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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a great game if you are into rogue-like games. Expect to die waaaay more than you win. There is a lot of depth and quite a few ways to solve the the puzzles and enemy encounters.

    The developer has done an amazing job picking up where the original developer of Pixel Dungeon left off. Very consistent and solid updates and has plenty of plans for future updates which look interesting.

    There are plenty of forks ranging from adjusting difficulty to overhauling the art or expanding the gameplay significantly. If you ever get bored, you can just try something new.

    I’ve enjoyed the growth of this game over the years after the development of the original game stopped.


  • I don’t think I’ve heard one good user view on snaps, which is what I’m assuming you are refering to when talking about containers. I don’t have much experience with it but the view on them is overwhelmingly negative.

    I do like the concept of cutting out the middle man in this case. However, I’ll probably stick with cinnamon for a while as I’m still learning about the linux environment and distribution hopping will add lots of unnecessary frustration for me.

    Thanks for the write up.


  • I’ve used linux sporadically throughout my life and only started using it daily in the last couple months. I’ve used ubuntu in the past but I can understand the reason to move away from commercial distributions. Since my knowledge of Linux is quite shallow, I have a ton of questions and a need to understand everything.

    What is Debian and what makes it an appropriate choice for Linux Mint to switch over to this base?

    Also, what values does the development of Debian have compared to Ubuntu?

    I get the feeling that moving away from Ubuntu is a step in the direction of a more open source space away from corporate forced standards, is that accurate? If so, what development direction could this take for a project like Linux Mint?



  • I recently recieved a bit of offhand news that has made me a lot more relaxed about an important meeting I have at the end of September.

    I was speaking with a person I used to work with about a trip he and his fiancé took recently when he caually mentioned out of nowhere that the HR manager at work retired at the end of July. That random little fact sent my mind into a whirlwind for a couple days.

    Just over a year ago I had been terminated from my job as an apprentice at a place that builds automation assembly lines. That termination came after I had brought up concerns and frustrations with how the company had begun treating people after covid arrived. I also brought up concerns about workplace culture and how toxic it had become.

    I had been terminated approximately 10 months after the monthly employee meeting where I first confronted the GM (General Manager) about how apprentices were being treated poorly and not learning the proper skills. This is important because once people start retiring, there is going to be a huge skill and knowledge gap.

    After that monthly meeting, I had a meeting with the fairness committee followed by a meeting with the HR manager with the fairness committee member on “my side.” That second meeting was basically me getting belittled and blamed for 3.5 hours.

    Unhappy with the results and dealing with my declining mental health, I reached out to the corporate HR manager about the abusive management at my company and this manager made a huge effort to help me. She taught me all my rights as an employee, encouraged me to get help through the corporate employee hotline and when that failed, set up a meeting with me and her boss while beginning an investigation into the abusive environment at my company. Unfortunately before that meeting, my company terminated my employment.

    I retained a lawyer and after about a year of some back and forth (things got delayed significantly because my lawyer got covid) I finally submitted my wrongful termination case against my company to the labour board. Up until this point I felt so uncertain and stressed about everything and was really doubting my decisions.

    About a month after my submission to the labour board, my company replied back with 16 pages trying to have my case thrown out and attacking my character. They also responded through an outside law firm and not the corporate in-house lawyers. About 1.5 months after my submission, the HR manager retires. I found out she was scheduled to retire in 2024.

    Suddenly my mediation meeting with the labour board and my company doesn’t seem so intimidating. Corporate refused to legally support my company and the HR manager retires early and is now back home in Central America. A key figure in all of this who conveniently will not be able to attend the labour board meeting.

    I have no idea if those two things are related to my case and I may never truly know but it sure is convinient for me. I did leave that company in good standing with corporate so I’m left to believe that corporate has been taking serious action with my company. Action that may have also included updating workflow, security and logistics (costing the GM and management huge money), and cracking down on workplace safety issues (costing the GM and management even more money).

    After covid arrived, my dislike of corporations only grew but I think it’s pretty humorous to watch corporate turn it’s back on my company. It’s beautiful in it’s own bureaucratic-hellscape kind of way.

    My goal at the labour board meeting is going to get my job back and hopefully getting a public apology at the monthly employee meeting while sending a problematic manager to a training course regarding abusive behaviour. After being forced to confront my own mortality through their abusive and negligent behaviour, money means nothing to me. No amount will bring back the dignity this place took from me and the others who work there. I’m hoping my actions are able to throw some power back into the hands of the employees and other workers there as well as bring more awareness to mental health issues.

    And to think, I probably wouldn’t have gone down this path if it weren’t for the head fairness committee member telling me that I should just suck it up. That I should just wait for all these problematic people to retire. He told me I couldn’t change anything. His attempt to de-escalate the situation by demotivating me may have backfired slightly.




  • This year I built a vegetable garden and purposely seeded the top soil with clover. The garden has become more wild and “overgrown” looking but I think it adds a bit more wild beauty to it. There’s a list of reasons why I chose to add clover as ground cover including:

    • Clover bringing nitrogen into the soil
    • Clover roots to help loosen the soil to make it easier for my crops to spread their roots
    • By creating a barrier to retain moisture in the soil
    • To promote a place for microfauna to live within the soil. Healthy soil is alive with small bugs like springtails who feast on mold and funguses and poop out nutrients that are easily absorbed by plant roots
    • To promote a place for larger insects like isopods and beetles to help break down organic material. Similar to springtails, the waste, as well as old molts and waste from dead insect bodies help feed plant roots.
    • Clover roots will help loosen any compacted soil allowing crop roots to spread easier
    • When planting new crops, you can simply dig up an area of clover and mix it back into the ground. By doing this, you are turning that clover into fertilizer as it gets broken down by insects and microfauna
    • All parts of clover are edible. Strange to even think of it as a weed in my personal opinion

    Something important that modern agriculture seems to overlook is soil health. Healthy soil is alive with microfauna and microfauna is diverse and complicated like any other ecosystem. The soil will be more like a desert without ground cover because there’s no safe places for all the tiny life that gets easily overlooked. I even added some large stones and stepping stones because insects love hiding under things like that. My goal is to promote enough life to ensure a healthy, living soil that won’t rely heavily on outsourced fertilizers. Composting would be a great compliment to my garden if I got off my ass and built one.

    Modern agriculture and farming/gardening practices rely too heavily on outsourced fertilizers and seems to disregard soil health altogether. It’s quite sad to see how damaging and nutrient draining monoculture crops are to our precious top soil.

    The whole idea of using clover as ground cover is a mix of knowledge from indigenous histories, my bioactive terrariums I have as a hobby and other random bits of knowledge gathered from the internet over the years. This is the first year I’ve tried using clover as ground cover so I have yet to see how effective it all is but it’s a beautiful experiment in progress at least. Since I added fresh compost and horse manure this year, everything is growing great so I won’t be able to properly assess things until next year or the year after but I look forward to it.