Nostr notes by vga256

just for @npub1hzy…wwp4 whose weekly experiments with the worst ...

2026-04-21T16:20:51Z

just for Ari [APz] Sovijärvi (npub1hzy…wwp4) whose weekly experiments with the worst pops and colas of the world allow the rest of us live longer lives 🙏

a selection of canada's finest generic pop brand at the Real Canadian Superstore grocery chain: President's Choice. the kind of pop the really cheap bastard on your team brings to a staff picnic because they secretly hate you.

Drivers are routinely given more parcels than are deliverable in ...

2026-04-20T15:56:39Z

In reply to nevent1q…3q9z
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Drivers are routinely given more parcels than are deliverable in any one shift. I’ve watched a driver cruise past my house and tap the “not home” button as they drove. The parcel is moved back into the sort for “someone else’s problem” tomorrow.

til what i thought were blueprints all of my life, were in fact, ...

2026-04-19T12:14:07Z

til what i thought were blueprints all of my life, were in fact, whiteprints

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteprint

i love them. they scream "family-owned computer shop in town ...

2026-04-16T17:19:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…67z2
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i love them. they scream "family-owned computer shop in town sold me a pentium 133 tower and they came with these free speakers"

all of mastodon encapsulated in one Wilson comic by daniel clowes ...

2026-02-04T19:09:06Z

all of mastodon encapsulated in one Wilson comic by daniel clowes

am overcome with gratitude. after hours of searching usenet, ftp ...

2026-01-31T06:19:54Z

In reply to nevent1q…3362
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am overcome with gratitude. after hours of searching usenet, ftp indexers, ftp sites, archive.org, discmaster and every archival tool i know of and coming up with zilch, i jusssst found the MacMOOSE software buried in a professor's apache open dir! he worked in the same research group as MacMOOSE (Epistemology & Learning Group @ MIT) and had the foresight to make a tarball of the lab's FTP server before it died years ago

this is the kind of archival once in a million thing - that someone self-archived an incredibly important and obscure piece of software by accident, and left a copy on the web. thank you prof fred g. martin 🙏

this archive of the MIT ELG ftp server is going straight to archive.org.

update: WinMOOSE has also been found thanks to https://mas.to/@justinto/115990209538195283

#archival #digiPres #worldWideWeb

just stumbled upon an incredible piece of MUD/MOO history from ...

2026-01-31T05:50:30Z

just stumbled upon an incredible piece of MUD/MOO history from the mid-90s web that disappeared in the 2000s and is now all but forgotten. it is a testament to the interactive and creative possibilities real people imagined in the 90s, before greed and pessimism spread through the world wide web.

MOOSE Crossing: A MUD for Kids was a mud/moo designed by Amy Bruckman at MIT as her doctoral dissertation project in 1996

"MOOSE Crossing is a MUD designed to get kids 9-13 excited about reading,
writing, and computer programming. It includes a new programming language
(MOOSE) and client interface (MacMOOSE) designed to make it easier for kids to
learn to program.

Kids have made things like pigs you can hug, light bulbs that tell light
bulb jokes, and pots of gold at the end of the rainbow that ask you a
riddle! They're doing creative writing and computer programming in their
spare time for fun, and meeting other kids from around the world."

(from a rec.games.tiny.mud announcement https://groups.google.com/u/1/g/rec.games.mud.tiny/c/MhnTf0G3C_0/m/BKWIngCp440J)

while a moo wasn't anything new at all in 96, what i find incredible is that her team also built a custom graphical mud programming WYSIWYG client, for Mac and Windows. the clients - MacMOOSE.sea.hqx and WinMoose.exe appear to be lost to time (edit: macmoose has been found! https://mastodon.tomodori.net/@vga256/115988260112466194), but i found this screenshot buried in the wbm. you can see how an object is broken down into verbs and properties.

i have about a million questions about how the client-server system worked because this is adorable and user friendly. but for now, i'm excited to just think out loud about what the world wide web could be made into today, if developers got more interested in user-driven interactivity

this is the original site for MOOSE Crossing:
https://web.archive.org/web/19981202051515/http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fac/Amy.Bruckman/moose-crossing/

Amy's dissertation in html:
https://ic.media.mit.edu/Publications/Thesis/asbPHD/HTML/

#mud #moo #retroComputing #macintosh #vintageApple #worldWideWeb #indieWeb #smallWeb #history #digipres

haha i know the feeling! i went from 2400 to 14.4k (one of the ...

2026-01-24T17:41:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…8zp3
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haha i know the feeling! i went from 2400 to 14.4k (one of the important stories in Mages & Modems) on valentine's day in 94, and it was the most wonderful upgrade ever. suddenly i could download shareware(z) in under an hour 😆

did you dial in to Calgary area BBSes in the 90s? browse through ...

2026-01-24T03:17:07Z

did you dial in to Calgary area BBSes in the 90s?

browse through this bbs list published in the nov 93 issue of (alberta’s) The Computer Paper.

who could resist dialing into Boonies Bar&Grill CDROM 😂

#yyc #bbs #alberta #canada

during this week’s aliexpress replacement screen debacle (bad ...

2026-01-23T17:56:28Z

during this week’s aliexpress replacement screen debacle (bad digitizer) i had noticed that the lcd seemed pixellated up close, with visible jaggies on fonts. i chalked this up to my eyes getting used to a new screen.

last night i put my original apple display back into my iPhone SE. i had replaced it years ago after it got a minor scratch. it sat in my backup parts pile for exactly a situation like this.

the original screen is absolutely pixel perfect. no jaggies at any distance.

i am utterly baffled. what on earth kind of lcd display did aliexpress sell me? it claimed to have the same resolution as oem. did it lack subpixel antialiasing of some kind?

i wish i had thought of taking pics with the aliexpress screen. it is night and day with the original apple display. anyone would notice the difference.

#permaComputing #diyrepair

happy to report that after unexpectedly selling out on day one, I ...

2026-01-22T17:03:07Z

happy to report that after unexpectedly selling out on day one, I was able to resupply Audrey's Books with another ten copies of Mages & Modems this morning.

for those looking for overseas shipping (and who don't want to use Amazon) - Audrey's *does* ship internationally. edmontonians can pick it up in-store.

https://audreys.ca/item/OjYAgNdL7Pm6QhxTxxkhLQ

for amazon and the ebook edition, or to read a chapter sample, visit:
https://tomotama.com/books

#books #bookstodon #yeg

back in the early pandemic, with way more time spent in my ...

2026-01-20T22:58:21Z

back in the early pandemic, with way more time spent in my apartment than was healthy, i decided to run a solo podcast about 90s gaming on the Macintosh, Windows 3.1, and MS-DOS. my aim was introducing a level of technical and historical detail not often found on general audience video game podcasts.

each episode took 10-20 hours of research and writing to explore in depth. i tried to pick less popular games that hadn't been talked about much, were underrated, or fascinating from a programming perspective.

in 2022 we moved, i began new programming projects, and the podcast went on the shelf. i always meant to get back to it, and received many e-mails about future episodes.

today i'm relaunching the podcast.

website link:
https://podcast.vga256.com

rss link:
http://podcast.vga256.com/rss.xml

apple podcasts link:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/multimedia-hyperguide-windows-3-1-macintosh-and-ms/id1393890581

feedburner link:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/MultimediaHyperguide

while i write the next episode, please enjoy some of the earlier episodes, including everyone's beloved SimAnt (episodes 14 and 15).

here are some box and browsies shots of SimAnt: The Electronic Ant Colony (Maxis, 1991) for 16-bit windows. i use the physical boxes and their documentation during research and writing. this has a 150+ page manual, which is 50% ant science!

#dosGaming #msdos #ants #vintageApple #macintosh #shareware #podcast

guffaw. it's even better than i could have hoped for that ...

2026-01-18T21:56:47Z

In reply to nevent1q…6347
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guffaw. it's even better than i could have hoped for

that huge scar across his forehead only adds to his street cred

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1mjTZQkKH0

#2000s #toys #vintageComputing

yano talk yano tell story yano steal dreams my gods i want this ...

2026-01-18T21:48:01Z

yano talk
yano tell story
yano steal dreams

my gods
i want this bad

#vintageComputing #toys #2000s

psa for globaltalk users: i've moved the globaltalk kiki to ...

2026-01-18T04:17:11Z

psa for globaltalk users: i've moved the globaltalk kiki to https://globaltalk.dialup.party

update: i am grateful to europlus :autisminf: (npub1pfp…x9j0) whom i transferred the globaltalk.network domain ownership to.

#globaltalk #vintageApple #macintosh

@npub1ppe…qv2g i'm not sure that any game had a more ...

2026-01-17T05:39:04Z

myrmepropagandist (npub1ppe…qv2g) i'm not sure that any game had a more profound influence on me as a 12 year old than SimAnt. sometimes i think about how it's almost criminal how completely ignored in the Maxis catalogue (like SimLife) it is.

#dosGaming #msdos #retroGaming

wow nice! my uncle swears by these kinds of removable cleats ...

2026-01-17T02:22:30Z

In reply to nevent1q…j5pz
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wow nice! my uncle swears by these kinds of removable cleats (he's got a dangerous outdoor job). had no idea kunitz carried them too

i can’t believe how quick and pleasant Audrey’s Books was ...

2026-01-16T17:44:25Z

i can’t believe how quick and pleasant Audrey’s Books was when it came to carrying Mages & Modems in-store.

huge thank you to their bookwizard Levi who walked me through the local author consignment program.

also: couldn’t have asked for a better spot beside alan siegel’s (far better) simpsons book 😆

if you’d like to support Audrey’s: https://audreys.ca

there is no bookstore more relaxing to visit in alberta.

#books #bookstodon #yeg #yegdt

now imagine trying to explain to them how the original version ...

2026-01-16T14:30:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…4weg
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now imagine trying to explain to them how the original version was a Flash SWF

it’s a big mess of everything imagineable and bruce is ...

2026-01-14T03:26:07Z

In reply to nevent1q…fd3g
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it’s a big mess of everything imagineable and bruce is incredibly nice. great guy to nerd out with - he used to code assembly on an apple ii!

high literature discovered at the Double Read Book Nook used ...

2026-01-14T01:55:48Z

high literature discovered at the Double Read Book Nook used bookstore in edson, canada

it’s easy to miss this book dungeon along the transcanada highway. inside you’ll find its incredibly warm owner Bruce, who was gifted the bookstore by the previous owner after he worked there for years - often for no pay. his chubbo orange tabby Max waddles around in his harness asking visitors for treats and pets.

the second i saw the grey striped book spine i instantly knew i had found an Infocom novel. can’t wait to read this novelized treatment of Enchanter

#alberta #bookstodon #books #infocom

whenever my wife shelves returns at the library, she checks them ...

2026-01-12T18:46:45Z

whenever my wife shelves returns at the library, she checks them for bookmarks/junk readers have accidentally left inside

she arranged a month's worth of them into a collage and put the work up on the wall in the library. i love it.

#libraries #epl #yeg #art

welcome to the exciting world of post-phd telemarketing sales!

2026-01-11T21:50:35Z

In reply to nevent1q…v9mv
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welcome to the exciting world of post-phd telemarketing sales!

a few years ago i mentioned that i wrote a book about the ...

2026-01-08T17:36:07Z

a few years ago i mentioned that i wrote a book about the exciting, awkward and embarrassing experiences of growing up with computers and video games in the 80s and 90s.

i wanted to remember what it felt like being the only dorky computer kid at school. or what it was like to hear my first modem handshake sound. or starting the first flamewar on the school's national FirstClass BBS in the macintosh lab over the lunch-hour

it was originally something i wrote only for my family and friends who were there at the time.

and then i met all of you folks when i started my first masto instance 4 years ago. i had no idea there were so many hardcore retrocomputing and gaming nerds out there; unix and mac and ms-dos folks alike.

so i mentioned it casually. i was surprised by the interest in the book.

so i spent the better part of the past 3 years rewriting the book for *you* fellow mastodon dorkus malorkuses. the book is a celebration of all of the best (and worst) parts of a kid growing up in the digital age.

we're all busy old tired stressed folks now. so every memory and cringetacular story is short enough to read on a 5 minute bus/metro/toilet ride. they're weaved together into an arc that starts at my family's first Tandy TRS-80 and ends at my school's Mac LC II and building my first Pentium 133.

it's finally published, and i'm super proud of what it became thanks to everyone here nerding out for years.

enjoy the book. i wrote it just for you. ❤️

paperback edition: https://mybook.to/EDuUf

DRM-free ebook (EPUB format) and chapter samples here:
https://tomotama.itch.io/mages-modems

#books #indiePublisher #bookstodon #author #macintosh #vintageApple #vintageComputing #msdos #dosGaming #yeg #canada #alberta

it warms my heart to hear a 15-year-old say that he's tired ...

2026-01-02T03:50:38Z

it warms my heart to hear a 15-year-old say that he's tired of renting his media and wants a physical copy that he owns.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/video/2025/12/31/vhs-making-a-comeback-in-edmonton/

#yeg #vhs

someone local selling their porsche-branded zamboni 😎 only ...

2025-12-30T18:46:58Z

someone local selling their porsche-branded zamboni 😎

only $25k to make your back yard rink glassy. guaranteed this is some remorseful parent with frustrated nhl dreams for their 7 year old. 😆

for anyone who didn't grow up around an arena: the zamboni attachment scrapes the top layer from the ice, heats it and mixes it with hot water, and then returns it as a thin layer of hot water behind the machine, behind the rubber flap.

this little lawn tractor version is nearly identical to the full-sized nhl version in operation (without all of the nice panel toggles sadly)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamboni_Company

#hockey #canada #yeg

looks like you got the in-store demo model!

2025-12-21T01:48:34Z

In reply to nevent1q…lmf8
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looks like you got the in-store demo model!

our neighbourhood hare at sundown. she found the pile of ...

2025-12-12T23:19:05Z

our neighbourhood hare at sundown. she found the pile of spillover birdseed in the snow

if you saw my photos of her weeks ago, her patchy brown summer coat has almost been completely replaced with her thick winter coat

#winter #canada #yeg #rabbitsofmastodon #urbanWildlife

after 25 hours of repair, cleaning and lubrication, this pfaff ...

2025-12-03T23:00:09Z

after 25 hours of repair, cleaning and lubrication, this pfaff select 1546 sewing machine has been rescued from oblivion. here's a quick worklog

how i found it at a thrift store for $30. it looked grubby but OK on the outside, and didn't make any broken-pieces sounds when i shook it around

i plugged it in and it turned on. i tried to turn the handwheel, and it immediately seized up. it made a terrible metal-on-metal grinding sound that was a dagger in my heart.

#sewing #repair #permaculture #sewingmachines

jobs demoing a codeless UI using NeXT/OpenStep's Interface ...

2025-12-01T22:51:33Z

jobs demoing a codeless UI using NeXT/OpenStep's Interface Builder at macworld expo in 1997

making games in Adventure Game Studio taught me how fast games can be built when designers spend their time working on scenes and gameplay instead of coding scrollbar and button behaviour

i admire and get inspiration from hypercard for the same reasons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl0CbKYUFTY

i'm trying to implement something similar for my little game construction kit, called Exigy. if you've got UI suggestions on how to do this well, i'm all ears!
https://exigy.org

#exigy #shareware #indiegamedev #macintosh #hypercard

really, really impressed with posty: a mastodon archive -> ...

2025-11-30T20:09:38Z

really, really impressed with posty: a mastodon archive -> html static site generator

it ingests your mastodon archive (post history) as a zip, and barfs out an entire static html site with indices and tags. all servable with any standard web server.

this is super helpful because when i shut down the dialup.cafe instance, there was no easy way to get access to my old posts and images.

it can either be run online here:
https://posty.1sland.social

or instructions here for running it locally:
https://codeberg.org/oliphant/posty

#mastoAdmin #mastodon

my wife is less excited 🤣

2025-11-26T22:49:16Z

In reply to nevent1q…ptfg
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my wife is less excited 🤣

the whole reason i rescued these NeXT machines from a garage an ...

2025-11-26T22:21:13Z

the whole reason i rescued these NeXT machines from a garage an hour away was because of the asset tags still glued to them.

i know exactly where and when the machines came from: the university of alberta's General Services Building (GSB), 8th floor, computer lab, in 1995.

when i was a teenager, my mom would take me to the university and let me wander around campus with a pocket full of quarters for the arcade

her grad student office was on the 8th floor. across from it was the department computer lab, which consisted of three rows of boring beige 386 SX-20's and a massive line printer. i used to goof around playing Jezzball and Pipe Dream on those machines.

but tucked off in the corner were four jet black machines. they all had huge monochrome monitors, and a gorgeous GUI with Wile E. Coyote on the login prompt. there was a big sign that read "you must have permission from CNS to use these computers". i'd sneak over and try every login/pass i could dream of, and never figured out how to login.

ffwd to the 2000s:
i've hunted every week for the past 25 years to find those machines. i suspected they might turn up on some local ad eventually, and today they did.

they were bought by a gentleman (now in his 80s) from a provincial government surplus equipment auction sale 20+ years ago. they were decommissioned by the department, boxed up and auctioned as e-waste. he thought they'd be valuable, so he bought them all for a pittance. they sat in his garage for 25 years collecting dust, until his wife asked him to start clearing out his computing junk. (i'll post a pic of his garage soon)

so here they are - the department's most expensive asset at $10-20K CAD (after upgrades and accessories), ready to be put back to work again soon

#UofA #retroComputing #vintageApple #yeg

i had no idea Inherit the Earth has had its own webcomic for over ...

2025-11-22T04:47:48Z

i had no idea Inherit the Earth has had its own webcomic for over 20 years, and is still publishing new issues at https://inherittheearth.net

i'm amazed that joe pearce (and the many artists who have drawn the comic over the years) have continued to put so much work into this MS-DOS classic which came out over 30 years ago. *this* is the best way of preserving software: by continuing to make it relevant to new generations of players/fans.

#dosGaming #msdos #retroGaming #furry_art #furry #webcomic

done! https://archive.org/details/zero-waste-life-the-toy-doctor

2025-11-21T03:19:56Z

In reply to nevent1q…5zdx
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done! https://archive.org/details/zero-waste-life-the-toy-doctor

i watched a minute of one of the fix-it shop episodes and it was ...

2025-11-21T02:28:56Z

In reply to nevent1q…p9hw
_________________________

i watched a minute of one of the fix-it shop episodes and it was amazing how familiar it all was 40 years later

not sure if there are any journalism students here, but if ...

2025-11-21T02:24:41Z

not sure if there are any journalism students here, but if you're interested in living in one of the most beautiful cities in northern canada for the summer, Cabin Radio (npub1ctj…y8su) is offering summer internships.

details here:
https://cabinradio.ca/internships/

#canada #journalism

happy to report that i managed to recover this lost NHK mini-doc ...

2025-11-21T02:01:44Z

happy to report that i managed to recover this lost NHK mini-doc about a retired guy who runs a toy repair hospital for kids

will upload a high quality version to archive.org

#nhk #japan #permaculture

the best place on sesame street was luis & maria's Fix-It ...

2025-11-21T01:43:38Z

the best place on sesame street was luis & maria's Fix-It Shop

i've thought for years that i'd love to teach drop-in electronics/computer/console repair in my city

we have a tool library, but no diy repair place here.

#yeg #permacomputing #permaculture

published book authors who have used a print-on-demand service: ...

2025-11-07T17:47:30Z

published book authors who have used a print-on-demand service: what is the current landscape like for printing physical books via amazon kdp/lulu/ingram/etc?
i'm reading so many very conflicting reports, especially now that some of these services are now using ML crap instead of human beings in their printing processes.

book details:
- 400 pages b+w
- color front cover

#books #ebooks

the world’s tiniest camcorder format: sony microMV loading into ...

2025-11-05T22:43:01Z

the world’s tiniest camcorder format: sony microMV

loading into an equally tiny sony DCR-IP5

the 60 min cassette stores 7GB of mpeg2 transport stream data on 3.8mm tape

that filename would be the perfect name for a band

2025-10-31T02:53:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…r37c
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that filename would be the perfect name for a band

yeah it took a whole 0.97ms to fall in love with this thing i’m ...

2025-10-31T00:27:30Z

In reply to nevent1q…p09j
_________________________

yeah it took a whole 0.97ms to fall in love with this thing

i’m amazed by the build quality. 100% magnesium body, feels really nice in one hand.

i absolutely miss this style of pistolgrip shooting. it’s totally made for snapshots on vacations and road trips

today’s retro rescue from a hick town an hour away: a Sony ...

2025-10-30T21:48:55Z

today’s retro rescue from a hick town an hour away: a Sony DCR-IP5E MicroMV handycam - my wallet and the charger beside it for scale.

absolutely wild recording format - the tape is tiiiny

#digiPres

as the sun cruises lower in the autumn sky my morning americano ...

2025-10-23T17:06:03Z

as the sun cruises lower in the autumn sky my morning americano begins to cast a footlong shadow. at the peak of summer months ago the shadow rode around the edge of the cup

the ethiopian beans that made the espresso shot have this perfect buttery-creamy texture. it’s hard to imagine any better roast.

#coffee

my fantasy as a 9-year-old becomes real: buying that 1.8m/6-foot ...

2025-10-20T14:07:33Z

my fantasy as a 9-year-old becomes real: buying that 1.8m/6-foot microwave long distance transmission repeater i've been dreaming about for 30+ years

these massive point-to-point antennas sat at the top of gigantic towers dotted all over the northwest territories where i grew up. they beamed all kinds of signals around the north, where permafrost made buried cable nigh impossible. when i worked at an arctic isp in the 90s, we used them to beam our dial-up analog telephone internet access between communities and our central office.

there are less of these in the north now that there is fibre and satellite, but i still occasionally see them at the tops of towers in the most remote areas.

#radio #canada

haha. does your toshiba emit a piercing BEEP BEEP BEEP when it ...

2025-10-20T11:13:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…wl4y
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haha. does your toshiba emit a piercing BEEP BEEP BEEP when it goes into battery panic mode?

sort of like how in the southern USA people ask for a ...

2025-10-19T21:24:31Z

In reply to nevent1q…t7tc
_________________________

sort of like how in the southern USA people ask for a "coke" when they mean a "pop" or "soda pop" 😬

i could be wrong, but if i'm remembering the context ...

2025-10-19T21:21:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…6tvk
_________________________

i could be wrong, but if i'm remembering the context correctly, it is coffee made from spice/mélange - not coffee beans per se

ha so, i have a more complete answer after doing some research. ...

2025-10-15T21:54:41Z

In reply to nevent1q…40q4
_________________________

ha so, i have a more complete answer after doing some research.

what a scam :( it turns out they just got pixar to render out IMAX quality clips from that exact episode. no new content - just a few minutes of homer and bart

i am so sad that i somehow missed this site back then. it's ...

2025-10-15T21:16:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…q94z
_________________________

i am so sad that i somehow missed this site back then. it's funny that homer3d was already 5 years old by the time this site launched

y'know, this makes me wonder if this is what became called ...

2025-10-14T19:58:25Z

In reply to nevent1q…ashq
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y'know, this makes me wonder if this is what became called "Interference Robustness" in OS X 10.4.x+ wifi options

this is exactly the kind of restoration project that will one day ...

2025-10-13T16:58:23Z

this is exactly the kind of restoration project that will one day appear on hackaday: a musicmaker kiosk that burns music to a cd and transfers it to your diamond rio, then prints out your playlist so you can carry it around all day

source: wired mag april 2000

#2000s #retroComputing

buried in an april 2000 issue of wired mag: cyberworld.imax.com ...

2025-10-13T16:44:03Z

buried in an april 2000 issue of wired mag: cyberworld.imax.com was a flash site that demo’d homer^3 and antz characters.

sadly lost to time as wbm did not properly archive the swf

#flash #macromedia #simpsons #2000s

memories that haunt us forever that time i was teaching a 400 ...

2025-10-06T19:50:26Z

memories that haunt us forever

that time i was teaching a 400 student intro course and wasn't getting any chuckles of recognition from my simpsons references

so i shoehorned in a family guy reference to appease the unwashed masses to great effect 😭