cstross

52 ms·

451.
by cstross 10y ago
> Aside... one of the design decisions Microsoft took that absolutely blows my mind is using `\` for file hierarchies instead of `/` That decision goes back to MS-DOS 2.11, circa 1983. (DOS 1.0 didn't have subdirectories.) The
452.
by cstross 10y ago
Bash is 27 years old. It was written to replace the Bourne shell, which is 39 . It is not terribly surprising that a 9 year old tool like Powershell made some improvements over an earlier tool that was already old enough to vote!
453.
by cstross 10y ago
Sure: here you are! http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/07/writing-...
454.
by cstross 10y ago
Go back to the early 2000s. I'm kind of obsessive about data portability, and the lifespan of a novel is closer to 30 years than the 3-5 months typical of business documents. Alas, I'm selling novels to Big Six publishers who like
455.
Baker-Miller Pink(en.wikipedia.org)
1 points by cstross 10y ago|0 comments
456.
by cstross 10y ago
... It pre-dates TCP/IP (not to mention most of the bells and whistles malware can get its hooks into, not to mention not generally having any audio i/o at all, or a bunch of other surplus doodads people expect these days that exp
457.
by cstross 10y ago
You know where this is going? iPads. Kept in a Faraday cage and provisioned with apps over a cable from a neutered host (read-only drive, maybe? Anyway: locked down and firewalled to prevent unapproved software updates). Alternatively: the
458.
by cstross 10y ago
Apropos which, one of the whackinesses of modern publishing is that Adobe InDesign, the publishing package that has mostly displaced Quark in the typesetting biz, frequently loses italics when importing a Microsoft Word document. And if the
459.
by cstross 10y ago
The reason why this happened is explained in the article itself; it's surprisingly common. TL:DR; books are 'sold' by authors as intellectual property reproduction rights in distinct territories. Historically it used to be to
460.
by cstross 10y ago
Who is this "they" you speak of (who can't see it coming)? The rulers are doing fine -- they've got armies and secret police and offshore investments so that when things turn to shit they can just jet off into exile like
461.
by cstross 10y ago
Correct. The Thirty Years War killed about a third of the population of the Germanies; the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (often erroneously called the "English Civil War" -- there were at least five wars, in England, Scotland, and Ir
462.
by cstross 10y ago
It's the best thing that could happen to them. ... In the long term. In the short term, it's going to be very, very bad for them indeed, as the sole source of foreign exchange goes away and the ordinary folks find themselves a
463.
by cstross 10y ago
It's not software or hardware this time: there's a crippling power outage at ATL, which is Delta's main hub (and presumably where their mainframe herd is based): http://fox61.com/2016/08/08/de
464.
by cstross 10y ago
Not plausible because: a) Tabby's Star is roughly 1500 light years away from us; we only began emitting radio signals ~150 years ago (at most -- assuming propagation from early telegraph wires; not actually very likely) and it'd t
465.
by cstross 10y ago
Can confirm: King's method works for me. (Currently working on something like my 25th novel (that is, one sold commercially to a major trade fiction publisher).)
466.
by cstross 10y ago
> She hasn't said that. She can't say that. If she said it openly, it wouldn't be a viable strategy. The problem we've got right now is that multiple political power centers are locked into a multi-way game of chic
467.
by cstross 10y ago
However: plug-in hybrids would be an option. (Diesel pack and fuel tank for off-grid use, electric motor and battery good for ~20-50km as well for use on short trips about town/daily commutes.)
468.
by cstross 10y ago
The reversing beep-beep ain't going to go any time soon -- it's a audio warning to prevent workers being crushed under reversing trucks. (It might go if and when reversing cameras, which are now standard on automobiles, become sta
469.
ModoBag: rideable motorized carry-on luggage(modobag.com)
1 points by cstross 10y ago|0 comments
470.
by cstross 10y ago
The problem with ARM is that the most likely suitors don't dare buy them -- if Intel, Apple, Microsoft, or Google bought ARM Holdings, the others (all rivals) would start looking for an alternative architecture to run on and the licens
471.
Fact-checking claims made by both sides in UK BRexit debate(medium.com)
4 points by cstross 10y ago|0 comments
472.
by cstross 10y ago
ZFS on OSX was doomed the moment Oracle bought Sun. If you want to know why, just contemplate the smoking wreckage of the Oracle/Google Java API lawsuit.
473.
by cstross 10y ago
> And taxis suck. Taxis don't have to suck (they don't in my home city). So this should be a wake-up call to Austin's city government to look into why their voters are dissatisfied with the taxi firms, and consider what
474.
by cstross 10y ago
This is a highly culturally dependent practice; here in the UK, saying "hello" to strangers is weird/creepy/intrusive and suggests you want something from them. (Also: the American practice of baring your teeth when sm
475.
by cstross 10y ago
Doesn't EVE Online scratch that itch for you?
476.
Cytological Utopia and the rapture of the eukaryotes(antipope.org)
2 points by cstross 10y ago|0 comments
477.
by cstross 10y ago
Note that direct democracy has its own drawbacks: for example, in some cantons the franchise was only extended to women on February 7th, 1971: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february&#x2
478.
by cstross 10y ago
The inadmissible truth about corruption in the UK is that it's endemic. And not just money laundering; the very way governments (both Labour, Conservative, and Coalition) have pursued the business of privatization of state assets since
479.
by cstross 10y ago
> The problem is a company like Apple probably needs a Jobs-like character. I have been, idly, placing bets with myself on an Apple buy-out of Tesla, shades of Apple's buy-out of NeXT -- not merely to get a lead on the auto industry
480.
Updating classic workplace sabotage techniques(antipope.org)
378 points by cstross 10y ago|280 comments

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