a tiny fairy @atinyfairy@computerfairi.es

*long exhale* 😌 Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition is finally out on Steam! First game release as a lead developer, and also the first release with my preferred name in the credits. What a ride the last year and change has been.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1421490/Rise_of_the_Triad_Ludicrous_Edition/

One of the creepier tech-related incidents I remember was many years ago when I wanted the Sam's Photofacts (a third-party creator of device specs and schematics, etc.) for a very old portable TV. Way out of date, but I was trying to help someone with it.

I mentioned to a friend that I was looking for old Photofacts, but I did not say anything about the TV. He scribbled an address on a scrap of paper, an address locally here in L.A. "Try him," he muttered.

I drive over. It's a small unmarked storefront. I go in, the bell on the door rings. Sitting inside, like the caterpillar in "Alice in Wonderland", is this little guy perched on a stool, with immense stacks of paper surrounding him everywhere. Total mayhem.

I walk up to him -- knowing that this was a waste of time and really wanting to get out of there -- and asked if he had the Sam's Photofacts for that specific very old TV model.

Without saying a word, he reached over to the pile of papers right next to him, took the TOP item off the pile, and silently handed it to me. It was the ancient one I needed. Stunned, I paid him the amount marked on the item, and left with it, not completely sure what had just happened.

When I drove by there a month later that storefront was something else entirely. He was gone.

If you are, or have ever been, a sysadmin, grab a bag of popcorn and cruise through this one. Thrills and chills! https://thomasp.vivaldi.net/2023/07/28/what-happened-to-vivaldi-social/

by popular demand: they're gay!

#furry #furryart #art #mastoart

I was at the picket line outside WB Discovery on 19th St yesterday and the energy was huge and powerful and positive. Then I came home and ran into my UPS guy on the block and he said WE WON OUR BATTLE YOU WILL WIN YOURS

#WGAstrong #SAGAFTRAStrong #Strike #Union

Tonight, on Twitch, I am playing something ridiculous.

It's called "Yeah, you want "those games", right? So here you go! Now, let's see you clear them!"

It's basically a collection of fake mobile game ads, made real.

Twitch.TV/LauraKBuzz

I never took the time to appreciate @dasharez0ne‘s alt text

To understand Musk's renewed obsession with X and focus on financial services, you REALLY need to understand the X/Confinity merger that became PayPal.

And, particularly, the Peter Thiel-led coup that kicked Musk out as CEO/Chief Strategist.

Here's how that happened. 1/🧵 #history #technology

Don’t get me wrong: I emphatically do not think absolutely everyone should go to a 4-year liberal arts college like the one where I teach. I don’t think everyone should have to go to college at all. Education can — should! — take many, many forms. Education doesn’t even have to happen in school!

What I •do• believe is that some form of education with that liberal arts philosophy — “Because you are free, you must prepare for the unknown” — should be present in the life of every human being.
14/

Is a Religious Studies course “for” a software career? Well, is a Computer Science course “for” a software career?

That Religious Studies course applied to my software career in •exactly• the same way that my Algorithms course applied: I rarely use (and have mostly forgotten) the specific knowledge from it. I use its approach, its patterns of thought, •constantly•.
8/

Here’s the hidden truth of education:

You don’t know what you’re preparing for.

Your teacher doesn’t know. Your school doesn’t know. Your future employer doesn’t know. Nobody knows. Not really.

Much of what you’re preparing for doesn’t even exist yet. We •hope• it doesn’t exist yet: don’t we educate students in the hope that they will make the world better by changing it? By creating realities that don’t even exist yet?
6/