Marcus
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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
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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
US citizens and/or current or former US government employees; id\.me and login\.gov both support #passkeys. Login\.gov files it under "face or touch unlock" instead of calling it passkeys, but it did properly trigger the popup from KeePass.

#Security
A screenshot of the Passkey management block on the id.me website. It shows that passkeys are "very strong security" and can be used with va\.gov, ssa and the IRS. A screenshot of me logging into the login\.gov website. In the foreground is the KeePass passkey window asking me to authenticate.
December 19, 2025 at 2:48 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
Turns out "Delivery Optimization" is on by default and can end up using quite a lot of system RAM.

Headline: User finds how a key #Windows 11 feature could be quietly eating lots of RAM on your PC

Source: www.neowin.net/news/user-fi...

#Microsoft
User finds how a key Windows 11 feature could be quietly eating lots of RAM on your PC
A user has uncovered how one of the key Windows 11 system services could be gobbling up lots of memory on your PC.
www.neowin.net
December 19, 2025 at 1:36 AM
gerowen.bsky.social
I grabbed the Resident Evil 4 remake for $16, 🙂

Headline: #Steam Winter Sale of 2025 begins, ushers in thousands of discounts across the store

Source: www.neowin.net/news/steam-w...

#Gaming #PCGaming
Steam Winter Sale of 2025 begins, ushers in thousands of discounts across the store
Valve has kicked off the final Steam sale of 2025, offering PC gamers thousands of games, DLC, and more to pick up at deep discounts during the Winter Sale.
www.neowin.net
December 18, 2025 at 10:45 PM
gerowen.bsky.social
Headline: #Japan needs to possess #nuclear weapons, prime minister's office source says

Source: english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/6...

On one hand, nobody should have nukes. On the other, that genie is out of its bottle, and they're right that they can't count on American protection forever. 1/
Japan needs to possess nuclear weapons, prime minister's office source says
A source within Japan's prime minister's office said Thursday that the country needs nuclear weapons, remarks that deviate from the country's long-standing non-nuclear principles and could trigger bac...
english.kyodonews.net
December 18, 2025 at 10:42 PM
Reposted by Marcus
kevinrothrock.me
if these frogs can ever grow to the size of real galaxies, they'll be completely invisible to meddling humans
December 18, 2025 at 9:50 PM
gerowen.bsky.social
Headline: North Korean infiltrator caught working in #Amazon IT department thanks to lag — 110ms keystroke input raises red flags over true location

Source: www.tomshardware.com/tech-industr...

#CyberSecurity #NorthKorea #Security
North Korean infiltrator caught working in Amazon IT department thanks to lag — 110ms keystroke input raises red flags over true location
A barely perceptible keystroke delay was the smoking gun that led to the uncovering of a malign imposter.
www.tomshardware.com
December 18, 2025 at 10:23 PM
gerowen.bsky.social
Headline: Hardware and software sales in the US last month just had the worst November since tracking began.

Source: www.videogameschronicle.com/news/hardwar...

#Gaming #Economy
Hardware sales and physical game spending in the US just had the worst November in 30 years | VGC
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 was the best-selling game of the month, while PS5 was the top-selling console…
www.videogameschronicle.com
December 17, 2025 at 10:21 PM
gerowen.bsky.social
In light of the negative review I originally gave #DarkSouls on Steam, and how much fun I had once I gave it a second chance, I decided to completely rewrite my review from scratch.

Link: steamcommunity.com/id/gerowen/r...

#Gaming
Steam Community :: Gerowen :: Review for DARK SOULS™: REMASTERED
Introduction Dark Souls is one of those games that's easy to get frustrated with. The Souls games are unforgiving. If you make a mistake, the game punishes you for it. If you don't pay attention to so...
steamcommunity.com
December 17, 2025 at 10:25 AM
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