As a life-long hacker, I have spent my life taking things apart, figuring out how they work, and attempting to improve them. Far more of my hacking projects have failed than will ever grace the pages of this blog, sometimes in spectacular and unexpected ways. It’s through that repeated failure and reflection that I learn to succeed. I share those successes (and quite a few of the failures) with others, and they are often the backdrop of my leadership coaching.
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Longtime readers of this blog may recall my slight obsession with an old screensaver: Johnny Castaway. Johnny was a Windows 3.1 screensaver, part of Sierra’s ‘Screen Antics’ collection. Fitting handily on a single 3.5” floppy disk, Johnny spent his time alone on a deserted island. He fished, he napped, he went on dates with a mermaid. It was a fascinating, subversive tale. The true moral of the story was that Johnny wasn’t happy until he was on that island, but he didn’t realize it until after he had been rescued. The ‘ending’ scene is of Johnny parachuting back onto his desert island, leaving his old programming job and city life behind.
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Earlier this week one of the managers on my leadership team shared a most excellent article around the concept of a manager Readme, a readme file to get folks ready for a new manager, and a number of great examples from our industry. You can read the article here
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The Surface (non-pro) was an interesting device. Running windows RT 8.1 and sporting a 720p display, from the outside this was a half-decent productivity tablet. It came with a fully usable version of Microsoft office, could share peripherals with the (far superior) surface pro, and was priced to sell. Sadly, the locked-down operating system meant the software landscape was barren, the hacking scene was anemic, and the technology quickly became outdated.
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There’s a pretty well known rule around my house: “If I buy one TV, I need to get rid of two.” I know the math of this doesn’t seem to work out in theory, but in practice it does. Between giveaways from friends and what I find myself, there’s always a steady stream of television related projects coming through.
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TLDR; I’m allowing all but two of my android apps to sunset off of the app store in the beginning of the year. You’ll still be able to download them all and their source code from GitHub.
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The other day I was south of Seattle perusing some lesser known thrift stores. Just your typical Saturday morning, when I spy a very cool thing: A TI-99/4A retail box.
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When it comes to modern retro gaming, there’s a whole world of emulation options out there. Dosbox runs on anything, and even your phone is powerful enough to emulate modern consoles. Still, for some of us that’s not enough. There’s something magical about playing on original hardware.
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Hey Folks, For those who’ve been reading this blog for a decade or two, this article may seem a bit out of place. It’s not a cool hack or a game review or software that I’ve written. It’s honest advice...
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Dissatisfied with the current stand of the boom box world, I set about to see if I could do better on my own. The end result is a boombox so loud, so RUDE, it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen or heard before, and it wasn’t particularly difficult.
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