exit with the whatever and get back to my project. As I approached the counter, the clerk, a man who looked to be in his twenties, exclaimed "You're back! I saw you in the store and I wanted to tell you I love your tattoos but I got embarrassed and didn't say anything. I'm glad you came back. Your tattoos are awesome!" I laughed and said thank you. We fist bumped. I paid and left the store.

And then I walked on air for hours afterwards.

Dark featured, furrow-browed, middle-aged dudes like me are not prime targets for a "your outfit is fierce!" type of interaction with a stranger, but it sure is nice when it happens. I appreciate that "kind words are nice" isn't exactly revelatory, but I will still add my voice to the chorus: kind words are nice. Say more kind words to more people.

Tell someone in the grocery store you like their shoes. Tell someone at the gym they're killing it. Tell a coworker in another department their email was awesome. Pay the compliment. Because kind words are nice, and you can make someone's whole day/week/year/life a little bit better.

Speaking of which, you look nice today.

First line from Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice. ↩︎
It was actually the better part of a year ago that I started this draft but the impact has been lasting. ↩︎

PRty

2026-08-18T05:03:00Z

I work in software. Like all software companies, we use slack. Like all people who use slack, we enjoy a good emoji reaction. When a pull request is opened I like to celebrate the work moving through the process so I will often slap a :party_blob: on it, which pretty accurately represents the emotion I'm going for. It's silly and funny.

But it isn't punny.

Which brings us to::prty:.

It's a PR. It's a party. It's PRty.

Celebrate an engineer in your life by downloading the prty emoji on Slackmojis.

NEWstalgia Goggles: Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo

2026-08-11T23:13:00Z

It's been a minute between episodes of Nostalgia Goggles, but Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo was just too good to pass up dusting off the microphones and having a discussion!

Have you played Pipistrello? Does our effusive praise make you want to give it another look?

NEWstalgia Goggles: Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo

Carless: A miles-not-driven slash page

2026-08-11T02:13:00Z

It took nearly an entire year but I have decided on my second slash page: /carless. Which I invented, so it might need some explaining since it isn't in the official directory^[1].

A few years ago I was able to switch to electric cars for my household, but it still felt silly to drive if I was going somewhere close by, in nice weather, by myself. America is not famous for it's bike infrastructure but where I am is decent so I set my sights on a peddal assist ebike. The goal was to be able to travel 10ish miles round trip at bike speeds (10-25mph) but with only the effort of walking, which is exactly what pedal assist ebikes are awesome at. Once I had one I wanted to give myself a little incentive to choose the bike over the car whenever reasonable^[2], so I started tracking my "miles not driven". Number-go-up is a great incentive (when not being used to destroy society)!

Turning it into a public celebration seemed like a good fit for a slash page, but what to call it? I originally considered /miles-not-driven but that doesn't fit the slash page typical format of being a single word. Some other options I considered, including some great suggestions from fediverse friends:

/negamile
/undriven
/fossil-free (or /auto-free)
/miles-ridden (or just /miles)
/biked (or /cycled)

/negamile was a serious contender just on the back of how interesting of a word it is. Ultimately it is too clever for its own good. Ditto /undriven.

/fossil-free, and /auto-free, have the right spirit in mind.

/miles-ridden and /miles exclude all the people smart enough to use the metric system, and I'd love to see others adopt this slash page. Similarly, /miles-ridden, /biked, and /cycled, I realized, over indexed on riding a bike.

Over indexing on miles I rode on my bike sounds stupid considering everything I was thinking about up until this point, but I discovered while discussing this idea with others that what I am really celebrating is not driving as much as I am celebrating riding my bike. Remember, I am in the US and cars are king here. But if people in more civilized countries want to celebrate kilometers on trains or buses or even on foot I think that is just as important!

If I could ride my bike everywhere all the time I would. I think riding a bike is just about the ideal way to travel short-to-medium distances because it is just so joyous.

I still love my little electric cars, and gods know I need them to do many things in this country, but not everything. How far can I go without using my car?

How far can you go?

yet? 🙏 ↩︎
I am a fair weather rider, but I get a lot of fair weather. ↩︎

HTML Day

2026-08-08T17:53:00Z

I learned quite recently that August 8^[1] is HTML Day, a celebration of HTML that includes actual meetups! It almost feels like a silly thing to celebrate when I think back to my teenage self building fan sites in notepad.exe, but in reality it's quite impowering to be able to craft something with one's own (digital) hands. I know most people, especiailly people who grew up with social media, don't understand how incredily accessible HTML and CSS (and even basic JavaScript) are!

It would probably do my heart good to spend some time around indie web people and away from "big tech" people. Unfortunately, there aren't any events close to me as far as I can tell. Maybe next year I can find (or organize?) something. In the mean time, I'll keep making my silly things in [$textEditor].

It's only August 8 in 2026. In 2025 it was August 2. So it's the first Saturday of August. Wait... in 2024 it was July 13? 2022 was in June? So it's like Easter? Wait it's also been in January? And November? How is this holiday scheduled?! ↩︎

fediverse:creator

2026-08-06T23:46:00Z

If this post has a screenshot in it from Mastodon showing my Mastodon account as being the verified author of this website then I successfully followed Robb's instructions.

So legit. So indieweb.

Big Walk

2026-08-04T23:40:00Z

House House, makers of the delightful Untitled Goose Game and Panic, makers^[1] of the fascinating Playdate, have teamed up again to release Big Walk.

It's a game where you "hang out and get lost with close friends in a big world." And the trailer makes it look cozy as heck.

For most of my gaming life I have been a solo gamer, playing mostly various flavors of (J)RPGs, (Action-)Adventures, and Platformers. Notable exceptions are Rock Band(s)^[2], Mario Kart(s)^[3], Super Smash Bros.(s)^[4], and Final Fantasy XIV Online, all of which I have collectively put thousands of hours into. Those notable exception games are all in the "better with friends" category but none of them are in the "friends required" category. And to be clear, much of my time in those seires was with other people (because I was young once). Final Fantasy XIV Online, an MMORPG, only became attractive once I learned you can play the game almost entirely solo.

Big Walk is a "friends required" game. My problem isn't that I don't have friends; it's that I don't have time. Or rather, I don't have the same time my friends have. Finding time to game at all can be quite difficult and complicating it by having to work around a second (or third, or fourth) set of work/family/life schedules when I have an insanely long list of perfectly good solo games in my backlog already is not an exciting proposition. Though it is no less frustrating to feel like I'm missing out.

The barrier to entry is relatively low (for anyone who already has hardware and basic gaming skills) at ~~$15~~ $20, so maybe I'll be able to wrangle a handful of people into giving it a try.

And while I'm at it, I should probably write a review of Split Fiction, assuming I ever manage to finish it...

"Makers" but not "sellers" because the damn thing is out of stock constantly. Not that I need more gaming hardware. ↩︎
Expert, all instruments. ↩︎
Gold, 150CC, all cups. ↩︎
I was ok. ↩︎

The Redesign, Here we go again part 2

2026-08-03T00:00:00Z

I've been wanting to redesign my website for some time. The turn-key 11ty "starter blog" I was using before was probably perfectly editable, but who wants to try and understand someone else's mistakes when you can start from scratch and make all of your own mistakes! At the same time, ever since I stopped streaming^[1] (which was fun in its own right but was mainly to support podcasting) I've been missing the design-y aspect of streamer layouts. Two great problems that go great together right? I can redesign my website to resemble my old streamer layout!

haha nope! Well, sorta.

My streamer layout went through several iterations, and the one I liked the most was the speedrun layout: game on the left, camera and splits on the right. All of the colors are from the Nostalgia Goggles palette, a bold drop shadow, and the background image from the game I was running^[2]. I started laying out boxes to put posts and navigation into, and I made it all the way through learning some basics of modern flex n' grid CSS before adding my favorite touch; the game's map as the background. Except therein, as the bard would say, lies the rub.

Streamer layouts have to fit inside a 16:9 video player. You can use as much or as little of that space as you want, but you know the shape of your container and there is no responsive reflow or breaking out of the box. That means my beloved pixel art maps could be artfully cropped and they'd stay right where I put them^[3]. Websites are not so predictable.

As you can see from the website you're reading this on, or the screenshot above (if you're reading this in RSS or in a future where I've changed the desgin again) I did not "solve" that "problem". There are options I know of but they all come with trade-offs I don't like:

use a large enough image that most posts won't reach the edges but will be difficult to position.
tile the background and accept seams which are likely to be ugly.
use an image I like and accept it will almost always show edges because the viewing ratio is flipped.
scale the image to fill the viewport which will crop weirdly on long pages.

For now it's --ng-light-blue all the way. It's a good color^[4], and most importantly I'm happy to have a design I own.

Update August 14, 2026: Apparently someone built an entire design system around my website redesign. How flattering! 😏

Strongbad voice still my favorite channel reward. ↩︎
I'm saying this like I ever ran more than two different games. ↩︎
One of my early layouts had the whole overlay in actual 1:1 pixels and then I just scaled it in OBS. It was incredibly efficient in a system where that efficiency was immediately drowned out by having to render a single frame of video. C'est la vie. ↩︎
Brent, ↩︎

Here we go again

2026-08-02T00:12:00Z

Blaugust^[1] is here again and it gave me the kick in the ass I needed to work on my website. There are a bunch of things I've been wanting to do but they all take time and effort so I compromised by not doing them.

Turns out that was not an optimal strategy for getting things done.

After two days of very rushed and unnecessarily stressful work I come sliding into home just in time with:

A new design!
An easier to maintain build process!
Less reliance on third parties!

Each of those is going to get its own short post because I understand how to juice metrics and the KPI for Blaugust is "number of blog posts in August".

RIP, Belghast. Fuck cancer. ↩︎

Phantom Obligation

2026-01-29T02:10:00Z

You're not behind on your feeds.

There is no behind.

Nobody's waiting.

via Phantom Obligation

This is an excellent read on the connection between interfaces and how they effect us. It is also a visually beautiful.

A Short Review of your Year in Review

2026-01-01T16:23:00Z

There are a lot of people on the indieweb who carefully track every book they read, movie they watch, game they play, album they listen to, etc., etc., etc. Some of those people then write thoughtful reviews on their site to share what they liked and didn't like. Even with my growing list of blogs I follow (thanks, RSS!) I'm going to miss lots of interesting people saying interesting things about things I might find interesting. Which is why I am so thankful for the "Year in Review"^[1] still being a thing people do.

I track some things but I am terrible at sharing after the fact (new year's resolution maybe?^[2]). Partially because it is a lot of work to do and partially because writing^[3] and posting reviews makes me nervous for some reason. But indieweb people show up year after year! This holiday season alone I found over a dozen new books and games, several of which I've already devoured thanks to the break from work. And even though we don't know each other, getting a recommendation from a real person who doesn't profit in any way, or even know I followed their recommendation, warms my heart.

Thank you for taking the time. Thank you for sharing what you loved. I hope you read and watch and play amazing things this year. I can't wait to read your next Year in Review.

I am thankful for people who do this. The now-ubiquitious "wraps" never seem to do much for me. ↩︎
lol no. but maybe. ↩︎
I didn't have any problem talking through reviews for eight freaking years though. ↩︎

re: But they don’t love you back

2025-11-30T20:40:00Z

re: But they don't love you back,

Puzzle games

A genre I love that doesn't love me back is puzzle games. I am okay at puzzle games, and would like to believe I am a passably intelligent person who is decent enough at problem solving, but puzzle games fill me with anexiety that I will feel stupid. Feeling stupid makes it difficult to enjoy something, which is a shame because the elation of the "Ah ha!" moment when solving a puzzle is substantial. The original Ace Attorney trilogy delighted me when I played it but every stream^[1] filled me with dread of the "Oh God, people are going to see me being stupid!" variety. And if you noted a difference back there between being anxious about feeling stupid and being anxious about looking stupid I am aware those are different things, but unfortunately I am anxious about both.

There are plenty of genres I'm not good at, but because I don't care if I am good at them it doesn't bother me: realistic racing or sports, deck-builders, competitive FPS, shumps^[2] Soulslikes, and probably more. I'm a casual acquantinces with some of these genres, but there is no unrequited love.

BONUS: Fighting games

I am fascinated by fighting games, and high level players are incredibly impressive to watch. I've played a ton of Smash Bros, which I love and it loves me back, but "serious" fighting games have never appealed to me enough to make me want to put in the time to get good at them. I don't love them, but I feel like I want to love them, which is perhaps even more ridiculous.

Remember Twitch streaming? Man, that feels like a lifetime ago. ↩︎
I suuuuuuuuuuck at shumps. Still fun though! ↩︎

LEGO Game Boy

2025-11-23T00:01:00Z

The LEGO Game Boy comes with 2 cartridges you build: Super Mario Land and Link's Awakening. When you build the Link's Awakening cartridge it includes a tiny LEGO battery which is not included when you build Super Mario Land because Super Mario Land did not have a save function, while Link's Awakening did. Even if you are old enough to have lived through the cartridge era you may not have realized that cartridges that supported saving had a tiny battery in them because they need power to maintain the save data.

Once the cartridges are built it's impossible to tell them apart (except for the sticker, obviously) and the battery can't be seen from the outside. And still, this LEGO cartridge has a LEGO battery so you can save while playing your LEGO Game Boy.

That is exceptional attention to detail.

10 Pointless Facts About Me

2025-11-05T02:42:00Z

A few of the folks I follow online posted 10 Pointless Facts About Me and I thought that, just like App Defaults, it seems like a fun and easy trend for me to bandwagon absolutely ages after the moment has passed.

Some of these were surprisingly difficult to get down to a succinct answer. A restriction, I now realize, I arbitrarily set myself.

Do you floss your teeth?
Yes. And I use a waterpik because genetics are a jerk.
Tea, coffee, or water?
Water first thing in the morning, followed closely by coffee, then tea and water throughout the rest of the day.
Footwear preference?
Indoor soccer shoes. Sort of similar to skate shoes, but narrower and lighter.
Favorite dessert?
I refuse to settle for just one. But probably chocolate mousse.
The first thing you do when you wake up?
Probably the same thing most people do first thing in the morning.
Age you’d like to stick at?
None. They're all great and terrible in different ways. I will probably feel different in 40 years, but I hope not.
How many hats do you own?
Over a dozen. Of which I consistently wear about four, and mostly just two.
Describe the last photo you took?
A funny sticker on my NAS that says "Training Data". 🤭
Worst TV show?
I refuse to settle for just one. But probably any home makeover reality show.
As a child, what was your aspiration for adulthood?
I don't recall having aspirations like that as a kid. I was pretty happy being a kid. I'd love to say I was enlightened and living in the moment, but I probably just don't remember.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles

2025-10-04T21:30:00Z

Rating:

Final Fantasy Tactics is one of my favorite games of all time. I have probably played it a couple dozen times start-to-finish at this point. We even did a Nostalgia Goggles episode on it!

Final Fantasy Tactices: The Ivalice Chronicles is a remaster that I was not holding my breath would ever actually happen. I still have my original PS1 and PSP copies of the game, as well as the android and iOS ports so I am not exactly hurting for ways to play it. And in my opinion, it didn't need to be remastered. Bringing it to PC is certainly worthwhile, but lazily wrapping it in an emulator and slapping it on PC for $9.99 would have been been entirely reasonable considering how well the game has aged.

But lazy is not what this remaster is. Ivalice Chronicles is the remaster most marketing departments pretend they made. It's the one development teams wish they'd had the time and budget to make. Ivalice Chronicles is the "how you remember it" kind of remaster that you dream a childhood favorite will get but almost never does.

The artwork is thoughtfully modernized to make it work on a Steam Deck or a 65" 4K screen. The music sounds fantastic on whimpy speakers, headphones, or a home theater system. The lightly re-worked script is fully voice acted and the performances are excellent. The improvements to the UI are actual improvements. Restarting or abandoning battles is lightning fast. Issues like getting stuck in a series of battles have been elegantly fixed by letting you nope out and start the series again when you're ready.

Most importantly, the gameplay is unchanged. Even down to details like monks being massively overpowered and certain combos being gods-like first-order optimal strategies. If you didn't like the original Final Fantasy Tactics you're unlikely to be interested in Ivalice Chronicles because it is the same game in every way that matters, lovingly restored. If you did like the original, or you always wanted to play it and never did, Ivalice Chronicles is the definitive way to play it.

The joy is in the playing

2025-09-20T17:08:00Z

I mentioned to my piano teacher that I had replayed Super Mario Odyssey recently, and he asked if I had tried to 100% it. I laughed and said no, I don't really have the time to 100% games these days. He replied with this comic:

Why play a game if you're not going to 100% it? Why play piano if you're never going to be rich and famous?

"The joy is in the playing."

I really like that thought-technology, so I tucked it away in Obsidian for safe keeping. A few days later, a post from Ana Rodrigues came through my RSS Reader in which she had been grappling with a similar question. Before she could even post about it she came across Jim Nielsen having the same reflection.

In the process of trying to add my voice to their chorus, I realized I had already been exposed to a sibling of this idea from Kurt Vonnegut (by way of Ian McKellen).

It's not just okay to make a website, make art, or rescue the princess; it is critical to do things we enjoy because we enjoy them.

The joy is in the playing.

Samsung brings ads to US fridges

2025-09-19T18:49:00Z

"A software update rolling out to Samsung’s Family Hub refrigerators in the US is putting ads on the fridges for the first time. The “promotions and curated advertisements” are coming despite Samsung insisting to The Verge in April that it had “no plans” to do so."

Samsung brings ads to US fridges, The Verge

I will store food in a root cellar and cook over a fire pit before I have smart appliances with advertisements on them in my home.

Blaugust 2025

2025-09-05T02:31:00Z

A year or two ago I first noticed some of the folks I follow on Mastodon posting about the coming of Blaugust, a community-driven hey-you-should-blog-more event. From Blaugust 2025 is Coming!, by Nerd Girl Thoughts:

Blaugust is a month-long event that takes place each August which focuses on blogging primarily and has started to include other forms of serialized content over the last several years. The goal is to stoke the fires of creativity and allow bloggers and other content creators to mingle in a shared community while pushing each other to post more regularly. Above all the goal of Blaugust has always been to prove to folks that they can in fact sit down every day and create something fresh and then share it with the world.

I'm a sucker for a time-boxed community event encouraging me to do a thing I wanted to do anyway (hence #100DaysOfTrees) so I decided to jump in this year starting with a fun thing techy people did several years ago. The Blaugust Rainbow Diamond Award is reserved for those that post 31 times in 31 days, and I "only" posted 20 times which is solidly between silver and gold (plus two out of three ain't bad).

Along the way I discovered some great new blogs (that all support RSS, which is good), and weighed in on the blog comments discourse. I even wrote a gaming-adjacent post, and gaming was the entire theme of the original Blaugust community, as I understand it.

The discussion about blog comments led me to some excellent, thoughtful writing about the indieweb, digital gardens, and the blogosphere that made me reflect on how important it is to have your own website. But I don't think I want to just write a blog or POSSE my social posts though. I want more of a personal website with some blog posts, some notes, some digital gardening, some slash pages, and whatever else I want to include. It is going to be slow going because making stylistic choices can be hard (hence the default blog theme), and I already do more writing than posting, but it is something I'm actually excited about with technology. And given the emotions BigTech™️ has been inspiring in folks recently, myself included, I count that as a huge win!

On to septemblerg!

They made Excel bad at math

2025-08-30T02:09:06Z

Microsoft Excel is one of the most successful pieces of business and consumer software ever made. Excel is probably used to do more calculations daily than all the calculations done by all the people using mechanical calculators in all of history combined. Governments, businesses, and personal lives are literally run out of Excel spreadsheets. Even "Apple and Google shops" still license Excel for a lot of core functions. Excel is infrastructure at this point, largely because it math good.

Microsoft has decided Excel should also be able to math bad sometimes too, as a treat. Because innovation! Because stonks! Because line must go up!

Just don't use COPILOT to make the chart. Who knows where line go if you do.

My first slash page

2025-08-24T06:10:00Z

I've been reading a lot of blogs and looking at a lot of cool websites during the #blaugust2025 challenge. Seeing the amazing things people are making on the IndieWeb to disenshittified the web has been inspiring. One of the things that resonated with me, and is small enough to be easily actionable, are slash pages.

Slash pages are common pages you can add to your website, usually with a standard, root-level slug like /now, /about, or /uses. They tend to describe the individual behind the site and are distinguishing characteristics of the IndieWeb.

For my first slash page (technically the third but /about and /feed feel like freebies) I decided to go with /blank because it is funny, and serves the very serious purpose of being the easiest possible way to start with slash pages. "Which one should I do first and what will I put on it?" can quickly become overwhelming if you're prone to that sort of thinking, which I am, and /blank is a perfect remedy.

Every personal site should have slash pages. If you have a /blank on your site, send me a link so I can not read it!

Writing vs posting

2025-08-22T02:28:00Z

A surprising (but good!) thing about trying to write more has been the momentum building. As I have been writing more I've been wanting to write more, making each bit of writing feel less difficult.

A surprising (but bad!) thing about trying to write more has been caring way more about the "quality" of what I post. As I've started more and more drafts I'm feeling more and more self-conscious about them, making each bit of writing feel way more difficult.

I wouldn't say they two balance each other out, but the good thing is that starting a draft and never posting it is still thinking-by-writing so I get most of the benefits even if it never gets posted.

What is the right ratio of writing vs posting for me right now, I wonder? How might it change over time?

Read it later

2025-08-20T06:55:00Z

My new Read-It-Later system is appending links to a note in Obsidian. It's been working great. I'm not sure why I didn't try this sooner.

"Fuck" dishcloth

2025-08-19T02:58:00Z

I don't normally use the Trending tab on Mastodon because I like my social media highly curated, but sometimes serendipity has other plans. I just opened it by mistake and saw this amazing photo on a post from Prof. Sam Lawler, and I was hitting print on the FREE knitting pattern for the fuck dishcloth before my partner had even finished agreeing to knit one for me.

Comments on blog comments on comments on blog comments on

2025-08-17T00:02:00Z

I've had a bunch of websites over my life. When I was a kid I made some fan sites, I've had nameplate sites of various flavors, all the great shows, and of course, several blogs. Any blog I had on a platform that came with comments built-in (wordpress, blogger) had the comments left on, and any platform that didn't (hand-crafted HTML, static-site generators) didn't. I never thought too hard about whether comments are required for something to count as a blog, but that is apparently one of the discussions happening around #blaugust2025 right now.

There is no shortage of posts or threads I could link to about it but my introduction to the debate came from Jayeless's post blog comments. In short, some people believe a blog has to have comments to count as a blog and others disagree. (That post, and the posts it links to, etc. are worth reading! It's a more nuanced subject than you might think.)

I've always viewed blogging the same way I view journaling: it is a way for the writer to think. Thinking by writing. (I can't find the specific source that first exposed me to this idea, but Farnam Street has a solid anacdote about it.)

But what of comments? Talking to people is great! I actually feel most comfortable thinking by talking, and I really cherish the people in my life who will co-brain out loud with me. At the same time, I have zero interest in maintaining the tech or moderating the spam of anyone anywhere being able to put words on my website. Reply-by-blogging isn't really a thing I can allow or ban so while it may have cultural relevance in the blogging community it isn't relevant here. Outsourcing the comments section to email and social media is one of the more contentious options for some people in the debate, but it is the right set of trade-offs for me.

To that end, I've added links below every post for you to be able to get in touch with me, and I hope you do!

The AI bubble

2025-08-15T23:14:00Z

Between Hank Green moving his money around, CoreWeave cratering, and basically everything Ed Zitron has ever written, the news is looking pretty bleak for "safe" investments in the US (global?) economy. Even Sam Altman admitted AI is a bubble, though I suspect he believes he's playing 5th dimensional checkers.

It sure would be nice if the entire economy didn't expect line-always-go-up.

You can't parse [X]HTML with regex

2025-08-14T21:12:00Z

I was talking to someone recently about a project they are working on. They're not a technical person but they have been tasked with a technical project. At some point they mentioned parsing HTML using regex and the rest of the conversation is kind of a blur because all I could think about was the famous Stack Overflow response to this question about parsing HTML using RegEx. (Captured below because who can trust websites to stay up anymore.)

You can't parse [X]HTML with regex. Because HTML can't be parsed by regex. Regex is not a tool that can be used to correctly parse HTML. As I have answered in HTML-and-regex questions here so many times before, the use of regex will not allow you to consume HTML. Regular expressions are a tool that is insufficiently sophisticated to understand the constructs employed by HTML. HTML is not a regular language and hence cannot be parsed by regular expressions. Regex queries are not equipped to break down HTML into its meaningful parts. so many times but it is not getting to me. Even enhanced irregular regular expressions as used by Perl are not up to the task of parsing HTML. You will never make me crack. HTML is a language of sufficient complexity that it cannot be parsed by regular expressions. Even Jon Skeet cannot parse HTML using regular expressions. Every time you attempt to parse HTML with regular expressions, the unholy child weeps the blood of virgins, and Russian hackers pwn your webapp. Parsing HTML with regex summons tainted souls into the realm of the living. HTML and regex go together like love, marriage, and ritual infanticide. The <center> cannot hold it is too late. The force of regex and HTML together in the same conceptual space will destroy your mind like so much watery putty. If you parse HTML with regex you are giving in to Them and their blasphemous ways which doom us all to inhuman toil for the One whose Name cannot be expressed in the Basic Multilingual Plane, he comes. HTML-plus-regexp will liquify the nerves of the sentient whilst you observe, your psyche withering in the onslaught of horror. Rege̿̔̉x-based HTML parsers are the cancer that is killing StackOverflow it is too late it is too late we cannot be saved the transgression of a chi͡ld ensures regex will consume all living tissue (except for HTML which it cannot, as previously prophesied) dear lord help us how can anyone survive this scourge using regex to parse HTML has doomed humanity to an eternity of dread torture and security holes using rege_x as a tool to process HTML establishes a brea_ch between this world and the dread realm of c͒ͪo͛ͫrrupt entities (like SGML entities, but more corrupt) a mere glimp_se of the world of regex parsers for HTML will instantly transport a p_rogrammer's consciousness i_nto a w_orl_d of ceaseless screaming, he comes, the pestilent slithy regex-infection will devour your HTML parser, application and existence for all time like Visual Basic only worse he comes he com_es do not fi_ght he com̡e̶s, ̕h̵is un̨ho͞ly radiańcé de_stro҉ying all enli̍̈́̂̈́ghtenment, HTML tags lea͠ki̧n͘g fr̶ǫm ̡yo͟ur eye͢s̸ ̛l̕ik͏e liquid p_ain, the song of re̸gular expression parsing will exti_nguish the voices of mortal man from the sphere I can see it can you see ̲͚̖͔̙î̩́t̲͎̩̱͔́̋̀ it is beautiful t_he final snuffing o_f the lies of Man ALL IS LOŚ͖̩͇̗̪̏̈́T ALL IS LOST th_e pon̷y he come_s he c̶̮omes he co**mes t_he ichor permeat_es al_l MY FAC_E MY FACE ᵒh god no NO NOO̼**OO NΘ stop t_he an*̶͑̾̾̅ͫ͏̙̤g͇̫͛͆̾ͫ̑͆l͖͉̗̩̳̟̍ͫͥͨ_e̠̅s ͎a̧͈͖r̽̾̈́͒͑e not rè̑ͧ̌aͨl̘̝̙̃ͤ͂̾̆ ZA̡͊͠͝LGΌ ISͮ̂҉̯͈͕̹̘̱ TO͇̹̺ͅƝ̴ȳ̳ TH̘Ë͖́̉ ͠P̯͍̭O̚N̐Y̡ H̸̡̪̯ͨ͊̽̅̾̎Ȩ̬̩̾͛ͪ̈́̀́͘ ̶̧̨̱̹̭̯ͧ̾ͬC̷̙̲̝͖ͭ̏ͥͮ͟Oͮ͏̮̪̝͍M̲̖͊̒ͪͩͬ̚̚͜Ȇ̴̟̟͙̞ͩ͌͝S̨̥̫͎̭ͯ̿̔̀ͅ

Have you tried using an XML parser instead?

Timer (not) set for twenty minutes

2025-08-13T02:23:15Z

I have a manual sprinkler that needs to be turned on and off at the spigot. I do not have a brain capable of remembering when exactly twenty minutes has passed, but I do have a pocket computer made by one of the richest and most powerful companies on Earth; a company absolutely synonymous with technology. My pocket computer has a timer function built into the clock app that can count down from twenty minutes with insanely high accuracy, precision, and reliability, and because my pocket computer goes with me everywhere, I'll hear the friendly chime letting me know twenty minutes are up and I should go turn off the sprinkler instead of going to bed with it still running (which is definitely not something I have ever done.)

Setting a timer is such a chore though! First I have to open the clock app, then switch to the timer function, then enter the amount of time and press start. "There has to be a better way!" Conveniently, my revolutionary pocket computer can be operated by voice! By just saying a few keywords like "Set", "a", "twenty", "minute", and "timer" the pocket computer will set and start a twenty minute timer! Amazing!

Not too long ago, my pocket computer made by a company staffed with some of the best minds of my generation was ✨upgraded✨ from a digital assistant that could only do a few things (but do them reliably) to ~~spicy auto-complete~~ an AI assistant. Setting timers is probably the main thing anyone uses voice-activation to direct their pocket computer to do so surely the upgraded AI assistant can still perform this incredibly common function that is featured in every. single. tech demo.

haha, nope! It can't set timers anymore. But good news! The ~~giant pile of burning money~~ AI assistant used to recognize what I was trying to do and gave some weak explanation for it's failure to complete the task, but occasionally still worked. Now it fails almost 100% of the time, and just lies about it!

Look at that response! Great! It works now! But it didn't. It didn't set a timer for twenty minutes. It said that it did but it didn't actually do it. And this wasn't a one off. It happened twice in a row, and then a third time so I could capture this screenshot.

There are a lot better reasons than this to hate AI, but this is so pathetic I can't get over it.

Why are you here?

2025-08-11T20:27:00Z

Hollie on telling the indieweb community they just want to make websites and not "learn to code":

In one conversation with four or five people, one person said, "I don't understand why everyone doesn't just learn to code."

I was floored. Yeah, and I don't understand why everyone who wears pants doesn't also get excited about learning how to select fabric and choose a pattern and then download that pattern and cut it out and tape the pieces together, then cut each pattern piece individually out of scrap fabric and then make a toile and then use the advice from at least three different sewing forums and two books on patternmaking to fit the toile, and then start the process over from scratch, this time with the really GOOD linen and using all French seams, but WHADDYA GONNA DO?? PEOPLE, AMIRIGHT?

It felt like the general attitude was, if you want to make websites, you not only need to learn all that, but you obviously must want to, and if you don't, why are you here?

Hollie makes some excellent points about why "just a website" actually has some serious upsides, but even if they didn't we should be more welcoming than this.

Fix it, Felix!

2025-08-11T05:26:00Z

My daughter needs a laptop for school. I have a 10 year old Macbook Pro that works great other than 1. no longer being supported by macOS and 2. having a 10 year old battery. Fixing the first issue was as easy as installing Ubuntu, which is pretty gods damn easy. The second issue was trickier.

Battery replacements for that model and people willing to do them exist, but by the time all is said and done it isn't exactly cost-effective vs a cheap Chromebook which is all she actually needs in her situation. I'm a big believer in the right to repair and repairability, I'm just not particularly good at any of it. The only way to improve is to practice though, so I decided to risk some money, the laptop, and my safety, by replacing the battery myself.

After 90 minutes following a guide that felt like it stopped at the half-way point, I'm happy to say the laptop is sitting behind me right now going through "battery conditioning", which is apparently a thing you have to do with new batteries. We'll see how well it works for its intended purpose, and I'm pretty sure I need to replace the trackpad cable because they are (apparently) notoriously flakey, but I am definitely living this quote right now:

“I am smiling a great smile. The smile of a man who fucked with his [laptop] and didn’t break it.”

- Mark Watney, The Martian

The Namazu and the Greatest Gift

2025-08-09T03:15:00Z

I came across this ridiculous looking videogame tie-in children's picture book while looking for the release date of this ridiculous looking videogame tie-in remix album several weeks ago and thought "I really really want to read this book but I will read it exactly once and then own it forever," and with a heavy sigh of responsibility "I guess I'll pass..."

Then I remembered that libraries exist! It seemed like a longshot that this ridiculous looking videogame tie-in children's picture book would be at my local library but it was quick and easy for me to find out thanks to Library Extension.

A quick sidequest about library extension...

Libraries are awesome. They have books and movies and games and a whole host of other cool stuff you may not have known libraries carry. They're also incredibly important community spaces. I could (and just might) write an entire post about libraries but right now I want to focus on Library Extension. This free, dead-simple browser extension has saved me hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars. And not in the bullshit Honey way (remember Honey?) but in an I-want-this-but-not-enough-to-buy-it-oh-wait-libraries-exist kind of way. All this little extension does is run on most major websites that sell books and automatically tells you if the book you're looking at is available at any libraries you are a member of. Thinking about buying a book you'll probably only read once if you ever read it at all? BAM! Sidebar widget tells you your local library has it. I knew I was unlikely to read this ridiculous looking videogame tie-in children's picture book very often so I found it on ~~Lex Corp~~ Amazon dot com, Library Extension did its thing and confirmed that none of the libraries I am a member of carry this book. Damn it!

Then I remembered interlibrary loans exist! I didn't need my library to coincidentally have a copy. I needed some library somewhere to coincidentally have a copy.

A quick sidequest about interlibrary loans...

Back to the main story quest for this ridiculous looking videogame tie-in children's picture book...

I forgot almost immediately that I had requested the book. I didn't need to remember because the library will contact me when a book I put on hold is available, but I forgot as in I forgot to look forward to it. Then I received this email last night:

Your hold(s) will be available for pick-up tomorrow.

ILL - FINAL FANTASY XIV PICTURE BOOK - BOOK Collection: Interlibrary Loan

Thank you

Oh, no! Thank you.

It is at this point I should probably mention that my best friend and I have put a low-four-digit number of hours into Final Fantasy XIV in just the few years since we started playing it. They have the encyclopedias (I, II, and III), and cookbook. I have two "Such caffination!" mugs. And we have matching Hildibrand and Nashu vinyl stickers on our laptops. So we were more than a little excited to read this ridiculous looking videogame tie-in children's picture book. It is a very short book so we stood and read it in the library. We giggled our way through and aww'd at the adorable "the real magic is the friends we made along the way" ending. The entire experience was maybe ten minutes, and I returned the book without it ever leaving the building.

It was a nice experience made possible by libraries. It was a nice experience that didn't require buying anything. It was a nice experience that can't eventually turn into keeping the book out of guilt, lest I forget the memory. It was a nice experience that someone else can also have because the book can be read by lots of other people instead of sitting on my shelf or in a box. Nice things are nice. Libraries are nice things.

Get as many library cards as you can. Use Library Extension.

Have a nice experience.

noTunes

2025-08-08T03:21:00Z

I have a pair of over ear bluetooth headphones that have an auto-pause/play feature when you take them off then put them back on. Handy! Most of the time. Unfortunately, macOS has decided that the Play command the headphones send obviously means that I want Apple Music to launch and start playing whatever the first song in my library is.

Think about the incredible hubris of that design decision.

Apple Music doesn't just resume playback if it is open and was being used recently, it will launch the application and start playing whatever the first song in your library is. And if you don't use Apple Music like I don't that means the first thing in your library is U2's Songs of Innocence. There is no setting in Apple Music to prevent it from automatically launching. Apple Music cannot be uninstalled. There is no way to remove Songs of Innocence from an Apple Music library.

Luckily, where trillion-dollar companies fail, one generous open-source developer succeeds! noTunes is a thing that should not need to exist but I'm grateful it does.

Just going to change rooms real quick

2025-08-07T02:20:00Z

What you see when someone says "Just going to change rooms real quick" on zoom.

I've had this joke rattling around in my head for ages so I decided to finally let it out. Unfortunately, to get to the one-sentence-and-short-looping-video above took around two hours of work.

First, I had to get a clip that looked the way I wanted, which meant I needed to figure out what the hell that style of shot is called in cinematography. That took 30 seconds. It's a SnorriCam. That part was easy because lots of people have posted articles, tutorials, and reddit threads that are variations of "camera thing that makes you look drunk". Then I spent about 30 minutes trying to find a clip I wanted to use.

Once I found a clip I liked, it obviously wasn't the isolated footage I needed so I set out to use ffmpeg to convert the desired 12 seconds to something web-friendly, which ended up being a lot of trial and error. I wanted a ~~incantation~~ command that would give me a minimum-size-maximum-quality ~~gif~~ mp4 that I could loop as if it were a gif. If you've never used ffmpeg, it can do everything you can possible concieve of which can make using it a bit daunting. After a lot of reading and copying and pasting I ended up with the one-liner below. I'm sure it's not right in some way or another, so please don't make fun of me, ffmpeg wizards.

ffmpeg -ss 88 -t 12 -i input.mkv -vf "fps=24,scale=480:-1" -vcodec libx265 output.mp4

Finally, I just had to slap the video into this post. That "just" represents about 45 minutes. As of this writing, this site is built on 11ty which is a very cool static site generator, and also mostly opaque to me in its nuances. I know Markdown, HTML, and CSS well enough, and enough JavaScript to know I don't know any JavaScript. Markdown doesn't support videos like it does images (typically) but it does support HTML and HTML supports <video>. But it turns out that 11ty won't just pass video files through with zero configuration the way it does for images, and I spent a whole lot of time thinking I had the src formatted wrong before I realized what the actual problem was, then a bit more time actually fixing it.

I was perfectly prepared for this post to be one sentence and a short video clip, ha-ha, but after all that effort I figured the real post was the journey to the post.

Please clap.

RSS is good, actually

2025-08-05T22:43:00Z

As important as it is to own what you write, make sure you also own what you read.

Crossposting is good, actually

2025-08-05T06:36:00Z

Ghost announced today that they are adding ~~fediverse~~ "social web" support to their open source publishing platform and that got me thinking about POSSE again. I've had a draft post sitting around for ages inspired by an article The Verge published that essentially had the thesis: "negativity about cross-posting is a false flag operation to stop people from having their own website."

While that is obviously a hyperbolic expression of a gut-feeling I have little evidence for, I am really glad I had a backup of my long-gone #100DaysOfTrees Twitter thread that I was able to turn into a post on my own website.

So while I can't prove there is a conspiracy to make you think cross-posting is bad, I can confidently say you should have your own website because cross-posting is good, actually.

Mark All As Read

2025-08-04T04:59:00Z

About a year ago I subscribed to NPR+ which added a half dozen or so shows to my rotation. I also added the entire available backlog for each show. About 6 months ago I re-committed to RSS and added a bunch of feeds to my reader. I also added the entire available backlog for each feed. A month or two ago I went on a rare binge of subscribing to new YouTube channels. I also planned to watch the entire available backlog for each channel.

What I was trying to accomplish was to always have a curated list of high-quality stuff to prevent mindless browsing. "Do I need a podcast, article, or video right now? Well lucky for me I have thousands to pick from." But all I really accomplished was creating my own paradox of choice. More than once I caught myself mindlessly browsing to escape having to pick from the overwhelming backlog, which is the opposite of what I wanted.

Finally, I realized that it was time to declare ~~email~~ inbox bankruptcy, and what a relief it has been. I can't read/watch/listen-to everything so why hold myself accountable for all of history too?

If you've let yourself get into a similar position let me assure you that peace of mind is just a few archive-all and mark-all-as-read buttons away.

#100DaysOfTrees

2025-08-03T02:21:57Z

In August of 2021 I decided to try a #100DaysOfX challenge for drawing trees in pixel art. Like an idiot I posted them only as a giant thread on twitter so that's all gone now. While compiling this post I realized I couldn't find the text entries that accompanied the last few days, which was a nice little reminder to not trust anything I care about keeping to social media.

Tutorials

Some of the tutorials and artists I referenced before and during the challenge.

Day 1

Look at that ugly bastard. It looks like it's made out of lace. It has a little angry face in the middle (angry because he's an uggo.) But he exists and he's mine and I love him. Live your best life, lace-tree.

32x32, 7 colors, Pixaki

Day 2

The rare "melting ice cream" tree. It grows in the winter and cannot survive the summer heat.

16x32, 7 colors, Pixaki

Day 3

Similar to day 1 but with pointier leaves. A little more color banding than is probably ideal, but I like the drooping weeping willow sort of effect. Trunk is blargh.

32x32, 7 colors, Pixaki

Day 4

Inspired by the well-drawn trees of @angry__snail (ref: https://twitter.com/angry__snail/status/1151856942932987904) comes a less well-drawn tree. I like the branch structure and shadow on the grass. +brush use still needs work.

I started with the branch structure and liked it so much I almost stopped at a leafless tree. That will happen eventually I'm sure. The +brush is alright, but there should probably be a darker pink where the branch structure is instead of the gray. cc-29 palette

56x40 ish, 5 colors, Pixaki

Day 5

More @angry__snail shennanigans, but this time with more "lazy" (ref: https://twitter.com/angry__snail/status/1207305911951413249) Drawing with a chonky brush then cleaning up is /hard/ but it does seem to produce a different result which can be good.

"lazy my ass!" 😂

?x?, 6 colors, Aseprite

Day 6, 2 FOR 1!

Inspired by a tree in a great @PeterMilko video I wanted to go smol. Gameboy green for the first, then a sort of... snowy winter tree? GBC colors on that one.

10x16 each, 3 colors / 3 colors, Aseprite

Day 7

A cute and simple palm tree. Inspired by some stock imagery, and establishing shots from the Golden Girls (they live in Miami).

It's not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out.

20x31, 6 colors, Aseprite

Day 8

This ended up more stylized than planned but it has some details I like. Outline let me use one of the greens as the grass color and is the same color as the darkest shade. Trunk is purple because why not.

6 colors + alpha shadow, 32x32, Aseprite

The banding on this is very stylized. Way more than I originally intended. But the use of color is some of my best so far. And the choppy leaves on the sides really break up the silhouette. It's also nice to have the "field" of "grass" and shadow under the tree. Makes it feel more like a complete piece.

Day 9

Tried a bunch of techniques here: colored outline, dithering, some color saving, etc. I don't like the grass placement as much this time but those flowers? 😙👌

This isn't the greatest tree ever drawn, but the real victory for this one was not stressing about it. I drew some things, erased some things, experimented and played a little... it was nice. Comfort with practice is key.

16x32, 8 colors, Pixaki

Day 10

da fuq?

Colors are great. Silhouette is interesting, but has some gnarly jags. Shading is even ok.

This is one weird ass tree.

Crap I think I like it.

I tried to follow another @angry__snail reference for this tree and the end result is just so weird. I'm really satisfied with the colors/shading, and oddly ok with the insane silhouette.

5 colors, 32x48, Pixaki

Day 11

Started with the skeleton of a new tree and I ended up with a shape like this. Some color changes and clean up later and... spooky tree?

??x??, 4 colors (including the environment), Pixaki

Day 12

Tell me you don't understand how to draw with leaf clusters without telling me you don't know how to draw with leaf clusters. 🤔

UGH

32x48, 7 colors, Aseprite

Day 13

I've apparently decided wood is purple now. All trees are morcant burl. I'm really happy with the leaf work on this one. I didn't get to do as much with the outline as I wanted to but those leaves? 😙👌

This is what I was trying to do yesterday. I went back to a Pixel Pete tutorial to figure out what I was screwing up with the leaf clusters and it's so obvious now. On Day 12 I have solid bands of color that look awful. Today I have leaf clusters that break up the colors and create form and a color blending effect from light to dark. The difference is incredible. Main thing this one needs to be better is a leafier outline.

32x32, 8 colors, Aseprite

Day 14

Look at how fluffy it is! And it's got a cute "mat painting" border too. I think I'm starting to understand the blobs and cutaway with a fatter brush method. Going to have to experiment more.

This is my best execution of Angry Snail's "fluff it up" step so far. This whole thing is basically just a 4px round brush (which makes a + shape) then cleaned up fine details with a 1px brush.

??x??, 6 colors, Aseprite

Day 15

In honor of finishing my first Pokémon game I decided to do a recolor of sudowoodo (GBC) in the PICO-8 palette. I'm really happy with how it came out! I'm really /unhappy/ that he is apparently a rock type. ಠ_ಠ

So much cuter than Exeggutor! I don't care if he's not even a grass type.

48x48, 9 colors, Aseprite

Day 16

smol tree & smol trees

Is it obvious yet I've been playing a lot of gameboy recently? I got small on the brain.

8x8, 7 colors, Aseprite

Day 17

Taking my smol tree to the extreme I challenged myself to try @Franrekk's ultra minimalist style. I haven't quite nailed it yet but if I stick with it maybe one day...

It's a decent first attempt, I think.

Ok so this is obviously a bit of a troll but 1. it's an attempt to participate in a community meme, and 2. I got behind by a day because of other commitments and this allowed me to get back on schedule.

4x4, 2 colors, Aseprite

Day 18

Experimented with combining several techniques. It's a different look, but I think it's kind of cool. Also realizing I've been focusing so much on leaves that I haven't given enough attention to trunks. Maybe tomorrow.

Angry Snail's leaf technique, Pixel Pete's outline and silhouette, and Brandon James Greer's color reuse to keep the palette limited. Sort of looks like a globe and the light source probably makes no god damn sense, but it's neat.

32x32, 6 colors, Aseprite

Day 19

Ok hear me out...

This started out as basic shapes and shading and I was going to practice some leaf clusters but I don't feel well and this is all I have the energy for. So enjoy this flag for the Lone Pine Mall.

Too sick and tired to do more but it was important to me not to miss. No zero days, and all that.

32x48, 7 colors, Aseprite

Day 20

I don't know what exactly went wrong with the leaf clusters on this one but I just could quite get it where I wanted. So I stopped screwing with it and splattered fallen leaves around it because autumn colors. 🤷‍♂️

Ok my understanding of leaf clusters in top down still isn't quite mastered but that is why I'm doing this. Futzed with this one longer than I probably should have.

32x32, 6 colors, Aseprite

Day 21

What happens when you have two ideas in mind and then you get confused and do half of each? This!

So if I'm disciplined, tomorrow will be ONE of those ideas and the day after will be the other. 🙃

34x45m 8 colors, Aseprite

Day 22

The dithering tree.

I'm not always the biggest fan of dithering but this actually looks better on screen than it did in my imagination. Glad I experimented with it.

32x32, 6 colors, Aseprite

Day 23

Attempt #2 at @angry__snail's "experiment with shapes". A friend chose the PICO8 palette and I had to iterate a lot to get the volume and shading to a place I was happy with. Happy? Maybe... "stopped futzing."

50x32, 6 colors, Aseprite

Day 24

I was whinging to a friend about how hard it is to use crazy neons in artwork and how I don't understand how some artists do it. Flash forward and now this mess exists. These colors are not neon enough. Fun though!

Maybe in the right environment this would look ok but my eyes twitch every time I look at this one.

32x32, 5 colors, Aseprite

Day 25

Re-color of Day 13. I chose the palette because @Pixel_Dailies had metallic as their theme and it turned out more winter-y than metal-y. Pretty cool how a palette swap can make such a difference.

6 colors, 32x32, Aseprite

Day 26

This started and ended very differently than I thought it would. I ended up using several different techniques, a palette I didn't plan to use, and nearly restarted twice. Also the trunk is awesome.

Seriously this is probably my favorite trunk so far. So good. <3

??x??, 6 colors, Aseprite

Day 27

@Pixel_Dailies generously made today's #pixel_dailies a set of trees. Thanks team!

Palm tree is the best one of the set for sure.

12x18 each, 4 colors each (except snowy which is 3)

Day 28

Big floofy boi. Looks really great in spring, summer, and autumn colors too! I'm feeling pretty comfortable with this leaf style now, which I couldn't even imagine 3 weeks ago. I need to practice clusters/trunks. 😭

I am really happy with how these trees turned out. The shading is good. The shape is good. The palettes are good. God damn I am actually starting to get better at this, aren't I? Incredible what even just a little practice can do.

64x64, 5 colors, Aseprite

Day 29

We had an insane storm where I live yesterday and now all the trees look like this. Putting aside for a minute I clearly do not understand bark texture LOOK AT THOSE LEAF CLUSTERS. Looking good!

64x96ish, 5 colors, Aseprite

Day 30

I don't get bark. 😅

32x40, 6 colors, Aseprite

Day 31

Tried for a super simple gameboy look/palette. I think the bands of colors aren't sized quite right, but the trunk... exists. And those flowers and grass are cute af.

32x32, 4 colors, Pixaki

Day 32 (Day 31 Redux)

For simple gameboy sized/colored bands I think this looks better than the sizes I used yesterday. I also tried out the dark background and changed the flowers so it doesn't feel like a total cheat. 😉

32x32, 4 colors, Pixaki

Day 33

I stumbled on the ZX Spectrum pallette which is SO limited I thought I just had to try it. A better artist would have used dithering to create the illusion of different colors. That's not what I did.

24x32,, 5 "colors", Aseprite

Day 34

Simple grass. Simple tree. I enjoy the 3px brush method of drawing trees but I'm not sure it works for the tile-style top-down tree; it's so messy. At least, something seems off about this one...

32x32, 5 colors, Aseprite

Day 35

I colored the trunk quite a bit more than I have been, and way more than I do on the top-down trees. Think it came out ok?

6 colors, 32x48, Pixaki

Day 36

For my #pixel_dailies #PixelRemaster of Pokemon Yellow I did a #PICO8 secret palette re-color tree and Pikachu. Not sure why the adorable animation but here we are!

11 colors, 32x32 tree + 12x12 Pikachu, Aseprite

Day 37

It's not quite right, but I did some practice on wood/bark texture. I used a subtractive technique for the center with a solid block of the lighter color than removed bits by adding the darker color back. Kinda neat.

64x56, 7 colors, Aseprite

Day 38

Y'all ever look at @SeanYoungSG's trees in Littlewood?! How does he do so much with so few pixels?! Anyway here's an attempt at that style. Sort of. More coming.

16x16, 7 colorsm, Aseprite

Day 39

Another attempt at @SeanYoungSG's style. This might be a higher end wood because it's grey on a pink landscape. Seuss-ian.

12x16, 7 colors, Aseprite

Day 40

Ok, @SeanYoungSG I'm done butchering your art style (for now...) I actually like this one the best of the three! Big and "simple". I also spent way more effort than was reasonable on positioning the fruit.

16x40, 6 colors, Aseprite

Day 41

Ok the pure sphere shape is just hard to do. The leaf pattern on this is actually pretty ok, I think, but the silhouette just didn't turn out. Bark pattern is ok.

32x40, 7 colors, Aseprite

Day 42

Ok ok... solid sphere with cartoon-y thick outline and thick white sticker border actually sort of works! And that bark texture? Well it's... I think I like it. 😁

32x32... ish, 9 colors, Aseprite

Day 43

Purple wood and sparse leaves. The wood texture is improving, but I need to figure out how to get more leaves into those leaf bunches. Looking a little Charlie Brown Christmas...

70x88, 6 colors, Aseprite

Day 44

Inspired by the incredible tringle-and-rombus trees of @NostalgiaTree. It took forever and it's pretty messy in the middle shades but I think it's actually pretty neat. Might have to try this again.

64ish x 80ish, 7 colors, Aseprite

Day 45

Something with my top down trees just doesn't seem right. Going to have to find time to study a bunch of tutorials. It's not bad, but it's not quite right either. Asymmetrical highlights are nice though. And flowers!

32x32, 12 colors, Aseprite

Day 46

Away from my regular tools so I tried making something in #dotpict. It's not bad, but I can see things I would have done differently with a mouse. How do people make those masterpieces using their phone?!

32x29, 9 colors, Dotpict

Day 47

I threw away two trees before this one today. At one point I would have considered that a failure but being willing to start over is a valuable skill. Chop down your darlings, as they say.

18x48, 9 colors, Aseprite

Day 48

Winter and Spring.

48x48, 7 colors / 11 colors, Aseprite

Day 49

Summer and Autumn.

48x48, 8 colors / 7 colors, Asepite

Day 50

Half way done! And I've learned so much already.

Behold the great grey bastard I made to focus entirely on proportions and leaf placement from which the previous four trees all derived. Feeling good about my progress.

48x48, 8 colors, Aseprite

Day 51

I apparently have Mario mushrooms on the brain, because that's all I see when I look at this. Cute little fella. 🍄

80x80, 4 colors, Pixaki

Day 52

🤔🤔🤔

I like the grass though!

48x48, 7 colors, Aseprite

Day 53

Inspired by the beautiful trees of @evsailey is this less beautiful, but still sorta beautiful, tree of mine. Used a 3-2-1 brush for the thinning branches. May try adding leaves to it for tomorrow.

55x72, 6 colors, Aseprite

Day 54

Spent a lot of time getting proportions / leaf placements where I didn't think it's unsharable so please clap. Thinking about each cluster as it's own "sphere" for shading purposes helped.

60x72 I think?, 7 colors, Aseprite

Day 55

Yes I do follow @huttaburger on twitter. Why? I think this is the first piece I've "signed". That sig gonna need some workshopping.

18x18, 6 colors #PICO8 (secret palette getting a lot of love lately), Aseprite

Day 56

One more in @huttaburger's #HyruleRedrawn style. I might play with this more. It's deceptively tricky but I like it.

34x37, 6 colors #PICO8, Aseprite

Day 57

WHO'S THAT POKE-TREE?! I tossed 3 trees in the bin before really focusing on the silhouette exclusively. Carved this from a circle and rectangle. Next one will try to work inward from this.

48x48, 1 color? 3 for the whole piece, Aseprite

Day 58

IT'S TUH-RY!

Cutting in from a silhouette wasn't such a bad way to do this, though I'm still shocked how hard it is to make something look fluffy instead of pointy or saggy.

48x48, 4 colors, Aseprite

Day 59

Tiny trees can be very fun trees. #pico8 palette works well for not obsessing over color choices, as always.

16x16, 6 colors, Aseprite

Day 60

Was struggling to find inspiration for this one so I started looking at different palettes in Aseprite and this one is called #monokai. It is... restrictive. Sort of a #pico8 vibe.

32x32, 4 colors (tree) 5 (total), Aseprite

Day 61

Have you ever noticed how all stumps look sort of like the whole-squid sushi in anime? No? Just mine?

32x32, 4 colors, Aseprite

Day 62

Don't notice the face. Once you do it's there forever.

32x48, 5 colors, Aseprite

Day 63

Explicitly including the checkerboard background is a very nice alternative to having to set a scene or choose a background color. 😬

50x98, 7 colors, Aseprite

Day 64

Baby photo. Look at the face! So precious.

I really like the shading on the pot. The ridge line stops about 1/3 of the way but you know it's there.

16x24 (tree), 6 colors (tree) 10 (total), Aseprite

Day 65

First day of school. They barely fit into that old pot!

19x32 (tree), 8 colors, Aseprite

Day 66

Wasn't sure what to draw today so I tried to imitate a reference image I have saved but I have no idea who to give credit to. So if this is decent enough that you recognize it let me know and I'll credit the original.

50x64, 7 colors, Aseprite

Day 67

I want to practice the "fluffing up" of simple shapes and for some reason I decided to try it TINY first. So here is a tiny fluff. It's a little fluffy. Sort of looks like a bush.

Full size fluff next.

16x16, 7 colors, Aseprite

Day 68

Full size fluff. Fluffier fluff. That 4px brush can really work wonders.

48x48, 6 colors + 1 for the grass, Aseprite

Day nice

I like the partial outline leaves. The stark black on white creates a nifty sort of relief. I'm not sure about the dithering trunk but it does help keep the piece from looking like only line work.

48x48, 1-bit, Aseprite

Day 70

Scarface edition of yesterday's. Something about white on black feels even more 1-bit.

48x48, 1-bit, Aseprite

Day 71

Tried another 1-bit style. I think I shouldn't have constrained the size so much, but I do like the "double outline" where the leaves meet the trunk. Bonus subtle-purple edition too.

48x48, 1-bit, Aseprite

Day 72

I hate this drawing. There is a sugar maple near my house that is yellow inside and red outside which creates a sort of illusion that I attempted to capture here and it did. not. work. I don't know why I thought this pattern/design would create that sort of "inner light" vibe the tree near my house gives off but it super doesn't.

Oh well. We soldier on.

66x96, 5 colors, Aseprite

Day 73

Still not quite right but this has a little bit more of an "inner glow" thing going than the last monstrosity. I've got one more idea to try out then I think I need a break from this concept because it's driving me mad.

68x64, 4 colors, Aseprite

Day 74

Time to stop thinking about sugar maples. I like this drawing the best of the recent theme, but it still doesn't quite capture the real thing. Art is hard.

48x48, 4 colors, Aseprite

Day 75

Messy, asymmetrical leaf style I saw and attempted to imitate. I'm not sure I completely nailed it. Pretty happy with it though. Blocky grass isn't quite right but the flowers are cute af.

32x32, 8 colors (tree) 10 (total), Aseprite

Day 76

#AutumnLeaves edition of yesterday's tree for @Pixel_Dailies. Really happy with these colors! One of my only autumn trees that didn't use a desaturated palette and doesn't look like it's a lava monster.

32x32, 8 colors, Aseprite

Day 77

This is a straight re-draw of one of @SeanYoungSG's trees. I've been really struggling with this style and thrown away a lot of drawings so I eyeball copied this one to understand it better.

Here is what I learned re-drawing that tree color by color.

Empty space is your friend. If you want a pine tree to look taller than it is wide, don't give it a silhouette that is a square shape. This seems obvious but my dumb brain really wants to touch the edge of each tile for... some reason.
Shading = shape. At this resolution you can't outline everything, and that style isn't always desirable anyway. Look how clearly the outline and the darker shade color make the shape of this tree. It practically doesn't even need the other colors!
The base color adds all the shape necessary for this to be a perfectly usable tree but...
Highlights add the believability that this tree is actually illuminated by a real light source.
The trunk doesn't need to be complicated at this perspective or resolution. Part of it is in shadow. Part of it is highlighted. That's more than enough information about the trunk of this random tree.
Add a 50% opacity black circle shadow so your tree can work on most backgrounds and bing-bang-boom you're done. Also note the tree isn't 32px tall either; the shadow owns the last 2px to get to the even two tile height.

Final thoughts for this thread-in-a-thread. Right angles look sharp and work well for this type of tree; I shouldn't avoid them like I have been. Empty space is your friend; every tile doesn't have to be filled! This shit is hard but I am getting better at it; keep going. 😤

24x32, 7 colors, Aseprite

Day 78

My attempt at yesterday's tree. It's got some decent shape, and a nice silhouette. Drawn with @dotpict to celebrate #dotpict7周年感謝祭.

20x33, 8 colors, Dotpict

Day 79

I'm firmly in the "I can see what I don't like about it but I'm not sure how to fix it" stage of art. Which I believe is called "making art". It's not bad but something if off.

32x48, 9 colors, Aseprite

Day 80

Blob-y-er version of yesterday. The blob distribution is off but futzing with it more didn't help so I settled. Making the grass/shadow lighter makes the whole thing feel lighter even though the tree is the same colors.

32x48, 9 colors, Aseprite

Day 81

Look at this fluffy boi! God he's beautiful. I love the shape. I love the shading. I love the colors. I even love that I settled on dithering for the highlight/shadow on the trunk because it was the right thing to do.

48x48, 7 colors, Aseprite

Day 82

I loved this tree so much it deserved an Autumn Edition and a spoopy Edition.

48x48, 7 colors, Aseprite

Day 83

Last few leaves hanging on. Hang in there, little leaves. Maybe this time you'll make it through the whole winter.

49x44, 4 colors (tree) 6 (piece), Aseprite

Day 84

They didn't make it.

49x44, 2 colors (tree trunk) 6 colors (piece), Aseprite

Day 85

Four (tiny) Seasons.

Most of my trees have been practice, with a few "complete pieces" but this one really feels like a finished piece. Neat.

8x8 each, 6 colors each, except winter which is 1, Aseprite

Day 86

Getting some Don't Starve vibes from this one. Maybe for the next one I'll really try to go full Tim Burton.

32x31, 8 colors, Aseprite

Day 87

An acacia tree for @sudomichael.

85x50, 6 colors, Aseprite

Day 88

A floofier, slightly brighter version of 86. I think I actually like the silhouette and lines of this version a lot more. It's simpler and feels like it reads better.

28x43, 6 colors, Aseprite

Day 89

Monochrome-inspired colors does not a Tim Burton tree make. Needs way more curves and uncanny shapes. I did learn a lot resizing and redrawing the lines though.

21x39, 7 colors, Aseprite

Day 90!!!

We're in the home stretch now!

It took a long time and a lot of layers but I am really happy with how this one turned out. The bark still has room for improvement but the overall piece is really nice.

91x85, 8 colors, Aseprite

Day 91

Smol tree that is trying to imitate a drawing I saw and failed miserably. Luckily it still turned out cute. Gotta try the actual style I was attempting to imitate again. 😬

14x16, 8 colors, Aseprite

Day 92

Another cute failure. Didn't quite nail the look I wanted this time either but it's still a nice tree. 🤷‍♂️ That mushroom shape is legit.

16x16, 7 colors, Aseprite

Day 93/94/95

Tried an experiment using the same palette and style on a 16x16, 32x32, and 48x48 tree. Thats 9x the pixels between the smallest and largest. 😱 I don't love the results, but I did learn something about trying to achieve an "effect" at different resolutions.

Day 93

The baby of the group. Decent silhouette that reads well.

16x16, 8 colors, Aseprite

Day 94

The hamburger of the group. Why is it shaped like a hamburger? I'm... not entirely sure. Much more definition in the leaves, and space for a simple bark pattern on the trunk.

32x32, 8 colors, Aseprite

Day 95

Big 'un. Also, the worst. The leaves sort of read the way I wanted but the silhouette and bark are all wrong. Pixel clusters are a lot meatier at this resolution and can draw too much attention if you're not careful.

Dear god it's so obvious. I was so concerned with the dense leaf cluster thing I was trying to do on 95 that I left that damn thing as a nearly perfect circle. That's a rookie move. Damn it. Well... at least I figured out why it looks so stupid. Er, one of the reasons. 😬

48x48, 8 colors, Aseprite

Day 96

I enjoy drawing this style a lot but my stupid brain rebels against it because it's not how "video game" (i.e. top down LttP style) trees look. 🙄 Look it how nice it is! Shut up, stupid brain.

16x32, 5 colors, Aseprite

Day 97

A larger and more detailed version of 96. The small one is nice, but this level of detail looks pretty slick. Enough to show some subtlety but not so much that it takes forever to draw.

32x48, 6 colors, Aseprite

Day 98

(commentary added 2025-08-02)

Look at those little branches and leaves!

I think I decided to try another version of Day 87's tree in a slightly different style. There are also some trees like this in a park near my house.

Day 99

(commentary added 2025-08-02)

If you dash into this tree using the pegasus boots something cool might happen.

Day 100

(commentary added 2025-08-02)

CHALLENGE COMPLETE. Behold the victory tree. The "victortree", as it were.

App Defaults

2025-08-02T01:20:00Z

I've been sitting on publishing this for so long I actually had to update several rows. I hope if I look back on this in a year I'll have less BigTech™️ and more self-hosted.

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