✨ Welcome to my little corner 🌈

Character Art by eunalis ❤️

I'm 🐺 SilverFolfy 🎶, nice to meet you!

My primary interests, pastimes and further info:

• Gaming
• Music
• Nerd Stuff
• Furry Stuff
• Contact / Social
• Personal Stances
• Special Thanks
• More Links & Profiles

My fundamental tenets I try to live by:

Last page update: 01. Mar. 2024

• Site Changelog

Disclaimer

⚠ 18+ Warning: Some of my of my public online presences might be 🔞NSFW.
(That means they may not be safe for minors)

📜 Site Changelog

Changelog first started on 28th June 2022, changes before that were not tracked

📜 My stances on current or popular topics

Last page update: 27. Jun. 2023

Disclaimers

What this is for

These are only the topics I have formed a somewhat stronger opinion on.
This is intended as information only, I am not particularly interested in discussing the why's and how's of my stances on the internet with random strangers.
But it may be helpful to know where I stand, to not be surprised by my opinion if such a topic comes up.

How I form my opinions

I form my opinions mostly through comparing and reading many different news sources, papers and videos.
As every person on the planet I have opinions on many things, which may or may not also be biased or wrong.
Only one thing I know for a fact: People are not infallible.
However, as someone who values gathering information and opinions from all sides, I am willing to change my own stances based on new information.
Opinions should not be carved in stone.

Tips on gathering info and finding credible sources

Tip for finding credible news sources:
Media Bias / Fact Check - Helps to identify potentially biased media outlets (in multiple directions) or outlets with less-than-ideal reporting factuality and objectivenessHow to read scientific papers and what to look out for:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrjz0QyvON8
(yes, scientific papers are also not always trustworthy, depending on how the data was gathered and interpreted, and also who actually funded the research)

My stances

I would describe myself as being "left-center" on most topics.

✅ I am for:

🔭🔬 Pro-Science - The scientific method is the reason humanity has come this far in the first place.
A focus should be on improving the quality of our lives and the next generations with factual and peer-reviewed data, information and technologies. To better understand the universe is to better understand ourselves and the paths we can take for the future.
☢️ Pro-Nuclear - I see it as important stepping stone to better our climate if done right.
Shutting down plants and replacing them with gas, or worse coal, is a bad idea (looking at you, Germany!).
Living in Austria myself also feels like I am a unicorn with this stance, as our country is vehemently against nuclear, sadly.
However, we are lucky to have a very high percentage of hydro power, so we are less reliant on other power sources.
Countries like Germany or Poland could really benefit in the long run to invest into nuclear alongside renewables like solar and wind.
Projects like the Finland's "Onkalo" for storing the limited amount of high-level nuclear waste currently produced (which is way less than one might think!) can be done around the world and are an effective long-term storage strategy until we have the technology to re-use or neutralize the waste.
Problems like Co² emissions pose a much more immediate and global danger we should focus on for now, whereas nuclear waste is a relatively small and localized issue that can be mitigated for a long time to come.
A great resource that goes into detail of all the pros and cons of nuclear: https://whatisnuclear.com/
💉 Pro-Vaccines - These are truly incredible boosters for our own immune systems that actually work, based on decades of research and testing in the medical field.
Sure, infection is still possible (many media sources label them as "immunizations", which can be a bit misleading), but the risk for bad cases with hospitalization or even death is greatly diminished.
So far a great majority of points made by anti-vaccine people have been refuted multiple times, and some claims don't even make any sense. Many of those points simply stem from fear of the unknown or ignorance. (i.e. vaccines causing autism, vaccines altering DNA, etc.)
What anti-vaccine people also tend to forget that vaccines are nothing more than helpers for our own immune system. Many claim that "our body should get rid of infections by it's own means alone", but that is exactly what vaccines are made for! They only teach our own immune system how to effectively combat certain infections.
🌈 Pro-LGBTQ+ - Everyone should be able to identify themselves however they please, and go into relationships and legal marriage free of restrictions or judgement.
🛠️ Right to repair - Products should be easily serviceable to extend their life and usefulness, which prevents waste and builds a good relationship with customers.
Care should be taken that all needed parts are available at a fair price and with ample instructions on how to service the product.
As the resources of our planet dwindle, this needs to become mandatory for manufacturers, along a robust network of recycling centers.
✔️ Pro-Choice - Everyone should be able to make informed decisions about their own body and not have this right taken away.
It is not for anyone else to decide how one should handle their own body.

❔ My gray areas:

🤖 AI research and tools - These can be anywhere from very useful to very ethically questionable, up to outright dangerous.
It all comes down to how they are used and regulated.
Some examples:
- AI that searches for new possible substances to cure diseases is great.
- AI that helps disabled people in their daily life tasks (without being a privacy nightmare connected to a central server) is good.
- AI that learns to generate art, while being trained on images it did not have the rights to use is very questionable.
- AI that can fake and imitate people and events in image, video or audio form is dangerous.
- AI that learns how to effectively wage combat or find new substances for chemical weapons is very dangerous.

❌ I am against:

🔐 Regulations that aim to restrict or ban encryption - It is a vital tool for our collective online privacy
⛔ DRM in all products - DRM in media and games were put in place to stop piracy, but piracy still exists. And the more aggressive these DRM schemes become, the more aggressive the piracy will be.
When a normal paying customer has a worse experience with DRM rather than with pirated content, then the DRM has effectively failed.
DRM in physical devices actively prohibit customers from repairing or tinkering with their own products they purchased and own or even shutting down the product remotely when the company goes insolvent or a subscription is not paid, leading to even more e-waste.
Companies push for this since they do not want customers to "own" anything anymore, leading to everything becoming a dystopian locked down proprietary subscription service.
💰 Aggressive monetization in games and applications - This includes all predatory forms of gambling (lootboxes), Pay2Win, NFTs, etc.
💣 Planned obdolescence - Building products that fail intentionally purely to drive profits is extremely harmful to the environment (especially e-waste) and a really shitty move against paying customers
🧾 NFTs - They "aim" to solve problems that don't even exist (especially in games and art), are very negatively impacting our energy demand and therefore the environment, and have created countless more cases of money laundering and scams than actual usecases.
Good thing they are vanishing again as fast as they cropped up.

📜 Additional tenets I like as guiding principles

I found these to be well formulated and I think in an ideal world, these would be it's pillars.

There are Seven
FUNDAMENTAL TENETS[ I ]
One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.[ II ]
The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.[ III ]
One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.[ IV ]
The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.[ V ]
Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.[ VI ]
People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.[ VII ]
Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

Just FYI, these tenets are actually from the Satanic Temple!
Pretty interesting, huh? 😄
https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/about-us

Note: I am not actually a member of this, or any such organization (religious or otherwise), because I believe everyone can be a good person without being member of any organization, but their tenets are actually pretty solid guiding principles written with common sense!

🎮 Gaming

Last page update: 17th July 2022

Profiles

Steam is where most of my games live (what a surprise) ;-)
Though I also have some on GOG, itch.io and the likes.

• Steam Profile
• GOG.com Profile

For Steam achievement statistics I use these:

• My AStats
• TrueSteamAchievements

-> Because Steam does not take care of broken, unobtainable achievements... grumble

🖥 Gaming Hardware Specs and Setup

Last upgraded June 2022

The "Emerald Beast" & Setup

Gaming Interests

My main gaming interests are, in descending order:

💚 Exploration / Adventure / Story Games, particularly with mysterious atmosphere

Examples: The Outer Wilds, INFRA, The Witness, Lost Ember, Heaven's Vault, In Other Waters...

💖 Resource-management Strategy / City Builders / "Factory Games"

Examples: Frostpunk, Factorio, Modded Minecraft, Satisfactory, Dyson Sphere Program, Astroneer, The "Creeper World" Series, Anno Series, Cliff Empire, Per Aspera...

😊 Games with "Chill" vibes

These may also fit in other categories :-)
Examples: Stardew Valley, Eurotruck Simulator, A Short Hike, Cozy Grove, Signal Simulator, No Mans Sky...

🤝 Games with amazing Co-Op that may not fit above

Examples: Earth Defense Force (4.1 and 5), Payday 2, Deep Rock Galactic...

❌ Dislikes: PvP (any kind), sports games, card games, "superhero" games, super-high-skill platformers / speedrunning games, arena shooters

You can find some reviews on my Steam Profile:

• My Steam Reviews

Additional stuff and ramblings:

• 🏆 My take on "fair" Achievements

Fair Achievements

So, these are my hot takes on achievements.
To start, I really like achievements!
I think they are en excellent way of gauging progress, remind you of awesome moments or challenging feats and keep achievement hunters engaged.
I might not be a super OCD completionist in many games, but I do care what achievements a "perfect" game should have, and why some games may be better off not having any...
Here goes my list of traits achievements should and shouldn't have to be fun and fair for people caring about them (in my humble opinion):

✔️ There should be a healthy mix of achievements:
- Ones that closely flow with the game (such as story-related ones)
- Ones that lead you to explore new parts of the game that are not on the "main path"
- Ones that let you try unconventional and fun ways to play, which may otherwise not be considered
- Ones that challenge you fairly

✔️ Achievements can and should be challenging, but thought should be put into making them accessible to everyone.
Achievements on public platforms like Steam should be achieveable by anyone, given enough time, but should ultimately not be an immeasurable timesink only few can commit to.
Truly hard and/or long challenges should be constrained to be something that can stand on it's own, without requiring achievements. They should reward players that are up to the challenge with lore or special moments, while not making other players feel bad about themselves for not being able to do it.
Example: "Path of Pain" in Hollow Knight which is a very hard platforming segment, which does infact not reward an achievement, but the satisfaction of knowing that you did it and the bragging rights that come with it

❌ Achievements shouldn't be tacked on as grindy "do 1000 times X" ones, which will take almost as long as completing everything else in a game.
Also there should neither be achievements which require a complete second (or more) playthrough just to get a single one.
This will only lead to frustration with a game that would otherwise have been very enjoyable and leaves a sour aftertaste.

❌ Achievements on games with mixed singleplayer and multiplayer functions should not include exclusive multiplayer achievements, to ensure fairness to players who are not at all interested in the MP aspect.
A good way of doing this would be to allow earning them in both single- and multiplayer, if possible.

❌ Achievements should be earnable anytime, without relying on external influences which can make them impossible. This includes:
- Achievements should not be restricted by real-life time or locked out of every be obtainable again. Example: Achievement that was only achieveable through one non-recurring event which is already over.
- Achievements that are bound to the reachability of game servers or multiplayer lobbies. Once the servers are down, the achievements will be broken and unachieveable. This includes MMOs and other games with crucial central servers. An exemption from that would be achievements that are only visible ingame when the servers are up and reachable, but these should not be bound to external platforms like Steam.

❌ Achievements shouldn't be put on software that are not games but infact tools.
This may be more prevalent on some software available on Steam.
Negative examples: 3DMark, Wallpaper Engine

❌ Broken achievements should be fixed or removed. Either through the developer itself or through the platform which hosts them.

With that said, here are some random examples of games that have done this well I think:
- Valley
- Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons
- Outer Wilds
- Donut County
- Dyson Sphere Program
- Kingdom and Castles
- Saints Row: The Third
- Wolfenstein: The New Order
- Eastshade
- Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries

🎶 Music

Last page update: 22. March 2024

💿 Albums & Tracks I listen to

• My Bandcamp Profile
• My Last.fm Profile

I get most of my music from Bandcamp <3
For tracking my listening I use last.fm since it's widely supported.

Mostly it's electronic/melodic/chill/rock/synth stuff but also many others.
Also mostly unsorted (or just by purchase date), maybe you'll like some of it ;-)
I love to hear most genres if it sounds good to me, but exception to this is generally rap/hiphop/pop, as I extremely rarely like these.

Why Bandcamp and not Spotify / Tidal / (insert other service)?

• See here!

💿 Physical Collection

I also have a vinyl and CD collection consisting mostly of game soundtracks or music from my Bandcamp.
Although it might be a little outdated.

• My Discogs Collection

🏆 Music Hall of Fame

Here I will curate some of my all time favorites!

• My Music Hall of Fame

🎧 Headphone Setup

Why Bandcamp?

The following may sound like an advert for Bandcamp, but I'm actually very pleased with it as a fan over the years. I am not a paid shill, I pinky promise!
I find it to be the most fair platform for both artists and customers alike.

Why not Spotify / Tidal / (insert streaming service)?

I am unwilling to pay for streaming subscriptions because of multiple big negatives for me:

🏆 Music Hall of Fame 🎶

Last page update: 28. July 2022

This part of my little site is dedicated for gradually compiling a list of my favourite music artists, tracks and albums together with some short descriptions and tidbits.There won't be a particular order or ranking, as that would be too hard for me to choose.
However, same artists will be grouped together.The list will continually expand when I find the time to curate it.Oh, and yes, you can listen to the whole albums here front to back a few times, without pauses or ads, because Bandcamp is awesome!

Wolfgun

Artist description:
One of my earliest discoveries and favorites, his music is unmistakably energetic and flows like a river made of liquid stardust.
In his own words: "Electronic tunes, made by scratching a high density laser across the hull of my space-craft. May include traces of stardust."
Still one of my favorite artists that stood the test of time.

Genres:
experimental DnB

Lights

Projections

Danger

Artist description:
WIP

Genres:
upbeat melodic glitchwave electro ?

Haven Original Soundtrack

C418

Artist description:
Everyone knows him by his outstanding Minecraft OSTs, but here I want to focus more on his other works, which can stand on their own quite spectacularly!

Genres:
"Minecraft"😀, electronic, house, ambient, chiptune, idm, edm

C418 - One

C418 - Excursions

Árstíðir

Artist description:
An outstandingly talented and heartwarming band from dreamy iceland.
One of my favorites for passionate down-to-earth vocals and soothing guitar strings and violin.
Earlier works differ quite hard from their newer works. All in all I think I prefer everything up until and including "Hvel" a little more than the later "post-Hvel" albums, since they seem to have a little more soul, are sung mostly in beautiful icelandic, more focus on vocals and acoustic and are less "radio-like" pop characteristic (they used basically no electronic / synth tunes back then).
However, their newest album Blik (which is not yet released to the public as of writing*), although being quite different in style and fully english, is an absolute earworm too!

* Was sent out very early to crowdfunding supporters of Pendull & Blik.

Genres:
atmospheric folk / acoustic rock (earlier works)
chamber pop / acoustic / vocal (later works)

Árstíðir (self-titled debut)

Svefns og vöku skil

Hvel

Non-exhaustive list of artists/albums coming soon™
- Many game OSTs!
- More from Wolfgun!
- Kubbi
- Fox Amoore
- Aviators
- Tetarise
- Nigel Stanford
- melodysheep
- ThesePantsDontFit
- NUTRONIC
- Yosi Horikawa
- Frozen Starfall
- Norowareta Night
- Sleeping At Last
- Trazer
- nervous_testpilot
- combatplayer - Journey
- Ben Prunty
- Kuraine
- DDRKirby(ISQ)
- Jamatar
- Nigel Good - Space Cadet
- OVERWERK
- Rchetype
- Stellardrone
- The Boy & Sister Alma - T B & S A
- The Music Room - Wolves without Teeth EP
- Dunderpatrullen
- Jake Bowen
- mindthings
- Ed Harrison
- Disasterpeace
- zircon
- Neurotech / NeuroWulf

🔗 Links to my other profiles

Last page update: 05. May 2021

• Patreon
• ArtStation

👓 Nerd Stuff

Last page update: 26. March 2023

💾 Software Recommendations

• Go Here

📱 My Smartphone

OnePlus 7T Pro McLaren
(Yes I splurged a little on money there, yes I shouldn't spend so much on a phone, I know... That said, I didn't really regret it in the end, it's a great and sexy smartphone!)
I mean, the specs are really nothing to snuff at (for now), I'll surely be having this phone for years to come.

Home Server & Networking

Nothing too fancy, parts currently in the rack are (from top to bottom, left to right):
- Keystone Patchpanel
Here the network cables from our house come in. Only 2 of those connections are in the picture (red and green cable), now we have 5 of them planned, two of which are LACP trunks :-)
- HP J8692A Switch 3500yl-24G
The network heart of the.. uh.. network? 😁 Typical robust HP gigabit switch, got it for a really good price in used condition, but still running flawlessly. These things just don't die.
All I need for my purposes. It even has PoE across all ports! ⚡
Very handy for connecting Wireless APs and Access Switches on the other end.
- My custom built rackmount Server "ATLAS"
This is my powerhouse in the rack which I built as a file-/app-/mediaserver.
More info on that one down below 😉
- AVM FRITZ!Box 6490 Cable
That's were our primary internet connection from our local ISP comes in with 200 MBit/s down, 20 MBit/s up.
- FortiGate 60F
The security-heart of the network, a corporate hardware firewall 🔥 segmenting all of our VLANs and acting as gateway.
These are known to be somewhat buggy at times with new firmware, but are practically unbeatable in terms of features at the pricepoint (for a corporate grade unit).
So far I had a great experience on my home unit and did not encounter problems or feature shortcomings.
I used some advanced features several times already to bend the network or some unruly device-/application-traffic to my will *evil laughter *
This is also why it's hard to justify going with any other vendor or even DYI for as long as I have this appliance
- AmazonBasics 1500VA / 900W UPS
Affordable UPS that does it's job fine and even has USB support with most software!

Fileserver / Appserver / Mediaserver "ATLAS"

This is my main server which does practically everything.
It's a NAS for filestorage, mediaserver, docker & VM server, hosts the occasional gameserver, and sometimes does it all at once without breaking a sweat.

💾 Software Recommendations

Last page update: 8. September 2023

Some software mostly for nerds I find really well designed and useful.
I try to only include things that are not widely known and already regarded as standard, i.e. Blender for 3D modeling, Steam for Games.
But if I find it especially good, mainstream software also gets mentioned.

Home Automation & Management
Home Assistant (powerful and extensive open-source home automation server)
Homebox (home inventory & organization software)
Shelly (diverse range of home automation hardware products)
AI on the Edge Device (ESP32-powered analog utility meter digitizer)
Huginn (event-based task automation - like IFTTT)Authentication / File Security
KeePass 2 (password manager)
WinAuth (2-factor authenticator for Windows)
Aegis (feature-rich Android open-source TOTP authenticator)
VeraCrypt (file/disk encryption software)
XCA (digital certificate management tool)File and Disk Management
Resilio Sync Home Pro (powerful file synchronization solution)
Everything (fast file search utility)
SpaceSniffer (disk space visualizer)
FreeFileSync (local folder & file comparison and synchronization software)
ExactFile (Bulk File Hashsum Calculator)
SoftPerfect RAM Disk (self-explanatory...)Communication
ProtonMail (secure & private swiss email service)
ElectronMail (email client for ProtonMail)Networking & Network Security
ProtonVPN (VPN client)
Netbox (IP address management tool)
PiHole (DNS based network adblocker)
Unbound (open-source validating, recursive & caching DNS resolver)
ZeroTier (P2P VPN to connect all your devices together)
Nginx Proxy Manager (Simple yet functional Reverse Proxy with WebUI)
Vilfo (VPN router software to connect whole networks over public VPN providers)
GlassWire (PC network monitor/firewall)
Portmaster (open-source firewall software)
SoftPerfect Network Scanner (self-explanatory...)Backup
MailStore Home (email backup/archiver)
Duplicati (backup software)
Macrium Reflect Free (disk imaging software)
Veeam Agent (Windows backup & replication software)Text File Viewing & Editing / Programming
Notepad++ (powerful text/source code editor)
HxD (Hex editor)
Visual Studio Code (free extensible code editor)
Klogg (fast log explorer)
GitLab CE (open-source git-repository server)
AutoHotkey (scripted Windows automation engine)Multimedia & Creativity
MusicBee (powerful and beautiful music player akin to WinAmp)
MP3Tag (well, it's an MP3 tag editor...)
VoiceMeeter (powerful audio mixer/streamer)
Paint.net (image/photo editor)
Krita (open source painting software)
Draw.io (Free diagram software, like Visio)
RawTherapee (raw image processing program)
XMedia Recode (audio/video converter)Gaming & Emulation
PrismLauncher (powerful open-source Minecraft Launcher)
GOG Galaxy (universal game platform/launcher)
NoxPlayer (Android emulator for PC)
FlashPoint (software & project to preserve and play old web flashgames)Miscellaneus Software
f.lux (nightly PC monitor eye strain reducer)
Stellarium (planetarium software)
carrd.co (this site was made with it)
Actual (budgeting software)
Ferdi (consolidates all communication in a single app - Telegram, Twitter, Discord, Reddit and 100+ more)
OpenRGB (open-source RGB controller software)
Fan Control (lightweight open-source fan control software)
NAPS2 (scanner software)
Netdata (server monitoring dashboard)

🐺 Furry Stuff 🦊

Last page update: 20th Sept. 2023

Although I generally consider myself to be a furry and have a fursona, I am not really actively involved in the fandom, but I do enjoy all the amazing artwork, music, videos, craftsmanship and conventions.
I see so many truly talented, friendly and supportive folks in the fandom.

If you're interested in some factual data about the furry fandom, I can recommed heading over to furscience.com, where real scientists conduct studies about the fandom!
Especially their research findings are very interesting.
They even published many actual research papers about furries!

Commissioned Artworks / Media

Silver - Reference Sheet

My alter ego - Silver - a fox/wolf hybrid, or "Folf"
This amazing reference sheet was made by eunalis

Silver/Sparky - Couple Lockscreen

Absolutely adorable phone lockscreen commission for me and my love Sparky! 💕
made by SkiaSkai ✨

Silver/Sparky couple artwork

A couple artwork showing both my character Silver and the one from my BF, Sparky.
Made by StardustxWolf✨

Silver/Sparky couple icon

A couple icon showing both my character Silver and the one from my BF, Sparky.
Used as my avatar sometimes as well.
Made by Silvixen
Twitter: @silvixenart

Icon "System Error"

Made by Kinggcollie
Twitter: @kinggcollie

Silver Chibi Icon

My character Silver in cute chibi format :)
Sadly I can no longer remember who made this icon... will add once I know

My own "works"

Silver - Old reference sheet

This old version of my reference was the first that I made, with a freely available lineart by Zambuka, just to try and find the colors and markings I liked.
I know, it looks a little strange since the proportions were predefined and I can't draw...
This is actually revision v3 of the same refsheet.
It also contains some more info about Silver.

Silver - Icon

A quick icon I threw together from the above reference sheet, used for some time as an avatar picture.

✉️ Contact / Social Profiles

Last page update: 19. Sep. 2023

Disclaimer

If you want to reach out, please understand I am not really one for daily smalltalk.
That means I do not engage for very long if all you write is "hi" and expect me to keep the conversation going.I prefer discussing actual things we are both interested in, this can be games, astronomy, etc. So basically what I wrote on my main page.
No religious or political stuff please!

Contact Channels

You can reach me on any of these public channels, but understand I might not reply fast.

Also, if you want to add me as a friend somewhere, I'd appreciate if you drop me a line why you want to add me and/or where you found me and my profile 😸
Otherwise I might not react to the friend requests at all, please understand that I am not one to add as many random people as possible without reason

• Steam
• Telegram
• Bluesky
• Twitter / X
• Mastodon
• Lemmy

Telegram QR Code

Contact Form

If you're oldschool you can also use this form to drop me a mail:

Anonymous Questions

Want to know something about me anonymously?
Be it nice or naughty, compliment or critique, ask or tell me anonymously via Zaqa!
(Just bear in mind I might take some time to answer there)

• Zaqa

✨ Special Thanks

Last page update: 05. May 2021

Here I express my gratitude towards special kinds of people who support me, did something great for me or just simply inspire me or make stuff I really like <3

🦊 SparkyFox - For being the bestest fox around!
We are together since 2011 and happily engaged since 2016 (we take it slow ^^)
I wouldn't know what to do with my life without you, but now we can enjoy the good things and endure the bad ones together! <3

eunalis - Made a wonderful character reference sheet for me which I also use as avatar

Silvixen - Made beautiful character avatar art for me and SparkyFox

SkiaSkai - Made absolutely adorable phone lockscreen commission for me and my love Sparky! 💕