My mind is like a
goldfish's floating in a
bowl of glass and water.

Bye

I forgot to work on anything today! Figures.

If there were monarch
A monarch of laziness
I'd be king on throne.

Bye

I didn’t have the post that I wanted to publish out today, but I hope to have it by tomorrow!

My website is a bit of a mess, and I hope to fix that up over the coming months. A couple of days ago, I updated the home page to look a bit more attractive. Now, we just need to make it cluttered again.

Recently, Robb Knight added some 88x31 buttons to his own website. These kinds of buttons originated from Geocities. Geocities offered free web hosting provided you put an ad to their main site on yours, which was just the following 88x31 animated GIF.¹

People began designing their buttons to put on other sites to match the Geocities button. That has led us to today. 88x31s are still around, so let’s add a few!

Yeah i got lazy today but it’s all on the homepage now! I promise to have a better blog post tomorrow!!!

Footnotes

So, I’m setting myself a challenge. Publish at least one blog post every day in 2024¹, no matter how stupid or silly or dumb it is. If I actually do it, that would be a miracle.

And yes, this article counts²

Footnotes

Anyway that’s it for this short update!

Footnotes

This guide assumes you already have an Ubuntu server running with connection to the internet, and access to a terminal on the server. If Java isn’t installed, you may also need root access (though this mightn’t always be the case).

Installing Java

Before we download Minecraft, we need to set up Java. If you already have Java 17 or 8 installed, you can skip this step

If Java isn’t installed, or the Java version isn’t 17 or 8, you’ll need to install the correct Java. As Minecraft 1.17 and later require Java 17, we can install that in Ubuntu using apt:

sudo apt update # Apt may not find the package for Java otherwise
sudo apt install openjdk-17-jre-headless

If you’re using a Minecraft version before 1.17, swap out Java 17 for Java 8.

You might have an issue with multiple versions of Java being installed. You should check what version you have with java --version, which should return something like this:

openjdk 17.0.9 2023-10-17 # or 8.X.X if you're using a Minecraft version before 1.17
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 17.0.9+9-Ubuntu-122.04)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 17.0.9+9-Ubuntu-122.04, mixed mode, sharing)

If it shows a different version, for example Java 11, we can change what version java maps to with update-alternatives. Run update-alternatives --display java to get output like this:

java - manual mode
  link best version is /usr/lib/jvm/java-17-openjdk-arm64/bin/java
  link currently points to /usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-arm64/bin/java
  link java is /usr/bin/java
  slave java.1.gz is /usr/share/man/man1/java.1.gz
/usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-arm64/bin/java - priority 1111
  slave java.1.gz: /usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-arm64/man/man1/java.1.gz
/usr/lib/jvm/java-17-openjdk-arm64/bin/java - priority 1711
  slave java.1.gz: /usr/lib/jvm/java-17-openjdk-arm64/man/man1/java.1.gz

Make note of the path that has java-8 or java-17 in it. Now we can change the Java version using the following command, replacing the path to Java with the one you made note of earlier:

sudo update-alternatives --set java /path/to/java/17/bin/java

Java should return the correct version now.

Making a user

For security reasons, we’re going to give our Minecraft server it’s own user. If you have root access, this is pretty easy, otherwise ask your sysadmin for help. We’ll make a new user using useradd as root:

sudo useradd minecraft --shell bash -m # `-m` creates a folder for the new user's file, `--shell bash` gives us an easier shell to work with.

Then we’ll switch to that user using sudo:

sudo -i -u minecraft

We can then create a folder to hold our Minecraft instance.

mkdir minecraft # you can name this whatever you want, just make sure to change the examples later
cd minecraft

Setting up Minecraft

Finally, Minecraft. To get the latest version of the server, visit minecraft.net/download/server and copy the link leading to minecraft_server.1.XX.X.jar (this will differ depending on what the latest version is).

Inside your newly-created folder, run wget https://piston-data.mojang.com/server.jar, replacing the link with the one you copied. Now we can run this jar file:

java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar minecraft_server.1.XX.X.jar nogui #replace the filename with the name of the file you downloaded.

The -Xmx and -Xms arguments set the amount of RAM available to the server. 1GB is the minimum you should set, and I recommend to increase this if possible. The server should close after saying You need to agree to the EULA in order to run the server. Go to eula.txt for more info.

After reading the EULA, use a text editor like nano to modify the eula.txt file that was created in that folder, and change the line reading eula=false to eula=true.

Run the server jar again, and it should start generating a world. While it’s doing this, you should get the IP address for your server. The method for doing this differs depending on how you’re running the server. If it’s on your network, use it’s local IP. If you’re using a VPS, use the VPS’ public IP. If you’re using a virtual machine like I am, use the IP address the VM software gives you. When you put this into Minecraft, it should fill in the MOTD as “A Minecraft Server” and show 0 of 20 players, like in my screenshot. You can change all of these and more in the server.properties file.

You should be able to join the server now, and be able to run commands as op in the terminal window.

That’s the basics! There’s a lot more you can do configuration-wise, such as securing the server for opening to the wider internet or using modified server jars (Paper, Spigot, the like). Maybe I’ll make more blog posts like this one if you’ve found it useful!

Footnotes

Before I get into the list, I’d like to show my support to those in Japan who are affected by the earthquake and tsunami that is happening as I write this. My heart goes out to you.

I’m going to split this post into different sections based on each thing I’d like to do. Some of these range from “super simple” to “Bye what the fuck are you doing.”

ByeCorps IDs (tremble)

I release some projects under the name ByeCorps every once in a while. Most of the projects I’m “working” on for ByeCorps are web services, which may require accounts (like raibu.live and parked.lol).

I could make a separate account system for each service, but that just gets tiring. I’d rather have an OAuth-like¹ system in place before I need to make accounts for these because it’ll make the user experience way better if they use more than one.

I’ve already been working on it, and I’ve gotten pretty far! I’m thinking of starting fresh so the code can actually be… clean. I hope to get it out before the summertime! (doubt)

parked.lol, lol

Last June, Adam Newbold had a brainwave: a fun parking page service. We decided to do it as a joint project. He registered the fun domain parked.lol and spun up a server for it with Caddy and a basic PHP website, and left the rest to me.

Sadly, I haven’t done too much. The basic service at its core is up and running. If you point your domain at 128.140.90.164 or CNAME to parked.lol, your domain will have a basic parked page until you decide to do something with it. Some page customisation features are actually built in the backend, but there’s no way to set them yourself.

So, for 2024, I’d like to finally finish parked.lol. When I was hunting down that screenshot in the first paragraph, I found a ton of ideas for the service I’d forgotten about. Here’s a list of the stuff I’d like to make for it over the next year (if I don’t forget about it lol). Of course, this is to make it a fun service to find yourself on!

• Page customisation
• Global chatroom with your nickname and what domain you ended up on
• Minigames (maybe multiplayer?)
• “What should I put here” box
• Guestbook

If I don’t do these you can eat me.

raibu.live

In 2022, I registered raibu.live with the intention of making a service to allow someone to simulcast easily to Twitch, YouTube or an Owncast server, as well as provide an independent place to watch internet streams without tracking or ads.² As this is a big project, I’ve decided to offer several services with raibu, most of which will be free. I don’t expect to launch raibu this year, but I’d like to get free stream alerts done over the next 366³ days.

Review My Game

I got the idea for Review My Game one and a half years ago, but I still haven’t produced any episodes. I hope I can get something out in 2024. I’m estimating my game library to be over 300 games.

waves

waves is the new name⁴ for the internet radio player I’m currently developing. I plan to have the more mobile-friendly rewrite finished within a few months.

YouTube

I’ve got a few plans to make actual YouTube videos over the next year. I just don’t really have the time to write scripts, gather B-roll⁵, record the audio, edit the video then publish it.

Games

I keep getting silly ideas for video games to make, and I think instead of putting out good games I’m just going to make what I feel like making, no matter how small, and just put it out. It’s a good way to develop my skill by doing something I maybe amn’t so proud of, but it’s still goofy nevertheless.

I’ve got this idea for a game inspired by a video I saw on the Wii Ambassador program by f4mi recently where you just go around connecting people’s consoles to the internet and fighting against rival ambassadors. I think it’d be pretty funny.

Anyway, that’s everything I could think of when I was writing this. Thanks for reading, and see you the next time I post!

Footnotes

I’m going to use Python for this, in contrast with Robb’s PHP¹. I’ve kinda forgotten how to use it, so it’s good practice in my book.

Day 1

Part 1

The challenge starts with giving you getting the first and last integer from a string. The Advent of Code site gives the following example:

1abc2
pqr3stu8vwx
a1b2c3d4e5f
treb7uchet

Which result in 12, 38, 15, and 77. We then get the sum which is 142.

To reproduce this in Python, I’m going to start by making a fileinput.txt to store my input, then a script to convert this to a list, like this:

with open("input.txt", "r") as ff:
    strings = ff.read()

strings = strings.splitlines()

print(strings) # ['1abc2', 'pqr3stu8vwx', 'a1b2c3d4e5f', 'treb7uchet']

We also need to remove all non-numeric characters from our strings. For this, I’m going to use RegEx with the re module. Using the RegEx `` and re.findall(), we can remove anything that isn’t a number.

import re

with open("input.txt", "r") as ff:
    strings = ff.read()

regex = "[0-9\n]"
x = re.findall(regex, strings)
x = "".join(x)

x = x.splitlines()

print("Numbers:", x) # Numbers: ['12', '38', '12345', '7']

Note the \n in the RegEx. This preserves the newlines so we can still have our list. Then we concatenate the first and last characters of each string, then get our total using sum()

# Continuing from last codeblock
final = []

for number in x:
    final.append(int(number[0] + number[-1]))

print("Numbers:\t", final) # Numbers: [12, 38, 15, 77]
print("Total:\t\t", sum(final)) # Total: 142

Now we just have to change our input to the one given by Advent of Code, give them the total and…

Neat. Let’s go onto part 2.

Part 2

In part 2, we’re told that the word forms of numbers (one, two, three, etc.) should also be valid. So, it’s time to break out good ol’ RegEx again. I’ll use this input for testing:

two1nine
eightwothree
abcone2threexyz
xtwone3four
4nineeightseven2
zoneight234
7pqrstsixteen

This should result in 281

I’m going to do a find-and-replace on the unmodified string so we don’t need to modify our original script. My first attempt was to run something like this before the regex:

replacements = [ "zero", "one", "two", "three", "four", "five", "six", "seven", "eight", "nine" ]

for word in replacements:
    index = replacements.index(word)
    strings = strings.replace(word, str(index))

print(strings)

Which resulted in this:

/usr/bin/python3.11 /mnt/code/adventofcode/2023/01/day1.py 
219
eigh23
abc123xyz
xtw134
49872
z1ight234
7pqrst6teen
Numbers:	 [29, 23, 13, 14, 42, 14, 76]
Total:	 211

Process finished with exit code 0

Hm. The total is wrong. Why is that? Let’s see what the set of numbers should be:

numbers = { 29, 83, 13, 24, 42, 14, 76 }

So the issue seems to lie with the line eightwothree. The words eight and two share a t, which is causing confusion. Eight should be the first number, but my code is registering Two instead. This is to do with my find and replace strategy. In my list of numbers, two comes before eight, so the t for eight gets eaten. So I modified my RegEx to include word numbers and put the replacement code after that.

regex = "[0-9\n]|zero|one|two|three|four|five|six|seven|eight|nine"
x = re.findall(regex, strings)
x = "".join(x)

replacements = [ "zero", "one", "two", "three", "four", "five", "six", "seven", "eight", "nine" ]

for word in replacements:
    index = replacements.index(word)
    x = x.replace(word, str(index))

x = x.splitlines()

This did indeed work. Putting the required input in and……..

That’s not the right answer; your answer is too low.

Aw nuts. Why is that? Notice my replacements list. It includes zero. But the AoC website clearly says:

one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine also count as valid “digits”.

Not zero. Removing that gives me the correct an—

your answer is too low.

What. We have another bug.

Looking at the output (it’s large so I won’t republish it here), I can see there’s something not right. Take a look at this:

Numbers = [79, 83, 33, 86, 71, 24, 15, 87, 91, 24, 69, 3, 49, ... ]

Note the 3 there. this is supposed to be a list of two-digit numbers. Why is it there? It’s actually because of the same bug as before. 0 isn’t considered a valid number. Removing it from my RegEx (making it /[1-9\n]) solves the puzzle.

At this point, I grew frustrated², so I went looking for answers. Robb’s post links to Lewis’ post¹, which has this RegEx:

(?=(\d|one|two|three|four|five|six|seven|eight|nine))

This worked, and I don’t know why.

Day 2

After that, I’m feeling tired. (And I’m busy.)

I’ll do Day 2 some other day. Please remind me to!!

I haven’t been up to date on my Hemispheric Views¹ lore, but this peaked my interest. Recently, they ran a game show-style episode “Duel of the Defaults!”, hosted by Andrew Canion with the contestants Martin “Mr Default” Feld and Jason Burk², where they answer questions to find out who is the true Mr Default. (Spoiler alert: Martin won)

These have inspired me to do my own list. Enjoy!

The List

Note: I use Linux on my PC so default are… nonexistent. I’m not scoring this.

I copied the categories from Robb’s post

Mail client

• iPhone: Fastmail, Apple Mail
• Desktop: Fastmail web client, Thunderbird

Mail server

• Fastmail

Notes

• iPhone: Notes

To-Do

• Apple Reminders

iPhone Photo Shooting

• iPhone camera

Photo management

• iPhone: Apple Photos app
• Mac: Photos.app
• Desktop: What’s photo management

Calendar

• iPhone: Apple Calendar
• Desktop: Thunderbird

Cloud files

• iCloud+ (200GB)

RSS

• Akregator

Contacts

• Apple Contacts, Fastmail

Browser

• Firefox Developer Edition, Chromium (for school)

Chat

• Discord, Telegram

Bookmarks

• Firefox

Read it later

• Don’t use it
• ( though if i did then probably Safari Reading List )

Word Processing

• LibreOffice Writer

Spreadsheet

• LibreOffice Sheets or something i forgot what it’s called
• Google Sheets

Presentations

• Microsoft PowerPoint

Shopping list

• N/A

Meal planning

• N/A

Budgeting and personal finance

• KMyMoney

News

• Twitter probably

Music

• Apple Music, Internet radio

Podcasts

• Overcast

Password management

• 1Password

Footnotes