NERD HEAVEN: You can now download the source code for all Infocom text adventure classics.

The code was uploaded by Jason Scott, an archivist who is the proprietor of textfiles.com. His website describes itself as “a glimpse into the history of writers and artists bound by the 128 characters that the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) allowed them”—in particular those of the 1980s. He announced the GitHub uploads on Twitter earlier this week.

The games were written in the LISP-esque “Zork Implementation Language,” or ZIL, which you could be forgiven for not being intimately familiar with already. Fortunately, Scott also tweeted a link to a helpful manual for the language on archive.org.

Dive in and you’ll find that things are very different now than they were then. At the time Infocom was active, personal computers did not have a widely shared architecture, so the path ZIL’s architects took was to allow game creators to write instructions for a virtual machine called the Z-machine, which was then brought to the various platforms of the day. There are interpreters available today for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android, among other platforms.

After 30-plus years, it sure would be nice to finally beat “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

WE DON’T. WE REALLY DON’T. 2020 Candidate Andrew Yang Says U.S. Needs a Value Added Tax (VAT).

SHOCKER: Man arrested at St. Patrick’s Cathedral with gas cans, lighter fluid, butane lighter is philosophy professor, PhD candidate.

METFORMIN UPDATE: Diabetes drug Metformin may fight heart disease, study says. “Metformin could reverse left ventricular hypertrophy, thickening of the heart muscle, which can cause heart disease, according to research published Tuesday in the European Heart Journal. . . . ‘The findings from our study reinforce the notion that metformin has the potential to improve cardiovascular health, offering the possibility of improving life expectancy of patients,’ Lang said. ‘From the standpoint of clinical practice, this drug is already approved and well tolerated with minimal side effect.'”

AT AMAZON, Shop Amazon Warehouse Deals – Deep Discounts on Open-box and Used Products.

Plus, Shop Amazon Outlet – Clearance, Markdowns and Overstock Deals.

MICHAEL LEDEEN: Is Notre Dame a Bad Omen or a Sign of the Strength of Western Civilization?

IT DEPENDS WHO YOU ARE EXPOSING: The pro-life activists who filmed a Planned Parenthood staffer negotiating the price of fetal body parts in a crowded restaurant will soon find out if they have to face trial:

First Amendment attorney Matthew Strugar predicted a liberal San Francisco jury will convict Daleiden and Merritt even if the evidence comes out in their favor – greenlighting judges to chip away at the investigative tools available to journalists. “CMP to me are despicable actors who seem to be grossly misstating what happened,” Strugar, who is not affiliated with the case, said by phone from Los Angeles. But he said the group’s undercover methods “are tried-and-true investigative techniques” long used by journalists in the United States to gather evidence of misconduct, from animal abuse on farms to auto mechanics ripping off customers.

The sad part is that the mainstream media and their lawyers — who have a lot to lose here — are avoiding fighting for the right to do this kind of undercover filming because of their liberal pro-Planned Parenthood agenda. If you’re looking for honesty and commitment to principles, the media bar ain’t what it used to be. But secret film of Mitt Romney talking about the 47% who won’t vote for him? No problem.

GOOD NEWS: Brittany Hunter: The Financial State of Unions After Janus. “While it was initially unclear how exactly this ruling would affect agency fees and union membership, new numbers reported to the Labor Department have shed some light on its impact so far. According to the numbers disclosed, the AFSCME and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) lost a combined total of 210,000 agency fee payers during 2018, showing just how big of a role coercion plays in their revenue stream.”

THIS PRETTY MUCH SUMS THINGS UP: Keep Digging Dems! You’ll Find that Pony Somewhere in the Manure Pile Known as the Mueller Report.

JOHN HINDERAKER on the ongoing collusion meme: “One of the Democrats’ basic problems is that ‘attempting’ to obstruct the investigation doesn’t make a lot of sense. If Trump had really wanted to obstruct the investigation, he could simply have terminated it. And Mueller acknowledges that the administration fully cooperated with the investigation in every way. So the ‘attempts to obstruct’ come down to Trump expressing outrage at the fact that a baseless, partisan investigation was hampering his administration. Arguably Trump should have brought the Mueller farce to an end, but he didn’t.”

SO LONG AS IT’S NOT FROM THERANOS: Fingerprick PSA Test Has In-Office Results in 12 Minutes.

WELL, THAT’S A TAKE: MSNBC’S Nicolle D Wallace says, “We know it wasn’t a criminal conspiracy with the Russians, but then what was it? Because Robert Mueller spent 22 months looking at it, and if there was nothing, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have taken 22 months to say nothing.”

Keep digging, there’s must be a pony under there somewhere.

Video at the Twitter link.

A REASONABLE MISTAKE: ‘Patient zero’ of Michigan measles outbreak thought he was immune because he had it before: Doctor. “He was told he was immune because he had the measles [when he was younger], that’s why initially he completely discounted his [the doctor’s] suggestion.”

BLUE CITY BLUES: New York City’s Population Dips for First Time in Over a Decade.

International migration into New York City’s five boroughs tapered off, as more residents left, shrinking the city’s population in 2017 and 2018, according to U.S. Census Bureau numbers released Thursday.

New York’s population dropped 0.47% to 8.4 million by July 2018, compared with the previous year. Census officials previously estimated that New York’s population grew by about 7,000 in 2017, but revised figures show it actually dipped by about 38,000, a 0.45% decline from the prior year.

The city isn’t run as well as it once was, to say the least.

HATRED OF JOURNALISTS TURNING TO VIOLENCE, WATCHDOG WARNS. This Agence France Presse article at Yahoo has a photo of Trump at a presser atop it for the obligatory “Orange Man Bad” vibe, but note this:

The period since President Donald Trump’s election in 2016 has been one of the “American journalism community’s darkest moments”, the report added.

It linked the president’s “notorious anti-press rhetoric” with “terrifying harassment” aimed particularly at women and journalists of colour.

– Murder and threats –

“Never before have US journalists been subjected to so many death threats or turned so often to private security firms for protection,” it added.

“Hatred of the media is now such that a gunman walked into the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland, in June and killed four journalists and one other staff member,” the report added.

As Insta-co-blogger Charles Glasser noted at the beginning of the month, “That’s all fine and dandy…except it’s a strawman: The shooter had in fact targeted the staff members over a long-running feud with the newspaper that stemmed over a 2012 defamation lawsuit. Even Reuters was forced to discipline an editor who repeated the talking point.”

Charles’ post was headlined, “Repeat a Lie Often Enough.” And the lie goes on.

A NEW LEATHERMAN MULTITOOL with magnetic locking.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Robert Francis O’Rourke Hates America (But Wants to Be President Anyway).

WHATCHOO THINK OF ME NOW? Bendgate 2.0: Samsung’s $2,000 foldable phone is already breaking. “There are numerous reports of Samsung’s $2,000 device breaking after a single day, sometimes due to poor durability, other times due to user error.”

NEW SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” CONTINUES TO PAY DIVIDENDS: Ocasio-Cortez Makes A ‘How My Green New Deal Saved The World’ Video.

Is there a cameo appearance by (either Obama’s or Orwell’s) Julia?

TO BE FAIR, IT’S BUZZFEED:

OKAY, I WROTE THIS FOR USA TODAY right after the Barr press conference, but they don’t want to run it because it doesn’t incorporate the Mueller Report. Since I don’t have time to read and digest the report this afternoon (I’m teaching two 2-hour classes back to back), I’m just posting it here. Enjoy!

_____

BILL BARR: ADULT IN THE ROOM

Glenn Harlan Reynolds

Bill Barr’s press conference regarding the Mueller Report release was notable for both style and substance.

On style, he reminded us that in an age of shrieking media hysteria and out-of-control twitter-pols, there is still a place for stolid, stodgy, rule-following bureaucrats. Standing at the lectern with his lieutenants behind him, he calmly and carefully explained what was in the report, what had been redacted and why, and what the applicable laws and rules were. He didn’t play to the media, or to the social media. In tone and manner he was, well, boring.

It was refreshing.

On substance, he made clear that, after two years of investigation, thousands of subpoenas, and endless media speculation, the “Russian collusion” story was, as some of us had noted all along, a story about nothing. No member of Trump’s campaign — and in fact, no American anywhere — colluded with the Russians to influence the campaign.

In Barr’s words: “As the Special Counsel’s report makes clear, the Russian government sought to interfere in our election. But thanks to the Special Counsel’s thorough investigation, we now know that the Russian operatives who perpetrated these schemes did not have the cooperation of President Trump or the Trump campaign – or the knowing assistance of any other Americans for that matter. That is something that all Americans can and should be grateful to have confirmed.”

Nor do fallback claims of “obstruction” hold water: “In assessing the President’s actions discussed in the report, it is important to bear in mind the context. President Trump faced an unprecedented situation. As he entered into office, and sought to perform his responsibilities as President, federal agents and prosecutors were scrutinizing his conduct before and after taking office, and the conduct of some of his associates. At the same time, there was relentless speculation in the news media about the President’s personal culpability. Yet, as he said from the beginning, there was in fact no collusion. And as the Special Counsel’s report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the President was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks. Nonetheless, the White House fully cooperated with the Special Counsel’s investigation, providing unfettered access to campaign and White House documents, directing senior aides to testify freely, and asserting no privilege claims. And at the same time, the President took no act that in fact deprived the Special Counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete his investigation. Apart from whether the acts were obstructive, this evidence of non-corrupt motives weighs heavily against any allegation that the President had a corrupt intent to obstruct the investigation.”

Barr also noted that the White House did not ask for any redactions in the report, and President Trump chose not to exert Executive Privilege, even though, in Barr’s words, “he would have been well within his rights to do so.” What redactions were made in the report were made by the Department of Justice attorneys and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s staff, and were designed to protect ongoing investigations and prosecutions, and some national security matters.

So no collusion, and no obstruction, and no serious grounds for complaining about the redactions. No doubt some politicians, eager to keep their base heated up, will try to pretend otherwise, and some cable news channels and media outlets, desperate for viewers and clicks, will go along.

But normal people should be pleased and relieved that there was no collusion, even as they should be angry that a huge chunk of our political class seriously maintained that the President of the United States was a Russian puppet. That claim, based more on a desire to undo the 2016 election than on any actual evidence, was a poisonous corruption of our political discourse, and those involved should be — but won’t be — ashamed.

They should, however, be ignored in the future.

THE TANK IN EMPIRE OF THE EAST HAD THIS: All-Seeing HD Cameras Could Solve Tanks’ Biggest Weakness. As I recall, though, it was somewhat vulnerable to fire-extinguisher foam.

HMM: It’s time for the US and Europe to ask what sort of world China wants to build.

GOOD: Students accused of sexual assault are suing colleges — and winning most of the time. We need to add a zero or two to the damage awards, though.