oldcynic

50 ms·

421.
by oldcynic 9y ago
Even Hayek, so beloved of Thatcher and Reagan, sought to regulate and price externalities due to failures of the free market: “Nor can certain harmful effects of deforestation, or of some methods of farming, or of the smoke and noise of fac
422.
by oldcynic 9y ago
The Telegraph are barely better than the Mail on some topics. Since their relatively recent ownership change and rebrand they can't really be considered quality any more.
423.
by oldcynic 9y ago
Secrets are lies, sharing is caring, privacy is theft. SeeChange
424.
The Google Clips smart camera is now available for $249(arstechnica.com)
1 points by oldcynic 9y ago|2 comments
425.
by oldcynic 9y ago
Yeah but all the ads were bad until well into the 90s. You'd be happy to thumb through them all, searching for a highlight that you could afford, or a terrible ad for some tape game (pg214), that eventually became MS Flight Sim, or j
426.
by oldcynic 9y ago
Scroll around for some highlights. What did USR used to sell as well as modems? 300 baud modems mind you, not fancy v.Everything Couriers yet. Ad for full height floppy drives and 14" hard drives. Apple III review. X10 home automation
427.
by oldcynic 9y ago
I think it's pretty clear that touch is third rate for many applications. Such as where you'd like to reliably and quickly operate a control without looking at it. Voice control. No thanks. Optional for the stereo perhaps, but I a
428.
by oldcynic 9y ago
This is just the sort of problem government and legislation is for. We have universal service obligations on the mail, and we should do so for utilities.
429.
by oldcynic 9y ago
Better streetlights are OK to a point. Endlessly upgrading lighting such as has happened here seems pointless. I miss the stars. I don't even live in a major city any more. I don't need major road level lighting if one of a tiny n
430.
by oldcynic 9y ago
...so we need a uucp interface to HN? Sarcasm aside, HN could have worked well as private newsgroups. I really do think there is a lot to be said for store and forward, especially when you want to file something away for reference. We lost
431.
by oldcynic 9y ago
rPi and pi-hole is probably the best option here these days. Friends often ask how their phone is so much nicer when they visit than at home. :D I've converted a couple. I don't think trying to convey what ad or script blocking ch
432.
by oldcynic 9y ago
My perspective just from being around a good while is savings from LED lighting have been more than offset by excessive gratuitous use of lighting. Dramatically so. No one can build anything at all, even a few paving slabs, without adding
433.
by oldcynic 9y ago
> ...and the cities were ill prepared to deal with that. For all the faults around Europe with traffic, I think they did far better adapting to cars than the UK. Mainly by preserving some of the alternatives better. The Netherlands has
434.
by oldcynic 9y ago
NoScript on Firefox and Scriptsafe[0] on Chrome. [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scriptsafe/oiigbmn...
435.
by oldcynic 9y ago
Usenet was marvellous before the first ads showed up (and before Endless September of course). So were the many private news feeds that companies would set up for developer support.
436.
by oldcynic 9y ago
I think only one approach works these days: Consider the whole web hostile. Browse with uBlock Origin and JS off. Enable JS for trusted domains only. Give up, blacklist, and go elsewhere if whack-a-mole enabling needs too many unknown rando
437.
by oldcynic 9y ago
An updated SE is about due -- if you put any credence in macrumors' buying guide anyway. They increased storage a year ago, when I bought one, and a price decrease late last year, so the timeline seems reasonable.
438.
by oldcynic 9y ago
Switched to iPhone SE (after a few years on Android) 12 months ago. I have yet to encounter any situation where I've been annoyed with the phone's performance. Best, and snappiest, smart phone I've ever owned. Annoyance has
439.
by oldcynic 9y ago
My take: Generic stock photo dude draws the eye -- enough to distract from reading the copy as he stands out, but doesn't add anything. Why is he there? No idea, but he's not helping me figure out your service. Having a vague, u
440.
by oldcynic 9y ago
You could do worse than start with the FreeBSD Handbook section on sockets as it covers a lot of the how and why things are glued together. It is C based however, as *nix and data structures were built in C. [0] https://www.freeb
441.
by oldcynic 9y ago
Most camera lenses do, and generally give a wide range of stops, often down to f22. Phones have, until now, fixed aperture, fixed lenses. Given how tiny phone camera lenses are I'm surprised to see variable, given how little range yo
442.
by oldcynic 9y ago
Well something had to be done. People could buy any head unit they liked. There was even a DIN standard size and connector and they would talk to the car's built in display. Aftermarket units were often far better. How is a dealer
443.
by oldcynic 9y ago
Grr. The old Denon bookshelf hi-fi had an analogue pot with slow motor tied to remote control, and infinite fine adjustment when using knob directly. After it died we just bought the current equivalent without exercising enough distrust. Th
444.
by oldcynic 9y ago
See, now then you have to provide instructions to guests to wave their arms around vigorously when the lights go off mid shave! (Just like we have to do every 30 mins in the office when there's 3 or fewer in.)
445.
by oldcynic 9y ago
What to make of it? IOTA are rolling their own cryptography which immediately makes me run the other way. At least until I see some respected peer review that it's sound. This exchange makes me think that unlikely at best. Don't b
446.
by oldcynic 9y ago
...and what no one giving us this "progress" ever seems to realise is how often it is slower. For instance our Whirlpool microwave - touch sensitive digital and achieving 5 or 10 minutes takes much longer and more clicks than our
447.
by oldcynic 9y ago
Wasn't attempting to be offensive and I apologise if anyone found it so. Gave it no more significance than referring to myself as a Brit. Most of my bikes have been Japanese.
448.
by oldcynic 9y ago
Quite, and we've never tried geoengineering on a global scale. We've had enough problems from localised changes from agriculture or introduced species. To your second point I've always preferred climate change as a term over
449.
by oldcynic 9y ago
My starting point with that question is to say humans are best suited to the global climate under which they evolved. Muck about with that at your peril. Try it out on the hot-spare planet first please. Attempting to adapt the environment
450.
by oldcynic 9y ago
Can't speak to US noise regs, but here most standard bikes really aren't that loud any more - years of noise regs have put paid to that. I'm just as anti excessive noise as many non motorcyclists. Not least because of > &

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