asciilifeform

14 ms·

91.
by asciilifeform 14y ago
I don't think you really understood my reply. I have a life project. What is sometimes called a calling. (If you don't, you probably cannot process what I am saying and should disregard this post.) So whenever I am doing some other work -
92.
by asciilifeform 14y ago
> How can you be stuck in the salt mines... > The work is intellectually gratifying Most likely, this is where we differ. The only programming work that I find truly gratifying happens to be my 100%-non-monetizable life project.
93.
by asciilifeform 14y ago
Do you see any evidence that the rank-and-file software developer lives on the far-right-edge of the bell curve? Software developers are largely male for the same reason that construction crews and prisoners are - rather than the reason Nob
94.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
> you simply can't get things done without relying extensively on your poor fellow human beings ... with IQs of 0x7f or less. Really? Well, if you're building a skyscraper, then sure, yes. But a computer program?
95.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
> how much code is there in the world? How much of that code really ought to have been written in the first place? We could have a better-functioning civilization if most people who start to suffer delusions of programming were simp
96.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
> If we compare the set of people cognitively able to use PHP, to the set cognitively able to use Haskell... These may be very different meanings of "use." Using PHP, Java, etc. involves a fair bit of purely mechanical (think "human c
97.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
I would say that the FP people (and yes, this includes you) are solving the wrong problem. Mathematical formalism is not a substitute for understandability . Where is the mathematical proof that your doorknob turns? No interesting property
98.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
Let's imagine that the entire staff of MtGox were to be arrested tomorrow. Their homes burned, the earth salted, etc. So no more Bitcoin to USD trades at MtGox. But what about your neighbor Bob's place? You buy him dinner, and the next da
99.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
> Scroll down to the RSA implementation around line 2500. I saw it when you checked it in. Be careful what you post for public consumption, someone might actually read it. > And why does a self-compiling compiler need an RSA im
100.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
> Just link me to your "pure functional operating system" already, or I'm calling troll-post. Moldbug's system: https://github.com/cgyarvin/urbit/ Its blog: http://moronlab.blogspot.com/
101.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
Paper is a good answer. Unless civilization has collapsed, and libraries are burning. (They are burning - or rather, being closed down permanently, one after another, right now in the USA.) Paper is the answer, unless you are a refugee li
102.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
Where is the $100 e-reader that runs for a year on one set of AAA batteries?
103.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
How about mask ROM? 100+ years easily (at least in theory.)
104.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
Nah, everybody knows that drones can only be used to deliver drugs and bombs. Commercial UAVs being illegal in the US, "might as well hang for a sheep as for a lamb."
105.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
I would dearly love to see a ruggedized, solar-powered version of this device created for our descendants. In case industrial civilization, well.. fails to go the distance. A Wikipedia-equivalent volume of paper is rather bulky and fragile.
106.
Self-contained, Internet-less Wikipedia machine.(thewikireader.com)
98 points by asciilifeform 15y ago|69 comments
107.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
But don't miss Mencius Moldbug's rebuttal of Hanson's Futarchy: http://bit.ly/7gFYD
108.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
> "Foundations matter" is pretending to be profound without substance Please take the time to read my article. The kind of pieces you get when something breaks or needs reworking does matter. > Is everything fucked because we a
109.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
> With HTML/CSS/Javascript you can make something to run almost anywhere. With gargantuan effort. And your creation will still appear distorted in unpredictable ways to many users.
110.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
Steve Jobs demolished Apple and replaced it with Next.
111.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
> I was only mocking the author for wanting both ubiquitous debugging as a top-7 must have conputing feature, while at the same time decrying complexity and pining for a simple system. There is no contradiction between the two: http:
112.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
> It's almost funny, until you read his seven tenets of computing and find that any program which encounters any error should enter a debugger, so you can fix it and carry on. I think that would drive anyone insane. You prefer inexpli
113.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
Finally, a breath of sanity on HN.
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by asciilifeform 15y ago
Why not with a magnetized needle, too?
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by asciilifeform 15y ago
> I'm not sure what you were doing in 96 or so I was a boy. A boy playing with Hypercard. As hinted at rather transparently in the article. > But anything truly useful beyond that was just as complex as anything else. Complexity
116.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
So doing "it" right is a physical impossibility, then? Care to say why?
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by asciilifeform 15y ago
Thanks! Also there is an extra eval (the first one is unnecessary, I think.) But I am too lazy to revise the screenshots.
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by asciilifeform 15y ago
Hypercard is different from systems like Director in what isn't there: the cancerous complexity.
119.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
This wasn't meant to be a general statement about the opinions of original creators. I happen to respect that particular inventor (Kalashnikov). And I agree with the reasons he gave. (Going into them here would be going too far off subject.
120.
by asciilifeform 15y ago
The "natural" language is actually the weakest part.

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