Recently updated blogs

Since my last post on here I've actually done quite a bit of modelling so I'll start in no particular order with a loco kit I swapped for a 'Dolgochification' kit. I had intended to make an open cab - not Dolcogh using the kit and the alarming yellow Bachmann loco but like many things I hadn't got around to starting it. A nice chap on Facebook asked if anyone …

We launched Slack to the world on February 12th, 2014. Thirteen months after starting work, nine months after releasing our early alpha version, and six months after starting our preview release. We crossed the finish line we'd been sprinting toward for the last year, not fully realizing that we were about to start the real race.On launch day we arrived at the office early, dressed up to mark the occasion. …

. . CC0 1.0 DEED . ___ . Greetings from Portland, Oregon: …..For several years, in an effort to provide poets from all over the world a platform on which to display their enthusiasm for the culture of jazz music, and to nurture the historic connection of jazz and literature, I have assembled 16 major jazz poetry collections that have been published solely on the Jerry Jazz Musician website. …..As …

Nicholas Kalis May 2024Helpful HintThis nicely detailed brass toolbox is meant for attachment to my Fn3 tender on my Oahu Sugar Company. I particularly liked the hinge detail on this casting - even its modeled bolts are carefully rendered by its manufacturer. My 1:20.3 plastic tender was more than a kit bashed but less than a technically scratch built project (article in the works). Indeed, this toolbox was a good …

Recently I was stood outside Huddersfield Railway Station waiting for my Replacement Bus Service. I was eating much needed food from a nearby fast food outlet and contemplating my next move. Other match-goers had gone home but I had over 50 minutes to wait for my bus. We’d already been to a few of our post-match regular spots and so I was contemplating somewhere new or different to pass the …

I’ve owned a lot of gaming hardware throughout my life. The NES was technically my first gaming console but the SNES is where my gaming journey really began. I had a Sega Genesis at one point but barely played it. After that came the N64 and the PS1. I had a GameCube but was more interested in the PS2, Xbox, and Dreamcast. And finally the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and …

Nicholas Shackel (Cardiff) has a new book out that might be of interest to readers, and there is a discount code available that Nick has asked me to pass on. Details below.Bertrand’s Paradox and the Principle of Indifference Nicholas Shackel This book casts a new light on Bertrand's Paradox, giving original analyses of the paradox, its possible solutions, the source of the paradox, the philosophical errors we make in attempting …

On 22 May 2019, I write about five years of A Single Div, my favorite little side project.I participate in #inktober but with single div illustrations. I call it #divtober.I have so much fun with the challenge. My enthusiasm for the process grows even more.I get nerd sniped and draw a Tesla Cybertruck with one div which becomes one of my most popular pens on CodePen.I fall in love with …

History of Computer Games: 1976-2024Updated on an almost daily basis as of 2024, this is a history of computer games that I am covering on cRPG Blog. The computer games are listed in chronological order, from oldest to newest.This chronological computer-game history is concerned with computer games that were coded for Western computer-game machines.I define a computer game as an entertainment-based and/or educational computer program that is coded to be …

Omar Hamaoui arrives at the hip Bethnal Green café dressed in an Iron Maiden t-shirt, well-fitting jeans and a Keffiyeh draped over his head. His muscled former-rugby-playing-arms are covered in tattoos. He’s a spoken word poet who, despite his dyslexia, has been reciting his poems in spoken word performances throughout London and has just recently published his first book called “Saved by the pen”. The book contains poems about overcoming …

I just spent a week talking with some exceptional students from three of the UK’s top universities; Cambridge, Oxford and Imperial College. Along with UCL, these British universities represent 4 of the top 10 universities in the world. The US - a country with 5x more people and 8x higher GDP - has the same number of universities in the global top 10.On these visits, I was struck by the …

There's an anonymous facebook posting that's been making the rounds, in which a studio art director tried to hire AI prompters to make art, only to discover that they were completely unable to carry out minor revision requests. Asked to remove a person from a shot or fix perspective errors, the prompters would return completely different art instead, or with other weird changes that didn't fit the brief. I completely …

A new game for the Commodore PET, also, how to detect keyboards on a Commodore PET. Rumors that I am might be writing a game (or is it a playable joke?) are not entirey unfounded. Also, another (maybe helpful) note on PET keybords and how to detect them. Continue reading…

Interfaces are becoming less dense. I’m usually one to be skeptical of nostalgia and “we liked it that way” bias, but comparing websites and applications of 2024 to their 2000s-era counterparts, the spreading out of software is hard to ignore. To explain this trend, and suggest how we might regain density, I started by asking what, exactly, UI density is. It’s not just the way an interface looks at one …

What is the software industry playing at? - Tagged: Rant, Agile, Software Management