Brandon Arnold

Hacker relocated from the Gulf South, engineer, retro tech enthusiast. #CoinOpCollection #Meta

[Brandon Arnold @brandonarnold]

So, out of 100 normal people (in which narcissists are represented about the same as the general population), 10-25 would be conspiratorial thinkers, whereas out of 100 narcissists (where a narcissist is someone who gets identified as such by how they answer a questionnaire), 15-30 would be.

Clearly by the comments, intelligence is not a predictor

[Pramod @pr4m0d]

This is it, the biggest release ever in the history of #MiSTer! This game pushes the performance limits of the DE10-nano to the max.

Enjoy this in time for the #MortalKombat2 movie in theaters today.

#CoinOpCollection

[International Cyber Digest @IntCyberDigest]

‼️🇺🇸 Utah is about to become the first US state to legally target VPN use as part of online age verification. The law goes into effect Wednesday, May 6, 2026.

🔴 If you are physically located in Utah, you count as a Utah user, regardless of whether you use a VPN, proxy, or any other tool to disguise your location. Websites are now legally responsible for age-verifying you anyway.
🔴 Sites that handle "material harmful to minors" are banned from sharing instructions on how to use a VPN, or from offering any means to bypass geofencing.

The EFF calls this a "liability trap." Websites cannot reliably tell where a VPN user actually is, so the safest legal move is either to block every known VPN IP outright, or to force ID-based age verification on every visitor worldwide. Either path subjects millions of users to invasive identity checks, regardless of where they actually live.

The Cato Institute put it bluntly. When a policy can be defeated by a privacy tool millions of people legitimately use, the policy is the problem.

The collateral damage is, as always, the people who actually need VPNs:

🔴 Journalists protecting sources
🔴 Domestic abuse survivors hiding from stalkers
🔴 Activists in hostile environments
🔴 Remote workers tunneling into corporate networks
🔴 Travelers banking from abroad
🔴 Anyone who simply does not want their ISP, employer, or data brokers reading their traffic

This is not staying in Utah. The UK's Children's Commissioner has called VPNs a "loophole that needs closing." France's Minister Delegate for AI and Digital Affairs has named VPNs as "the next topic on my list."

The EU is rolling out age verification across all 27 member states by end of 2026, with EVP Henna Virkkunen openly admitting they have no plan for VPN bypass yet.

Utah is leading by example.

EFF: "Attacks on VPNs are, at their core, attacks on the tools that enable digital privacy."

[Pramod @pr4m0d]

Short update on the T Unit progress as some people have been waiting. Basically, most if not all the graphics are complete, however, there are some palette corruption bugs, not sure what it is about, but will take a look. There's some flickering, maybe due to performance related issues, but will investigate.

Sound partially working on the ADPCM, still have a bit to do on the DCS sound board though, been working for a few months on it, it is pretty large. Stay Tuned!

#CoinOpCollection #Midway

[Brandon Arnold @brandonarnold]

@FBXGargoyle I haven’t seen the idiots you’re talking about, and I’m not about to search for them.

[Brandon Arnold @brandonarnold]

@ToddsNerdCave @JudgeDrokk 😅

[Brandon Arnold @brandonarnold]

@realLauraLenti @Ronxyz00 Did you happen to see that red 37% on the right side, to the right of “Postgraduate Study?”

[Brandon Arnold @brandonarnold]

@Apogee_Ent Tommy Talarico! 😆 jk, Koji Kondo

[America’s Ghost @planterspunch7]

@RadioFreeTom Moderate conservatives were aghast by this “hysterical” opinion piece before the election 🤡

[Brandon Arnold @brandonarnold]

@TianaHRR I could have written your own point more eloquently, and I don’t even agree with it.

[Brandon Arnold @brandonarnold]

@scottjohnson @icomaki2 This J5 account’s replies MUST be AI generated! They sound so much like Grok.

[Brandon Arnold @brandonarnold]

@VBkramnik @WesleySo_ Ah, that word “illegal.” You love the litigious route, because even the winner of a court case will pay dearly for it. That fear has enabled your hate to go this far.

[Brandon Arnold @brandonarnold]

@SusanPolgar @FIDE_chess @ECUonline I don’t think it’s a matter of speculation who you are referring to and whether harassment-related mental health decline was a factor in Danya’s passing. I think you are (rightly) afraid of the punishing legal ramifications to stating basic facts. This fear is partly to blame.

[Nemo @akaNemsko]

In watching the clip below of Danya's last stream and hearing the pain in his voice, how deeply the baseless accusations affected him, I am left so mad at what we all allowed to happen right in front of us.

It's time to stop worrying about the backlash. I am calling on the FIDE EDC to remove Vladimir Kramnik from the FIDE record books, revoke his title, and disqualify his world championship. Chess is one of the most beloved games in the world and should be a place for kindness and inclusion. It should be unilaterally unacceptable to use a platform that Chess has given you to bully, harass, and slander a colleague. What Kramnik has done to David Navara, Hikaru, and Danya, and others can not be tolerated.

It is up to our community and the governing body to set an example that this type of behavior will have consequences. Make it known loud and clear that Chess stands against these hateful acts. If you do them intentionally and maliciously there will be no place for you in our game.

FIDE and it's EDC must establish clear policies moving forward around the safety of it's players both in person and digitally. The events leading up to this tragedy happened in broad daylight over the last 18 months. They could have been stopped. Nothing like this can ever be allowed to happen again.

[Warp Records @WarpRecords]

20 years.

[Brandon Arnold @brandonarnold]

@retroaccess Nice! Definitely a few devices of mine that use that port.

[Jesus Freakin Congress @TheJFreakinC]

The USDA website now says “Radical Left Democrats shut down the government.”

On a federal .gov site.

That’s not “communication.” That’s propaganda… the kind we used to point to in authoritarian regimes and say, “Wow, glad that’s not us.”

Well… surprise. It’s us.

We’ve officially entered the “state propaganda, but make it agriculture” phase of American democracy.

[Brandon Arnold @brandonarnold]

@astuyve Guess that makes me a man baby.

[Pramod @pr4m0d]

Thanks to @brandonarnold on our team for helping fix my TMNT2 board that just went broke as we were making the core initially in April. For learning, posting the diagnosis and fix here:

1) Board presented symptom of watchdog trigger with gray screen. Unknown cause as board looked clean and no visible damage on either side.

2) With a logic probe, DTACK and other pins checked on the 68k. DTACK held low continuously, address bus floating for most pins.

3) I know from making the core that the 53997 controls the DTACK and decoding/ bus selection on the 68K. In the first image, the 53997 is the PAL on the right, the one on the left is another PAL, used to do the same thing for sound and the Z80 bus.

4) Logic probe on the 53997 indicated that there was no VCC on pin 24. however, on the neighboring PAL, the last pin had VCC. The nearby capacitor C1 was verified.

5) Looking at the back of the board under the microscope found that the VCC on the 53997 was not actually on the pad. Seems like a cold solder situation and the pad got lifted. This was an original socket soldered on in the conversion process.

6) Bridged VCC to neighboring PAL to fix the issue.

7) TURTLES ONCE AGAIN WORKING perfectly!

I am also happy to report that the original hardware glitches observed on the board are in our core too. :). It is amazing what you can do with experienced folks on the team and amazing work from Furrtek with his decaps and information!

We will further refine the audio from here and look for any loose ends to improve the core in another cycle. Thanks again @brandonarnold for helping fix the board, and the rest of the team and Furrtek.

Of course, don't forget to check out our FREE core here for the pocket and MiSTer.
https://t.co/ZJZvHehqIs

#CoinOpCollection

[Ron Filipkowski @RonFilipkowski]

July 24, 2024