Playing with #godot for the first time, and accidentally set some bullets to be rigid objects in the 2D physics engine rather than 2D 'areas'.

Which was actually hilarious, because rather than making the enemies dissappear like a normal boring game, the 1kg bullets travelling at several meters per second effective speed smacked the enemies off the screen spinning violently.

I'm sort of convinced that a huge number of action game mechanics start as 'happy accidents' like this.

Last chance to sign up the under 18 budding #visualnovel author in your life for an online five week introduction to writing #interactivefiction - the courses start next week! thinkersmeetup.com/scholars/...

@[email protected] @[email protected] ​To be clear, this isn't me casting shade at Mastodon; there's reasons for doing it that way and they are by no means the only ActivityPub server that doesn't implement the client to server API. But it is a pain when it comes to wanting to standardize anything end to end.

@[email protected] @[email protected] I think that the ActivityPub API being discussed there is the client API which (last I checked) Mastodon does not implement. Mastodon uses the ActivityPub server API to allow federation between servers​ but that doesn't help with e2ee because well, it ain't end to end encrypted if it isn't encrypted by the client.

@[email protected] 😱 ​And I thought our local hospital was bad at communication...

(everyone's different, so adjust to taste)

• Check for 'comfort' entertainment: I often reread a few books I've had since being a teenager (known comfort) or trashy fanfiction (new but I don't feel bad about not paying full attention) to provide enough distraction to rest in these situations.
• Depending on the relational dynamics, either offer to screen comms or suggest do not disturb for notifications with checks at specific times of day. Even people wanting to support can be a huge drain.
• Avoid the news if possible. Stuff out there can be important and meaningful, but sometimes we don't have the emotional bandwidth to deal with it.

I'm running courses for under 18s on creating #interactivefiction (specifically, #visualnovels ) but I just had a request from one of the parents for an adult version of the course.

Would you, or anyone you know be interested in a short course on writing interactive fiction? Would probably run at around 5 hours over 5 weeks, homework optional, costing around 55 GBP.

More about me/the existing courses at thinkersmeetup.com/scholars/...

(Please share if this seems even vaguely interesting)

So - week starting the 12th I'm starting a new run of Coding Games with a Story, a five week course teaching young people how to write interactive fiction (in the form of visual novels, using Ink). Build stories that change based on the player's choices while learning about both good story telling and telling computers to do what you want - and then publish your experiments for other people to try.

For people who already know the mechanics of writing interactive fiction (taught at one of my courses or not) and who want the encouragement and structure of a writing club to build a full game, I'm also starting the Interactive Fiction Writing Club.

So - know anyone 9-18 who wants to tell stories that are also games? Nows the time for them to sign up!

You can find the courses I'm running here: thinkersmeetup.com/scholars/...

@[email protected] @[email protected] ​see also guitarists who play fretless guitars and adjust tuning on the fly. Humans do some pretty amazing things on occasion.

@[email protected] @[email protected] ​omniscience vs. the right to data deletion could keep a lot of lawyers rich for a very long time

Peace and joy to y'all. And merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate!

@[email protected] ​Hope you're managing to recover - reality connection glitches are right up there on the not at all pleasant scale.

@[email protected] ​of course, this is the same school of pedantry that will try and tell you that you're using the 'wrong' names for types of swords as if there's a central historical authority rather than each author going 'I'm gonna call these ones long because I feel like it'.

@[email protected] ​If you ask the wrong type of pedant, they'll tell you (for even more confusion) that it's only a whetstone if you use oil on it, otherwise it's a water stone. "don't oil up that water stone, and especially don't get the whetstone wet!"

That feeling when you realise tab didn't complete the filename you thought and that you've just tried to open a 30gb file on a USB drive in vi over an ssh connection.

I suspect that people making physical components with care and precision that they know will never be seen, and will be noticed only in the absence of problems coming from them, most have a similar experience. You feel pride in the job well done, but it is also somewhat anti-climatic when you look at the finished product.

There's this weird moment in refactoring code, when after hours/days of redesign, changes, and testing you bask in the glow of a job well done and all the improvements you've made... before running the code and seeing absolutely nothing different in how it functions from the outside because that's what refactoring means.

I think I've nearly taken enough stimulants to be able to catch up some sleep #adhd #insomnia

@[email protected] @[email protected] ​see also: a greener developer would assume that this is obviously a bug in the compiler because the behaviour is so inexplicable, but my senior software developer humility teaches me it is surely my mistake

Some (most?) days teaching students to code is uplifting, feels worthwhile, and gives everybody involved a sense of satisfaction.

Other days you discover one of your students hasn't been able to press "enter" for the last 2 lessons because they rethemed their keyboard and the theme turned the enter key into an image of a teapot.