One of the most infamous Doom WADs. Or is it the most awesome? Well, you decide. The author commentary is pretty funny no matter what.

Pumpkins should prepare for a slow but certain violent consumption.

Pumpkins should prepare for a slow but certain violent consumption.

I'm sorry, I'm not often someone to whine about Firefox UI. Usually their changes have been for good actually. BUT! But but but. Proper UI design would require AI features to be disabled if the toggle is disabled. This is both highly silly and very confusing.

"One... two... tree [sic]... Hit it! OUTRUN."

Never ceases to amaze me that Wikipedia has photographic illustrations for weird things. Like the concept of "turtles all the way down". Image source.

It's a red-eared slider turtle! 🐢

This was photographic proof that NONE OF THE ROBOTS OF THE TECHNODROME could actually see these turtles. Because image recognition in the 1990s was shit.

All together now:
T-U-R-T-L-E Power
T-U-R-T-L-E Power
T-U-R-T-L-E Power
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Actually, this complex image of reptilian stealth pushes even human cognition, because back when I submitted this, I didn't even notice the second turtle in the top of the image, being very cute! Because all of my attention was drawn to the badass infiltrator at the centre of the image. Very turtley image indeed.

(If you need to know which AI thing this was sent to, this was Microsoft's experiment called captionbot.ai (no longer online), well before the current AI nonsense era. But I think it still serves a point! Turtles can sometimes skillfully avoid AI identification. ...I'll probably post about the other landmark case later on. Maybe.)

(Also, if modern AI had been kept as a niche tool for image captioning and other carefully considered applications, I'd not have been so critical of it. But here we are, the AI bros set the world aflame, and now we fight.)

Original image © Fruggo, GFDL

(I'd provide sources, but they're actually googleable. For now.)

Rev. Gilbert White (1720-1792) had a pet tortoise called Timothy. 1 July 1791, White decided to dunk the tortoise in water.

We put Timothy into a tub of water, & found that he sunk gradually, & walked on the bottom of the tub: he seemed quite out of his element, & was much dismayed. This species seems not at all amphibious. Timothy seems to be the Testudo Graeca of Linnaeus. Dr Chandler who saw the operation, says there is a species of tortoise in the Levant that at times frequents ponds & lakes: and my Bro: John White, affirms the same of a sort in Andalusia.

Now, while the tortoise was fine after the incident, the tortoise could not let this offence lie, and retaliated. By outliving Gilbert White! As is common with turtle kind!

As is very common, the works of Gilbert White were 2D scanned for posterity. Of course, EVEN in death, Timothy had to one-up this! Timothy's shell was 3D scanned!

So hi, I'm from Europe. When this game came out, I was a teenager and I was like "oh based on what I've heard, I guess this is what all American military music sounds like".

Damn, I need to figure out how to replay the game, it still sits on my shelf on place of honour. (...is "Battlezone '98 Redux" substantially different? I appear to have it on GOG)

I remember being a little bit sour at this game, because I was so psyched up about game called Golgotha, which was another FPS/RTS hybrid game, and Battlezone made it first to the market, and I begrudgingly thought it probably had better game design, annnnnd Golgotha developers went out of business.

Pretty good summary on the Sony rootkit scandal.

Remember kids: Just rip your CDs in Linux. What are they gonna do about it?

This is the code in the Apollo Guidance Computer for Apollo 11.

It's part of the LUMINARY sofware, which ran on the AGC on the Lunar Module. It's meant to check if the landing radar is pointed toward the lunar surface - because the LM went through several orientations, the landing radar could be pointed to the front or the side or down. You're landing on the Moon. Point it down.

Point is, you have to verify user input. Even if your users are the most meticulous and highly trained individuals in history. You have to see if they're lying. So you get to the BURNBABY.

Browse the code in GitHub - this code is in THE_LUNAR_LANDING.agc

Pure. 1990s. Fantasy. Soundtrack. Stuff. Enough said.

Also I thought the game was basically unplayable for the longest time! It's now on GOG preservation.

(Not my photo, just random interwebs share.)

I don't know if snails have enough brain cells to be actually terrified. (Science must answer this.)

Apparently sulcata tortoise hatchlings are quite fast because they're, you know, small.

But most turtle species are actually quite speedy compared to snails. In fact, some herbivorous turtle species eat snails for protein! Just to assert that they're the speediest of all. *chomp*

If you can feel a very small tinge of existential horror when you read the words "try to", congratulations, you're a true *nix devotee.

If legislators get grumpy about this, just gently thwap them with your handy copy of The Unix Haters Handbook and tell them you're working as hard as you can under the circumstances.