Balcells Blog Home

I was at home visiting my mom this last week in Spain.

As I looked through my teenage age bedroom, all intact, I came across a Commodore 64 cartridge for a game my brother and I played to death: International Soccer. It was such an awesome game, loved it. Challenging at level 9 and so much fun. It did spark more than one fight where we ended up rolling on the floor as things got physical. It wasn't about the graphics, it was just such a joy and so fun to compete!

Interesting to see how some companies, Cloudflare in this case, are trying to outrun the competition by creating software via AI at lightning speeds.

Cloudflare has, apparently, created a modern, secure version of WordPress - which is 20+ years old and has a history of problems with securing plugins. They call it EmDash CMS. Will be interesting to see how far it goes. Created entirely in TypeScript and with a new security model, they claim it solves all the legacy problems WordPress had, and it's under the MIT fully OpenSource model.

https://blog.cloudflare.com/emdash-wordpress/

Simple project to generate a daily email with soccer games that I care about and the times - since most of the teams I care about are in Europe, it's helpful to know when they are playing. Also, some of the competitions are less prominent and sometimes I miss them because they are not as much in the media in the US. And lastly, there are competitions like the UWCL for La Liga F (women's teams) that also have less visibility and so this app makes sure you know when the teams are playing.

I had already create a v1 that ran on SevenJ.com/livefutbol. That is still up and running and fine. It is hardcoded to a set of teams and competitions that I care about.

The new version running on kickoffmail.com can be considered a v2, and brings in the Personalization layer. The main changes are that now it allows for:
1) team selection from the top 5 leagues, as well as all the national teams,
2) competition selection, and lastly,
3) lets you decide whether you want to get a second email at the end of the day with the results of the games (optional)

This weekend I got a Dragon Ball Z - Son Goku action figure, which is a nostalgic item for me. When I was a teenager I used to watch the show at home, in Spain. My friends and I loved it, with all its silly intricacies and turns, and the power ups and transformations for all the characters. The figure i got in a official Bandai "S.H.Figuarts" Action Figure, "A Saiyan Raised On Earth". This the premier 6-inch scale line featuring advanced articulation and interchangeable faces/hands. I could not believe how much articulation and the number of positions possible. Came with a lot of differnt interchangeable hand positions, fists, and even faces, from smiling to serious battle faces.

I didn't know what to expect, and I am impressed by it.

I have been meaning to do this for a while: I wanted to "retire" my Commodore 1702 13" CRT monitor, which works well but it is heavy and bulky, and replace it with a small 13" LCD. This required 3 elements:

1) A DIN to RCA cable
2) An RCA to HDMI active adapter
3) A small LCD screen. I ended up going with this 13" LCD display and it works very well, and, importantly, it has a built in speaker which comes in handy for the sound and music.

The process was simple: remove the 1702 and unplug it, plug the new DIN cable to my 1984 Commodore 64. Then plug the RCA side (only yellow and white cables) to the RCA to HDMI adapter, then power the adapter via a USB cable plugged into the small LCD (it has a USB port!), and finally plug the output of the HDMI adapter to the new LCD. All worked perfectly well.

I flipped on the power, and my 42 year old Commodore 64 turned on without as much as complain. LOAD "*",8 and minutes later I was playing Epyx's mythic Summer Games on the new LCD, sound and everything. Fantastic. And I have a lot more space on the little table now.