elstevo

Reminded me of this [1] that looked like a really interesting project to undertake, especially when you can create your own theme.

[1] http://www.benheck.com/bill-paxton-pinball-making-of/

Their competition Neato has, in my opinion, a more interesting platform to hack on, mostly due to the fact that the device has a LIDAR sensor on top.

http://www.neatorobotics.com/resources/programmersmanual_201... http://xv11hacking.wikispaces.com/

There are 28,740 roms in the zip file (all individually zipped, too). There's a large number of roms that are just regional versions of the same game -- US, Japanese, etc...

They're not all functional in MAME yet, and a lot of the (relatively) newer games require separate data files for sprites/videos/sounds. But yes, this is still a huge collection of classic games.

I don't really agree with calling an RC helicopter a drone. It sounds way more malicious that way. But then again, "Local man found to be bad at flying RC helicopter" isn't nearly as attention-grabbing.

Not to defend the costs or the state of the system, but the justification for the prices of medications in hospitals usually includes the time of the nurses, pharmacists, and techs that make the whole administration process happen safely.

Also, hospitals will bill whatever amount they can get reimbursed. Most insurance companies have contracts with hospitals where they only get a fraction of the billed amount. The rest is written off by the hospital. Uninsured patients can usually work out payment plans for lower amounts as well. That said, healthcare in the US is still pretty damn expensive.

Ah, yes. M: the language of indirection, post-conditional goto's, period indented block levels, and strict left-to-right order of operations (2+8*10=100). It doesn't require writing code as unreadable as this, but it sure doesn't discourage it.

I've found that it's easy to let your life become unfocused after leaving college. Up until graduation, you always had built-in goals on which to focus: pass that test, find scholarships/jobs, graduate, etc...

After graduating and finding a job, I was suddenly without any pressing objectives in my life. What's next? Retirement? That's way too far off (probably). I was working and living my life day-to-day, not unhappy, but sort of drifting without direction.

As cliché as it sounds, trying to answer the question "where do I want to be in 1, 5, 10 years" honestly helped. I thought about it for a while and came up with some vague ideas. Every once in a while, I do a mental progress check and that helps me see past the daily routine to something greater.