Artists Unite for Pride: Discover New Work + Support LGBTQIA+ Youth at Artsy Impact Auction

In celebration of Pride, Artsy happily presents the Artsy Impact Auction: Artists for Pride, benefiting the Ali Forney Center. New works by a diverse group of emerging and established artists will be bid on through June 29th at 12 pm EST. TM Davy, Didier William, Jo Messer, Kyle Meyer, Kate Pincus-Whitney, Erin M. Riley, Emma Kohlmann, Caitlin Cherry, Elizabeth Glaessner, Jordan Nassar, Haas Brothers, Vickie Vainionpää, Leilah Babirye, Darryl Westly, and Nedia Were have come together in allyship to support the cause by way of sharing their talents.

Ali Forney Center’s mission is to protect LGBTQIA+ youth from homelessness and to empower them with the tools needed to live independently. Through this partnership, the auction will directly support the critical care, direction, education, and career services that Ali Forney Center offers to these at-risk homeless youth.

We had the opportunity to speak with Simon Haas of the Haas Brothers, who have their Fairies Witherspoon piece featured in Artists for Pride (seen in the lead image). “This piece is from a body of work we call Fairy Berries. Each of these pieces is a little like a Faberge Egg, small and ornate,” said Simon. “These pieces are little meditations – they take a really, really long time and a steady hand, and the resulting piece is an opulent little world of its own.”

“A lot of the work we make is playful, but an equal amount of it is intensely process-based. When I am doing beadwork or making process-intensive projects like this I am very much in a meditative state of mind,” Simon shared. “This kind of work is almost necessary for me and my mental health.

Measuring 10 1/4 × 4 1/2 × 4 1/2-inches, Fairies Witherspoon is hand thrown and slip trailed porcelain detailed with gold lustre and brass plate. The underside is stamped with “HAAS BROTHERS 2020”, and it’s accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity signed by Nikolai and Simon Haas.

“Being gay myself, and having experienced first hand the challenges that come with that, it is really meaningful to me to be able to support my community. I can’t imagine the added difficulty of facing homelessness caused by or made more difficult by being LGBTQIA+. This is a truly important cause, particularly in this time of increasing intolerance.” Simon went on to add that he plans to “continue being a vocally out gay man and advocating for others in my community. It is so important that we make ourselves heard and support each other in our fight for equality. The LGBTQIA+ community is not a monolith, we are a collection of communities, but by coming together and advocating for each other we can accomplish so much more than we could on our own.”

To learn more about Artsy Impact Auction: Artists for Pride or place a bid, visit artsy.net.

bavacade Repair Log 6-29-2023

This is just a quick update to document some of the work happening recently in the bavacade. It has a been a bit of catch as catch can given how busy the last month has been with the Reclaim open conference the and coming virtual event in July. That said, I’ve been sneaking in work here and there in the mornings, and as usual it adds up. I already blogged about the Yie-Ar Kung-fu custom cabinet project, and will be a summer long endeavor, but it’s very exciting. I also documented some of my work a couple of week’s ago testing various parts I bought in the US in the “Arcade Therapy” post, so things are definitely moving along.

Arcade Therapy

More recently I have been testing some spare boards I have, namely a spare Make Trax board as well as spare Super Cobra board. This was also part of my attempt to start organizing all my parts and spares in the basement and get some semblance of order. I find testing and labeling when things worked saves me a ton of time, and some of the metadata on the boxes noted that these boards were questions marks. Also, I was looking to test a Crush Roller board in Make Trax I was sure I’d bought and brought to Italy over, but turns out I am either delusional or simply left it in Fredericksburg. Either way, because I’m obsessed I bought another Crush Roller board I found for a decent price in Germany along with a spare Moon Cresta board. The latter board is for the cocktail cabinet in Zach Davis is minding for me in Portland, Oregon, and I want to install and test the high score save kit on this one before shipping it back once I am in New Orleans next month.

Anyway, back to the spare Make Trax and Super Cobra boards. The Make Trax spare works, but the sound is noisy. It’s as if the sound pot is not working correctly and there it is too loud and scratchy, so will need to track that down a new potentiometer (pot) and see if tracing the audio gives me any insight. This board will be the first real PCB work (besides my botched Stargate repair attempts) I’ve attempted in earnest, and I’m hopeful it’s the start of some basic board work.

If it goes well, the second project will be Super Cobra, which has an issue with the high score save kit. There are weird special characters in the high score save (HSS) kit and free play is not working. When I substituted the original roms—this board has several ROMs removed given they are programmed on the HSS kit—and Z80 chip from the working board the special characters went away. That said, there was then a strange rebooting issue with the game that did not happen with HSS kit in, so I’m going to buy new chips and  burn the Super Cobra roms (a first for me). After that, I’ll try to track down the random rebooting issue, which is definitely an issue I can isolate to that board, should be fun!

As far as other work, I am making headway on monitor chassis repair. I had the spare Hanterex Polo in Cheyenne sent in for diagnosis given the original is stuck in the US on what’s shaping up to be an almost a 6-month wait, which I’m not thrilled about. I’ll keep pushing on the US repair, but in the meantime if the spare board is fixed here in Italy I can finally get this game back online. If that happens, then I’m just one G07 chassis and one K4600 chassis away from having everything running. I was able to repair the Condor G07 chassis that was dead by doing a cap kit, swapping out a new B+ filter cap as well as a horizontal width coil, and the chassis is working pretty well, but there’s a slight undulating wave that Tommaso tells me is good enough, but it’s annoying me, so I do think I need to replace all the adjustment pots, especially for vertical linearity and vertical hold.

In fact, I was certain I bought spare G07 pots, but I can’t find them for the life of me (part of the quest for order undertaken this week), so I’ve been parting out one of my extra, non-working G07 chassis. I’m also waiting on some 1.25 AMP fuses that should come today to try and get the chassis that came out of Pole Position working again. I think this chassis has either a bad flyback or a bad voltage regulator given there has been a recent cap kit done already. I might also need to swap the B+ filter cap. If that works, it will be put in Robotron, which leaves only the K4600 chassis for Challenger (I put Challenger‘s 4600 into Venture to get that game up and running) to repair. I’m not sure what is up there cause I swapped flyback and there was a recent cap kit, so a bit perplexed, but hopefully we some poking around and testing that will be the final piece of the puzzle. This is where the chorus sings, “Hope springs eternal in the bava heart.”

Finally, I have the Make Trax cabinet totally stripped and with Alberto to add wheels because every game will be on wheels sooner than later in the bavacade. The cabinet, overall, is close to mint save the control panel overlay which cracking. When Tim and I were getting Reclaim Arcade up and running I came across an original control panel overlay for this game and snagged it, it was one of the things that came over with the container so I asked Alberto iof he could remove the old one and add this one, and as he says to everything, “No problem!” He’s the best! He removed the old one, which by all accounts from Tim is a totally nightmare, and got it sanded and cleaned up.

After that, he put on the new overlay and it looks like new! So good. Sometimes those things I bought that I thought “Will I use this” are now almost all in use, and that makes me happy.

I think the next game to go on wheels will be Elevator Action, so will start taking that one apart, and that will mean 16 of the 30 games in the bavacade will be on wheels, and that means I am have crossed the half-way mark, which is encouraging progress! It also means I will have stripped almost every game down to just the cabinet if I manage to get wells on all of them. That’s pretty awesome.

Arcade Therapy

I’m back from a trip to both Fredericksburg, Virginia for Reclaim Open and after that Long Island, New York for some extended family time. All of that coming off several days in Lisbon, Portugal, so I was feeling the effects of being on the road for a bit. I have a lot to say about Reclaim Open, and that will begin here shortly, but before that I need to ease back onto the blog, so I’ll highlight some of my recent work in the bavacade.

Turns out the arcade work can also do double-duty as a kind of re-entry therapy. My bipolar gets pretty acute when I’m on the road and away from the family for a while. If I’m not mindful my thoughts can begin to spiral. So for this re-entry—before blogging or jumping headlong back into work—I took some time to tinker on a few games. I usually lug a bunch of arcade parts, repaired boards, chassis, etc. back from the US, and this trip was no different.* On top of the random parts, I also retrieved a few game boards I had shipped during my last trip to the US in February (including Sidam’s Condor, Exidy’s  Cheyenne, and Nichibutsu’s Moon Cresta). On top of that, I took a few with me from Italy, namely a Moon Patrol bootleg board with sound issues, a Bagman with sprite issues, and my back-up Yie-Ar Kung-fu board. So, in short, a lot of boards to be looked at, and below is the tale of the tape for board repairs:

• The Sidam Condor board had a boot issue and missing star field caused by a bad 74LS32 chip. Mike ordered a MN6221AA melody chip and replaced that.  The last problem was that the foreground was shifted to the left, cutting off the “F” in Fuel on the left hand side of the screen. This was fixed by replacing chip 74LS00 at location J4. Seems like pin 6 of that chip was stuck at a logic high and never moved.
• Moon Patrol bootleg- dead sound cpu, replaced but still no sound. Traced sound all the way back to the amp. The problem was the folks who made this bootleg pcb switched the +/- speaker wires on the edge connector. Simply swapping the wires at the speaker fixes this.
• Yie-Ar Kung-Fu – there was nothing wrong, no graphics problems, sound or control issues. This means power is the issue creating sprites, need to test this hypothesis once that cabinet is put back together, more on that custom project setup shortly
• Bagman – the Z80 cpu was bad, but Mike did not report any sprites issues after it was fixed. I had recurring sprite issues and assumed it was a board/chip issue, but turns out it was power, as it always is. +5V DC needed to be raised a tad.
• The issues with the Cheyenne board were linked to the 440 Multi-kit. Turns out the the sound portion of the Exidy kit was causing the no sound condition.The logic portion (the kit) had a problem coming from the GAL chip. Specifically, addresses 14 and 15 were missing and these addresses get generated by the GAL chip.  The game boots and plays fine, but opted to remove the 440 Exidy kit and re-install original Cheyenne chips, now to fix that Hanterex Polo to get Cheyenne back up and running after nearly 10 months of that game being offline.
• Moon Cresta was a strange issue, it was working fine until Zach and I tried swapping out the main CPU chip for a high-score save kit. Once we did that the game just threw garbage to the screen. Turns out the chip (and or high score save kit) needed to be soldered directly to board given the socket was not making contact with the chip’s legs— which seems odd. That said, the board is working again without the high score save kit, so might need to solder the HSS kit directly to board, we will see.
• The non-working spare Dig Dug board was the final one Mike worked on, and that board had a bunch of missing chips, so that was a full blown salvage mission, but it works a treat.

That’s a fair amount of board work, but as of now there are no bad boards,. This will be a short-lived victory, but I’ll take it.

Next up is monitor chassis repairs.  I have two G07 cap kits (Robotron and Condor) I need to do, as well as a K4600 capkit for the Centuri Challenger. After that, the final project is the Hanterx Polo, which has been drawn out way too long, so I’m trying to resolve that sooner than later.

The other work happening has just been some random testing of parts and boards I brought back, such as testing a 15-pin Williams power brick for Make Trax: it works fine. I’ve also been testing boards like Condor (looks and sounds amazing)  Bagman (working again and power adjustment fixed the power-induced sprite issue), Dig Dug (works perfectly), and Zach reported back Moon Cresta is all systems go. So Cheyenne, Moon Patrol, and Yie-Ar Kung-fu are the last boards to test, but two out of the three will need to wait until the games are back online. That leaves Moon Patrol, and I’ll be testing that here soon.

This weekend I fell down a repair rabbit hole. I picked up a degaussing coil in the US, and brought it back to add the final touch to Exidy’s Venture (one of my absolute favs) which had a bit of discoloration on the CRT. The degaussing fixed the issue, but soon after the game was freezing and eventually it seemed the monitor was cutting out. When I adjusted voltage the screen came back, but this time with mono-chromatic colors and it was out of  sync. Major bummer. I started troubleshooting which lasted deep into Sunday to finally learn the monitor’s fine, but one of the chips that controls the color and sync (chip 13C) needed to have the solder re-flowed. I did that and re-seated everything and the game started working again and looking better than ever. That was a small, but rewarding, win.

It all becomes pretty consuming for me (which is true of most everything I do), but I find that focused attention and tinkering to solve small, elusive problems can be just what the doctor ordered when trying to return to a much needed work/life rhythm. Arcade therapy! But not so much playing the games these days as fixing them which is a really pleasurable, if unexpected, consequence of getting into this hobby.

_______________________________

*I even found all my Dungeons & Dragons maps and guide books feared lost, but that is a post for another day.

A 1970s California Ranch Is Reimagined for Modern Times

To reimagine a dated, 1970s ranch in Pleasanton, California, Destination Eichler partnered with Eyerly Architecture to bring this split-level house into today’s times. While the young family appreciated the 70s character of the home, they desired a fresh spin with added functionality seen in today’s builds. The updated abode now features modern details, mid-century furnishings, and a plethora of beautiful tile from Fireclay Tile.

A glass wall opens out from a multipurpose room offering views of Mount Diablo. The room’s other focal point is a double-sided fireplace that was updated with vertical wood slats and tile in a large, circular pattern.

The kitchen is renovated with light wood cabinets and a mosaic wall made with hexagonal tiles that complement the blue range.

The main living room features an angled wood ceiling and the other side of the double-sided fireplace. Clad in matte black tile, the fireplace has a minimalist aesthetic that is perfectly juxtaposed with the white walls and beams.

In the basement, which the original architect named “Rumpus Room,” a new kitchenette and bar is there to entertain guests.

Photos by John Shum.

bavacade work log 3-28-2023

I’ve been pretty busy knocking out my to-do list for the bavacade. I created a long one after returning from the US, and I’ve gotten through most of it, so might be a good time to create a log with work done over the past month or so.

Back of pac-man painted

• Touched up Pac-man paint with new glossy yellow as discussed in this post, and finally painted the back door and finished that cabinet once and for all—although I may find myself doing one more round of touch-up
• Added the multi-game, high score save kit to the Pac-man board, so now this cabinet has both a modded board that plays Pac-man, Ms. Pac-man, Pengo, Pacman Plus (as well as fast version of those games save Pengo) in addition to the BitKit2 I already installed. I think that puts a fork in Pac-man for now.

Pac-man Multi-game HSS Kit

• Added a high score save kit to the Venture board, so that game is also all but done. I am debating adding another coat of glossy white paint to truly finish it off, but we’ll see.

High Score Save Kit for Venture

• Sent the Cheyenne ROMs out so that the 440 Exidy Mod kit that plays several games can be fixed. Turns out the issue with the Cheyenne board was related to the mod kit I bought, which is kinda lame, but Mike now has the ROMs and should be able to fix that, which would be awesome.
• Extra Condor board that Mike fixed is ready to go, will hopefully have that and the Cheyenne board shipped to Italy together if they’re ready to go here soon.

Cheyenne original ROMs

• There’s a graphical issue at the top of my Joust game, and it turns out it is pretty common and there is no much you can do about it, so was able to cross that off the list, although a Williams FPGA may fix this, but had trouble with that board in this machine.

• Replaced the Big Blue capacitor on the Dig Dug power brick, but that did not solve the loud hum, so this issue is still outstanding, but I did swap the Dig Dug power brick with the one that is in Millipede, and that solved the hum in Dig Dug by transferring the noise to Millipede

Big Blue Capacitor (Atari Power Brick)

• Replaced one of the leaf switches in the 8-way joystick for Venture, and that seems to work well. But I have some extras should I need to to replace the rest.
• Followed-up with Buffett about the Hanterex Polo chassis from Cheyenne he’s working on, that will hopefully be finished up shortly.
• Tried to look at the florescent light in Dig Dug that was blowing tube after tube, but decided to take a shortcut for now and add a 12V LED tube in its stead. It works so well I may need to get some window tint to obscure the brightness a bit, I am using masking tape at the moment, but I can find a better solution.

12V Power Switch for LED Marquee Light in Dig Dug

• Disassembled Millipede, and Alberto is presently adding wheels to that game and doing some minor cosmetic work.

Still to do:

• Got a few varistors from the US that I need to add to the Joust power brick, but this goes in the to-do list
• Need to look at Moon Patrol bootleg sound board I picked up in US. Everything is working except for the sound, so need to figure this out.
• Need to do the cap kit for the K4600 chassis that came out of Venture
• Need to do the cap kit for the G07 chassis that came out of Condor
• Tried to find two additional bolts/screws for the Venture joystick, but the US vs. EU sizes stumping me there, still need to sort this
• Tried doing a remote procedure with Zach Davis to add a high score save kit to the Moon Cresta cocktail cabinet in Portland, but that went sideways. Have no idea why it stopped working when we reverted everything before the surgery, frustrating. Anyway, may need to have that board shipped to Mike to get a second opinion.
• Need to buy an assortment of screw, bolts, wire ties, and more.

Two more dead as patients report horrifying details of eye drop outbreak

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Fountain Pen People in the News

Some of the writers noted for beautiful handwriting are fountain pen people including Leigh Reyes and Clement Dionglay. 6 People with Seriously Swoon-worthy Handwriting is the title of the article at CNN Philippines. Beautiful handwriting indeed!

The Other Children in the DeSantis Culture War

Ron DeSantis’s censorship craze centers the feelings of white children. But what about children searching for a history that includes them?

Desktop Wallpaper: March 2023

It’s a new month, so it’s time to refresh your laptops and screens with our latest Designer Desktop! This month’s artwork is by Mario De Meyer, a graphic designer and artist from Ghent, Belgium best known for his typography-based artworks. He has worked with clients including Adobe, Speedo, Penguin Books, Bloomberg, Fortune, Inc., Ogilvy & Mather, IBM, Wired, Henkel, and more.

De Meyer also experiments with abstract creations, one of which turned into this month’s trippy and eye-catching desktop wallpaper. Download it below for all your tech devices!

DESKTOP: 1024×768 \\\ 1280×1024 \\\ 1680×1050 \\\ 1900×1200 \\\ 2560×1440

MOBILE: iPhone XS \\\ iPhone XS Max \\\ iPad Pro

Learn more about Mario De Meyer here and follow him on IG here and here.

View and download past Designer Desktops here.

Video-Review: Diplomat Nexus (100 year anniversary pen)

Wow, was I surprised to notice that it has been 4 (!) years since I have reviewed the last Diplomat pen – a brand which I have a high opinion of, and that I have reviewed multiple pens from.

Diplomat was founded in 1922, meaning that the last year 2022 formed their 100 year anniversary. For this special occasion, Diplomat launched a special pen – something they had never done before in terms of production style and filling system: the Diplomat Nexus Fountain Pen.

Diplomat says they named the pen Nexus to signify a high level of connection between technical innovation and ergonomic design.

Did they succeed, and does the Nexus live up to this ambition? See all about it in the video review below!

The video is, as always, preceded by some quick facts. Again, I hope the review is helpful and that you enjoy watching it!

Quick Facts

• Diplomat Nexus Fountain Pen
• All-metal body (blue or black anodized) with viewing window for checking the fill level
• Chrome-plated clip 
• Screwable cap 
• Eye-dropper filler (capacity of more than 7 ink cartridges) with leak protection mechanism
• Comes with a glas of ink + two syringes (for filling)
• Available nib options: Extra Fine (EF), Fine (F), Medium (M) and Broad (B) / steel and 14k-gold nib options – here, I review the Fine steel nib (No.6 JoWo-nib)
• Price: 390 €

Video Review

Picture Gallery

Click on the photos to enlarge.

The post Video-Review: Diplomat Nexus (100 year anniversary pen) appeared first on Scrively - note taking & writing.

Recycleye grabs $17M, calling plastic crisis a ‘tremendous business opportunity’

Highlighting the plastic industry’s infamous track record on recycling, London-based Recycleye says it raised $17 million in new funding led by “deep tech” investor DCVC.

The startup claims its recycling-picking robots can identify materials “at an unrivaled 60 frames per second” and sort them more accurately than humans can. Ultimately, the startup says its tech cuts the “cost of sorting materials.” TechCrunch has reached out to the company for information on its projected cost savings.

Based in Palo Alto, DCVC says its mission is to “multiply the benefits of capitalism for everyone while reducing its costs.” Climate tech is one of its focuses, and one lens through which we can see capitalism’s environmental toll. In the case of plastics, the oil industry has long preached the virtues of plastic recycling, while doubting its economic viability, in order to sell more virgin plastic.

Every stage of plastic production disrupts the climate and natural world, from “the extraction and transport of the fossil fuels that are the primary feedstocks for plastic, to refining and manufacturing, to waste management, to the plastic that enters the environment,” the Center for International Environmental Law wrote in 2019.

Plastic pollution — a major climate change driver — is rising, too. That is due in part to shortfalls in “waste management and recycling,” OECD, an intergovernmental body, said last year. The group concluded that someone needs to “create a separate and well-functioning market for recycled plastics.”

The trouble is: Sorting, melting and ultimately reusing most plastic — which you can only recycle a couple of times — is way costlier than buying virgin plastic. Much of the time, we simply don’t do it. Most plastic (about 91%, per OECD) is not recycled and single-use plastic production is at an all-time high.

By focusing on speeding up scanning, identifying and sorting used materials, Recycleye is one among many companies that are attempting to fix part of this broken system with AI. Citing OECD’s report, Recycleye said, “Changing this wasteful and environmentally damaging dynamic, seen across a range of materials, presents a tremendous business opportunity.”

Recycleye says its machine learning and scanning tech “is twice as fast as the industry standard and means that each item is seen on average 30 times as it passes along the conveyor belt, with double the chance of being accurately identified before picking.” We’ve reached out to the company for more context on these figures.

Several other investors chipped in on Recycleye’s new Series A funding round, including London-based early-stage investor Playfair Capital.

Recycleye grabs $17M, calling plastic crisis a ‘tremendous business opportunity’ by Harri Weber originally published on TechCrunch

How to fix GoldenEye 007’s control issues on the Nintendo Switch [Updated]

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GoldenEye can’t distract from Switch retro games’ most annoying pitfall

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After 25 years, GoldenEye 007 gets its first modern rerelease Friday

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With Nvidia Eye Contact, you’ll never look away from a camera again

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"House in the Pines" thriller author on the "dark side of nostalgia" with a narrator no one believes

Ana Reyes discusses being Reese Witherspoon's Book Club pick, one haunting image and evil, manipulative geniuses

A comic book history of the Pinkerton Agency

Over at The Nib, Sam Wallman has created an illustrated history of the Pinkerton Agency — the original "private eyes," a nearly 200-year-old American corporation that essentially pioneered the privatization of domestic military intelligent services, most often weaponized against the working class. — Read the rest