The "aha" key
Currently listening: The Friendly Orange Glow The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture by Brian Dear 📚
I’m not very far into this, but one detail that makes me smile: the early PLATO keyboards had an “aha” key. “Aha” was how you exited the help system, as in “aha, I found the information I needed”.
From a 1965 paper on PLATO:
If he had difficulty with a question, he could push the button labelled “help”. The “help” button took the student into a help sequence which pertained to the question. The logic in a help sequence was similar to the logic in the main sequence. The student was presented with additional explanatory material and “help material”. Each question in a help sequence had to be answered correctly before proceeding further through the help sequence.
After completing a help sequence the student automatically returned to the question he was trying to answer in the main sequence.
However, if the student wished to return to the main sequence from any point in the help sequence, he could push the button labelled “aha”. An additional request for help on the same question would return the student to his previous position in the help sequence.
Finished Listening: Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon 📚
Actually: The Steal Like An Artist Audio Trilogy
Finished reading: Wicked + The Divine Volume 4: Rising Action by Kieron Gillen 📚
(also volume 3. 5-9 are waiting for me at the library)
My current work-in-progress is leaving me a bit uninspired, so I’ve been tinkering with something a little different– a Jezzball-like:
The next challenge is detecting areas that are sealed off and displaying them differently.
Finished reading: The Wicked + the Divine, Volume 2 by Kieron Gillen 📚
Why are the Artemis II photos on Flickr?
I jettisoned my Flickr account in either the Yahoo or Verizon era– but nice to see that SmugMug and the foundation are doing good work to preserve the images and maintain the platform.
Finished reading: The Wicked + the Divine The Faust act by Kieron Gillen 📚
Decided to re-read the series.
Finished Listening: Crusaders by Dan Jones 📚
The “Passive Income” trap ate a generation of entrepreneurs:
an enormous machine converting human ambition into noise
Lately
March was not a productive month for me, gamedev-wise. I spent more time playing Civ VII, reading, watching Monarch: Legacy of Monsters and re-watching season 1 of Jessica Jones (each!), than in Godot or other creative tools.
I don’t mourn the time spent or not spent, but the loss of momentum burns. In April, I want to turn that around. I find that if I launch the game, I’ll quickly find the thing most annoying or unsatisfying at the moment, and naturally get to work on it.
I just need to rebuild the habit of doing that more days than not.
Finished reading: The Absinthe Forger by Evan Rail 📚
Not quite a “whodunit”– the forger in question is known right from the beginning. Rail spends the book exploring Absinthe’s history and present day makers and collectors, trying to understand the how and why the forger did what they did.
Currently reading: The Absinthe Forger by Evan Rail 📚
welcome home dctechevents dot com
Someone reached out a few days ago, trying to sell me “dctechevents.com”– which once upon a time was the domain for my DC Tech Events site.
Have I grown to like dctech dot events?
Yes.
Am I nostalgic for the old domain?
Also yes. But not $500 nostalgic.
Thankfully, my friend S here didn’t actually own the domain. When they wrote that email, the domain was in PendingDelete status, which is final. Whoever had owned it, stopped paying the bill. Once a domain has reached PendingDelete, nothing can stop it from eventually hitting the open market. At that moment, S might as well have been trying to sell me the Brooklyn bridge.
If I had expressed interest, they probably would have tried to grab it once it hit the market, through a back-ordering service, sell it to me, and pocket the difference. That would be the most honest way this scheme could work. Would they have taken my money before having the domain in hand? What if the backorder failed? If they have my money, why even try?
I don’t have to find out, though. I didn’t respond to their emails, and I was able to back order the domain successfully. It’s all (once again) mine!
Finished Listening: Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris 📚
I really enjoyed this combined history of The Graduate, Bonnie & Clyde, In The Heat of The Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and Dr. Doolittle.
Rex Harrison, though. What an asshole!
My day is always improved by Lice.
The Mystery of Rennes-le-Château, Part 1: The Priest’s Treasure
I’m a sucker for “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”-style lore. This makes me think I should check out Gabriel Knight 3.
Finished Listening: Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company by Patrick McGee 📚
Repairing our microwave by replacing the fuse? Failure. Replacing the CMOS battery on my laptop seems to have gone OK, so I feel a little bit redeemed.