Marcus
LightNews LightNews
gerowen.bsky.social
Marcus
@gerowen.bsky.social
1.3K followers 78 following 980 posts
• Privacy, open source software, cybersecurity, self-hosting/homelab and tech enthusiast
• Father, husband, occasional gamer
• Website: https://marcusadams.me
• Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@gerowen
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
gerowen.bsky.social
Marcus @gerowen.bsky.social · Aug 10
Reminder that I post to #Mastodon more than I do here. The greater character limit, the ability to edit posts if I make a mistake and the audience in general makes it a better experience for me than #Bluesky, so follow me there, 🙂

Link: mastodon.social/@gerowen

RSS: mastodon.social/@gerowen.rss
Marcus Adams (@[email protected])
6.12K Posts, 382 Following, 766 Followers · • Privacy, open source software, cybersecurity, self-hosting/homelab and tech enthusiast • Father, husband, occasional gamer
mastodon.social
gerowen.bsky.social
Got stuck on the four kings a while back so I had put Dark Souls down for a bit. Picked it back up today on my #SteamDeck and despite being rusty on the controls, was able to finish the four kings on my first try, and beat Lord Gwyn on my second try.

Link: youtu.be/4449YeUjraE

#Gaming
Defeating Lord Gwyn - Dark Souls Remastered
YouTube video by Marcus Adams (Gerowen)
youtu.be
December 17, 2025 at 7:34 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
#SteamReplay 2025 is available. How did you do?

Link: s.team/y25/cdjpkgt

#Gaming #PCGaming
One of the images available to download that summarizes my Steam Replay 2025. Listed stats are: 73 games played 404 achievements 681 sessions 23 new games The games shown at the bottom for most playtime are, in order: 1) God of War: Ragnarok 2) Dark Souls Remastered 3) Hogwarts Legacy 4) Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age 5) Hollow Knight
December 17, 2025 at 12:51 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
Headline: #Amazon pulls #AI recap from #Fallout TV show after it made several mistakes

Source: www.bbc.com/news/article...
Amazon pulls AI recap from Fallout TV show after it made several mistakes
The errors included getting dialogue wrong and incorrectly claiming a scene was set 100 years earlier than it was.
www.bbc.com
December 12, 2025 at 11:32 PM
gerowen.bsky.social
Headline: Hogwarts Legacy is free for PC gamers on the Epic Games Store

Source: www.neowin.net/news/hogwart...

#Gaming #PCGaming #EpicGames #HogwartsLegacy #HarryPotter
Hogwarts Legacy is free for PC gamers on the Epic Games Store
The Epic Games Store has begun a massive giveaway, letting PC gamers claim Hogwarts Legacy by Avalanche Software for no cost.
www.neowin.net
December 12, 2025 at 11:31 PM
gerowen.bsky.social
Can confirm, the complete installed size of #Skyrim Special/Anniversary edition with all the creation club content installed is only 32 GB on PC.

Headline: Players report major issues with #Switch2 Skyrim port, #Bethesda responds

Source: www.neowin.net/news/players...

#ElderScrolls #Gaming
A screenshot of the installation details for my GoG copy of Skyrim. (Installed via Heroic)
December 11, 2025 at 10:08 PM
gerowen.bsky.social
Giving #AI agents actual access to your computer is a disaster waiting to happen.

Headline: #Google's AI Deletes User's Entire Hard Drive, Issues Groveling Apology: "I Cannot Express How Sorry I Am"

Source: futurism.com/artificial-i...
Google's AI Deletes User's Entire Hard Drive, Issues Groveling Apology: "I Cannot Express How Sorry I Am"
The Google Antigravity AI agentic screwed up big-time — but was very contrite about its blunder nonetheless.
futurism.com
December 8, 2025 at 8:38 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
#Wordle has started trying to show me #ads, and it's adorable, lol.
A screenshot of a blank white screen with a small label that just reads, "Advertisement". It's a placeholder alt text that I see because I use an ad blocker.
December 7, 2025 at 10:14 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
Here we go again.

Headline: #Cloudflare: 'Large number of empty pages' on several websites after internet outage

Source: news.sky.com/story/cloudf...
Cloudflare: 'Large number of empty pages' on several websites after internet outage
The web infrastructure company said at around 9am that it was "investigating issues with Cloudflare Dashboard" after reports of "a large number of empty pages".
news.sky.com
December 6, 2025 at 9:12 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
#FreeBSD15 has released.

Headline: #FreeBSD 15 trims legacy fat and revamps how OS is built

Source: www.theregister.com/2025/12/05/f...
FreeBSD 15 trims legacy fat and revamps how OS is built
: Project retires 32-bit ports, embraces pkgbase, and modernizes build process
www.theregister.com
December 6, 2025 at 3:53 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
Headline: #Google ‘Looking Into’ #Gmail Hack Locking Users Out With No Recovery

Source: www.forbes.com/sites/daveyw...

#Privacy #Security #CyberSecurity
Google ‘Looking Into’ Gmail Hack Locking Users Out With No Recovery
Google is 'looking into' a devastating Gmail attack that locks users out of their accounts with no way to recover.
www.forbes.com
December 6, 2025 at 2:20 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
Today I discovered #PieFed. It's a link aggregator like #Lemmy or #KBin ( Which has become #MBin ?), and it federates with those services, but has its own take on the user experience that I actually quite like.

Link: piefed.social

#Fediverse
PieFed - Explore Anything, Discuss Everything.
[Client apps for PieFed](https://piefed.social/post/1258559)
piefed.social
December 4, 2025 at 1:58 PM
gerowen.bsky.social
Headline: #FreedomMobile discloses data breach exposing customer data

Source: www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/securit...

#Privacy #Security #CyberSecurity
Freedom Mobile discloses data breach exposing customer data
Freedom Mobile, the fourth-largest wireless carrier in Canada, has disclosed a data breach after attackers hacked into its customer account management platform and stole the personal information of an...
www.bleepingcomputer.com
December 4, 2025 at 1:49 PM
gerowen.bsky.social
Well this is certainly interesting. #Microsoft's #security controls do seem have stopped whoever/whatever it was and I've gotten back in after resetting my password, checking the recovery email, etc.

I have noticed however that, unless they've moved it and I haven't found it yet,
A screenshot of a message window that says: We can't sign you in You've used an incorrect account or password too many times. If it's an organization account, it might not be active yet.
December 3, 2025 at 3:15 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
If you've been running #Debian for a while and been doing in-place upgrades, you might want to do a clean install. I use LUKS encryption on my laptop and whatever version I originally installed only gave 512MB to /boot so I've been getting warned during kernel updates about it being full.

#Linux
My Debian desktop.
December 2, 2025 at 8:01 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
Just wrote a blog post about dual booting #Windows and #Linux.

I may see about putting it on my Wordpress later, but it's on Substack for now at:

Title: Thinking of Trying Linux? Don't Dual Boot

Link: open.substack.com/pub/gerowen/...
Thinking of Trying Linux? Don't Dual Boot
My perspective on a brief history of Windows, and how Windows is breaking computers if you try to experiment with competing software.
open.substack.com
November 29, 2025 at 10:24 PM
gerowen.bsky.social
If you've been using #Handbrake to transcode content into #AV1 and struggling with banding in low contrast areas or film grain being butchered, this is how I solved it.

- CRF 20
- Preset 3
- Add "only" this additional option: enable-variance-boost=1
- Make everything 10-bit, even 8-bit content
November 29, 2025 at 7:26 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
Apparently the original #CallOfDuty Black Ops still has some players online. Been playing it a little the past few nights. Captured this on my #SteamDeck.

#Gaming #PCGaming
November 25, 2025 at 7:34 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
Title: Proprietary Media Codecs and Their Direct Impact on Your Freedom

Link: gerowen.substack.com/p/proprietar...

#AV1 #HEVC
Proprietary Media Codecs and Their Direct Impact on Your Freedom
Hardware support for some media is being removed from devices, so if you're a self-hosted media connoisseur you might want to take heed.
gerowen.substack.com
November 25, 2025 at 3:53 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
#TheDailyShow has rolled together a lot of their #Epstein coverage into a single video.

Link: youtu.be/73mj2AzOL5U
Trump Falls Deeper Into the Epstein Scandal & Not Even MAGA Can Save Him | The Daily Show
YouTube video by The Daily Show
youtu.be
November 25, 2025 at 1:03 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
I've been tinkering and decided to swap out my #PiHole for an #AdGuardHome installation. #AdGuard has a few more niceties in the user interface, like ready made checkboxes to block a ton of services for the kids' devices without having to manually create my own domain lists.

#Networking #Privacy
November 23, 2025 at 11:36 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
Headline: #CalyxOS progress report — signing, team capacity, and more

Source: calyxos.org/news/2025/11...

#Android
CalyxOS progress report — signing, team capacity, and more
CalyxOS progress report — signing, team capacity, and more
calyxos.org
November 22, 2025 at 11:18 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
Headline: Lindsey Graham is outraged about federal #surveillance powers that #LindseyGraham helped create and expand

Source: reason.com/2025/11/19/l...

#Privacy
Lindsey Graham is outraged about federal surveillance powers that Lindsey Graham helped create and expand
The government can look at your phone records whenever it wants, but it's a different story when we're talking about Graham's metadata.
reason.com
November 22, 2025 at 9:59 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
Headline: #Gmail can read your emails and attachments to train its #AI, unless you opt out

Source: www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/20...

#Google #Privacy
Gmail can read your emails and attachments to train its AI, unless you opt out
A new Gmail update may allow Google to use your private messages and attachments for AI training. Here's how to turn it off.
www.malwarebytes.com
November 22, 2025 at 9:50 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
Nobody has explained why, but the running theory is that it's because of H.265 licensing costs. This affects hardware accelerated playback. Kinda glad I've been migrating to #AV1.

Headline: #HP and #Dell disable #HEVC support built into their laptops’ CPUs

Source: arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025...
HP and Dell disable HEVC support built into their laptops’ CPUs
HEVC licensing gets more expensive in January.
arstechnica.com
November 22, 2025 at 9:34 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
Humans are the weakest link in #cybersecurity.

Headline: Oops. Cryptographers cancel election results after losing decryption key.

Source: arstechnica.com/security/202...

#Cryptography
Oops. Cryptographers cancel election results after losing decryption key.
Voting system required three keys. One of them has been “irretrievably lost.”…
arstechnica.com
November 22, 2025 at 9:23 AM