Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 23/09/2026Tinkering with #Minecraft mod ideas… here's a proof-of-concept for "chalk", a colour-absorbent block, just for fun. This is at 10x speed. It might be too much calc and data for actual large-scale use though. 000
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 12/08/2026I did try to like her music; she's clearly talented. I really like her song about turkeys, though. 010
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 12/08/2026I think they see Coke Zero as a variant of Coke Lardarse, perhaps to eventually replace it. Diet Coke, on the other hand, is considered a separate product: different flavour and recipe for a different demographic, meant to complement the original, not replace it. 020
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 23/07/2026Also added _Beacon Obscura_ and _Fire Sprinklers_… building up a little collection of low-effort server-side-only mods to scratch itches. 000
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 23/07/2026I wish he'd see it and try it out, but he's one of those creators that does his own ideas. Thing is, coincidentally this basically _is_ his idea, and I'm not precious about it. I just want Minecraft Villagers to not suck. Anyway, just submitted it to Modrinth anyway. 100
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 23/07/2026Hmm. In www.twitch.tv/videos/28224... (1h46m onwards) @grianmc.bsky.social talks about his proposal for improving villagers. It's pretty much the same idea as my "Trade School" proof-of-concept mod.twitch.tvProbably playing video games - grian on TwitchTwitch is the world's leading video platform and community for gamers. 100
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 02/07/2026Apparently, the Twin Prime Conjecture is not only false but _trivially_ false. Google's AI once again so confidently incompetent, and utterly oblivious. I don't seem to get this kind of crap from other AIs nowadays. Claude seems to have some humility, but Gemini's hubris is off the charts. 000
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 26/06/2026Can’t seem to get them here in the UK, but last week I almost bought a mini-split with a plan to literally hang it out the window, but with the heatwave imminent I just threw money at Amazon for the inefficient single unit thing they could ship me next-day. After all, I use it maybe 10 days/year 010
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 26/06/2026Well, I was going to suggest that a video stream might be a good idea. For the algorithm, that is. YouTube’s a bit funny that way. 010
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 25/06/2026Hmm. Never noticed this before. Custom colour palettes for Terminal․app profiles in macOS are spelled with "Colour" rather than "Color". Must be a subversive developer at Apple. 000
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 25/06/2026Still playing with this idea of teaching stuff to Minecraft villagers. 100
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 23/06/2026Of course, it would be better if Mojang just added it to the main game. It's such an obvious thing to do; low risk, low impact, all win. 000
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 23/06/2026Thought of a clever little Minecraft hack this morning to make it possible to disappear beacon beams using tinted glass (while still keeping the effects) solely on the server; no client-side mods needed. Honestly I was surprised it worked. github.com/tomgidden/mi... 120
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 27/05/2026I just realised who Elijah Wood now looks like: Rachel Dratch in the unaired pilot of 30 Rock. 000
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 15/04/2026Reminds me of this story from the redoubtable @xenasolo.bsky.social: "I remember that one time at a bar when a drunk Australian man tried to guess my ethnicity…"tiktok.comI guess we have different coping mechanisms #fyp #foryou #fypシ #easterneuropean #west #storytime #japanTikTok video by Xena 000
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 13/03/2026I think it’s just that he doesn’t understand being loyal; of course he understands others being loyal to him, but he has no concept of being loyal to anyone or anything, including America, or even his family. Complete narcissist. 010
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 10/03/2026Thanks… I actually needed reminding, and now realise I'm parched. ADHD, dammit. 010
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 06/03/2026My Dad taught computing and had a LOT of nice historical equipment hoarded away, but it all predated public-use internet, and with all telephone calls (even local) being metered in the UK, BBSes, etc. just didn't get any traction the way they did in the States. 010
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 06/03/2026I was back from Uni for the summer and had to dig through old kit in my parents' attic to get online… persuaded my tutor to arrange Uni dial-up not usually allowed to undergrads. Wrote it up for extra credit when I got back! The person I was trying to contact on ICQ hadn't set up IRC at the time 100
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 06/03/2026I've accessed ICQ over an acoustic coupler running 1200/75 baud, using a client machine I'd previously loaded software on from paper tape. I can't say it was a fun experience. 120
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 04/03/2026My position: everywhere should use UTC+0 and adjust business hours accordingly, probably splitting the difference between the current summer and winter times. Biannual clock changes are bad, and apparently lead to fatal accidents. 100
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 04/03/2026My kid's school starts at 8.25am. I mean, it'd be insane to try to start at a crazy time like 7.55am. How could they possibly cope with such arbitrary numbers? 100
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 04/03/2026What gets me is when they start saying this is for the sake of farmers, so they get the maximum amount of sunlight. Y'know, the whole world went to shit once we gave cows wristwatches. 000
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 14/02/2026That's the one thing I'm probably most annoyed with Biden and co about: after Trump's first term, was _anything_ done to stop future presidents from making the same abuses of power? 010
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 14/02/2026I keep wondering what the fundamental constitutional flaws which have now come to light that need fixing are… powers that assume an ethical president. What would be the most urgent new amendments, to "never again" Trump? Is anyone really planning this? 110
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 14/02/202624 months on Monday. I assume the UK Foreign Office wanted to be absolutely sure before they, y'know, accuse Putin of breaching the Chemical Weapons Convention. And, he's not getting any deader, so better to take the time to dot the "t"s and cross the "i"s. 000
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 27/01/2026I've fallen back into the dot-space-space habit again. So, fifteen years on, I've updated "Space Honker" to v0.2, a little macOS menu-bar app that honks when you type dot-space-space. github.com/tomgidden/sp... 000
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 15/01/2026I wish they'd at least put a bridge and extra PCIe socket on all PCIe HAT+s so they can be stacked. 010
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 15/01/2026Yeah, not good. I'm running my AI HAT+ Pi on a fairly fast Crucial USB SSD, and it is noticeably slower than the otherwise identical M.2 HAT+ Pi next to it. It's also just more _fragile_… a dangling SSD, or a card that wears out, esp. after huuuge LLM downloads and updates. 100
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 15/01/2026So we're meant to load LLMs from an SD card? I'd hope they'd learn since the previous AI HAT+ and put an optional NVMe slot and appropriate bridge on it. Roll on a hypothetical Pi 6 with an NVMe slot… 160
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 25/12/2025More detailed "manifesto" in the README of github.com/tomgidden/mi... -- plus a Fabric release for 1.21.11, in the "Releases" tab. (Use At Your Own Risk, Your Mileage May Vary, Don't Blame Me For Anything, etc.) 000
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 25/12/2025I'm not sure there's any demand for a mod like this, but it's scratching my own itch. I'm sick of the random re-roll grind for a librarian trading hall, and the Villager Trade Rebalance experiment looks woefully half-assed in design. I agree with the exploration focus but their solution sucks. 000
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 25/12/2025As I've pretty much zero experience with writing Minecraft mods, and my Java coding has been dormant for… um… about 25 years, the mod's a bit of a mess. I've had a lot of help from Claude, so I want to go through it all carefully. 100
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 25/12/2025…unless the book/item has "Curse of Copyright", which allows the use of the book for enchanting gear, but not for teaching villagers how to make the book. 100
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 25/12/2025Oh, and nerfed re-rolling trades by breaking the lectern... a villager's trades are seeded by their UUID. So, to get decent enchantments, you have to explore/adventure/archaeologise, but then can bring the books home and teach librarians in a trading hall… 110
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 25/12/2025This works for librarians, armorers, smiths and fletchers, all able to learn enchanted (and trimmed) items. Enchantments can only be learned to the level of the villager, so a Novice given an Unbreaking 3 book will only learn Unbreaking 1. 100
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 25/12/2025Made my first non-trivial Minecraft mod… a proof-of-concept alternative to "Villager Trade Rebalance", where rather than that biome-based mess, now Librarians (and other professions) don't produce enchantments by default, but when an enchanted item is picked up, they "learn" how to make it… 210
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 08/12/2025Maybe they reckon they've still got some unused credit on their bribe… with the Trump loyalty card, your fifth bribe is free! 000
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 02/12/2025"The survey of 2,000 people found that 44% [clearly didn't have a fucking clue and probably didn't understand the question anyway]" 101
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 06/11/2025I've identified those as superellipsoids before, but… WTF is a squircle? 000
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 28/10/2025"Physician, fuck thyself." -- Luke 4:23 (New Chronic Pain Edition) 010
Tom Gidden @gid.cx · 23/10/2025Silver lining: Human-shaped robots inevitably turn on their creator first. 010
