start writin words

blogs/2022/12/03/automount-nfs.md

@@ -9,7 +9,9 @@ There are other ways to do this, but as my machines predimonantly run Debian- or
 This post is largely based on the description on the [ArchWiki](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NFS#As_systemd_unit).
 My NAS' hostname is `sleeper-service`, and I'll be mounting the `Music` shared folder.
 
-You'll need the `nfs-utils` package to mount NFS filesytems.
+You'll need the appropriate package to mount NFS filesytems.
+On Arch Linux, `nfs-utils` is what you'll be after.
+On Debian, the client pckage is `nfs-common`, which may already be installed.
 You may also need to configure security on your NAS to allow NFS connections from your local machine's IP.
 
 ## Initial mount

blogs/2022/12/17/gpt-game-dialogue.md

@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+# Game dialogue with ChatGPT
+
+[ChatGPT](https://chat.openai.com/chat) has become the latest AI application to enjoy viral popularity.
+At time of writing it's a closed-source research tool developed by OpenAI, with the only access being via their web portal.
+Users have to create an account to interact with the bot, and have no API access, though they no doubt have one internally.
+I think given its capabilities, this is probably a good idea for now, but I'd like to outline the impact it can already have in game development, even in its fairly limited form.
+
+However, it can already be made immensely useful for content generation, without any kind of API access.
+Generally, characters come in two flavours: main characters, whose motivations and actions shape the story; and generic NPCs, who exist to fill out the world for the player.
+
+For the story to carry the author's intent (which they might not necessarily care about), it would probably be best not to leave ChatGPT to generate a plotline on its own.
+Its susceptibilty to bias is a problem - try generating men or women and count how often they're describing as petite, as having chiseled jaws or as wearing form-fitting dresses.
+It can be coaxed out of this with enough description, but lots of manual intervention defeats any content generation technique.
+
+The other group of characters, though, I think represents ripe pickings.
+Often in a game world, background dialogue quickly becomes stale, as lines are reused.
+ChatGPT can already easily be used as a supporting writer to generate a huge amount of less-than-critical dialogue.
+Take, for example, a merchant.
+
+![generating merchant dialogue](merchant_prompt.png)
+
+This psuedo-format is instantly combatible with a simple templating system.
+It would be trivial to generate variations using perfectly traditional programming techniques.
+This prompt took a minute to write, and includes specific about the character's context, as well as a slightly more than default personality.
+
+We've instantly generated 8 perfectly workable dialogue options for our character, from some basic and mostly templated information about their context.
+However, we notice that our item choices weren't included in the output, though we described them.
+So we ask:
+
+![merchant items](merchant_items.png)
+
+And, instantly, another 8 lines.
+We now have, after a modicum of input, 16 possible lines for a background merchant character to respond with when interacted with.
+With some templated prompt generation, this could be made even faster than the description given here.
+
+It's also capable of going beyond just lines dialogue.
+[Ibralogue](https://github.com/Ibralogue/Ibralogue)'s developer taught it the syntax, had it generate an example and then taught it a new feature:
+
+![sprite prompt](sprite_prompt.png)
+
+![sprite response](sprite_response.png)
+
+All that's left is to copy the output and paste it into a text file for a game to use.
+
+---
+
+This is barely even a scratch on what ChatGPT or systems like it are already capable of.
+At present, the website gets overloaded, you can't save and reload conversations, and its content filtering is very much evolving problem. 
+However, even with those limitations it's an extraordinarily powerful tool, and this is just one very minor example of an application.
+
+That's it from me, but I'd love to read more discussion about use cases and the ethical issues at play.
+If you have anything interesting, please [get in touch](mailto:me@ktyl.dev)!
+
+
+
+
+
+

communal-music-server.md

@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+For the communal music player, means of access is also something to consider.
+I'm personally quite comfortable with the minimal MPD client, [ncmpcpp](https://github.com/ncmpcpp/ncmpcpp), but the aim of a _communal_ music system is to entice others, potentially houseguests to use it too.
+To ask them to use a TUI system whose name doesn't even contain vowels would be an exercise in the obtuse.
+Therefore, I also want a means to interact with this music player which is ideally as straightforward as Spotify.

nfs-mpd-nas-music-server.md

@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+# Setting up a network media drive with an NFS-enabled NAS and a Raspberry Pi
+
+I have a large digitised collection of music, and have been experimenting with ways to set up a communal music player in my living room without defaulting to Spotify, or any other such streaming platform.
+Thus far I have used an old laptop with as much music as it will fit loaded onto it, running [MPD](https://www.musicpd.org/) and plugged into some speakers.
+This is an OK solution, but has a few drawbacks: I'm limited to the disk of the laptop, the laptop uses more power than it needs to, and I kind of want that laptop back as a laptop!
+
+I also have a desktop machine from which I often work from home, and would like my music collection available there too.
+Ideally, these should be stored in the same place, to save having to manage duplicate files and manually synchronising locations, since I am likely to add to my collection from a variety of locations.
+I have spent enough time `rsync`ing albums between machines, life is too short even on a gigabit local network.
+
+I've recently had the good fortune to acquire a Synology NAS, so I'm going to use that to host my music collection.
+Nothing I'm doing should be specific to Synology's hardware or software, as we'll be using [NFS](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NFS) to mount remote drives - but exposing an NFS shared folder to the network is therefore out of scope for this post.
+I also had the luck to grab a Raspberry Pi from a pop-up store a few weeks ago, and felt that would make a perfect, low-power, unintrusive box to attach to the speakers.
+Ostensibly, the Pi is overkill for just playing music, but it's better than a whole laptop and I'm sure I'll find other jobs for it to do as time goes on.
+
+## Set up a shared folder
+
+The first step is to centralise my music storage.
+To do this, I created a shared folder from my NAS' web interface, and exposed it to the network.
+
+In my case, I had to specifically add permission for other devices to access the folder via NFS - such as the Pi, my desktop and my laptop.
+It was therefore prudent to assign each of these machines a static IP on my network, so that the NAS can continue to recognise them.
+I also had to set it to map all users to admin, but this is almost certainly a misconfiguration on my part - don't follow me for security advice, I am just tinkering!
+
+## Setting up the Pi
+