i grew up alongside one of the largest lakes in canada watching The Beachcombers, and never really knew where our driftwood came from until now. what an incredibly well-written article on the ecological significance of pacific ocean driftwood
@vga256 I actually think Caesar II is where Impressions started to hit their stride. Caesar I? Not for me. I'm sure there's a game in there, but I couldn't make it work. But Caesar II is a genuinely good one.
@billgoats i’ve been playing with the recipe a bit to get the massive rises i see in our local bakery’s loaves. i’m not there yet, but i’ve learned my lesson with making it too wet
kim stanley robinson’s Red Mars still stands out to me as the finest piece of science fiction i have ever read
recently found out that he had written another trilogy set in a post-nuclear california, and i was skeptical. i’ve had enough derivative mad max crap to last me six lifetimes.
i am very happy to be proven wrong. this decidedly turned out to not be fallout apocalypse porn. robinson spends his time imagining the human joys and freedoms found in inhabiting a world turned into wildlife and wild country. no idiotic fights over gasoline or nukes. instead a concern with fishing, building community, repairing old railroads, and figuring out who else lives beyond the village boundaries.
i waited for over 12 years for artist Lyndal Osborne’s handcrafted imaginary bio organisms to come back to the Alberta Gallery of Art, and they finally did. she taught at UofA, and her works always give expression to the oceanic palette of her childhood home in NSW, Aus.
this exhibit is composed of handmade seeds, blown up 10000x their size, as if through a microscope
if you happen to be in edmonton, drop by the AGA to see this piece - it is up on the third floor.
@vga256 people are fine with the same ridiculous fucking superhero story being told every month, but a genuinely novel story with amazing world-building is a bridge too far. (Though, I think the rep of both films has improved through the years, they were just ahead of their time.)
@swelljoe i was very happy that there was enough interest to create the 'ulysses' ultra-extended cut of waterworld. arrow video's re-release is incredible. i remember seeing the 3h long tv cut in 1997, and shocked at how much had been edited out for the theatrical release
when @radiofreelunch extremely generously offered to send me a "couple" old Newtons, i balked. i had an old MP2100 years ago, and it was tough to get software loaded on them, even with all the correct hardware
driving home an hour later, i thought: what the hell is wrong with me, i'm turning down a free newton?! 😅
a week later, this amazingly heavy bundle of Newtons and Newton peripherals arrived. thank you good sir :D
Pictured:
Newton MessagePad (+box/software)
Newton MessagePad
Newton Message Pad 110
Newton MessagePad 120
Newton Fax Modem (battery-powered!)
there is extensive battery leak/corrosion from the AA batteries on each of them, so they'll spend the next few months getting some TLC. hopefully most survive!
@vga256 Likely just a ribbon cable re-seat or clean. Sometimes there’s a build up of crud between the screen and the bezel that can affect the display.
i'm happy to report that someone had already digitized the Fantasy Gamer's package a few years ago! you can play it online here and generate your own little dungeons. the room generator is pretty cute:
what was missing, however, was the 40+ pages of print documentation that came in the mail-order ziplock, and a pic of the cassette tape. i've scanned them all here, along with a new recording of the cassette:
i have fallen in love with the mail order/ziplock bag era of software publishing. this piece is 42 years old, and came from a TRS-80 owner that I inherited it (and dozens of other software/hardware from) fifteen years ago
the original owner of Dunkey Munkey for the Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer ordered it from a home business called Intellitronics, based out of Smithtown, NY, USA.
play as luigi 😎
what stands out to me is the cover art. this would have been created using a font stencil and paper cut-outs, hand-placed and then duplicated with a four-colour printing press process. i'd love to know if anyone into printing recognizes the technique/machinery that might have been used to duplicate it.