Notices by Jason Lefkowitz (jalefkowit@octodon.social), page 2

Many thanks to Marvel for fulfilling my ultimate dream, which is that watching dumb superhero movies should feel as much as possible like doing my taxes

One of my favorite computer games as a kid was "Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space" (1993), which put you in charge of either the U.S. or Soviet space program circa 1957 and challenged you to build a program that could put a man on the Moon before your opponent (human or A.I.) did.

Among other things, it provided a window into just how absolutely fucking terrifying early space flight must have been, as each mission depends on an entire stack of complicated technologies working absolutely flawlessly -- some of which are just inherently dangerous, and others of which you may have (ahem) cut a few corners on in order to get to a budget-boosting prestige accomplishment first. All it takes is one little failure anywhere in the stack to bring your mission -- and with it, your budget -- crashing down.

There have been attempts to remake it over the years, but I've never seen one that really lived up to it. So I was happy to see that the original game has been open-sourced, and a community of developers has been working hard to bring it from its MS-DOS roots to all modern platforms. Heck, there's even a Flatpak now.

Here's the GitHub for the project, which has more info on how you can install and/or compile it:

https://github.com/raceintospace/raceintospace

Tired: “DIE HARD is a Christmas movie”
Wired: “THE THIN MAN is a Christmas movie”

Trying to remember the exact moment when I became completely uninterested in the MCU. Best I can recall, it was after watching CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (2014).

@alcinnz And how long after it proves successful the people with money will show up to rip it off

#introduction

Once, long ago, there was only the sea. And then from the sea arose the Great Turtle, upon whose shell the collected silt became the earth. And then the air-breathing creatures of the sea scrambled up onto the earth, desperate to stop having to tread water.

As is the way of things, once these creatures caught their breath, they immediately began to engage in savage gladiatorial combats. From these, one champion emerged: the legendary Sea Ape, whose opposable thumbs quickly mastered the use of weapons, and in whose prodigious hair claw and tooth both tangled harmlessly.

So the Sea Ape came to have dominion over all the earth, bending all other creatures to its will. For a time, all was harmony. But the Sea Apes multiplied, and what once seemed an endless expanse became crowded. Eventually came the dark day when one Sea Ape realized that a weapon could be used against another, and so came war to the earth.

And then came the reign of blood and fire, as war spread from one end of the shell to the other. But for all war's tragedy, it has one redeeming virtue: it pushes creatures to the limits of their ingenuity. And some Sea Apes, realizing the strength that could be found in numbers, began clustering together in settlements. These settlements they ringed with great palisades, to prevent entry to outsiders bent on war.

Within these palisades, the Sea Apes finally forgot the ancestral sea. They turned their minds from war to cultivation and trade, and created great cities, which prospered. And as their wealth grew they found new ways to apply it, inventing clothes and jewelry and quadraphonic hi-fi. So they adorned themselves with their new creations, and as they did, they became something other than apes. Something never before seen upon the shell. Something new.

Anyway, I'm Jason