Alyssa Brown
LightNews LightNews
banner
starscaptain.bsky.social
Alyssa Brown
@starscaptain.bsky.social
38 followers 53 following 18 posts
Comms at UVA Data Science. MA in Media Studies student at UVA. Regal Unlimited pass holder and sci-fi enthusiast. Boldness is All 🤖🪐🚀✨
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Alyssa Brown
vingtroiseize.bsky.social
#arcade #videogames #80s #90s #Geek
December 13, 2025 at 2:07 PM
starscaptain.bsky.social
spotify wrapped came in
Artist 2 of the year is Sleeping at Last and Sleep Token is number 3.
December 3, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Brown
knapparcade.bsky.social
53 years ago today, Atari released Pong

Developed by Al Alcorn, he installed the prototype machine at Andy Capp's Tavern in Sunnyvale, CA. A week later, the owner called to report it was broken. When Al went in to fix it he found that the coin box was jammed full

#pong #atari #arcade #1970s
November 30, 2025 at 12:36 AM
starscaptain.bsky.social
After four years and countless hours of research, the impossible happened: Allied Leisure's Robot came home with me. I had to recreate the flyer to celebrate 🤖
Recreation of Allied’s Robot arcade flyer, posing next to the machine. Original Robot flyer, “Robot plays against itself.”
November 3, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Brown
retrocomps.bsky.social
The 1977 Coleco Telstar Arcade answered the question, "What if a game console looked like a Wild West take on the TARDIS console?"
A brown triangular prism. The top side is used to for the triangular top-loading cartridges (this cartridge has Road Race, Tennis, and Quick Draw). The facing side is the pinball interface, with two paddles, a rotary switch, 'Slam Left', 'Slam Right', a skill selector, a power switch, and a reset button. The far side is a racing interface, with steering wheel and gear selector. The right side is shooting game interface, with a realistic looking sidearm and three buttons in holes. The interface panels alternate woodgrain and faux metal.
November 3, 2025 at 12:05 PM
starscaptain.bsky.social
The work is mysterious and important #Severance
Halloween costume of Helly R standing in an elevator. Reaching out to press a button inside an elevator.
October 31, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Brown
retrocomps.bsky.social
Man, 80s computer books made even non-relational databases look fun. (Source.)
The cover to the book, "Writing Your Own Program: Creating A Database: Adventure Game." Each line is in its own font. The computer (a black affair with rainbow keys" depicts a scuba diver swimming, handcuffs in hand, as it is attacked by a giant cross octopus; the painted octopus is literally bursting out of the monitor. A tiny little banner in the corner states: "For Commodore 64 And Apple IIe Computers"
October 10, 2025 at 12:05 PM
starscaptain.bsky.social
I loved doing this Q&A with @histoftech.bsky.social on the end of AOL dial-up 🌏…☎️💻
uvadatascience.bsky.social UVA School of Data Science @uvadatascience.bsky.social · Sep 29
On September 30, AOL is pulling the plug on its dial-up internet service. We spoke with @histoftech.bsky.social about what its departure signifies for the fast paced, tech-obsessed world we now occupy.

Read our Q&A with Mar Hicks here: https://bit.ly/3IIPqgh
Pixel art illustration showing a disconnected link between a globe and a vintage computer setup, with a message at the top reading "Dialing No Longer In Progress."
September 29, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Brown
kevinkhu.bsky.social
I gave a talk about my paper last month with this as the title slide. Can you tell I recently watched #Murderbot? 🔭 #Exoplanets
A heavily modified version of a screenshot of the show-within-a-show "The Rise & Fall of Sanctuary Moon" in the Apple TV+ series Murderbot. The title now reads "The Rise & Fall of Sub-Neptune" to reflect a recent paper by Kevin Hardegree-Ullman in which the population of sub-Neptune exoplanets experiences a rise toward cool stars, then a fall when you reach stars cooler than about 3750 Kelvin.
September 24, 2025 at 11:34 PM
starscaptain.bsky.social
Sleep Token 📷 First Horizon Coliseum
Vessel of Sleep Token with his arms held wide as he strikes a pose during Granite.
September 23, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Brown
retrocomps.bsky.social
"If you want a computer that won't be obsolete in a few years, buy an MSX. If you want one of the best-selling MSX computers in Japan, buy a Toshiba HX10." (Source.)
A full page photo of two computers, side by side; dense ad copy down below. The left computer has a towering 1:5 ratio monitor; the right computer has a squat 4:3 monitor. The left computer reads in vector font: "I'm a Toshiba HX-10. I've got the best bits from every other home computer..." And then it goes on for many hundreds of words about its features, comparing itself favorably to the Commodore 64, the BBC Micro, the Acorn Electron, and the Oric Atmos. The right computer, a not-so disguised Acorn, reads: "Wow. With a specification list like that, no wonder you've got 64K memory."
September 22, 2025 at 6:05 AM
starscaptain.bsky.social
How to Send a Bot Off on a Rant? Just Mention Star Trek (The New York Times, 1999)
Text reads, “The following are excerpts from a conversation between Robby Garner’s 1998 Loebner Prize Competition in Sydney, Australia While Albert did not merit the $100,000 grand prize, to be bestowed on the first computer whose responses are indistinguishable from a human’s, the chatterbot did win first place for ‘most human computer.’ To disguise its identity from the judges, the chatterbot used the name Jim Lewis.” The conversation between the Judge and the chatterbot is then featured.
September 6, 2025 at 10:32 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Brown
uvadatascience.bsky.social
Happy first day of classes, Hoos! 🧡💙 #UVA #DataScience
A student wearing a UVA Recreation logo listens to a lecture. Four students listening to a lecture with their laptops out. Two students with UVA hats on look on at a lecture being given.
August 26, 2025 at 2:52 PM
starscaptain.bsky.social
Somehow pulled a Fuji KM-2 on Skycards this weekend
Photograph on Fuji KM-2 on Skycards with 5,990 XP rarity displayed Card of Fuji KM-2. First flown in 1962.
August 17, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Brown
culturecrave.co
AOL is shutting down its dial-up internet after 34 years on September 30
August 12, 2025 at 12:04 AM
Reposted by Alyssa Brown
reactorsff.bsky.social
Three years ago, @davidagranoff.bsky.social discussed parallels between Severance and the works of Philip K. Dick. Now he turns to season two:

#Severance

reactormag.com/i-am-a-perso...
I Am a Person and You Are Not: Philip K. Dick Themes in Season Two of Severance - Reactor
The world of Severance might look awful familiar to fans of PKD...
reactormag.com
August 11, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Brown
jhereia.bsky.social
Are you interested in learning more about how gender is shaped by digitization and platform governance? Join us on Aug 28 11am EDT for the 3rd event in the Gender & Tech Online Talk Series with Julie Owono & Coleen Carrigan. Free & open to the public. Register here: virginia.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
The image displays important information about the Gender and Tech Online Talk Series:Platform governanceAugust, 11:00am - 12:15pm EDTJulie Owono - Internet Sans Frontières & Meta Oversight BoardColeen Carrigan - UVA Engineering and SocietyModerated by Yasmin Curzi.There is a QR code for registration and two logos: DTD Lab and SDS-UVA
August 11, 2025 at 3:37 PM
starscaptain.bsky.social
DUNE paintings by John Schoenherr | Best of Omni Science Fiction No. 2 (1981)
A magazine page that reads, “Dune, Here is the moon is your friend, the sun your enemy. The painting features the sandworm and beautiful nighttime desert scenery. A large painting the features the sandworm, and a caption with paintings below that reads, “Out the haze came sandworms, a massed wall of them, each with troops of Fremen riding to attack.” More paintings, the Baron on one side. And other, a bleak desert scene. It is nightfall, a green hue casts its shadow on soldiers on the Sardaukar. A painting of Paul riding atop of a sandworm.
August 10, 2025 at 12:38 AM
Reposted by Alyssa Brown
reactorsff.bsky.social
We're delighted to reveal the cover for @zanzjan.bsky.social's Ode to the Half-Broken: a new hopepunk novel following a robot reckoning with their past and choosing a new future 🤖🌱

reactormag.com/cover-reveal...
Revealing Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer - Reactor
A new hope-punk novel (with a cyborg dog!) arriving April 2026
reactormag.com
August 5, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Brown
tedstryk.bsky.social
Jupiter and Io from Voyager 2 on June 25, 1979.
Jupiter and Io from Voyager 2
July 25, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Brown
nocontexttrek1.bsky.social
Star Trek The Original Series scene. Spock is onboard the Enterprise and shown holding a terrifying alien creature. A MONSTER! (The creature is a small dog, probably some kind of terrier, wearing costume of extra fur and a unicorn horn headband) Closed caption reads, "[music]"
July 22, 2025 at 11:31 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Brown
retrocomps.bsky.social
"Paul, we're doing an article about data compression techniques. We just need something that illustrates compressing data." "Say no more, Cliff."
A splash page from the October 1993 issue of Compute magazine. Floating in a vaporwave plane, in the center of a piece of graph paper, a giant ebony floating head is quadrated off; but is missing the pieces in the center. Around the head is the number 4, a triangle, the symbol for pi, a mouse cursor, and various lines of navigation. Behind the head is a sunset. Into the head's open hole flies a microchip, a semicirclular prism, a pole, and a chessboard.
July 6, 2025 at 12:05 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Brown
marthawells.com
If you missed it, there's a new Murderbot short story at: reactormag.com/rapport-mart...
Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy - Reactor
Perihelion and its crew embark on a dangerous new mission at a corporate-controlled station in the throes of a hostile takeover… Novelette | 7,540 words They were still three hours out when Perihelion...
reactormag.com
July 18, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Brown
thespaceshipper.com
The Black Hole (1979): The practical model of the USS Cygnus was filmed in front of a starfield, not a blue screen ☝️
The Black Hole model set with a starfield The USS Cygnus model in front of a starfield
July 15, 2025 at 10:11 PM
starscaptain.bsky.social
The Honeywell Kitchen Computer
• At the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California
• In the 1969 Neiman-Marcus Christmas Book
• In the December 12, 1969 edition of Life magazine
Panel of the Honeywell Kitchen Computer with the silhouette of a smart phone across its white surface. Magazine page that features a woman in an apron with one hand on the kitchen computer. Text reads, “If she can only cook as well as Honeywell can computer.” A woman sits in a chair across from her kitchen computer featuring a very long scroll of paper cluttering a kitchen space.
July 18, 2025 at 12:01 AM