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may 2023

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---
title: "Favorites of May 2023"
date: 2023-06-04T08:17:00+02:00
tags:
- metapost
---
Another month gone---months seem to fly by while hours and days can feel endless. It's time for another celebration: my [PhD thesis](/tags/phd) got accepted last Friday! The "official" public defense will be in September so I'll need to hold off writing "dr. Groeneveld" on letters until then. Not that the urge is particularly huge. Doctoral defenses are split into two: an intensive preliminary part behind closed doors and a public one where friends and family are welcome. If you are allowed to do the second one, you're going to get the grade, otherwise public humiliation is a possible outcome.
But now what? A good question that has been lingering for a while now and needs more thought before being able to definitively answer. On the one hand, I want to go back to the industry as I dearly miss colleagues and a decent programming challenge. On the other hand, there's so much more to do in academia, even though a permanent future there is very insecure to say the least. I'm scared to make the wrong decision. I will be teaching the next academic semester as well, until January 2024, so there's still a bit of time before deciding.
Previous month: [April 2023](/post/2023/05/april-2023).
## Books I've read
Only one entry this month, and even finishing that was a close one.
[Brood: Een geschiedenis van bakkers en hun brood](https://geschiedenis-winkel.nl/p/brood/) (_Bread: a history of bakers and their bread_) by Peter Scholliers, an emeritus professor history. As a bread nut, I really appreciated the thoroughness of the historical data and the statistical analysis behind it, but after a couple of hundred pages with nothing but that, it tasted like 4 days old mediocre bread: very dry. _Brood_ does synthesize insights from different sources to paint a picture on the evolution of things like bread prices in Belgium from the early 19th century until now---which, admittedly, was _much_ better done compared to my feeble attempt in my own bread book.
## Games I've played
- I finished [Gobliiins 5](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/pc/gobliiins-5/), the throwback wacky puzzle adventure created by one-man team Pierre Gilhodes. It was good, although I wish it stayed in the oven for another month---to keep things within the bread-o-sphere---which could have shaved off the rough edges.
- [Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/ds/might-and-magic-clash-of-heroes/), one of the better blends of tile match puzzling with light RPG elements that ended up having nothing even remotely to do with the _Might & Magic_ franchise. It's a superb title for on the go but a remastered Steam version is also available soon.
- To keep things within the tile matching atmosphere, I tried my hand at my wife's [Zoo Keeper](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/ds/zoo-keeper/) DS copy. It's an uninspiring _Bejeweled_ rip-off that offers nothing new.
I'm currently playing another _Bejeweled_ clone with RPG influences called _Puzzle Quest_, have _Yoshi's Cookie_ and _Kirby Star Stacker_ at the ready, and my eye on _Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon_. Spot the pattern!
## Selected (blog) posts
- Michael Klamerus guides us on [how to play Duke Nukem 2](https://virtualmoose.org/2023/05/27/an-intro-guide-to-duke-nukem-2/) on modern machines. I didn't know there's a smooth scrolling engine available!
- The developer of said engine wrote [an in-depth post](https://lethalguitar.wordpress.com/2022/07/14/how-duke-nukem-iis-parallax-scrolling-worked/) on how Duke Nukem II's original parallax scrolling worked, which was very hard to pull off in DOS/VGA mode compared to hardware-accelerated SNES/MegaDrive home consoles. A captivating read!
- Ben Werdmuller explains [why blue checkmarks for email is a bad idea](https://werd.io/view/6452addca49bb5f398025af2). I fully agree and resent the direction big companies like Google are taking.
- Blake Patterson shows off a [lost amiga four-byte burger painting](https://bytecellar.com/2023/04/24/lost-amiga-four-byte-burger-painting-digitally-recreated-and-looking-amazing-in-glowing-phosphor/) in his Byte Cellar, and it's looking riveting. I'm jealous but don't have the space nor the time to tinker with more than 3 old computers. Even my 486 barely gets powered on these days.
- Dave Rupert writes about [the state of agile software](https://daverupert.com/2019/03/the-state-of-agile-software-in-2018/). It's a post from 2018, but it makes me think: can agile be detrimental to creativity?
- Lunar Loony from the DOS Game Club surveyed the UK retro community and [summarized the results in a post](https://lunarloony.co.uk/gaming/retro-forum-survey-the-results/).
- GitHub user Travisgoodspeed uploaded [an in-depth tutorial](https://github.com/travisgoodspeed/gbrom-tutorial) for extracting the GameBoy ROM from photographs of the die. Bit extraction based on a photograph? Wow!
- Henrique Dias visited the Spoorwegmuseum (_railway museum_) in Utrecht and [shared lovely pictures](https://hacdias.com/2023/05/06/visit-to-the-spoorwegmuseum/) of the adventure!
- Earlier this month, Jw launched the [idea of email penpals](https://so1o.xyz/blog/penpals). I signed up and so far it's been great to exchange more bulky mails at a slower pace.
My RSS reader is getting cluttered with nothing but technical blog posts that to me aren't that interesting anymore. I wish more people would just write about more than their work. Roy Tang summarized this perfectly when he wrote [You Can Write About Anything](https://roytang.net/2023/06/write-anything/).
## Other random links
- It seems that _Dragon Quest Heroes Rocket Slime 3_, which was only released in Japan, has a fan translation port! Here's a [video reviewing the game in English](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oYorV1dMeQ). I loved the original Rocket Slime on the DS but somehow was stupid enough to sell my copy once I was done with it. It now goes for more than `$65`---of course it does.
- In case anyone else ever needs this: you can convert a `.bin`/`.cue` CD-ROM ISO to a `.iso` which is mountable in macOS' Finder using `bchunk`. Thanks to [this StackExchange query](https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/12812/mounting-cue-bin-files).