Categories
games

13 Year Old Becomes First Person to Beat Tetris on the NES

A 13-year-old competitive Tetris player became the first known human to beat the game on the original NES by forcing it into a kill screen. The player, Willis Gibson, at the same time broke world records for overall score, level achieved, and total numbers of lines in the 34-year-old game. Previously, only an AI had been able to “break” Tetris.

From Sofia Ferreira Santos writing for the BBC:

In 2010, professional competitive gamer Thor Aackerlund managed to reach level 30 by using a technique called hypertapping, where a player vibrates their fingers in a way which moves the controller faster than the in-game speed.

This led to other gamers adopting hypertapping and other techniques to see how far they could go — but as of last month, only AI had been able to reach the game’s true kill screen.

A kill screen happens when a player reaches a level which causes the game to crash.

At the end of his 38-minute run, Willis’ screen crashes and blocks no longer come down as he beats the game.

The teenager — who goes by the name of Blue Scuti on YouTube — has played the game since he was 11, and has competed in several gaming tournaments.

Whether or not you care about Tetris, don’t miss his reaction at the end of this video.

(via Waxy)

Categories
meta

Top 10 Posts of 2023

Post Views
Stairway to Heaven Backwards Full Lyrics 7,118
Secret Hitler – Print and Play 6,014
Home page / Archives 5,019
Laughing Wild — by Christopher Durang 1,097
Tab Cola Commercial 493
The Face of Dr. Claw Revealed! 324
Backmasking Info 249
Robert Plant on Stairway to Heaven Backwards 242
Best First Guess Word For Wordle 217
Shooting near the Bowen Ranch 200

(Previous stats for 2022, 2021, and 2020)

Categories
video

Three Seconds Everyday 2023

Last year when I published my One Second Everyday video, I got a lot of positive responses.

My dad and my father-in-law both said it was nice but added that it would be better if each day were a bit longer than a second. I thought these poor guys and their old-fashioned ideals about how long cuts should be… but nevertheless I decided to humour them and tried re-rendering just one month from last year as a three second per day video. To my dismay, I discovered that they are totally right, the video is much better with longer cuts. So this year, using the One Second Everyday app, I have created a “three-second everyday” video. Please enjoy:

And I also did the classic one second version:

Categories
Music

2023 Playlist

A stylized guitar in front of a stylized, artistic, vibrant landscape.

Happy new year! It’s become a tradition at this time of year to export our annual music playlist1. Here it is, our 2023 music playlist on Apple Music (make sure you’re logged in or you’ll only get a preview):

I’ve also exported it using tunemymusic.com as 2023 Youtube playlist and converted it to My 2023 Apple Music Library in .CSV format.

  1. Previously, our 2022 playlist[↩]
Categories
copyright Disney

Mickey Mouse Enters the Public Domain

When I was a kid I had a Mickey Mouse sweat shirt that I loved.

As the clock strikes midnight tonight, the iconic figure from that old sweatshirt is set to embark on a new chapter — Mickey Mouse will officially enter the public domain. For nearly a century Disney has carefully guarded its iconic mascot, but as this protection expires, it makes me wonder if Disney lobbyists have dropped the ball in permitting this new era of creative freedom? Don’t get me wrong, it never should have been extended in the first place but I’m surprised because up ’til now every time Mickey was about to enter the public domain new laws were passed that fiercely guarded the intellectual property (and as a side effect kept a lot of other works out of our collective culture).

There’s a deep dive from Center for the Study of Public Domain explaining how we got here.

It is not simply that Mickey is a famous copyrighted character. So are Sherlock Holmes and Winnie the Pooh, and while they entered the public domain with some fanfare, it paled in comparison to this event. I’d like to offer a tentative answer. The reason that this event gathers so much attention is that it is the story of a 95-year-old love triangle, a tangled drama that rivals any Disney movie for twists and turns. The protagonists are Mickey, Disney and the Public Domain, and their relationship positively exemplifies the social media weasel-words “it’s complicated.”

When we visited Disneyland in November, I picked up a new Mickey Mouse shirt that sports the 2013 iteration of the mouse. I also happened upon an earlier version at a thrift store and took a photo to compare.

Left: 1980s Mickey Mouse
Right: 2013 Mickey Mouse

I’m probably just getting old but my favourite will always be the 1980’s Mickey — but neither of these versions will be the one in the public domain on January 1st.

Mickey isn’t the only work to enter the public domain tonight, ABC News has more on this story including a short interview with Larry Lessig1:

Update: AI models are now being trained on public domain Mickey.

  1. Previously, Larry Lessig on Laws that Choke Creativity[↩]
Categories
bad review revue

The Bad Review Revue

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom: “What we have is 124 minutes of fish vomit. Fish vomiting is rare, so when it happens, it’s an indication of a fatal condition and time for little Chips to visit SeaWorld by way of the nearest commode.” — MontiLee Stormer, moviereelist.com

Anyone But You: “Anyone But You updates Shakespeare’s classic romance, Much Ado About Nothing, to a brainless romp with fleeting nudity and F-bombs galore. Thankfully, there’s ample chemistry between the gorgeous leads to facilitate the requisite happy ending.” — Julian Roman, MovieWeb

Freud’s Last Session: “Freud’s Last Session is an appointment you can skip.” — Joey Magidson, Awards Radar

Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire: “Take a Star Wars movie, remove the sense of humor and adventurous fun, and you might have something that looks like the Netflix space opus, ‘Rebel Moon.'” — Russ Simmons, KKFI-FM (Kansas City)

The Boys in the Boat: “The appeal of lads propelled forward through laborious craft is obvious, but The Boys in the Boat fails to do more than skim the surface both literally and metaphorically.” — Jay Horton, Willamette Week

Categories
humor life

Reason for the Season

My son was watching some iteration of a Mickey Mouse holiday special this morning and deciphering the message of the episode declared:

“Mom, it’s just like the book we read. Christmas is not about candy canes!”

“That’s right! What is it about?”

Without missing a beat he confidently declared, “Christmas is about presents!”

Categories
Art

Animal Santas

Created with prompts in Adobe Firefly:

Season’s greetings!

Categories
Apple crime finance

Ex-Apple Lawyer Responsible for Insider Trading Charged with Insider Trading

David Thomas writing for Reuters:

Apple’s former top corporate lawyer will receive no prison time after pleading guilty last year to U.S. insider trading charges, a judge said on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge William Martini in Newark, New Jersey, sentenced Gene Levoff to four years of probation and 2,000 hours of community service. Levoff was also ordered to pay a $30,000 fine and forfeit $604,000.

Levoff had admitted to six securities fraud counts that each carried a maximum 20-year prison term and $5 million fine.

A lawyer for Levoff, Kevin Marino, said in an email that they were “extremely pleased” for what he called a “fair and appropriate sentence of probation.”

A spokesperson for the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.

Prosecutors said Levoff exploited his roles as Apple’s corporate secretary, head of corporate law and co-chair of a committee that reviewed drafts of the company’s results to generate $604,000 of illegal gains on more than $14 million of trades from 2011 to 2016.

Levoff ignored quarterly “blackout periods” that barred trading before Apple’s results were released and violated the company’s broader insider trading policy that he himself was responsible for enforcing, prosecutors said.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, fired Levoff in September 2018, five months before he was criminally charged.

When someone uses insider information to trade stocks, it really does take the money from other investors. That $604,000 came from somewhere. As someone bought shares during that time, perhaps the difference would have only equated to fractions of pennies on any given share, but it still makes me glad they caught him.

(via Daring Fireball)

Categories
Apple

Apple Blocks Android’s New iMessage App

Android has a new app, Beeper, that connects to iMessage. Well, it did for a few days until, apparently, Apple shut it down. It remains to be seen if Beeper Mini has a future.

Chris Welch, writing for The Verge:

On Friday, less than a week after its launch, the app started experiencing technical issues when users were suddenly unable to send and receive blue bubble messages. The problems grew worse over the course of the day, with reports piling up on the Beeper subreddit. Several people at The Verge were unable to activate their Android phone numbers with Beeper Mini as of Friday afternoon, a clear indication that Apple has plugged up whatever holes allowed the app to operate to begin with.

Beeper Mini was the result of a comprehensive attempt to reverse engineer Apple’s messaging protocol. A 16-year-old high school student managed to successfully pull it off, and for a while, everything worked without a hitch. That effort became the basis for the new app, which requires a $2 / month subscription

Beeper Mini used a direct link with Apple iMessage servers, allowing beeper users to access Apple’s exclusive blue bubbles directly using iCloud addresses and no intermediaries.

I’m a little disappointed it’s been shut down because I would really like my Android family (just my brother actually) to get on the iMessage train.

Update: MacRumors confirms Apple shut it down over purported security concerns.