Elan Ruskin

Context: Epic Pinball was written entirely in assembly.

Epic Pinball - Intro Theme (remastered) This is my remastered version of the intro theme from the DOS game Epic Pinball. It is almost identical to the original song, only with some added effects and rendered in studio quality. If you want…

In a moment of funny coincidence, just as I opened the disassembly window to debug something, YouTube autoplayed this track.

Simpler days.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpq5...

Kinda wild how much faster Clang compiles compared to MSVC

The Brothers Gracchi - How Republics Fall - Extra History - Part 1 YouTube video by Extra History

(Specifically, I was thinking of the Gracchi brothers: youtu.be/ODI1VOOoey0 )

Also when it comes to “the news should publish what the gestapo are doing”, he’s… kind of right?

[friend sits down at lunch]: Wow, you looked deep in thought.
Me: ... hmm?
Friend: What were you thinking about?
[long
awkward
pause]
Me [truthfully]: ... the Roman Empire.

A screenshot of the "Code Inspection" setup dialog in Visual Assist, which controls which "helpful suggestions" pop up when you're writing code. The "modernize-use-auto" feature is highlighted; its default setting nags the programmer to replace properly typed variables with 'auto' assignments.

Updated Visual Assist, now it nags me to make my code worse.

There’s a classic bit of folk music about this phenomenon.

youtu.be/Jl1r7E3e-ks

Pro tip for anyone with fitness on their New Year’s resolutions: put an exercise bike in front of the PS5.

Roguelites are ideal workout length. I’ve played like 500 miles of Hades. Crank up the resistance during boss battles for extra verisimilitude.

Why wouldn't it run on a Steam Deck? GTA6 will fit onto a PS5 and the Steam Deck is at least as capable. They can use the same tunings.

AAA studios have the greatest need to reach the widest audience. Our games work on current hardware right now; why wouldn’t we keep them working?

Why not? Console devs target the same hardware for many years.

We can keep making games for the current hardware.

We (novel) - Wikipedia

This was actually a plot point in the classic proto-cyberpunk novel “We”, written by Yevgeny Zamyatin in the first years of the Soviet Union.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(nov...

Dad shared that this was his job while working on the COMEX floor.

Dan Akroyd in “Trading Places” (1983)

Everyone’s got a favorite Christmas movie.

Do you ever think about how there was a period where the Earth had all the water that’s in the oceans but the surface was also like 700°C lava, so the air was mostly steam, which then condensed into rain in the cold upper atmosphere and boiled in midair on the way down?

That’s pretty metal.

I keep a reaction gif on hand to clarify why I care so much about the availability of market-rate rental housing to urban professionals

The Poverty Line is Not $140,000 A recent essay by Michael W. Green makes a very bold claim that the poverty line should not be where it is currently set — about $31,200 for a family of four — but should be much higher…

There’ve been a bunch of debunkings of that essay from people with numbers (eg, economistwritingeveryday.com/2025/11/26/t... ) but I think it’s worth asking WHY is housing so expensive. Food is so much cheaper than in the past; why is housing more scarce?

I’d want to ask someone earning $100k whether they feel impoverished.

A few other things stuck out to me about the article:
- is the poverty line is higher when people spend less on food?
- should fewer people pay taxes?
- where are those housing costs coming from?

(None of this went into the jury deliberation bc I was only an alternate. This is just how I stayed occupied while waiting through sidebars.)
🔚

After the trial I looked up NHTSA experiments on low-damage rear-end collisions. For ΔV = 11km/h ≈ 3.06m/s they measured mean acceleration 3.2g.

3.06² / (2 *.07) ≈ 67 ≈ 6.8g so my math is an overestimate vs experiment.

www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/ESV/Proc...

(3/4)

Acceleration = ΔV / time.

We don't know pulse time, but can estimate ΔV² = 2ax .

Wheel suspension communicates force to frame; compression travel ≈ 7cm in road cars ≈ x.

Acceleration ≤ (1.58)² / (2 *.07) ≈ 17.7m/s² which is 1.8g, about like a plane landing.
(2/4)

Estimating via high school physics:

Parties stipulated collision at 3.5mph ≈ 1.58m/s.

Photos showed no damage to cars, so a mostly elastic collision: most momentum transferred to front car. Thus ΔV ≤ 1.58 .
(1/4)

💯 The arithmetic I was doing was ΔV² = 2ax

During my jury duty on a minor traffic accident case this week:

Attorney, to witness: "Do you know the delta-V in this accident?"
Witness: "No."
A: "Could you calculate the ΔV?"
W: "I've no expertise in that."
A: "Who could?"
W: "I wouldn't know."

[me, at that moment doing longhand arithmetic: 👀]

Poster from “Predator: Badlands” featuring the top half of a synthetic android strapped to the Predator’s back

Art of “Ratchet and Clank” showing the diminutive robot Clank strapped to Ratchet’s back

An early encounter gets revisted at the climax with all of the protagonist’s skills leveled to max. There’s a running gag that’s very Kojima (you’ll know it when you see it).

And “Predator: Badlands” stars a space creature with a wisecracking robot strapped to its back, so...

“Predator: Badlands” was much better than I expected. Story’s built like a video game: weapons are introduced, demonstrated, used with improvisation. There’s boss battles and a stealth sequence with Ghost-style chain assassination. A new tech tree opens in the third act. (1/2)

Probably the ultimate Turing test.

I think you could find a better analogy for this one.