drpixie

25 ms·

421.
by drpixie 4y ago
There's a similar project at MIT call App Inventor http://www.appinventor.mit.edu/ which uses a graphical Scratch-like environment to build Android apps. I can't tell if the two projects share code, but they cer
422.
by drpixie 4y ago
We were talking about correctness. RISCs by definition have simpler architectures that CISCs - that's what makes them RISCs. And simpler architectures leave less room for confusion/bugs/faults in the architecture, irrespectiv
423.
by drpixie 4y ago
Amusing and very timely https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31975507
424.
by drpixie 4y ago
I think that's the real advantage of RISC architectures - a small spec leaves less space for problems. Not no space, but less space.
425.
by drpixie 4y ago
Yes. Looks like it's back to the 1960s, 70s, 80s, ... You found a parser that you've formally verified won't break. Great, I've heard that before. The far bigger part of the problem is the spec - writing a formal spec is
426.
by drpixie 4y ago
I can’t describe what a breath of fresh air this is compared to how bad modern smartphone music and streaming apps have become. It’s also nice having a dedicated player that isn’t inundated with notifications and other modern distractions.
427.
by drpixie 4y ago
The saying is "too make a small fortune in aviation, start with a large fortune". And space is even more risky, expensive, and failure-prone than aviation.
428.
by drpixie 4y ago
For Blackbird fans, the Intrepid museum in New York ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrepid_Sea,_Air_&_Space_Muse... ) has a real one on display; technically it's an A-12, the reconnaissance version. That'
429.
by drpixie 4y ago
You are standing in a dark cavern. On a pedestal in front of you are several items: a crystal goblet containing a foaming potion an IBM System 360 Basic Assembler Language manual a teletype with a blinking cursor a blunt and ru
430.
by drpixie 4y ago
Quite a bit of our infrastructure runs for very long periods (long in IT terms) - years between faults or reboots. Sure lots of domestic modems & routers have to be reset often, but it's common to find infrastructure routers that a
431.
by drpixie 4y ago
Many languages seem to be treated like products ... must add new feature ... must announced new version ... as if the "owner" is worried about getting left behind. Mostly counterproductive. Many (most?) genuinely widely used langu
432.
Microsoft's Use of Pluton Suggests It Sees PC Owners as the Enemy(cheapskatesguide.org)
67 points by drpixie 4y ago|57 comments
433.
by drpixie 4y ago
Agree. I remember very fondly an English translation of Gunter Grass' "Dog Years" for how German the novel felt. A great translation gives the reader the original's feel and impression. Too many editions/translation
434.
Digital Pollution (2019)(sive.rs)
29 points by drpixie 4y ago|11 comments
435.
by drpixie 4y ago
Most companies - no. There is very little tech writing and of that, it's of very poor quality. It's now normal for API documentation to be generated from the definitions, with a few explanatory comments thrown in (eg. see the Andr
436.
by drpixie 4y ago
I suggest running mailinabox. It installs all that stuff and configures appropriately. Only downside is that it wants Ubuntu 18.04 (for the moment) and doesn't cooperate well with other software - put anything else on a different machi
437.
by drpixie 4y ago
+1 for mailinabox from me. Easy to use, reasonably complete and secure, works from a data-centre or home (you'll need a sensible ISP and to manage your network yourself). Can send to gmail ok (after a receiving a couple of emails from
438.
by drpixie 4y ago
Locklin's basic point is about the important of thinking about the actual problem, instead of playing with tools further removed from the problem. And I can't agree more. The same applies to programming, and applies more and more
439.
by drpixie 4y ago
The short answer to David Albert's original question is much simpler than the article ... very little is actually new . We have lots of features that have migrated from "big" computers into PCs and SoCs, but very little that
440.
by drpixie 4y ago
It may not be the best written post (it's a bit rabid, jumps around, makes logical leaps) but he makes a whole series of clear and difficult to argue against points. It will be very unpopular on Hacker News (which seems loaded with pro
441.
by drpixie 4y ago
And google hasn't handled complex queries for quite a while. A long time ago, you could get sensible answers to boolean queries - not so much now. A useful search engine would understand meaning, rather than just an index lookup.
442.
by drpixie 4y ago
Why stop at the 'AI's limit? We can do better than that. Keep going until a human can no longer recognise the image! (There's always a mechanical Turk to do the work.) And why stop when the image is unrecognisable? Why not
443.
by drpixie 4y ago
I had a large collection of hard drives that had caused uncountable grief, we would relieve the stress by abusing the drives. Unfortunately they have long since been disposed of, but the collection included: * subject drive to 100t press (i
444.
by drpixie 4y ago
Hmmm. Looks like 441 would be a great place for a helpful comment block.
445.
by drpixie 5y ago
Love it. Back when I was managing development at a large corporate, I kept a box of pencils prominently on my desk. For about 1/2 the small project requests that came to the department, the best for the task was not a database, not a n
446.
by drpixie 5y ago
I'm inclined to agree. Perhaps there's a place for a "fast" FTP protocol but I wouldn't want to be sharing the link with them ... imagine the cries going around the office ... "has the internet gone down again!
447.
by drpixie 5y ago
Well, around 2% of PC users use Linux. It might be a small percentage but in absolute terms it's still a big number of users. And about 25% of developers use Linux. And about 90% of phone users use Android, which is (distantly) based o
448.
by drpixie 5y ago
Popular is not the same as quality. That's something that MS seem genuinely unable to understand - examples of a better product are countered with "our product is X times bigger, it is better". Well, no - X times bigger is pr
449.
by drpixie 5y ago
Yes - IBM used to be computers, as in average people genuinely considered them to be the same thing, like "Hoover" was more or less synonymous with vacuum cleaner. Google was functionally synonymous with "the web". No lo
450.
by drpixie 5y ago
Are you thinking that if we can do (say) a worm (with DL), then more and bigger DL will get us to a dog, and then to a person? Humans generally seem prone to the "X is good so more X" is better fallacy - Gary is saying that X (DL

More ›