T w e n t y S i d e d

We had our first verifiable over-100 degree (F) day this week. The house we live in had a new A/C compressor and blower installed around 2010, so the part-owners we share ownership with still think of it as “new.” The system it replaced was installed when the house was first put up back in the mid-to-late 1970’s, so since that A/C lasted 30 years the one that’s 15-years-old is, obviously; new. Here’s the trick: when the “new” A/C was installed the empty-nester family didn’t use half of the house regularly. So they got a SMALLER compressor. It’s rated for just about 1/2 the square footage of our house. As a result we have installed supplementary window units in 2 bedrooms. It would be in all 3 bedrooms, but the window was removed in the third bedroom around 2010 as well when the bathroom next to two of the bedrooms was remodeled to have a giant bathtub. The owners then installed too-small of a water heater to fill the tub, so it never got used. That’s the bathroom that I recently renovated, by the way. I talked about it last summer. Keeping two bedrooms closed off from the central A/C system helps the small A/C compressor, but it is showing its age and honestly we need a third window-unit or mini-split for the living room. Every modern window unit we’ve installed has resulted in a DECREASED electric bill as we cut down on the demands on the central A/C. Kind of shows how far technology has come in the last few decades.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “I HATE the Summer”

Paige Francis He/him

I was on vacation all week; more on that later. But more importantly I came home to a broken PC. Well, it was fine when I got home. Here’s the process. Last Monday, after a day of travel and arriving at the destination I got my laptop up and running. My laptop has Manjaro Linux installed just like my PC. Manjaro updates regularly, but I was a bit surprised there was a large suite of upgrades available when I booted up the computer. I put them off at first because I didn’t want to stress the internet connection where we were staying, but it became clear after a few days this vacation house likely had better and faster internet than I do at home. Knowing that, I applied all the updates without incident and went on about my week. Under my current schedule I usually first access my computer in the late afternoon and I mostly kept to that practice while away. After arriving home, of course; my PC showed the same updates available. I’m sure there were some differences in software but I wasn’t expecting a problem. However, the updates wouldn’t run on the PC. I kept getting an error message that updating a library would break a dependency and a recommendation that I remove a particular listing and try again. Except removing that entry would break *another* dependency, and so on and so forth. I tried doing updates one listing a time, which worked right up until it didn’t. I would occasionally get a prompt to restart the system (normally I get one prompt to restart after all updates are complete) but after one of these…nothing *I was used to using* would work. Most things wouldn’t launch. Efforts attempted through the terminal would result in an error message reporting broken dependencies. I had managed to break the fundamental links in the system to a couple of important libraries. Checking online I came across mostly some things I had read before: that the frequent update process on Manjaro is essentially its biggest weakness. I won’t get into all the reasons why, and I have no idea (only a suspicion) why something that worked a few days ago on my laptop *did not* work on my PC…this is actually a problem I’ve had before but was able to deal with. Instead, because of how I have everything installed, I decided to just do a new install of something different.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Replacing a Linux Installation After My Vacation”

Paige Francis He/him

So Infinity Nikki was finally released on Steam. It’s still not available on the Steam Deck; the limiting factor being the Anti-Cheat Expert implementation. The team responsible for bringing the title to Steam expressed interest in bridging the ACE requirement so the game will run on Steam Deck and as a result, most Linux installs (Valve has done this for other titles). However that may never happen at this point. A significant update to the game a couple of weeks ago has caused quite a bit of consternation among long-time players. Obviously I haven’t talked to every single person, but Steam reviews have dropped from near-perfect not long ago to “Mixed.” Essentially, before the Steam release, the reviews were from people who obtained the game in some other way and were talking about how great it was. The Steam version released with the new update from what I’ve read. You can see negative review after negative review now, all complaining about the update. The best I can put together is that the 1.5 update added co-op play, which seems simple enough. But for some reason also nixed the original story, introduction, and tutorial. I’ve read reviews of people complaining that the co-op play update makes the new content completely different from the original release. This, according to many, ruins the original “cozy” and casual feel to the game. If this trend continues, further development on Steam will likely cease, as will any upcoming content. In the U.S. anyway; I have no idea how people in China feel. (Allegedly the term “boycott” has been banned in-game and on social media accounts, but I don’t know if that’s English-only or for all languages. The word “girlcott” has been substituted, according to Wikipedia.) I also want to be clear that *I* haven’t played the game, so this is only reporting on what other people are saying, and how they are responding through official channels. I don’t completely agree with the idea that “online isn’t real,” but I DO agree that you hear about complaints at a much greater rate than you hear about satisfaction, so if this concerns you…the game is free. You can play it or not. Unless you’re on Linux.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Mother’s Day and Vacation Time”

Paige Francis He/him