From the studio that killed Wolverine.
For movie night a year or so ago, Anniken and I watched Deadpool. It’s a fast-paced action comedy starring my man-crush, and all-round funny face Ryan Reynolds. I never got around to write a review, but Deadpool was an absolute hoot. In about a month the sequel, Deadlpool 2, premiers, and it looks like it’s been cooked using exactly the same recipe.
I lolled.
Your favorite grand strategy game in space, Stellaris, recently received both a massive overhaul, and a new expansion. But was it for better or for worse?
It’s been about a year since my first Stellaris review, in which I gave the game a rock solid 94 out of 100 score. When our heroes at Paradox released Stellaris 2.0, and the accompanying Apocalypse expansion, I’d put a massive 83 hours into the game. That put it on par with Tropico 4 in terms of gameplay hours. Other players have racked thousands of hours in Stellaris, so a measly 83 might not sound like much compared to that. But for me, that number of hours put in a game show just how entertaining it really is. That the 83 hours only covers three games, 2 won, 1 forfeited, also says a lot about Stellaris’ longevity.
Paradox is well know for keeping their games alive by frequently releasing free patches, and new DLC. Crusader Kings 2 is a good example. The game was released in 2013, but it’s still updated by Paradox. It looks like Stellaris is no exception to that rule. Two years after its release, the game has received multiple patches, two major expansions, and several story packs. Even without buying the DLC, you get a lot from just patching the game. Me, I’m throwing all my money at Paradox, one of the very few companies I buy games and DLC from on release day.
Once there was ownCloud. Now there is Nextcloud. It’s time to install Nextcloud on NETGEAR ReadyNAS.
If you’ve followed my 5-year-old guide How to install Owncloud on a NETGEAR ReadyNAS, you might have noticed that the ownCloud desktop client has complained about an unsupported server version for some time. ownCloud on your ReadyNAS server has been stuck on version 6, while the rest of the world has moved on to version 10. Unfortunately, the ownCloud version in the NETGEAR package repository has not been maintained, and upgrading using ownCloud’s own mechanisms has not been possible. ownCloud itself has also been through some rough times. In 2016, its founder, Frank Karlitschek, left the company, citing “moral questions”. Karlitschek went on to found Nextcloud, which is a ownCloud fork, and the file hosting software we will install now.
My particular ReadyNAS model is the 102, which uses an ARM CPU. There is no Nextcloud package in the NETGEAR package repository. This means that getting Nextcloud up and running on my ReadyNAS 102 would involve a lot of compiling, troubleshooting, and general hair pulling. Not ideal for a guy like me with a receding hairline, and I’d probably use a lot of my precious spare time that I’d prefer to prioritize differently. That’s why I’ll take the path of least resistance this time, and turn to someone who’ve gone through all those hoops already: Say hello to RNXtras.com.
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Yes, yesterday was the day. I’m now in my forties.
When I turned 30, I also wrote a post, appropriately titled “The Big Three Oh“. It contains a few bullet points summarizing my universe at the time:
- I’m still enjoying playing video and computer games.
- Getting kids is still a very distant idea.
- I don’t want to buy a motorcycle yet. But maybe that’s what men do when they get to 40, not 30.
- Marriage is right up there with the whole kids thing.
- Politicians still confuse me.
10 years later, a lot of things have definitely changed, while other things haven’t changed a bit. The revised lists goes like this:
So there you have it. Quite a lot has happened during the last 10 years. As I’m now entering the half-way point in life1, I’m in reasonably good health both physically and mentally, have no real worries, exercise semi-regularly, sleep well at night, and have a loving family.
What more can a scrawny guy with a rapidly receding hairline ask for? Nothing.
Is Mastodon the silver bullet, or yet another social media dud?
First of all, we’ll have to clarify one thing. This post isn’t about the American heavy metal band Mastodon. It’s about the social network Mastodon. You’d think that the creator of Mastodon (the social network) would to at least a little research before picking a name, but apparently not.
With that out of the way, let’s get on with it.
The internet is great. It makes it incredibly easy to for us to connect, share, and educate ourselves. It’s also a place where trolls breed and feed, and hate is amplified. The anonymous nature of the series of tubes that is the internet often brings out the worst in people. There are few things that will make you lose faith in humanity faster than reading comments on a random, high-traffic site on the internet.
Historically, any lack of anonymity has restrained the trolls to a certain degree. And life was good. But with the rise of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, we’ve seen that some people really don’t need anonymity to go absolutely nuts. They’ll write and share whatever they think about race, sexual orientation, global warming, and other heated topics. This has turned many social media sites into very hostile environments, and people are looking for alternatives.
So wouldn’t it be great if there was a Twitter, but without all the hate and hostility? Mastodon tries to be just that, but can it succeed?
