mizapf

My try.

Kp8/9, but nothing to see here. The Bz vector is bad (+10). The Bz vector is the field component of the interplanetary magnetic field in z direction (up/down, taken the orientation of the Earth north pole as up and the south pole as down). When the vector points up, the field lines of that magnetic field and of the Earth magnetic field diverge (like the same pole of two magnets, N vs. N, S vs. S). When the IMF flips the orientation in z direction (caused by solar wind turbulences), the fields couple and attract each other (N-S or S-N). Then the particles race down toward the Earth's atmosphere and we can see aurorae. This may happen at any time.

OK, this one's really nice. I hope you're also lucky during the next nights.

Even better.

Aurora visible over Germany right now. I have some clouds above, but below them there is a green shimmering light.

Not sure, but does it really make sense to point out a mere coincidence of letters? If you never told the students about this coincidence, no one would have asked, since Raps and rapeseed is an obvious and easy-to-learn relation. I, for my part, never thought about the first four letters in isolation before you mentioned that a while ago (when I posted a picture of a field of rapeseed some years ago). But I feel that I did not gain anything from that knowledge. It's like a red herring. It reminds me of a discussion in German that feminists in particular have been bringing up for decades - the pair "herrlich" (splendid) and "dämlich" (stupid). While it is true that "herr-lich" and "Herr" are related (an expression of honor towards a man, a bit like "Your Splendor"), the words "Dame" (lady) and "dämlich" are not etymologically related at all; Dame is from French (< madame), while "dämlich" is of Germanic root, related to "dumm" (dumb). Nevertheless, this is repeatedly brought up as a proof of sexism in the language.

Wow, KP8. When I was in Northern Finland in January 2023, we hoped for KP5 or 6 (and clear skies). They announced visible auroras for regions of Germany as well. Note that you will only see red to violet lights which are created much higher in the sky than the green ones that you see in polar regions. The reason* is that the lower green lights are hidden behind the horizon. (* not for Flerfs obviously) (Edit: We do have green light as well - the intensity must be insane!)

Isn't that just the name of a popular brand for rapeseed oil? Used to avoid spelling out a name that happens to share four letters with another term that refers to sexual violence, not even by etymology but by simple chance?

The list of played games (page 1) has not been updated for some time.

OK, if you're interested, I videoed my 80630 points session: https://www.mizapf.eu/files/mame/starfort.webm So for this month of May 2024, it's the other one: CUBIT. Loading by Editor/Assembler Option 3. A simple Q*Bert clone, but plays nicely. CUBIT cubit.dsk

Is that AI-generated? I saw this kind of unreadable text at the left side of the box with other examples.

Should I pick a new game for May now?

I recently used MAME to fresh up some pre-TI memories - before I got the TI, I played on a Atari 2600 console of one of my friends. I know that the last game we played was Spiderman, and when I tried it now on MAME, I quickly remembered the gameplay. If I remember correctly, my friend kept his console for some more years, so I probably already had my TI-99/4A. So I got some ROMs and among those, this one surprised me most: Dodge 'em. It looks very familiar, doesn't it? The surprise was that in recent times I used to think that Car Wars was an original TI game ... BUT ... I must have known better back in those days. The longer I think about it, the more am I certain that we played that on the 2600 already. Many of those classic games are ports, obviously. I wonder if TI had to pay license fees, or whether the companies back in those days just ported the others' games. At least for Munch Man, there must have been some license trouble, when we consider the beta version that looks much closer to Pacman. On the other hand, TI Invaders is very similar to Space Invaders (and also much more sophisticated).

Story from a German comedian (could be made up, but good anyway): "Recently I took the tramway, standing in the aisle. A young girl sitting nearby, our eyes met, and I thought - well, I may have got older, but obviously there's still something in me, the fire's not out yet, I still have something for them ... She's still looking at me, starts to smile, maybe up to saying something. And then she asked: Do you wish to sit down?"

Corcomp TripleTech is not yet emulated. I may add that some time, but the next thing for me is to complete the SCSI emulation (block DMA). Current scope of emulation: https://www.ninermame.org/info/scope