@jmac@masto.nyc
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

jmac

@jmac@masto.nyc

I live in New York. I get paid to write about databases. I don’t get paid to write about other stuff, but I do it anyway.

Tech writer at Google; Co-founder of IFTF, an interactive-fiction nonprofit; Liker of coffee, cats, open web technologies, et cetera. Co-admin of https://masto.nyc.

All views I express in my personal posts are my own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Five Borough Fedi Project.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

jmac, to Steamdeck
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Invited to play some Left 4 Dead with friends last night. Complex nostalgia: I was back in Boston the last time I played it. That was on Xbox 360, and I’m unsurprised to see that it plays great on today.

It’s as fun as ever, with very minor mechanical nits. The aspects that felt most dated were philosophical.

First, the easiest skill level is called "Easy”, and beyond it being Rather Hard Actually, a modern game would pick a less dismissive description for it. 🧵

jmac, to nyc
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Through some bizarre atmospheric fluke, is looking ahead at more than a week of spring-appropriate temperatures. (Yes, Monday, I see you there.)

jmac, to random
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Shower thought: “Oh, ‘Somebody wiped under a dock, and there they saw a rock’ probably means that they crashed their surfboard under the dock, not that they happened to be toweling off there.”

But now, having toweled off myself, I see that genius.com says the lyric is “Somebody went under a dock”. Really? That's so much weaker than my understanding.

mhoye, to random
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Absolutely losing my mind over this question, about how there are so many good answers but also no good answers at all.

https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina/112329440755518358

What language would you choose, if you wanted to show somebody the joy, elegance or beauty of computing?

jmac,
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@mhoye For maximum joy while flinging elegance over the falls, I have to suggest Inform 7.

passerine, to random
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I'm trying a new thing where every time I catch myself imagining a worst-case scenario, I then have to imagine a best-case scenario. It's very effective! Didn't take long to get in the habit, and it's really helped me realize it's all just stories. Highly recommended strategy.

jmac,
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@passerine It’s all just stories!

fvzappa, to random
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Found an old IBM pamphlet I scanned nearly a decade ago; Square-D used it in 1957 to allay their employees' fears that the new RAMAC system that was being brought in to help with accounting would replace them. It's cute! The last page has the following on it, and stands in stark contrast to the use-cases that OpenAI and others are proposing for their Large Language Models.

jmac,
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@fvzappa You should really consider uploading this to archive.org if it isn’t there already!

jmac, to random
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He said the thing
https://mastodon.social/@samuelpepys/112328247481848080

nocontexttrek, to StarTrek
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Hey fans, look between the tab and w on your keyboard

jmac,
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@nocontexttrek Whoa! H-how did you do that

jmac, to random
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Literally nobody in a 3,000-person work chat liked my story about how walking past a nearby burger bar when its window is shuttered makes me say "We're closed now!!" in a weird voice because I'm remembering a 1983 TV ad for the video game Burgertime, so I'm telling you instead. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjJ0Tl3WENQ

jmac,
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@imalcolm They were really big burgers tho

mogwai_poet, to random
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You may have seen the Balatro Discourse, which consists of people looking at a screenshot of code that it straightforward and getting angry that it's not more complicated.

I'd just like to posit here that a straightforward solution is an excellent default and you should have a really solid argument for the advantages of a complicated solution before you choose it.

jmac,
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@mogwai_poet Also, I am convinced that giant carbo-chains of if-elses power 90% of all code in production, worldwide.

jmac,
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@mogwai_poet There is also this now-deleted but memory-indelible Terry Cavanagh tweet from early 2020: "Every screenshot I see posted of terrible things in the VVVVVV source code only makes me more powerful"

(Cited in this Polygon article: https://www.polygon.com/2020/1/13/21064100/vvvvvv-source-code-game-development-terry-cavanagh-release)

jmac, to random
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All of the games in this thread look absolutely bananas.
https://social.panic.com/@playdate/112322276014980928

jmac, (edited ) to Steamdeck
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I've picked Cobalt Core back up after a few months away. Still the that's given me the most joy on my .

I love the weird unlockable wooden ship that takes a free evade action (whether you want it or not!) when you play a card from either end of your hand. Pair it with Riggs and all her own evasive-power cards, and it becomes a very dodgy craft, in every sense of the word. Great fun!

GetMisch, to nyc
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Caught the express at Times Square today and boy, was he down on getting us there right quick. Zippy trip this morning, the skipped stations going by in blurs.
the A no

jmac,
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@GetMisch Trips like these always make me think of that one scene towards the end of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. "The lights are ALL GREEN, baby!!!"

alexcox, to random
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Steve was mostly right about web apps and now the most talented developers I know are overtaxed by the biggest companies in the world as their work goes undervalued, under appreciated, and fundamentally misunderstood (because most people think they work FOR the companies’ app stores) lurches backstage to avoid tomato throwing crowd https://mastodon.social/

jmac, (edited )
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@alexcox A certain family member has lived for decades in a Maine trailer park, and my family's conventional wisdom is that he "works for Apple".

I have never understood why people think this, and your post strikes me with the hypothesis that he noodled out a fart app in 2011 and showed it around once, and everyone said "Aha!" and were satisfied with this explanation for how he gets by. He's much younger than most in my family so, sure, why not?

I am suddenly 80% sure that this is the case.

jmac,
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See also: older relatives who ask me every time they see me: "So, this 'Elon Musk'. He your boss?"

jmac, to random
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In the 1970s and 80s, the Yellow Pages phone directory in the U.S. had this logo and I had no idea what in the world it was supposed to be. It looks like a weird goblin with a huge head, stubby arms, and no knees lurching its flattop hairdo over to the left, yeah?

jmac, to random
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I heard "I Won" by Gustaf for the first time yesterday and it had me laughing in public. It's very funny! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQKHs7pbP2Q

katre, to random
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Peak Manhattan: the churro bar has a DJ.

jmac,
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@katre Won't lie, and maybe I haven't been out much, but you had me at "churro bar”

jmac, to random
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Shower thought: “Irony is dead! [link to news headline]” and "Satire is dead! [link to news headline]” posts irritate because they rely on the notion that irony or satire only “live” so long as nothing newly ironic or no fresh source of satire ever happen again, which seems a bit backwards, right? ok thanks

eca, to random
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my first post on the fediverse shall be a gnome smoking with a pipe

jmac,
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@eca Perfect execution and well met

jmac, to random
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Here for cross-species animal-friendship videos and cautiously nuanced opinions about generative AI. And everything else you have too, but also those.

just not at once, probably

jmac, to random
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I am attacking piano lessons anew—third time lucky, I say.

I can only hear beginner-book standard “Aura Lee” as not Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender" but instead the circa-1984 TV jingle for Loving Tender Chunks dog food, and so that's what I've been singing around the house lately. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqqYCLI7-X0

jmac, (edited )
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Just checking in some four weeks later to confirm I'm still hacking away at this book-learning piano course and having a great time.

My playing sounds awful and I need to wear one of my old wrist braces to keep my left hand from twisting itself off and I have made it to page 50 of the book. I can switch smoothly between C and F major chords maybe one in three times! I love it.

I originally picked this up to learn synthesizers better, but I am all-in on plain old piano now, I fear...

jmac,
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

@GetMisch I hear you. If there's any facet of this that I'm likely to seek in-person instruction from, it's posture!

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