In This Episode: Infocom on Github. Amazon and Google kiss and make up. The SpaceX “anomaly”. Microsoft “loses control”?! And how to detect hidden surveillance cameras with your phone.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:02:30 — 28.7MB)
This Week’s Hosts
- Randy Cassingham, founder of This is True.
- Leo Notenboom, “Chief Question Answerer” at tech education site Ask Leo!
- Gary Rosenzweig host and producer of MacMost, and mobile game developer at Clever Media.
- Kevin Savetz, web site publisher and Computer Historian at Atari Podcast.
- Longer Bios on the Hosts page.
Show Notes
- Note that there won’t be an episode next week, but there should be one May 6.
- In the warmup, Kevin reports that the complete Infocom game source code has been uploaded to GitHub, reports Vice. Kevin is going to GitHub HQ this Friday to interview early Infocom game programmer Steve Meretzky about the company. And Gary visited a new Amazon Books location in Denver, which ironically is close to the former/now-closed headquarters building for the Tattered Cover, Denver’s larges bookstore.
- Speaking of Amazon, Leo discussed the fact that Google & Amazon seem to have kissed and made up (Geekwire). The thinking is that perhaps this is a side effect of Disney+ and other streaming challenges (The Verge). That led to a tangent on streaming, especially services aimed at kids, and the far-fetched shows that result (“That’s not a real show! Yes it is! Kids watch it!”)
Leo got a new …Laserdisc?! According to Leo, it’s “An awesome, and completely useless, gift!” — it was supposed to be anonymous, but Kevin had to fess up as the culprit.- Randy talked about the SpaceX Crew Dragon “anomaly” on Saturday, which Ars Technica did a decent job of explaining. It brought flashbacks no the Apollo 1 fire of January 27, 1967, for those old enough to remember that.
- Kevin was curious about today’s Tesla Self-Driving “Autonomy Day” Event (as covered by Business Insider); Tesla streamed it live: it’s four hours and embedded below, but it doesn’t “really” start until the 1hr 9min mark(!)
- Randy points out an article about an important skill this day and age: How to Detect Hidden Surveillance Cameras With Your Phone — such as in an AirBnB or even your own home.
- Leo discussed Microsoft “losing control” over the Windows Tiles subdomain – except it’s not really a domain thing, more like a back-end technology thing that Microsoft should a) be able to prevent and b) be able to recover from almost instantly …and yet.
- Last, Randy brought up yet another “rollover” issue with accompanying scare headlines: yes, ‘768k Day’ approaches.
