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Chris Smith

@chameth.com

250 followers 310 following 170 posts

Software dev, board gamer, collector of many other hobbies. Web: https://chameth.com

chameth.com

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Chris Smith @chameth.com · Jun 2

New intro time, I think! Depending on where I am in my hobby-hopping cycle, I'll be posting about:

• Programming
• Video games
• Board games
• Baking
• DIY
• 3D Printing
• Electronics
• Films
• Books

Assorted favs/genres/etc: Go, FFXIV, Warframe, Cakes, Obsession, Sci-fi, Horror, LitRPG

#promosky

Reposted by Chris Smith

The Mary Rose Museum @maryrosemuseum.bsky.social · Apr 15

On the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, we thought we'd answer a question that's often asked,

"If they raised the Mary Rose, why not raise the Titanic?"

Allow our scaled diagram to explain...

A light blue diagram depicting the sea, with the water's surface at the top, and just below it is an outline of the Mary Rose, with the depth (12m, 40ft or 6.7 fathoms). There is a line showing the seabed, which takes a rapid dive into the vertical...

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Chris Smith @chameth.com · Sep 9

Thou puny weather-bitten pumpion!¬

(TIL what a pumpion is!)

Chris Smith @chameth.com · Sep 8

Made a little app that transforms all the album art for my music so it looks like it's in a CD jewel case. It makes me irrationally happy.

Screenshot from a music app playing The Emptiness Machine, from From Zero by Linkin Park. The From Zero album art is shown inside a transparent jewel case, with some small colour tweaks and other effects to make it look like it's actually inside.

Chris Smith @chameth.com · Sep 6

Last week I decided I couldn't really tell the difference between a high-quality flac and an 128kbps MP3, so I transcoded all my music to save a load of disk space.

Mistake.

It's painfully obvious whenever there's any treble. Now I'm slowly re-importing everything in higher quality.

Reposted by Chris Smith

The Louvre of Bluesky @thelouvreof.bsky.social · Sep 4

Merriam-Webster
Merriam-Webster
@merriam-webster.c... • 17h
enshittification noun | when a digital platform is made worse for users, in order to increase profits

...
Gold Yoshi @goldyoshi.bsky.social
[Screenshot of the enshittification page on Merriam Websters website. It says where does enshittification come from and the entire page is covered in ads]

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Reposted by Chris Smith

Amii Illustrates @amiiillustrates.bsky.social · Sep 3

Average doctors appointment if you’re not skinny 🙃

Funny comic strip.
Patient: my arm doc, I think it’s broken
Doctor: mhm, mhm. Alright fatty, you tried losing weight?
Illustration drawn in simplistic cartoon line art style. By Amii Illustrates

53 190 1.5K

Reposted by Chris Smith

Hella Iain @iainnd.bsky.social · Sep 1

The bank app is telling me to "tap & pay like a boss😏" and "rally my crew". I am 37 years old and you are the bank. Don't talk to me this way.

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Chris Smith @chameth.com · Sep 1

I’d drifted away from board games a bit. That turned around in August!

BG Stats Aug 2025

Plays: 175
H-index: 7
Games: 35
New: 11
Players: 151
Locations: 4
Hours: 84
Days: 30

Can't Stop: 29
Cartographers: 21
Martian Dice: 14
7 Wonders: Architects: 10
Coffee Rush: 9
King of Tokyo: 9
Flip 7: 9
Obsession: 6
Arkham Horror: Lovecraft Letter: 6

40 designers:
Andrew Looney: 5%
Jacob Fryxelius: 5%
Matt Leacock: 5%
Richard Garfield: 5%
Adam Hill: 2%.

Chris Smith @chameth.com · Aug 26

"It's no different than checking IDs at the airport". Except in your home. On a device that you own. Android used to be open...

Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · Aug 25

Google will block sideloading of unverified Android apps starting next year

Google says it’s no different than checking IDs at the airport.

arstechnica.com

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Chris Smith @chameth.com · Aug 5

Company: "We’ve revised the UI to make it more balanced, more focused, and pull in more color from your theme"

Me: *sighs, starts writing some UserCSS*

Chris Smith @chameth.com · Aug 3

Is that two separate games of Fluxx at the same time? Do you alternate between the games, or pick which one to take a move in? Seems fun!

Reposted by Chris Smith

Boonino (🎂 16th Oct) @zonino.bsky.social · Jul 25

UK users when the website asks them where they're posting from today.

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Chris Smith @chameth.com · Jul 25

Wrote a bit about getting rid of Spotify and, uh... parsing nested plist files instead.

chameth.com/escaping-spo...

Escaping Spotify the hard way · Chameth.com

chameth.com

Chris Smith @chameth.com · Jul 24

Tailscale app connectors are also very handy if you have a server in a sensible jurisdiction, and want all traffic to a certain destination to originate from there.

mary🐇 @mary.my.id · Jul 23

will this get me in trouble
gist.github.com/mary-ext/6e27b…

Bluesky's UK age assurance sucks, here's how to work around it.

Bluesky's UK age assurance sucks, here's how to work around it. - bluesky-osa.md

gist.github.com

Chris Smith @chameth.com · Jul 24

I used www.calligraphr.com to create a font of my handwriting.

They support non-renewing subscriptions, and my month just ran out. Pleasantly surprised to receive an e-mail with a data export attached. No hard sell, no dark patterns, just did the job well without trying to extort me. Refreshing.

www.calligraphr.com

Chris Smith @chameth.com · Jul 19

Yay! Subscribed, thanks for implementing it!

Chris Smith @chameth.com · Jul 17

Cool write up, I enjoyed the music one too! Do you have an RSS feed for posts? I couldn’t find a link or anything :(

Reposted by Chris Smith

Terence Eden @edent.tel · Jul 6

New blog post: Get the location of the ISS using DNS

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/07/get-the-location-of-the-iss-using-dns/

I love DNS esoterica. Weird little things that you can shove in the global directory to be distributed around the world instantly(ish). Domain names, like …

Get the location of the ISS using DNS

I love DNS esoterica. Weird little things that you can shove in the global directory to be distributed around the world instantly(ish). Domain names, like www.example.com usually resolve to servers. As much as we think of "the cloud" as being some intangible morass of ethereal Turing-machines floating in probability space, the more prosaic reality is that they're just boxen in data centres. They …

shkspr.mobi

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Chris Smith @chameth.com · Jul 4

Me: *about to do something productive*

Board game arena: "The round-robin tournament you joined and forgot about has started! You're now in 11 different games!"

Chris Smith @chameth.com · Jun 30

Yeah, I can see how it could be addictive! It's a fun little game. Except when you roll NOTHING BUT TANKS... I'm going to petition BGA to implement a dice jail 😂

Chris Smith @chameth.com · Jun 30

Ooh, some good games there. I love Space Base, and Cartographers is my most played game ever (mostly on BGA... I own a copy but much prefer just dropping pieces on the board rather than having to draw them myself!)

Haven't heard of Martian Dice before, off to the BGA tutorial I go!

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Chris Smith @chameth.com · Jun 29

I wonder how Curve pay works on the merchant/processing side… I guess it’s emulating how a physical card works, rather than the separate process Apple/Google Pay use? Which means you’d be limited to £100 transactions. Can’t seem to find any info to say either way though.

Reposted by Chris Smith

Faceless TimeTravel_0 @justa9.bsky.social · Jun 28

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Chris Smith @chameth.com · Jun 23

Picked up a new board game: Cosmoctopus, by Henry Audubon.

Just had a very enjoyable first play. It has Splendor vibes, but with more depth and a fun theme.

I'd collected 7 tentacles and was poised to win on my next turn when my opponent got their 8th and successfully summoned Cosmoctopus.

Cosmoctopus board game setup on a green play mat showing various components including purple octopus miniatures, coloured tokens, different coloured cards and a grid of summoning locations in the middle.