Ben P. Stein

@JazRignall Solid concept! I would definitely support it. And time permitting, I would consider pitching pieces to it as well.

Concept test! Thinking about making this: -20th century gaming only -Covers old games/events/systems (similar to my book) -52 pages/6 issues per year -A5 to meet a target price of <£10 an issue -Subs only -Kickstarter in March-ish Interested? More info/concepts to come!

@JazRignall We had W H Smith stores in the U.S. but they were very different places, basically travel convenience stores stocking books, magazines and travel essentials as opposed to the very fun stores in the U.K.

Way back at the dawn of the computer age, WH Smith stocked all sorts of fun stuff. Their 1983 Xmas fare included computers, cameras, Walkmans, digital watches, ludicrously expensive movies on VHS (£68 in today's money), and also crummy tapes of Cliff Richard fer yer granny.

@JazRignall I hadn’t considered this point until now, but I’m realizing that stadium organists performed a similar function back then, leading cheers for a batter to get a hit or a pitcher to strike out a batter.

@bensteinscience Yeah. I've been to many baseball games, but I only arrived in the states in the 90s, hence the 80s question. I mean, it seems absurd that you'd have cheerleaders at baseball. Works for football, but baseball? They gonna be getting the crowd going for that down-and-away slider? 😁

40 years ago, Ocean/Imagine were advertising these American sports games with this pair of really cool ads. Though I don't remember ever seeing cheerleaders at a baseball game. Was that an 80s thing or just a British artist not quite getting things right?

@SandyofCthulhu @steveashleyplus My dad was rejected circa 1944 because of poor vision. I’m reading that the requirements then were to have vision better than 20/200 or correctible to 20/40 with glasses, which interestingly wasn’t achievable for many with available technology.

In 1940, the US Army standards for new conscripts were: at least 5 feet tall 105+ lbs 12+ teeth no flat feet or hernias. 40% of candidates failed this test. That's how harsh the Depression was.

@brombres I just saw the movie and loved it. Very worthwhile to see in IMAX 3D. So visually creative and stunning. It occurs to me that the three films have iconic composers—from Wendy Carlos and Daft Punk to NIN—that both fit and help to define the mood for each film.

Tron Ares: Spectacular Wow! Many of my favorite critics have been hating on Tron Ares so I steeled myself for the worst. It started out well and so I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but the film stayed good and got better. The film is well-paced and has stunning, gorgeous visuals, thrilling action sequences, a great soundtrack, good characters, a solid story, good dramatic tension, and several scenes that pay homage to the original Tron in a fitting way. It also has some good incidental humor and several lines of dialog that are subtle callbacks to the original film for long-time fans. All three Tron films are visually stunning. The first movie had truly groundbreaking visual effects and the second movie raised the graphical bar substantially, but while they both had many cool sequences, I didn't find story of either to be particularly compelling. Tron Ares raises the visual bar another notch but adds that compelling narrative I've been missing. Tron Ares is my favorite of the trilogy, hands down. Go see it in IMAX 3D or similar while it's in theaters. The visuals and soundtrack alone make it worth it and you might end up enjoying the whole thing as much as I did.

Your phone's flash memory can store photos, music, videos, etc. even when turned off, thanks to the quantum tunneling effect demonstrated by the researchers recognized in today's #Nobel Prize. nobelprize.org/prizes/physics…

@brombres Ah, thanks! Now I remember! This was in the first issue of my subscription. Coincidentally I discovered .info also at issue #21 (the “seahorse” cover).

@bensteinscience Yes, that's my understanding. Here's some detail from the Nov/Dec 1988 issue!

@brombres I came upon your excellent retrospective of .info magazine. One thing I’ve wondered is if it was entirely rather than mostly produced on C64 and Amiga computers; perhaps the very final steps were done on a film imagesetter not connected to an Amiga?

@JazRignall It is a whole new world for me to discover. I grew up in NYC, specifically the Bronx, and I saw and played many of those same machines at candy stores. Lots of similarities as well as differences in our parallel worlds!

@bensteinscience Really delighted to hear that. I was hoping some might find its historical aspects interesting, or at least enjoy learning something new about those really, really early days of gaming! 😃

My new book is finally out! It's packed with tons of stories and anecdotes about the greatest video games, the most momentous events, and general behind-the-scenes craziness spanning the last 50-or-so years of gaming history. Don't miss it! Buy it here: bitmapbooks.com/collections/al…

Come one, come all to DCSWA's holiday bash in DC on Saturday, December 14th! Registration open and tickets on sale. Get yours today!

@michaelgreshko @jaimealyse @billmckibben Congratulations!

It took me until I started reading my copy this evening to realize that my story "Up and Away" was included as a Notable in this year's Best American Science and Nature Writing! A huge thank-you to @jaimealyse and @billmckibben! The story in question: nationalgeographic.com/premium/articl…

@FullOfSith @swankmotron @starwars Superb interview. You ask the best questions, Bryan! I gained new insights from listening to it.

Listen in to @swankmotron’s lengthy conversation with David Tattersall, digital filmmaking pioneer and cinematographer behind the @StarWars Prequels! fullofsith.libsyn.com/fos/episode-dx…

@FullOfSith @swankmotron Fantastic interview. Getting back to listening to the show after a while and this was certainly one not to be missed. Learned so much from this one. Thanks so much for this.

It wasn’t that long ago that @swankmotron got to have a lengthy conversation with Rick McCallum about his tenure at Lucasfilm. You don’t want to miss this one! fullofsith.libsyn.com/fos/episode-dx…

@ShubhamL0 Congratulations, Shubham! Nice to work with you on the writeups!

First PhD publication ✅

Happy Earth Day! Here’s a fun NIST fact: the Earth’s mass is approximately 6 ronnagrams – 6 followed by 27 zeroes. Ronna is a new SI (metric) prefix representing 10 to the 27th power! #EarthDay2024

12 minutes before totality in Austin.

20 minutes before totality in Austin!

Partial eclipse seen through some clouds at 12:59 pm CDT Austin time.