iamcal.comAll the links rom iamcal.com2024-03-25T15:38:08ZFlickr25th March, 3:38 pmtag:iamcal.com,2005:/blog/10212/2024-03-25T15:38:08Z2024-03-25T15:38:08Z<p>Lego have just released <a href="https://www.lego.com/en-us/minifigure-factory">their own Minifig builder</a>, including custom piece printing (although only on the body). This has been a long time coming and is pretty disruptive to all the businesses who have been doing this for a while. But in usual Lego-fashion, they are somehow already "sold-out" (of an on-demand product??) and so they're not available <img src="/images/blog/fbwgqwnxmaclsam.png" width="18" height="18" /></p>
Cal Hendersonhttp://www.iamcal.com/25th March, 3:35 pmtag:iamcal.com,2005:/blog/10211/2024-03-25T15:35:06Z2024-03-25T15:35:06Z<p>More Minecraft - the article on <a href="https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Tutorials/Quasi-connectivity">Quasi-Connectivity</a> is a great illustration of the knock-on effect that accidental bugs can have on complex interacting gameplay mechanics.</p>
Cal Hendersonhttp://www.iamcal.com/25th March, 3:30 pmtag:iamcal.com,2005:/blog/10210/2024-03-25T15:30:07Z2024-03-25T15:30:07Z<p>I had been wondering for a while about what was special about the dead coral fan in Minecraft that allowed it to be used for TNT duping. The <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/redstone/comments/jzg8od/why_is_dead_coral_essential_to_tnt_dupers/">answer</a> is enlightening:</p>
<blockquote>The coral is unique in that it behaves like a block that breaks when slime it's attached to is pushed (like buttons, torches, and so on) playing the breaking animation and sending updates like any broken block, but does not actually break - continues to be affixed to the slime, pushed by it so it can pretend to break in the next cycle.</blockquote>
Cal Hendersonhttp://www.iamcal.com/2023 Reading Listtag:iamcal.com,2005:/blog/10209/2024-01-16T10:31:34Z2024-01-16T10:31:34Z<p>I've updated my <a href="https://www.iamcal.com/misc/reading-list/#2023">2023 reading list</a> with the 105 books I read over the course of the year.</p>
<p>Highlights were <em>The Future</em>, by Naomi Alderman, <em>Station Eternity</em> by Mur Lafferty and <em>Titanium Noir</em> by Nick Harkaway</p>
Cal Hendersonhttp://www.iamcal.com/2nd January, 3:17 pmtag:iamcal.com,2005:/blog/10208/2024-01-02T15:17:00Z2024-01-02T15:17:00Z<p>A <a href="https://gameofbricks.eu/blogs/news/history-of-lego-the-first-lego-set">history of early Lego</a> and the first sets they produced. The first Lego I played with was 725-3 LEGO Samsonite Town Plan, which my grandparents had bought in 1961. This was from the era when Samsonite distributed Lego in the Americas and when bricks were still made from cellulose acetate, before the switch to ABS.</p>
Cal Hendersonhttp://www.iamcal.com/2nd January, 3:02 pmtag:iamcal.com,2005:/blog/10207/2024-01-02T15:02:45Z2024-01-02T15:02:45Z<p><a href="https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Chocolate">WikiNav</a> does some really nice visualizations of wiki navigation that I might adapt for WikiCamp</p>
Cal Hendersonhttp://www.iamcal.com/2nd January, 2:58 pmtag:iamcal.com,2005:/blog/10206/2024-01-02T14:58:04Z2024-01-02T14:58:04Z<p>A lovely <a href="https://colinmorris.github.io/blog/unpopular-wiki-articles">dive</a> into the least popular content on Wikipedia</p>
Cal Hendersonhttp://www.iamcal.com/2nd January, 2:56 pmtag:iamcal.com,2005:/blog/10205/2024-01-02T14:56:56Z2024-01-02T14:56:56Z<p><a href="https://twitter.com/garius/status/1520002414308384768?lang=en">The story</a> of the creation of the Tesco Clubcard, the first supermarket loyalty program, built in a time when the technology to do it didn't really exist.</p>
Cal Hendersonhttp://www.iamcal.com/8th November, 8:45 amtag:iamcal.com,2005:/blog/10204/2023-11-08T08:45:41Z2023-11-08T08:45:41Z<p>It’s really <a href="https://twitter.com/jh3yy/status/1713887739425223053?s=12&t=pfrGKRhcXzl7raXBdji08g">incredible</a> what’s now possible with pure CSS.</p>
Cal Hendersonhttp://www.iamcal.com/26th October, 9:26 amtag:iamcal.com,2005:/blog/10203/2023-10-26T09:26:15Z2023-10-26T09:26:15Z<p>I haven't tried building anything real in it yet, but as a 90s web developer, <a href="https://htmx.org/">HTMX</a> really appeals to me</p>
Cal Hendersonhttp://www.iamcal.com/