Weekender #118: D&D, Lemmy and Kenny Logins

• Birb watch: The baby mynah has been out of the nest for a couple of weeks, but Matey mynah has been trying to shoo it away since the start of the second week. It seems like Matey and Handsome may have yet another baby coming soon.

This week’s Link List Machine Learning

• I enjoyed reading lcamtuf’s explanation of how LLMs are good at fooling us into projecting “human-like” characteristics into the models results.

Design

• Comic Mono is a monospace font that has the feel of Comic Sans.

Mastodonish

• While the Reddit debacle is still ongoing, there’s been a lot of talk about alternative websites to Reddit. Lemmy describes itself as a link aggregator for the fediverse and is sort of a “Mastadonish” version of Reddit, where the communities/discussion forums are not controlled by any company. On Github, I found a comparison of different Lemmy instances if you’re interested in checking Lemmy out.

• Speaking of Reddit, David Brownman made a tool that creates a searchable archive of your Reddit data. He suggests downloading your Reddit data before June 30, 2023, when Reddit’s API changes go into effect.

Software and hardware

• Now you can play the original Tetris, which was based on the version that Alexey Pajitnov created for the old Soviet computer, the Elektronika 60.

• Here’s a deep dive into the upcoming web app features in macOS Sonoma 14 Beta. Looks like this is going to be really cool.

Miscellaneous

• If you do any traveling by airplane, The Guide to Sleeping in Airports might be a valuable resource.

• I enjoyed this post about the history of Japan’s convenience stores and Part 2, which delves a little deeper into how convenience stores are used.

• VeroboardMD is a search engine for two popular Veroboard based effect pedal websites (tagboardeffects.blogspot.com and dirtboxlayouts.blogspot.com). Search by keyword or brand name to easily find the pedal you want to build.

Media consumption

• I watched Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves this week and was very surprised at how good it was overall. I went in blind and not expecting much, thinking that any movie that uses the name Dungeons & Dragons is probably going to be horrible. It was an entertaining way to spend the evening, and I have no regrets. In a way, I almost wish they didn’t use the Dungeons & Dragons name for this, but I’m sure name recognition and nostalgia have a way of getting butts in seats. I wonder if it did well enough for a follow-up movie.

• I needed some energy this week, so I relied on an early 80s favorite, High Adventure by Kenny Loggins. Back in grade school, I used to see this album sitting around at my best friend’s house. A bit later on, I bought my own copy, and I’d rock out with Steve Perry and Loggins on the opening track “Don’t Fight It”, but the whole album is solid! Listen on Apple Music.