March 2024
S M T W T F S
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31  

About

I am The Cyberwolfe and these are my ramblings. All original content is protected under a Creative Commons license - always ask first.
Creative Commons License

Random Thought: Never make anything simple and efficient when it can be complex and wonderful!

Skyrim: Finally Edition

Posted in Geekery on December 5th, 2023

So I finally got around to playing Skyrim after having picked up the Anniversary Edition a while back, and I have to admit this is the first time I think I have ever looked forward to playing a computer game the way I have looked forward to TTRPGs in the past. I’m kinda weird among Geeks in that I did not grow up playing console games all the time (the only console we ever owned was an Atari 1600 and there were 5 of us kids at the time, so I didn’t get a ton of time on it) so this is kind of a new experience for me.

I’m digging it.

Like any computer-generated thing, it of course has its quirks. The plot is pretty reliant on the idea of the player being the strongest security force in the entire region – I have lost count of how many bandit towers I have cleared out at this point, and I see tons of guards walking around every town. What the heck are these guys even doing?

Then there are AI decisions. I had just managed to smash some mage in a dungeon and steal his toys, and on the way back out we get interrupted by this Spy/Assassin Bad Guy Monologuing at me about how he’s going to kill me and take my stuff. Well, as soon as he stopped talking and regular action came back, I FUS-ROH-DAH‘d his Elven ass through a doorway and into next week, and my companion Lydia the Housecarl runs up and stands in the effing doorway so I can’t go finish him off. Like c’mon, dude, this is the thing we do, we knock them down and kick them in the teeth repeatedly!

Quirks aside, I can highly recommend the Anniversary Edition. I’m about 100 hours into the game and have only hit about 30% completion. Go play!

Windows 10/11 22H2 update problem: “We couldn’t update the system reserved partition”

Posted in Life on July 3rd, 2023

If you’ve recently encountered this error when trying to run a Windows update, the problem may be that your system reserved partition is full, which prevents the update procedure from starting. The trick is getting into it and clearing the space.

You may have seen some solutions for this already that just delete the fonts from the EFI\Microsoft\Boot\Fonts\ folder, but in my environment that wasn’t sufficient space reclamation so I had to go a step further and delete a bunch of the unused language files from the folder one level up. The trick here is to not delete the folders you actually need for your local language.

So, start of by launching an elevated PowerShell session, and then run the following commands to get into said folders:

mountvol y: /s
cd y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot
dir

This should get you a list of all the language folders. Copy that out and then build a script to mount the volume, delete the folders recursively, delete the fonts as well, and then unmount the partition. NOTE: take care to preserve your local language folders – you’ll notice the script below does not delete the English folders “en-US” or “en-GB” because I’m in the USA. In the end, you’ll get something like this:

mountvol y: /s
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bg-BG' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\cs-CZ' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\da-DK' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\de-DE' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\el-GR' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\es-MX' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\et-EE' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\fi-FI' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\fr-CA' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\fr-FR' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\hr-HR' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\hu-HU' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\it-IT' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\ja-JP' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\ko-KR' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\lt-LT' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\lv-LV' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\nb-NO' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\nl-NL' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\pl-PL' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\pt-BR' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\pt-PT' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\ro-RO' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\ru-RU' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\sk-SK' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\sl-SI' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\sv-SE' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\tr-TR' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\uk-UA' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\zh-CN' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\zh-TW' -Recurse
Remove-Item 'Y:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\Fonts*.ttf'
mountvol y: /d

With luck, you can then run the normal install process.

11 years or 130K miles

Posted in Life on June 21st, 2022

So, waaaaay the heck back in 2011 I bought a 2009 Subaru Outback with 62K miles on it, replacing a Kia Optima that had enough engine problems to make it an upside-down trade, but I got a solid car in the process. And I’d been wanting another Subaru for years, having had one as my first freedom-wheels back in high school, so I thought it was great all-around.

The Subie

It took me longer than I wanted it to, but I eventually paid it off. Along the way, the poor thing got side-swiped by some idiot turning left into a business from the lane to my right on a one-way street. Just about the time I was planning to use the money he gave me to fix the bodywork, a bolt backed it’s way out of the torque converter in the transmission and started chewing it’s way through the engine block. Luckily I had cash for repairs…

A couple years ago I started thinking maybe it was time for a new car, but the market wasn’t right yet – nothing really appealed to me yet, and without a solid incentive, I just couldn’t justify it to myself – so I bought a bike instead :D

Time has moved on, however, and certain developments finally made it a good time to buy something new. What with the dangers of global warming (fuck this ‘climate change’ crap, I call it what it is), I figured it was time to get out of the gasoline-drinking car lifestyle and go electric. So in August of 2021, I put an order in for a Tesla Model Y – in Blue, to match the bike ;)

The original estimated delivery date was late November / December, but that quickly got pushed into January 2022. It held there for a bit and I got distracted and wasn’t watching it, but shortly after Musk announced the deal for selling a bunch of Model 3’s to Alamo my delivery estimate slid out to March.

From there it drifted around, until finally it settled down into late May, which I was actually pretty good with, considering I had a week off of work first week of June. Maybe I’d be able to do a road trip or something?

Well, life came along and Tolerant got laid low with a bout of the ‘Rona the last week of May, so I wasn’t that distraught when the delivery date slipped out another week. Eventually, however, it arrived!

Considering how things work for our household, though, that meant it was time to let the Subaru go on to a new owner. Tesla gave us a pretty low-ball offer for trade-in, and I can’t really blame them what with the dinged-up door, but I wanted more out of it so I put her up on the Interwebs. I didn’t have a lot of patience for chasing the maximum payout for selling her, so I basically talked the first person to test drive it into a price I could live with and called it good.

So 130 thousand miles later, Sheila the Subaru Outback has moved on to a new owner.

Just for reference

Posted in Life on July 24th, 2021

For those idiots that absolutely insist on using fruit-flavored computers in a Windows environment…

Managing Macs in Active Directory

Time for some Rec-Re-Ation

Posted in Life on June 3rd, 2021

Oh look, I have survived one more year, so it must indeed be time to post something.

In this case, it’s a camping trip, but there’s a small twist: of the throttle!

Vulcan 900 Custom stacked up with camping gear
OK, yeah, that was a cheesy line.

This’ year’s B-Day vacation idea was to actually get the heck outta town for a couple days and mainly just … be somewhere else for a while. Small caveat in that it is hard to find a cat-sitter that lives up to my wife’s expectations, so she allowed me to wander off on my own. Actually, she financed the trip by gifting me a substantial pile of backpacker gear I could take on the bike rather than our 6-person cabin tent that honestly requires two people to set up.

Pictured above, we see the Vulcan stacked with a bunch of stuff. The neon-green thing is a new tent, the black thing with yellow stripes on the other saddlebag is a chair, and on the very back is a cooler backpack (more on that later). The Dufflebag of Holding on the passenger seat holds:

Read the rest of this entry »

Thank Fuck THAT’s over

Posted in Life on January 20th, 2021

January 20th, 2021.

Inauguration Day.

Thus begins the reign of the 46th President of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden jr.

Thankfully, with no bloodshed. No masses of idiots storming the Capital (again). No protests. Just an orderly swearing-in ceremony. I give points to (former) Vice President Mike Pence for being a mensch and showing up to the ceremony – as opposed to Dolt 45, who ran off a couple hours before showtime down to Mar-a-Lago with a frown on his face and his tail between his legs.

Now begins the countdown: how many days until the Senate completes the 2nd Impeachment trial? Will they convict and forever ban the schmuck from holding Federal office?

Get your bets in now, pool closes Friday at 5:00pm Pacific.

Meanwhile, I’ll be over here munching popcorn and watching QAnon implode.

The Joys of being a Rain God

Posted in Life, Miscelleny, Proof! on June 7th, 2020

I have survived yet another year (your assassins suck, by the way) and this past week I followed my latest tradition and took the week off. Mostly to decompress from the stress of Life in The Apocalypse, but also just ‘cuz it’s my birthday.

And also to get myself a gift. After nearly 20 years of telling myself it would be silly to buy a motorcycle again when due to work and such I would probably only be able to ride it one or two days a week, and that mainly in the summer considering how much rain we get up here (and how badly most drivers deal with it in the ‘Burbs).

This year though, several things came together in a rather nice conglomeration: the car is paid for, my student loans are finished, the Daughter-Unit aged out of support, and we aren’t moving or anything, so the tax returns were in savings rather than having been spent. We’re actually in pretty good shape financially.

(I feel kinda guilty saying that considering how many other people are having problems as I write this, but we’ve worked hard to get where we are and I’ll take whatever luck that brings me.)

Combine that with all the bullshit of 2020, plus work and, well, to paraphrase the Recruiter in Deadpool, “I finally hit fuck it.”

This is the result:

A 2007 Kawasaki Vulcan 900 Custom in a rather lovely blue.

This being 2020 and all, however, means that things just won’t go smoothly. The Vulcan was not my first choice – that honor went to a Suzuki Boulevard S50 in silver paint that mysteriously disappeared from the dealership the day before I went to look at it. I almost bought a Honda Shadow 800 while I was there (signed the paperwork and everything), but my Credit Union didn’t like their numbers enough to push back on it, and I realized that while it was a good bike, it really wasn’t the one I wanted so I backed out.

Read the rest of this entry »

A couple game recommendations

Posted in Life on May 19th, 2020

Stuck at home? Need to burn a few hours a day? I’ve got a couple entertaining games for you.

Cat Quest

Reminiscent of all those old SNES games that I never played because of tiny town origins, this is a happy little run-around-and-smack-everything game with just enough plot to keep things moving.

It is also chock-a-block with cuteness and cat puns. The wife says the sequel is a good buy as well.

HOB

I also missed out on MYST and similar games when they came out, and if you like puzzles, dramatic vistas, and don’t mind losing a few hours of sleep due to “I just need one more butterfly”-itis, then HOB is a game for you.

The scenery is just gorgeous, and the team created several spectacular vistas for you to “collect” (there’s a special game mechanic for ‘stand on this spot and press X to check out this view!’).

Like the classic platformers, you spend most of the game running around and jumping from various bits of scenery to others, missing, falling flat on your face and respawning to go at it again.

I tend to play games kinda linearly, but this one kind of lends itself to wandering off on side quests without messing up the story. I actually stopped at the pre-boss save point to go back and collect stuff I had missed.

Well worth the money.

Charge those controller batteries and go forth!

Ahh, Nostalgia… and Big Stompy Robots

Posted in Geekery on February 16th, 2020

So there has been a long-standing argument between console aficionados and PC gamers, that boils down to this: PCs are more configurable, and they evolve in such a way that games can get better as hardware improves while consoles are stuck with what they’ve got. The console guys respond that the console is always the same, so everyone knows exactly what they’re going to get, and barring some odd manufacturer shenanigans, when you buy a game it will always play on that console. PC games, on the other hand, may become obsolete abandon-ware.

This brings us back around to this weekend, when I realized I had completely missed the launch of Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries this past December. I did my usual digging through the reviews and such, and then the minimum recommended hardware list and discovered the mid-grade gaming PCs I built for the wife and I 2 years ago end up at the very bottom of the list, and one particular reviewer’s performance grid would grade them at just below playable with medium graphics settings.

Crappity.

Even better, I’d be looking at about $575 in parts to upgrade one to play a $50 game. They work just fine for playing things like Civilizations VI, Stellaris, and Diablo III, but apparently the Big Stompy Robot itch needs more hardware. Too bad Mech 4 can’t be played on Win10, it was still a good game especially after the MekTek guys got done with it.

Or can’t it? Read the rest of this entry »

Birds Of Prey (or that Harley Quin movie)

Posted in Geekery, Media, Reviews on February 9th, 2020

(OK, I get the point behind the whole extended sub-title of the movie thing, but I’m a simple guy…)

So, the wife and I went out and saw this on Saturday, and first reactions: damn fun movie. Get a big popcorn and a soda, sit back and enjoy the flick. Margot Robbie and the gang show us a rollicking good time and kick mucho ass along the way.

Now, there’s already been some hullabaloo about this movie on a couple of points: #1: Do not bring your kids. This movie is a HARD R rating, and there is much swearing, violence, gore, drug use, and a couple specific injury scenes that your kids just ain’t prepared for. Harley’s funny and all, but at one point she deliberately breaks both a man’s legs. At once. Unprovoked. (OK, mildly provoked. A slap woulda sufficed…)

#2: There is a bunch of speculation about how much money this movie is going to make, and part of me thinks some of this is hype trying to make the movie seem like a failure because it’s a slap in the face to the Joker-loving’ incels out there all butthurt because Jared Leto proved himself to be a roaring trash fire and lost any chance of ever being the Joker in another movie.

That being said, I also noticed a bunch of empty seats in our Saturday afternoon screening, so there’s going to be some truth to those low numbers. So I will tell you this: if you are a feminist bitching about the low representation of women in the creative process in Hollywood, GO SEE THIS MOVIE RIGHT NOW! It was written by a woman, directed by a woman, and produced by a woman. Not to mention starring a bunch of very able women. It also happens to be a good movie well worth the price of admission, so don’t fret about that.

Read the rest of this entry »