cstross

109 ms·

901.
by cstross 13y ago
NASA = National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NSA = National Security Agency.
902.
by cstross 13y ago
We're getting a working demo of the one type of political news story that all (well, most) HN readers can get worked up about. (As a friend of mine once said, "the big political question of the 21st century will be how to deal
903.
by cstross 13y ago
Good luck getting legal aid for a criminal defense in the UK, is all I can say ...
904.
by cstross 13y ago
It's also a classic case of projection -- roughly 90% of cases of child sex abuse occur within the family and are perpetrated by direct relatives of the child, or close family friends. The stereotype of the evil drooling paedophile lurkin
905.
by cstross 13y ago
What is this word "allow"? Who forces car manufacturers to go through a dealer network? Or rather, who forbids them from selling direct to the public? Doesn't that constitute unfair restraint on trade? I'm serious here. (Non-American spea
906.
by cstross 13y ago
Why should incumbent manufacturers have to go through dealers? Why can't they sell direct to the end customers via the internet? Do the incantations "disintermediate all supply chains" and "disrupt all mature industries" suddenly lose all
907.
by cstross 13y ago
As over 90% of road traffic accidents are the result of human error, I strongly disagree with your conclusion -- otherwise we wouldn't need third-party insurance for cars, either. (On the other hand, if you're as sensible as you say, I have
908.
by cstross 13y ago
The point about insurance isn't so that the driver gets a new car if they wreck it -- it's so that if they kill or injure, or damage the property of, someone else then that someone else is covered. Driving licenses are "a seal of approv
909.
by cstross 13y ago
BBEdit++
910.
by cstross 13y ago
The rMBP premium doesn't just get you more power, though -- it gets you that lovely screen. If you have any eye trouble at all, a less-than-best quality panel is a real deal breaker. (I speak as a former user of a 2010 4gb/256 SSD MBair mys
911.
by cstross 13y ago
You won't get that free education at Cambridge any more; it'll set you back £9000 in tuition fees every year, because successive British governments deliberately copied the US system. It is to weep ...
912.
by cstross 13y ago
A month ago, I idly looked up BTO prices on store.apple.com/uk/ (I'm British) as part of my annual "I wonder where the sweet spot's moved to" check. 13" Retina Probook with 2.5GHz i7 processor, 8Gb RAM, 512Gb SSD, costs ~ £1650. 13" Airbook
913.
by cstross 13y ago
IVB is adequate for retina display ... if paired with a sidecar like the GeForce GT650M. Or used solely for typing and similar non-graphically-intensive activities. (As on this rMBP 15"). Haswell promises cheaper adequate performance, on
914.
by cstross 13y ago
I had to cancel Minicon because my wife was diagnosed with cancer and needed major abdominal surgery around a month before the convention. (It was non-malignant, surgical intervention seems to have worked, and she's been cancer-free for two
915.
How I sold my first novel(antipope.org)
10 points by cstross 13y ago|3 comments
916.
by cstross 13y ago
I suspect the turning point was the Prenda Law people turning up in court and taking the fifth. By refusing to testify on the basis of the right to avoid self-incrimination, they effectively admitted on the court record that they'd commit
917.
by cstross 13y ago
Ahem: the penultimate apostrophe denotes either a missing vowel, or ownership, in the singular, of the subsequent identified property. You're using "marionettes" as a plural. It doesn't require an apostrophe in that context.
918.
by cstross 14y ago
Subsequent disclosures suggest that Apple had screwed the pooch over Taligent/Pink, and was desperately shopping for a next-generation OS. The contest was down to NeXTStep, with Steve Jobs, or BeOS, with Jean-Louis Gassee. As I understand i
919.
by cstross 14y ago
The A-12 wasn't a bloody bomber! (It was the single-seat predecessor version of the SR-71 Blackbird. While interceptor and bomber versions were proposed, only 3 prototype YF-12A interceptors were built; the bomber variant was a paper stud
920.
Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament (UK)(antipope.org)
3 points by cstross 14y ago|0 comments
921.
by cstross 14y ago
Before you fly on a 787, please note that the battery fires aren't the only early problem to hit that aircraft; it seems they have a problem with cracked windshields, which (unlike on conventional non-composite airliners) are bonded to the
922.
by cstross 14y ago
I speak as someone who spent several years as a freelance magazine columnist and got quite a close look at how the news is made. What makes you think I'm insulting journalists? Moreover, a short sound bite isn't the place for nuanced analys
923.
Ignore the news(antipope.org)
51 points by cstross 14y ago|14 comments
924.
by cstross 14y ago
... Or they could just sell bags of organically-grown leaves. But you can't patent a centuries-old folk remedy and sell it at a 10,000% mark-up.
925.
by cstross 14y ago
What's necessary is for a concerted multi-state initiative to render illegal the passage of state laws lobbied for by organizations such as ALEC. Yes, this is a recursive problem: such legislation would appear to fall foul of itself. But if
926.
by cstross 14y ago
ITYM "large subsonic sea-skimming missiles". Moskit was specifically designed to punch through US Aegis defenses faster than they could intercept. While things have moved on, there's still some question over whether western naval defense mi
927.
Stross announces movie and innovative new business model(antipope.org)
1 points by cstross 14y ago|0 comments
928.
The permanent revolution(antipope.org)
1 points by cstross 14y ago|0 comments
929.
by cstross 14y ago
I've done IT contracting (not for, um, 15 years and counting) and I've been a freelance author. There's a significant difference in terms of what you do and who has control. (I come up with ideas for products and pitch them at publishers, w
930.
by cstross 14y ago
This. I had a tech book out in the mid-90s from Addison-Wesley, and I got quite a way into negotiating with O'Reilly in the early noughties. The tech publishing sector is largely driven by techies for whom a publication history is of value

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