Nuclear Monster

  • In Oradea, Romania the European Tramdriver Championship has just started. There are teams from all over Europe and the silliest competitions to see who has the best team.

    As I said last year:

    Each challenge is clearly designed to demonstrate a complete understanding of how to drive safely and with care for the passengers and other people around them, that is why the Trams simulate billiards, bowling, and other challenges. Ultimately the team must also do it quickly by racing between each tram and for the buttons to start and stop the timer.

    This year there are a few new challenges, like putting out a fire in addition to the classic bowling.

  • The collaborative commissioned a 2021 report, Hidden Pain, which provided some of the first concrete details on children orphaned by covid-19. To date, there are at least 10.5 million of these children worldwide, with studies showing that the burden has fallen heaviest on low income nations. One report in May 2022 revealed that an estimated 40.9% of covid-19 orphans are in South East Asia and 23.7% in Africa. Egypt, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Pakistan are the five countries bearing the brunt of the crisis.

    In high income nations, it is ethnic minorities that have been hit hardest. The Hidden Pain report revealed that in the US, American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander children were four times more likely to have been orphaned than their white counterparts, with Black and Hispanic children two and a half times more likely. The fate of these children will represent some of the most profound long term consequences of the pandemic.

    As the world gives up on even the mildest measures of masking, testing, vaccinating, distancing, and tracking to prevent COVID-19 from spreading and killing the thousands of people still dying every week, I was shocked to see this (now surely well outdated) estimated number of children who were orphaned from a 2021 report. David Cox’s December 2022 article titled “What will happen to the orphans of COVID-19” is quoted above.

    The original place I found Cox’ article was linked from this more recent article from Timothy Pratt for The Guardian about an estimated 245,000 children orphaned by COVID-19 deaths just in the US.

    It is horrifying that much of the world has largely decided to abandon not only these children but to create more orphans, and encourage death and long-term health mayhem by abandoning all precautions and prevention. Let it rip is the policy and culture, and the effect is devastating.

  • Cuptertino, California — Apple, Inc today announced the dates for their World Wide Developers Conference for 2023. This year to be held from June 5th-9th with a special in-person super-spreader event at Apple Park on June 5th.

    Apple, Inc, announced that the super-spreader event would be available for current Apple Developer Program members, Apple Entrepreneur Camp alumni, Swift Student Challenge winners, as well as Current Apple Developer Enterprise Program members.

    Apple CEO Tim Cook had the following to say about the super-spreader event: “Last year we had so many developers come to Apple Park and spread COVID both on their way there and back. This year we are more excited than ever to do it again with lower requirements for attendees than ever during the ongoing pandemic that has killed millions of people worldwide.”

    The lower requirements for attendees include:

    • No COVID-19 testing before, after, or during the super-spreader event.
    • No masking requirements at all.
    • No vaccine requirements at all.
    • If you feel like REALLY sick and you’re okay with missing it, you could stay home if you want to miss it… 😉
    • No mandatory physical distancing. Get close, come cough on real Apple developers.

    Interested parties can sign up online at Apple’s website. People who wish to avoid long-term life-threatening illnesses and disease can stay home and miss out on all the fun.

  • There isn’t much of a way to talk about MyHouse.wad without spoiling it, so I’ll say that you should play MyHouse.wad which is a Doom 2 level that requires the GZDoom engine.

    Getting Doom 2 running mods isn’t always super easy, but you can find a copy of GZDoom here and buy a copy of Doom 2 on Steam or on gog to get the files you need outside of those from MyHouse.wad. I’d recommend that you read the introductory post of that thread and nothing more about this game.

    If you can’t get it to run, I’ve uploaded my play through of MyHouse.wad to YouTube but even after watching it there is more to MyHouse.wad for others to discover.

  • I’m only about 15 puzzles in, but Bonfire Peaks by Corey Martin is an excellent puzzle game so far with just that right amount of tension to puzzle solutions. The gameplay in Bonfire Peaks is a really satisfying adventure of moving and stacking crates on a grid in order to burn your old possessions and move on to the next puzzle.

    The description on Steam says that Bonfire Peaks is about closure and from what I’ve seen it can be a little melancholy with broken objects strewn about the overworld like a wrecked car and living room furniture. The overworld is also a crate stacking adventure to get the next group of levels.

    Bonfire Peaks is typically $20 for Windows, Linux, and macOS but it’s temporarily on sale for $12 until March 15th on Steam and Itch. Bonfire Peaks is also available on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 but it’s a little bit more expensive there. Get all the store links on the Bonfire Peaks website.

    03/13/2023 Update: a prior version of this post talked about Bonfire Peaks not having a native Linux version on the Steam Deck. It now appears to be using a native Linux version after an update or I misunderstood the situation previously. While Valve does not make it straightforward to tell which version you’re playing with by default on the Steam Deck, the error was mine.