Mastodawn

Gregory Wild-Smith May 3, 2023

Three Software Engineers come to a one-way street.

The Junior Software Engineer looks to the right, then crosses.
The Senior Software Engineer looks to the right, left, then looks to the right again. Then crosses.
The Staff Software Engineer looks to the right, left, right again… then looks up to make sure there aren't any planes falling out of the sky… and *sprints* across.

Gregory Wild-Smith Apr 27, 2023

When a parent asks “why is my baby crying?” not enough consideration is given to the answer, “because my baby is an asshole.”

Gregory Wild-Smith Apr 23, 2023

Carolyn Barber, MD Apr 22, 2023

Durability of bivalent boosters for ⬇️ing death or hospitalization vs Omicron variants is pretty miserable. In the NEJM, researchers report that effectiveness was:

67% at 2 weeks:
47% at 4 weeks: (< 50% at just 1 month)
44% at 10 weeks:
38% at 20 weeks:

-Of course, “effectiveness against infection was much lower.”

Clearly, we need more durable, universal vaccines.. and ideally ones that protect vs infection.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2302462
Pfizer #vaccines #COVID19 #covid #mRNA

Gregory Wild-Smith Apr 20, 2023

Viss Apr 19, 2023

Gregory Wild-Smith Apr 19, 2023

Chance Miller Apr 18, 2023

Tim Cook reacting to someone who brought a Macintosh SE to the opening of the Apple BKC store in Mumbai today.

Maybe the happiest I've ever seen him.

Gregory Wild-Smith Apr 19, 2023

micah Apr 18, 2023

"Chemical agents like CS or 'tear' gas are banned in warfare by the Geneva Conventions. But they’re still permitted — and frequently deployed — as crowd-control agents in American policing."
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/portland-police-abuse-tear-gas-tuesday-black-lives-matter-1234716202/

War Crimes Team Investigated Portland Police, Produced Damning Results

A forensic investigation found the police used dangerous amounts of tear gas in an attempt to put down Black Lives Matter protests

Rolling Stone

Gregory Wild-Smith Apr 9, 2023

Catbus Apr 8, 2023

I remember when online screamed every time you logged on, and we should've heeded that warning

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Gregory Wild-Smith Apr 6, 2023

Could I save space by removing the trackball and/or spinners? Yeah, absolutely.

But—at least for me—there are too many games that need these controls to feel *right*.

Missile Command, Marble Madness, Golden Tee, Tempest, Arkanoid, Ping, etc. Plus many more.

So… the fun with CAD software begins.

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Gregory Wild-Smith Apr 6, 2023

So what does that mean in practice? Well, to support two players & a wide variety of games that means I need:

- 2 joysticks
- 12 buttons
- 2 spinners
- 1 trackball
- 2 player start buttons
- realistically one shift/function button for MAME & extras

It’s not just about the surface area either. You have to plan for the space taken up underneath! A trackball by itself takes up a lot of room in the middle of the control panel, even tho you only see a few inches of ball.

Gregory Wild-Smith Apr 6, 2023

The fun of designing your own arcade control panel… but fitting it inside the ~23.5” width of a standard arcade machine.

Most MAME machines people build seem to cheat by making acres of space and going 4+ players. In reality most cabinets used to be 1-2 player and had to sit side by side. So if you want that style… space is very constrained.

I’m going with a customized variation of the classic Dynamo HS1/HS2/HS5