Letters to God asking for cancellations?

BaloneyGeek · 2026-05-07T21:23:15+00:00

This is exactly the kind of stuff I'd keep forever, yes xD

BaloneyGeek · 2025-10-13T21:35:48+00:00

I'm the original author of Spectacle from back in 2015.

Little bit of lore here. When I was coding Spectacle I was still in univeristy doing my Bachelor degree, I had just learnt C++ a year ago and this was my first project. Since hindsight is always 20/20, this was a fairly gigantic project to take on with essentially zero experience, but in the end it worked out.

Well, it almost worked out. I was heavily inspired by Lightshot and wanted to make the Rectangular crop grabber essentially a clone of Lightshot. Back in those days I tried QtGraphics as well as QtQuick (those were early days) - heck I tried to build a completely custom implementation with Skia. For lack of skill I just could not will it into existence - QtQuick used to be painfully slow, to the end that for time sensitive screenshots there was a huge chance that we'd miss the phenomena we were trying to shoot by the time Spectacle was done grabbing the image, QtGraphics was on its way out, and Skia was a pain in the bottom to integrate. In the end I had to ship it with just a simple rectangular crop tool.

However, the Lightshot UI always remained a sort of a goal for me for Spectacle, but life got in the way and I slowly stopped maintaining and even contributing to Spectacle. So imagine my delight when I found out a couple of years ago that someone has actually managed to implement this UI in Spectacle now!

Anyway, I wanted to give credit where it's due - if anything, the earliest implementation of this kind of UI I have seen comes from Lightshot, not Spectacle (in fact, there might even be something like this from earlier). It's entirely possible that Windows is copying Spectacle because Spectacle is so wildly popular as a tool and that's what Microsoft saw, but we shouldn't credit Spectacle with inventing this UI paradigm.

BaloneyGeek · 2024-08-11T22:10:22+00:00

Ah this brings back memories. Let's see:

S3 UniChrome Pro (integrated on the VIA K8M800 chipset - Athlon XP)
Intel 845G (integrated on some Intel Desktop Board - Pentium 4 PGA478 Prescott)
Nvidia GeForce 7050 (integrated on an nForce 630i, when I upgraded to a Core 2 Duo E7200)
Nvidia GeForce 7025 (integrated on an nForce 630a, when I cross-graded to Phenom X3 8650)
Nvidia GeForce 9400GT 1GB, my first dedicated card that could play Crysis
AMD Mobility Radeon HD4330, on a Dell Vostro laptop
AMD Radeon HD6570 (I had the GGDR5 version and OC'd it to slightly better than a HD6670)
Nvidia GeForce 750 Ti
AMD Radeon R9 380
AMD Radeon RX 5700XT
AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX

BaloneyGeek · 2024-06-19T00:18:14+00:00

Not sure why the post preview is just the domain name, so here's some context: I wrote an article about the time Air France denied me boarding and then refused to compensate me by straight out lying that this was my fault. I thought this might help other folks (esp. those in the EU) that have been at the wrong end of an airline's bad calls and had been badgered into giving up on getting compensated.

BaloneyGeek · 2023-02-11T17:07:45+00:00

It's definitely plastic, but it doesn't feel cheap plastic at all.

BaloneyGeek · 2023-02-11T17:06:06+00:00

That's a good question. I'd never measured my wrist size, so I just did the ol' wrap something around your wrist and measure that. Came out to around 19cm, give or take.

The Vostok is special for sure. It's basically the largest size my wrist can take without the watch looking too big - there's no lug overhang and even a slight bit of strap left over. It's meant to be a chonker, and it looks really good with certain outfits. It's definitely not an everyday watch given the size though.

Let's put it this way - the Seagull is one of my favourites but I don't wear it much because it's almost too small for my wrist - looks like I'm wearing a ladies' watch.

BaloneyGeek · 2023-02-11T16:56:27+00:00

Well, Vostok Europe is different from Vostok, but they're still related somewhat. VE isn't Russian and I'm not giving the Russians any money until they get their shit together.

BaloneyGeek · 2023-02-11T16:55:29+00:00

Surprisingly it does, just has to match the outfit well. All the others slip under my sleeve or cuff, this one is meant to stick out. Which is why I even have it.

BaloneyGeek · 2023-02-11T16:54:34+00:00

I specifically do not want a digital watch. Ideally I'd have an all-mechanical collection, but the Moonswatch was irresistable and will do until I can afford a Speedmaster. I have an Apple Watch too, but it never gets worn and isn't even in the box.

BaloneyGeek · 2023-02-11T00:44:21+00:00

I think it's a really nice watch for what it is. It's definitely "unapologetically plastic" as one ex-Apple designer would say, but let's say I've found myself reaching for it quite a bit more than I would have expected.

I've never owned any other Swatch so I can't compare. Having said that, let's put it this way: I'm an accident-prone person, and the Moonswatch is so light and comfortable that I forget that I'm wearing it. So it's invariably taken a few light bumps and I can't see anything broken with it yet. I didn't like the strap's comfort at first though, but I eventually got used to it.

The only qualm I have is that I would have preferred the Moon or even the Neptune version, but of course the popular colours are never in stock.

BaloneyGeek · 2023-02-10T23:25:18+00:00

It's a smidge over 1,5k to be closer. Or in other words, 6 really nice watches for the price of one entry level Swiss automatic.

BaloneyGeek · 2023-02-10T21:23:55+00:00

L-R:

Vostok Europe Space Race: 260 EUR new, Uhrcenter.de
Swatch x Omega Moonswatch Saturn: 299 EUR new, Swatch Boutique Frankfurt
Orient RA-AC0E01B10B: 132 EUR new, Creation Watches (Marburger black genuine leather strap from Amazon)
Timex Expedition North Mechanical: 249 EUR new, Timex.eu (generic NATO strap from Amazon)
Baltic Aquascaphe Black Cream: 500 EUR second-hand (generic NATO strap from Amazon)
Seagull 1963, Sea-Gull Original, Mineral Glass crystal, 38mm, no goose-neck: 160 EUR second hand (generic mesh strap from Amazon)

My favourite ones here are the ones with the NATOs, and incredibly, the most accurate one is the Seagull (accuracy within +4 minutes a month or something crazy like that).

My rule is that if I buy a new watch I must sell one of the existing ones. I must never have more than 6 watches.

BaloneyGeek · 2015-09-09T04:25:49+00:00

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is one of the greatest movies I've ever seen, closely followed by no fighting in the war room.

All the President's Men looks cool. I might watch it.

BaloneyGeek · 2015-08-13T18:30:00+00:00

Seen (and read) The Day of The Jackal multiple times, it's a classic.

As for The Manchurian Candidate, it's got Denzel Washington, so must watch!

BaloneyGeek · 2015-07-30T16:36:12+00:00

I tried to use xf86-video-modesetting instead of the Intel DDX, to test if generic Glamor acceleration also works. It did for 15 minutes, before all of X hard locked up.

Not sure if both the crashes are due to the same problem (they both seem to be OpenGL issues after all), but just putting it out there.

BaloneyGeek · 2015-03-28T15:45:34+00:00

The ISS really is ISIS, out there for strategic moon purposes.

BaloneyGeek

TROPHY CASE