What I've Been Reading (5)
Tech History, Security, Gaming, Cars, Psychology, Food, Curious Projects, and Fun
Tech History
https://retool.com/visual-basic/
A history of Visual Basic. It started as Tripod/Ruby, a custom shell builder, and after a few corporate restructurings, eventually morphed into Visual Basic. The we got VB.NET in 2002.
The story of Rust. Side project → Mozilla sponsorship → 7 years of development → Rust browser engine released, parts of Firefox rewritten, etc → overnight success.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/chuck-e-cheese-animatronic-floppy-disks
Chuck-E-Cheese still uses floppy disks to program its animatronics. Unsurprising. The primary source is a TikTok video, but BuzzFeed has extra interviews and extra ads. Same story on Ars Technica.
Security
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/10/white-house-cloud-overhaul-00086595
Regulating cloud providers. At what point will everyone be on GovCloud? The government says that cloud providers relieve security burdens from end users, but the problem is that they don’t provide the maximum amount of security that they can.
Nmap maintainer Fyodor’s FAQ, with questions like “I think my boyfriend is cheating on me. Will you help me hack his email account to find out?” and answers that include links to Google+.
Gaming
https://twitter.com/mariobrothblog/status/1636040893764362241
New Mario coins have fewer polygons than old coins. The complexity is the light simulation: a flat surface looks angled by the way light shines off the coin. If you look carefully in game, you actually can tell that the coins in Mario Odyssey are flat.
Cars
https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/20230055958
Ford’s patent: If you are late on car payments, your self driving car will go impound itself. “The lockout condition may be lifted momentarily in the case of an emergency to allow the vehicle to travel to a medical facility.”
Psychology
https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/dad-jokes-thats-way-eye-roll
Yet, telling a joke that is so lame or unfunny that it doesn’t deserve to be told out loud is itself a violation of the norms of joke-telling, and this can in turn make the dad joke funny.
Food
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1999/04/19/dont-eat-before-reading-this
Rockstar chef Anthony Bourdain’s breakout piece. This article led to his bestseller Kitchen Confidential, which led to his TV career. Here’s glimpse into the kitchens of the 90s. The world has changed since: fish shipments arrive on weekends now! We’ve advanced to the point that ordering fish on a Monday is totally acceptable.
Curious Projects
An E-Ink newspaper, inspired by the New York Times, with up-to date information, curated and summarized by GPT. Awesome project.
ATC radio chatter overlayed on top of lo-fi music. A vibe.
Time to buy yet another domain? TLD List tracks prices for TLDs and will show you what is the lowest.
Fun
https://www.arcamax.com/thefunnies/mutts/s-2795592
These comics sure don’t write themselves.
https://twitter.com/marisaverymoe/status/1635414717278867456
Golang > Rust, since it prevents you from an accidental rm -rf *.