Every pop machine in the district is SOLD OUT!! Argh!! đĄđĄđĄ
Author: ryan
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Why the Apple II was great and more – This Geek in Review for 8 May 2020
In the computer industry, the late 70s early 80s was the wild wild west. No one knew what to do with personal computers, and even more people assumed they were a passing fad, like disco. In 1977 Apple released the Apple II, and it was the most important computer Apple ever released. This machine was so monumental that it almost derailed the release of the Macintosh. At the time, companies would want to hurt their cash cow by competing against themselves, but Steve Jobs was different. If someone was going to take Apple sales, it was going to be Apple. With the success of the Apple II (followed by the Apple //e), Apple didn’t want to hurt the sales of the II line with the Macintosh. But, Steve knew better.
Rocky Bergen has released free papercraft models of retro computers. Download, print, assemble and glue to get your own Apple II. And since we’re on an Apple II kick, how about running a program to re-create the scene from a View to a Kill and an Apple //c?
I’ve noticed a bunch of virtual art exhibits being put together online, and here are two of my favorites. One is an homage to the vehicles used in Nintendo 64 games while the other allows you to view pictures from Reddit in 3D.
Memories
To computers, a byte is basically a character, so writing a demo in 256 bytes is quite impressive. Twitter gives you more space for a tweet. The Memories demo is really amazing, especially the write up on how it works.
Game machines are very limited to multipurpose computers, so they rely on programmer tricks to get the most of of the systems.
Seinfeld – The Unofficial Pitch
It’s not an actual game…. Yet.
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YouTube at 15, Trolls World Tour, and more – This Geek in Review for 1 May 2020
This past week YouTube turned 15, and here’s the first video posted:
There are times I miss the internet of the ’00s.
Trolls World Tour came out at the worst time, so Universal decided to put it out on video-on-demand (VOD) at $20 a pop and made $100million. Well, AMC Theaters was not happy to be bypassed, and will now no longer show Universal movies. I wonder how long their boycott will last when the 9th Fast and the Furious movie (F9) comes out in 2021. I’m glad Universal is thinking about alternative release for certain movies. VOD won’t work for all movies, especially blockbusters such as F9, but I could see it working for smaller releases.
Microsoft Word now flags two spaces after a period as an error!
The OG Xbox is pretty amazing
I had no idea this was possible!
Dolly Parton secretly produced Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and fans have only just found out. There hasn’t been any evidence to show she actually made any decisions for the show, but it’s still pretty cool.
Every COVID-19 commercial is the same
I didn’t realize it until I saw this video.
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A new episode of Parks and Rec is coming this Thursday!
Some awesome news, ‘Parks and Recreation’ cast to reunite for coronavirus charity episode. It will be aired this Thursday (April 30th) at 8:30pm ET.
And if you were wondering if you could watch all of the previous episodes before Thursday, the good news is that according to BingeClock you can!
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Living the future in quarantine and more – This Geek in Review for 24 Apr 2020
Back in the 80s, everyone talked about how cool it would be to be able to have video calls and work from home, and how did that work out for us? Apple added Facetime in 2010, and I can count the number of Facetime calls I’ve ever done on two hands. Now the coronavirus has been driving us to the online world we were promised.
Need something beside Netflix to watch online? How about checking out
the free shows being offered by HBO. Maybe you prefer YouTube over HBO? Here’s a way to watch YouTube videos in 3D with others, including text and video chat.No, 5G is not the cause of the coronavirus, but some people are believing the conspiracy and shooting at cell towers. I’ve heard the telecommunication workers are also getting death threats.
Here’s a little blooper with the special effects of Star Trek Voyager when they left a cursor on the screen.
In the 90s, point and click adventures were a big deal. Here is the concept of a Seinfeld point and click adventure. I’m hoping George will be a non-playing character because, really, who would want to be him in the game.
Along with point and click adventures, BBS games (called door games) were big. They made such an impact on the developers at Slack that those developers used BBS dor games names in the documentation for the API.
Don’t you hate organizing your MIDI files?
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This Geek in Review for 17 Apr 2020
I’m all for the if it ain’t broke then don’t touch it mentality, but with technology 10 years is an eternity. Yet governments are having problems because they are still using COBOL, a language from 60 years ago. Now I wish I would have paid better attention to my COBOL classes in college. Along the same line, because Boeing didn’t want to upgrade the computers in the 737 Max, the same hardware is now holding up a fix.
We’re all stuck at home, so how about checking out
Wizards of the Coast’s page of free D&D materials and resources. I also stumbled across this list of games to play online.Did you ever wonder what the sheet music for various video games would looke like? Wonder no more!
Halt and Catch Fire was not the most popular show on AMC, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. Here’s a retrospective on what made it great. The secret to enjoying the show is to not nitpick how the technology is depicted. It took me a few showings until I got over the problems with the technology and to sit back and enjoy the story. If you haven’t seen it, then go watch it!
I sometimes wonder what I would put on my gravestone. He died out of spite sounds pretty good, and that is why I totally understand building a Nintendo Switch out of spite because of scalpers.
Finally, if you want a new game to play during quarantine, how about a version of Space Invaders where the invaders are replaced with the letters that spell virus? Requires an Atari 2600 and an SD cart if you want to play it on real hardware, which any self-respective geek would have in their basement or lair.
