Lakesprit Weekly - Week 33

Boom! Pops up to life and works!

On a previous newsletter I said that I owned 3 laptops/computers on my lifetime (previous computers I used were family computers). I have a laptop from 2014, which I call the leanlaptop, which I still use sometimes. I have a laptop from 2017, which I call the Taiwanese Gaming Laptop (well, there's a lot of Taiwanese Gaming Laptops out there), which I thought that died on 2021, and I have another gaming laptop that I use since 2021, which I call the Fairmont Audain Station, which is the one I use the most.

It was a late night in 2021, at my place, at my bedroom. I opened up Minecraft to log into 2B2T, I had done it before, I wanted to play some more, but, since there was a queue, I just let it run so I could log in when its ready. So, in the meantime, I was about to use my tablet, but instead of putting the tablet end on the tablet, I put the plug in the wrong direction, and in an instant! The computer shut off.

I tried to turn it on, nothing happened. I plugged off the tablet, nothing happened.

I tried to plug off the charging plug, nothing happened, moved the battery, nothing happened.

Charged it and waited some hours, nothing happened.

It seemed as if my computer was dead.

Thought of having it repaired, but that would mean someone would be touching my computer and seeing my personal files, so I gave up on that.

With lament and sorrow I put my 2017 computer inside the backpack that came with, along with the charger and the mouse, and had to use the leanlaptop until a new one arrived.

I had so much stuff in that, stuff that was useful. I had music inside it, that I produced.

I had Minecraft worlds on it.

Ever since that happened, I now tend to keep things backed up on external hard drives and clouds.

Last week, out of curiosity, took the 2017 laptop out of the bag, and charged it. This time I prepared an usb stick with rEFInd on it, assuming that the computer didn't boot because it forgot where the bios was. But after an hour of charging, and after opening the lid... it just BOOM, pops up to life and works!

And I never knew why it "died" and why it came back to life.

So I did the first thing that came up to my mind.

Backed up all the things I thought that were lost forever. Put them on my external hard drive.

And now I want to share some of that stuff with you now.

The 4 music tracks I posted some days ago were on that laptop. Still got more to show.

Most of these were from an abandoned project, but I might recycle them for future stuff, like videos, or animations!

Ah, yes, just a quick warning, if I'm on discord, I will never tell you to download a link to a game. That's a rule of thumb.

I'm glad I was able to recover the laptop, I thought that was all gone forever! That I had my thing bricked forever!

Normal Tuesday Night (for Magolor)

Light spoilers for Magolor epilogue

So I beat the Magolor Epilogue on Kirby's return to dreamland deluxe. I loved it, I do love the music, specially the one where Magolor has to use an ability to get through a level, you know, the one that remixes "Looming Darkness".

I might even wanna make music like that.

Has this ever happened to you?

You are on a discord server.

Someone says "Why did (any person or organization) do (thing that makes them lose money)"

Someone else says "Because they want money" (but never explain how that would make them money or the real reason)

While it is true that many people do things to get money, after all, Adam Smith once said...

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages

...sometimes, there are things that... like, make no sense at all.

Like when Discord changed their logo to a futuristic text to just a bold normal text.

Or like Discord updates on some devices making it crash (wouldn't this make them get less money?)

The problem is that people tend not be helpful answering questions, and I think organizations and people should explain themselves, instead of just being left with a vague answer.

Public Service Announcement (without sugarcoating)

Youtubers with "correct" opinions are not your friends. They run a channel, so you never know if they're just picking the "best" opinions just to make a career out of it. And once you reach the day where you have the "uncool" opinion, you'll realize that it wasn't a good idea to think someone is correct on everything, specially a youtuber.

(specially politicians too! but I think many people get the memo now in politics)

You should think for yourself instead.

(had to say it because I know like two friends who are like this)

Oh yeah, remember the LTT drama? There's your example. Can't even trust tech youtubers!

Ending on a positive note

Let's wrap this up in a good note! I'll be uploading more music!

And I will also be making more music. I got my DAW installed on Linux now, and will be bringing my plugins so I can make more music like that.

I also plan to make videos for PMD: Starscape Weaver... I think the format would be like a visual novel, but it wouldn't be like a typical visual novel story, something like Siivagunner's Christmas Comeback Crisis. I heard they got stuck at episode 10 of 12, and were using video editing software to make the videos. Can you imagine? They would have to type every single letter for each frame. So I plan to use a visual novel engine and then record the gameplay.

I still have to watch the CCC, one day I'll do a marathon. Oh yeah, but first, I'll play Kirby: Planet Robobot

I should make a list of Kirby games that I beat

Lakesprit Weekly - Week 32

So, it's been sort of busy, but not too much. Still didn't draw, but I promise to get to it. I think the move made me lose my habit of drawing.

Let's talk about the games I played!

Normal Tuesday Night (for Kirby)

Spoilers for Kirby's Return to Dreamland's ending

.

.

.

.

So last Tuesday I beat Kirby's Return to Dreamland Deluxe! Yes, I got to tell Magolor what it is all about! I never played the original, but I think I still think I would rather play this version, because it has so much stuff on it! And Popstar looks amazing in this version! (it did look good in the original too) I finally got to see Magolor trick me and try to crush, kill, and destroy afterwards.

Despite everything, I think Magolor is an interesting character, and that he is cute (when he's being good) and also funny. Every Kirby fan trembles upon hearing the words "Bravo, Kirby".

Some months ago I visited my middle brother and my nephew. And turns out they both played the game. I found a lot of drawings by my nephew, including Kirby, Dedede, Bandee, Meta Knight, the enemies, Magolor, and the Lor Starcutter. I asked my bro how the game was going, and he told me that he and his son were going slowly, because he didn't want his son to find out about what Magolor is really trying to do.

He even said he would make up an alternate ending for his son.

I think that one of the things I could do to motivate me to work in Krita would be to draw Kirby characters, since some of them are easy and some are more complex.

I could even show you concept art of my own version of King Dedede, which I made some months ago.

July playlist

So here's the July playlist, it's full of music that feels like fits the vibe of my PMD comic. I think this could be one of my favorite playlists to listen to on shuffle!

PMD Starscape Weaver coming to Newgrounds?

Speaking of the PMD comic...

I'm gonna put it on Newgrounds!

Right now the comic is at page 15, and I will be uploading the pages slowly.

As for the future of the comic, I finished writing what happens up to the end of this issue/chapter.

And as the comic progresses, I will be teasing towards a new lakesprit character.

You might be able to see him by around October! Depending on the pace of the comic.

University is on again

Yup, it is on again. But most stuff that I'll be doing this semester will be reading. It's easy.

Since now I'm on Linux and not using Microsoft Edge to read. I've been using Firefox with a tts plugin that reads text to me with the google translate voice.

I really wish someone got to make a really good tts voice here on Linux, and specially one for Okular. Something like the online voices on Edge, but, able to do it offline, whenever you want. I don't even care if it's a few GBs large. That's like one of the only things I miss from Windows.

Finally got the RAM

I upgraded the RAM on the Fairmont Audain Station (my computer) from the stock 16 GB to 32 GB. Why? Because I want to do a lot of stuff at once! Wanna have Minecraft rendering far away while also having Firefox play me music and show me videos, while also drawing, while editing a video, and making music! It's gonna be baller!

Half life

Since there was a sale on Steam I got that huge Valve collection, and I started playing Half Life. I'm still at the beginning. But yeah, I got the whole thing.

Now that I have all these Valve games, I'm planning to get gmod on the next sale.

Lakesprit Newsletter - Week 31

Moving to Krita

So, during 2018-2023 I've been using a combo of Medibang Paint and Paint tool SAI to draw. Medibang is useful for sketching and inking the pics while I use SAI for coloring and shading, the magic wand tool there is great, as it can both select depending on opacity, or by color. Oh yeah, and the SAI blur tool is supreme, Medibang lags when blurring, and other programs don't have a strong blur tool that blurs well.

Medibang also has been useful for backing up drawings on the cloud. you could have unlimited drawings stored in there. Some years ago they changed it so that an account can only have like 2 gigs of drawings on the cloud (per account, *wink wink*)

I also have been having Krita sitting around. Every once in a while people say "Now that Adobe is getting greedier! Here are the alternatives to their software!" and list alternatives, like using Krita and G*mp instead of Photoshop, or Davinci resolve and Kdenlive instead of Premiere, or Inkscape instead of Illustrator.

I have tried Gimp (Or G*mp, since that sounds funnier) before, but the experience I had back then wasn't that good. Gimp is of course something I would recommend over Photoshop since G*mp it's free instead of a perpetual license. The problem I had was that Gimp in Windows takes a lot of time to start up, and that seemed like a motivation killer for me.

I think this problem isn't present in GNU/Linux, everyone who ran G*mp on Linux told me that it starts up so quick in there. In fact, the Tux penguin drawing was made there, on G*mp.

Krita is like G*mp, but more friendly. it's free and open source software, and has a lot of tools. Krita seems to be more friendly like G*mp. More attractive to use while still being powerful. So, I had it downloaded for quite some time. The mascot, Kiki, is so cute, and was made by TysonTan, one of my favorite artists.

And then... the jump™ happened.

The Jump™

Computers and operating systems

So, I had been using Windows for my whole life until recently. There was a photo of me as a baby using one of these cream colored computers with the Windows 98 boot screen. I used XP a lot. Even tried Vista because it was pretty, but went back to XP because we had to format the computer, start from zero, because of a huge virus, and we just happened to downgrade to XP just because it ran better. Then I think my family got a new computer with 7 on it, it has the prettiness of Vista while being good as XP.

The LeanLaptop (2014-current)

I got my own laptop in 2014 which had Windows 8. I had it there for a while, but the start screen was annoying, especially when using shortcuts with the windows key, like Win+R to run a program. I was getting BSODs often back in 2016. I updated that laptop to Windows 10 to get rid of that one thing, and to extend the support. I rarely use this laptop now, since I got a newer one, and use it for university stuff (bringing it to lectures and writing down stuff, doing homework on the campus)

The Taiwanese Gaming Laptop (2017-2021)

On 2017, since my laptop was getting old and actually wanted a gaming laptop, I got an ASUS laptop, with a gtx nvidia card inside, and a keyboard with light on it! It had Windows 10.

It was pretty good, this is where I also got my drawing tablet. Well, a few times I did get a BSOD too.

But then, accidentally, on 2021 it had a shortcircuit or an electric problem and it wouldn't boot again.

The Fairmont-Audain Station (2021-Current)

So this is my current setup, another ASUS laptop, this time with a rgb keyboard. The previous one had a numpad, but the light was purely red. This one has no numpad... but the specs are better. It got an RTX card, an i7, an ssd, and plenty of ram, which I plan to upgrade soon, already got my sticks here.

It did also come with Windows 10 home preinstalled on it. I didn't mind that. It was good for the time I've used it. And then this year I've been personalizing it. I haven't changed my default wallpaper this whole time! I had the asus wallpaper there for like 2 years! And just two icons on the desktop (the recycle bin and a folder saying "things"), I tend to be more about customizing my taskbar.

One thing I missed from past times were the gadgets that Vista and 7 had. In 2014, Microsoft removed them because they could be used for arbitrary code execution. Hah, I remember when speedrunners did that on Super Mario World to make the game play pong and snake just by pressing a lot of buttons at specific times with a TAS.

But really, I miss gadgets. I installed rainmeter and put a note widget with a to-do list, a clock, a weather widget, and a calendar widget. That was pretty good.

But another thing I wanted was to change the theme to something custom, but on Windows 10 (and I think MacOs users also have it like this) you can only have a white theme and a black theme. And well, now Microsoft only supports Windows 10 and 11, so people would only have the option of just liking the theme that these OSs come with, or pay for Stardock Windowblinds. I wanted to be unique, to be creative, and not have the same thing as everyone else.

I did have some caveats with Windows in this computer, not something annoying. When I closed the laptop lid with the fans spinning the computer would restart, and it would restart running slow, as if it was running both the previous instance of the computer and the new one. Sometimes the windows would freeze until explorer didn't respond and had me closing it. Sometimes the computer would get slow and fans would spin to cool it and didn't know why and had to reboot. I was satisfied but not fully satisfied.

But, somewhere, on the internet, I knew that TysonTan, was the designer behind Konqi the dragon, and heard that was the mascot of a thing called... KDE. I investigated what it was. It was a community that made free software, like... gratis, you don't have to pay anything. And they made the KDE plasma, which was like an interface like the one Windows had but with so much more features, and for Linux...

I haven't tried Linux before, because I was younger and didn't know a lot about technology. I thought Linux wouldn't have the things I would have in Windows, and that it would be complicated to install it. But, I think. Linux has matured and gotten good. The Valve Steam Deck runs some kind of Arch (btw) with KDE as the desktop, and Valve has been working on getting games to work on Linux. So Linux is getting more popular and more support.

So many people complain about Windows, and yet so many keep using it. I don't mind the problems so much. But, I think if you have a problem with windows, you can always try something different. It's like the doctor joke.

One patient says "Doctor, it hurts when I do this"

And then the doctor says "well, then don't do that!"

Using Linux

I chose Kubuntu as a distro, the interim version. And tried it first on a partition on the leanlaptop, so it could dual boot with windows 10 and Kubuntu. And it was a pretty good experience.

And so, I put the same distro on my current gaming computer, and decided to make the jump. I had some things to solve at first, like finding a way to disable caps lock in 1.5 presses (like Windows and Mac does) instead of 2 presses (which is a Linux thing that Linux has because it was how it was on typewriters), or getting the keyboard rgb to light up (which worked with a small program and a startup script that turns it on)

So now both of my computers dual boot Kubuntu 23.04 and Windows 10. For the first days I would alternate between one and the other because some stuff like my onenote notes (and Ahruium) were still on Windows. I then moved these to Kubuntu and I'm now using alternatives for them.

For Onenote, I've been using Joplin, which lets me write in markdown, and have notes nested inside notes inside notes.

For Ywriter (the writing software I used for Ahruium), I moved to Fantasia Archive. Fantasia is not actually a novel writing software, but, it's more of a tabletop rpg lore organizer... like World Anvil, but for free. Turns out if you try hard enough it does make a good writing software that organizes well your characters, places, and everything. The only caveat being that when I will have to export the whole story, I'll have to copy and paste everything because it just doesn't export things in the format of a book like actual novel writing software does.

Kool things I did on KDE

Okay, let's talk about the cool stuff. This feels so exciting, I feel like a kid on Christmas opening his presents!

KDE lets you have gadgets like in vista/7 and Rainmeter. There's even a clone of the Mond Clock I used in Rainmeter.

I love the virtual desktops feature in KDE. That is present on Windows 10 an 11 but never used it. In Kde you can just press a button on the taskbar to switch to all the desktops you have. So I can have most of my stuff on the first desktop, then Joplin on the second one to take notes, then Fantasia on the third one to work on Ahruium. And KDE lets you have them horizontally, and vertically. And then there's a third dimension which would be the activities, which let you have different wallpapers, different programs on the desktop, and different widgets. I can have one activity for my usual drawing and gaming stuff, and another one for serious university work.

Oh, also, the themes. There's plenty of themes that let me have the windows look the way I want. People can make them and put them on the KDE store. There's also a thing called Kvantum that lets me have transparent themes. So I can be like in Dolphin (the KDE equivalent of file explorer) and instead of being white inside, the inside is translucent. You can see through.

Oh yeah, I can also change the transparency of each window, so I can see through things. Like I could be watching someone's discord stream while at the same time I play Minecraft on a transparent window. Speaking of Minecraft, it runs pretty well here, since it has a linux port. And gdlauncher also has a linux port so I was able to move my modded worlds and packs by just copying them off the external drive to gdlauncher's linux directory.

I also made the lockscreen play a video loop I made myself, of various drone vids going around Lake Toya which I took from Youtube. This "video lockscreen" feature is something that MacOs will have on Sonoma, but it does pause the video when someone starts unlocking the Mac. And I'm not sure if you can personalize it to have anything you want on MacOs, will have to see that. Heh, I love having both Mac and Windows features on Linux.

I can change the system's font. This is completely possible in Windows too, by changing registry files. In KDE you can change them in settings. I wanted KDE to have that one font that Nintendo uses in a lot of their games (Mario Kart 8, Pikmin 4, Wii Sports), you know, that one font, the one that looks like Eurostile. I got that one and now my OS looks like a Nintendo game. Even changed some system sounds to sounds that Nintendo games/software uses.

Let's get back on Krita

So Medibang does work on Linux. It doesn't have a Linux port, but it can run on Wine. The problem is that it doesn't detect my tablet's pressure. But Krita does.

Recently I have been configuring and tweaking Krita to make it comfy and make the pens and shortcuts feel like I'm using Medibang (but with more tools), been taking me a while.

Krita's blur tool, while being powerful enough and being able to be customized, is more of a... I don't know how to say it, a more fluffy or rocky kind of blur, that's quite useful for blurring some things like fur or grass. While SAI's blur is super smooth.

So now, the combo I will be using will be SAI on Wine + Krita.

So here's a quick sketch of me (Povynn) done to get used to Krita.

Looks just like the doodles I did on Medibang!

One thing that sucked last month...

So... there's always one guy on the discord servers I'm on, who is sort of harsh about what technology people use. Like, he will call things bloatware, and stuff like that. And this wasn't even a tech discord, I don't go to any of those!

I use Trello to keep track of my university homework. It's useful for me, I like how you can customize it. I only use the free version because I don't pay for any subscription software.

And then that guy said "Trello sucks ass"

I asked for alternatives.

And what he pointed me to use was a GitHub project called Planka. It does look fine according to the screenshots, and it's free...

...but here's the catch!

In order to use that you have to...

1. Run a server, because this is not offline software, it's a server software that requires you to set up one
2. Install either Docker or PostgreSQL, Nodejs and Webserver
3. Deploy the program, there is no executable at the GitHub page. You MUST make the program out of the code instead of having the programmers do it.

Which means I will have to download all the tools that the developers use (or at least an alternative if we're talking about Docker), which are several gigabytes big in size, and therefore reduce my ssd's lifespan... just to have a Trello alternative.

Great, just great. I bet people really will like your suggestions and will be flocking to use them...

Please don't do what this guy does

We don't need more insufferable tech snobs who tell you to only use things they like while backseating everything else!

Next day edit:

Now I remember the word for that, it's backseating. That was unsolicited help.

It's okay to recommend things I could try, but pressuring me to try something that is hard to use is backseating.

Next time I'll confront him when I see him on the server. Either that or I will make my own version of that server, with blackjack, and hookers!

Normal Tuesday night edit:

Things went well!

Lakesprit.... Newsletter! - Week 26

Wha happun, Povynn?

Ah, nothing bad. it's just that most of June and July was busy with University stuff. It was homeworks upon homeworks upon homeworks. And I set my priority to do uni over art, because uni is a "you only got one shot" deal.

Delayed art is eventually good, but missing my shot at university is eternally bad.

But now I'm back!!!

Yes, I'm back on track, for real this time. The university semester is over. So now you'll have drawings upon drawings upon drawings! The PMD comic will continue, I should really go ahead and post it here. And might even post my old art, since ex-"Tony Stark in real life" has been having a bad time banhammering those "hourly animal" accounts.

Got a logo for this now! did it in less than 30 minutes (like domino's)

Lakesprit Weekly - Week 20

My Neocities website

Since March of this year I've been working on making this website. When this year started I put up as one of my New Year Resolutions to have a place to put the lore of my characters (like a wiki, but I'm the only one writing it), and I wanted to have this website as that place.

So in March I actually got to work on it, I picked up a book on HTML and CSS and learned it pretty easily. For a programming language these are pretty easy. Perhaps it must be because they're used for things that are easier to make (writing thingies on websites and decorating websites)

For now the website looks like this, like with MS paint drawings, which I have for placeholders (they kinda fit the style of the site).

The next thing I'm thinking of working on is creating the ""wiki"" articles for my characters.

Another thing I wanna do is turn these future hyperlink buttons into pics with the text on them, to add to the charm.

For now these hyperlinks are blocked (like Spamton)

How's Ahruium doing?

Well, after finishing the first draft, I rested the whole day, and it took me like 6 to 7 days to read the whole draft and stare at all the rushed writing I did and the ideas that I thought were good but I think should be changed :)

I still think about that one Ernest Hemingway quote.

But I do have a roadmap of what I wanna do!

How is the PMD comic going?

Glad you were patient.

I think the next pic I will work on will be the next PMD page, and I have been working on the script for the next pages!

A...are... are you still working on...

It's longer than the Aeneid! Now I only have to edit the whole thing.

In other news

This week is a break from the university, which gave me time to draw, write, and game. So, I'm glad that this break happened because it allowed me to catch up on everything.

I also got this thing where I'm thinking of drawing pics in less than 30 minutes, like domino's.

Still working on it!!!

I'm still working on that art trade.

and I'm still working on the final moments of Ahruium.

New week resolutions (April 24 to 30)

-Drawing the art trade and working on it each day

-Listening to new music each day (Already listened to some new music on Monday)

-Writing Ahruium on each day (already did some writing on Monday and Tuesday)

-Doing well at the Tuesday university test (Done)

I'm a 24 year old lakesprit now~

It's less than 2 weeks until my birthday, and I finally got this card to tell others about it.

I want this birthday to be one that I remember, not just a normal one where I get gifted clothes or gifts that you can give to anyone. I want to have fun and truly make it a celebration about me.

New week resolutions (April 10-16)

-Drawing that art trade I have!!! :guitar: It's been four weeks since you looked at me... turned your head to the side and said "I'm busy" :guitar:

-Writing Ahruium on each day (I'm on the final battle)

-Working on the PMD comic on each day

-Listening to music I haven't heard before each day

Quick Footnote

My march playlist is ready, you can listen to it here

*sniff sniff sniff* It smells like popping gamers in here...

W-W-W-What's popping gamers???

The university put more stuff for me to do until this Thursday.

So I was busy until now. I had a list of things to do, which had the university things, and had art things.

But since I put university over art I decided to work on university rather to sacrifice it to have more art.

The art trade I had to do is still pending.

Ooooh!! I almost forgot!

My birthday will also come soon on April 23