nickdothutton

7 ms·

31.
by nickdothutton 4mo ago
AMD's inability to make good software has been a recurring problem for decades. Many years ago I had some success with their optimising compiler, but everything else I've touched was bad. A real pity.
32.
by nickdothutton 4mo ago
If I were a (potentially) hostile foreign power, I'd use a game to enlist people in the target country to record sensitive locations.
33.
by nickdothutton 4mo ago
The UK student loan book regularly changes hands on the secondaries market at half of face value. Make of that what you will. Draw whatever conclusions you might about the market value of some of the education provided. I support anyone&#x2
34.
by nickdothutton 4mo ago
Supercalc2, Maxam2, dBASE II. You could do a lot with CP/M software, especially if you had access to a hard drive which would eliminate the "insert floppy disk X into drive Y" tedium.
35.
by nickdothutton 4mo ago
I'm the downvoted poster above, and I used to run a BBS. Mostly hosting info files and CP/M software (Thanks U.S. Robotics, couldn't have done it without HST). I am genuinely interested in know where (and if) such a network o
36.
by nickdothutton 4mo ago
It is quite common to find device manufacturers, even those of many years standing, who _appear to_ begin with the device and add the software as an afterthought. Paying little attention to security or even the software lifecycle (patches,
37.
by nickdothutton 4mo ago
I too remember. Where is the "FidoNet" of today?
38.
by nickdothutton 4mo ago
Torture testing required before acceptance of vibed/AI submissions?
39.
by nickdothutton 4mo ago
Does anyone know what that characteristic smell is DEC equipment has? It's different from the characteristic smell of (for example) Sun equipment. Rainbow's smell like VAXen.
40.
by nickdothutton 4mo ago
You are going to love Digital VAT, closely followed by Real-Time VAT.
41.
by nickdothutton 4mo ago
"The system is working as intended". I once attended an official seminar given by the government procurement department, to an audience of (mostly) government department people with purchase authority. The subject of which was how
42.
by nickdothutton 4mo ago
May I introduce you to local LLMs?
43.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
The most interesting thing about this article is that it leaves out all the interesting stuff. I recommend googling one Dr David Kelly, and a young fellow called David Cameron who would become better known later. When the US and UK learned
44.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
Out of all day to day government spending on services (health, schools, police, courts, etc), the NHS consumes about 40% of departmental expenditure limits [1]. Although it is pre-covid and the picture has worsened significantly since then,
45.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
Brits more or less completely abandoned space in any meaningful way. Successive governments didn't value it at all in comparison to other areas of policy. Even after we developed our own independent orbital launch capability. The story
46.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
Google really should publish a flow diagram for how they decide to turn off someone's business.
47.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
China is much more interested in waging a campaign against companies that represent the material of the future growth in productivity, exports, and prosperity of the US and her people, than learning about you as an individual. Unless of cou
48.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
RISKS Digest got me started too. I think there are some things best learned from the very beginning. "Consider modes of failure" is probably my favourite piece of security advice.
49.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
I have a couple of Eizo EV3285, which have enough separate physical inputs for the 3 machines I use to drive them. Only real PITA is having to press the input selector on both. Must admit I wasn't even aware of DDC!
50.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
I really wish Anthropic would consult some monetization experts. Their recent strategy has been all over the place and they are burning early goodwill.
51.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
Nostalgic for VAXstation/DECwindows terminals where at the time the monitor weighed more than I did.
52.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
I strongly encourage all HN readers to seek out any of his work online. Including the meta, where he tasks about being hired for the job, and the approach he took to communicating. Although some of it will look a little dated, the messages
53.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
Back in the late 90s a senior Microsoft exec explained this to me, they had acquired staff and continued to operate entire divisions which he described as "ballast". In the future, once the stock price increases slowed, they would
54.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
No need to study for Cloudflare certifications[ ], just have your agent do it all. [ ] Joke, there are no certifications.
55.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
Remember kids. Don't believe in anything. Don't join anything. Don't give even a small part of yourself up to anything. Don't be part of anything bigger than yourself.
56.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
My terminal has not been ensh*ttified. I used the Internet for work, for knowledge, more than I use it for entertainment. One of the reasons I like TUIs.
57.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
Every now and then I look for a vt320 from my university days. Still miss the smell of hot dust on CRT electron guns.
58.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
As an aside, I always wondered why GitHub had a web interface. Admittedly I’m a pre-web SCCS/RCS “old timer” but I wouldn't have put a web interface on it at all.
59.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
Casio/G-SHOCK, one of the few brands which I think could plausibly stretch/apply itself into more tech areas than it currently does. Wearables, re-entering the market for ruggedised android phones, etc.
60.
by nickdothutton 5mo ago
How can I be sure this article isn’t sponsored by Big Toast?

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