cstross

92 ms·

721.
Stross on App store functionality failure(antipope.org)
3 points by cstross 12y ago|0 comments
722.
by cstross 12y ago
The problem is, those figures aren't granular enough to use for marketing purposes. For example, it's known that about 50% of genre SF/F book sales go to about 20% of customers -- and about 45% go to less than 10% of customer
723.
by cstross 12y ago
It really depends ... How much do people read? Nobody's too sure, but it looks like an extremely long tail distribution -- not just a matter of 80% of the books being read by 20% of the readers, but of 80% being read by maybe 5-10% of
724.
by cstross 12y ago
Great comment, and I'm not Chinese, but did they really break away from Confucianism? As Zho Enlai allegedly said when asked about the significance of the French Revolution, "it's too early to say". (Spoiler: he may ha
725.
by cstross 12y ago
If you buy a new MiG-29 or Su-27 from Russia, that's not an ex-USSR plane; it's new-build. Ditto buying a new F15-K, as opposed to a 30 year old beater. New planes of these types are not exactly bargain basement items; an F15-K wi
726.
by cstross 12y ago
The problem with the old Soviet planes is that they're old . The USSR collapsed in 1991; they're now 23+ years old. The design life of a civil airliner is 30 years, after which it's effectively a beater flying air freight in
727.
by cstross 12y ago
Presumably breaking forever the grip of the Confucian design pattern (left behind by the former imperial bureaucracy) on the imaginations of the low-level functionaries, without who no top-down empire can operate. An example uppermost in Ma
728.
by cstross 12y ago
Note that you can breed U-233 from thorium and use that in nuclear weapons. The critical mass of U-233 is about 50% higher than Pu-239 but otherwise it's usable in implosion-type bomb designs; the main hazard is the presence of U-232 a
729.
by cstross 12y ago
Humph. I'm choosing to take this personally! (I was in Orlando at YAPC::NA in June, and drove up to the Cape twice in hope of seeing it launch. Scrubbed both times, and I got bitten to hell by mosquitos before I discovered DEET -- ye
730.
by cstross 12y ago
We've got one. My wife's used it on a weekend camping trip; I haven't had the opportunity so far, so this is her second-hand report ... It works as described. However, you need to charge the power module before the first time
731.
by cstross 12y ago
That's not actually a joke, once you do the math ...
732.
by cstross 12y ago
Noteworthy points: 1. The period spanned -- 2005-2013 -- covers the big boom in ebook self-publishing that Amazon precipitated by making it easy to self-publish. A lot of self-published authors make very little money, so this may skew the
733.
Author income levels dropped 29% since 2005 – The Guardian(theguardian.com)
8 points by cstross 12y ago|4 comments
734.
by cstross 12y ago
If there's only a DRM edition, [cough] crack the DRM. Doing this for Kindle ebooks is easy enough that I half-suspect there's a deliberate policy of winking at it on AMZN's part. I'm not going to tempt fate by providing
735.
Some rambling thoughts on region restrictions(antipope.org)
67 points by cstross 12y ago|12 comments
736.
by cstross 12y ago
However, IIRC BEGIN and END showed up in Perl 5.003 or thereabouts, circa 1995-97.
737.
by cstross 12y ago
If you've got bash, sed, grep, and add awk, then you are 80-90% of the way to Perl 4 proficiency -- that's basic Perl circa 1990, adequate for short scripts (and more efficient that bash/sed/awk scripts). Perl started li
738.
by cstross 12y ago
Fatal accident lawsuits in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... Reasoning: people are going to rely on this to save them from speeding tickets. So they're going to drive too fast. Meanwhile, other idiots who don't have it will also drive too fast.
739.
by cstross 12y ago
And according to Larry, Perl 6 will be along any day now . And then all you skeptics will be sorry! Sorry I say! Bwahahaha!
740.
Stross keynote on Perl in 2034 at YAPC::NA (youtube)(youtube.com)
5 points by cstross 12y ago|0 comments
741.
by cstross 12y ago
PC Pro was more aimed at the PC/Windows using demographic than (earlier) sister magazine Computer Shopper -- whose Linux/open source column I wrote for a bit over five years in the late 90s/early 00s. Now that was the last
742.
by cstross 12y ago
Bill Gates is 58 years old. "Once you get fit" takes on a whole new meaning once you pass 40 -- it gets a lot harder and you run into musculoskeletal and joint problems that seldom affect folks who haven't hit middle age yet.
743.
Schroedinger's Kingdom: The Scottish Political Singularity Explained(antipope.org)
5 points by cstross 12y ago|0 comments
744.
by cstross 12y ago
Worth noting: regular housing in London currently changes hands for £1000-1500 per square foot (that's US $1600-2400 per sq. ft.). In Knightsbridge and Belgravia you can add a zero to the end of that; these are areas where Eric Schmid
745.
by cstross 12y ago
Stupid and uninformed question here: Given Apple's well-known antipathy to the idea of browser engines other than WebKit and scripting languages other than JavaScript on iOS (yes, yes, I know you can find Python/Lua/Lisp&#x2F
746.
by cstross 12y ago
Yes, but you'll note the scandal was about the government mandated wiretap facility being used to wiretap the government itself. They tacitly admitted to having (and presumably using) the capability in the first place.
747.
by cstross 12y ago
This has been going on since 2003: it's not new. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/11/greek_mobile_wiretap... TL:DR; Vodafone Greece is known to have been bugged, to spy on the lines of top government
748.
by cstross 12y ago
Singularity prediction isn't even taken seriously by most formerly-intrigued SF writers these days. (Go google Ramez Naam on the subject. Or me. Or Cory Doctorow.) Best we can probably hope for is better intelligence augmentation/
749.
by cstross 12y ago
Disagree. As a culture we have developed public offices that are structured to prevent anyone who might be elected with a mandate to effect change from doing so . The iron law of bureaucracy applies: after the first generation most of the
750.
"We need a pony. And the moon on a stick. By next Thursday."(antipope.org)
208 points by cstross 12y ago|196 comments

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