I have found that I have a soft spot for well-written #Unicode proposals that propose a single codepoint.
In this case, a counterpart to ⯹ (U+2BF9 EQUALS SIGN WITH INFINITY BELOW) with the infinity above the equals sign, motivated by the symbol's use in chess notation.
This proposal has also made me aware of (or perhaps reminded me of?) the field of "antichess", a modification to the rules of chess to make captures mandatory and an inverted goal (lose or stalemate)
Looks like this proposal has been approved as of UTC meeting #178, with the new chess codepoint provisionally assigned to U+2B96, shifting another previously-planned codepoint in the process.
No movement on the ethereum codepoint, looks like the UTC discussed it and took no action, perhaps a decision to wait to see if that ecosystem keeps imploding.
🎧🐍 Episode #178 of the Real Python Podcast is live: Guiding Scientific Python Library Development
How do you prepare a scientific Python project for sharing with others? Could you use some best practices and guidance for packaging, documentation, and testing? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder's Weekly articles and projects.
Almost had it sooner, but sometimes it's old country and sometimes it's new. I needed a second more. I had to play this as a DJ and now I like it too. 🤠
Heardle Country #213
🔈⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️🟩⬜️ https://country.heardledecades.com/
Time to play some #Heardle
I only play #Music guesses not lyrics, movies, satanic backwards play or Yeardle. Just guessing the songs
Most of our #TeamHeardle comes from UK sources, I suspect, often unknown to North American players. We post to the @teamheardle group, so that we can all see each other's results, I saw @RadiDaddy playing this USA number ones, from a USA source. So, I had to play it first..
Heardle New Wave #160 🔊🟩⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ MOM! 🤣
[Wait, is this the song that now makes me think of your mom after you told a story about it and her? But that song isn't New Wave...]
Heardle Rock #178: "WHO PICKS THESE!?" - Wifey
[At least Wifey won't be asking that about your OHW variant. heh heh]
#CUEdle#1980s#491 🟩 2.1s 🕰️🔜⏲️ a lot of this artist this past week
[Right. And a few days ago, we had multiple Willie Nelsons. And every day we have Connie Francis. 🙃 🙄 ]
Commentary: "Today's Faithful Heretic Pride saint of the day is Dr. James Barry: British Empire army surgeon, public health advocate, transgender man, and physical embodiment of "queer as in fuck you."
"Dr. Barry's biography is available elsewhere, so I won't go into it too deeply here. If you want an entertaining look into his life and work, I recommend the Sawbones podcast episode #178. (Cont)
If you’ve ever wonder where film directors get their start, take a look at USC School of Cinema-Television’s ‘Silver Surfer’ for Sci-Friday #178. Watch the movie, and then we’ll discuss the interesting backstory as well as what happened next:
According to Wikipedia, ‘In 1989, Erik Fleming, then a film student from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, and Robert Letterman approached Marvel Studios and Constantin Film’s producer Bernd Eichinger to ask permission to make a short film featuring the Silver Surfer as a proof of concept for the use of CGI in creating a realistic silver-colored human figure.’
On a shoestring budget (literally) – these film school grads made a realistic CGI film for $3,000. CBR reports: “We went and got these two kids who worked for the Creature Shop [special effects house]. Once they had digitized their Surfer, they realized they needed access to a more powerful computer than they had to build the skeletons the animation would be based around. USC, of course, had just such a computer. And it was one which was mostly used to make title credits for IMAX films. And so, Steve Robiner, a student who worked with the computer in question, was recruited. The guys also got access to the software that would eventually be used to create the dinosaurs in ‘Jurassic Park’ and eventually produced a number of color pictures of the Silver Surfer as he would appear in their movie.”
Overnight, the film created a tremendous amount of buzz but it was all for naught. “We flew to New York and showed it to Marvel, and they totally flipped out. We met with Stan Lee here in LA and showed it to him in this private theater, which was really cool, since he was our hero, and he flipped. … Now, every studio is hounding Marvel Comics for the rights to the movie. … We had made Constantin a $5 million commercial for their property,” Fleming said. “Overnight, Oliver Stone is calling, asking to direct it … And nine years later, the Silver Surfer is in limbo.”
Letterman directed a couple movies, probably most notable was Pokémon: Detective Pikachu. The others have a few credits to their name but nothing major. Such is the story of many creative professionals in Hollywood – they make their mark, and then they fade into the industry background. Bonus material – they shot a ‘making of’ documentary that you can watch here.
Are you interested in going to USC for cinematic arts? Check out the college website page here. I hope you enjoyed this moment of scifi and filmmaking nerdery! Please feel welcomed to dive down the rabbit hole of every other Sci-Friday I’ve published in the past couple years. Have a great weekend! 🙂
Connections #178 Wednesday 06 December 2023
Link to Connections: www.nytimes.com/games/connections...