photo by Schoggimousse via Pixabay

Michael and Michael get this episode started with operating systems running inside of games and a browser — with a Windows 95 PC you can boot within a Minecraft game to play Doom, and MacOS 8 (before it was called MacOS!) bootable in javascript, complete with the Oregon Trail and Pools of Radiance.  Amazing to think that what once took an entire hardware stack can now so easily be implemented in software. Also the new capabilities operating systems can now do for users – such as the alerts that iOS 14 is enabling regarding camera, location & microphone use, just to name a few.  

Continuing a theme from last week’s episode, the the co-hosts discuss a more detailed article on the upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator release.  StarCraft II from Blizzard turns a decade old this year and Michael and Michael are reminded of the AlphaStar AI story from an earlier episode (e225) and of course, the Achron time traveling game from Hazardous Software. 

The industrial bots story this week focuses on Ford’s use of Boston Dynamics robots to conduct an engineering scan of the Van Dyke plant in half the time that it used to take.

Rounding out this week’s show, the pair discuss Lollapalooza 2020, which has Arcade Fire on stage from the Chicago show in 2010 while the show notes are being written and will be over by the time the podcast is published, and take a moment to get excited about the upcoming release of the Ren & Stimpy documentary which is to be released in a couple of weeks (14 August).  Check out the show notes below to watch the trailer.  Happy Happy Joy Joy!  

If you have something that makes you feel happiness or joy, give us a shout on Twitter, and it may just make it to the playlist for our next episode.  

Selected Links

The Verge article: You can now boot a Windows 95 PC inside Minecraft and play Doom on it — https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/25/21338092/minecraft-windows-95-pc-doom-vm-computers-mod 

Six Colors post: Mac OS 8, Implemented via Javascript — https://sixcolors.com/link/2020/07/mac-os-8-implemented-via-javascript/ 

Pools of Radiance decoder — https://dave-kennedy.github.io/por-code-wheel/wwm.html 

Ars Technica article: Flight Simulator hands-on: Microsoft looks different 20,000 feet in the air — https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/07/ms-flight-simulator-our-yoke-on-look-at-new-features-gorgeous-flights/ 

The Verge article: StarCraft II turns 10 this year, and Blizzard is celebrating with an anniversary update for the game — https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/23/21336156/starcraft-2-ten-year-anniversary-update-blizzard 

Games At Work e225: Ah ha – it’s AI! — https://gamesatwork.biz/2019/01/29/episode-225-ah-ha-its-ai/ 

Achron — http://www.achrongame.com/site/ 

NZ Herald article: New iPhone update shows Instagram app using camera when not taking photos —