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JoeDaDudeon Show HN: Esolang Park, a visual debugger for esolangs

Shout out to the author for remembering the Shakespeare Programming Language exists! [1] Next on the list, which I am tempted to do, is build in support for LOLCODE [2] and Piet [3], though I'm not sure how the latter would work.

[1]. http://shakespearelang.sourceforge.net/

[2]. http://www.lolcode.org/

[3]. https://esolangs.org/wiki/Piet

JoeDaDudeon My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

I'd recommend you look at the HP Reverb headset, which has a good performance/price ratio. Technically, it is made for the Windows Mixed Reality ecosystem, but I find it supports almost all Steam VR games and there are work arounds to make it work for oculus games without a FB account. YMMV

JoeDaDudeon My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

I am reminded of the quote attributed to Socrates: "No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable."

As the proverbial 90 lb weakling who never did anything athletic, I can attest that once I started, I was amazed at what my body was capable of.

To be fair, we should also understand the context of the quote, which is that Socrates advocates physical strength and training so men could be useful to the states [1].

[1]. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5hcclh/did_s...

JoeDaDudeon ZX Spectrum at 40: a look back

There was an enterprising coder who would sell a Basic compiler the related Timex 2068 computer. It had lots of limitations, such as only allowing one dimensional arrays, but I was able to use it to implement Conway's Game of Life which I let run for days on my CRT TV.

JoeDaDudeon My dishwasher won’t start until I let it update its firmware over the WiFi

I never connected my TV to the wifi, I just want it to be a dumb monitor. The downside is that it takes forever to turn on as, I suspect, its trying to find a wifi to connect to.

JoeDaDudeon The Story of Maxis Software (1999)

SimLife too. There was a whole book written about it and ot taught me a lot about biology.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Simlife/degjkgEACAAJ?hl...

JoeDaDudeon The Game of War: Chess with Networks (2008)

I seem to recall someone tried to make an online version of this game and got hit with copyright takedowns. 'twould appear there is some notion of bringing it back [1].

[1]. http://r-s-g.org/kriegspiel/

FWIW, you can buy the game today and play the old fashioned way </s> on board [2].

[2]. https://atlaspress.co.uk/product/alice-becker-ho-guy-debord-...

JoeDaDudeon How Claude Shannon helped kick-start machine learning

Not explicitly mentioned in TFA is that Shannon was the first to apply the Minimax algorithm [1] for computer chess. The Minimax algorithm, later streamlined to include alpha-beta pruning, has been a key component in AI game playing machines ever since.

[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax [2]. https://stanford.edu/~cpiech/cs221/apps/deepBlue.html

I've posted this before, a compiled list of the machines and gadgets Claude Shannon built to experiment with simple AI ideas to play games [3]. Apologies for the repeat:

[3]. https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/143233/claude-shannon-man...

JoeDaDudeon Archaeologists Find 4k-Year-Old Board Game in Oman

There is an unexplored archeological/anthropological investigation to be about the relationship between board games and counting boards in ancient history. Counting boards were used for (of course) counting large quantities and doing arithmetic, the classic example being the Salamis board [1].

Separately, were divination methods used to determine the will of the gods, an example of which were the Urim and Thummin of the Old Testament [2], apparently some form of dice. Senet, the Egyptian game, was also closely tied to religious belief and ritual [3].

At some point, no one knows when, these came together and became games that were played for fun.

IANAA, but perhaps some caution needs to be exercised before announcing that "XX ancient people were having fun playing gamez!" and consider whether they were trying to count bushels of grain or trying to find out if it would rain the next day.

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

[2]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urim_and_Thummim

[3]. http://www.eloquentpeasant.com/2010/10/14/its-not-just-a-gam...

PS: All that said, it sure looks like a Mancala board to me.

JoeDaDudeon Geometry from Another Universe

I created a Hypercube screen saver back in the day from instructions provided in a Scientific American article, which if memory serves was written by Martin Gardner. A casual search leads me to believe the article is in his book Mathematical Carnival, though I could be wrong.

https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Carnival-Martin-Gardner/...

While you program it up, you can play this little Hypercube game. Do it in 3D, then turn on the 4D to get an intuitive feel for the 4D world.

http://harmen.vanderwal.eu/hypercube/

JoeDaDudeon Geometry from Another Universe

'Nother 4Dgame. An old classic, just get the ball out of the (hyper)cube.

http://harmen.vanderwal.eu/hypercube/

JoeDaDudeon Readers Love Curious George. I Fell in Love with the Author’s Astronomy Books

His book The Stars A New Way to See Them is highly recommended. If you ever wanted to learn the constellations, THIS is the book. As per the TFA, he replaces those crazy drawings of fish and gods, and the abstract line-connected dots, with cartoon like stick figure drawings that convey the images of the named constellations. His pictures greatly enhance your ability to find, and to learn, the constellations. I could only find one example of his constellations drawings to give you an idea of his approach [1].

[1]. http://codex99.com/illustration/the-stars.html

I learned the constellations this way, and feel I never would have learned them otherwise. I've since bought a copy of this this book for each of my children and plan to do the same for my grandchildren if/when they arrive.

Side note: What a joy it is to know the constellations! Once you know them, they cannot be unseen. You will recognize them at different elevations, or when they are tilted at an angle. You will see them appear and disappear with the changing seasons. When you travel, you will be surprised to find the familiar constellations in different places, or at different times of the night from what you are used to. It is one more part of the natural world that shouldn't be missed.

JoeDaDudeon Amish Hackers (2009)

Another joke, this old Slim Jim commercial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5DC5cIbKUU

Sorry, couldn't resist

JoeDaDudeon Hayden's Calculator Museum

Nice work! Great collection, enhanced by the knowledge of owning every model in the collection. I also love the included "analog" calculators, slide rule and abacus. I look forward to further additions to the collection. Do you accept donations?

I am saddened by the absence of anything HP, but I can see there is no need to duplicate the Museum of HP Calculators, so it would be nice to add that one to the Other Calculator Sites page.

https://www.hpmuseum.org/

JoeDaDudeon Electronic warfare history of the Battle of the Bulge

Another, excellent source for historical use of EW in World War II: the book Instruments of Darkness by Alfred Price [1]. In fact, the Association of Old Crows, a US professional and lobbying organization for EW includes it, as well as several others, in their recommended reading section on History [2].

[1]. https://www.amazon.com/Instruments-Darkness-History-Electron...

[2]. https://www.crows.org/page/recommendedbooks

JoeDaDudeon Wargames can help you to learn and practice security concepts through games

Or for those really really mature, the OA does not mean Kriegspiel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel

JoeDaDudeon Cardstacker Bryan Berg

At one time, there was a licensed kit which included several decks of cards and a small frame which was useful for small children to build the basic structural block Bryan uses in his creations. It was not so useful for adults as his method is quite simple, though it does require patience - a lot of patience.

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/cardstacker-starter-k...

JoeDaDudeon Player of Games

Thank you for posting! Maybe you can include the game of Arimaa [1]. Arimaa was designed to be hard(er) for computers and level the playing field for humans. Algorithms were developed eventually, though I have not kept up to know where that stands today.

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

JoeDaDudeon Crystal Detector

As for so many things in radio, or in the world generally, there are dedicated hobbyists. I am not a member, I just knew of their existence.

https://www.midnightscience.com/

JoeDaDudeon Music is a negative superstimulus for speech (2020)

I took this course on Music as Biology: What We Like to Hear and Why [1] a while back and the presenter had lots of data showing similarities between speech and music, in fact saying we humans like music because it is very speech like to our perceptions.

[1]. https://www.coursera.org/learn/music-as-biology

JoeDaDudeon A toaster from 1949 is still smarter than any sold today

But...does it run on Linux? https://www.embeddedarm.com/blog/netbsd-toaster-powered-by-t...

JoeDaDudeon Parrots will share currency to help their pals purchase food (2020)

The experiments were done with African grey parrots, reminding me of another member of that species, Alex the Parrot [1]. Alex was taught patiently over many years with very intriguing results showing that Alex could communicate with his human handlers.

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

JoeDaDudeon How to grow sodium chloride crystals at home

'twould appear that non-iodized salt is used in cheese making, so maybe salt labeled as cheese making salt might work.

JoeDaDudeon Cave-Link: Underground text communication system

The US Navy still uses VLF, though ELF comms seem to be retired at this point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_submarines#...

JoeDaDudeon Pilot Says Too Many Jumpers Outside Led to King Air Spin

If I was in the airplane getting tossed about like that, I would be scrambling like mad to get out!

Just to embellish and clarify: During my first jump training, one of the things the instructor drilled into us was "You have a parachute. If something goes wrong and you need to save your life, use it!".

JoeDaDudeon How to Read “Gilgamesh” (2019)

I remember Michael Wood's TV series about the Iliad and he mentioned the repetition in it. He then showed a modern day Armenian troubadour (for lack of a better word) singing a story with instrumental accompaniment to a rapt audience [1].

Is the repetition a clue that maybe these poems were meant to be sung, and not read?

[1] https://youtu.be/64QPz2t5T3A?t=1027

JoeDaDudeon The Iridium Museum

Nothing in the museum about the collision of an Iridium satellite with a non-operating Russian satellite in 2009[1]. The collision was big news in the space community at the time and got people thinking about Kessler syndrome [2] more seriously.

[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision

[2]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

JoeDaDudeon Radio Station WWV

There's plenty of nixie tube clock kits out there, but how many receive WWV (or WWVB) for accuracy? This one is one of the best, it shows the acquisition and decoding of the WWVB signal and the setting of the clock. I promised myself to build it someday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smUwbzA9SEo&t=844s

JoeDaDudeon System sniffs out hardware trojans in electromagnetic emissions

You are correct except for one tiny thing. TEMPEST is a code name [1], not an acronym. At some point, the acronym was fitted to the code word rather than the other way around, a case of a "bacronym" [1]. To my knowledge, no government document has ever used the acronym.

[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename)

[2]. https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/backronym

JoeDaDudeon List of IEEE Milestones

Dagnab it! No Philadelphian has posted a selfie with the Benjamin Franklin milestone. Must remedy that situation...

http://ethw.org/Milestones:Milestones_selfies