blog

code, tunes, and pals

status update for July

2026-07-31

It has been since June since the last time I updated my blog, and I felt like doing a bit of an update here today since it has been a minute since the last one.

This last month has been quite interesting, and has flown by very fast. Been getting some things done outside as usual, as well as working on some new touches in our naviOS and protocol7 environments while aiming to be pushing those out quite soon as .ISO files you can download and run on your own machine, hoping to have these out for everyone to enjoy if they want to run them by the end of this summer for a stable release.

I have also finally finished up my new record, void/null. It is the second full-length record from the x3nyth project, and it has been in the works over the last year-ish, since the release of the last record, which was last May. I'm quite happy with how the new record turned out, being a mostly ambient record with some interesting experimental stuff. It is as usual also listed on Bandcamp and Subvert for anyone that wants to purchase and download it!

Speaking of music, I also got started on a new EP, called bloom. This one is only going to have four tracks, and is going to be a conceptual EP about the seasons and the weather they bring. Each track is going to represent one season (spring, summer, autumn, winter), and the seasonal associated weather phenomena. Each season on our planet brings new temperatures, new storms, new challenges and experiences. This is something I have always thought is fascinating, and the idea of writing a little concept EP sounded fun, so bloom begun. I have one track written for it right now, which is based around the springtime and the rain that nourishes the earth. This track is called "petrichor", and the beginning of the series. The track is still being worked on and not fully finished, but I have been enjoying the process of this one so far: It centers around natural instruments and field recordings, ran heavily through digital processing for experimental effects. Will be very interesting to see how each track comes out!

I mentioned the xvoidsx new stuff at the beginning of this post, but I didn't go very deep on what's new. A lot of the work on naviOS and protocol7 has been just some additional polish, like adding in some new convenient keybindings, and (finally!) a native emoji picker. Also, since the last update I made, I have brought in a new, modified environment that you can use in protocol7 if you'd like. It is a multiplexer called herdr, and it is another option you have to use alongside our modified tmux.

There are screenshots of each of these configurations on the repos linked above, be sure to check them out if you want to see how it is setup, and I will be doing a further writeup about this on the blog sometime this weekend!

Finally, the other thing I've been doing has been playing a good bit of Palworld. If you have somehow not heard about it, it is a game that has been in early access since sometime in 2024, and just went stable this month with its 1.0 release. I picked it up and have been playing it quite a bit.

There is a great site, Palpedia, with loads of helpful information on all the different Pals, gear, maps, that kind of thing. Give it a look if you need to if you are new to the game or are looking for something and not finding it!

I am currently level 56 or so in the game, and my main Pals have been seeming to be Chillet, Chillet Ignis, Kattress, Helzephyr, Quilvern, and Icelyn. I have loads more Pals, but these seem to be the ones I've been using the most lately. The game is all kinds of fun, letting you build your base as you see fit, cooking food for yourself and for your Pals, a good catching and leveling system, a very good-sized map for the open world, and so much more. I enjoy the battling system, I enjoy all the exploration I can do and the very good amount of Pals that have been added into the game. I am pretty good ways into the game, but I know there is still tons left to do and I'm going to keep exploring and catching new Pals without rushing the story. Such a wonderful game!

This has been the majority of what I've been up to this month. Going into August, the goal is to finish up the website for all of the documentation around naviOS and protocol7, called Enter the Wired. I will be sharing it out on here when it is done and adding a section for it to the Wiki. Looking forward to seeing what other people think of our portal to the Wired.

Enjoying some time in nature when I'm not working on this stuff or playing Palworld. We've had a few good storms and rainy days this month, and I always enjoy walking out and listening to the rain and having a smoke. The rain and storms always bring a bit of a cooldown during the summer, and it is always fun to just sit there and listen to the music of nature, with just your thoughts. A contemplative way to step away from the screens for awhile.