geophile

18 ms·

1. 211.▲
   by geophile 3y ago

   > There can be no mechanical or materialistic explanation of free will. Of course there is: Free will is the feeling you have when you become aware of a decision made by your subconscious mind, (which is deterministic). Why did you order
2. 212.▲
   by geophile 3y ago

   I'm fine if a story doesn't have a point, or if it leaves things unresolved. The problem with Stephenson (for me) is that the book is written as if it is leading to some shattering conclusion, and then it just doesn't. It fiz
3. 213.▲
   by geophile 3y ago

   I remember thinking the same thing of a few Gibson novels. What do you recommend that doesn't fall flat at the end? That actually has a point leading to a good ending?
4. 214.▲
   by geophile 3y ago

   What is the point of the book? It's a fascinating world he created, but all the action is about nothing. It's so inconsequential compared to everything else going on. The problem starts way before the ending. See my comment about
5. 215.▲
   by geophile 3y ago

   My memory of the scifi I read in my youth (50 years ago!) is hazy. But I do remember that Arthur C. Clarke's short story, The Nine Million Names of God, had a spectacular ending. Also, Ray Bradbury's The Sound of Thunder.
6. 216.▲
   by geophile 3y ago

   I think it's a cyberpunk thing. There's all this action, and it is fascinating and absorbing. It's all leading up to some major reveal and then -- the reveal is disappointing. There is the concept of a MacGuffin: https:&#x2F
7. 217.▲
   by geophile 3y ago

   I loved Diamond Age. My favorite Stephenson book, by far. But the ending, the resolution of all the action, was such a letdown. Such meh. I find that this is often a problem with cyberpunk.
8. 218.▲
   by geophile 3y ago

   Thank you! One change from the stream page: > and >> now redirect to files in the traditional Unix/Linux way. (That older behavior was just too ingrained and I imagine it is for lots of people.) Use >$ and >>$ to stor
9. 219.▲
   by geophile 3y ago

   Thanks. Lately I've been finding it useful to write bash scripts with some marcel, e.g. #!/bin/bash echo ... pushd ... marcel <<EOF ... EOF
10. 220.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    I wrote a shell, marcel, that pipes Python values instead of strings: https://marceltheshell.org . It also does the inverse, allowing you to run marcel commands from Python, e.g. https://www.marceltheshell.org/scr
11. 221.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    I'd be curious on your thoughts on my entry: https://marceltheshell.org . (This website has lots of examples, so you can get a sense of how it works without installing.)
12. 222.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    Oh hell no, give the story to a director who can actually create a movie with good dialog and character development.
13. 223.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    Such a perfect cartoon.
14. 224.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    Check out my entry, marcel: https://marceltheshell.org . E.g., find the newest vlc instance and kill it (a command that an acquaintance needs frequently, for some reason): ps | select (p: p.name == 'vlc') | sort (
15. 225.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    Talking Points Memo for US political news and analysis. Absolutely the best. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/
16. 226.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    Don’t generalize too soon. But don’t wait too long either. If you have to choose one, wait too long and then refactor.
17. 227.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    I hadn't heard about Brave. Just started using it, and finding it very nice so far. Easy to get started, as the import from Firefox was quick and painless. I have high hopes for this one.
18. 228.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    Can someone knowledgeable comment on the possibility of VivLdi becoming the de facto standard browser for Linux? I played with it a little, thought it worked well, and most notably, it worked well for websites that gave Firefox trouble.
19. 229.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    It’s two problems. 1) Don’t hire mediocre people. We knew this new VP was terrible. But the guy being promoted was impatient and wanted someone to take over. 2) Upper management and the board must not forget the reason why the company exist
20. 230.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    I went through this cycle a few times. My favorite, and last successful startup was acquired by a gigantic international corporation four years in (2007), and I stuck around for another two years. After the product shipped, the need to supp
21. 231.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    I had two crap Unicom’s, and they also refused to pay for shipping when they broke. I then heard that they revamped the e keyboards and I tried again. This one has been problem free for a few years now.
22. 232.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    Are you Nathan Fielder?
23. 233.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    And then there are silent query failures. Want to change “name”: “John Smith” to “name”: {“first”: “John”, “last”: “Smith”}? Easy! No schema migration! But you have to modify all your queries to support both old and new formats, or stop the
24. 234.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    Take a look at marcel: https://github.com/geophile/marcel
25. 235.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    I like the idea of Unix pipelines, but I hate all the sublanguages, awk being one of the biggest. I scratched my itch and built my own shell, marcel: https://github.com/geophile/marcel . I mention this specifically, her
26. 236.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    I don't have the statistics handy. I think the issue turns on average speed. Not maximum possible speed, but average speed in practice. How do these averages compare? If the ebike is a lot faster, then I would expect the differences to
27. 237.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    Yes, they can, but very few actually do.
28. 238.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    I agree with you, and with the commenter who discusses the distinction between streets and roads. Restrictions on where cars can go would be wonderful, for many reasons. But given the current design of cities and suburbs, ebikes are unsafe,
29. 239.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    My point is that ebikes do not fit into existing city infrastructure. Ecars do, because they were designed to fit in exactly. They are exactly like cars except for their energy source.
30. 240.▲
    by geophile 3y ago

    It is not time to subsidize e-bikes. It would be time if they could be ridden safely. Do they belong in streets, along with cars? No, the rider is at great risk. Do they belong in bike lanes? Then there is likely to be a pretty large diff