Uli Kusterer @uliwitness@mastodon.technology

Note: I've moved my streams back to Sundays 5pm CET (8am PST). I'm currently playing Sam & Max Season 2, the point-and-click adventure from the naughts.

https://twitch.tv/uliwitness

Taking a break from streaming each morning, might slowly go back to that in a few games, it was fun, but I miss sleeping in.

BTW — I did some videos where I ramble about writing a programming language. Currently covers the basics of tokenizing, parsing, and of implementing my own bytecode interpreter VM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql4sG1Aem-I&list=PLaXsdjqTEdE6HsnjMjFzsE-7ag-kxWIZn

(PS — the first two episodes have the cam covering app output, apologies)

Sorry for the short notice, but today's Twitch Stream is cancelled! See you tomorrow for the first stream of the week!

Still, the JPEG decoding slowness rings true. I do remember finding some image files I had converted from JPEG to (dithered!) GIF in one of my backups. That was probably exactly for the reason he mentions: That I had more apps that could open GIFs than JPEGs and that it was faster.

Recently discovered Adrian's Digital Basement, a video series about retro computers. He revived a Macintosh Color Classic.

I had totally forgotten that JPEG decoding took this long back then, but as soon as he showed it, I recognized the JPEGView progress cursor, which I wouldn't have seen had it been faster. And the Mac I sued back then was a 68LC040 too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZe2vNgnxZw

If anyone out there is interested in programming language design/creation, compilers, IDE design etc. feel free to drop me a message and let me know. Looking for more people to follow on here.

I guess from googling 8V seems to be the standard current for a doorbell. Also seems what all the doorbells in online shops here seem to be, so I guess that's standardized, surprisingly.

Is there a simple way to find out what voltage my doorbell uses if I don't have a volt-meter? Is there a usual voltage for a 50ies era ringing doorbell?

Thinking about connecting a piezo buzzer to the contacts so my doorbell doesn't sound the same as the neighbor's, or connecting a Raspberry Pi to it so my phone can know when the doorbell is rung. #tw

Interesting video about troubleshooting a modern 8-bit computer (the "Commander X16"), which has basically everything on it to do the cool things 8-bit computers (like Commodores or Nintendos) were able to do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU5989eVRZs

No stream today. See you tomorrow with more AC: Valhalla.

I'm not criticizing, just comparing different approaches. Assassin's Creed doesn't have companions in the Mass Effect sense that you take on every mission, level up and need to make loyal as a mechanic.

AC's romances are NPCs that accompany on a few specific missions, and otherwise stay in their "vendor booth". You don't see them as much, so having more superficial romances makes sense. It's just a fun way to get replayability and an extra side quest, and anoint your favorite NPC.

To be fair, AC romances seem to be more "quick flings" anyway. Going by what I've seen in Odyssey and now Valhalla so far, you get to have a "first date" with them, from then you can occasionally go back and kiss them or bed them (same 2 short cut scenes), they greet you differently, and that's it.

Now, I'm only 1/3rd into Valhalla, so there might be more here later. But I don't expect it has the magnitude of romances in Mass Effect, where you had several "dates" and a loyalty mission.

Interesting. For a franchise whose characters say "everything is permitted", romances in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla are fairly restricted:

When you start a romance, it is exclusive. If you meet another romanceable NPC, you either end the current romance (which you can't resume for the rest of the game), tell them you're in a relationship (postponing the decision), or tell them you only see them as a friend (turn down that romance).

No stream today, sorry. Will be back on Friday.