Weasel @wildweasel@computerfairi.es

it's battery powered now

Somewhat related to this

https://digipres.club/@timixretroplays/112631203369841124

I occasionally teach tech-related stuff to people of every age. Today I was in a classroom with kids ages 9-11. They had almost pristine laptops with Windows 11.

What I wanted to do:
- have them create an avatar with Picrew
- have them write a slide about themselves, and paste the picrew avatar in it
- start playing around with Scratch

Also mandatory from the course's management: have everyone login to the Google Workspace of the course. (I also put the links to the Picrews in the Classroom)

Tech issues I encountered:
- the "smart" classroom touchscreen whiteboard has some HDMI ports, but those ports mysteriously refused to work with my linux laptop. They also refused to work with some of the Windows computers the school had. Kept displaying a message about "trying to connect" or whatever. I've never had an issue connecting via HDMI to a "dumb" monitor, so I don't know what it was trying to do there.
- The school teacher I was paired up with was familiar with some of the other whiteboards the school has, which require a proprietary program that only runs on Windows to connect via bluetooth. This one was different anyway.
- The whiteboard was an Android device and had its own browser. This object that, I'm sure, cost north of 2000€ was barely powerful enough to open Google slides or Picrew, with noticeable slowdowns, and absolutely collapsed under the "weight" of Scratch
- The laptops the kids use have a regular blue Windows popup "Antivirus protection expired" because the McAfee trial version expired. I had to explain to them that there was nothing wrong with their computer, and they didn't catch a virus or anything. We didn't have the administrator password ready so I couldn't uninstall McAfee and get rid of the popup even if I had the time to do it for 20+ computers while I'm trying to teach.
- Picrew is absolutely inundated with ads, including some fullscreen images that obscure the screen until dismissed. One of the ads was creepy AF and scared a kid, and he didn't want to look at the screen anymore. I had to install ublock origin on all the Edge browsers, one by one (I know, but it was the only browser installed, and again, no admin password and no time even if I did)
- Some people straight up got pop up ads, with videos that started playing at max volume, disturbing the lesson. Many of them didn't even know how to dismiss them. I had to explain to them that it wasn't their fault. (again, solved by installing ublock origin)
- The new tab of Microsoft edge isn't mostly empty, but it's just full of news and links and stuff. There's nothing straight up NSFW, but most of it is inappropriate and distracting to kids.
- Millions of popups throughout the whole process. Popups for cookies, Popups for so-called tutorials, and "I understand" and "I accept" to click through to do anything at all.

Honestly, it made me kinda hate tech. I don't know how I'm supposed to transmit my passion for tech when every little interaction is such a minefield to navigate.

Another #PixelArt daily done! :) Secret gardens of stone.

You can grab the full-quality versions (for free) here: https://ko-fi.com/i/IM4M713A62B

ENJOY!

#mastoArt #digitalArt #fediArt #art #landscape #wallpaper #creativeToots #gameDev

what's a good Linux desktop/window manager/environment for a low resolution landscape touch screen

lxde randomly makes things (like the shutdown panel) have 0.5pt text and still not fit the screen because it's vertical

I've released version 2 of Wallops, my IRC client for classic Mac OS (System 6+)

https://jcs.org/wallops

It now supports multiple channels with tabs and other fancy things

"If you're asking for a bigger allowance, son, I can't hear you over all this fluttering." 🦋

choose your gender

in true hbo fashion, there was no announcement that studio ghibli just released a new miyazaki documentary.

it is a longer cut of the nhk-produced documentary 2399 Days with Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, which sadly never got an english translation.

either way, this is a win. watchable anywhere hbo max can be streamed, like your plex server.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzmFynw6TxQ

https://www.animationmagazine.net/2024/09/hayao-miyazaki-and-the-heron-documentary-now-streaming-on-max-u-s/

#anime #studioGhibli

Hey game history sleuths! Help the Video Game History Foundation identify this video game illustration by artist Lee MacLeod. Based on where it was found it is believed to be a Namco title, likely from the early 90s, but they can't figure out which.

#VideoGames #RetroGaming

Gritty + The Sequel Doctor
VS
Sinistar + Unicron

i have no idea
what possessed
the producers of
this documentary
to release a
teaser in 9:16
aspect ratio,
but we're here for
the content right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDtowjlV0uU

#reboot #cartoons #tv

@bascule that reminds me of the time I noticed in a web server log that occasionally clients would get a 404 after requesting a bizarre URL of the form

https://[hostname]/0.000000E+00username/

which, after some headscratching, I realised was because they had started with

https://[hostname]/~username/

and then %-escaped the tilde

https://[hostname]/%7Eusername/

and then accidentally used that as a printf format string, which took %7E to be a floating-point format directive!

https://www.reddit.com/r/SatisfactoryGame/comments/1fcs6b2/i_really_want_to_show_yall_this/ I love how any game that lets you build stuff is potentially a toolbox for stuff like this.
There's a whole alternate future I imagined for myself back at art school where I got really good at doing these kinds of tightly sync'd audiovisual things and made music videos for musicians I liked, that would have pretty inevitably migrated into game engines and become interactive full-surround experiences. See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Olt-ZtV_CE

Sent by Dave L from Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. on February 2, 1995. https://postcardware.net/?id=31-100