You are right, QR codes are very easy to decode if you have them raw, even the C64 should do it in a few seconds, maybe a minute for one of those 22 giant ones. The hard part is image processing when decoding a camera picture - and that can be done on the C64 too if it has enough time and some external memory (or disks for virtual memory). People have even emulated a 32-bit RISC processor on the poor thing, and made it boot Linux.

In almost all microwaves, the control circuitry or mechanical switches only ever switch 2-3 power circuits: motor+fan(+bulb sometimes separately) and the heating (transformer+diode+capacitor+magnetron) high voltage circuit. It can therefore only switch the heat between 0 and max, usually in a slow (15-30s period) PWM cycle (that hopefully does not coincide with the tray rotation period). The inputs can be manual only, or sometimes there is also a scale, moisture sensor and microphone, along with thermal fuses for safety.

I think the pizza setting is just generic medium one with short 50% cycles to allow the heat to spread. The popcorn setting can be much more interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Limpr1L8Pss

I have a short story too (see below the oath quote). It does not include women because the oath text does not either. You can rewrite it to include gender mechanics (making the patient a woman, perhaps) but it’s probably not worth the effort. For starters, appendoctomy hadn’t been invented back then.

“Could I fuck a female doctor instead?”

“To my knowledge, there aren’t any in all of Pelopones. There is quite a selection of gay men, though. A nearby one is crossdressing, actually.”

You read it wrong. I will include all of it for context, and add commentary. Third paragraph is relevant.

I swear by Apollo Healer, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this indenture.

Religious preamble as standard for its time

To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture; to impart precept, oral instruction, and all other instruction to my own sons, the sons of my teacher, and to indentured pupils who have taken the Healer’s oath, but to nobody else.

Medical knowledge should be free! You hear that, America?
Also, it’s not “first do no harm”, it’s “first respect your teacher”.

I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgment, and I will do no harm or injustice to them.[6] Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art. I will not use the knife, not even, verily, on sufferers from stone, but I will give place to such as are craftsmen therein.

See, no doctors with knife! You can get another “craftsman” to operate on you but better make sure he is the son of a doctor, because all others have never received medical training (see end of second paragraph) or taken this no-knife oath.

Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.

Do no harm, also don’t rape and keep secrets. All good…
Wait! "outside my profession in my intercourse with men”
Every male MD is gay, confirmed

Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain for ever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I break it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.[5]
– Translation by W.H.S. Jones

Well, this is weird. Imagine you come to an Ancient Greek doctor with abdominal pain…

“One of your intestines went naughty and needs to be removed.”

“Can you do it?”

“No way, I’m a doctor, not a surgeon. Hekates the butcher could help you. He’s great with the knife but I don’t think he can tell the intestines apart.”

“What happens if he gets it wrong?”

“You die.”

“Are you sure it’s that intestine?”

“Most likely. It will not hurt to remove, anyway. The appendix is nothing but a troublemaker.”

“It doesn’t hurt?”

“The procedure certainly DOES hurt but it’s better than what you’d be going through without it.”

“Can you at least instruct Hekates?”

“No, we doctors cannot divulge the secrets of our craft, except to our children. The only doctor I know has a son is 3 city-states away, and the son is terrible at cutting.”

“Can you adopt my son and teach him about the appendix? I could then have him instruct Hekates.”

“I’ll gladly become a stepfather if you let me fuck you…”

“I’m not gay but I guess it’s better than dying…”

“Deal. Meet me after my office hours, I cannot have intercourse with men on the job.”

surgeon

Really? The Hippocratic Oath originally included “I will not use the knife”. A surgeon is very limited without a knife.

Edit: I read the thing and it basically says that doctors and surgeons are separate professions: doctors MUST take the oath while surgeons MUST NOT; this also prevents surgeons from obtaining medical knowledge unless they are a son (or presumably a daughter) of a doctor.

Keyword: cirno head empty

Because

1. When the internet was rolling out, a decentralized, open, best-effort solution of TCP/IP thankfully won over telephone companies’ centralized system proposal
2. IPv6 is still not universal for some damn reason
3. Onion addresses solve these problems but good luck getting everyone aboard with Tor
4. You always trade anonymity for reachability, and with the amount of threats, NAT and firewalls have been put up to make it harder for unsolicited requests to reach you by default

Yeah, it’s fun but the temperature needs to be correct. With rising temperature, the paper goes black, light gray, brown and then glowing orange.

The IMU probably drifts by some small percentge but an intermittent GPS signal every few kilometers should ensure that it never gets too far off course.

I am not aware of any receipt printers using lasers - thermal printers have an array of resistors that get hot when necessary. I know how a laser printer works and it is hard to explain in 12 or so words. Inkjets are way easier, you can just say “squirt squirt oops”. Anyway…

1. A photosensitive drum gets a negative electrostatic charge.
2. A laser shining through a rotating prism scans lines across the drum’s surface. This removes charge from parts of the drum that should not be covered in toner.
3. A high-voltage corona wire inside the toner reservoir charges an amount of toner positively.
4. The charged drum rotates past the corona wire, getting covered in toner where its negative charge remains.
5. Paper is pushed against the drum and the powdery toner is transferred to it.
6. The paper continues into a fuser, a little oven where a heating element briefly makes the toner so hot that it melts, its powder particles making a permanent bond among themselves and with the paper. (The heater is usually stationary and heats the paper from below. The fuser drum that pushes paper against the heater can get sticky and pick up some of the toner, making images repeat down the page. This is the most common failure mode that cannot be resolved through regular maintenance such as replacing the toner cartridge and printing cleaning pages. However, almost all laser printers have a cheap fuser module or its drum available so it is usually worth replacing.)

Laser printers more accurately “bake paper so that number powder sticks to it”

I wonder if there is a notification ad blocker with community-submittted sets of regex patterns that root users can use.

Finally we know…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hV13wqVtLk / https://piped.video/watch?v=-hV13wqVtLk

Here is the auto-generated transcript (for research purposes only)

oh isn’t it a beautiful day how cutie
the sun’s bright the birds are singing
nicely it’s a good as day as any to go
and touch
grass yeah I I know I know um it’s
important though I need to go to the
store it’s been a while and you know
replenish the
pantry um it’ll be okay though I promise
I’ll be back soon it shouldn’t take too
long and no no you don’t you please
don’t come with me I can touch enough
grass for the both of us and I promise
I’ll be back soon okay nothing bad’s
going to
happen but in case I don’t come back
please feed
mocha and take care of her for
me
no I’ve got to go now before I check it
out I’ll I’ll see you later okay you
just stay nice and safe inside
okay good
cutie all right that was easy got
everything I need yeah okay I’ve got to
hurry home now uh I’ve probably got to
switch out the cuties
bandages maybe we refill the ice pack
and ah goodness oh I didn’t see that
puddle it was surprisingly deep and now
my boots are
muddy that’s okay though once I get home
I can wipe them huh holy goodness
gracious why is no one watching where
they’re going right now I almost dropped
the eggs all right well that’s okay
anyways it’s that a car please bra
out think I’m okay oh no not another one
the in my
ankles no please stop this way please no
happens I need to get
home if I can make it
home

Die Sammlung wurde von einem deutschen Verlag verbreitet, die Bilder sind aber meistens US-Amerikanisch basiert (z. B. Bilder von Erde sehen immer so 🌎 aus). Ich habe nur drei deutschsprächige Bilder da gefunden! Denn sie komprimiert nur etwa 5-10 MB (abhängig von Methode) enthält, wurden auf dem CD-Version ein paar Stücke Shareware für Bildbearbeitung und Spiele mit reingeworfen, zusammen ist das aber nur etwa 33 MB, oder 5% Kapazität des CD-ROMs. Trotzdem haben sie mindestens 3 solche Volumen separat verkäuft! Und für 30 DM auch kleine Bücher mit Bildindex (denn sie von Disketten langsam laden) und Einleitung zum englischsprächigen Software. Die erste habe ich, die originale Datein aber nicht. Die Satire gegen IBM ist überall, meistens aber um 052-065, was ironisch ist, denn das Buch sich „5000 Cliparts für PC und Amiga“ nennt.

If you look at the collection, it is apparent that they often group unrelated clipart into one picture. Therefore, the four icons, the penguin, the bow and the “comic” panel are likely completely irrelevant to each other. Despite being bundled with DOS software, the monochrome pictures are likely best suited for the Mac’s high-res monochrome screen, and many seem to have been made by Mac fans mocking PC users in comics like these. They would hot have known about Tux the Linux penguin back then so it’s a generic penguin that does not represent Linux (but appears next to a robotic Mac in one picture??)

As for how the comic is supposed to be funny, I’d guess that the point is how difficult setting up a PC used to be(?) No idea if the thought bubble with the pirate is relevant but it is in a dithered area, meaning it’s likely not meant to be cut and pasted elsewhere.

⛨ ☭ ⇑⥣̂ ⚒ ☾̙╳☽̘

A̸̢͉̱̗̱̮̞̥͖͛̈́͐̾͌̽̅̋̆͐̐͑̂͡Â̵̻̟̯̙̒Ȧ̸̭͍̲͓͔̳̲͔͓̟̆̿̉͜͝A̶̗͈͍͈̝͙͕̭͉̟̗͊̽͛̑̑̽͒͐̕͘͡͡ͅA̵̳̖̫͕̰̦̙̍̒͋̽̀̑̊̊̈́̿̕͘͡Ȑ̷̲͙̻̈́͝Ģ̶̰̜͖̖̞̠̘̞̈́̔̃͌̌̓̉̾̐͠H̵̹͔̤͕̲͓̦̫̙̼͌̽̾͐

We did it, Lemmy