mycroftiv

26 ms·

61.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
>What strikes me about Thurrott’s tweet is that the two companies have attracted the writers they deserve. Me? I’d be appalled if Apple were to unveil something in the half- (if that) finished state of Windows 8 for tablets. I enjoy wri
62.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
I understand that air travel for meetings is still commonplace and I wasn't intending to apply the label of extreme privilege to all business travelers - only to those who are given Free Steak Delivery. I do think the vast majority of busin
63.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
"I was catching a 7am flight out of Newark to Tampa, Florida, for a lunch meeting in Clearwater, then heading back to Newark on a 5pm flight, getting me in around 8:10pm, and with any luck, to my apartment by 9 or so. We all have days like
64.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
>If “the patent system is broken” is a lazy rhetorical cheat, then “software patents shouldn’t be allowed” is the most completely vacuous intellectual cop-out possible. What an insulting and unfounded statement. The arguments against so
65.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
So, Intel is clearly terrified of the growth of ARM based mobile devices and especially tablets cannibalizing notebook sales. Somewhat ironically, Apple's heavy-handed litigation strategy against ipad competitors is probably helpful to Inte
66.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
I've been reading this blog intermittently for quite a long time, and despite a lot of good conceptual thinking, I believe the author fails to understand a lot of principles which are equally important to the ones that he espouses. Maybe th
67.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
I see several good things on the list of new features. The rc-based boot process is definitely a good idea. I haven't had the issues with the fossil filesystem that some have, so I don't know about cwfs as the main on-disk fileserver, but I
68.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
It's been a long-running story. Florian is a stopped clock who proclaims that the sky is falling for free software about every patent and copyright issue. One of the best examples is a recent controversy over Android's use of its Bionic rep
69.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
>“They are very likely to be infringed by code that is at the core of Android,” says IP expert Florian Mueller. Now that's what I call a credible, expert source with no history of distorting the issues. Always good to see the balance an
70.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
I can't say I think much of an article talking about Android as "The Linux Dream" that doesn't clearly articulate the difference between the Linux kernel and the rest of userland. Android has really demonstrated that Stallman's convention o
71.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
Exactly - nobody gets sued unless they have enough money or competitive position that the suit is seen as profitable. Nobody really has any sympathy with Google or any other large company, so there isn't much "outrage factor" involved. I th
72.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
Is there any meaningful way to engage in activism or civil disobedience related to software patents? I support the FSF and EFF with donations, but I want to do more. As I see it, code is speech, and software patents are a restriction on the
73.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
Zuckerberg broke into the emails of journalists he thought could damage him back in the college days, and he called his users "dumb fucks" for trusting him. The way Zuckerberg is idolized for his success and even held up as a role model(!)
74.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
Anyone interested in this should definitely read the description of a lot related work of recovery in the excellent paper by Warren Toomey on the restoration of early UNIX artifacts. There was a lot more involved than just doing an OCR scan
75.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
I wonder how the photographer would feel if the company that manufactured the trumpet played by Miles Davis had claimed that his photograph violated the copyright of their "sculpture" and the tailor Miles got his suit from also protested. O
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by mycroftiv 15y ago
I admit I know approximately nothing about how rapidly infrastructure deteriorates, detailed demographic trends in China, or the decision making process that allocates these resources. It still seems to me that there must be some rational j
77.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
I was assuming the cities would become occupied within a few years, not left empty for a decade or more. The shift from rural to urban has been happening very fast in China. I think China is expecting almost 100 million additional city dwel
78.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
I've been thinking about these empty cities, and it strikes me as an indication that the planners of the Chinese economy are expecting continued increase in the value of commodities relative to other capital. If they expect to need more urb
79.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
Apple's market cap is 300 billion. Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble are both at 180 billion. Pfizer is 160 billion and Pepsi is 110 billion. So why exactly is Apple a silly example?
80.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
I never get tired of re-reading this. It goes right to the heart of what is magical and wonderful and also scary about computer programming, the sheer power of abstraction available and the unintuitive consequences that are a result of thos
81.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
Certainly Dennis Ritchie is the primary author of C, but given the very close historical relationship between C and unix, we know that there was a tight synergistic evolution that shaped each in relation to the other. As an example, very ea
82.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
This is a great article, although of course there are a few things to quibble about. One that stuck out to me was this: "One of the inventors is Ken Thompson of Unix and Plan9 fame, and he was indirectly involved with C as well." I'd have t
83.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
Wait, doesn't that actually support what I'm saying? I recall a shooting war in which a lot of people died as part of the process by which slavery stopped being a reality in the USA. Or is that your point?
84.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
I think it is entirely possible Bitcoin will provoke the mother-of-all battles for control over communication networks and how people use them. The outlines are very clear: Bitcoin allows nearly complete escape from the current financial re
85.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
As usual, the Freakonomics brand name stands for an idea that seems sensible and provocatively contrarian on cursory examination, but fails hold up when you dig into the facts. There are some issues with the current rare earths supply, but
86.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
The current design of Bitcoin is obviously not correct for the long term, and I am sure it will be supplanted by more evolved crypto-currency systems. There is absolutely nothing preventing people from taking the open-source code and creati
87.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
Thanks for the reply, and your accusation of hypocrisy has some justice to it. I actually have a lot of respect for you and appreciate your projects and most of your writing, but I still don't think you handled this entire situation as well
88.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
This is a very good feature, but I am also afraid it will make Zed Shaw and others think that his attempt to out-troll the trolls and multiply internet drama was a force for positive change. "If you throw a big enough temper tantrum and inc
89.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
I try to stay educated about modern physics, but this article leaves me scratching my head. The idea that time is just a measure of change, and all we really have is sequences of observations and a causal structure is not new at all. I have
90.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
The Lance Armstrong metaphor is painfully accurate - using unethical methods to win. To me this is the essence of what is wrong with a perspective that prizes results and disregards moral imperatives. We see it in the celebration of Zuckerb

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