Kami Bee

@kami

👩‍👩‍👧‍👦 Aloof wife. I make stories. I also like robots, retro technology, plants, music, and various crafts. 📄 💸

296 Siguiendo477 Seguidores4508 Publicaciones

¿Es tu perfil?Reclámalo y kami.dirty.social es tuyo.Reclamar perfil

Kami Bee@kami· Jul 3

Cleaning up an XP-era Dell computer potentially for the kids to use, my wife got it from our old uni so I'm very familiar with the plastic fantastic construction of the outside of the case but was not expecting this hardcore metallic hinge???!

Part of a Dell computer case which is a couple shades of grey plastic on the outside but has this amazing metal hinge mechanism on the inside allowing you to open the case in a diagonal-feeling manner and gaze into the contents.

Kami Bee@kami· Jun 24

I do like that they make it easy for you to just... grab things from wherever they might be stored to craft. I think once you get the hang of that it helps to keep the process fun rather than oppressive. Because there are a loooooot of different crafting materials to cope with.

A screenshot of an APICO game focusing on a couple of open crafting dialogs and a view of the contents of a storage box.

Kami Bee@kami· Jun 21

Getting some quality items out of my 26 million Neopoint gun.

A somewhat soggy-looking grey toilet called, shockingly, 'Grey Toilet'. Apparently it is (very rare).

Kami Bee@kami· Jun 20

Good news: I found the version with the tabbed interface! The bad news is apparently I left it in a broken state for a laugh. 💀

Some Linux terminal error output reading:
new_timer.hours = timer.data['hours']

KeyError: 'hours'

Kami Bee@kami· Jun 15

Only going to say this once for the 'you post on Bluesky/use x technology so you are hypocritical about genAI' clowns: this garbage is in all computer things now against our will! You don't get to shit all the way up to my doorstep and then tell me I can't go outside and object to the stink!

Kami Bee@kami· Jun 1

The generative AI bundle emails are driving me absolutely bonkers. I used to occasionally get a good tech books bundle through Humble but their recent intense 'AI PYTHON AI AI AI' focus has really made me despair of seeing anything worth my while again.

A screenshot of an image from a Humble Bundle email announcing the 'Build & Launch AI Apps Bundle' which apparently, according to the little panels representing different courses in the bundle, is about 'AI PYTHON AI AI AI'.

Kami Bee@kami· May 28

It's been a little while since I started a knitting project! My daughter needs mittens for winter, a good chance for me to further my goal of making more of our clothes - if I can keep her from turning my yarn into a mess as I try to knit it. 😅

A few rows of knitting on a thin bamboo needle lying on the wooden slats of a bench. The yarn is green and a slightly tangled clump of it sits next to the knitted bit.

Kami Bee@kami· May 25

Now you get to find out why my spelling game is called I *Can* Do It. 🙃 Temporary art I made in like thirty seconds obviously but it's helping me to update the code from using rects to using sprites, which is a tiny bit more fiddly and I always forget how it works. Still, PROGRESS!

A squarish Pygame window with the title 'I Can Do It!' Inside the window is a mostly featureless white expanse with one very bad pixel art trash can and four yellow abominations that you would not realise are pixel art banana peels without my telling you. To the left, some text reads 'Completed: 0/40'.

Kami Bee@kami· May 22

This is what the game is looking like at this point. Going to give it a graphical upgrade this weekend and fully automate it: at the moment I have to stand over his shoulder quickly figuring out what each word is supposed to be from the scrambled letters. 😂

A squarish Pygame window with the title 'I Can Do It!' Inside the window is a mostly featureless white expanse with one red square with a letter t inside of it and another black-edged white square. The word 'no' is visible at the top centre of the window and to the left, some smaller text reads 'Completed: 0/40'.

Kami Bee@kami· May 16

The good news is after a session this afternoon, my game is nearly ready for next week! The not-so-good news is I just introduced a bug that makes it look a bit like you might die seven days after playing... 🙀🟥

A squarish Pygame window titled 'I Can Do It!' Inside, the window is crowded with red squares containing the letters t, h, and e to the point where it just looks like one fragmented mass. One white square stands bewildered in the mass while the text tethhttttthheehhe stretches across the top and off the window. The overall effect is incredibly threatening.

Kami Bee@kami· May 15

Dug up the prototype I'm going to be extending for this project. I made this to illustrate how very generic gaming concepts could be made into all sorts of things with varied graphics. I don't know that my kid was that interested in the philosophy though, he just liked making the score go up. 😂

A squarish Pygame window with the title 'I Can Do It!' Inside the window is a mostly featureless white expanse with one red-edged square and another slightly larger black-edged square. A score indicator at the top left of the screen indicates we currently have a score of 7: for doing what might be anyone's guess.

Kami Bee@kami· May 13

Got hold of one of the definitive kākāpō texts to fill the nest stream void. 🥰 It's out of print so a little tricky to obtain but highly recommended, gorgeous book with lots of pictures and frankly more information than you'll want to have. This copy falls open at artificial insemination. 🤣

A copy of the first edition of 'Kakapo- Rescued From The Brink Of Extinction' by Alison Ballance. A cute kākāpō peers out of the cover (they're all cute).

Kami Bee@kami· May 10

Love it, in our household we keep a copy around for the RiscPCs. 😁

A terribly lit photo of the box for SimCity 2000. This box has shiny gold stickers indicating it is a version for Acorn machines.

Kami Bee@kami· Apr 30

My wife got this from the library and made it like 30 pages in before becoming too exasperated to want to continue, and the dislike of others is the ultimate in book aphrodisiac to me so I may now have to read it myself.

Part of the cover of The Digital Ape by Nigel Shadbolt and Roger Hampson. The book is lucid green with a weird hand-with-gear-at-wrist illustration meant to look like a stylised person and the subtitle 'how to live (in peace) with smart machines'.

Kami Bee@kami· Apr 29

Re: the 2.5K day I ACTUALLY DID IT, and would you believe that according to my spreadsheet this is the first time I've written 2.5K in one day since 2023?! If I get out just over 2K today I can go into May with 50K, got a busy day with the kids but just maybe it can happen... 🙏

A screenshot of a cell from my writing tracking spreadsheet, showing the number 2510 with a green background that does not appear to be present in cells around.

Kami Bee@kami· Apr 27

Well I ended last night by getting my Encarta CD stuck in the drive my wife gave me for the Aptiva. She did warn me it might be unreliable. 🤡 Got to go find a Clippy to murder to get it out now.

My Encarta 96 Encyclopedia CD sitting in the CD tray seconds from disaster.

Kami Bee@kami· Apr 26

Why yes I COULD stop the Aptiva Guide from running on every boot, but why on earth WOULD I? 😁

An IBM CRT monitor displaying the Aptiva Guide software. There are menu options for lessons on computers with lovely animated buttons.

Kami Bee@kami· Apr 26

Started playing with variables inside Ren'py the other night, now people in my game can roast me for being poor. 😭 Trying to work out how to pass values around now so I can actually do some work for people and do something about my bank balance. Bet that's easier in Ren'py than IRL... 🤭

A partial screenshot of a fairly plain Ren'py game window showing a character named Shopkeeper saying, "You have no money!"

Kami Bee@kami· Apr 21

Finished putting together a silly little visual novel about our cutlery drawer for our first day back at school tomorrow! This ended up working really well last term and I'm experimenting with a dab of interactivity with this one. If it goes well I might try something even wilder next week. 🤭

A red plastic fork and a bread knife laid out on a bench so that it looks like the knife is chasing the fork. The effect is enhanced by an angry emoji on the knife and the scream emoji on the fork.

Kami Bee@kami· Apr 3

This is what I mean when I say they bullied the nerds out of the computing field. 'Pain in the ass' is usually, from what I've seen, code for things like 'they wanted to take time to understand what they were doing'. Basically the people getting in the way of much present-day bullshit.

Two Bluesky posts with identification removed to protect the guilty. The context is their feelings on writing code.

Post 1:
It's a tool and always has been and I'm pretty sure 95% of computer people would have agreed with that sentiment before all of this LLM nonsense provided a status threat.

Post 2:
I think about 95% still do. That 5% has always been both a pain in the ass and, sometimes (very much not always) a valuable asset.

Me: I hate writing code. I always have. I like *having written* code. That part's awesome. Writing code stinks and sucks, let me word at it.

Kami Bee@kami· Mar 27

Well the aftermath is... I forgot I actually have no idea how to play SimCity. 😂 But I've got a manual! Bit of review needed I think and we'll return to the pantry tonight.

Some chaotic small assortment of initial building in SimCity 2000 with a robot monster bearing down on it.

Kami Bee@kami· Mar 27

Having a bit of fun in the retro pantry at midnight.

An Acorn CRT monitor displaying the SimCity 2000 intro screen.

Kami Bee@kami· Mar 22

Moved my baby into the pantry so I can hide with her there for a little while tonight away from the 2026 computing landscape. 🙀

A RiscPC 600 sitting on a white bench, a tea towel on top of it and a keyboard on top of that.

Kami Bee@kami· Mar 19

Let my 2-year-old bang on my laptop yesterday while I was trying to cope with a headache and she reinvented NFTs in only five minutes, I think I'm starting to understand the power of these AI agent thingummies. 😁😁😁

$Part of a word processor window reading \] NJJHJ JPG==G[[[[[[G.$

Kami Bee@kami· Mar 8

Giving myself a crash course in Ren'py tonight in order to create a visual novel for my kid's reading practice. It's going about how you'd expect trying to create compelling reading material near midnight to go.

Some Ren'Py code reading:

scene bg cutlery

n "'EAT THE BUS! EAT THE BUS!'"

Kami Bee@kami· Mar 7

Got Micro System 1 (née Agape) running today to experiment with building a fun little visual novel-style reading exercise for next week's school. Hope my ANSI art skills are up to it! 🤭

A Micro System 1 kit computer in red acrylic. The lower case is wooden, the big beautiful screen shows a green field with a sign, all in a very charming ANSI graphical style.

Kami Bee@kami· Mar 5

Should have realised what was going to happen when I put a science exercise utilising food colouring in front of my chaotic artistic child. 🤭 But hey capillary action too! (The non-red ones are a little tricky to see though.)

A row of celery stalks leaves and all sitting in jars of coloured water. The celery in red water is notably red-tinged.

A bench with a food colouring-painted piece of paper towel and food colouring mess everywhere oh no.

Kami Bee@kami· Mar 3

I (badly, was short on time last night!) drew up a little suburb of streets we could navigate through but the real point was talking about the (approximate lol) angles made between different roads. My wife understood the point of it last night at a glance much to my delight.

A hand-drawn series of fictional roads with silly names like 'This', 'How,' and 'Flip' that are arranged to make a variety of angles: acute, right enough, obtuse, and even one reflex angle that was kind of a mistake but a fortuitous one in the end! How Street ends abruptly for no reason, school lore I guess, and This Street is a cul-de-sac but because I was totally wasted last night I accidentally made it look like a roundabout with a little centre island. OH WELL.

Kami Bee@kami· Feb 22

I got a set of pots in a stand from IKEA like a decade ago to set up a kitchen herb garden and I may FINALLY be (sort of) growing plants in it instead of it string random kitchen detritus, I'm not even sure how to feel about this. (Left is coriander, right a dandelion for my daughter. 🤭) 🌱

Two slightly grubby white metal pots in a grubby white stand lit by a nearby window. Each contains a plastic pot with a seedling in it.

Kami Bee@kami· Feb 18

Love how my favourite stupid newspaper liftout, B&S magazine, is visually conceptualising open marriage like it's Twilight for young adults.