Attempt Number 1 - When downloading the installer from Black Magic website and trying to install it normally I ran into a bunch of library errors. The advice I read was to move out some deprecated libraries, but that was a no go.

cd /opt/resolve/libs
sudo mkdir disabled-libraries
sudo mv libglib* disabled-libraries/
sudo mv libgio* disabled-libraries/
sudo mv libgmodule* disabled-libraries/

Attempt Number 2 - Installing from AUR (sudo yay davinci-resolve-studio) my laptop would eventually churn away but just die while trying to install qt5-webkitengine.

After several failed attempts I was able to manually install this dependency using:

MAKEFLAGS="-j6" yay -S aur/qt5-webengine

The MKFLAGS option limited it to fewer processes. The advice I read was 2 gigs for every processor. So in my case 6 cores ~ 12GB (16GB ram total).

However then trying to just install davinci-resolve-studio resulted in this error (I still had the davinci resolve installer, in the same folder I was running my install from):

==> Retrieving sources...

  -> Downloading DaVinci_Resolve_Studio_20.3.1_Linux.zip...

curl: (3) URL rejected: Bad file:// URL

==> ERROR: Failure while downloading file://DaVinci_Resolve_Studio_20.3.1_Linux.zip

    Aborting...

Found this advice which looked to have resolved that:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/davinci-resolve-studio.git
mv DaViniResolve*zip davinci-resolve-studio
cd davinci-resolve-studio
makepkg -si

My installed version and the one from the AUR were the same it just required some finessing which looks to have worked.

Posting this in case I gotta do this over again and in case and of ya’ll run into this problem.

Take, for example, my 7 year old recently falling into deep cataclysmic despair, where he questioned the fairness of his younger brother getting just a few more minutes of screen time. Never acknowledging the circumstances that led to him getting the additional 4 minutes and 30 seconds of Bluey in the first place - spoiler it was his battery.

But never once thinking that him even having a tablet of his own in the first place was monumental, or appreciating the hour or so of screen time he was enjoying prior to it being so egregiously shut off, let alone recognizing that the screen time he was so heartbroken and agonizing over was during a drive out to a family resort up in cottage country for a weekend away.

And therein I saw a glimpse of myself, of my own emotional fragility, as someone who I sometimes find complaining and commiserating over all of life’s injustices that I may at times feel burdened with, all the while living with more means than most turn-of-the-century monarchs. Living a life that is safer, more stable, and by all measures better than most could even dream of in parts of the world today. Occupying a reality that would exceed even the dreams of most who ever lived in our short but vast human experience.

It’s here that I think of that 7 year old crying, where I recognize and see my own flaws and am reminded of my own ingratitude and lack of perspective. At least, in his defense, he’s only 7.

The 4th branch of government, the media / A propaganda machine that’s spreading lies to the youth, see / White supremacy on the rise, it’s no mystery - Immmortal Technique, The 4th Branch

Ya’ll know the age ol’ saying - “If it walks like Nazi, tweets like Nazi, salutes like a Nazi, then it’s probably just an autistic duck high on ketamine.”, or something to that effect?

Elon Musk had an interesting choice of gestures during his speech at the Trump inauguration.

Many in mainstream media have raised an eyebrow at what they’re deeming to be an innocuous gesture, referencing the controversy surrounding it without actually suggesting what the gesture itself may be. Leaving it to bozo’s like myself on social media to call it for what it was, a Nazi Salute. Historians specializing in Nazi Germany, all saw it as a Nazi salute. Nazi’s and white nationalists from all over the world seem to think it was, yet there are those who really insist on giving Elon the benefit of the doubt here. It seems like no one wants to say or suggest he’s a Nazi out loud any more, well at least not since him and his boy Trump got elected in December.

The ADL had no problem suggesting he was antisemitic back when he tweeted - “You have said the actual truth”, in response to a tweet decrying the erasure and hatred towards white people by Jews.

The ADL at the time added this to a string of complaints that they had about Musk and his platforming, and also lack of censorship of white nationalists, and antisemitic rhetoric. In this case Jonathan Greenblatt CEO of the ADL decried Musk’s tweet saying -

Yet, after Musk got in trouble for what those defending him alleged to be a “Roman Salute” at the Trump inauguration the ADL seemed to have softened its tone on Musk posting -

The ADL giving Musk a hall pass was interesting considering the tension between the two in the past, but I’m sure an election and his proximity to Trump have nothing to do with it. The ADL wasn’t alone in giving Musk a free pass on the matter. Israel’s Prime Minister took a break from leading his genocide and bombing of Gaza to tweet -

Maybe if this gesture was a first, it would be easier to look past it, but this seems to be on par with Elon these days. For a guy who’s not racist and loves everyone, it would seem off brand that Musk recently also endorsed the AfD, a far right nationalist party in Germany, posting -

Even more recently speaking at their rally in Germany.

The AfD is best known for their hate of immigration into Germany, particularly Muslims. With one of their core policies being the fight against the “Islamization” of Germany. They’ve adopted a very “German” first approach. Sounds a bit similar to another historic German first party back from World War 2. But we’ll exclude those guys for now, who oddly also opposed the rise of a different ethnic group within Germany.

But maybe there’s just some other policies that the AfD has that Elon really agrees with. Even though he’s spoken at length about countries losing their cultural identity because of immigrants. Speaking at a conference in Italy he spoke at length on a panel that immigration policies directly lead to cultural erasure particularly of Europeans.

But maybe there’s other policies outside of the popular ones. Like maybe they also believe in baking cookies on Sundays or something. Having a political opinion or agreeing with some policies apart from the nationalist ones doesn’t make one a Nazi or fascist does it?

I mean there’s also the case of Musk’s support for Tommy Robinson. A far-right activist, (that’s what they call racists so to avoid defamation), who’s currently serving a quick jail stint. Robinson similarly has a disdain for a particular ethnic community having founded the EDL, who oddly seem to have a particular uniform shade of white to them.

Maybe Elon just hates Muslims, and immagrants or as his proponents may argue is just keen on maintaining a historic race unformity to not just these particular countries, but Europe as a whole. Which I guess that suggestion alone kinda seems a bit, how the kids would say, nazi-ish…

Or maybe he is just a quack?

Twitter wasn’t and still isn’t much better with its own insane encoding and unless you pay for premium is also limited in many of the same ways as BlueSky is currently.

Luckily at least for now I found this script to be decent enough at re-encoding vids for BlueSky:

ffmpeg -i <input> -vcodec libx264 -crf 28 -preset medium -acodec aac -b:a 128k -t 60 -vf scale=1280:720 <output>

• scales video down to be 720p - not a requirement but helps get the filesize down.
• limits the output to 60 seconds (BlueSky’s current limit)
• should produce a file < 50mb (Current limit)

Can add it to your shell as a function with the following:

bluesky_video() {
    local input="$@"
    local output="$input.bsky.mp4"
    ffmpeg -i "$input" -vcodec libx264 -crf 28 -preset medium -acodec aac -b:a 128k -t 60 -vf scale=1280:720 "$output"
}

add it to your .basrc or somewhere and then just run bluesky_video <input>.

They say, “The bridge is over, the bridge is over” Nah, this is a time we destroy and rebuild it - Nas - Destroy And Rebuild

The Liberal Party of Canada aka The LPC aka Trudeau’s Band of Malevolent Miscreants is set to hold a caucus meeting this Wednesday, preceded by regional meetings on Monday and Tuesday. Sources à la the gossip mill on social media suspect Trudeau may finally be taking his exit cue as Party leader by mid week.

For anyone who’s been following this dumpster fire as it’s been flowing down river, it all came to a head when Freeland dropped her bombshell of a 2 week notice, stepping down as Finance Minister and leaving cabinet. No longer wanting to peddle any more feel-good anecdotal band-aids aka the miniscule $250 relief stipend to Canadians that was to come in her suspected budget update.

Since then we’ve seen MPs from all across Canada rally together, creating petitions asking the PM to resign. Now rumors of both Freeland and even Mike Carney making phone calls to gather support for becoming the next leader of the Party are all over Bluesky and Twitter.

Regardless of which Russian doll becomes the next talking head and leader of the party, the LPC is in fact doomed for failure. There’s no conceivable outcome, no leader, no Liberal savior who can right this ship to defeat Poilievre, who just last week amassed over 30 million views in an interview with famed whimpering psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson.

It’s times like these when I really question the Ottawa bubble that MPs and leaders live in. Which brilliant minded politician thinks that now is the time to take charge of the party? I think anyone wanting the job thinking they’d be able to course correct in the polls and give the party a fighting chance should be automatically disqualified from any public position on sheer grounds of mental instability.

Freeland or Carney both making calls wanting MP support to become leader should have us questioning their rationality, and existence on this mortal plane.

Parliamentary democracies are a funny thing in general. Having this snake eating its own tail charm to them. Regional MPs get elected and the party with the most MPs forms government, but each MP’s ability to get elected really rests on who they have as the head. So while interim leadership hopefuls all scurry around garnering support to be the leader from MPs, it’s the MPs in the end whose fates rest on whether that leader can then deliver them back their seat. Which sadly none of the current prospects or any that are willing to be put on the table can or will.

So the party’s search now becomes who is the least combustible prospect. Not that any of these leadership hopefuls can stop the fire, but rather who can wane the flames just enough to save a sitting MP from needing to update their LinkedIn profile.

Back to my original question of which competent and medically cleared sane puppeteer would want to take on that role? Which sane leadership hopeful is willing to pitch the “ya we’re going to lose, but at least I might be able to save the seat up in Danforth North, or Brampton East?”

In sports there’s a term Toronto fans are all too familiar with - tanking. It’s when a team is destined for a bad season or at least doesn’t have much upside that it becomes more beneficial to lose than it does to try and win with the hopes of getting better draft picks later on.

I’m not suggesting the Liberals tank, per se, I’m just suggesting that instead of trying to fight the current, and swim against the tide, they lean into it. Double down on whatever agenda you got going, and embrace the fire you’ve already set. Lean into the ideologies and hammer at the opposition all the things you hate about them. Go out in a blaze of glory to be remembered by, because no level of course correcting is going to suffice here.

Maybe I am just a cynic wanting to watch it all burn and from the ashes await a phoenix of sorts to arise. Or maybe, I just think that the only way for the party to move forward is accept its incoming L as gracefully as it can. Continue to own its mistakes, start the farewell tour and eat the loss as humbly as a morbidly obese chicken would feed on its own kin. Leave with everyone asking, “where was this for the last year.”

Play like the team that has nothing left to lose.

TLDR; Game not launching or just crashing? Check that the hard drive it’s installed on isn’t read only.

Ran into an issue when trying to launch Marvel Rivals the game wouldn’t start. Clicking the launcher the icon would circle for a second, think, then just dissapear. No errors, no warnings just nothing.

Turns out the partition and hard drive that the game was installed on had somehow gone read-only which was responsible for the issue.

Fix was easy enough on Windows 11 and I presume Windows 10 and even earlier.

1. Figure out the disk your game is installed on you can use the disk management utility to see this diskmgmt.msc from the start menu.
2. Open command prompt or terminal in admin mode (windows key + x -> Terminal (Admin) )
3. Launch disk partition diskpart
4. If you don’t know your disk # from Step 1 you can enter LIST DISK to get all the current disks
5. Enter SELECT DISK <DiskNumber>
6. Remove read-only attribute ATTRIBUTES DISK CLEAR READONLY (on older versions of windows it maybe READ-ONLY)

In my case this was enough to fix the game and get it going.

Related Notes:

• https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/usb-this-disk-is-write-protected/09c31158-ee9a-441a-8a2f-390932d29b1f

From Compton to Congress, set trippin’ all around
Ain’t nothin’ new, but a flu of new Demo-Crips and Re-Blood-icans
Red state versus a blue state, which one you governin’?

• Kendrick Lamar, Hood Politics

This post was originally labeled Technology is Political. I tried my hardest to defend the title as it wasn’t meant as rage bait, but I couldn’t. No matter what words I tried technology the bits the bytes, they don’t care. The protocols don’t give a shit what color sport jacket you wear to the polls, or whether an elephant or donkey are your spirit animals.

SMTP, TCIP, FTP they don’t care what your beliefs on the traditional family or abortion are. Technology is as apolitical as it comes.

Platforms on the other hand not so much.

Platforms have seemingly gotten more and more political over the years.

Politics for me isn’t just the policies or team we donate to every four years. My definition of politics here is the culmination of values that we hold, that are reflected in the technological platform choices we adopt and make. Whether directly through our wallet, or indirectly through our time and engagement.

The inherent politics of platforms has become more obvious in recent times. Certain platforms make it obvious where they are on the spectrum. No one’s confused about whom rumble or truth social cater to. Nor, what side of the aisle the user bases of Bluesky or Mastadon stand. Implicit political biases and stereotypes exist for the crypto crowd.

AI and the various entities in the space have raised the ethical and moral quarries surrounding art, creativity and fair use. Once again testing our values around human creation vs the various commodification of such talents. Testing what we believe is fair game vs copywrite infringement. How we view a chat bot responding to questions on information its digested from newspapers, and encyclopedias vs an AI that we task with making an illustration in our favorite artists style.

Whether we value privacy, security and transparency vs simplicity, connectiveness and costs. Which ones we truly hold close vs those that are nice to haves become apparent when we choose what platforms we endorse.

A lot of these choices aren’t as soul crushing or character defining. Valuing privacy while also wanting to be able to share and interact with my parents when opting for WhatsApp over Signal.

While others are - opting to post solely on Rumble over YouTube. Whether as a means of free speech puritanism or censorship avoidance, we get an idea of what you might be saying or the audience you’re trying to attract, depending on where your content lives.

Opting to self host your content at the detriment of its reach vs posting on centralized platforms at the detriment of your control, is in itself a political statement of sorts. Wanting to avoid any co-ownership of the content to the likes of Meta, Google or X.

Adopting a blockchain vs a relational database may not be a value call but rather an imposition of the product - the choice can challenge ones values of privacy, censorship, moderation and control. Do we favor government and regulations vs independence and a completely wide open free market open with all its faults and shortcomings?

Flights towards or away from platforms tend to happen when the algorithms and our core values come at odds. Sikh organizations urged users to avoid Meta’s platforms when Zuckerberg’s relationship with the Ambani’s came to light during the farmers protests. Elon admitted that they’ll censor content at the bequest of governments as the operational cost to do business in those places. Youtube whole heartily complies with nations when content is geo-banned to avoid any issues with advertisers in those regions.

Libertarians flocked towards the blockchain and cryptocurrency after the 2008 financial crisis reared its head and governments were bailing out predatory lenders. Wanting monetary instruments that followed rules and governed by unbending laws etched code and not just the whims of bankers and political profiteers. Yet what was once a libertarian wet dream of fiscal independence from a corrupt cash printing machine became the home of grifters and snake sales men selling you meaningless NFT’s and tokens that got the SEC excited.

Twitter users constantly jump towards alternatives when Elon does Elon type things.

Even Tesla comes under value scrutiny when people question the leaders political allegiances to their own. What was once a darling of the left for its environmentalism as it moved us away from fossil fuels, the same technology began to be viewed in a harsher light when Elon shifted more politically right and we started to question the materials and environmental impact of batteries and capacitors.

Certain political ethos are engrained in the way technology and software are produced and shared. Open source and the free software movements of the 70s and 80s adopted a counter culture of the the closed source proprietary formats and patent stacking of big corps. A political movement that formed the bedrock of *nix operating systems, and the core of most of our modern software stacks and protocols.

Valuing communal efforts and lifting the restrictions on sharing knowledge and data vs valuing the black boxing and ownership of it.

Sure bits and bytes don’t discriminate, but the way technology and platforms define us is hard to hide. Whether its the algos that influence us or the audiences we hope to reach with them. In my opinion we should be open to at least admitting as much, since these days its pretty apparent.

So no - technology isn’t political. Protocols don’t give a shit on how they’re used or who uses them. But the platforms we adopt, the audiences we grift towards and cater too, and chase, well ya that’s all political and like our friends can start to paint a pretty broad picture of us and what we believe and value.

Food was hit or miss depending on the restaurant, but Eduoado’s cafe for breakfast, brunch and lunch was always consistently good.

The people were super nice and the island was easy to commute.

San Nicolas

San Nicolas is a bit of dichotomy. The city itself felt a bit desolate compared to every where else we had been on the island, while also featuring some of the best art.

There’s a mural ally about 3-4 blocks wide with some amazing work. Obviously this meant that I had to pose up against it and take selfies.

Arikok National Park

We had originally planned to spend an entire day out at the park checking out both the natural pools, but our schedule got shifty and we ended up cramming in both snorkling and the park in the same day.

Leaving the park for the afternoon we weren’t able to hit up the pool and in hindsight don’t feel like we missed out. While I’m sure the pools would have been nice I’m not sure I’d have been up for the 30 minute unpaved ride towards them and back out.

The Quadirikiri Cave and Fontein Cave’s though were super dope to check out. Saw a few bats scurrying around in the shadows which is a bit eery but otherwise a super surreal site with the way the light broke back into the caves.

Mangel Halto

In hindsight we should have probably come hear earlier on in our trip since this beach was way better than I expected.

Mangel Halto came heavily recommended by our snorkling guide. It’s smaller than the other beaches but it being 30 mins away from the hotel strip also meant it was a lot quieter.

The water wasn’t near as deep, being like knee high for a good 50 yards so its a nice little wading beach.

They had some kayak tours going out when we were hear which actually looked like fun.

Final Thoughts

The hotel strip gets pretty busy so if you can its worth getting away from there.

Aruba really made me appreciate round-a-bouts. They’re way more efficient than lights. I doubt Brampton could ever figure these out, but I’d take roundabouts over lights any day. Not sure how pedestrian friendly they are but that’s for the city planners to figure out.

Eduardo’s was 🔥🔥.

San Nicolas was a nice drive and I think worth checking. Caves were my highlight.

But really I was just there to hang out and enjoy the sun and company, so just enjoying the pool at our rental house felt nice.

“I’m living in the future so the present is my past” - Kanye West, Monster.

I want to say Platforms ruined the internet, but that would be a pretty bold lie. Yet, it’s definitely how I feel sometimes.

They defintiely changed how we interact with the internet though. Made things more convenient and more accessible. Made it so Grandma could easily navigate and view pictures of her adorable snotty nosed grandkids. Read and share posts on the latest in propagandic folklore and comment on the most rage baiting posts without needing to learn how to setup an RSS aggregator.

Reducing the friction for creators to get their content in front of an audience. Changing virality from being something that was just happenstance to something that could be formulated to boost average watch time, shares and interactions.

Platforms all but removed the need to understand egress bandwidth or worry about available hard disk space when posting media online.

Removed the need for businesses to pay for someone to design, host, and maintain a WordPress instance that would eventually fall prey to a 0-day exploit in some nitwits SEO plugin.

Platforms did a lot of great in helping people spend more time connecting. Allowing people to share the latest in gossip, rumors and their own malformed opinions and less time worrying about the security of their FTP accounts.

If it wasn’t for platforms - legacy media and journalist’s wouldn’t have to compete with Larry the cable guy for breaking news, and advertisers would be forced to target quality content and not just write a blank cheque to Google or Facebook.

Platforms made it possible for, RealMan251202 , to educate us on the perils of feminism, or DonkeyDix10201, to debate immigration policy with experts.

We no longer need to belong to 30 different phpBB forums, to constantly tell people that they’re dumb and to use the search feature before posting.

Yet besides all of that, I still miss the chaos of the old internet. The randomness of coming across a site filled with gems. For all it’s flaws, all of it’s technical gatekeeping, I miss it, and sometimes wish we could just go back.

I’m still here, and I’m still going back to the basics / Real hip-hop in the matrix - Nas, Stillmatic

Once upon a time a long, long time ago I had a little corner of the internet where I would post my random thoughts, musings, inspirations and ideas, and low and behold people actually kinda fucked with me.

This was in a time before Facebook, twitter or tumblr. The wayback machine can attest to such an existence. A time when most people in our community had little idea of what a blog was or why anyone would be bold enough to post anything online.

Eventually life took over and the thought of writing essays online seemed trivial. The age of twitter was upon us and I could spit the bones of my message in 255 characters or less and feel just as accomplished.

By this time I also had a lot less to say, and found myself happy enough to just share a gif that best expressed my opinion or thought on things.

In the years since; I’ve dabbled with podcasts, streaming and YouTube. I even made several attempts at posting and bringing this site back to life only to watch the “I’m back” post rot with mould as it remained the sole post on here. Eventually leading me to just want to burn it all down and start again a few years later.

Yet here I am once again, trying to satiate this itch and express why this time is different. So here it be -

I’m tired of what platforms like twitter have become. Rage baiting click farms with the lone purpose of inducing as many impressions for next to no gain.

Playing to the algo with a convoluted 🧵’s that are more annoying than a classic buzz feed article.

I miss my little uninterrupted soap box.

Writing still remains my favourite medium to convey my thoughts and locking any of this unfettered gold felt wasteful.

Will anyone actually find any of this? Let alone spend the 5 minutes to read it? Probably not. The internet is a much bigger, noisier place and I self admittedly bring nowhere near the value most these big brained alpha male sarbloh mindset types have to share. Let alone the historic street cred.

Just a dude on the internet who misses talking his shit and tired of confining that shit to any single platform.

Obviously that also means there’s zero audience since inherently blogs are dead, at least those that exist in the empty void that isn’t medium, or substack. But I miss the wild west empty void that the internet once was, and maybe just maybe I’ll say something of some relevance that will strike some old flaying memory as someone stumbles upon this and thinks, “oh ya I remember that guy.”

Lastly, it’s a hope that maybe I can share a pearl of wisdom that my kid or a kid can come across and be able to reconnect with who I was, even if just for a fleeting moment.

Or maybe I’m just bored and get off on writing word salads that impress no-one but make me smile knowing the synapses in my brain can still fire off and form a decent sentence. Either way no matter what the content I make is, it almost always starts with a few thoughts and some words, so here I am sharing those words.