Brian Kendig

In 1982 there was an #Atari 2600 game named "Name This Game," with a $10,000 prize for the winner. I played the game today. It's not bad at all; kind of like Space Invaders where you're a diver sitting harpoons at a hungry shark and a giant octopus. But the company went bankrupt before the contest ended so a name was never chosen. In the 1990s another company held a contest to pick a name for it. The winning entry was "Going Under." That's just brilliant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_This_Game?wprov=sfti1#History

@mathew But can you tune in to the radio on it? Or pick up Wi-Fi? I don't know if titanium makes for a good antenna.

@futzle Wonderful to see you, too! Omigosh - you have thousands of followers here; you're famous! I would love to catch up with you sometime and find out what's new with you in the past two and a half decades. :) Email me sometime at brian@mac.com!

@futzle "I can't make sound work on Linux" makes me twitch. Touché. And by the way, hi, remember me? I'm really glad to see you still out here in the world. :)

My teammate was talking about his titanium dental implants, and I said he probably sets off metal detectors, and he said he doesn't because titanium is non-ferrous, so I called him "Non-Ferrous Bueller" and I'm happy that he got the reference.

@vanellopemint@mastodon.art This story is lovely! The characters are adorable.

Something I picked up from my local #writers group meeting the other night. This is advice I need to inscribe on my heart. (Paraphrased; I didn't record their exact wording.)

We had guest speakers, awardwinning authors José Pablo Iriatre (they/them) and Elle E. Ire. Jose was talking about their ADHD, and the difficulty of writing when they have a mental vision of this perfect story they want to create but the first few sentences they write down are, in their words, "crap."

I asked them how they push through this.

"Allow yourself to write crap," they replied. "In my case, I tell myself: you've written good stories before, you've won awards for it, you know you can do a good job of this. You can't edit a blank page. And at some point, magic happens, and you realize you've come up with something good.

"Authors who say 'this is my first book!', it's usually their fifth." They and Elle each wrote four or five novels before writing one that sold.

They recommended an essay by Daniel José Older, titled "Writing Begins With Forgiveness." I found a copy of it at http://www.superphrenic.com/uploads/1/2/5/4/12545143/1._writing_begins_with_forgiveness_by_daniel_jose_older.pdf

José continued, "You spend so much time feeling bad about your failures, that sitting down to write becomes an exercise in preparing yourself to feel bad. You've got to slog through it. And, finish your novels! If you keep giving up and starting over, then you'll get good at writing beginnings but not middles or endings."

Rabbit rabbit rabbit!

@Tuftears@wandering.shop Thank you! Once I built a working MacBook Air out of one that had been fried while plugged in during a thunderstorm (the logic board was fried), and another that had been found in the dirt at a highway gas station, crushed by a truck tire (everything was bent and shattered except the logic board). And my first iPhone was a 3G that I made of one that was fried by being plugged into the cigarette lighter while its owner started her car, and another that took a trip through the washing machine (shattered display). Jill calls it 'Frankensteining.'

I bought a New Nintendo 3DS XL from a coworker, replaced the damaged shell with a new one from AliExpress, and I love it! Been playing New Super Mario Bros. 2, Pokémon X (my first Pokémon game), and とびだせどうぶつの森 (Japanese release of Animal Crossing) on it.

Also recently I took two dead 2011 MacBook Air laptops and rebuilt them into one working one. It runs the latest version of Linux Mint beautifully, and gets 5-6 hours from its new battery. I use it for writing. Not bad for a fifteen-year-old computer.

This is my idea of fun. 😊

Hi! I'm still trying to decide where my home on the interwebs should be. I want to use Mastodon more. I like all you people!

I also want to try using Lemmy instead of Reddit. I know Lemmy is largely devoid of people, but it kind of reminds me of pre-1993 Usenet.

@listeninggarden@mastodon.art As a former Netscape employee, I thank you for warming my heart tonight. :)