sramsay

16 ms·

121.
by sramsay 5y ago
You've seen a case where someone wrote something in Python that later devs could not understand and then rewrote it in . . . what? And you've seen that with Java? There's a big difference between a developer going off and wr
122.
by sramsay 5y ago
It’s the “interested party” part that’s hard. He might be a collector of rare works in the area, but it doesn’t sound like it. So it’s likely the value of the collection as a collection lies with the name attached to it. But trust me: P
123.
by sramsay 5y ago
He sounds like he has no concept of the book market at all, and like most people, vastly overestimates what his collection is worth. I guarantee you he will pay someone to haul those books away.
124.
by sramsay 5y ago
I would not recommend that someone just starting out and who doesn't fully understand subtractive synthesis start with a very sophisticated, open-ended modular system. oscs, filters, lfos, envelopes, vcos . . . for a beginner, this i
125.
by sramsay 5y ago
A thousand times yes. You can read all the tutorials you want, but the ear training that Syntorial offers is really worth it. Getting "the sound in your head" coming out of the machine takes lots of practice, but this really, r
126.
by sramsay 5y ago
No argument from me at all. Just a bit of sadness.
127.
by sramsay 5y ago
My “results” are Postgres. And curl. And gcc. Etc., etc. Are you seriously arguing that we didn’t put our money where our mouth is?
128.
by sramsay 5y ago
As always, I wish there was a way to DM on HN. :)
129.
by sramsay 5y ago
We didn’t “hate” proprietary code (it often came off that way, I’ll admit). We did think it was morally wrong to make money off it. We thought it was like patenting the Pythagorean theorem. So really, you think “building things in general”
130.
by sramsay 5y ago
It wasn’t “spite,” first of all. But “a good long term strategy” for what, exactly?
131.
by sramsay 5y ago
I am 51 years old. I learned my first programming language (C) in the mid nineties, and have been writing software ever since. Back then, there was this enormous revolutionary fervor around free software, and it was intensely idealogical.
132.
by sramsay 5y ago
What about something like recutils? Or maybe I mean “a recutils type thing.”
133.
by sramsay 5y ago
But note that they're only 43rd in the Order of Precedence for livery companies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livery_company#Precedence I mean, way above the Worshipful Company of Educators (109) and the Worshipf
134.
by sramsay 5y ago
I saw what you did there.
135.
by sramsay 5y ago
Perhaps, but REAPER is none of those things.
136.
by sramsay 6y ago
Wow, TMG was a new one for me. From the Wiki article on it: "Douglas McIlroy ported TMG to an early version of Unix. According to Ken Thompson, McIlroy wrote TMG in TMG on a piece of paper and "decided to give his piece of paper
137.
by sramsay 6y ago
It's fascinating, isn't it? Right! Users . . . :)
138.
by sramsay 6y ago
I am absolutely the opposite. I've avoided CMake for a long time since many projects use autotools and because of its reputation as a painful thing to learn. ;) But actually, one of the points made in the Calcote book really stuck wit
139.
by sramsay 6y ago
> Then the article goes into full-on snake oil mode, trying to convince you that “technology that resolves that problem, by creating infinite phase, is currently available” if only you buy their “Sensorium™ LSV III Function Generators an
140.
by sramsay 6y ago
Right. I was actually alive too. What we're trying to tell you, is that the kind of explanation offered in that article is absolute bullshit. It's common! People make this kind of argument all the time. It's still wrong,
141.
by sramsay 6y ago
Saying "CDs have too much treble" is like saying "books have too many adjectives." And no, for millionth time. Per the Nyquist theorem, the waveform being generated is identical -- the same, without any difference wha
142.
by sramsay 6y ago
> intent to manipulate the price (which IS illegal) Is it "illegal price manipulation" even if it's done completely out in the open for everyone to see? (I'm seriously asking this question). I feel like laws governin
143.
by sramsay 6y ago
I absolutely love backgammon. I think people dismiss it as not being on the same level as chess or go because of the "chance element," but that element is probably better described as "management of risk" or "the c
144.
by sramsay 6y ago
Foster's brilliance and wit are legendary. Less well known, I think, is that he was a deeply religious man and a fearsome ascetic. It is not a coincidence that he joined the Discalced Carmelites -- among the more mystical, contemplati
145.
by sramsay 6y ago
This. Several years ago, I sat through a panel (at a university) in which representatives from various businesses tried to lecture a bunch of academics about how the university is a hidebound institution, and that if doesn't "get
146.
by sramsay 6y ago
There was a golden age of philosophy 2500 years ago (during a period in which there were very few massacres or genocides). Then there was a long "dark age" in which there were no philosophers and lots of massacres, genocides, and
147.
by sramsay 6y ago
I wondered about this. Say I have a block, at the end of which I free a bunch of memory. I also have a bunch of other exit points within the block (mostly for catastrophic errors, say). Would a deferred free only apply to the outer scope
148.
by sramsay 6y ago
> allow servers to instruct clients on how to construct appropriate URIs Right. That would be great, and actually, that's what the commercial services do. With NWS it goes something like this: Say the user has a lat/long. Yo
149.
by sramsay 6y ago
I have written several command-line weather programs for different services -- many of which I had to abandon. For example, I wrote a popular one for Weather Underground that I had to retire because WU stopped allowing free access to their
150.
by sramsay 6y ago
And just to add to the above . . . This is not a problem confined to ancient texts. If you read The Great Gatsby any time before the 1990s, you probably read a quite "corrupt" version of it. And, of course, there's Hamle

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