Linux gamer, retired aviator, profanity enthusiast

  • 6 Posts
  • 547 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • Okay, so you know the trope in spy movies where the launch codes or the diamonds or whatever are at the end of a hallway full of lasers, and the protagonist has to do some cool flip moves (if male) or some slinky contortions (if female) to get around the lasers?

    I made that as an arcade game with an Arduino. Some red laser pointer diodes, some photosensors, a few lights, bells and whistles, a fog machine, a few big ol buttons, and you’ve got spy laser hallway. It had a separate “break as many lasers as you can” mode as well, played like a combination of DDR and whack-a-mole.

    The second coolest thing I ever programmed was probably the GPS MP3 player. A farmer wanted to add an automatic soundtrack to his Halloween hayride, like when the drove through the spooky graveyard it played ghost noises, it would play music for longer stretches on the road. I used a Raspberry Pi with a GPS HAT and wrote up a script in Python that would compare the actual position with a set of coordinates stored in a text file, and if one matched, it would play an associated mp3 file. The effect was kind of lost because the audio was coming from the vehicle itself, but it’s a hay ride, it’s supposed to be kind of lame. The bedsheet ghosts said woo as you drove past, I’m in the special effects industry, dad.





  • I’ll note that the exact same thing happened to Hayden Christensen. His reputation took a big hit for being the guy who portrayed Anakin Skywalker. He was in the same boat Natalie Portman was and weathered the same storm. The older actors were able to weather it better because they’d had successful projects prior, the younger actors didn’t have that.

    Here’s the problem with the Strong Female Character®: They are never found in movies made out of genuine creative vision. A Strong Female Character® is always the lead character in a movie whose production has been authorized for the purposes of monetizing an intellectual property the studio has rights to that polling data shows would be popular among the 18-24 demographic within the next 16 months, and the writers and casting directors are hereby ordered to pander to the attached list of races, genders and sexual orientations as per the company Never Offend Anyone Ever policy.

    Movies that were made to bring a cool idea to life tend to have better characters in them, because their characteristics are story telling devices and not business decisions. Stunt casting is ALWAYS a business decision.




  • I do shop at Best Buy, usually for computer parts and accessories. Because my local alternatives for computer hardware and peripherals, AV gear etc. are Wal-Mart and maybe our increasingly pathetic Staples. Or Amazon. Best Buy is literally the only place within 20 miles to buy a GPU in a brick and mortar store.

    I don’t watch TV ads though. Is this chick a spokesman?