RIP X?

Source: #RIPTwitter

When Elon Musk bought Twitter, my first thought was that this was the beginning of the end for him.
Up until recently, I was using Twitter (mostly in read-only mode, thanks to the RSS feature of nitter).
But since Elon is aggressively cutting costs and destroying Twitter‘s functionality, third-party apps basically stopped working or have lots of limitations.
Most accounts I was following on Twitter have some kind of blog or alternative anyway, so…
Bye-bye, Twitter, or what?

How to save up to 10% at a gas pump in Canada

I feela bit ashamed to write about this, but my poor ex-USSR/Belarusian childhood made me a very frugal person.
Thus, I enjoy saving here and there and do it almost automatically.
This kind of mindset will probably never make me a billionaire, but that’s ok.

So, how can you save 10% at a gas pump in Canada?
Continue reading “How to save up to 10% at a gas pump in Canada”

Streamlining Operations

Unfortunately, developing casual games for mobile platforms has become quite a hassle.
There are millions of games and apps available because basically anyone with minimal knowledge can make one, thus, developing a new game makes no sense, markets prioritize the most popular games and don’t really promote new titles unless you have a big fat budget for marketing.

At the same time, there are these stupid new regulations, like GDPR and CPRA. Marketplaces have their own rules, which they change from time to time, like the Google Play Store, which requires updating the app at least once every 2 years, otherwise, it will be automatically removed.
Plus, sometimes I need to update games to fix my own bugs and add new features.

Anyway, keeping numerous games in compliance with all the new rules and regulations is quite a soul-sucking task, so I’ve decided to remove most games from markets except for the two most popular and profitable.

All-in-One Solitaire and All-in-One Mahjong are both available for Android, iOS, Windows 10+ and online.
I will keep updating those games and add new features.

All other games, All-Peaks Solitaire, Shadow Solitaire, Rainbow Lines and Match Jong are only available online at the Pozirk Games website.

At the same time, there is some good news! 🙂
Old Flash games, that stopped working after Adobe stopped distributing Flash plugin, are slowly coming back to life!
Thanks to Ruffle, a Flash Player emulator.
It is still in beta, but several games are working just fine already.
Balloon Express – works!
Feed The Furry – works!
Instant Football – works!
Mad Tanks – works, but there are some bugs and game doesn’t save the progress.
Total Construction – almost works, but not yet.
Resistance Is Useless – not yet.
Space Age – not yet.
Dolly The Sheep – not yet.
Charlie Likes Strawberries – not yet.

Mad Tanks, Space Age and Resistance Is Useless are still my 3 most favorite games.

WeBankrupt™

Q1 results are out, time for some short follow-up.

Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ:BBBY) went bust, and many other unprofitable companies should follow suit, but it’s a good start.
Bitcoin still costs 27k tethers, so, I think, we are far from the bottom but definitely closer since my previous post: Bloodbath and Beyond.
An interesting article on BBBY: The United States of Bed Bath & Beyond.
 
Ok, moving on.
Continue reading “WeBankrupt™”

Who is behind Canadian Value Investors?

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything from my little investigations, and I guess it’s time to fix that.
So, Canadian Value Investors, aka CVI Club, I’ve been following their blog for some time and enjoyed it a lot, but at some point, they started to move pretty much all their posts behind a paywall.
Boo-hoo! 😀
Continue reading “Who is behind Canadian Value Investors?”

Invesque Inc. debentures

A long time ago (well, pre-covid, lol), when I was an even worse investor than now, I bought shares of Invesque Inc. (TSX:IVQ, TSX:IVQ.U), which was paying some fat dividends back then.

Invesque is a North American health care real estate company with an investment thesis focused on the premise that an aging demographic in North America will continue to utilize health care services in growing proportion to the overall economy

Pandemic hit them hard, dividends were cut to zero, the share price was decimated, and in the end, it is an RE company but not REIT, they are not obliged to pay dividends, so they are still not paying them.
Thus, the share price is hovering around C$1, while it was C$9 before, while they are selling assets and trying to fix their debt problems.
Continue reading “Invesque Inc. debentures”

Дебилы из Самсунга

Каждый раз отправляя очередной апдейт игры в маркет есть шанс нарваться на идиотов в саппорте, которые отклонят мой апдейт.
Это случалось со мной много раз, но саппорт Самсунга, видимо, особенно одарённый:

Continue reading “Дебилы из Самсунга”

Six Peaks Solitaire and Saint Helena Solitaire

I’ve added two more games to All-in-One Solitaire: Six Peaks Solitaire and Saint Helena Solitaire.
Six Peaks Solitaire Saint Helena Solitaire

  • Six Peaks is a simple game and very similar to Tri-Peaks Solitaire, except that there is double the amount of peaks and cards. 😀
  • Saint Helena (also known as Napoleon’s Favourite or Washington’s Favorite) is a more complex game that reminds me of Crescent Solitaire in terms of rules and layout.

But the most exciting part for me was to improve the dealing of cards at the start of the game.
Usually, cards are dealt one by one in All-in-One Solitaire, that is the way game works, which is ok, but it has always bothered me because it could take quite some time, especially when 2+ decks of cards are dealt.
I was finally able to come up with a nice technical solution, and now cards are dealt much faster, with several cards moving at the same time.
I can make the cards be dealt all at once, but it doesn’t look nice.

Here is a short video of different approaches:

В темноте

Живя в Беларуси я никогда не слышал про Ледяной дождь, но в Монреале это обычное явление, такой дождик случается тут почти каждый год.
Явление это довольно прикольное, не считая последствий, конечно. Вроде как идёт дождь но всё кругом покрыто ледяной коркой.
Вообще всё, даже ты сам, который прошёлся по улице буквально 10 минут.
Провода линий электропередачи и ветви деревьев (иногда целые деревья) потяжелевшие из-за льда обрываются на ветру и в домах становится темно.

Куда дует ветер?

Continue reading “В темноте”

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