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Daily Bread for 2.1.25: An Octogenarian Coder Transforms Japanese Gaming

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 33. Sunrise is 7:09 and sunset is 5:08, for 9 hours, 59 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 12.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1865, President Lincoln signs the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, after Congress passed the amendment on 1.31.1865.


An 81-Year-Old Coder Transforms Japanese Gaming:

You’re never too old to learn how to code. Three years ago, Masako Wakamiya noticed the lack of fun game apps for senior citizens and created her own at the age of 81. It’s called Hinadan, and it’s inspired by a traditional Japanese doll festival. We met Wakamiya, now 84, in Kanagawa, Japan, and learned how this IT evangelist and digital creator is empowering other senior citizens to make the most of technology.

For more about Wakamiya see Kiyoko Ogawa, INTERVIEW | Masako Wakamiya, the Oldest App Developer in the World, Japan Forward, September 1, 2023.


February 2025 Skywatching Tips from NASA:

What are some skywatching highlights in February 2025?
Venus blazes at its brightest in the early evening, despite being only a slim crescent through the telescope eyepiece.
Mars and Jupiter to rule the night sky after Venus sets, amid the menagerie of bright winter stars in Orion, Taurus, and Gemini.
And enhance your astronomy IQ by knowing the difference between a conjunction and an appulse.
0:00 Intro
0:13 Moon & planets
0:41 Appulses 1:39
Venus at maximum
2:51 February Moon phases

Friday Catblogging: Stray Coming to Nintendo Switch

Alana Hauges reports Indie Sensation ‘Stray’ Meows Up Switch Release Date: Releasing on Switch on 19th November, Stray is an award-winning adventure game where you play as a cute little kitty cat. But this cat has big paws to fill — it has to uncover an ancient mystery hidden within a huge, neon-lit cybercity. Yeah, it’s…

Friday Catblogging: The Release Date for Stray?

Oisin Kuhnke writes Upcoming Cat Simulator ‘Stray’ Release Date Possibly Leaked: If a leak is to be believed, the cyberpunk adventure cat game Stray might be releasing this coming July. According to the Twitter account PlayStation Game Size, the PlayStation Database currently has Stray releasing on July 19. This would certainly line up with what…

Friday Catblogging: Stray Walkthrough

Game producer Swann talks about the world of Stray, as well as what to expect with gameplay and characters you’ll come across as a cat. Coming early 2022 to PS5, PS4, and Steam. The good news: it looks exciting. The bad news: it’s not out until early 2022. (Time to revise one’s 2021 Christmas list.)…

On Card Games at Work – Simply Tell Them to Stop

There’s a story in the State Journal about Sen. Nass’s concern that legislative pages (mostly part-time pages and part-time students) are playing card games during working hours: A Republican state senator is complaining about legislative pages using work time to play a card game that pits fascists against liberals trying to root out a “secret…

Friday Catblogging: Real Cats React to Video Game Cats

????????1??????????????? pic.twitter.com/enczhP93Cg — ?????? (@kanata_610) January 26, 2018 There are lots of things in Monster Hunter: World for humans to like. But what are cats into? Meowing, that’s what. Cat owners are seeing what their feline friends do when Monster Hunter’s Felyne characters get vocal. Via Real Cats React To Monster Hunter: World‘s Meowing.

So What’s Pokémon Go?

It’s two things: a game one plays with one’s smartphone (as CNET explains in the video embedded above), and a reworking of an old set of characters in a new format.  The original characters were interesting to millions before, and remain interesting, making their revival in a new format a good bet.  If the characters…

Friday Catblogging: First-Person Cat Game

Among the thousands of independently-produced video games on the market, there’s at least one where one plays the game in in the role of an ornery cat: The premier first-person destructive cat simulator. Play as a cooped-up house cat and knock stuff onto the floor! Via Catlateral Damage.

Film: The Man Who Owns 40,000 Video Games

What can one say about video gamer and collector Herr Ghalustians? I think that one can say that he’s having fun, doing something that he likes on his own time, without harming anyone else. He’s Austrian, but not so removed from what we might say is part of the American Dream – to have the…