ecliptik

We have a Bassett sectional going on almost 10 years too. Family friend'd mom worked for/with Bassett and got us a B2B price somehow - only caveat was I had to pick it up myself at the distribution warehouse in LA.

It's a fun memory renting a box truck, driving to the industrial heart of LA while listening to Will Wheaton narrate "Masters of Doom" to pick it up.

I know this article is more about pilots, but recently watched The Parallax View (1974)[1] and there's a scene where Warren Beatty goes to an airport, walks on the tarmac and boards a plane.

He finds an empty seat, a flight attendant comes over and has him pay for the ticket, all while the other attendants are offering drink service before the flight takes off and everyone is smoking.

I don't know how period accurate it is, and maybe it was embellished to make the plot smoother, but I couldn't help thinking how different air travel was 50 years ago in regards to being a passenger.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parallax_View

Coincidentally that was probably my comment.

I was there last week and while it was an experience, I had much more luck looking for games/hardware in other stores more off the beaten path.

I don't regret one minute there though, it was fun to look around and just to be there.

Amazing how the state of QCOM SoCs and SBCs is still so bad over 10 years after the Raspberry Pi debuted.

When I was working at QCOM in 2012 we were all excited for a Snapdragon based Raspberry Pi-like SBC since the CPUs were much more powerful than the Broadcomm BCM2835. We kept asking our internal R&D teams for something equivalent and ended up with repurposed cell phone testing hardware that only ran a heavily modified version of Android.

QCOM eventually partnered with Inforce to make the IFC SBCs[1], which had some nice features like 1gig Ethernet and SATA, but they ran heavily customized Android and Linux. The boards I have are still functional but the OS is forever stuck in 2013 and impossible to update.

We were part of the server management group that procured ran and deployed hardware and operating systems to our datacenters. When we tried to give feedback all we got was silence or "well customers don't need that" when here we were the exact customers that would purchase them.

Eventually they released Centriq [2] which landed with a dull thud.

QCOM had a huge opportunity here, but due to all the corporate politics about who would "own" the product and focusing on trying to run Android, Linux, and Windows on these devices they never managed to pull it off. Classic example of completely not understanding the target market or listening to customers, and now companies like Ampere and Annapurna Labs are eating their lunch.

1. https://www.electronicspecifier.com/products/communications/...

2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualcomm_Centriq

Recommend "Why Spec Ops: The Line Mattered" by Game Makers Toolkit[1] if you are unsure why this game gets the praise it does.

I first played it when it was a free PS+ game years ago thinking it looked like a fun, if not generic, Modern Warfare clone. Which it is, until it isn't. I haven't played a military shooter since.

1. https://youtu.be/tYk0BS84ItY

Absolutely love this trilogy too. The Drowned World was my first proper introduction to Ballard.

I'd always liked the movie Empire of the Sun since I was a kid, but could never quite put my finger on why. One day in 2020 I read the films wikipedia page, started reading more about him as an author and got hooked.

To quote John Gray [1],

>Unlike many others, it wasn't his dystopian vision that gripped my imagination. For me his work was lyrical – an evocation of the beauty that can be gleaned from landscapes of desolation.

1. https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2018/12/john-gray-on-jg...

I put a few of my favorites in a comment a couple of months ago,

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38237862

Since then I've also really enjoyed "The Ultimate City", which is Solarpunk before it was called Solarpunk.

While Ballard is more popularly known for Crash and Empire of the Sun, I can't recommend his earlier works enough, especially his short stories.

Many of his writings were ahead of his time [1]. A particular favorite of mine is "Studio 5, the Stars"[2] which written in 1961, brings up a lot of the feelings around GenAI and art today [3].

1. https://www.newstatesman.com/uncategorized/2020/04/why-we-ar...

2. https://readerslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/Studio-5-The-S...

3. https://aroundscifi.us/en/studio-5-the-stars-ballards-1961-s...

I have a 512ke and no keyboard, keep looking for ways to use a "modern" board on it instead if paying a good $ on Ebay for one. This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you.

Check out Pulp [1].

In browser, comes with a scripting engine, sprite and font editors music editors.

It's for the Playdate, so is all 1-bit, with a focus on making a game to play right away [2] instead of getting bogged down in tooling or a complex modern development process.

There's an onramp to more complexity using a proper SDK with Lua or C too.

1. https://play.date/pulp/

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4eLcP3hgJc

I setup Raindrop.io [1] to feed into Archivebox, mostly as an overcomplicated way to automatically submit the page to archive.org [2].

Raindrop is nice since it works in browser and as a phone app - so it truly is a single bookmarking tool. I mostly use it for search purposes, bookmarking things I may want to find again in a few years.

I rarely look at my Archivebox, but it's nice to know it's there with offline copies if I ever want them.

1. https://raindrop.io/

2. https://ecliptik.com/bookmarking-with-raindrop/

If you want to try it without hardware, the SDK comes with a simulator [1] that runs on Mac/Linux/Windows. You can use a game controller with instead of the onscreen buttons, but afaik the crank is on-screen only. There are a good number of games that don't use the crank or use it in a limited function. Games purchased from Itch.io run without issue since they're DRM-free.

It is almost an ideal game system to tinker with for game development. Panic (the company that makes it) is very supportive of the SDK and ecosystem, and they even made a web tool called Pulp [2] to make creating games for it as low-friction as possible.

The community around it is outstanding and you can tell there's a lot of excitement that builds a culture of making fun and interesting games and apps. Textbook case of limitations breeds innovation. I recommend the Playdate Podcast to get an idea of the types of games it has and developers insight [2].

Hardware wise it feels like a dream, it is a bit small, but for 30min play sessions it doesn't feel cramped.

The screen looks amazing, but like others have commented, it needs the right light, otherwise it's difficult to view at the correct angle. I actually think having a backlight might actually make it worse with how the screen tech works.

1. https://play.date/dev/

2. https://podcast.play.date/

3. https://play.date/pulp/43718/edit/

I run a RaspberryPi 3 with FreeBSD 13 booting off an SD card and a USB SSD for storage [1]. Coincidentally today (1/7/2024) is its one year anniversary.

It runs a jail with my single user GoToSocial ActivityPub server [2] reasonably well with cloudflared [3] handling incoming traffic and acting as CDN to take some of the load. Originally it was only using an SD card, but there was too much IO contention so a USB-SSD adapter is used to offload the IO.

I choose FreeBSD over Linux since I have other Rpis with Linux already and wanted more experience with *BSD, jails, and ZFS. Unfortunately ZFS wasn't the best choice on an Rpi since it's more cpu intensive and switched back to UFS.

Overall it's been solid, multiple GTS updates and have it on my list to update to FreedBSD 14 but not really in a rush.

1. https://social.ecliptik.com/@micheal/statuses/01GP860MYM2CGH...

2. https://gotosocial.org/

3. https://github.com/cloudflare/cloudflared

The Playdate Dev Forums have some good dev logs [1]. I've been going through the one for Resonant Tale [2] and it's fantastic.

1. https://devforum.play.date/tag/devlog

2. https://devforum.play.date/t/orkns-pulp-prototypes/4146

Playdate Podcast on Ratcheteer[1]

I absolutely adore Links Awakening for the Gameboy and it was a lot of fun listening to game designers talk about it and how they made their own game inspired by it. Includes a healthy dose of video game music composing and inspiration too.

1. https://podcast.play.date/episodes/s01e26/

> Model 3 and Y automatic high beams / matrix LED don't function correctly at night if the car is dirty, they blind everyone on the road - I will be very surprised if this doesn't trigger a recall soon

Is that what that is? I thought it was my eyes getting older when thinking car headlights are brighter at night than they used to be. We live in an area with a high % of Teslas on the road and this could explain a lot.

I have Jellyfin setup alongside Plex, and the one thing that's keeping me from moving fully off Plex is Plexamp [1]. It works flawlessly on my phone/laptops, includes a ton of features and is a pleasure to use - especially compared to Spotify or Apple Music.

I am aware of FinAmp [2] and music players for Jellyfin, but they aren't comparable to PlexAmp yet.

1. https://www.plex.tv/plexamp/

2. https://github.com/jmshrv/finamp

Agreed - it's counterintuitive, but OpenBSD works really well on laptops. Wifi, sleep, graphics all work out-of-the-box on more popular oldish models.

They encourage you to mail the system dmesg [1] with the make/model of the system and any known issues to help improve compatibility as well.

1. https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#SendDmesg

I still use a fully specced out (i7, 8GiB memory, 512GiB SSD) Macbook Air 2013 daily . With OpenCore Legacy Patcher [1] it runs Sonoma well enough and dual boots OpenBSD for an even more lean experience.

Had to replace the battery, fan and thermal paste over the years - and it's surprisingly easy to work on, just a few screws on the bottom to take it apart and access to everything.

1. https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/

The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard [1].

Ballard is science fiction in the sense he explores inner space instead of outer space.

Some are kind of eh, and ones that have really stuck out for me,

"Concentration City" - a giant infinitely expanding city ala Dark City or Blame!.

"Studio Five, The Stars" - poetry is written by machines and only eccentrics write their own. Think AI generation of art but in 1961.

"The Subliminal Man" - government uses subliminal messages to promote mindless consumerism - They Live but 1963.

"Billennium" - Earth is vastly overpopulated and any semblance of personal space or privacy is non-existent.

"The Garden of Time" - allegory of never ceasing approach of time no matter what you do to defend yourself from it.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complete_Short_Stories_o...

A bit different, but this is why I like watching Decino [1] who makes WAD playthroughs and analysis videos of Doom.

No yelling or clickbait titles, just someone calmly playing Doom and while explaining game mechanics and level design.

1. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G7ueWjVFJo8

Links Awakening could work too.

Stranded on a mysterious island story, multiple characters and villages, obvious quest to wake the Windfish.

Also lays the foundations for other films if it does well - flashbacks teasing a previous game/movies and "it was all just a dream" ending teasing a sequel. Could make references to a larger setting and "evil" with Hyrule and Ganon.

POSSE - Publish Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere

1. https://indieweb.org/POSSE

If you're planning to setup a homelab, look into Invidious [1] or Piped [2] self-hosting too.

Mix well with Tailscale (or your mesh VPN of choice) and enjoy.

1. https://invidious.io/

2. https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped

They ship in batches. I got mine 3 weeks ago in Batch 5 that I ordered in March 2023.

This is for the PlayDate [1], which is a fantastic handheld gaming system.

Aesthetics really hit a lot of Monument Valley notes and would pair well with the systems crank to rotate the world.

After reading the devlog and rest of the site I'm not entirely sure what the gameplay is, but looking forward to seeing more.

1. https://play.date/

Since I read "Why we are living in JG Ballard’s world" [1] in 2020 I've slowly been making my way through Ballards short stories, and each and every one of them is treat.

Some fall flat, but ones like "Studio 5, the Stars" [2] about automated poetry hit hard in the modern context of ChatGPT and AI generated art.

1. https://www.newstatesman.com/long-reads/2020/04/why-we-are-l...

2. https://readerslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/Studio-5-The-S...

It's a 90s LAN, but with encryption and accessible from anywhere.

I wrote up a guide [1] on using Plex + Tailscale + HTTPS last year to setup Plex so you don't have to expose it through the Plex relays or setup port forwards for other devices on a Tailnet.

I would assume with this announcement, you can keep Plex private to your Tailnet and an AppleTV also on the Tailnet could use it without any port fowarding.

1. https://forums.plex.tv/t/remote-access-using-tailscale-magic...

I still have a steaminstall_cs.exe in my game directory from 10/23/2003 and remember signing up for the beta when it was required to play Counter-Strike.

Wish I still had access to the original account I created in 2003. Back then I wouldn't have guessed Steam would stick around this long and missed my opportunity for a completely useless "20 year" badge on my profile.