We have these posters for sale, BTW.- If I have two RetroPies running Wipeout, can I get them to simulate a link cable for head-to-head play on two separate screens, rather than side-by-side on one screen?
- Update: The answer seems to be no. Nothing running on a Pi simulates the link cable. Maybe it works in some other Windows-only emulator, but probably not. ("Sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'll never know.")
- If that works... since the Pi4 has two HDMI outputs, can I just run two copies of the emulator on the same Pi?
- How do I rip a physical PS2 disc to a file that RetroPie will run? I've tried "dd if=/dev/disk8s0", "disk8", and a couple things in Disk Utility, and I don't get something that works.
- Failing that, where do I find a working iso of Rez for PS2?
- Update: The answer seems to be, "RetroPie doesn't emulate PS2 at all." You would think that "here is a list of the systems that we emulate" is something that they would publish prominently, but you'd be wrong. You would think that "This game is for a PS2 and we don't emulate those" is something that would pop up in an error dialog, but you'd be wrong again.
- I tried to get it to use vintage PS1 and PS2 controllers using one of these and one of these and it didn't work. It kind of flickered the controller name and would never let me enter the configuration page. What's up with that?
- So I got one of these, and it works, but when I configure it, it seems to be saying that the left analog stick and the right analog stick are sending the same codes. That seems wrong?
- Update: I wiped the card and started over from scratch for other reasons, and having done that it now believes that this controller has two analog sticks, so this problem magically solved itself? Still no luck with the vintage controllers, though.
RetroPie questions
When we do Cyberdelia, we set up head-to-head Wipeout on PS1s, but the PS1s are getting finicky in their old age, so I figured I'd give emulation a shot. I have questions:
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Tags: computers, dnalounge, firstperson, lazyweb, retrocomputing, rez, toys, tron
Guatemalans set Congress on fire, bring guillotine
Guatemala's Congress passed the budget bill Tuesday night, increasing lawmakers' own stipends for meals and other expenses and cutting funding for human rights programmes and the judiciary. They also axed $25m destined to combat malnutrition, igniting nationwide outrage. [...]
Four blocks away, a university student-led march on its way to the plaza had stopped and set up a guillotine outside the Congress building.
A few dozen police in regular uniforms stood by and watched as young men climbed the building, kicked in windows, and threw in incendiary devices.
Flames and smoke shot out of the windows for several minutes as protesters destroyed framed photographs of politicians. Riot police showed up, tear gassing the crowd, and then firefighters arrived to put out the blaze.
Tags: big brother, doomed, grim meathook future
Taiwan
On November 14, Road to Ultra took place in Taiwan. No social distancing was needed, or any precautions. It sounds extremely unlikely and unreal for that to be the case in 2020, where most of the world is still battling against the pandemic caused by the Covid-19 virus, but its true. How?
Taiwan has been Covid-free for over seven months now. With only seven deaths and 550 cases in total between a population of 23 million people who inhabit the island, the way that the government handled the virus is truly admirable. Closing borders early, restricting public transport, evenly distributing masks to everyone and having a strict pandemic protocol is what made the island recover so quickly, and this meant that large-scale events were deemed safe again.
A note from abroad: Realizing now that I've been 5 days out of US that many folks back home don't realize how other countries might be living with the 'Rona. Here is what it was like to come to Taiwan. I think we could maybe learn a coupla things...
Upon our plane touching down in TPE, we were immediately placed in two lines: one for folks with a working intl cell phone, one for the rest of us (to buy a very affordable local SIM card.) The government is then able to track us while we are in the country
Once through immigration and baggage, we are required to take govt-approved covid-safe cars to our quarantine hotels. (If you are a local, you can self-isolate at home.) No leaving your room (or home) for 15 days. Not for walks- nothing.
At the hotel: meals are left outside your door three times a day. There is no contact with anyone. Every day, you get a call from the health department asking if you have any symptoms. If so, they will immediately rush you to the hospital for care.
As a sidebar, I have discovered that I am weirdly okay having all my daily living decisions made for me. Have not yet gone crazy confined within four walls. Perhaps I would have made a good housepet.
Never mind about domesticity, after 15 days, you are free to go. For 7 more days, you are required to check your temperature every morning (they actually gift you a thermometer) and someone calls every day to make sure you're okay.
Because most local citizens have voluntarily signed up for contact tracing (and all of us foreigners are required to opt-in) should a case break out, anyone who was in significant contact would be notified, then required to self-isolate for a number of days.
At any point, if you break quarantine - which they can tell by the movements of your phone - you could be fined 10-30k. They are quite serious on this point. Then again, they haven't had a case in 200 days. And everyone has been living their lives freely since February.
A note on contact tracing: I'm no expert, and historically a proponent of privacy, but if you have a credit card, or downloaded any number of apps, it seems "they" already have your info. So in a gosh-darn pandemic: sign up for contact tracing!
Again, not an expert. But again: EVERYONE IN TAIWAN HAS BEEN LIVING THEIR LIVES FREELY SINCE FEBRUARY! I mean yes, people voluntarily wear masks in public places, but otherwise, restaurants, subways, etc are packed. So....
I guess this could have been our lives too? Food for thought...
Y2K The Movie: "WHAT IF THEY'RE RIGHT?"
NBC Primetime Movie, Nov 21, 1999:
"TV14. This program is a purely fictional thriller. The characters and situations are not based on fact. This program does not suggest or imply that any of these events could actually occur."
The whole thing is on youtube. I didn't watch it, but I did scan forward to see spoilers at the end, and it was like, people fighting with swords and being eaten by crows! I did not expect it to go there! But wait, no, it turns out "Y2K The Movie" had ended already, that was just a bonus 20 minutes of Beastmaster, which seems to be what was on this VHS tape before they recorded over it.
Also there's an entirely other "Y2K The Movie" movie, this one starring Malcolm McDowell and Louis Gossett Jr. that came out in July 1999! For post-Y2K video release they were retitled "Countdown to Chaos" and "Terminal Countdown", respectively.
Tags: computers, firstperson, movies, mpegs, retrocomputing, security, the future, time_t
