totm aug 2023 What funny/interesting thing happened in your life today?

[Nuke]

was working on my steam deck. updated all the things. i replaced chrome with firefox, added my profile to it. got winamp running, which clears up another major linux migration issue for the post-win10 world. i installed the forever winter, overload, people playground. took off scorn which performs horrible. wanted to install mw5 clans but it wouldn't fit (games are huge now). might take off the forever winter since its eating up one fifth of my drive, doesn't run to well, and i dont want to screw up my save with a bunch of bad runs. was able to get scav girl across elephant moseleum without dying, but i didn't grab any loot or kill anything. how do people aim with game pads?

[AlamoVampire]

I am a fan of Superman. I watched the George Reeves version which was campy and cheesy but fun to watch. I grew up with Christopher Reeve as my Superman in the 1980s. I watched Dean Cain (dislike the actor now) in his version. Loved the cartoon versions over the years. Henry Cavil was awesome. But what I just saw gave me a headache. The new James Gunn take on superman is from the sneak peak i just watched disturbing. The House El symbol is off putting, from a distance the colors of the costume remind you of Christopher Reeve but up close? A bad hybrid between George Reeves version and Henry Cavils version. Krypton in that clip is just stupid. Then the droids??? What in the name of krypton… Droid 4 claims they are unconscious and cant appreciate gratitude but 2 seconds later he is introduced to 12 and she gushes like a fan girl when superman looks at her… which is it? Unconscious drones following code or semi sentient star wars esq droids? Cant be both. 170704032025 (funny in a skin crawly way)

[Ultimate Steve]

I have to be a bit vague here for NDA reasons.

But as far as programming languages go, the ones I know look a little bit like this:

	Professionally Relevant	Professionally irrelevant
I've done professionally relevant projects	C, Python, Matlab	processing.js
I haven't made professionally relevant projects	C++, C#	Lua, MIPS

At some point or another all of those languages had been on my resume, though the trend has been towards including fewer and fewer of them, as space is limited, and I can't really justify keeping on something that's not relevant and that I'm not actually good at.

So I have to figure out which languages to include.

There's the obvious ones, that are relevant and that I've done cool things in:

• C: CubeSat Flight Software (Command and data handling, general random embedded stuff, interfacing with a number of serial connections, file management, RTOS and task prioritization, etc)
• Python: Other CubeSat Flight Software and CubeSat Ground Software, two video games I'm working on, and an interstellar gas cloud interaction simulator for sci-fi FTL spaceships. Also some amount of internet networking stuff.
• Matlab/Simulink: Solar panel angle controller for orientation constrained satellites with single axis rotatable solar panel arrays, orbital simulation with includes perturbational effects from Earth's oblateness, and a satellite solar power simulation (all three of those are in the same program btw). Also was the language the first 2/3 of the major used for general stuff so a lot more minor projects.

Then there's the stuff that I kind of want to have on my resume if possible but isn't as important:

• C++. I've only ever done like 2  smallArduino projects using it. But it is important and widely used so on the resume it goes, cross my fingers that nobody asks about it, and if they do, maybe I can stretch "I made like 6 buttons work" into an impressive sounding answer.
• C#: I don't know C#. I've had to write several config files for C#. I have no idea why I ever put this on my resume but I have since taken it off. I should learn C#, it seems like it is pretty commonly used.
• processing.js: The language/library I originally learned to code in. Completely irrelevant but I've made some fun little small games in there.

Then there's the stuff that I've done some really cool stuff in, but that stuff is completely irrelevant to the aerospace industry and was done for completely non professional reasons:

• MIPS: Only used from the game Stationeers to program airlocks and other simple automated things, but got me interested enough in assembly enough to try making my own simple redstone computer in Minecraft (which has its own assembly language too, I even tried to make a compiler for it at one point). It's not even real MIPS. Just a video game's implementation of MIPS on in-game computers. No longer on the resume.
• Lua: Before this week I had only seen it used for Roblox scripting and as a language used by the ComputerCraft mod for Minecraft. I've made a few neat ComputerCraft Lua scripts, one that was a note block jukebox that could play music from a custom file format, and one that allowed me to play a pipe organ made from the Create mod whistles using my real life MIDI keyboard using another program as a bridge. I removed it from my resume fairly early on as I had deemed it to be pretty professionally irrelevant, and the few projects I had made in it equally professionally irrelevant.

I proceeded to then get a job that only requires programming once in a blue moon.

So yesterday at work I was assigned to, in vague NDA compliant terms, develop a script for a piece of equipment.

Does that equipment speak C? No. Python? No. Matlab? No. Not even C++ or C#? Not that I know C# or anything? Absolutely not.

 

...It uses Lua.

 

The language I removed from my resume as I had deemed it to have little to no professional relevance.

If it was still on my resume it would be basically the only thing from my resume I actually use here besides Microsoft office.

You heard it here, folks, modded Minecraft prepared me for a career in the Aerospace industry better than my Aerospace Engineering degree did! (jk but I do find it funny)

[AlamoVampire]

I am willing to bet most here know the song Hoist the Colours. What most or some of you may not know is that this song as of today April 5 2025 is ONLY 17 YEARS OLD! It is wildly famous today and touted as a pirate anthem by some. Before the public release of the Movie Pirates of the Caribbean At Worlds End (well technically preproduction i guess when the script and materials were being created) this song did not exist. It was written by Hans Zimmer specifically for this movie. 
 

Spoiler

The song "Hoist the Colours" was written for the 2007 film "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" and is therefore 17 years old as of April 5, 2025. 

Here's a more detailed breakdown:

Origin: The song was created specifically for the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End". 

Release Year: The film, and thus the song, premiered in 2007. 

Soundtrack: "Hoist the Colours" is featured on the film's soundtrack. 

Bonus Feature: A bonus feature titled "Hoist The Colours — The Story Behind The Song" was included on the various DVD/Blu-ray releases for the film. 

Hans Zimmer's Role: The song's music was composed by Hans Zimmer, who also composed the film's score. 

Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio's Role: Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, who wrote the screenplay for the film, also contributed to the lyrics of the song. 

Gregor Verbinski's Role: Gregor Verbinski also contributed to the lyrics of the song. 

175604052025

[AlamoVampire]

Im not sure if im a hard core nerd or purely stupid. Its currently 48°F with a windchill of about 43-46° winds are nnw@10 gusting 17. Im once again at ren faire. Been outside in this since 1000. 144004062025

[AlamoVampire]

So im flying from kdfw to ksfo in msfs2020. Im in cruise flight so im just babysitting my 777-300er as it chugs along at fl400 at mach 0.85. Well to kill time im scrolling away on youtube. If i have to live knowing this short exists you have to as well!

Enjoy!

014404082025

[AlamoVampire]

You ever get that feeling you missed/forgot something? I just did. And it nearly caused my flight to fail. It has been a good while since i last flew in msfs2020. I was doing some quick math based on my current time in the air. Something was not adding up so i checked my FMC Legs page and compared it to my flight plan (something i honestly should have done while on the ground) and found a huge error. I was missing a full 1/3 of my legs (way points) page. I had to quickly rerun my arrival/departure setup while at FL400 and screaming along at mach 0.89. My FMC’s fuel calculator promptly freaked out after i reprogrammed the route. It thought i was a good 1000 miles further back (somewhere over far west texas or far east new mexico and not near colorado) and gave out an insufficient fuel warning while trying to turn around to a waypoint a solid 90 minutes behind me. I had to quickly compare my flight plan with the last known waypoint i saw and then go through my legs pages and bring the waypoint after that forward to convince my 777 to ya know point at it. Soon as i “went direct” to KITTN (yes its pronounced kitten) two things happened. My FMC stopped complaining about fuel as it auto calculated that yes from KITTN to KSFO my 26000 pounds of jet fuel is in fact sufficient. Its enough to reach KSFO, go missed and redirect to Sacramento. The second thing was my 777 did a 180° turn back to the correct heading. All the while AI atc was radio silent only chiming in once back on course passing me off to salt lake center… fun stuff being out of practice.

023604082025 btw about 1 hour left to ksfo!

msfs2020 choked on itself and froze. I do not know the cause. I was 150 miles from top of descent. Infuriating that this happened. Something in the current build from ms/asobo is unstable. 030304082025

Edited 13 hours ago by AlamoVampire