Using Google Assistant with Habitica

So here’s what I did instead of finishing part two of my video game post (or doing FPG work) last night: I got a little service in place so that I can use Google Assistant to add tasks to Habitica, my (adorable) task tracking system.

I quite often think of to dos while I’m driving, and haven’t had a good way to get them into Habitica. They’re often quick, contextual thoughts that won’t stick around, like a reminder to check if there’s a Beat Saber map for a song or artist I’m listening to, or a note to check out a game from a podcast I’m listening to.

It’s best, of course, if I don’t have to touch my phone at all to get the task in, which rules out voice-to-text keyboards. Google Assistant and IFTTT are natural components to make that happen, since I’m an Android user.

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Delightful Games to Play (Part 1)

Video games are a pretty huge part of my life. I endeavor to make them. I stream them, both for my monthly Future Proof Plays streams and some on my own. Gregory and I have a standing Saturday morning date to play something before the world begins its demands on our time. I also play quite a lot on my own, although admittedly more in depth than in breadth.

I’m often eager to fall in love with a game, especially a game that might land the two objectives I talk about in my Paradise Killer post. As a result, this list of kinda-sorta-okay-definitely-favorites is:

  1. Unsorted,
  2. Pretty biased towards recently-played games,
  3. Has no games I “appreciate”, but don’t actively enjoy playing, and
  4. Sometimes explicitly about the game design, but often about my own emotional reactions

Hot Blog Summer is all about hitting the damn publish button, so this is being split into (at least…) two parts so that each can stay a little meaty.

I’m going to try not to be spoilery here, but leave a comment if I fuck up.

Continue reading Delightful Games to Play (Part 1) →

The Facts and the Truth are Not the Same – Paradise Killer Almost Gets There

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There’s a certain kind of game that I’ve become very into in the last few years. These are games that are investigative or explorations of knowledge and that bring one or two important things to the table:

  1. They’re definitely going to examine the broken-ass structures of the society they’re set in, and
  2. They might offer up a way to break, reshape, or recreate the society to be not-terrible.

The first gets me to play a game with gusto. The second makes the game perfect.

Paradise Killer is an outstanding game by Kaizen Game Works in which you play Lady Loves Dies, a disgraced immortal investigator let out of prison to determine who murdered the head of an immortal broken-ass oligarchy running a broken-ass pocket universe society in which humans are abducted from the real world and used as fodder to attempt to resurrect their old gods.

It’s one of my favorite games, period.

Much like the islands in the game, however, it is not perfect.

Beware, all ye who enter. Spoilers lie ahead, and this is a game with some real good revelations in it as you play. This doesn’t include anything from the 2022 expansion, which I haven’t played yet.

Continue reading The Facts and the Truth are Not the Same – Paradise Killer Almost Gets There →

Network Routing and Automation Fun with pfsense, Wireguard, and Tasker

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Last year, I asked about some very specific home network routing ideas over on reddit, with the goal being to securely access home network resources from my phone while away from home while maintaining some coverage from my 3rd party VPN provider, Mullvad. The faster and more automated any network switcheroos are, the better.

This post is… very long. Here’s a table of contents in case you only care about parts of it:

  1. Reqs and Specs
  2. Prerequisites
  3. Wireguard In, Wireguard Out
    1. Basic Interface Structure
    2. Mullvad Wireguard Tunnels
    3. Gateway Group
    4. Interface Group
    5. Firewall (Routing)
    6. Test!
  4. At-home Mullvad Wireguard on Android
  5. Tasker
  6. Open Issues
    1. Detecting Wifi Disconnection in Tasker
    2. pfsense/Mullvad Instability
  7. What’s Next

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Where am I?

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So… I’m writing again, and partaking in a little summer writing project (coined “Hot Blog Summer”) with my partner Dr. Lucy. Good gravy, folks, the amount of plugin clean-up I had to do to get this and my next post out is wild. 😅 While I’m editing my first meaty post, here’s how you can find me these days:

Mastodon

I’m over at irrsinn.life/@melissa, posting about Beat Saber, other games I’m playing, a bit of social justice stuff, and tech. Come chat with me there. I really don’t spend much time on Twitter these days aside from Future Proof Games work and folks I get push notifications for.

Continue reading Where am I? →

taking joy in human unreason