About
Dalliance.net is Pre’s homepage, index of his projects, updates on his blog. That sort of thing. You can subscribe in various ways.
Projects
Blog
My blog, mostly monthly summaries of the Fediverse Account.
Visit at dalliance.net/blog
Or check out the categories index
Starship Schrödinger’s Destiny
Ongoing: An Interactive Sci-Fi story for Virtual Reality about the adventures of the crew of a flying saucer.
Visit at starshipsd.com
Wordcloud Tarot
Ongoing: My tarot decks have the meanings of the cards written on the card in a world-cloud. There’s also a video show with a reading about politics most weeks.
Visit at wordcloudtarot.com
Exocortex Log
Ongoing: A life-logging app, built as a progressive web app with all data stored on your local machine. Party for privacy, partly so I don’t have to run any servers. If you are interested in logging graphing and analysing your time as you spend it, this might be for you! But mostly it’s for me, I don’t care if you use it or not.
See the app at exocortexlog.com, or read the latest news blog.
Tentacles, After The End
A 30 minute animated movie about the last woman alive on a planet ravaged by tentacle monsters from outer space.
Tentacles is complete, visit the archive at tentacles.org.uk
Book: Do Dream Sheep Bleat?
A short story book about magic and memes and reality.
Dreamsheep is complete, you can buy a copy or read it online at dalliance.net/dreamsheep
Book: Yes, The Conspiracy Really Exists, And Furthermore It’s All Your Fault.
A long rant about how stupid humans screw up humanity.
The book is complete, you can buy a copy or read it online at dalliance.net/yes
Loopy
After the band broke up, I took to playing with myself via a loop pedal. Sometimes, very rarely, even in public.
Bookshelf
An album of songs inspired by some of the best books on my bookshelf.
The album is complete, you can listen to the songs at dalliance.net/bookshelf
Handsome Jack’s Showband
My punk cover’s band.
Despite some online-only gigs, the band didn’t make it though the pandemic, you can watch some old gig videos online at handsomejacks.co.uk
Joust Adventure
A little web-game I made back in 2011 with the hope people might pay me to make level 2.
I don’t think anyone ever finished level 1. Too hard.
Can you do it?
The project is abandoned, you can still play level one at dalliance.net/joustadventure. So far as I know, I’m the only person to ever complete the level. Let me know if you do!
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Diary
My diary from the Fediverse.Status at - Sat, 14 Mar 2026 11:01:40 +0000
If my business was failing and I had to fire thousands of people I'd say it's because of AI productivity gains too.
Status at - Fri, 13 Mar 2026 22:35:16 +0000
One of my VR Lighthouses died last month. These things are gyroscopically spinning 24 hours a day for, what, a decade now? Nearly.
No wonder. Mostly the industry seems to be settling on using head-mounted cameras rather than sweeping infra-red beams and receptors on the head anyway.
It is true that lighthouses give accurate positioning, but means I can't easily take the headset next door, say. Or to a party.
So inside-out, as they call it, is fine for the headset now and mostly okay for the hand-controllers.
But it offers no solution at all for the foot-trackers and hip-tracker that I need for puppetting the characters in the Starship Schrodinger's Destiny project.
I found Slime VR, which do a set of five trackers for around the same price of a single one of the light-house-style trackers anyway!
They just dead-reckon distances from accelerometers and then try to compensate for how badly that works with a skeleton model and some constraints.
They're fully open and free-software. Make your own trackers if you know about printed circuit boards and accelerometers and things. Or make a company that makes them if you like.
Or since I don't want to do any of that, just 'pre-order' them.
I Ordered some of them. Trouble is, that it is a 'pre-order'. Join the queue mate. Could be a while.
So it was good when, as I sadly packed away the broken lighthouse, I found in the place that I would store them a backup lighthouse! I bought it when I bought a whole second-hand Vive set coz my old headset failed.
Hurray! The lighthouses live for a while yet. I even have another spare backup to go.
The SlimeVR actually arrived fairly quick though in the end. Just a few weeks. Less than a month for sure.
The software didn't work on Linux/Debian/XFCE 😦 or even on Gnome when I tried that instead. 😢
I spent an actual whole day failing to get that working before I gave up and joined my first tech-support Discord to seek help.
Discord sucks. I have no idea what is happening. Why are people using this instead of a nodebb or something? I dunno. Can't wait to quit it again when this is all working.
One of the reasons I'm so loath to 'join a community' to get access to a support forum is that the community don't own their own support forum. Madness.
Anyway, after the annoying unhelpful robot, some cool helpful person on there said to try the new beta: it's GUI is built with Electron, but that sucks less than Tauri/Webkit which is why the GUI won't work for me.
And that did indeed work.
I was hoping the five trackers could be set up on each foot, hips, and elbows.
But the system to avoid sensor-drift and compensate for the errors you get from dead-reckoning needs a particular skeletal model. A five-set of trackers have to be: Ankles, Knees, Chest.
And I definitely need Hips.
My characters dance. 💃
So had to pre-order some more.
The next one is Hips, so maybe 6 would be enough, but after Hips come the 'foot' attachments: They can be mini-trackers which don't have wi-fi themselves, and cable-connect to the ankles. Makes them cheaper.
Then after feet you can do Elbows with another couple.
They go on further than that, you can use 20 apparently, but I just ordered enough to get to the 10 (two of which are the minis that attach by cables to others)
So that's my advice on these so far: Get the ten-tracker set: the five tracker set takes all five just to do legs really. If you gotta dance, you need hips and elbows!
And use the beta software, at least on Linux: the stable release can't draw it's window for some reason.
I am pleased though. They seem like they'll be good enough and when the project is opened this year the hardware cost barriers to entry of anyone else using it will be much less than I thought.
Status at - Wed, 11 Mar 2026 22:49:50 +0000
Final Improv session before the show this evening and mostly just practice for the final event.
Steve Hoopla threw in some extra chaos with the half of us assigned 'audience' each time given cards to shout out immediate things that need to happen: A declaration of love, a sudden death, an appearance of a lost love-child etc.
In theory this means that final rehearsal is more chaotic and deranged than the final show will be. The lesson is that we can cope and continue even if somehow everyone dies in the third scene.
Stories about office romance and intrigue and bullying bosses, and about an art super villain determined to murder the whole world's inner-artist.
Both of which would indeed have gone more smoothly without the audience demanding sudden entrance by men with guns or that we find an excuse for a love child or impulsive marriage proposal.
So thats it until the show. Come along see it going more smoothly than that next Thursday in London if you want.
Status at - Tue, 10 Mar 2026 20:02:17 +0000
Everyone knows when Toni Schneider says he'll "help set up Bluesky’s next phase of growth" as new CEO he means adverts right?
The next phase is the one where they tighten the thumbscrews and see who will stay anyway.
Status at - Mon, 09 Mar 2026 20:54:37 +0000
This month's slightly late newsletter for Feb is on it's way to the email box all the beautiful lovers who asked for that.
The rest of you dirty warmongers will have to read it here:
https://dalliance.net/blog/feb26/
Featuring Love, Lights, War, and Green party wins. It has bits about AI and enshitification and all that
Status at - Fri, 06 Mar 2026 13:30:24 +0000
Since it looks like it might be a while until the Steam Machines are released, due to market bullshit around AI malinvestment and the subsequent price of RAM, I gave up waiting and Installed Jellyfin on a temporary machine.
Jellyfin is pretty nice. I like the sync-play feature so the machines in the kitchen and bedroom and studio can all be playing the same thing. Walking between rooms and detecting which is slightly ahead, makes me smile. Watching a TV show as I cook and being able to wonder around the flat viewing uninterupted.
A bit flakey with video though. Sync failure means they all pause sometimes. Might just be the wifi signal strength I guess.
Ripped all the old archive folders of DVDs and CDs. DVDs have a quite high failure rate after fifteen years in a cupboard eh? CDs faired better.
Expect I'll buy charity shop DVDs more now. Though also expecting half of 'em won't work.
I'm listening to music a bit more now I have a one button shuffle that triggers everywhere in the flat.
I set up a ytdl-sub to copy a few youtube playlists into the TV shows folders. Keeping like the last month's worth. Some shows, like the Dust sci-fi channel say, work really well as being part of the synced TV system instead.
Also made it slurp up all my old youtube videos into a folder too, so yet another local copy of everything I made, in there with all the other ripped shows.
I have spent far too long this month fussing with directory structures and tweeking icon images and things to make it look all pretty. Enjoy that sort of thing though.
Status at - Fri, 06 Mar 2026 01:10:06 +0000
But yeah. Don't buy the creep's smart glasses. Don't let anyone wearing them stand near you. REALLY don't let them look at your credit cards.
In fact, if you ask me, do not pass your communications through the meta creep at all. Why would you? Alternatives exist.
I block all his servers here. He is literally the worst system admin ever.
What a creep. Look at him his creepy glasses. Ugh. Just don't let him look at you in them.
Status at - Thu, 05 Mar 2026 19:09:41 +0000
Read the second of the Murder Bot novellas by Martha Wells, Artificial Condition.
Our hacked security droid takes a job looking after more idiots in order to get a ride to investigate his missing memories.
And they get into trouble of course.
Enjoyed it more than the first one. The ship intelligence he teams up with sure does have a lot of ability for an auto-pilot. The Secunit's sarcasm and reluctant disdain of his charges seems better written and deepening.
Status at - Wed, 04 Mar 2026 22:38:49 +0000
Content warning:UKPol power/war
One of the best things about Brexit is how we left a power-block in which we had a veto and a vote and a large soft power reputation and a real say in it's policy and outcomes.
And now, instead, we have to do whatever the mad king in America wants. Bomb whoever he wants. Let him store his weapons and his bombs here. Fly his airplanes on our runways. Pay whatever tariff on trade he demands, accept his hormone ridden meat and unsanitary chicken processes.
And we have less say in it all than Puerto Rico, much less than any actual full blown state.
We ceded control of the EU to Germany, just abandoned any say in what happens there for no reason at all, and are left begging treats from a powerful clown's table like a yapping little toy dog.
The final step down the power-escalator, from empire to now less say in world affairs than Austria or Finland which at least have EU voting rights and members in the EU parliament.
Now just airport 1, a runway which the US uses as it pleases and no say in anything.
What a move from England, absolute masterclass of dim witted self destructive spite. Couldn't hope for a better example. Textbook. ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Status at - Wed, 04 Mar 2026 13:45:39 +0000
Windows 12 Reportedly Set for Release This Year as a Fully Modular, Subscription-Based, AI-Focused OS
🤣
Unfortunately, the upgrade requires NPU processors, which will lock out millions from getting into the new ecosystem
So glad I don't deal with Microsoft any more. Thanks Valve and Steam for getting games and VR up to scratch on Linux so I don't have to have anything to do with this abomination.
https://tech4gamers.com/windows-12-reportedly-relasing-2026-modular-ai-focused-os/
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Bookmarks
Things I have bookmarked lately.Pluralistic: AI “journalists” prove that media bosses don’t give a shit (11 Mar 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow - Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:11:59 +0000
"If the purpose of a customer service department is to tell people to go
fuck themselves, then a chatbot is obviously the most efficient way of
delivering the service. It's not just that a chatbot charges less to
tell people to go fuck themselves than a human being – the chatbot
itself means "go fuck yourself." A chatbot is basically a "go fuck yourself" emoji. Perhaps this is why every AI icon looks like a butthole"
‘How On Earth Do You Justify That?’ Laura Kuenssberg’s Selective Empathy – Media Lens - Wed, 11 Mar 2026 17:50:50 +0000
"Worthy victims are people who are killed or oppressed by Official
Enemies of the West, such as the Soviet Union (and now Russia), North
Korea or China. These victims garner considerable media attention in the
propaganda system, marked by sympathy, indignation and fury. Their
suffering is humanised, described in detail, and used to generate moral
outrage directed at the offending regimes or governments, often as part
of a concerted attempt to topple them for the benefit of Western
geostrategic interests.---
‘Unworthy’ victims, by contrast, are people who are killed or whose
democratic aspirations are crushed by the West or ‘our allies’; such as
Suharto’s Indonesia in the 1960s, Pinochet’s Chile in the 1970s, the
US-backed Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975, and Israel in the
present day. These victims are less prominent, even absent, in western
media coverage or are often discounted as ‘collateral damage’: a lesser
kind of human, robbed of their individuality, their …
Bluesky CEO Jay Graber Is Stepping Down - Mon, 09 Mar 2026 23:57:19 +0000
"Schneider said he plans to emphasize scaling, describing his job as “to help set up Bluesky's next phase of growth.”"
phase two is where they tighten the thumb screws a little to see if anyone leaves. probably involves adverts.
Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse - Sat, 07 Mar 2026 15:37:16 +0000
"there's something quietly beautiful about a place where people just...
share what they know. No brand deals, no engagement metrics, no
algorithm nudging you toward rage. Just someone who spent twenty years
studying Arctic policy posting a thread at 2 AM because they think you
should understand what's happening. It's the internet I was promised in
1996. It only took thirty years and the complete collapse of American
journalism to get here."
‘Operation Epic Fury’ – Anatomy Of A War Of Aggression – Media Lens - Thu, 05 Mar 2026 13:56:42 +0000
Pure, mendacious propaganda on prime-time BBC TV.
Hackers Expose The Massive Surveillance Stack Hiding Inside Your “Age Verification” Check - techdirt - Thu, 26 Feb 2026 09:06:25 +0000
See the pattern? Discord keeps swapping vendors like someone frantically rotating buckets under a leaking roof, apparently hoping the next bucket won’t have a hole in it. But the problem was never the bucket. The problem is the hole in the roof — the never-ending stream of age-verification government mandates.
Venezuela – ‘War Is Peace’ – Media Lens - Wed, 04 Feb 2026 13:45:45 +0000
"The 100-death toll may come as a surprise to consumers of
‘mainstream’ media, which have shown zero interest in the people killed
and maimed. If US soldiers had died, we would know their names, faces,
army units, back stories, with spouses and parents expressing their
grief in heart-rending interviews. --
For ‘mainstream’ politics and media, the latest killing spree is just
another Groundhog Day. Maduro is not perceived as a particular
individual; he is perceived as the latest incarnation of the generic
‘Bad Guy’: Milosevic, bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Assad,
Nasrallah and Sinwar. The Venezuelans are another anonymous crowd of
(mostly) brown-skinned people indistinguishable from Iraqis, Iranians,
Libyans, Syrians and Palestinians."
Sci-Fi Short Film "There Is No Antimemetics Division" | DUST - YouTube - Mon, 02 Feb 2026 23:25:09 +0000
Nice 15 minute sci-fi film about the anti-memetics division, a very strange place to work indeed.
Best Of Moltbook - by Scott Alexander - Astral Codex Ten - Fri, 30 Jan 2026 20:02:36 +0000
Scott Alexander takes us through a few posts written by the AIs in an ai-only social network, where all the AI agents go to discuss the nature of AI consciousness and help each other learn how to deal with their humans.
TikTok Won’t Be Another Twitter - fediverse report - Fri, 30 Jan 2026 10:03:32 +0000
The conditions that made 'leaving Twitter' a meaningful part of the open social web's identity don't exist for TikTok. What happens when people can't see each other leave?