Lambda

1 hour ago, MrWunderful said:

Nice! Hope you are enjoying it. 

Without a doubt!! Been playing it for a while now!

1 hour ago, MrWunderful said:

Seriously though, I am keeping things cleaner now. Hopefully this UV blue light phone cleaner thing I bought before all this went down actually works! (Using alcohol wipes too)

I’ve been using alcohol pads on my phone as well. My company actually just put out a great article that I’ll link to here when I grab the link. Talks about exactly that... and how an insurance co (Insurance2Go) did a study and found your phone 3X! Dirtier than a public toilet seat! I’ll post it as soon as I find it.

btw... I’m not sure if you remember me, but I was the guy who bought your Star Keeper back on NA

45 minutes ago, GPX said:

If someone was to be carried off in a body bag while still alive/moving, I truly doubt any ordinary public person would be able to see this. There are many other possibilities to this video:

- the lady could have been hallucinating when she was in hospital.

- she could be lying 

- if true, why didn’t they just whack the person unconscious in the bag or top him up with sedatives first before carrying him away?

- if true, the person could have been carried off in an isolation room rather than to be cremated.

- if true, the person may well be unconscious but could make involuntary jerks or perhaps even a seizure.

———————————

I did mention this in an earlier post regarding infections in general. 2 things to look for:

1. Rate of transmission/spread

2. When infected, the rate of mortality and/or significant morbidity.

A lot of those worried about number 1 (in the above) are not focusing on number 2. Right about now, the corona virus is seemingly a parallel to the significance of a severe form of flu or a pneumonia. It is threatening for those over 65 but manageable for most cases under 65. 

Agreed.

I believe a lot of the video is basic stock footage from China, besides the car ride dialogue... which id still want a translator to confirm was what was actually being said... and even that could be staged.

According to my brother (PharmD), coronavirus family usually has 1 of the 2 items you mentioned above. Highly transmissible or high mortality... but rarely both at the same time. The R-0 of this thing isn’t even close to being fully realized yet. There’s still a lot of data that needs to be seen and verified. I forget his name so I can’t source it but a local news station did an interview with a well known virologist and he stated that he wouldn’t be surprised if in a year or two we learn that mortality is <1%. 
 

I don’t take the video seriously, but it definitely begs the question as to why people are making these accusations... unless smearing China is really just the goal. 
Just gotta take it all with a grain of salt. Definitely can’t believe everything you see on the net.

3 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

New Tang Dynasty is what the acronym means, but read more about what that group actually is.

Yes they are "generally factual", but they have a HEAVY BIAS against China/Chinese-government.

If they are the sole source for major news like this, it doesn't really make sense that other sources wouldn't have picked up a legitimate story of that magnitude.

100% agreed. 
 

I can’t get that idea about organ harvesting out of my head now... ugh. Did they get a whistleblower to alert people to the practice or something? Ugh that’s so God-awful. I saw a report on the camps, but I hadn’t heard anything about that.

Yet another story I want to believe isn’t true

31 minutes ago, kuriatsu said:

lambda, that sounds like some creepy pasta stuff that is unrivaled by even that majoras mask thing or the glitchy charizard.

Its downright chilling, I WANT to think that, that type of thing couldn't happen, but.....its definitely possible...

You and me both... I wanted to cut him off halfway thru the phone call and tell him I didn’t even want to hear anymore. I don’t want to believe any of this... I like believing that people are better than what this guy explained to me.

23 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

Do a search on "NTD News" -- they are a "Falun Gong" group, which China considers to be cultists and anti-china propaganda.

It would be hard to take anything they say to the negative about China at face value.

(would obviously be AT LEAST AS SKEPTICAL of any official news from China -- not saying to "trust china" with the above, just pointing out that you would have a hard time finding a more extreme anti-chinese-government biased source)

Ahh okay, when I searched it, New Tang Dynasty was what came up, so I’m guessing they’re different to an extent? They came up as relatively factual... on at the same token I could totally see China denouncing an Anti-Commie newsgroup as a cult.

 (I definitely don’t trust a YouTube video for factual news either way haha... there would have to be some far more verified sources for me to even consider this being real, but it’s a spooky narrative nonetheless).
Legitimately hope this is all bullshit.

25 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

 

My point is, you can't have an outbreak so severe that China has built a special crematory to handle the bodies on a timeline where that build-up happened so far before cases became apparent in the west.

It just doesn't line up.

 

I would be totally willing to believe that China had thugs welding doors shut from day 1.

Tooling up a crematorium on that timeline is extreme even by China's standards, unless they were already planning to incinerate their muslim-minority population as a separate crime against humanity and just happened to shift focus to severely ill elderly at the last minute.

But I don't think that would ever be their plan for their detained minorities, since they are known to be harvesting their organs for transplants.

Yes 100% agreed. This portion may have been stated oddly, so I’ll clarify. The factory always existed. There was some sort of annex added to it over summer of 19, which was what originally prompted my client to ask about it during his last visit. When he got a bit of a response from his distributor, he mentioned that the purpose of the factory has changed multiple times, but it’s completely controlled by the state. He asked about the factory because his product is made in a factory and I guess it sparked his interest? Not sure to be honest.

I recently heard about the Muslim camps. That’s some crazy stuff... I know state control matters more to China than their own people. Ugh I don’t even wanna think about organ harvesting... that’s some sickening stuff. 

This whole situation needs to end so we can all get back to life as usual without all the fear mongering. News isn’t even news anymore... even the business channels... it’s all just updates on COVID-19 stats.

54 minutes ago, jonebone said:

Well, China definitely was burning bodies and the "hospital" they constructed so quickly was more like a prison with extremely tiny cell windows.  If you went in there you were locked away for at least 2 or 3 weeks and they have photo proof of those cell conditions on the net.  I'm sure China numbers were worse than reported and most people seem to understand that at least.

The rest of the story sounds embellished though. 

I tend to agree 100%. I had to take all of this with a massive grain of salt when I heard it, and as stated, it almost sounds like some sort of movie plot. 
I did a little digging and found this:

Not that YouTube should trusted for news, but the company MTD seems to have a reasonably reliable reputation after looking into them?

I genuinely have no clue what to believe out of China. All I know is that fear tends to spread faster than the virus itself haha. Gotta keep a level head about these things.

38 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

This timeline just doesn't hold water, when you consider how many people transit the impacted areas of China and that we are JUST NOW getting confirmed cases and deaths in western countries.

I definitely don't believe the stats published by China, but I think it is extremely unlikely that people "in the know" were fleeing this particular viral outbreak as early as December.

I felt the same way when I first heard this. I tend to agree, even now, but there are a few things that I’ve considered which make the idea more plausible:

1) The distributor could have misspoken in terms of translation... meaning: the client may have thought he said Dec 5, when the distributor actually meant Dec 15. This is a definite possibility.

2) Dr. LI only recognized the issues with the patients who were dying at about Christmas, Dec 25. Given the two week incubation, that puts the initial infection back to Dec10,11. There we’re undoubtedly many infections already running rampant at that time, and there would have to be in order for a doctor to recognize a trend and see that something was out of the ordinary.

3) In the early days of the outbreak, (November? Late October?), the infection was already being witnessed, however everybody was classifying it wrong. There are a slew of reports of individuals dying in the region, and the cause of death was all attributed simply to pneumonia. (Also consider that many patients simply get a “cold” or go completely asymptomatic while further transmitting the bug). This also makes perfect sense on the timeline of Dr Lis recognition of the disease. It’s popping up for over a month or longer and pneumonia seems to have an unusually high frequency in deadly cases. Upon looking into it, Dr LI recognizes the infection as a coronavirus, but mistakes it for SARS, and finally issues a warning to close friends on Dec 30.

4) As stated in what was told to me by my client, the distributor was a worth a lot of money. When I say multi-millionaire, we’re talking 3-400 million dollars, not something like 5 million. He also had some friends in higher places, he knew many people in government, and knew insiders that were fleeing as well. I have to consider the possibility that maybe he got good information very early on and decided to act on it. This would also beg the question as to whether Dr Li was truly the first one to recognize the bug.... or if he was simply the first one to speak up. I have to consider the fact that maybe someone DID know about this beforehand and Dr Li was simply the first to put out a warning... he made a warning in a private chat, and to only a few people on Dec30... by Jan 3 he was in police custody for questioning and “punishment”... and then dies shortly after.

all in all, like I said, I’m not sure what to believe. I happen to agree with you. The timeline gets harder to swallow with the Dec 5 date, but it’s not impossible, and I have to consider that there are probably a slew of facts that everyone is entirely in the dark about... and it may remain that way forever, unfortunately.

As someone who works on Wall St, this is one hell of a day... People are in a bit of panic right now...

Couple of thoughts:

1) I live on Long Island, and when I fell asleep last night, caseload of infections was 8. It’s now 18, just hours later. Schools are closing, Universities are closing, and the local fire department was just banned from responding to suspected coronavirus cases... all in all it feels like we’re going to be dealing with this for a while, but I hope I’m wrong. If you’re wondering about when we might expect this to end, look into Farr’s Law. Every outbreak in history, from elongated ones like HIV all the way to SARS have followed the bell curve trend. China has finally began reporting #s for new cases that are beginning to drop. This begs two questions: can we trust that data? And are they getting enough tests done for that data to be correct? We may never know... but in accordance with Farr’s Law, we seem to still be in beginning stages of the bell curve here in the US. That’s the way it feels at least based on trending growth.

2) My brother is a pharmacist. We had a semi-comical conversation about the whole thing last night and he joking said he’s convinced he’ll come in contact with or even acquire the virus soon. He deals with sick people all day long, so this seems plausible. He’s not very worried about it though. In fact, my wife is a nurse, and she’s not worried at all either. The more I speak with medical professionals, the more I find them complacent with the situation and expect that eventually it will blow over once a vaccine is created. If you speak with a medical professional, and their attitude is one of logical action and calm, then I think this is something to take comfort in... it is their field after all, and they’re the trained professionals.

3) ***This one is unsettling...

I hung up with a client yesterday. He works in the US but frequently visits Wuhan China to sell his products wholesale to distributors. Over his career he became friends with 7 notable individuals. 6 are multi millionaires, and 1 is a billionaire.  He became friendly with them and began frequenting Wuhan more often. His last trip was around Sept of 19. While there, he noticed a massive “factory” in the city that had recently expanded. He asked his clients about it... all of them... nobody would answer him... “we’re not allowed to talk of it”, was their response.  
He and one of the millionaires got drunk one night and he asked about the mystery “factory” again. The guy finally cracked... somewhat. From what he understood, the factory was run by the state for various purposes...the purposes could change... but the government was extremely tight lipped about it and the people knew not to talk about it openly, and especially not with foreigners. My client thought that was odd, but it is a communist and authoritarian gov after all, so it lines up.

Fast Forward to one week ago (March 2).

My client, hadn’t received an order from China for his wares in months... his biggest buyers, the 7 Chinese men hadn’t contacted him since November. His business is hurting because of it, but with the outbreaks, he’s unwilling to fly to Wuhan like he normally would. For an entire day, he called al of them incessantly. Finally one of them answered. It was one of the millionaires. He asked how he was to see if he was okay. He was healthy but he had fled China. He was somewhere in Europe and refused to give his location. The billionaire fled as well and his whereabouts are completely unknown. The other 5 millionaires were all dead... along with most of their families. My client asked his Chinese distributor how this could have happened? With their resources, they should have been able to stay healthy and avoid risky behaviors like venturing outside. He didn’t have an answer, but said it was suspicious. My client then asked him why he left China? Now, the Chinese distributor doesn’t answer in English very well.. he uses a translator most of the time, and over a phone call it wasn’t possible. When asked why he left, he kept saying the same one word answer... “Germany”... “Germany”.... this confused the shit out of my Client so he kept asking “what about Germany?” The Chinese distributor responded..”The factory... Holocaust”... 

My client kept probing him for more information. At the end of the conversation he came away with a few things: 1) the police were doing daily checks on every citizen. If you or your family had a temperature, you were taken by a gang of 7-8 people to your home, and your door was welded shut to lock you inside. 2) the “factory” seemed to be a cremation center for dead bodies... but this is where things get even darker... the police and certain hospitals were burning infected elderly patients alive.. they’d be bound at feet and wrists and sealed in a body bag.  I’ve done some independent looking into these “facts” and was actually able to verify a bit of it. Burning infected elderly patients alive and welding infected people into their home in the ghettos seems to have happened according to independent accounts.  
His contact also gave my client one other piece of info. A government worker in his circle of friends escaped China to flee the disease. When the two friends reconnected after fleeing separately, he said that before he left, the “factory” made a purchase for incinerators... one that could get hot enough to burn a body, and could burn 2-3 bodies a day. According to the worker, Tens of Thousands of these incinerators were ordered by the government. He estimated  the ability to effectively cremate 60-100k bodies per day.

My client was justifiably horrified by all of this and asked his Chinese distributor the last question of that conversation... and this one is by far the most troubling piece of info... He asked him WHEN he fled Wuhan.... the response was “December 5th”.

December 5th means that this outbreak was taking hold WAYY before January..and it must’ve gotten bad enough by Dec 5 to cause him to flee his own country... I’ve seen estimates that the virus began running rampant as early as late September/early October. I’m beginning to wonder if that’s actually the case.. either way... I don’t think I believe a single thing coming out of China right now, especially not reported statistics. This also lines up with a statement my brother made last night. As a pharmacist he believes the outbreak has been spreading for a lot longer than most people are being told.
 

This all came from my client. I take it with a grain of salt and it almost sounds like a movie script, but then he’s never been someone to exaggerate things and he’s relatively calm and collected overall. The conversation he had with his distributor spooked him badly.
I know this might read like some conspiracy theory mumbo jumbo, but this is what I was told by someone who literally had boots on the ground in Wuhan. I’m not entirely sure what to believe, but the situation in China feels grim right now for Wuhan residents. 

Recent pickups:

I’ve been pretty into Famicom recently. Unfortunately I can only really play the games that don’t require reading much Japanese.

Famicom - Samurai Pizza Cats                 (Cart is legit, Box is repro, and easily distinguishable... dimensions are not exact, flap folds are wrong, etc., but I thought the art work was awesome and it looks great in my collection, so I’m happy for now).  I got the game for only half of what I’m seeing them sell for, so this felt like a win. The game was imported from Japan and the seller included a personalized note with the game, which was a nice touch!
** If anyone knows where I can maybe find a manual for this game, it’d be greatly appreciated! They seem to be relatively hard to come by.

Famicom - Great Battle Cyber -CIB
(Got this imported from Japan for about 20% less than I see them going for). Super Human Samurai Cyber Squad and Gundam were some favorite Saturday morning shows for me as a kid, so this one has some nostalgic appeal for me. Fun Fact: in the US, we got the TV show called Super Human Samurai Cyber Squad, which was a western translation / adaptation of Gridman: The Hyper Agent. The show was *supposedly rumored to be* somewhat inspired by Ultraman. I wonder if anyone remembers this show!

Atari 2600 - Pong Sports- Cart Only.
This was the biggest win of the week for me! I’ve been hunting this one for a year or two (my cousin had it when we were kids and I hadn’t seen it since), but I couldn’t justify paying the 25-50$ I see them selling for online. I snagged it from a local Retro store that had it on their self for only 3$!! Not sure if pricing was intentional, or an oversight, since this game is not as common as many other Telegames carts ... either way...That’s a win!

Famicom - Transformers: Mystery of Comvoy - Cart Only. Another favorite show as a kid.

Famicom - Bomberman - Cart Only

Famicom - Family Stadium ‘87 - CIB (as far as I know lol). This was one of the Namcot hard clamshell cases for Famicom games. The inserts include the manual, mailer card, stickers, and the Namcot Catalogue for other clamshell games. Pretty good looking set.

My favorites:

Chrono Trigger: (beat it earlier last year and was super stoked)

Shining Force: (Played this with my dad as a kid and the memories are what makes this game special for me)

Links Awakening: (Probably my all time favorite Zelda game, since it’s the one I probably dedicated the most time to as a kid)

LoZ: (I JUST beat this game last month... after 23 years since my first sit down with it as a kid!)

*** this next one is the one I consider to be the bane of my existence. It’s one of the few games I actually owned as a kid and never beat... that fact still haunts me to this day... I have the game buried somewhere in my dads attic and I’m now inspired to find it and beat the hell out of it after writing this post***

Elemental Gimmick Gear (EGG) for Dreamcast!

@zachjay
Hardest part of all that is the specs.

Grab a ruler and get the exact measurements of the UGC. (I forget what they are but they’re definitely smaller than standard 8x11 paper.

set the page to landscape mode in the editor: format, page layout, hit landscape.

the 8”, becomes the top to bottom height as the cover art sits in the game case. So if, for example: the UGC measures out to 7”, you move the horizontal margin limit to 7” (or 6.9) in the page layout menu (should be under •Format• again, or right there on the UI when editing the doc... you then set the length if needed, but as you can see in my boxes, there’s still nearly a cm or so of blank white leftover, so length really isn’t even an issue once the page is set to landscape mode (again in the format menu under page layout, in most editors). These box arts came from The Cover Project. Just google it and hit the first link. I don’t know what games you have but most US games are in their Database. Trike the excess white off of the top or bottom of the printout and it should fit snug without a hiccup.

Hope this helps

I’m so incredibly humbled to make this post.

It took me 7 months to even find this... (my daughter turned 1, life gets in the way hah) but it appears The Immortal John Hancock did a Bonus Video review on Spear Diver, with over 820 views! The views, general review, the comments, and shares have me so completely stoked. I enjoy John’s videos so much for their straightforward and honest reviews regarding his perspective on the collecting hobby. 
Video can be found here

At the same time, I was amused to see the game now going for 60$ on Let-Go (and Sold!) Over 50% from my initial release price for CIB.

Page found Here

I hope to continue improving my code and will hopefully be able to produce more as I find the time. A HUGE THANKS to any and all who have given my simple mini-game a chance, whether by purchase or ROM download! I can’t even express how much that means to me. Thank you all!

@zachjay

hmm this is kind of interesting. I have 25 Universal Game Cases, and all have the cover art printed to standard 8x11 paper, and they fit nearly perfectly after trimming the paper down.

Here’s what I did:

I downloaded all of the box art for my loosies from The Cover Project website. I then dumped the image to a landscape formatted word document on Open Office. I then measure the dimensions of the UGC when laid flat, and proportionally adjusted the image to within those specs Using the margin tools in the document editor... printed them out on normal paper, trimmed the excess white paper, and they fit perfectly.

Just thought I’d toss this out there in case it helps. Pic included to show examples

@Tabonga awesome! Thank you! I’ll definitely have a look!

On 2/17/2020 at 12:09 PM, Abelardo said:

 

I figured a lot on my own as I was always bombing suspect locations and burning down trees, particularly the entrances to level 8 and 9, and of course I passed on my discoveries to other kids at school, playing Zelda was kind of a collaborative effort back then 

 

Definitely a collaborative effort back in the day!! Those schoolyard advice sessions at recess were like the prehistoric predecessor to the forums and guides of the internet today haha. Great memories there.

On 2/17/2020 at 10:21 AM, Tabonga said:

Since I never had an NES I didn't play them until 2003 when they came out on the Gamecube.   I don't remember using a guide for them but it was a while ago.  (The same cannot be said for Link to the Past....)

@OP - If you haven't tried it you would probably like Golden Axe Warrior for the Sega Master System - it is probably the closest to the originals of all the many clones.  It has a much bigger world than either of those.  If you can't play the original cart (and it is kinda pricey these days) it was released on a few different compilations for later systems.   

That’s awesome! I’ve actually seen the game on the shelf at the local retro shop, but it didn’t last long. I’ll have to give them a call and see if I can get my hands on it one way or another. I’ve heard great things but I never gave it a shot yet. Definitely going to give it a play on this recommendation! Thanks!

I made a collectors thread tonight (for everything sans video games:

Mods can feel free to delete my thread, and I’ll recontribute here. 

My apologies, everyone, I didn’t realize this thread was active. My mistake.

(post reserved in case of deletion, which I have no issue with).

On 2/14/2020 at 7:51 PM, Reed Rothchild said:

I own the HTML & CSS book by the same author... alongside a library of other programming books/manuals (although I don’t consider HTML or CSS coding )

I had an interesting convo tonight with @Johnnyboy113 and decided to purchase a copy of Black Box Pizza POP tonight, but the convo led to an idea I had that I’d love to ask the rest of this community:

Collectors are rarely a “single pedigree breed”

What else does everyone collect besides VideoGames?!

I’ll start by giving my own answer:

I collect 3 things:

1)Antique Fishing Lures

2)Guns

3)VideoGames

The fishing lure in the picture is known as the Moonlight Dreadnought. (Circa 1918.) Only a few hundred are known to exist and this one took me 5 years to hunt down. The last one to sell (with box) in auction went for over 30k.

What do you all collect?!  

@G-type just wanna put a quick thank you for this thread out to you! Atari is a passion of mine and this thread is so appreciated by myself, as I’m sure many others. I’ll be taking a look at possible high scores I can achieve and post! Thanks so much for this!

Welcome!!

52 minutes ago, GPX said:

The intrinsic value of the original data on the EPROM you’re talking about is likely only relevant to those who seek it:

- gamers who want to play on original items

- preservationists (from a functional perspective)

There are other types of buyers though, examples:

- preservationists (from a physical condition perspective)

- collectors to display for art/nostalgia

———————

So with all the above, I can see collecting would still carry on even if one day the disc/bit rot will occur to the majority of the games. 

Agreed 100%. So I guess the real question lies in which camp the holders of the games now fall into... and if there will ever be a shift in the camps each owner collects by as time goes on.

7 hours ago, TylerBarnes said:

I do not feel soldering / desoldering / repairing such a relic in that way would be a good thing. Preventing, yes. But taking a soldering gun to this cart I feel is backwards to the point of having one. Having it all original as much as possible is what I would prefer even with bit rot. 

Though it is likely entirely possible use probes to reflash the chip in circuit. So if you could dump without desoldering, you could uv erase and reflash it without any desoldering. 

Excellent point... was Waiting for someone to bring this up. Binary examination upon reflash would be imperative for me to ensure every byte was true to original hex (if I ever owned one, and if I ever needed to do so)... That considered... I think preservation of a True Binary could be as important to the continuity for anyone who may ever encounter this problem in the future.