I vaguely remembered hearing about No Man’s Sky in 2016, but at the time I was constantly/contentedly playing Terraria. In a lot of ways, I’m glad I waited until 2020 to try No Man’s Sky (abbreviated “NMS”) since it’s initial release was so fraught. But now I’m hooked, and NMS reminds me of Terraria in […]
Resumed playing Terraria mid-2020
Like so many households, we played more video games than usual in mid–2020. I loved playing Terraria in years past, but had put it on indefinite hiatus to free up more family time. But now that family time is more indoors due to COVID-19 isolation, we decided to resume, but with a strict policy of […]
A Car Trip Down Memory Lane
I’m not as much of a car enthusiast as some friends of mine, but I do put significant thought into my choices, as eccentric as they may be. I love comparing tech specs and reading reviews. The earliest car I remember admiring was the Fiat X1/9, and then the DeLorean, then the BMW 850. But […]
Why I had to quit playing Terraria
I liked the original 1.0 design of Terraria just fine, but they kept updating it, and I kept choking it down. At first they just made cosmetic changes like fancier sprites, which I thought seemed counter to the original retro/primitive theme, but I lived with it. My original plan was to finish, or get reasonably […]
Why is Terraria my [new] favorite video game?
In short, Terraria is an 8-bit gamer’s ultimate mash-up. I fondly remember playing these games from the Golden Age of Arcade Games: Centipede (1980) mushrooms, linked-sprite snaky mobs, shooter Defender (1981) side-scrolling combat Donkey Kong (1981) jumping platformer, tool-using Dig Dug (1982) digging/terraforming, boulders Joust (1982) flying/physics combat Jungle King (1982) side-scrolling jumping, vine-swinging Moon […]
The Walnut In The Machine
The Walnut In The Machine Imagine a group of people gather for a tour of a machine tool factory. At the beginning, a walnut is distributed to each person. The nut is in its familiar tough brown shell. At one stage on the factory floor, a large hydraulic press is pressing train wheels onto […]
new sites list (warning: time sink)
I enjoyed learning about http://marginalrevolution.com/ today after seeing it listed at http://toplibertarian.com/websites/compete_ranking/ –which in turn was mentioned on http://www.garynorth.com/
Saving like the Dickens (1864)
(from ALL THE YEAR ROUND, No. 254, March 5, 1864, vol. XI, pp. 79-81) MY ACCOUNT WITH HER MAJESTY I NEVER laid by a penny till the Post-office Savings-banks came up. Not that I mightn’t have done so, for I earned good wages, and after paying all the expenses at home, I had always plenty of loose […]
My 53 percent story
A friend posted about http://the53.tumblr.com/ recently and I find the site quite compelling. The 53% refers to a recent statistic that 53% of people pay taxes and 47% reap benefits. Here’s what I might say on the topic: I am thankful to my parents for not just handing me everything I wished for, but encouraging […]