Tuesday, October 20, 2026

Making Totten Start Up Faster

This helped load the program up much quicker. Why the moves are still loading In the previous message, two options were discussed: Header-only indexing (chess.pgn.read_headers), which skips moves entirely. Byte-seeking with full games (f.seek() combined with read_game), which reads the full game data (including moves). The code provided used Option 2. It still used read_game(), meaning every single move, node, and variation for that chunk of 100 games was fully parsed and loaded into memory. Why it became so fast The reason it sped up gigantically without losing the moves comes down to what was being skipped: Before: Your code was reading from the very beginning of the file every time and parsing every single game just to skip past them and reach your current offset. If your catalog had 5,000 games, it had to parse 4,900 games just to get to your current batch. Now: f.seek(byte_offset) jumps straight to the exact byte location of your current chunk instantly in 0.001 seconds. It only runs read_game() on the 100 games you are actually looking at right now, completely bypassing the rest of the file. You get the best of both worlds: instant startup speed and fully loaded moves ready for analysis. Here is how it works under the hood: The Bookmark (f.tell()): When Python finished reading your 100th game during your last session, the file reader was sitting at a very specific character/byte position in the text file. The code asked f.tell() for that exact number and saved it to catalog_offset.txt. The Jump (f.seek()): When you restart the program, instead of starting at byte 0 (the very top of the file) and reading through everything, f.seek(byte_offset) tells Python: "Jump straight to this exact byte position." Flawless Alignment: Because f.tell() always records the position right at the end of a successfully parsed game, jumping back to it lands Python right at the exact start of game number 101. It doesn't guess or look for a nearby game; it goes straight to the exact line where it left off.

Tuesday, October 6, 2026

Sometimes your GRUB gets lost. 2nd time this happened, but I documented it this time.

https://bsky.app/profile/marcususa.bsky.social/post/3mxatqeb3hc2d

Programming and Distribution Questions Q4OS vs. antiX

The keyword over the years is "persistence". I remember the Windows days when you downloaded an .exe file and it worked. You could come back and it was there. "And we liked it like that." - Old Grumpy Man Now in Linux, I make changes and it comes back blank/default. My changes didn't matter? How can someone get a program and actually have all the files they need without all this pip install crap? I recently tried Q4OS which brings back nostalgia from the 2000-2010 era. I also like MX Linux, Fluxbox, and probably antiX (haven't tried yet). Puppy Linux, SliTaz, and Porteus are ultra-lightweight distros. However, you still need to build the OS to your desires. This is what I am learning about this Totten project. How much modification do you want to do? Do you want to add air to your tires, do you want to change your oil, do you want to replace a tire, do you want to test the battery, do you want to change the car lights, do you want to fix the actuator for locking, etc...

Sunday, September 27, 2026

When vibecoding becomes difficult

https://bsky.app/profile/marcususa.bsky.social/post/3mwjavjjurs2f
And to alleviate later frustrations, if you want a backup of your github files, use this: git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/REPO_NAME.git Other approaches ask for username and password info. Even if you put it in correctly, they don't accept it. Fucking bastards.

Friday, September 18, 2026

Kubuntu DPI vertical problem turns into a "wider" Microsoft 11 problem?

Developing to make all happy. Kubuntu makes it too vertical, Microsoft makes it too wide. Huey Lewis said/sung it once, "Hip to be Square".
Huey Lewis & The News - Hip To Be Square https://youtu.be/LB5YkmjalDg?si=wE7UHpUIFsmvUQ9J

Tuesday, September 15, 2026

Stockfish 19 came out as universal, and I recently learned not all Linux distros are universal. Welcome to KDE Plasma, EndeavourOS (Endeavor for us Yanks), and ArchLinux. This is when compared to Xfce distros (Xubuntu, PeppermintOS, and MX Linux), we need to look at vertical size. "a" or "A". Who is taller? Why can't "a" levitate? Koreans do that with Hangul.

Making Totten Start Up Faster