I've set up three new RSS feeds for the webcomics!
You can find them at https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/rss-feeds/index.html .

There's one for Pepper&Carrot (new episodes a couple times a year), one for MiniFantasyTheater (weekly episodes), and one for Misc (one-shots and experiments). Before this, I only had the blog feeds. These new RSS feeds for the peppercarrot.com website are also connected to the translation system: if you select a different language, the feed will notify you when episodes are translated into that language.

The MiniFantasyTheater feed also includes tags in the episode descriptions, so you can filter by series if you want.

This took a while to set up because the website's wasn't built with publish this type of XML in mind and I did it from scratch (check the commits here ! It started 10 days ago), but it should make now things easier for anyone wanting to integrate the comics into aggregators, widgets, or other tools.

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. The Gothic Sorceress with an umbrella, under an heavy rain is delicately plucking the Avian Intelligence from the trashbin of the school, taking it by the back of his colar, and rising it to the level of her face to get a serious talk to it. She frown, while staring intensively at the filthy creature.

Gothic Sorceress: "You're in luck, I found a group of magical creatures and need your translation skills."

Panel 2. A few moment later, in the midst of a luxurious forest, a group of small glowing tree spirits gazes at the AI Parrot and the Gothic Sorceress. Their expressions are innocent and curious, they are cold, and protecting themselves under two improvised umbrellas made with large leaves. The Gothic Sorceress point her finger at the small group while talking to the Avian Intelligence Parrot.

Gothic Sorceress: "Tell these tree spirits I invite them home because it's raining cats and dogs."

Panel 3. Dialog between the AI Parrot, speaking in ancient runes to the puzzled tree spirits, who respond in the same dialect.

Panel 4. The AI Parrot translates back to the Gothic Sorceress while the tiny tree spirits look on, still perplexed. The Gothic Sorceress appears unimpressed by the AI Parrot's inaccurate translation.

AI Parrot: "The tree spirits say there are no cats or dogs, are worried about your mental health, but accept your invitation."
Gothic Sorceress: "Next time, don't translate me that literally..."

Source here

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. A gothic sorceress enters a small magic shop, approaching the counter. The gothic sorceress explains her problem to the old seller. She shows her wand with a stone broken on it.

Old Seller: Welcome! How can I help you?
Gothic Sorceress: My magic stone is defective, I need a new one.

Panel 2. The old seller put a gem stone on the counter, the gothic sorceress is in shock.

Old Seller: Alright, that'll be 600 gold coins.
Gothic Sorceress: What?! It used to be 40!

Panel 3. The gothic sorceress thinks, the old man explains the price increase and a wider view angle show the shop full of Avian Intelligence Parrot.

Old Seller: That's because of Avian Intelligence: we need these stones to make them.

Panel 4. The gothic sorceress tries to understand. The old man gives up; the angle is even wider showing more of AI Parrots, a huge pile of them.

Gothic Sorceress: And you're going to sell all of these?
Old Seller: What do you think...

Source here

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. A serene parc outside the University of Magic under the great teapot moonshine. The gothic sorceress and her blond elf new friend, and a magician, are all sitting and chatting, smiling around a little fire. All the little group don't have their AI (Avian Intelligence) Parrots and have books, sketchbook, a knitting kit, and sit under a banner: "The NO AI Club". In the background, the headmaster walks with a lantern with his AI Parrot flying near his shoulder is shocked at the small club.

Panel 2. Shot on the headmaster, in anger, his face red with indignation:

Headmaster: "Why don't you have your Avian Intelligence with you? It's the future! You can't stop it!"

Panel 3. The Gothic Sorceress turns around, holding her arm out like a weapon towards the headmaster, and casts a spell, emitting a magical light from her fingers.

Gothic sorceress: "Muteo!"

Panel 4. The same view angle as in panel 1, the gothic sorceress smirks and she is proud of herself. The headmaster continues to scream at them in distance, but his speech bubble now only has a 'mute icon' in it.

Gothic sorceress: " Can't stop it? Please, that was super easy!"

source here

Tomorrow, I'll be interviewed live on Fireside Fedi at 9:00 AM (GMT-5)! (That's 15:00 Paris time & 9:00 AM New York time... fingers crossed I got it right)

Join us on https://stream.firesidefedi.live/ as we discuss Fediverse, Free/Libre Software, Webcomics & patronage platforms (if you can bear my French accent).

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. The Gothic Sorceress sits alone at the university of magic's cafeteria, without her Avian Intelligence (AI) Parrot. However, something feels off: she's surrounded by Avian Intelligence ads everywhere, big posters and marketing object "AI Next", "Go AI", "Join AI", "AI Win", "Use AI", "AI Now" etc... and many users around with their AI Parrots. She thinks out loud.

Gothic Sorceress: Ugh, can't escape it.

Panel 2. She runs down a staircase filled with the same AI ads everywhere, even large statues of parrots are here.

Gothic Sorceress: sighs Everywhere...

Panel 3. In a corridor with still many ads, she runs and push the door of the toilets.

Gothic Girl: Get me out! Somewhere, anywhere!

Panel 4. She sits on the toilet, looking exasperated, still fully dressed. The toilet paper, wall poster, and even the wallpaper all feature the same AI ads.

Gothic Girl: Seriously?... Even here?...

sources here

I'm reporting on a recent experience with a faulty RAM module that caused chaos on my system. Now that it's fixed, I hope this post will inform future users about the symptoms of a bad RAM module, how to detect it, and how to remove the culprit.

The Symptoms

It started on Monday, as I began production on my weekly comic. But this time, I had tons of unusualy bugs and crashes. Initially, I thought the problem was software-related, so I blamed a recent update of my Debian 12 KDE X11. But it felt unlikely due to the reputation of stability of the Debian project. However, with a deadline looming for my weekly comic on Wednesday, and knowing that creating one typically takes two full days of production, I decided to brute-force my way through the issues and try to push through the creation process, but:

• Firefox tabs kept crashing.
• Many software applications wouldn't launch due to segfaults, or crash midway.
• Krita painting software had random tile crashes, corrupted layers, freeze and writing issues.
• Md5sum and other checksum tools were failing, causing random re-renders on my renderfarm.
• Many libraries were crashing in background, resulting in an unstable DE and more corrupted files and configs.

Screenshot simulation: this image is a photomontage I created to illustrate the symptoms I had while working with the faulty RAM module.

As a result, producing my last MiniFantasyTheater episode was a technical nightmare . I had to reboot my machine very often (from session of 30 minutes to 1h30 when I was lucky) to get a brief window of stability and continue the painting. I kept only Krita and BeeRef open, without any other software and it felt like a long tunnel: no music, no radio, and no podcast while painting. From time to time, I only opened Konsole, and launched a journalctl command to see what was crashing.

I also saved my files very often: multiple incremental versions every 5 minutes to avoid corrupted Krita files and had to redo many steps multiple times when the saving process froze and the system collapsed.

Confirming the Issue

Because I have my priorities and I'm stubborn like a donkey, it's only after completing the episode (at 6am after a full night of running this unstable bio-hazard thing) that I started to search online (with another device) what was going on, asked help on our #peppercarrot channel, and realized the issue might not be software-related, but likely hardware-related. I confirmed this by:

• Switching to differents kernel via the Grub menu and seeing that the previous kernels had the same issues
• Testing a blank session on a live USB ISO (Linux Mint 22.2) and spotting similar problems

Running a memtest from the Linux Mint ISO boot menu overnight (or 'morning') revealed over 47K memory errors , confirming my suspicions.

Memtest running and starting to report failures. In the end more 47K failures were reported.

Repairing

To identify the faulty module among my four 8GB modules "G.Skill RipJawsV DDR4 @ 3200Mhz" , I followed the memtest documentation's advice ( Troubleshoot page , "1. Removing modules" ) to test each module individually. I made an official memtest ISO on a USB stick this time, and labeled each module with a letter (A, B, C, D) using a white pen. I also kept a table on a sheet of paper to note the results.

Labelling the ram with a painted letter in white A, B, C, D was helpful

While testing module A alone: bingo, that was the faulty one.

The test revealed that all errors were caused by module A, while modules B, C, and D were clean. A final test with the combination of B, C, and D confirmed that they were working properly. Yay. It wasn't that complex to do, but it was long: each memtest can take a long time to perform at least 10 different tests.

The Outcome

I kept only the RAM module B, C, and D and I'm now running with 23.4GiB of RAM as a temporary solution, which has restored the stability of my system (and my sanity). I might have lost 8GiB of RAM, but the peace of mind I gained from this move feels like a good trade-off for now.

In over three decades of using PCs, this is the first time I've encountered a failing RAM module and it's chaotic consequences. The module A, the one that failed, was purchased in 2020 and used daily on my PC... ( The full review of my workstation at that time is here ). 5.5 years of usage? Perhaps it simply lived an honest life. I have no idea...

I'll probably explore replacing the faulty module, but it sounds difficult to do it now without breaking the bank, as the current price hike of AI-related hardware like RAM is absurd. I also hope that my other modules won't fail like this one soon, especially if this is a question of lifetime.

All in all, it's remarkable (in a bad way) how much damage a bad RAM module can cause...

What a peace of mind to get back to a stable system... even with 8GiB less...

Your Experience?

Have you ever encountered a bad RAM situation? Is it a common issue? I know it may seem cliché to ask a question at the end of a blog post, but I'd sincerely love to hear about your experiences. Are there any warning signs or preventive measures that can help identify this issue ahead of time? What best practices or hygiene habits can we follow to minimize the risk of a faulty RAM module?

Transcript

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. On a sunny day with a blue sky, the gothic sorceress walks away from the school with the Avian Intelligence Parrot in her hands toward the garbage.

Gothic Sorceress: "Enough is enough, this time it's straight to the garbage!"

Panel 2. Not far away, a cute young elf sorceress is discussing with her Avian Intelligence in the foreground. Her Avian Intelligence traces a wavy symbol with a pencil on a board, teaching a lesson.

Elf Sorceress: "Avian Intelligence, make me a beginner's exercise on the ancient magic runic alphabet."
AI Parrot of Elf Sorceress: "Ok. Let's start with this one, pronounce it 'MA', the water."
Gothic Sorceress: ?!!

Panel 3. The Gothic Sorceress comes closer and asks the Elf Sorceress.

Gothic Sorceress: "Wait, are you really using your?!"
Elf Sorceress: "Yes, the trick is not to rely on it for direct answers, but to help me create lessons that expand my own intelligence."

Panel 4. Meanwhile, the AI Parrot of the Elf Sorceress continued to write on the board. It traced a symbol of poop on the board, then an XD emoji. The Gothic Sorceress laugh at it, while the Elf Sorceress is realizing something is wrong with this ancient magic runic alphabet.

AI Parrot of Elf Sorceress: "This one, pronounce it BS, the disbelief. This one LOL, the laughter."
Gothic Sorceress: "Well, good luck expanding anything with that..."

source here

Transcript:

A webcomic in four panels:

Panel 1. The gothic sorceress lies in bed, with a hot towel on her forehead and a thermometer in her mouth. Closer on the bed, her Avian Intelligence (AI) Parrot is perched.

Gothic Sorceress: "Ugh, I wanna die. This flu is brutal. Avian Intelligence, tell me how should I treat it?"

Panel 2. The AI Parrot responds with proudness in his pose.

AI Parrot: "It's easy. Take a pinch of Shadow-Root powder in a glass of water and done."

Panel 3. The Gothic Sorceress turns angry at the bird. This one try to process why.

Gothic Sorceress: "Wait a minute, Shadow-Root?! That's a #*$%@& lethal poison! Are you trying to kill me?"
AI Parrot: "You weren't asking for?... uh..."

Panel 4. The AI parrot realizes "I wanna die" was just an idiom, feels stupid and embarrassed. The Gothic Sorceress facepalms under her blanket.

AI Parrot: "Oh!"

sources here