One thousand year old oak tree in west Dorset #wyndhamsOak

Apple engineers testing ChatGPT-style tech as Siri faces ‘clunky code’ and other hurdles https://9to5mac.com/2023/03/15/apple-siri-chatgpt-testing/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

Hey all, I'm still looking for C++ software engineering jobs~ Mainly on Linux but i'm flexible, Ideally remote or on the west coast.

I can also do Python, and FPGA stuff, or Hardware/PCB design too, but SE is my main skill set. Feel free to DM me~

Or email me at aki@ <my handle> .net (lethalbit)

Re-notes appreciated~

Glenn Seaborg’s team at Lawrence Berkeley Lab in California discovered over 10 chemical elements. He was said to be the only person whose address could be written only with the names of ‘their’ elements: Seaborgium, Lawrencium, Berkelium, Californium, Americium.

Paid a visit to Betty's Neck in Lakeville today.

Right as I got there, this Northern Harrier was hunting the field near the Peach Barn, and spent a good 10 minutes flying around looking (and finding) prey. My autofocus was struggling a bit to keep up with him, but I got a few good shots.

#birds #wildlife #birdphotography #nature #wildmassachusetts #naturalmassachusetts #bettysneck #lakeville #massachusetts #massachusettswildlife

In 1943, the Allies had a plan to inject female sex hormones into Hitler’s food so that he’d grow breasts and his moustache would fall out.

Phantom of the Opurra

#SilentSunday

Storytelling www.londondreamtime.com/calendar

I walked a path through the snow. I was followed.

#alpacas. #Vermont

There is a waste-clearance company in Brighton called ‘Lord of the Bins’ with the slogan ‘One ring to remove it all’.

@lobrien Yep 🙂 There were stars and planets and in some versions I believe you could send landing parties and visit the planets even. It seemed all magical back then to explore strange new worlds, though I’m not sure the game was advanced enough to have new civilizations 😛

I’m really tempted to try to re-create the experience in a modern context but I guess most people shy away from doing something like that because they know they’ll run into IP issues in using the Star Trek name. I guess you could always keep the game play but rename everything?

Ah, to have the time to do all this!

So … DOSBox …

On Friday, once work was done, I kind of started thinking about “SimLife”.

I’d posted about it a week or two ago and I thought it might be fun to try it out again and see if it was as bad as I remembered.

I went and installed DOSBox (https://www.dosbox.com/) but discovered that Boxer (http://boxerapp.com/) no longer worked for my version of macOS since it has not been updated in ages — shows how long it’s been since I tried DOSBox I guess 😛

That sent me down all sorts of byways and alleyways trying out various alternatives to Boxer and even setting up MS-DOS 6.22 on a VM but I eventually came back to DOSBox since it was the easiest/simplest way to get going.

I tried out “SimLife” again and was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually kind of liked the game. I probably hadn’t tried out the tutorial back in the day and probably just tried clicking around and it’s the kind of game where you really need to know the mechanics. So I might try playing it again over the next few weeks …

But that opening graphic, so gorgeous even for that time period — just so lovely 🙂

#Games #DOS #Memories #Sim #History
“SimLife” opening graphic / spl…
“SimLife” game start showing th…

@dantemercurio Thank you 🙂 I think this was the original “Trek73” (or a variation). I do remember this, but unfortunately, this isn’t the one I’m looking for 😞

The one I remember had color graphics and instead of using ASCII characters for the map, it had slightly more refined graphics — that might be why I think it might have been Turbo Pascal. No idea …

But on the other hand, this was over 30 years ago. So who knows? Maybe I’m just re-imagining things as my memory cells break down? 😛

@virtualbri I’ve played it on an IBM System 36 (if I recall correctly) but that had monitors and didn’t print out to paper 🙂

Getting the output on paper would certainly be good way to preserve a game and since it was all turn based, I guess it wouldn’t really detract much from the gameplay ….

I saw a couple of versions which were real-time on GitHub and I hated those …. There was just so many enemy attacks before I’d even had a chance to think! I really liked the turn-based gameplay because it gave me time to think and figure out what I wanted to do 😛

Anyone have good leads on Mid-Senior level iOS roles?

A good friend and former coworker is looking for a new job. They've been working with SwiftUI a lot lately, but really interested in doing anything with iOS. I can share more detail and a shining reference on request!

Does anybody remember the classic “Star Trek” game from the 70’s? Or was that way before anybody’s time? 😛

I was playing around with DOSBox (more on that in a separate post) and was reminded of the game suddenly.

I recall playing a version on DOS back in 1990 (or 91) which had color graphics and more graphical controls than “Trek73” or “Super Trek”. The closest one I can find now is “EGA Trek” (see first screenshot) but I’m fairly certain that that wasn’t the one I played because the Main Viewer area in “EGA Trek” cycles through different graphics and I don’t remember that.

Also the game I played had long range and short range scanners which used up energy and that doesn’t seem to be a feature of “EGA Trek”.

Now that I’ve remembered the game, I really want to play that exact version again 😛

I’ve played “EGA Trek”, “VTrek” (second screenshot) and gone through a bunch of newer variations that people created on GitHub. But none of them have the same feel as the game I remember. If anybody knows of the game I’m talking of, please let me know?

I think part of the trouble is that back then they were all called “Star Trek” and that was it. So many variations by so many people.

In fact, I thought the one I liked might have been created in Turbo Pascal (for no reason I could think of) and almost went down another rabbit hole setting up Turbo Pascal just to re-create the game for DOS 😛

Then I realized that if I were to re-create it that I might as well do it in Swift or Flutter so that I can have it avaialbe on more platforms. Will I do it? I don’t know … I guess it depends on how badly I want to play the version I remember again 🙂

#Games #StarTrek #DOS #Memories #History
“EGA Trek” game screen showing …
“VTrek” game screen showing a b…

@jynersolives Yep. I’m constantly amazed that the simplistic story-telling that the Star Wars TV shows do just passes muster and nobody seems to bat an eyelid. Why did Mando have to wander all over the place looking for a robot? Can’t he just call ahead and check? What is Bo-Katan doing all alone in that castle/moon? Is there nobody else there at all and does she simply spend every day sitting indolently on that throne?

So many questions I really don’t want answers for 😛