One of first games I ever played at my dad's work when I was probably 6 or 7 years old. I've always enjoyed flight Sims, understanding this dubiously qualifies :). I've enjoyed the strategic aspect of fuel and bomb management and while the ai is simple, it provided a challenge.
I now have kids of my own; over the winter I setup an old laptop with old games, and started introducing them chronologically to games like Sopwith, Paratrooper, Alley Cat etc.
My 6 year olds son comment on this game in his journal:
"I like: everything. I don't like: nothing."
Took me a second to not over interpret the seeming double negative :-)
Update : years later I played wings of fury on my cousin's amiga 500 ; far better game but not the same magic :)
What's your viewing distance? I currently have a 32" at about 80cm or so. Did not like the 34" as it has actually less vertical space despite having more area technically.
My viewing distance is one-arm-length (kinda close), when I raise my arm my fingertips just touch the screen. Definitely closer than my previous monitor, as you need to sit within the curved-screen radius to be in the sweet spot.
Looks like it's 32:9 aspect ratio - it's this Samsung, it was on sale last week for $800: https://a.co/d/0f884LPO
* I feel the key message here is "single vs multiple windows", not small vs big monitor. I love my 32" curved monitor. I too switched from having three monitors to having just one big monitor and staying with one maximizing window majority of time.
It's also role dependant. I spent few years as ops manager and multiple windows and situational awareness / task parallelization were important. Not saying it's a good thing but it was the name of the game.
Even without task parallelization, multiple windows are important for some roles. If I'm transforming a working excel into executive slide, it's nice to have them both up. If you are good at taking notes, having teams meeting and one note up is a life saver and super power. Etc
But yes - I think core message is "do not assume that prevalent wisdom or what others do, works for your task, job, and personality". As another example, I think dark mode is cool, all my cool friends use it, and it does not work for me on majority of applications. And that's ok... Not everybody is cool like that :-)
An aside: I am generally good at keeping notes while in a meeting, and I have tried shared notes in One Note, but as soon as someone else edits something in the same spot, it creates a forked history requiring manual reconciliation: does this work for you?
I've switched to Word akin to how I used to do it with Google Docs as that works much better.
Perhaps it's given away by "One" in the name (one simultaneous editor)? Or am I holding it wrong?
For shared artifacts we use word, excel or PowerPoint in corporate onedrive and it works shockingly well, with minor but important caveats - you can't usually edit the same exact box at the same time, and it can get confused with offline changes by multiple people. But online changes by multiple simultaneous people seems to work really well. I especially enjoy when one person is presenting slides, an executive makes a suggestion, and another team member makes the change real time on the same deck and it shows up in presentation.
We are just starting to experiment with some shared onenote notebooks, it seems to have a bit more learning curve and needs more discipline and structure than the rest of ms office.
one thing I've noticed with the "single ultra wide monitor" vs multiple smaller ones is that if I maximize something on the ultra wide the "important" part is often off to the left, not centered.
I actually redesigned my desk a bit so my ultra wide's left side is directly in front of me to compensate for this, which is a bit weird, but ... it's working so far.
What is the current best way to watch the take off? I was out of town and want to watch it with family this weekend in fake/pretend real time, so would love a good YouTube or otherwise source :)
2. Thank you for collecting and providing context :)
3. How come examples are in PNG? Is that the only format you have available, or is there a technical limitation or risk in making them available in original ASCII format?
(Seems pedantic, but I noticed because I'm at the airport -- The article loaded near instantly, but the actual art took a couple of minutes and still loading mid way through :)
Most ANSI art is displayed on the web as PNG because it's lossless and can be indexed to the correct 16 colors. Lossy formats like JPG introduce weird artifacts that screw up the look.
So, for a blog post, PNG is the most robust way to display the art across browsers of all kind.
But you definitely can get the original ANSI files. Lokke packaged every 20 or so of his telecomics into "ALLMACKx.ZIP" archives for distribution. These were very similar to the artpacks that the underground ANSI art scene would eventually use. I uploaded the seven ALLMACK files I recovered and uploaded them to the 16colors ANSI art archive: https://16colo.rs/artist/don+lokke+jr
That's probably the best way (for now) to explore it as a collection or download the original files.
I do have some more Lokke telecomics I located that were not in ALLMACK archives, and so are not submitted to 16c yet. I may just package them up as a "MISC" pack and upload them.
They're not really ASCII art - they are more properly called ANSI.SYS art utilizing the IBM extended character set (which is more properly an extension of ASCII IIRC) - getting them to display correctly in a terminal or a website emulator is a bit of work.
I'm an immigrant to Canada, and yes, English has both literal meanings and colloquial meanings.
In the most literal meaning, absolutely, "Enthusiast" just means a person who likes something, is excited about something.
When it comes to market and products though, typically you'll see the word "Enthusiast" as mid-tier - something like: Consumer --> Enthusiast --> Professional (may have words like "Prosumer" in there as well etc:)
In that context, which is typically the one people will use when discussing product pricing and placement, "Enthusiast" is somebody who yes enjoys something, but does it sufficiently to be discerning and capable of purchasing mid-tier or above hardware.
So while a consumer photographer, may use their phone or compact or all-in-one camera, enthusiast photographer will probably spend $3000 - $5000 in camera gear. Equivalently, there are myriad gamers out there (on phones, consoles, Geforce Now, whatever:), an enthusiast gamer is assumed to have a dedicated gaming computer, probably a tower, with a dedicated video card, likely say a 5070ti or above, probably 32GB+ RAM, couple of SSDs which are not entry level, etc.
Again, this is not to say a person with limited budget is "not a real enthusiast", no gatekeeping is intended here; simply, if it may help, what the word means when it comes to market segmentation and product pricing :)
Additionally, "enthusiasts"/"hobbyists" tend to be willing to spend beyond practical utility, while professionals are more interested in pragmatism, especially in photography from what I can tell.
If you're an actual pro, you need your stuff to work properly, efficiently, reliably, when it's called for. When you're a hobbyist, it's sometimes almost the goal to waste money and time on stuff that really doesn't matter beyond your interest in it; working on the thing is the point, not the value it generates. Pros should spend money on good tools and research and knowledge, but it usually needs to be an investment, sometimes crossing over with hobbyist opinions.
A friend of mine who's a computer hobbyist and retail IT tech, making far far less than I do, spends comically more than me on hardware to play basically one game. He keeps up to date with the latest processors and all that stuff, he knows hardware in terms of gaming. I meanwhile—despite having more money available—have a fairly budget gaming PC that I did build myself, but contains entirely old/used components, some of which he just needed to get rid of and gave me for free, and I upgrade my main mac every 5 years or something. I only upgrade when hardware is really getting in my way.
>> So while a consumer photographer, may use their phone or compact or all-in-one camera, enthusiast photographer will probably spend $3000 - $5000 in camera gear.
It's interesting that you chose photographers as the example here. In many cases that I've seen, enthusiast photographers spend much more than professional photographers on their gear because the photographers make their money with their gear and therefore need to justify it, while the enthusiasts are often tech people, successful doctors, etc., who spend lots and lots on money on their hobbies...
In any case, your point stands, that "enthusiast" computer users would easily spend $3-4K or more on gear to play games, train models, etc.
I.e. I want to support the band, but feel like only a fraction of the money spent on merch goes to the target. Same with websites that have mugs and such. I don't want another mug, I don't want to pay 5.99 for shipping, I don't need to support the white box oem mug manufacturer.
But I guess in the real pragmatical world, that's the support mechanism that actually works :)
> I want to support the band, but feel like only a fraction of the money spent on merch goes to the target.
Maybe you don't have any friends that are in a band, but if it's the band members or friends of the band selling the merch, they are getting 100% of the profit. They design the shirts, they pay for the printing of the shirts, they then sell the shirts directly with their own hands. There's no middleman taking cuts. Now, if you're buying their merch from some 3rd party website, that site probably takes a cut. Some bands selling merch on their own website could still be coming directly from the band if one of them, or again a friend, sets up the site with their own accounts using square/stripe/etc and deals with the fulfillment themselves they are minimizing cuts as well.
I guess they are technically not middle men because they sit one the start of the value chain, but the company making the t-shirts, the one selling it and the one printing on it are still making good profits. On top of the actual costs of making those printed t-shirts.
I imagine it's not hugely expensive at the volumes bands need, somewhere from $3-10 per t-shirt depending on quality, and maybe double that for hoodies? And if you are buying online shipping and handling, which is another $5-10 that I'm paying and isn't going to the artist. Not a huge deal. But if you don't care about the physical product and just want the band to have some money that's still a good bit of inefficiency
Slight correction: I just received an advertising blow-in from Ollie's listing Hanes and other brand women's tees for $1.99 each. That's for short sleeve, long sleeve or tank top in various colors. The indicated competition is stated to sell them for $2.49. Not that this is RETAIl pricing in the U.S.A.. I'm guessing wholesale will be even less.
the t-shirt itself benefits the band because it's free advertising, it keeps the band on the radarof your friends etc. even if you wanted to paypal them, they would probably prefer you to buy (and wear!) t-shirts
well, now you're getting needlessly pedantic in a way that just makes me wonder why would someone do that. seriously, nobody expects that a band is weaving fabric by hand to cut into patterns to sew into shirts. everyone here understands that you have to buy the shirts at your expense to sale at a mark up that earns profit. what a ridiculous thing to argue
Alternative framing that sounds less pedantic: Nobody was complaining about middlemen in the first place. The argument you responded to was "I don't need to support the white box oem mug manufacturer". Meanwhile you were talking about the opposite end of the value chain, which in no way refutes any of the complaints made.
More importantly you were also missing the point. The issue is how much of the $20 you pay end up in the hands of the band. Where in the value chain that money is spent doesn't matter. What matters is how much is spent on delivering the t-shirt to my doorstep and how much is in the band's bank account
Yeah, also the fact that most venues take a cut of merch sales really dampens the idea that buying merch directly from artists is the best way to put money in their pocket.
I even recall going to a show many years ago where the lead singer refused to sell his t-shirts at the venue and implored us all to meet him outside at their tour van for direct sales. I don't think he got invited back to perform there!
Never heard about venues taking a cut off the merch - that’s fucked up…
They already take (in almost all cases) 100% from drinks and bar sales.
In my experience the ticket sales and merch go completely to the artist.
Anything else I would consider a rip-off
That is certainly the case with many venues in the US after the LiveNation/Ticketmaster merger. Independent venues are much more rare, due to the LiveNation monopoly, but make their own deals with talent that are reasonable to both parties.
LiveNation operates so much of the venue spaces they can take whatever they want. Artists have been complaining to congress about it since the merger in 2010.
If you want to support them you're more than welcome to message them and ask for their Venmo, or reach out to their agent (if they have one) or them directly and ask who to make the check out to. That just doesn't work at scale.
> I.e. I want to support the band, but feel like only a fraction of the money spent on merch goes to the target. Same with websites that have mugs and such. I don't want another mug, I don't want to pay 5.99 for shipping, I don't need to support the white box oem mug manufacturer.
I know some musicians are using Patreon but patreon takes a cut as well.
Now Although I don't like github but one of the last things that I like about github is that github sponsorships don't charge anything extra than the costs it would have itself and you get chargeback protection.
Would there be a genuine interest in using Github for sponsorships by Musicians, are there any real world musicians* who are doing that?
If the band signed with someone to help produce the album you're buying, they probably owe a cut to cover the costs of recording, mixing, cutting/pressing, releasing that album.
I am astonished how many people now use speakerphone as their default interaction. On subway, go train, in grocery stores, on the streets, sometimes even in the office, they blast their conversations with zero care.
And so yes, I've definitely seen and experienced people watching inane tiktoks on speaker in subway or bus or airplane. It's the epitome of complete lack of empathy or self awareness to me, but I guess that's the way culture is going.
I'm curious what people think of people who use their speakerphone in public, but have the volume set low enough and themselves speak low enough that the conversation is no louder than an in person conversation would be.
Still annoying?
If so, is the problem usually the loudness of the speakerphone, or the loudness of the person who is there? I've noticed some people talk louder when on speakerphone than when on regular phone (and some people talk louder on regular phone than when talking to someone in person).
Back before mobile phones there was a tendency for people to talk louder on the phone at first, but after being reminded a few times that just because the other person is far away doesn't mean you have to shout most people learned to talk at normal volume.
I wonder if loud talkers don't get that feedback now? With old phone handsets there was pretty much only one position for them, so the mic was about the same distance from the mouth for all speakers. Talk to loud and it would be annoying on the receiving end.
But with modern phones there are a variety of positions people hold them in, which can lead to quite different mic positions. My understanding is that they do a lot more automatic gain control and other processing to try to keep the level the same despite all those different positions. Perhaps this means that the person on the other end doesn't know you are talking loud and so unless someone on your end tells you to keep it down you might never realize you are a loud phone talker.
Naturally it is extremely rude. If two people have a conversation in public both pay attention to the surroundings and feedback to change their volume tone and topics. If you put someone on speaker without introducing everyone present then they should hang up on you.
> If you put someone on speaker without introducing everyone present then they should hang up on you.
This is silly. Just tell the person you are talking to that they are on speaker.
Assuming the party on the phone has been informed and the volume is not excessive, having a conversation on speaker is equivalent to having a physical conversation in person.
Silly is not explaining why you can't put your phone to your ear like a polite person who follows etiquette. Polite people naturally won't really just hang up, ones that know etiquette will pretend its more convenient for you to call them back when you can and others will just note you are rude.
Silly is not explaining why you can’t just pass a handwritten note like a polite person who follows etiquette. Polite people naturally won’t really just start speaking out loud; ones that know etiquette will pretend it’s more convenient for you to read their note when you can, and others will just note you are rude.
There are times you need speaker-phone mode. My parents almost always turn on speaker-phone when they call me because they both want to be part of the conversation. I don't think they will ever take a plane or a bus trip in their lives so their speaker-phone isn't going to hurt anyone.
I need speakerphone when I'm home alone and attempting to be on a phone call while doing other things. Some of those calls are even about instructing me to look for something, so it necessitates me to be moving about. Speakerphone is an incredibly useful utility.
Don't take functionality away because of a few bad actors. That'd be like getting rid of drones because a few people are assholes.
Put rules in place to correct the bad behavior. Kicking them off planes seems fair.
Speaker phone is probably necessary nowadays since many people only have a smartphone.
With the old phones you could reasonably tilt your head and raise your shoulder to hold the handset in place so you could do something that required two hands while talking/listening, like looking up something in a book or taking notes.
Smartphones are smaller than the old handsets and much flatter. I can pinch mine between my shoulder and head but I've got to raise my should pretty high and do some other contortions to get my head tilted enough making it much more awkward to do anything with my hands. Also that phone is small enough that it is pretty well covered in that position by the side of my face and my shoulder, so I'm not sure the mic could pick up much.
Sometimes you need both hands for something else while on the phone.
Landline telephones mostly had handsets that looked like the top photo here [1]. When held with a hand they were positioned as shown in the second photo there.
Because of its thickness and length you only had to tilt your head and/or raise you should a little to hold it hands free with the speaker end right at the ear and the mic end still near the mouth.
If you were taking a call while standing for example and needed to write something down in a notebook that was no problem.
Sure. At home. And yes, I'm old enough to have walked around with a phone tucked in my neck.
But if you're in public, and using a smartphone, headphones are always an option. There s absolutely no reason why anyone needs to use speakerphone in public if they're just one person.
I've seen it everywhere except airplanes. I don't recall ever seeing it on planes. How often have you seen that? Do passengers or flight attendants do anything? How does the person respond?
Totally... unlike watching a movie, games keep them addicted. I have experienced situations where even toddlers played for 5 hours straight... I couldn't even muster the courage to ask them to lower their volume :-)
I love that everybody can enjoy watches differently :-).
There are people thay get a rolex. And good on them and they certainly send a message O:-)
There are people who like obscure Soviet watches, or hyper expensive ridiculously over complicated modern marvels, or just a few solid units from citizen and Seiko, etc etc.
I have a nice citizen blue angels navihawk with a tremendously useful ;) circular slide rule - but have much more enjoyed finding cool weird little Chinese semi-brand-name watches. Most of them will have a Seiko movement anyway, but without the brand / prestige surcharge. They're really the only jewelry / vanity thing I do - I have ten copies of same t-shirt because it's comfortable and fits me well, but I also have a watches for every occasion to match when I want to "dress up", and dozen of them cost me as much as that single citizen.
An half-air/half-oil filled watch that looks like a smartwatch, but is fully mechanical. No bling, somewhat understated, but still quite visually interesting with a modernist design.
And all kinds of interesting technical quirks like using a magnetic coupling to transfer motion from the air filled half to the oil filled half, tiny bellows that open and close to allow the oil room to expand, the little temp gauge etc.
It's very expensive, but not cartoonishly expensive. And the expense isn't tied to speculation or hundred year old pedigree like some other watches, instead it feels like you're paying for people who really enjoyed skirting along the edges of their craft in a time-intensive way the same way a hacker does
(I don't think the pick has stayed the same over time though: early days would have been some Casio calculator watch, then the Apple Watch/Pixel Watch, and now this)
They are both cartoonishly expensive. This kind of watch culture to me is even more unpalatable than country club culture. At least those people are getting quite a lot of service for what they’re paying.
I think if there's ever a day I prefer country club culture to the result of an industrial designer deciding to spend a decade coming up with all the engineering hacks to make something that cool work, I'm just going to walk out into the blizzard.
It's just a subjective perception of what makes something "cartoonishly expensive".
These types of watches are interesting, clearly making things hard for the sake of being hard. 60 years ago the quest for accuracy got pretty extreme but there was theoretically a practical goal. After quartz movement, that pretence disappeared. I'm in the mindset that up to several hundred bucks, you're paying for something in a watch - accuracy, options, durability, style, whatever it may be. At some point afterwards, and certainly at 50k, you're paying price for sake of paying the price. I don't see the problem that watch is trying to solve, I see it as what can we do for 50k. And that's cool and all, some of them are interesting, but for me, definitely in the cartoonishly expensive category :-)
One of the top stories on HN yesterday was about a company that paid 4-5 average people's wages per person for a team that sat on their butts 8 hours a day and wrote meeting scheduling software for a decade. This was done so they could then sell, not even the software, but... the right to their institutional knowledge for an additional few thousand years worth of average wages.
And of course they're permanently deleting the fruits of that decade's worth of work with 1 week's notice.
And this is the 2nd time the team's leaders have run this play, with the same buyer paying each time: seemingly they can just leave again and keep doing this ad nauseum. (Clockwise)
If you put the value we assign to software engineering in terms of other things it really doesn't make sense either. At least what these people did is something mechanically interesting, unique, and enduring vs the average CRUD app.
I see where you're coming from and I'm glad you've had a successful career, but $52,000 for a watch is absolutely cartoonish money lol. It is definitely a cool piece though, no question.
I now have kids of my own; over the winter I setup an old laptop with old games, and started introducing them chronologically to games like Sopwith, Paratrooper, Alley Cat etc.
My 6 year olds son comment on this game in his journal:
"I like: everything. I don't like: nothing."
Took me a second to not over interpret the seeming double negative :-)
Update : years later I played wings of fury on my cousin's amiga 500 ; far better game but not the same magic :)
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