Family Pictures Podcast takes on 400 Blows

Posted on April 18, 2025 by Reverend

For episode 11 of the Family Pictures Podcast MBS and I finally take on a heavy weight of world cinema with François Truffaut’s French New Wave masterpiece 400 Blows (1959). This was Michael’s pick, and I was thrilled because I love this film and have referenced it more than once on the bava over the years. I even created a GIF of the classic rotor scene.

Animated GIF from 400 Blows featuring the spellbinding Rotor scene

Animated GIF from 400 Blows featuring the spellbinding Rotor scene

I enjoyed the conversation this time around because Michael is a huge fan of Truffaut—and this film in particular—so he brought a lot to the conversation, such as how Truffaut was banned from Cannes the year before he would triumphantly return winning the Palme d’ Or best director for 400 Blows—his very first film. The context around the making of the film is fascinating too: Truffaut was known as a fierce critic of French cinema at that time, regularly proclaiming it moribund. So his transition from critic to filmmaker was quite risky given he’d made more than a few enemies in the industry. It’s a cool story all around.

There are also a bunch of great short documentary bits out there about this film, like this 1960 interview wherein he discusses the opening of 400 Blows in the US. He mentions he’s watched over 3,000 films by this point, which would be the ripe old age of 28. During the podcast Michael compares him to Tarantino, which is a fitting parallel given the two seem absolutely obsessed with the medium and can move seamlessly between the roles of auteur and critic. I already mentioned my favorite scenes in a post back in 2010 and not much has changed, although this time around I have a new found love for the opening scene in the school room. There is just so much goodness in this film that it was an absolute joy to spend an hour talking about it with a fellow fan.

Posted in Family Pictures Podcast, film, films, movies | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Can we talking about blogging?

Posted on April 17, 2025 by Reverend

Over the last few months I’ve been getting old gold bloggers in my network to talk about writing more generally. Namely their origin stories and thinking through how their process has developed over time. I’m doing this as a way to highlight the power of writing in the open and to underline the need for more independent voices as we double down on Bloggers Anonymous. Folks who challenge our basic assumptions and do the work openly without being beholden to any one corporate or institutional master are harder and harder to hear above the noise.

I got lucky enough to start the series with Audrey Watters, for many the epitome of that independent and individual voice who has led the charge of challenging the Silicon Valley logic. Even her doom visions for the field might have underestimated how bad and how fast that logic would accelerate—the curse of being so god damned right. Get more truth to power by subscribing to her newsletter Second Breakfast. And chances are she has already seen ‘Matter and Space” the latest episode (at least the first 10 minutes or so) of the soon to be promoted to Black Mirror episode dealing with AI and higher ed. I don’t even know what to say about that other than it is the strangest predatory vibe I have seen in a while, or since the “Common People” episode of this season’s Black Mirror. You can really see them hocking this “disruption” with no sense of irony or reflection on their role in hollowing out the core.

Kin Lane was a natural follow-on from Audrey given they are very much a team in the way they imagine the world we find ourselves in. Kin’s output as a writer is remarkable, he will write several posts in a day across several blogs rocking like it is 2007. What’s more, he brings various personas to the table ranging from the API Evangelist to Alternate Kin Lane with the subtitle: “Nothing you will read here is true, but some of it may resemble the world you know.”

Finally, I caught up with Mike Caulfield last week—it’s been too long. Our chat looks back to the earlier days of the blogosphere and brings us up to the weaponized pre-packaged arguments omnipresent on social media. Mike discusses how he uses writing to dig deeper on topics in order to test underlying assumptions that others tend to bandwagon, his recent post about “Critical Reasoning with AI” twas just that kind of  deep dive on AI, asking us to think about where that technology is at the moment (and its potential value) framing the idea of “reasoning patterns.”

Stay tuned because later this month I’ll be chatting with Amy Collier and Tom Woodward about the role writing has played in their careers as well as the development of the brilliant Demystifying AI series that pushes folks, like Mike, to dig in on critical reasoning with AI.

Posted in Bloggers Anonymous, blogging | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Is it bavatube or bava.tv?

Posted on April 17, 2025 by Reverend

Love seeing Andy Rush playing hard in the fediverse. He recently got his own PeerTube instance up and running at AndyTube, now I have to figure out how to subscribe. I was pushed to get my PeerTube upgraded to 7.1 thanks to Taylor Jadin‘s Docker kungfu. I understand why Andy needs a service like FediHost for hosting PeerTube because upgrades are not self-evident like WordPress. I’m totally onboard with Andy’s sense of an alternative space for video storage and streaming as a smaller YouTube alternative (one not laden with the endless ads and AI-driven content checks) that allows you to capture some of the cultural artifacts you were discussing on your blog, say.

I just found several videos from 10+ years ago at UMW where I was talking with Howard Rheingold and Nada Dabbagh about building their own personal learning environment for teaching and learning with Domains. It’s been a minute.

So I put those up on my bava.tv site to ensure I have a web copy available given my local hardware storage is abysmal. I also do irregular small streams playing with some retrotech like Windows 98 and RetroPie. My idea before my dad died was to play a season of Madden 2001 on the PS1 and build an AI universe around the stats and details of each football game on a weekly basis, somewhat reminiscent of Coover’s Universal Baseball Association, Inc. The idea of getting lost in the world of the imaginary, a fantasy/nightmare ever more complicated by the promise of AI. One way to materialize this would be to explore AI tools that are designed to reproduce cultural realities like blog posts, call-in radio, talk shows, memes, imagery, and video playback. That would be more a bavatube affair, I guess, something decently produced with a regular stream of Madden 2001. Currently the site is used for random archiving and experimentation—more of a bava.tv thing or, just the junk I decide to throw up there without any rhyme or reason.

Thing is, I just love playing with video and streaming and PeerTube is definitely a safe space for that, especially since I have been burned by YouTube in the past. As of now I have so many possible stream setups for this AI Madden 2001 project it’s dizzying, insane how involved it is to get a Raspberry Pi running RetroPie or Batocera to stream cleanly to a YOLO Box with clean audio, correct aspect ratios, and an unobtrusive second camera all streaming to PeerTube. It’s never simple, and that is part of the joy. Anyway, Once I return to that project and lock it in I’ll do my best to graduate from bava.tv to bavatube 🙂

Posted in bava.tv, PeerTube | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

bavacade Update 4-13-2025

Posted on April 13, 2025 by Reverend

It’s been a couple of months since my last bavacade update.  I was under the impression I hadn’t done much since January, but after taking some notes I realized I was mistaken. Real headway was made and I even added a few more items to the to-do list below.

Stuff that is done:

  • Pole Position has been put on wheels and that game was re-assembled and is working beautifully in its new home at the bavacade.
Pole Position almost fully re-assembled

Social media relic of my progress (click for more)

  • Back-up Scramble board being used in Super Cobra. Key difference is that the Scramble board now has a multi-game kit that allows me to default to Super Cobra at boot-up so that cabinet now has free play.
  • Roberto copied Super Cobra ROMs from working board so the back-up board is no longer throwing garbage, soon after realized audio is crapping out. So one board working perfectly and the other has audio issues.

Super Cobra ROMs copied thanks to Roberto

  • Tested 440 Dev Kit on non-working Crossbow and it was still throwing garbage. I replaced original chips on board and sent it off to Mike to take a look and he reported it works perfectly, so still confused on this one.

Wide-view of Crossbow board with 440 Dev kit installed and ROMs removed

  • After testing Crossbow boards to no effect (see above), I disassembled the cabinet and Alberto put it on wheels. Once the boards come back from US will start to re-assemble the cabinet, but also waiting on new molex power connectors given I need to clean-up/replace some of the board connectors that regularly come loose.
Screenshot of a Mastodon post with side view of Cheyenne not reassembled but on wheels

Another social media relic about my arcade repair progress (click for more)

  • Both the switching power supply and power brick for Make Trax is in for wire clean-up with Roberto (in addition to the Robotron power board and brick). I realized the extra power brick and power supply board I had lying around for Joust will work fine in Robotron –so got that game back up and running.
  • Secured the edge connector for yoke wires on Make Trax which needed to have wires inverted for Crush Roller board to work.
Make Trax Yoke connectors inverted for Crush Roller PCB

Make Trax Yoke connectors inverted for Crush Roller PCB (image before proper connector installed)

  • Had Mike repair a Super Break-out board Roberto wanted me to test: (1) Updated LM323K $20; (4) 2102 Ram $24; (1) 7408 $0.

Super Breakout board before repair

  • Ordered a ton of molex and edge connectors that should arrive any day and will help with my general maintenance project to clean or replace as many of the connectors as possible.
  • Built a shelf to organize and store all the extra arcade equipment and back-up boards in bavacade.

Things Still To Do:

  • Re-assemble Cheyenne.
  • Test 19″ tube with a Hanterex Polo chassis connector that Roberto brought me. If it works I might finally have a replacement for dull Phoenix tube.
  • The new tube gives re-newed impetus for getting extra Hanterex Polo chassis fixed.
  • K4600 back-up chassis slated for repair still in pieces and has not been attended to.
  • I messed up the new lock on Pole Position and need to see if I can replace it, that was stupid, also need to add a lock to the lower coin vault door.
  • Venture wiring needs to be cleaned up more, considering swapping in the Condor +5V power supply given that’s only voltage the switching power supply in that game is being used for —and this might clean-up the ugly on-board soldering happening now.

Ugly wiring in Venture that will soon be cleaned up

Venture power supply has two soldered wires to the board (shown here) going to +5V on a switching power supply unit

Venture power supply has two soldered wires to the board (shown here) going to +5V on a switching power supply unit

Posted in bavacade, bavarcade | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Coffee Futures

Posted on April 12, 2025 by Reverend
Image of a futuristic scene with a woman looking out the window drinking a cup of coffee.

Cover image for “Coffee, Tea, and Drinks” issue of 70s Sci-Fi Art

Adam Rowe’s 70s Sci-Fi Art site/newsletter is an absolute gem if you’re into retro-futurism. When it arrives in my inbox I usually save it for when I have some time to explore the images and links, because I love the aesthetic so much. He does a really good job of arranging his missives around a specific theme, and the recent “Coffee, Tea, and Drinks” is a great example of the deep dives on topics as quotidian as beverages in the future. David Schleinkofer’s cover for Nightside City by Lawrence Watt-Evans featuring a woman having her coffee while gazing out on a Fifth Element-esque scene is peak 80s scifi art. Everything from the braid to the holstered gun to the grey space suit complete with wrist and ankle computers just makes her seem like such a bad-ass. Now put all that against a cheery Blade Runner cityscape, and I’m hooked. It reminds me a bit of Larry Elmore’s art from the 80s sci-fi role playing game Star Frontier, although a lot more contemplative and subdued—I mean she is drinking her morning coffee. Here is Schleinkofer’s art in its entirety:

David Schleinkofer’s 1989 cover for Nightside City, by Lawrence Watt-Evans

I just love folks like Rowe who scour far and wide to curate and deliver the best art of a given genre. His site led to the publication of the physical book World Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 70s that I finally purchased this morning (while drinking coffee) given how much joy this site has brought me over the years.

If you are into old school sci-fi art from yesteryear, this is ground zero. The fun themes and intelligent commentary just add that much more to his ridiculously cool finds. Do yourself a favor and lock it in!

For an added bonus, the 70s Sci-Fi Art site uses the blogging platform Ghost which Taylor Jadin will be taking folks through getting up and running with next week for the Reclaim Community Chat.

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VHS Stacks 1 and 2

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Reverend

I’ve been making a point of working regularly in bava.studio this year and most of the last. It’s done wonders for my sense of home/work separation; nothing like a change of scenery to inspire new work flows. One of the things I started doing recently is playing VHS tapes on the 27″ Sony Trinitron while working. They serve as background visuals that often have the volume down given I take calls and meetings throughout the day. But the plan is not to watch the entire film, but rather savor the joy of catching glimpses of  naked shots and scenes without audio, possibly providing a different insight to an old favorite.

Stack of VHS including The Fog, Nightmare on Elm Street, Dirty Harry, The Gauntlet, Any Which way but Loose, Gor, Stoked, Passenger 57, Cocoon, Starship Troopers

Stack of VHS casually watched while working in bavastudio

On rare occasions I have the ability to work from the couch in front of the TV and watch one of these through with the sound on (that was the case with History of the World Part 1), but by-and-large they’re just part of the bavastudio scenery that might provide a sneak peek of a moment from the VHS collection. I kinda dig it.

Image of VHS stack including Animal House, Miracle Mile, Sid & Nancy, History of the World Part 1, 52 Pick-up, The Terminator, Road Warrior, The Hitcher, and Night Hawks

Stack of VHS tapes casually watched while working in bavastudio

Anyway, these images represent the tapes played thus far, and I’m going to try and create images of the stacks over time to document those films watched while working in the bavastudio. Film knowledge osmosis is a thing, right? I should be able to learn more about these gems simply by having them on in the same room, regardless of whether I am watching or not, right?

Posted in bavastudio, films, movies, VHS Stacks | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Future Visions of Open Textbooks in 1996

Posted on March 24, 2025 by Reverend

This 1996 EDUCAUSE paper by G.D. Bothun of University of Oregon, “Teaching Via Electrons: Networked Courseware at the University of Oregon” provides a compelling look into the early questions and concerns surrounding instructional technology involving the web. It was striking to see just how many of the topics mentioned are still relevant, in particular this bit on the yet undecided future of web-based open content:

In an open system, other professionals in the field will have access to the developed curriculum products and can build on them. The curriculum development effort at the UO has certainly not been done in a vacuum, as material from elsewhere has been used. In turn, we make all our developed material freely available. This open exchange of resources potentially allows for joint curriculum development among experts in a format that is easy to update.

Huzzah! the beginnings of open education, the revolution will be networked! But wait,  here come the commercial publishing houses….

It has long been customary in most disciplines to choose certain textbooks which define the core-course curriculum. Unfortunately, textbooks do not rapidly respond to feedback from the users to redesign the curriculum. In theory, network-based curriculum resources could rapidly evolve into a very high quality, somewhat standardized product. Clearly, this has not yet happened in any discipline. Herein lies another profound challenge for the higher education community. A wide variety of knowledge sources are making their data and research available on the World Wide Web. The key is for effective integration of these individual knowledge sources into subject-based curriculum products. Will this integration be done by the content experts located at colleges and universities or will it be done by the commercial publishing houses that may only offer limited access?

Reminds me of another passage, this one in Ecclesiastes 1:9 from the Good Book:

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

It’s like an open education time warp.

Posted in Instructional Technology, open education | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

PS5 Stick Drift Fix

Posted on March 22, 2025 by Reverend

Following-up on my PS4 charging port fix, I decided to double-down and fix the PS5 stick drift issue that one of the controllers still has even after endlessly pressing down and rotating the stick clockwise and counterclockwise (NB: this method did work for one of the two controllers). This meant taking the controller apart, which is absolutely a pain in the ass for the PS5 controller, especially compared to how simple it is to disassemble the PS4 controller. From hidden screws to removing shoulder buttons to various plastic clinches, be careful with this one. I used this video to take it apart, but take it with a grain of salt when he says it’s easy.

Once apart and the battery and circuit board removed you then need to identify the stick giving you issues. This should be easy enough given you should know already when you were playing a game and things went south (or north or east or west). That said, this gamepad tester site is a cool find as a result  of this process. It helps you identify even the slightest drift, but also lets you test every button or joystick on your gamepad to confirm all are working. Anyway, once the controller is apart follow along with this video which will explain the issue and show you how to both clean and/or replace the wiper and the track of the stick. I just cleaned the track and wiper with a bit of isopropyl alcohol and I was good to go.

Not much more to say, I’m really just using this post to save the gamepad tester URL and the two videos that helped with the fix. The thing that annoys me about this issue is it happened pretty much out-of-the-box. Rather than the normal wear and tear folks suggest as the cause, my controller had drift almost immediately. This smells more like a manufacturing fault or bad quality assurance than anything else.

Posted in video games, YouTube | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

PS4 Controller Fix

Posted on March 22, 2025 by Reverend

I’ve been using the PS4 controllers for my RetroPie and Batocera given the PS5 has replaced the former console.* The PS4 gave our family a solid 10 years of work (after a fix or two), but it’s now slated for the bava console museum. Unfortunately both the PS4 controllers I had been using with my retro setups stopped working recently, but luckily I’ve been down this road before. The USB port on the PS4 controller is pretty fragile, and sooner or later the wear and tear on the charging port catches up with you. That said, both going at around the same time was odd. I picked up two replacement ports (model JDS-030) for about $10 to see if my hunch was right.

The fix requires opening up your PS4 controller, but the operation is pretty simple. You’re just disconnecting a ribbon cable from the battery circuit board which allows you to remove the old USB port cleanly and replace it with a new one. There are tons of tutorials online for doing this procedure, and none I could pretend to do better. That said here’s a look at the ribbon cable on the battery board you need to simply pull on to remove.

A look at the PS4 battery and ribbon cable that connects to the USB port.

Once that’s off, the port on the bottom part of the controller needs to be removed and replaced, and once that’s done your controller should charge again.

A look at a JDS-030 port on a PS4 controller (with ribbon cable already removed)

Anyway, I replaced both charging ports on both controllers and I was 2-for-2, which felt pretty awesome. I can now dedicate one controller to the RetroPie in my home office and the other to the Batocera in bavastudio. Winning!

I used the PS3 controller on the Retropie in the interim and it was annoying because every time I plugged it in it would go into dual shock mode and shake uncontrollably until I reset it. The PS5 controller works cleanly over bluetooth with the Batocera and I’m hoping I can get the PS4 controller to work wirelessly on the Batocera as well.

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*Another thing I must add is that the stick drift on the out-of-the-box PS5 controllers is terrible, and in my mind inexcusable. I bought a setup with two controllers and both were unusable as a result of the stick drift, how is that acceptable Sony?

Posted in bavastudio, video games | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

A Deadzone Diorama

Posted on March 21, 2025 by Reverend

Over the last 10+ years Stephen King has not only proven to be one of the more prescient literary figures, but also the coolest. He’s been on social media talking smack on the shitstorm that is American politics for the last 10+ years without any fucks to give. Rock, not rot!

Where are all those literary critics turned up their nose at this badass for the last 40 years now? Anyway, the following clip from NowThis has King talking about his Trump-like character Greg Stillson from the novel Dead Zone.* It’s a quick, fun watch.

This is pretty timely because after getting close to finishing The Shining diorama (coming soon,!) I have been thinking about taking a scene from David Cronenberg’s brilliant adaptation of Dead Zone (1984). I ‘d been toying with trying to figure out how to do the scene where the hockey kids fall through the ice into the pond, but that might not only be impossible but also go over like a lead balloon here in Trento.

The other idea I floated by the recruits that will be imported from Canada to help me with this one is getting the shot of Greg Stillson on stage right before he has his political career-ending (even life ending) child shield moment.

Something like this shot of victory

Another idea I have been thinking about is a scaled-up version of the following shot that has the gun on the Newsweek cover with a cigarette burning in the ashtray.

Thinking through a scaled-up version of this shot to fill-up the window, maybe at an inclination to create a sense of depth?

Luckily I have a month or two to mull this one over before work starts on what will be the third diorama for the bavastudio. Another thing, I should probably share this post with my guest curators to get their feedback given they will be doing the heavy lifting 🙂 Fortunately, this provides the perfect excuse to re-watch one of my very favorite films yet again.

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*For those readers who know Andy Rush, can you see the resemblance between him and King? It’s not just the healthy hair, even the mannerism and the way of talking.

Posted in bav-o-rama, bavastudio | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments