arethuza

48 ms·

871.
by arethuza 3y ago
It's what happens when you sign up for Slashdot while reading Cryptonomicon without doing any checks as to where the name actually comes from!
872.
by arethuza 3y ago
I found the audiobook of Quicksilver much easier to consume than the paper book - so much so that I've listened to the entire Baroque Cycle a few times now.
873.
by arethuza 3y ago
"The Baroque Cycle is historical fiction" Apart from the suspiciously well informed immortal character and the magical gold? I wonder what could explain those...
874.
by arethuza 3y ago
Some people think those are the best bits of his books!
875.
by arethuza 3y ago
I'd actually go with publication order myself...
876.
by arethuza 3y ago
I don't agree with that - I pretty much love everything from Cryptonomicon onwards (apart from REAMDE) and I'm not keen on Snow Crash or The Diamond Age. Edit: I even really like "Fall; or, Dodge in Hell"
877.
by arethuza 3y ago
Rather than relativistic speeds, which would be bad: https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/
878.
by arethuza 3y ago
I believe there was a back-up plan to use UK Lancaster heavy bombers to drop atomic bombs if the B-29 didn't work out.
879.
by arethuza 3y ago
The Manhattan Project wasn't even the most expensive US development project of the war - the B29 cost about $2 billion.
880.
by arethuza 3y ago
Presumably its the id parameter in the URL?
881.
by arethuza 3y ago
There is an amusing part of Michael Wood's excellent In Search of England about the Norman Yoke. While at school he had written a letter to Bernard Montgomery ("Monty") and was summoned to the House of Lords to debate the m
882.
by arethuza 3y ago
Didn't Alfred describe himself as "King of the Anglo-Saxons" rather than "King of England" - a very minor point but it reminds me of the title "King of Scots" - the Scots being incomers to what become Scot
883.
by arethuza 3y ago
"branches into additional simulations" Sounds like someone has worked out how to call fork() - I hope it is implemented using Copy-on-Write!
884.
by arethuza 3y ago
Good answer, but I was thinking more of a BB style TM that starts with an empty 'pre-Big Bang' tape.
885.
by arethuza 3y ago
Given the author, I wonder how many states a binary TM would need to run a universe that is complex enough to contain intelligent entities that think about things like TMs...
886.
by arethuza 3y ago
In my humble opinion, it actually requires a lot of intelligence to do really stupid things...
887.
by arethuza 3y ago
Or there is a batch update in there somewhere - which given that Nectar is over 20 years old and probably based on older systems I suspect would be a distinct possibility.
888.
by arethuza 3y ago
“That was a documentary.” - Daniel Ellsberg talking about Dr Strangelove: https://slate.com/culture/2017/12/the-doomsday-machine-danie...
889.
by arethuza 3y ago
Shouldn't that be post Western empire collapsing - the Eastern Empire lasted almost another thousand years?
890.
by arethuza 3y ago
I thought the standard way to sound "important, intellectual and well educated" was to use quotes and phrases from other languages? ;-)
891.
by arethuza 3y ago
Over the last week or so I've become very fond of the "Pilot Debrief" channel on YouTube - basically an ex-military and current commercial pilot talking through the analysis of various incidents - I find it completely fascina
892.
by arethuza 3y ago
Pretty sure the first time I heard that it was about IBM (possibly in the book "Big Blues") - here is a reference to it: https://www.discerningreaders.com/watson-sr-we-forgive-thoug...
893.
by arethuza 3y ago
"table-based designs ruled the roost in the 90s and early 00s" Have you checked how HN does layout?
894.
by arethuza 3y ago
Which seems to be working well for Boeing?
895.
by arethuza 3y ago
Per capita GDP (PPP)of the entire EU is $56,970 and for the US it is $80,412? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
896.
by arethuza 3y ago
I have two disabled siblings, what I wish I could do is give my parents (who are both dead now) some appreciation of how I now appreciate as a parent how hard it must have been for them and what a splendid job they did for all four of their
897.
by arethuza 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law
898.
by arethuza 3y ago
I have seen people arguing that you shouldn't be using the same API endpoints for front-ends and for integration. I can see arguments both ways though... https://max.engineer/server-informed-ui
899.
by arethuza 3y ago
In case anyone has missed the reference: https://thedailywtf.com/articles/what_is_truth_0x3f_
900.
by arethuza 3y ago
Isn't this the ultimate case of "Software archeology in a mature programming environment" (as Vernor Vinge might put it)?

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