How is it already the middle of July? Sorry for missing last week. But by popular demand I’m back. I have been doing some housekeeping on my website1, and have moved the Jarbochov Weekly Roundups into their own section. My intent is on writing more, but we’ll see how that goes.
Let’s go ascend the rounds!
Reading
Elon Musk tries to walk away from Twitter deal
Why Lockdown mode from Apple is one of the coolest security ideas ever | Ars Technica
“Lockdown Mode offers an extreme, optional level of security for the very few users who, because of who they are or what they do, may be personally targeted by some of the most sophisticated digital threats, such as those from NSO Group and other private companies developing state-sponsored mercenary spyware,” the company said. “Turning on Lockdown Mode in iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and macOS Ventura further hardens device defenses and strictly limits certain functionalities, sharply reducing the attack surface that potentially could be exploited by highly targeted mercenary spyware.”
More options like this are always welcome. Microsoft and Google take note.
YouTube ends Lofi Girl’s two-year-long music stream over bogus DMCA warning | TechCrunch
Having recently been hit with bullshit copyright claims on YouTube, hopefully this high profile case elevates how simple it is to disrupt creators. In this case YouTube stepped in to correct the issue, but for smaller creators, they have to go through a series of hoops.
Video Games
How Zelda fans changed the ending to Ocarina of Time on a vanilla N64 | Ars Technica
This one is a bit hard to explain, but during this year’s Summer Games Done Quick, utilizing arbitrary code execution via the four N64 controller ports, a new version of the game was displayed utilizing cut content, rumored content, content that had been shown off in screenshots of magazines, all culminating in a finale that tied Ocarina to Breath of the Wild and the Zelda series at large. All off this stitched together in realtime, but the care of the characters, the narrative used to put this together, and the ending that tied in twitch chat INTO the game (on an actual unmodded N64). It was a loving tribute of the Zelda series. I’m not crying YOU’RE CRYING.
This included the team’s attempts to stitch together longtime theories and lore spread by fans since the original game’s launch, including the ability to piece together and claim the series’ classic Triforce (hence the project’s name, “Triforce-percent”). It also completed traces of code and content left in original cartridges, particularly the ability to play longer, more complicated melodies with the game’s titular ocarina item.
It’s definitely worth a watch.
Nintendo Buys Animation Studio to Create Nintendo Pictures
The Verge reports that Nintendo has acquired CG production house Dynamo Pictures, with the intent of renaming it Nintendo Pictures. Dynamo has largely provided support work on various video games, including recently motion capture work on Atlus’ _Catherine: Full Body_ and _Persona 5_—from the smash hit supernatural RPG franchise that Sega has recently confirmed it now wants to turn into shows and films beyond its myriad anime adaptations—and Kojima Production’s _Death Stranding, as well as media projects such as Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance and several episodes of the LGBTQ sports anime Yuri!!! On Ice.
Nintendo doesn’t really acquire companies often. The last was Next Level Games who has developed the last few Luigi’s Mansion and Mario Strikers games. Dynamo did the work on the Pikmin shorts which I wrote about a while ago2. If Nintendo starts regularly producing animated content with that level of charm and polish, you can consider me excited.
#NEAT
NASA’s Webb Delivers Deepest Infrared Image of Universe Yet | NASA
Headlining this week’s #neat section is the next breakthrough in our understanding of the cosmos. JWST is the HD, to the Hubble Telescope’s SD. The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field – Wikipedia was awe inspiring when I saw it for the first time, and this is even more so. Every distant object for the smallest region of the sky, contains thousands of galaxies each containing billions of stars.
Can you make velcro out of wood? Sort of.
destiny is ephemeral
That’s all for this week. Let me know if there’s anything you’d like to see me write about, or you know just shout out in the comments with something random that has your attention.
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