Author: ryan
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Behind the scenes of Late Night and more – This Geek in Review 19 Jun 2020
At the beginning of the stay at home orders a lot of daily shows had to figure out how to work remotely. Some of the shows were really rough, but Late Night‘s production values were a step above the rest. LA Times went behind the scenes to show you how they did it.
By this time in your life you are probably tired of Bonestorm, so it nice to see the release of Lee Carvallos’ Putting Challenge. Speaking of video games, we also have a look at the genius that is the original NBA Jam.
From the “I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for Etsy” department, here’s a story that led the FBI from an Etsy review to identify a suspected arsonist. Lesson to be learned, don’t leave reviews if you’re going to do something bad.
Our long Flash nightmare is almost at an end, as Adobe Flash Player reaches end of life on December 31, 2020. The browsers have slowly been making Flash harder and harder to run, and after December it will run no more.
I’m not a big Facebook fan, but letting users turn off political ads is a bright spot.. It won’t affect me much since I only go on FB once every couple of weeks, but for others that use it every day, this is a godsend.
From the teacher fail department, here’s a letter from a teacher chewing out Neil Armstrong for faking the moon landing along with his response. I’m sad that he took the time to reply.
Got ADHD? Well the FDA just approved the first prescription video game to treat it. The game doesn’t appear to be available yet and I couldn’t find a link to pricing or if the game is available without a prescription.
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Returning to the coronavirus world and more – This Geek in Review for 12 Jun 2020
Going to a retreat for 75 days without outside communication sounds pretty cool. Doing it at the beginning of March 2020 could have some repercussions.
The first killer program for personal computers was the spreadsheet, or more specifically, VisiCalc. Here is a behind the scene look at the creation VisiCalc. And, following along with vintage computing, how about
extracting constants from 8087 math coprocessor.Back on May 21st I missed the 40th anniversary of the Empire Strikes Back. I’m bummed that I didn’t commemorate the day, but at least the date brought this article to my attention. Apparently, the ending of Empire changed from the initial 70mm print to the wide release of the 35mm print.
Knight Rider for 8 cellos
There was one show that I couldn’t miss growing up, and the was Knight Rider. It doesn’t quote hold up today, but the theme song does.
Not only has the coronavirus wrecked any sort of social life I have, it also has affected the accuracy of the weather forecasts. A lot of atmospheric data is collected from commercial airplanes, and when they’re not flying, less data is collected.
If you want to buy a decommissioned nuclear reactor control panel, I’ve found one for you.
Robotic arm punches through walls
What’s better than a robotic arm? How about one that can punch threw walls?
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The hacker heroes we need right now and more – This Geek in Review for 6 Jun 2020
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash Hackers come in all shapes and sizes, which I learned from these genius hacks on Reddit and Twitter. First up is the genius 4th grade hacker who didn’t want to participate in a Zoom conference with his teachers so he covered his camera and named himself Reconecting(sp)…. He may have gotten away with it too if he would have learned how to spell reconnecting. Next up is the genius ex-girlfriend who takes Netflix password sharing to a new level. Finally, we have a not so bright adulterer creatively changing his girlfriend’s name on his smartphone to hide texts.
It seems like we’re living in some sort of bad movie, especially when we have monkeys breaking in to a lab, attacking a lab assistant, and stealing Covid-19 samples. Were they bored? Or were they part of some elaborate scheme?
I could have seen my brothers and I doing this back when we were young, but that was the 70s, when anything went! Three brothers let a black widow bite them in hopes of turning into Spider-Man
I thought it was going to be a joke when it was announced, but the monsters at Samsung have set a release date in the UK for their rotating TV. This is why we can’t have nice things!
30 years later, a lost Days of Thunder NES game recovered from 21 floppy disks It’s always cool to see things recovered that were thought to be lost.
Star Wars but Cardi B does all the sound effects
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Microsoft Solitaire and more – This Geek in Review for 29 May 2020
I had a discussion with my mother once about wanting to play Freecell but she didn’t have access to a computer. “You know, you can play Freecell with a deck of cards…” She was not amused. What is amusing is how popular Microsoft Solitaire is as it turns 30 years old. Solitaire has 35 million monthly players which is 3 times the number of people playing World of Warcraft. In other Microsoft news, GW BASIC is now open source. BASIC started Microsoft, so this is a bit of interesting history.
Has Zoom video conferencing gotten bland? What about some new locations for your virtual meetings? Meet the company that is holding meetings in Red Dead Redemption 2. There are a few downsides, but it sounds awesome.
Turn on your 60s era mainframe with Alexa
Some people may be afraid of Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially after Nvidia’s AI generated a Pac-man clone after watching 50,000 hours of Pac-Man, but I don’t see too much to get worked up about. Just like that annoying kid in school who copied your answers for the test, Nvidia’s AI created nothing new, it just copied.
I’m one of the first people to hop on the Zack Snyder sucks bandwagon after the travesty of Batman Vs. Superman. Seriously, the movie was so boring that I heard a guy snoring during the big battle scene at the end. But, after watching the extended version of BvS, parts of the movie now made sense. This elevated the movie almost to the level of mediocrity.
Because of personal issues, Joss Whedon came in to finish the Justice League movie, adding some much-needed humor. Since then, fans have been clamoring for the ‘Snyder Cut’ of Justice League, and it is now happening on HBO Max. I hardly remember watching Justice League the first time, so my second viewing will seem like the first time all over again.
One of the first things I did when we signed up for Disney+ was to check out The Simpsons. I was hoping Disney wouldn’t fail like FX, but I was too hopeful and it crushed my dreams. The Simpsons on Disney+ were the cropped versions, which means several site gags were lost. Fortunately, Disney has seen the light, and will be releasing The Simpsons in their original aspect ratio on May 28th. Now if we can get the video distributors to stop cropping popular TV shows that were released pre-HD. Friends and Seinfeld look terrible with the framing of the shots being off.
DEVO’s “Mongoloid” about the arcade game Asteroids
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The Lego Minifig creator has died and more – This Geek in Review for 22 May 2020
We lost several great people this past February. The creator of the Lego minifig passed away. I still remember my first Lego set, which I received from my Uncle Jim and Aunt Janie when I was 7 or 8. The set, a plane and boat, started me on a childhood of creating. My first minifigs in that set were pretty sad, no face, arms, or legs. At the time I don’t remember even knowing what Lego bricks were until I got that set.
One of the most famous cheat codes of the 1980s was the Konami code, who’s create, Kazuhisa Hashimoto has died.
Finally, Freeman Dyson is dead at 96. His theory of the Dyson Sphere was a plot device in a great Star Trek: The Next Generation episode.
The Rubik’s Cube skills are impressive
I view clothes more as a courtesy to others, and it seems with the rise in videoconferencing others do also. Walmart sees a rise in sales for tops, but not bottoms.
Since you can sue anyone for anything, why not sue Netflix because you’re not making enough money fleecing the masses?
If you get lost a lot, I guess it’s time to find some friends that sense the Earth’s magnetic field. You never know when you need to know which direction North lies.
I like reading stories about WeWork, the co-working startup. The founder was pretty crazy, and it sounds like the co-founder was just trying to keep up.
The ability to tow extra batteries for your electric car sounds like a good idea, but the execution doesn’t look too cool.
Here is a look at how TV logos were created before computers.
