It's the last day before the Final Exam of the Piscine, I just validated C08 and am now doing evaluations to help my other peers, and also working on updates to this site.

I'm kinda nervous as to how hard the Final Exam will be. I have managed the previous 3 pretty well, scoring 70/100, 100/100 and 80/100. But the Final Exam is longer and split into 2 parts, which makes me wonder how the grading will differ.

Either way, the past 4 weeks have been absolutely awesome! One thing I am currently worried about besides the Final Exam: I realized that I'll have to be in the Common Core on the day of MIKU EXPO (20.11.26)

That means I will have to drive all the way to Düsseldorf literally 3 days after coming back to Wolfsburg, are we serious rn :sob:

Or there is technically the option of choosing the next kick-off date, but then I'll be returning to 42 quite a few months later than I'd wish. I guess my only option is really to dedicate a whole day to go with my friends lmao

I will have to pack because of course, for the month I have free I want to see my friends and family again. As much as I love 42, I cannot replace them.

Mixtapes has brought in 2 sponsors, which is honestly not something I expected to happen at all, so THANK YOU Jorge O. Castro and Phoebe Harris, I really appreciate your support. It seems nobody cares about my Ko-fi yet, which is alright I guess. I never expected to earn actual money from my open source hobby projects to begin with. Since I'm new to GitHub Sponsors, my first payout is on November 22nd, 2 days after MIKU EXPO. I'm so happy!!!

In my hotel room I've been eating not the most healthy ways but you know at least I survived. What carried me the most through the lonely nights in the hotel were the animes Neon Genesis Evangelion, Welcome to the N.H.K. and K-On! I also purchased the physical OMORI Manga volumes, so now I've got them all. Well at least till 3, I don't know if there's a new one but if there is it didn't release for me yet. And you might know the PS3 Fat from the last post, I've installed a total of 2 games on it right now, as I honestly didn't play as much as I expected.

Steins:Gate and Hyperdimension Neptunia were my choices. Steins:Gate is a mysterious visual novel I haven't messed with too much yet, and Neptunia.. well you might recognize the character Neptune but the game itself is rather of a niche franchise. Let me talk about it.

It's a JRPG that plays in a world called Gamindustri, which the 4 goddesses, also known as the CPUs (Console Patron Units) reign over in their islands Planeptune, Lastation, Leanbox and Lowee. Now you might wonder what the fuck I'm talking about.

The game is a parody of the 7th generation gaming industry, so Neptune is one of them that is actually based of a cancelled SEGA console, the SEGA Neptune. There are of course equivalents for other consoles, so Noire is based off the PlayStation 3, Vert is based off the Xbox 360 and Blanc is the Wii. Each of them has their own personality and fans. Just like in the real world, they are in a war known as "The Console Wars".. you can see why this is so entertaining to me right? It's literally just a bunch of personified companies fighting, a very special concept that I haven't seen before.

Besides the CPUs we of course have personified game development companies, so Compa is a clumsy nurse-in-training based off the main developers of the game "Compile Hearts", then there's IF based of "Idea Factory", the second developers of the game.

You play as Neptune, and these 2 become your party members. You were beaten the fuck out of by the other 3 goddesses, fell down from Celestia and lost your memory that way, and are sent on a quest by Histoire, a living tome that the villain Arfoire sealed away, to collect the Key Fragments and free her cause she is trapped somewhere. When you wake up you get greeted by Compa who heals you and you get to your first dungeon and fight the first enemies while learning how the game works.

Finally, when the game actually starts, in your second dungeon you encounter IF, another girl, and she joins your party. And that's honestly where my knowledge cuts off for now. But it seems pretty cool.

The main criticism is that the first game (which is what I'm playing right now) is not really a well programmed game, with many janky parts and unpolished execution, and being severely underfunded is probably the reason. Another thing some people criticize is the fanservice, and it begins with even the first section. Now I personally couldn't care less about fanservice, I don't see it as a bad thing, but just a thing you shoud be aware of if you're thinking to try this game yourself. That shouldn't discourage you from looking into it tho.

There are 2 remakes (for some reason) of the OG, Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 and the PS5 exclusive Neptunia ReVerse, that are much better in terms of stability and polish. I just chose the OG cuz PS3. Yes, that's it. If I end up enjoying the first I'll probably try the sequels.

So I've been living in Wolfsburg for 10 days as of writing this. The hotel is really nice and it's mostly quiet, I've been able to take care of myself there well too which is relieving. I even found some fellow pisciners there! Wolfsburg is also pretty nice, although some things are different in Niedersachsen comapred to where I normally live like having to show the ticket directly on entering the bus. At home we have staff walking through the bus to check the tickets directly.

The campus was only a few bus stops away, and from there I had access to pretty much everything I needed for daily necesities:

• Supermarket (Penny)
• A mall for even more stores
• Sparkasse ATM
• A bunch of restaurants

I treat myself to eating out whenever I accomplish something great from time to time, otherwise I just buy regular breakfast stuff to eat at home. I can't really cook, best I've really done is chicken nuggets in the airfryer and pizza. And let me tell you about the best part: the 42 experience.

It's so much fucking better than I expected! After verifying my ID we were told to wait in the cafeteria until everyone is done, then a presentation that was really fun showcased how the whole system works.
Then I first got actual access to the campus computers, which are iMac20,1 btw, so that's a 2020 iMac with Retina display with Intel Core i5-10500 with 8GB of RAM running a customized version of Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS, lovely!

GNOME 42 was installed here, which compared to today's GNOME 50 felt like a giant step backwards. libadwaita looked so weird back then and most apps were still GTK-3.. But I managed to rice it a bit with the user permissions we had.

The home folder is on the network and only let's me store 4GB of data, which is criminal but it makes sense, we aren't supposed to use these computers for anything but coding. Installing the Mixtapes Flatpak already ate pretty much the whole drive so I kept it minimal ..

Some things were confusing at first, like I didn't know I had to create assignment folders at first when pushing to Git. Silly mistakes. But once I've got the hang of it it went pretty smoothly.

The 42 culture is full of memes, fun events, and we all speak English, perfect for me! I love teaching other pisciners things I know already, and also finding out new things from them. This peer-to-peer learning system hits home really well. And honestly I can say that my social anxiety completely vanishes when I'm there. I just speak like it's my friends. Everyone is really nice and there's a variety of people from different backgrounds. The exercises look easy but I always mess up some small detail, it ragebaits me so hard, but it's hella fun too.

I can sit there for 7h straight without really getting bored, it's so cool! Can't wait for when I'm not just a pisciner :3

Also I had my first exam last Friday, and I got a 70/100, which is impressive for my first try. I got stuck on ft_strrev, because I was trying to assign a char from a pointer onto another pointer that reference eachother. I don't know why I didn't think of the temporary pointer idea before but now I understand what I did wrong, which is nice. So the exams really aren't punishing. You just need to read all the resources they provide you in form of the Intra page, Notion and Slack.

Looking into C beforehand was definetely helpful, as it helped me understand some concepts of the C language more when solving exercises.

I highly recommend you to try it if you're thinking about it. It's a great experience. Read more on the website of your campus, here's mine, 42 Wolfsburg

If you want to follow along with what I learned, I'm maintaining a GitHub repository with all the Shell & C Piscine Projects (except for Rush and Exam projects). You can find it here

While sitting in the hotel I found a deal for a PS3 Fat model + 2 controllers that looked almost mint, and I knew I had to get it. So I asked the seller what model it is, it's a CECHL01, which is one of the more reliable models of the Fat family due it's much more reliable 65nm CELL and RSX design, no EE+CELL tho so PS2 emulation only. I mean, if it means this baby get's to live longer who cares? You can learn more about it in the Cool Hardware document.

So it was a no-brainer not to buy it right? After all I was starting to regret not taking my PS3 Slim to Wolfsburg, so I did what I had to, and the thing's beautiful.

Soon I'll drop a CFW tutorial for people on OFW 4.93 using the new PS3Tool. It does not require installing PS3Hen or HFW beforehand, all you need is internet and .. oh. a USB flash drive which.. I didn't take with me. Whoops

Now you may ask how I solved this. It's really silly. I had my Pixel 3a running postmarketOS (apparently now rebranded to Nura? Weird name), so I made a tiny script to make it switch the USB Gadget mode to Mass Storage, then I was able to mount an empty .img file which then made the phone act as a flash drive.

Would you believe it actually worked? It actually did. But I had to change some of the hardware descriptors it emulated or the PS3 wouldn't trust it. After that tho, it just fucking worked, and that's what I used for the video. It's kind of funny but smart asf so I just wanted to tell you. I left the script in the Download Center if you also want to use your Linux phone as a flash drive for some reason.

Well, I guess I'll see you on YouTube again.. soon I hope. 42 is important too.

So it's been 4 months since I last touched the code of this website. I turned 18 literally 61 days ago as of writing this, and I'm honestly not sure how I should feel about that.

You see, my life has not been so straightforward. Something has been wrong with me. I was never able to focus on anything school related — I'd say it was boring and that I'd rather waste my time coding or playing games. It slowed me down enough that I had to repeat two years (6th and 9th), which means I've been through 3 different classes in my school life now.

My dad did take me to a psychiatrist back when I was 12, right when the symptoms started becoming a huge problem. Turns out he knew that year that I had ADHD, and rejected medication for me. I was never told what was wrong with me. I was never given any reason for the way I behaved, so I just thought I was bad at everything normal people can do.

The easy things I cannot do, and yet I can fully understand my computer, I can write code, I can get completely invested in something — it's just never something I actually benefit from. They won't hire me if I don't pass school, I said to myself. I'm worthless, I said to myself. The one thing that kept me going is the thought that I am a good listener and problem solver, keeping the people I love the most together. That was the only motivation to live I had left. If it weren't for that, I would've probably killed myself by now. Cuz I'm an adult, and I still behave like I were a child.

I had enough of school. And now that I'm 18, I was finally told the truth. Why did he leave me to believe I'm just worse than everyone all these years? I don't know, and it doesn't matter now.

It's time for change. If the regular school system was not acceptable by my brain, I needed a solution to put my extraordinary computer skills to use so I can live in the future. And so I've done a lot of research, and concluded:

I need to go to a programming school.

Not just to learn how to code better, but also because I need good job opportunities despite not having a full degree. In Germany you normally need at least a Hauptschulabschluss to have a viable chance at work that isn't shitty. Since I don't have that, most companies would not offer me a job unless they can see my true potential. So I decided to sign up for 42 Wolfsburg.

I do not live in Wolfsburg, so I actually have to move alone just for that.

If you don't know what 42 is: it's a non-profit programming school that doesn't need a previous qualification to join, that tests your capabilities and relies on peer learning instead of tutors. You are expected to communicate with the other students and work on projects that you submit fully digitally. It's literally perfect for me — talking about something I'm confident with is my strength!

It's definitely a challenge, especially since I'm a web developer. 42 expects us to use The C Programming Language. There's a reason for this, but I won't go into all the details. Basically it's not easy, in fact it's quite strict. We have strict guidelines on how to write our code, and only a limited set of standard library functions to work with.

To join the school fully, you must pass the 4 week "Piscine", which is essentially a test that allows the staff to see if I'm worthy for them. So I began learning the basics of C over the last few months, and I honestly haven't had so much fun with code that sounds so simple in words, yet is so confusing to implement at first. I'm so excited for the coming days, no more boring school. The Piscine will start on September 21st for me.

Since 42 has connections with the big tech firms here in Germany, me going to 42 is a strong indication to them that I am a fully competent developer, and that they should hire me.

The MIKU EXPO is also coming soon, and that excites me even more. Sooo much happening this year. Mixtapes has been taking off pretty well recently, 150+ stars is insane! Thank you all.

Anyways, enough about me, I wanted to share something interesting I did recently. I dug up my old Fire TV Stick 2nd Gen to plug it into a 32 inch TV I got for my PS3. And then I remembered how bloated and shitty the FireOS on this thing truly was. So many ads, and Kodi would drop frames just on the menus, poor thing! Then I wondered: if I put pure Android on this, surely it'll be more useful right?

I did some research and found out that my Fire Stick had a bootloader unlock exploit called amonet-tank. It involved shorting a point on the motherboard and a Linux payload script to install TWRP. When I was younger I would've not tried this, because my dad would probably freak out if I kill it. But this is not a big deal, I mean if it breaks, it's not that deep, it's almost e-waste anyway.

I first removed the shell of the stick and uncovered the heatsinks. It took a bit because the plastic clips were really strong, but it was manageable.

Then I grabbed a piece of soldering wire, wrapped it around the stick's HDMI port (which is GND) and touched the other end to the top point labeled CLK, as shown in the images. It took like an hour of fiddling until it worked properly, but then I was able to connect it to my computer through USB. And it would get recognized successfully by lsusb, yay!

I proceeded to follow the instructions on XDA to get TWRP on the Fire Stick. I had to run the script as root, which the guide did not tell me, but after that it told me to remove the short and hit Enter, and the payload started writing to the Fire Stick. It was really cool to watch it happen. Once the payload was written, it told me to plug it into my TV. After unwrapping the holy solder wire from the stick and then plugging it in, I was met by the TWRP recovery. I DID IT!

Since the remote didn't work in this stage, I had to use ADB to interface with TWRP, as stated in the guide I found for installing LineageOS TV on this thing. I chose to not install any GMS or microG, just pure stock Android TV. I rebooted the Fire Stick and crossed my fingers, boom!

LineageOS! Freedom!

This amazon-tank was now Bezos-free, ready to be used again! And it made a huge difference: RAM usage was cut in half, there was way more storage to work with now, and Kodi did not stutter whatsoever. 1080p playback no problem, as if brand new! I also installed SmartTube to watch YouTube videos on it, as well as Amaze as a file manager and AFTV Downloader. It feels so nice to know that I saved some hardware from going to waste again. I love it!

I'm thrilled to announce that I have acquired a new old computer! It's an Acer Aspire V5-571G that wouldn't boot, turns out it was just the hard drive that was broken.
There also was a BIOS password on it, which I managed to reset by shorting something under the RAM slot. Quite strange, but it worked!

I installed Windows 7 on it, as was intended by Acer back in 2012, and I've set it up a bit. Nicknamed it "Lavender", named after my beloved purple goddess Yuri :3
It's pretty nice, and I'll definitely invest into fixing some of its flaws like the failing DVD drive.

You can learn more about it here.

Also have been working on my new project "Mixtapes", which is a YouTube Music client for Linux. It's still in a very early stage, but it's already pretty usable. You can find it on my GitHub.

I still have basically zero idea when I'll be able to make a new video, but I'm hoping to come back soon.

The OptiPlex 3010 seems to not boot after I got it back. Fans spin only for 1 second before it shuts down. The computer that made most of my career happen is gone. It isn't the RAM unlike last time. I'm not sure if the CPU or the motherboard is the problem here, but it seems like it isn't really possible to revive the old hardware. Of course I could just get a new one but it's not really the same.

R.I.P.

However, I do have some good news too. I managed to get a Google Pixel 3a for like 10€ on a very lucky eBay auction, in very good condition too! The only issue is that its touch screen doesn't work. Except, somehow all I needed to do to fix it is to remove the screen and press down the connector's shielding and it worked again! That is actually insane. Occasionally it does stop working again and I have to restart the phone to make it work again. I wonder if this is a panel problem or motherboard problem, as it seems the panel's touch fully works when it does. There are also no scratches on the screen, which makes the source of the touch issue even stranger.

Anyways, I figured that it's a perfect candidate for trying out Linux on mobile. So I installed postmarketOS on it, and so far I'm really enjoying it. It definitely needs some work tho, as for example the camera doesn't fully work as of now. I chose GNOME Mobile as my UI, which I know is experimental, so I definitely expected issues. I also tried Phosh but went back to GNOME Mobile because I didn't like how Phosh is still stuck on GTK-3.

I'll probably make a video about it eventually, maybe after the previous idea.

I've got some great ideas for new videos, I just need the time to make them. And I probably need the Dell OptiPlex 3010 back from my friend, now that he has a new computer. Just updating this website because I had abandoned it for half a year should do for a quick video. I've set up VFIO GPU passthrough recently, which basically lets me run Windows on top of Arch, with good performance. It's really cool, and especially useful for the rare times I need to use Windows for something nowadays lmao

My next video will probably be introducing my new laptop (See C:\My Documents\My Laptop) and also showcase the new website, as I haven't made an announcement outside of Discord just yet. Not sure what to do after that, maybe a collection of my favourite Linux/GNOME apps? Or if we get the OptiPlex, maybe something about that.

I recently made some new small utilities like signal-styler, which lets you inject custom CSS into your Signal Desktop client. It's pretty simple, yet pretty useful.

It's 1am and I'm working on updating this website. I've been really busy recently, so I can't really make videos right now. Life also kinda sucks right now, but I'll get over it eventually. Like always :)