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shit that doesn't fit anywhere else

infrequently asked questions

"infrequently"?

Because no one has actually asked these questions, I just felt like clarifying on some aspects of this website. And perhaps myself.

what is that symbol?

It's the "place of interest" symbol - most people would know it as that one key on Apple keyboards. Well fuck Apple, I don't care about that crap. Here's the Wikipedia article for it: clicky. Long story short, it was first used to be carved on whatever you wanted to protect, but over time it started to just be a general symbol for "hey there's something neat here". And that fits pretty damn well as a general symbol for the concept of "miscellany". So there you go.

what happened to the old site?

If you were even there at all, this site did not look like this initially - there was an older iteration that... had a bunch of other stuff and had a less consistent design philosophy. The tl;dr of why is I simply was not satisifed with how much of a fucking mess the site had become and how inconsistent everything was and I thought some of the things I did there was stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. So I burnt it all down (backed up the data somewhere else) and started anew, with the intent of giving the site a more consistent look overall, but also being more PURPOSEFUL in what I put on here instead of strewing shit around everywhere like it's no one's business.

More specifically, I wanted to "borrow" the least amount of assets as possible from other sites where I can help it - this includes HTML code and images most of all. All of the pixely icons/images you see are made by myself, and everything in the gallery consists of my own screenshots. Really, the only things I DIDN'T make here is all the songs in the audio page (duh), and the fonts, and if we REALLY wanna get technical, the page background is a screenshot, the 404 page image is a NASA screenshot of Fomalhaut, and the page's main logo is a heavily edited picture of the moon during a lunar eclipse (not that you'd be able to tell), combined with a certain instance of iconography from RubyQuest. Also that's "moon" in hexadecimal by the way. I think that's everything. Yes yes.

what is the page background?

It's a screenshot from Radiohead's Kid A Mnesia Exhibiton, a digital museum that you can explore for FREE right here! It's a hell of an experience. The screenshot specifically is, I believe, from the sequence that happens inside the red pyramid, with "How To Disappear Completely" playing in the background. It's the highlight of the whole experience - I will not spoil more than that, because it's something you should witness for yourself.

social media presence?

"Presence" is an overstatement.

Twitter is pretty much a right-wing Nazi dumbass wasteland from what I've seen nowadays - people who might have actually something interesting to say are now buried under the bluecheck garbage & spam. The site was inflicted with a cancer that could not be excised and now it's dying horribly and there is nothing that can be done to save it. Just turn off the life support already.
People tried to migrate to Newgrounds but uh, it's Newgrounds. It's a flash game website to me still, not a social platform.
I've still heard absolutely nothing about Pillowfort lately, so it might as well be a dead platform to me.
Cohost has officially died as of recently. Add another tally to the number of social media sites we've outlived.
The Fediverse is still kicking from what I can tell, but it doesn't feel "safe" enough for us to be on, so it's a no-go.
I - Lyra, that is - have an account on Tumblr and regularly visit it... against my better judgment. I'm like the mold living in Tumblr's walls. I don't got anywhere else to go, and while it is a nightmare transmisogyny hell, at least the shitposting is of the highest quality.
We are still on Discord but we don't really give it out to just anyone.

So, uh... this website is mostly all we've got, actually! The general decline of the internet's quality has driven us out of every single possible home we could have, to the point where we straight up just do not have anywhere to call "home" anymore. This is the only thing we have left now - the only proof that we still exist, the only remaining record of our life.

And for something that is trying to revive the "indie" web, Neocities feels... very, very lonely. Maybe that'll change soon. I'm not getting my hopes up.

what is the history of this site anyway?

version 1: many years ago, on an entirely different Neocities account. I worked on it for maybe 10 minutes before giving up because HTML was too complicated for my peanut brain and it served no use whatsoever. It had literally no content whatsoever on it. I don't think anyone even SAW it.

version 2: An actual attempt at making a website. Many things were learned and I sort of just puked up whatever I thought might be interesting on it (kinda like I'm doing now, except I'm doing it better because future me is cooler). The site got like one or two makeovers and it was not terribly well designed. Something worth mentioning is the time I did an entire new layout for the website based on some obscure PSX game called "Starfighter Sanvein" that I was obsessed about for maybe like a week. It was kind of hidden though and ultimately VERY janky to set up.

version 3: What you are currently witnessing is this. A more consistent theme. Less clutter. More of an actual vision.

where is akane?

Unavailable for the forseeable future. She's still around, but she's taking an indefinite break from everything. I'm the custodian of the website now, so to speak.

notes on simon tatham's puzzles

Simon's page doesn't provide guides on these so.
Simon Tatham's Puzzles

black box

"RHR" means there is a ball directly in front of the one marked "H".
This game doesn't seem terribly complex even on higher difficulty levels. It's just a matter of following each hint you have.

bridges

3 with two possible directions: at least 1 in each direction
4 with two possible directions: two bridges on each direction
5 with three possible directions: at least 1 in each direction
6 with three possible directions: two bridges on each direction
7 with four possible directions: at least 1 in each direction
8 with four possible directions: all double bridges

cube

I fucking hate this type of game.

dominosa

Doubles are easiest to figure out first.

In a situation like the above, the only possible positions for this 5-5 domino is from the top-left 5 and then either down, or right. In other words, it cannot ever go up or left;

fifteen

I fucking hate sliding puzzles.

filling

Obviously don't connect two numbers together if the area would be bigger than the requirement.

flip

I fucking hate Lights Out puzzles.

flood

Still haven't figured this one out yet. It's so stupidly simple, but I'm sure there's some way of figuring out the right path. Main thing to keep in mind, I think, is not to pick the same color too often. Try to get as big of a "reach" towards the bottom-right corner as possible as early as possible.

galaxies

Simpler than it actually sounds. Some of the shapes can get real weird. "Unreasonable" difficulty is actually quite easy.
Consider dots that are placed against the edges of the puzzle - they won't be anything but single squares or straight lines, because if one direction isn't available to them, then neither is the opposite of that direction. Easier to do if you take out all those limited dots first, then try to make shapes as big as possible with the rest.
Here's me solving a 15x15 Unreasonable - the video rendering got completely fucked up but hopefully it still provides some insight:

guess

AKA Mastermind.

I'm going to use the six standard colors. Like a fucking nerd, I'll also call "correct color correct position" a "critical", "correct color wrong position" a "hit", and "wrong color wrong position" a "miss".

Start with RED - RED - RED - RED. If you get lucky, that will turn out to be the code and you win instantly. Yay!
If not, count the amount of crits you got (you'll never get a "hit" with just one color) - keep that many REDs on your guess. Then replace the other colors with the next in line. In the example I'm using, I got one crit, so the next guess should be:
RED - YELLOW - YELLOW - YELLOW
My example says 1 crit, 1 hit. So now we have one RED and one YELLOW, but it's not clear which spots they are in. Keep one RED and one YELLOW. Next guess:
RED - YELLOW - GREEN - GREEN
0 crits, 3 hits. The third color is GREEN, and all three known colors are for sure in the wrong place; GREEN is in either slot 1 or 2, RED is in either slot 2, 3, or 4, and YELLOW is in either 1, 3, or 4. Next guess:
GREEN - RED - YELLOW - BLUE
4 crits! So that was not a very good example because it ended pretty quick - what if you're not that lucky?
Just keep using the above process to first eliminate which colors there are, and then when you no longer have any misses, use your previous guesses to deduce what the correct order for everything is. Let's try another example using this process:
RED - RED - RED - RED ; 1 crit 0 hit 3 miss
RED - YLW - YLW - YLW ; 0 crit 2 hit 2 miss
YLW - RED - GRN - GRN ; 2 crit 0 hit 2 miss
YLW - RED - BLU - BLU ; 2 crit 0 hit 2 miss
YLW - RED - ORN - ORN ; 3 crit 0 hit 1 miss
YLW - RED - ORN - PRP ; 2 crit 2 hit 0 miss
YLW - RED - PRP - ORN ; 4 crit 0 hit 0 miss

inertia

No real strategy to this one. Feels like one of those flash games. Just look carefully at where you're going, especially diagonally.

The "wall" in the bottom-center tile will not stop you. You will keep going into the bottom-right tile.

The "wall" in the bottom-right corner will stop you. You will stop in the center tile.

keen

Similar to Killer Sudoku - numbers can only appear once in each row/column. Except you have to do math in this one, to satisfy the clues in each "cage". I can't believe it. A Sudoku type that actually DOES require math. They were right. Shit.
Different from Killer Sudoku, however, is that cages can have multiple of the same number AS LONG AS they aren't in the same row/column.

light up

loopy

There is for sure a strategy to this one, I just don't know it yet.

magnets

How do they work?

This one is a bit hard. Haven't quite figured it out yet.

map

Simon claims this puzzle is "unique" and that he's never seen it anywhere else - well I have, and I don't think it's unique either. There's definitely puzzles of this exact kind somewhere out there. But I digress. I haven't found a real strategy for this one yet.

mines

It's Minesweeper.
Authoritative Minesweeper's guide

mosaic

Not sure about this one.

net

I don't think there's any real strategy to this one, just trial and error will eventually solve anything.

netslide

Why. Why are there so many sliding puzzles.

palisade

Not sure about this one.

pattern

It's Picross AKA nonograms.
Thonky's very simple guide on nonograms

The nonogram puzzles generated in Simon's version are just that - randomly generated. Pre-made puzzles often represent an object of some kind, others can be symmetrical - those would give you an edge, but not here. Also - every nonogram should (in theory) be solvable without having to guess. So if you're resorting to guesses: don't. You may have missed something.

pearl

pegs

Peg Solitaire. You are probably familiar with the cross or triangle variants - the other randomly-generated ones are beyond me though.

range

Known also as "Kuromasu" or "Kurodoko". I haven't figured out the strategy for this one yet.

rectangles

Known also as "Shikaku". Looks deceptively simple - Nikoli's website claims the puzzles have some kind of logic to them but I've yet to really figure it out.

same game

I don't know the logic to this one. I swear I've seen this one before (perhaps on Blinde Kuh pre-shittification).

signpost

Never seen this one before. It's pretty unique though.

Looking at the original German website's description of this, they have a few rather basic strategies for this puzzle, and I'll include some of mine:
- Look for arrows that only point to a single tile. If the field were divided into progressively smaller "rings", starting from the "outside", they are almost exclusively on "ring" 1 and 2.
- Also look for tiles that only point towards one valid tile. If, say, you have an arrow from one sub-chain pointing to one unknown tile, and another arrow of the same sub-chain, that unknown tile is its real destination - you cannot form loops in this puzzle.
- Look for arrows that only *have* one (valid) arrow pointing towards them. Use the dashed line option on mobile to see from where any given arrow is being pointed to - SHIFT on desktop.
- Check the known existing numbered arrows first. They are easier to work with - sometimes you'll find one numbered arrow pointing to another non-consecutive numbered arrow, which can narrow down its possible destinations to just one.

singles

Also known as "Hitori". Wikipedia's article on it has some solving strategies: here

sixteen

I hate sliding puzzles so goddamn much.

slant

Also known as "Gokigen Naname". Wikipedia has strategies for this one, too: here

solo

It's Sudoku.
Sudoku.com's rules and hints (ignore the stupid stock music-ass videos just read the text below them)
You're probably aware of the basic rules already, but the obvious singles/doubles/triples strategies, and pointing pairs/triples can be very useful once you learn them.
X-wings and Y-wings are 400 IQ shit but can be useful in a pinch.