mark-r

54 ms·

661.
by mark-r 5y ago
I'm sure Oracle never even contemplated the possibility that they'd get hit with a $3B bill. Makes their company name kind of ironic, doesn't it?
662.
by mark-r 5y ago
They need to be greedy to be able to pay out judgements like this! Yes I know, the greed came first.
663.
by mark-r 5y ago
The problem is that "a few years" is way too optimistic. Fully autonomous driving requires a level of situational awareness that computers can't yet touch. Everybody looks at the progress we've made so far and assumes
664.
by mark-r 5y ago
I have a Toyota Camry and I haven't timed it but I think it's more like 10 seconds. Before that neither the volume knob nor the on-off button work.
665.
by mark-r 5y ago
That's fascinating, it looks almost exactly like a PC! I used the LSI-11 and LSI-11/23, but never saw one of those.
666.
by mark-r 5y ago
I think you just described a space blanket. In fact based on the title, I expected this to be one of those used backwards.
667.
by mark-r 5y ago
Not true, anything above 0 degrees K will radiate. The problem is that indoors it will get absorbed and re-radiated right back at you. The only way to lose the heat entirely is to have it radiate all the way to space.
668.
by mark-r 5y ago
I think my early PDP-11 programs were FORTRAN and Pascal, with a little assembler thrown in. The PDP-11 instruction set was fantastic.
669.
by mark-r 5y ago
When swapping out the part requires having a technician drive out to a remote location, you bet it's a problem. Having a process stopped while this happens is a problem. The price of the part is almost irrelevant at that point.
670.
by mark-r 5y ago
I recently spent a little time at a company that used an embedded Pi in their product. It had to have a lot of data on hand that needed refreshing daily, with an unreliable network, so everything had to be local. Their biggest problem was
671.
by mark-r 5y ago
Ten years ago I worked at a place that used single board DOS machines for clocking in and out. And this wasn't just at the beginning and end of a shift, this was every time they worked on a new batch of parts. It became very hard to
672.
by mark-r 5y ago
If there's an unusual keycode you need to start the process, maybe you could encode it into the start of the RFID string on the tag. Or maybe RFID readers are configurable like the barcode scanners I've worked with and you can pr
673.
by mark-r 5y ago
A couple of weeks ago I had to stop at a train crossing, arrived just a few seconds late to beat the train. It was a very long train. Then I noticed it was slowing down. As it got within one car of passing the intersection it stopped com
674.
by mark-r 5y ago
They've obviously learned from that experience. The new southwest light rail being built has a ridiculous number of bridges - it's going to rival Chicago's "L" when it opens in two years, at least as it goes throug
675.
by mark-r 5y ago
My first thought when seeing the Baobob picture was I wonder if you can still travel to see them before they're gone? My second thought was how much CO2 would such a trip generate?
676.
by mark-r 5y ago
I wonder if he realizes how ironic it is to have "Passive Media Consumption is Fundamentally Bad" on a blog?
677.
by mark-r 5y ago
I'll never forget the time I was driving to pick up my first new car. I was 3 blocks from the dealer when my old car died. Nothing I did could get it started again. Finally a cop pulled up and asked if I was having trouble. I told
678.
by mark-r 5y ago
That was my understanding too, maybe I saw the same source. Huy Fong was very particular about the source of their peppers, they were constrained for a while by not being able to get enough of the ones that met their standard.
679.
by mark-r 5y ago
Thai food is an interesting case. The Thai government has recognized that food is great at breaking down cultural barriers, and they've gone to great lengths to promote it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1777070
680.
by mark-r 5y ago
Finally, a clock that matches our actual perception of time!
681.
by mark-r 5y ago
For decades I've wanted to build a clock that would speed up and slow down at various times of the day. For example to give you a longer lunch by speeding up just before lunchtime and slowing down when it's time to get back to wo
682.
by mark-r 5y ago
I thought that radio clocks were dead! The US government transmitters that make them work were supposed to be turned off in 2019, and I hadn't heard that the decision was reversed.
683.
by mark-r 5y ago
Thanks for the link, that was fascinating.
684.
by mark-r 5y ago
Yes, those electrons are gone forever now.
685.
by mark-r 5y ago
That's probably a good start, but there's more to it than that. The hue ring doesn't appear to have a fully saturated blue.
686.
by mark-r 5y ago
Paint Shop Pro had a natural brush mode even before Corel bought them. I wonder if it's still there?
687.
by mark-r 5y ago
"Tedious" is right. Must have been designed for a phone, because on my desktop I gave up scrolling before I got to the first planet.
688.
by mark-r 5y ago
Oh the place definitely needed remodeling. It had been a restaurant for many years and didn't see an ounce of love in that time. But I'm also certain he went overboard and bought the best of everything. Strangely enough it seem
689.
by mark-r 5y ago
> I read somewhere that 40% of restaurants started by people with no previous industry experience go belly up within 5 years? Experience doesn't guarantee success either. I had a neighbor who was running one of the most successful
690.
by mark-r 5y ago
Here's one I heard a very long time ago: What do they call a person who goes to med school and graduates at the bottom of their class? "Doctor".

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