Al Lowe on model trains, funny deaths and working with Disney

It might be time for HN to shift to a font that distinguishes better between "Al" and "AI".

	▲	baxtr 2 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Especially confusing when there’s the word model up there as well

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deepthaw 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I first really started to learn how to use computers playing Leisure Suit Larry on a friend's dad's computer. Started with copying save-games to/from floppy disks, to using MS-DOS in general, to BASIC, etc. and so forth.

It's interesting how much of the humor in those games flew way over my head yet I still had a blast playing them. And looking back as an adult, the "risque" stuff was tame as hell but still fun. Sigh, good times.

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mrighele 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I never realized that Al Lowe was involved with Donald Duck’s Playground, I loved it as a child. I guess I have to be thankful to him for two things now.

	▲	throaway146 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I used to play it on my dad's mac at work (which he hated, it was a non-computer role and management forced a switch from Windows to Mac). It had a great look that does seem similar to LLL. Of course on those machines, most of my time was spent dealing with the "insert disk for the program you were previously using" bug!

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tombert 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Al Lowe is actually a pretty nice dude.

I’m not entirely sure why I did this, but when I was an adjunct for a few semesters, I emailed him for advice on teaching since he did the transition from teacher->programmer and I did the opposite.

He responded back very quickly with very helpful advice [1] and was very understanding and nice. I like him.

[1] I don’t want to share the emails since they are a bit personal, but the TL;DR was that he recommended I consider finding some training on how to be a teacher.

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js4ever 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Al model train ... I was not expecting that article... To much AI in my life

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linkjuice4all 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Much like Factorio - bringing too much tech/automation into your hobbies (such as model trains) just turns a fun weekend hobby into "work". It's really cool to see the progress with digital controls in model trains (read up about Neil Young and Lionel [0]) but I don't want to have to ask AI to rewrite my train handling config files just to get some little motor to spin.

[0] https://thrasherswheat.org/tfa/trains-neil-young-1993.htm

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sodapopcan 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Ya, I was wondering if this made it to the top because people though "Al" was "AI," heh.

	▲	em-bee 28 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		does it really matter? it's a good topic either way. actually it's even better because it isn't about AI.

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unixhero 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What about Larry 4 Roar and Al