The Backlog

Anyone who describes themselves as a gamer, or even those who read a lot of books, collect DVDs (remember them?) or are avid fans of various other arts, know about The Backlog. It is, as a gamer at least, a list of games that have been bought (or acquired – most games are “free” these days) under the full intent to play, but for whatever reason are Pushed on the stack and have not yet reached Pop. Why these games …

The Ultimate Guide on How to Plug a USB Mouse into a PC USB Port

Introduction In today’s digital age, the computer mouse has become an indispensable tool for navigating the vast virtual world of your personal computer. If you’ve recently acquired a USB mouse and are wondering how to connect it to your PC, you’re in the right place. This step-by-step guide will take you through the process, explaining the fundamental concepts of USB technology, computer mice, and why you might choose to use a USB mouse. USB is a standard protocol used for …

Substack, baby Substack

I got me a newsletter, it’s as big as a whale. No idea where it’s going, or why I can’t just do the same stuff on this blog, but hey – all the cool kids have a Substack now. It’s called, because I couldn’t think of anything else, A Missive From Your Friend deKay. No, I’m not your friend really. So far it’s been a mash of AI, nonsense, fake horoscopes, celebrity news, video games and televisual programmes. There’s no …

Removing The Simpsons

Post Length Warning! I’ve become a little hooked on OpenAI’s ChatGTP. It’s a text-based response AI, which converses with you but can also be asked to create things. Like magic, it’s able to conjure up stuff you ask for. So I’ve asked it a lot: “Write an episode of Cheers where Norm is a zombie”, “Explain particle physics to a four year old”, “Tell a story like Three Billy Goats Gruff only the goats are successful women and the troll …

Pikachu Murders Ash

(An OpenAI story) Pikachu sat on the edge of the forest, watching as Ash trained his other Pokémon. Pikachu had been Ash’s loyal companion for many years, but lately, it had been feeling unappreciated and neglected. As Ash shouted orders and commands at his other Pokémon, Pikachu grew angrier and angrier. It had had enough of being treated like a second-class Pokémon, and it was determined to make Ash pay. When Ash’s back was turned, Pikachu crept up behind him …

Blog Merged

Well, it was going to happen eventually, I suppose. I’ve not updated my blog in a few years and was getting annoyed that it was over there on its own special WordPress install, so I’ve merged it into my main site. You can still get to the posts at the same URLs as before, with the main “link” of https://lofi-gaming.org.uk/blog still there as the main entry point. Took a while to fiddle with the back-end to make things appear correctly, …

Site News

I’ve merged the main Lofi Gaming site with the Gaming Diary site, and now I have a lot of tweaking to do. Should all be sorted soon, and the Diary is still working like normal at the moment!

“Zelda IV”

Funny story. About nine months ago, Ian Higton, one of Eurogamer’s video guys blocked me on Twitter because he posted a video that had the wrong aspect ratio and I tweeted #stopaspectratioabuse at him. Fair enough, but it’s a valid crusade. It’s also not like there’s anything else going on in the world that is a bigger cause to work with anyway. But then last week, Ian needed my help. But he’d blocked me! Oh noes! He was after scans …

Crayon Syntax Highlighter broken on WordPress on PHP 7.3

When I came to post the previous post on my blog, I found that my host’s recent upgrade to PHP 7.3 broke what seemed like everything. Turns out it’s just one plugin – Crayon Syntax Highlighter, which is really useful for styling code in posts. Unfortunately, the developer hasn’t updated his plugin in three years or so, and it seems to be changes to how regex is used that has broken it. You may get the same error I did: …

Resizing a Linux partition running under Hyper-V

We’ve all been there. Setting up a new machine and giving it a 20GB hard drive because it’ll literally only need 4GB ever and then, two years later, it’s somehow full and won’t boot. Unlike Windows based guests on Hyper-V, which can have their drives resized easily by the Hyper-V tools, Linux guests are a little different. You can certainly resize the disk image in the same way (turn the VM off, choose Edit Disk, and then Expand), but Linux …