Danger 5

Favorite?

None of the above...

Time Management

Console Computer

Well, "handsome desk setting" is certainly one way to describe it, though I would have chosen other adjectives. I'm also curious about the "limitless expansion capabilities," given the size of electronics in 1977 when this thing was released. Unless that desk is also a TARDIS, I'd say the possibilities for expansion were rather sharply limited. Apparently, however, they did make at least 713 of them. There's at least one buyer for anything... even if it's just the guy who makes it.

Thursday Tunes

Courtesy of reader Jeff W, this week's Thursday Tunes is Fantasy in Orbit. Composer Tom Dissevelt was one of the earliest pioneers of electronic music, starting back in the late 1950s when most people had never even heard of a synthesizer, let alone heard music created on one. It pretty much goes without saying that this is hardcore music history sort of stuff, not exactly full of toe-tapping melodies. It would be another two decades before the likes of Tangerine Dream and Jean Michel-Jarre mainstreamed electronic music in the 1970s. Still, it's worth a listen if you're interested in the development of the genre.



Hat-tip to Jeff W.
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Duuudes, wtf?

Wrong answer:

Authorities in Texas were called to a family's home when they received an unexpected package containing 32 bags of marijuana. The Harris County Sheriff's Office said deputies were called to a Houston home after the residents reported receiving a package they hadn't ordered that was filled with cannabis.

"Hiya, folks! Here's a free box of puff for ya."

"Mabel, call the po-lees afore the reefer madness zombies murders us!"

Some people got no sense.

The Bad Idea Archive

The team of engineers who developed this idea had obviously never spent more than five minutes around real grunts. A platoon of infantry with these WhirlyCav Death Machines would have produced mayhem and chaos on a scale that is quite simply unimaginable to civilians. But it would have been glorious...

"Hey, Fundy! I hear these things have instant safety stops on the rotors. You know, for when your dumb ass falls off."

"Yeah? Well, go grab one o' those stray cats around the barracks. We'll toss 'im in and see what happens."

...10 minutes later...

"Well, that made a fuckin' mess, didn'it?"

"Hrm. On the upside, they did stop. Kinda bent, though. Hand me that e-tool, will ya? I can fix this shit..."


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Blanche Monnier

The story of Blanche Monnier reads like an Edgar Allen Poe tale. The evil that men do knows no bounds.

That's some fine drivin'

Interbred

Kinky sex:

Ancient humans and Neanderthals, and Denisovans, were genetically closer than polar bears and brown bears, and so, like the bears, were able to easily produce healthy, fertile hybrids according to a study, led by the University of Oxford’s School of Archaeology.

Hell, I didn't need a bunch of academics to tell me that. One glance at Ron Perlman is proof positive that humans and Neanderthals used to make the beast with two backs...



No offense to Ron, of course. He's one of my favorite actors. But he is a bit... brutish.

Ad Bad

Marketing: "But it's... well, it's really ugly."

Design: "Fuck off! Do your job, ad-weenie!"

Marketing: "Right you are..."

Capsule

Erm... why is it shaped like that?

MicroProse Reborn

They're baaack!

If you played computer games in the 1980s, you certainly played a few from MicroProse. More than a few, most likley. It isn't much of an exaggeration to say that MicroProse singlehandedly started the PC gaming revolution. The Apple II dominated computer gaming in the early 1980s -- which was rather ironic in light of Steve Jobs' famous antipathy towards gaming. Walk into a B.Dalton or Waldenbooks or Software Etc and the shelves would be filled with Apple games. There was a smaller but growing section of Commodore games, the Commodore 64 having been released in January of 1982. But the poor IBM-PC section had (maybe) a copy of SubLogic Flight Sim in it. Most everything else was productivity software, with an occasional one-off game some kid had written on his dad's IBM and was marketing in ziploc bags. PC gaming, for all practical purposes, did not exist in 1982.

Enter Microprose. Founded in 1982 by Sid Meier and "Will Bill" Stealy, they wrote a few games for the Atari computer family before realizing it was a dead end and shifting to the PC and Commodore. MicroProse would go on to release many of the most iconic games of the 1980s and 90s: Civilization, F-19 Stealth Fighter, Pirates!, and Gunship, among many other award-winning games. But their crowning achievements for me were the twin simulations of Task Force 1942 and its aerial cousin, 1942: Pacific Air War. These were simulations like no others before them -- or since, in my mind.

Which is why I'm ecstatic to see that one of the first endeavors of the newly reincarnated MicroProse is Task Force Admiral, a comprehensive simulation of the Pacific War. Just seeing a new game trailer opening with the legendary MicroProse red logo transports me back 30 years. It's gonna be awfully pretty on that new 4K monitor! Take a gander:

Into the 4K Gaming Frontier

Psst! Wanna know a secret? You don't have to spend a thousand dollars to get a large format 4K computer monitor. In fact, you can get one for 230 bucks. Not even kidding. Here's the 43" I bought this past weekend from Amazon. Piclick twice for super-fast photile enlargement.



That's 3840 x 2160 resolution. If you zoom in, you can clearly see even tiny 10-point text. The little bit of fuzziness you see is not from the monitor, it's due to the limitations of my iPhone's camera in a dark room. The image and text are crystal clear in person.

So what's the catch, you ask? Well, it's a 4K television, not a true monitor. That means there are a couple of compromises. The first is that it doesn't support Displayport input, so you're stuck with HDMI. However, with a good HDMI 2.0 or better cable, that's not really a problem. (If you're not already aware of this fact, do not skimp on HDMI cables. About 90% of video problems can be attributed to crappy cables.)

Secondly, you're not going to get the perfect deep blacks of a high-end monitor. To be fair, however, you won't get those from most monitors anyway. Only high-end monitors intended for artistic endeavors and commercial video editing are typically capable of true black display, and those tend to cost more than the average used car. If you're a typical gamer and home user, you won't notice the difference.

Finally, there is some very minor artifacting of dynamic text, (dynamic text is text that you can change, such as in a word processor). It's readable, but you'll see very slight color variations in, for example, single-pixel fonts on a bright white background. It doesn't bother me, especially as I write in Open Office with white text on a black background, but some people find it distracting.

Overall, if your primary use for a home computer is gaming and watching videos, you will not be disappointed with this moni-- er, television. There are even 50" and 55" options for only a few dollars more, but they wouldn't fit on my desk. And in case you're wondering, the view distance at my desk is about 40" from eye to screen. I do not find it too big or overwhelming at all. Gaming is perfect. I've watched a couple of television shows and movies at just a slightly farther view distance (i.e., leaning back in my chair while sipping adult beverages) and it's quite comfortable to view. That's due to the super high resolution. It's akin to sitting in the middle row at an Imax theater: it fills your field of vision, but it's not grainy or overwhelming.

If you do buy one, look at the review on the Amazon page written by Matthew G. Woodard. I recommend following all the steps he lays out except number 1, (a Displayport to HDMI converter). You can safely ignore that one and use a HDMI 2.0 cable instead, unless you just want to keep all your HDMI ports free for other uses. Also confirm that your video card supports HDMI 2.0 or higher; 2.0b is ideal. Most cards newer than five years old will do so.

So how do you know if you'll like it? After I got it up and running Saturday morning, my wife walked into my office. She is a Macophile and raves about the quality of Apple Retina displays. She looked over my shoulder at my new toy, then immediately went back to her office and ordered one for herself. If you're still on the fence, consider that even if for some reason you don't like it as a monitor, you've still acquired a 4K television for 230 bucks. I recommend you give it a try. If you hate it, feel free blame it all on me. Everyone else does.

Pimpin' the Farmabago

Check out those exhaust trumpets, baby!  This thing is a chick magnet.