Quickies

Less Interaction Is Sometimes Better

Since people don’t seem to be interacting too much nowadays with the comments (or the Webmention feature), I’ve decided it’s time for them to go away. If you still want to drop me a line, you can always write to me on the guestbook, or drop a line over email. Peace!

#site update

by Andrei on 2025-06-23 · 🌐

Kino - Спокойная ночь Live 2021

youtube • video ID: LGFOkToQbRk

click image to load player

Today, Viktor Tsoy would have celebrated his 63rd birthday. While no longer in the physical plane of existence, his legacy lives on.

by Andrei on 2025-06-22 · 🌐

Linkin Park - The Catalyst

youtube • video ID: bftTUAIVMUQ

click image to load player

God save us, everyone
Will we burn inside the fires of a thousand suns
For the sins of our hand, the sins of our tongue
The sins of our father, the sins of our young? No!

by Andrei on 2025-06-15 · 🌐

1957 Ferrari 625 TRC Spider

Yum. source

by Andrei on 2025-06-12 · 🌐

Dire Straits - Where Do You Think You’re Going?

youtube • video ID: LROnjfhnZMo

click image to load player

Where do you think you’re going?
Don’t you know it’s dark outside?
Where do you think you’re going?
I wish they’d care about my pride

Where do you think you’re going?
I think you don’t know
You got no way of knowing
You got no place you can go

I understand your changes
How long before you reach the door
I know where you think you’re going
I know what you came here for

And now I’m sick of joking
You know I like you to be free
Where do you think you’re going?
I think you’d better go with me, girl

by Andrei on 2025-06-11 · 🌐

Using Xbox Cloud Gaming on Steam Deck

youtube • video ID: RjTgQaocG90

click image to load player

Since people are “celebrating” the release of the Nintendo Switch 2, I also remembered that you can use a SteamDeck to set up ~~Xbox Cloud Gaming~~ Xbox Remote Play*, so you can play the games from your Xbox on the go. The process involves installing the Edge browser, adding it to Steam, and running a specific command in the terminal and customizing the Steam shortcut.

Just in case the video ever gets down, the terminal command that you need to run is:

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flatpak --user override --filesystem=/run/udev:ro com.microsoft.Edge

and the thing you need to append to the launch options of the shortcut is

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--window-size=1024,640 --force-device-scale-factor=1.25 --device-scale-factor=1.25  --kiosk "https://www.xbox.com/play"

FYI, while playing from at home I had no issue while playing a game (which I will review soon) and Forza Horizon 3, 4 and 5, and as long as the game is not extremely fast paced, the latency is decent to very good, depending on the title.

*PS: While Steam Cloud Gaming is only available in a very small list of countries, you can use Xbox Remote Play everywhere, which is what I wanted actually in the first place.

by Andrei on 2025-06-07 · 🌐

Fast Editing MKV Titles

A few days ago I had to break apart some episodes of Top Cat from the uncompressed Blu-Ray rip to individual MKV files that can be read properly by Plex Media Server (as it’s not working with BDMV folders).

1. Install mkvtoolnix, using the instructions from their Downloads Page

As I’m using Ubuntu 18.04 Server on my home server (if it ain’t broken, why change it?) so I used the respective commands:

_You first have to import my public GPG key because all of my pools are signed. Run this once: _ sudo wget -O /etc/apt/keyrings/gpg-pub-moritzbunkus.gpg https://mkvtoolnix.download/gpg-pub-moritzbunkus.gpg

Then

deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/gpg-pub-moritzbunkus.gpg] https://mkvtoolnix.download/ubuntu/ bionic main deb-src [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/gpg-pub-moritzbunkus.gpg] https://mkvtoolnix.download/ubuntu/ bionic main

And then the only things left to do are to run sudo apt update followed by sudo apt install mkvtoolnix mkvtoolnix-gui (I skipped the second package as I’m on the Server variant, so I don’t need a GUI)

2. Create a .sh script in the directory with the MKV files

touch fix_metadata.sh vi fix_metadata.sh

and added this content:

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#!/bin/bash

# This script takes all mkv files in the current directory and sets the filename
# (without .mkv) as its title in metadata

for mkvfile in *.mkv; do
    mkvpropedit "$mkvfile" -e info -s title="${mkvfile%.mkv}"
done

Then you just need to make the file executable and run it:

chmod +x fix_metadata.sh ./fix_metadata.sh

And presto! Each file should have the title set like the filename (so Top Cat - 01x02 - The Maharajah of Pookajee.mkv will have the title “Top Cat - 01x02 - The Maharajah of Pookajee” and generate this fairly generic output:

The file is being analyzed.
The changes are written to the file.
Done.

And this is it!

by Andrei on 2025-06-06 · 🌐

Nintendo Switch 2 is out

Unless you’re living under a rock, the entire Internet is buzzing around the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2. So basically, you get a SteamDeck that:

Has no OLED screen
Is severely underpowered
Is completely locked
Sells you the same games over again
Is costing 80+ euros per game
Has no music player
Has no internet browser
Has no apps for streaming services (or Plex 🏴‍☠️)
A device that’s over 520 euros and is not a computer

by Andrei on 2025-06-05 · 🌐

99% of internet traffic is spam

And 99% of that 99% spam is usually retarded AI startups scrapping the internet training their retarded LLM. Here’s a list of the IPs and classes I’ve already blocked in the last month alone, as defined in my goaccess.conf file (as of June 2nd 2025).

Click to open the list

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exclude-ip 217.113.194.1-217.113.194.255
exclude-ip 136.243.0.1-136.243.255.255
exclude-ip 20.171.207.1-20.171.207.255
exclude-ip 8.29.198.1-8.29.198.255
exclude-ip 57.129.81.1-57.129.81.255
exclude-ip 37.27.0.1-37.27.255.255
exclude-ip 149.50.0.1-149.50.255.255
exclude-ip 71.215.0.1-71.215.255.255
exclude-ip 193.160.0.1-193.160.255.255
exclude-ip 3.200.0.1-3.255.255.255
exclude-ip 102.129.252.182
exclude-ip 103.181.183.61
exclude-ip 104.154.68.190
exclude-ip 107.173.226.148
exclude-ip 124.150.139.38
exclude-ip 128.199.220.117
exclude-ip 13.127.125.177
exclude-ip 13.212.177.200
exclude-ip 13.212.34.72
exclude-ip 132.145.29.111
exclude-ip 138.199.22.237
exclude-ip 138.199.29.246
exclude-ip 138.199.31.235
exclude-ip 143.244.57.120
exclude-ip 143.244.57.121
exclude-ip 143.244.57.1-143.244.57.255
exclude-ip 146.70.194.1-146.70.194.255
exclude-ip 147.182.233.43
exclude-ip 154.16.192.243
exclude-ip 157.230.252.53
exclude-ip 157.245.147.236
exclude-ip 159.89.207.69
exclude-ip 160.154.212.64
exclude-ip 160.154.88.249
exclude-ip 178.239.163.94
exclude-ip 18.206.221.53
exclude-ip 181.214.218.159
exclude-ip 185.44.78.108
exclude-ip 196.251.117.94
exclude-ip 196.251.69.1-196.251.86.255
exclude-ip 198.44.189.174
exclude-ip 204.10.160.214
exclude-ip 209.38.29.200
exclude-ip 217.146.82.198
exclude-ip 34.207.203.93
exclude-ip 34.29.118.193
exclude-ip 4.255.247.224
exclude-ip 43.134.71.209
exclude-ip 44.244.202.5
exclude-ip 54.196.155.135
exclude-ip 54.214.54.161
exclude-ip 54.254.186.35
exclude-ip 82.102.18.1-82.102.18.255
exclude-ip 82.64.2.141
exclude-ip 84.17.35.29
exclude-ip 84.17.51.11
exclude-ip 84.247.181.144
exclude-ip 85.203.15.95
exclude-ip 85.204.70.1-85.204.70.255
exclude-ip 85.204.70.1-85.204.70.255
exclude-ip 95.214.54.184
exclude-ip 137.220.0.1-137.220.255.255
exclude-ip 155.159.0.1-155.159.255.255
exclude-ip 94.130.0.1-94.130.255.255
exclude-ip 104.234.204.61
exclude-ip 154.83.103.1-154.83.103.255
exclude-ip 155.94.155.2
exclude-ip 164.92.73.143
exclude-ip 167.71.225.50
exclude-ip 170.39.217.204
exclude-ip 170.39.217.236
exclude-ip 179.43.188.122
exclude-ip 185.93.89.97
exclude-ip 193.225.121.1
exclude-ip 146.70.186.1-146.70.186.255
exclude-ip 204.8.98.1-204.8.98.255
exclude-ip 144.76.32.1-144.76.32.255
exclude-ip 216.73.216.0-216.73.216.255
exclude-ip 193.32.126.140
exclude-ip 216.39.248.51
exclude-ip 3.107.192.137
exclude-ip 34.162.1.245
exclude-ip 34.162.1.1-34.162.255.255
exclude-ip 45.144.212.204
exclude-ip 49.12.241.36
exclude-ip 64.227.167.93
exclude-ip 66.212.18.223
exclude-ip 78.153.140.1-78.153.140.255
exclude-ip 82.102.17.123
exclude-ip 92.204.144.151
exclude-ip 94.156.227.201
exclude-ip 144.76.0.1-144.76.255.255
exclude-ip 128.199.0.1-128.199.255.255
exclude-ip 138.197.0.1-138.197.255.255
exclude-ip 138.68.0.1-138.68.255.255
exclude-ip 139.59.0.1-139.59.255.255
exclude-ip 142.93.0.1-142.93.255.255
exclude-ip 143.110.0.1-143.110.255.255
exclude-ip 146.190.0.1-146.190.255.255
exclude-ip 150.241.0.1-150.241.255.255
exclude-ip 157.245.0.1-157.245.255.255
exclude-ip 159.65.0.1-159.65.255.255
exclude-ip 159.89.0.1-159.89.255.255
exclude-ip 164.90.0.1-164.90.255.255
exclude-ip 164.92.0.1-164.92.255.255
exclude-ip 165.227.0.1-165.227.255.255
exclude-ip 167.172.0.1-167.172.255.255
exclude-ip 167.71.0.1-167.71.255.255
exclude-ip 167.99.0.1-167.99.255.255
exclude-ip 178.128.0.1-178.128.255.255
exclude-ip 185.196.0.1-185.196.255.255
exclude-ip 185.224.0.1-185.224.255.255
exclude-ip 193.41.0.1-193.41.255.255
exclude-ip 195.178.0.1-195.178.255.255
exclude-ip 206.189.0.1-206.189.255.255
exclude-ip 206.81.0.1-206.81.255.255
exclude-ip 207.154.0.1-207.154.255.255
exclude-ip 209.38.0.1-209.38.255.255
exclude-ip 209.97.0.1-209.97.255.255
exclude-ip 38.47.0.1-38.47.255.255
exclude-ip 44.211.0.1-44.211.255.255
exclude-ip 45.148.0.1-45.148.255.255
exclude-ip 46.101.0.1-46.101.255.255
exclude-ip 64.225.0.1-64.225.255.255
exclude-ip 64.226.0.1-64.226.255.255
exclude-ip 64.227.0.1-64.227.255.255
exclude-ip 68.183.0.1-68.183.255.255
exclude-ip 78.153.0.1-78.153.255.255
exclude-ip 20.171.207.1-20.171.207.255