zandorg

85 ms·

1. 781.▲
   by zandorg 17y ago

   I personally think that personal computing, computing in general and the Internet/Web has moved us far far away from Orwell's nightmare world. For even a tiny example, logistics software allowing transport costs to plummet and more products
2. 782.▲
   by zandorg 17y ago

   Max Levchin in Cringely's interview series said calmly that they burned through $100 million TO (not incidental) solve the problem. Anyone who wants the same level of fraud protection is looking at a cost of $100 million. However, I think t
3. 783.▲
   by zandorg 17y ago

   I dropped out of school at 16 (in the UK), and I did a deal with the school whereby I'd take just 5 exams (maths, english, history, double science). I got C's in them, not enough to get into a good college. I tried a computer course, failed
4. 784.▲
   by zandorg 17y ago

   I don't get it. Are the servers Apple Macs?
5. 785.▲
   by zandorg 17y ago

   I meant a landline phone, not a mobile. My Mum bought a BT cordless phone for a landline, and the batteries were 40 pounds. A new phone only cost 25 I think, so she bought a new one when it ran out.
6. 786.▲
   by zandorg 17y ago

   When a portable phone's battery runs out, it's cheapest just to buy a new phone!
7. 787.▲
   by zandorg 17y ago

   Yup, Wired used to try and predict the future, but now it just reports on the recent past.
8. 788.▲
   by zandorg 17y ago

   I think photocopiers (with Xerox's patent) were very very profitable. A royalty on every sheet of paper copied...
9. 789.▲
   by zandorg 17y ago

   I learned from a Media Studies course that distribution and promotion costs 100% of the cost of a movie. So a $30 mil movie costs another $30 mil to promote. Unless of course you get promotion by saying how much it cost! [Additional] I love
10. 790.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    A caveat to TinyCDB in Windows: Don't forget (In Windows) to specify O_BINARY eg: O_RDONLY |O_BINARY Also the case in Berkeley DB 1.86. Otherwise it opens a file in ASCII mode, when Windows writes \r\n when it reads in \n... , and di
11. 791.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    Sorry, yes, I didn't look at the code. I was thinking of early Berkeley DB code.
12. 792.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    DB up to and including 1.86 are Berkeley license (basically 'do anything with this but include this notice' but without open source requirements), but DB up to and including 1.86 only allow < 2GB databases. :-( I tried to upgrade it wit
13. 793.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    I guess someone could tweak cdb to be >4GB, but these C libraries are always insanely convoluted.
14. 794.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    A nice read. I love reading about maths, just not doing it.
15. 795.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    Andrew Orlowski is no hack. The Register (which he writes for) just holds a view against the U.S. mainstream, being a British publication.
16. 796.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    Give me that and an Amiga with video toaster, and I'll make you a mid-90s sci fi show...
17. 797.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    (c) 2005? Sounds like Rephlex records is out of business...
18. 798.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    I recently self-published (via http://Lulu.com ) a 730-page book of stories in hardback. I disabled Download as PDF. This means someone would have to scan it in and proofread it (the difficult bit) to get it in a digital format. I like th
19. 799.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    I read aloud when I've finished a draft of a screenplay, to help in making the dialogue better. Also, I read a short story of my own (just 2 pages) out in 1997 to members of a writing class, and they all laughed at the places I expected and
20. 800.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    VAT - Nope. VAT In Europe - Nope. Value Added Tax in Europe - Nope.
21. 801.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    Extraordinary! I tested both my company logos in it, and nothing came up. This means they don't infringe. :-)
22. 802.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    It's close enough for both to be similiarly monopolous.
23. 803.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    eBay is losing its monopoly due to lameness. Also, Froogle is a definite eBay competitor, and Google lists brand new products, too. You used to be able to buy old hardware cheap off eBay, but their stupid fees have ruined buying cheap stuff
24. 804.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    I got the point where I was checking Reddit every 5 minutes. I changed my ways: Now I'm reading a book a week, and Hacker News supplies all my news. As for email, I hardly get replies to anything these days, so screw 'em.
25. 805.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    First off, 'by people who...' is me - I wrote this Lisp program. It was OCR software to turn images of text into ASCII. I had read On Lisp and learned about macros, which I used heavily, and created a language to describe the elements of ea
26. 806.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    People who advertise their company (for example, on the side of one of their trucks) sometimes start it with a www. which would fail one of those OS-detected http:// tests which only look for http:// and not www.
27. 807.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    No need to be hostile, I was just detailing my own experience, relevant to the article.
28. 808.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    (compiled) Clisp.
29. 809.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    The algorithms were the same. But... The C code probably ran 100 times faster than Lisp before I optimised it.
30. 810.▲
    by zandorg 17y ago

    I also have written C programs which (with some basic optimisations) are 1000 (yes) times faster than the Lisp equivalent. Initially prototyped in Lisp, and the code ported over line-for-line to C.