JoeDaDude

At a school near me: The staff thought that the Tamagotchi were a good educational toy and liked the idea of kids developing a sense of responsibility in taking care of them. OTOH, they could not tolerate the kids being interrupted during class in having to feed/play/etc. with their toys. The solution: Kids would surrender their Tamagotchi upon entering school to a teacher's aide who would be responsible for feeding/playing/etc. the Tamagotchis until the kids were dismissed for the day and would be returned their Tamagotchi.

Also relevant: The Tamagotchi Matrix

https://hackaday.com/2015/11/24/building-the-infinite-matrix...

I've been fascinated by GAs ever since Blondie24 [1] demonstrated it could be used to create strong board game players. Now that there exists the Distributed Evolutionary Algorithms (DEAP, [2]) library for Python I am tempted to recreate Blondie24.

[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blondie24

[2]. https://deap.readthedocs.io/en/master/

IIRC, this book had a 5.25" floppy inside that allowed one to fly the simulator around some pyramid shaped mountains. This brings back fond memories, thanks for posting.

Agreed! Visitors should plan on visiting the nearby Snoopy's Home Ice ice skating rink as well. They have a table reserved for Mr. Schulz and the gift shop is a little museum in its' own right.

My former employer, the Naval Air Development Center in Warminster PA is listed. The one-time Naval base once supported a centrifuge (as mentioned in the listing) used to subject future astronauts to high G levels. What became of the centrifuge is somewhat unexpected, as described in this little blog post:

https://jeffzurita.com/2019/07/15/about-things-that-arent-th...

TL;DR: It is now a party zone!

https://rentthefuge.com/thefuge/

On a somewhat related note, the short film "The 72 Seasons" of Makoto Shinkai" showcasing many excerpts from his animated films.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHPy7r2RDVE

Embracing Defeat by John Dower. The history of Japan's defeat in World War II is well known, but less known is how Japan transformed from a quasi-theocratic military dictatorship to the liberal democracy it is today. This book looks at the events, both cultural and political, that were occurring during the American occupation and how the Japanese adjusted to their defeat and created a new vision of the Japanese nation.

Sir Arthur Harris, the British head of Bomber Command which was responsible for the bombing campaign against Germany, has some choice words on how the bombing was a response to Germany's own campaigns earlier in the war: "The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ujzVqwJnB0

A dramatization of the accident was part of the film Fat Man and Little Boy, clip below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ0P7R9CfCY

A little more factual dramatization was presented in the TV show Dark Matters titled "Risky Radiation" but I am unable to locate a video clip atm.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2421370/?ref_=ttep_ep4

This might be a good time to enjoy the ESA film on the necessity of cleaning up space junk, A Journey to Earth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT7typHkpVg

I've been interested in how these were actually played. If anyone has access to the material used to train the operators, I'd love to hear about it.

BTW, there was one fellow who built one, something I'd like to try someday. See his recreation here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv9m0Z7mhXY

LinkedIn is strictly for business, unlike all other social media. My business is best conducted within certain confines so I never post, or reply to posts on LinkedIn. The people that start posting opinions on politics or or any of a number of topics are risking career suicide.

Alison Stout from Bell Tone Synth Works, a synthesizer repair shop, shows the guts and theory of operation of the Mellotron, along with some restoration and repair tips if you own one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByD8gH7kYxs

FWIW, coming from someone unfamiliar with Van Gogh's biography, this film was the first time I heard of the (conspiracy?) theory that his death was accidental and not a suicide.

The old Bureau of Atomic Tourism site has been archived.

https://web.archive.org/web/20060204144007/http://atomictour...

I always liked the picture of the young pony-tailed girl looking at the site of the Trinity explosion

https://web.archive.org/web/20051215231353im_/http://www.ato...

There is a newer site, The Atomic Archive, but IMHO it lacks the charm of the now-archived version. To be fair, it does cover a lot more stuff, offering history, documents, books, etc., in addition to tourism guides.

https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/index.html

The solution the satellite world has developed for dealing with precipitation absorption of Ka-band and higher frequencies might apply to lasercomm and clouds. In the Ka-band case, having multiple potential downlink sites provides good probability that at least one of them has weather conditions suitable to support the downlink.

I'd love to see a way to add some niche museums. Some suggestions:

The Devil's Rope Museum, about barbed wire: https://barbwiremuseum.com/

The Mutter Museum, a collection of anatomical specimens and antique medical equipment. https://muttermuseum.org/

The Mario Lanza Institute, dedicated to the famed vocalist https://www.mariolanzainstitute.org/

For those interested in exploring further, his daughter has maintained a web site about his life and works since at least 2008.

http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/

A brief bio and blurb about his SF writing was made by the Extra Credit folk, link below. But don't just watch the video, read Cordwainer's stories too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21Uyx0eJgIo

There are plenty of fascinating real skydiving and real flying videos to watch. This stunt is revolting and an insult to pilots, skydivers, and the general public. Fuck him and the chute he jumped with.

I remember my head exploding upon seeing a presentation on the work of Larry Stockmeyer. Though he was an academic working in the obscure discipline of theoretical computer science, he ended up being named in a science fiction novel.

Summary paper: https://lance.fortnow.com/papers/files/beyondnp.pdf

Slide show: https://www.slideserve.com/leda/beyond-np-the-work-and-legac...

Yup, as you noted, the My Lai massacre had made the news and the antiwar faction painted all GIs as baby killers.

A scant 11 years ago, I was about to obtain an MSCS degree and was chatting with my follow students about what they wanted to do. There was talk about designing compilers or webapps or games or databases. I mentioned I thought AI was pretty cool and the universal answer was I should not waste time on that.

Being alive at the time, I remember there was a lot of demonizing one's opponents, much like today in fact. I remember anti-war protestors being thought of as free love fornicating, pot smoking, communists and police and soldiers being called pigs and baby killers.

Once your opponent is dehumanized in this way, the violence that follows is easily justified, certainly in the heat of the moment. It becomes easy to throw rocks at police and burn ROTC buildings. It becomes easy to shoot protestors who are enemies of the state.

It was in the Deptford Township High School, but this was a long time ago, the early 90's. I have no idea if is is still there or if it has been painted over since then.

My introduction to Shannon and information theory through this book [1], which talks briefly about language entropy, is what set me on the path to my career.

[1]. An Introduction to Information Theory, Symbols, Signals & Noise By John Robinson Pierce · 1980 https://www.google.com/books/edition/An_Introduction_to_Info...

A high school near where I lived at the time (southern New Jersey) created a mural in the cafeteria inspired by, and titled, Koyaanisqatsi. And this was in the early 90's well after the film had been shown in theaters.

I don't disagree, but the trend is to teach parrots our language, with some degree of success [1].

[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(parrot)

On the day I give notice, there is a bit if a shock and a "what are we gonna do now?" attitude. On the second day, word has got around and everyone wants to know where you're going, etc. On the third day, i brief whoever will take over my job. On the fourth day I am no longer invited to meetings or really have anything to do for the next several days until I leave.

In practice, even two weeks is more than enough for your role to be taken over by someone. I really see little value in giving more notice that that for either the employer or employee.