Sometimes when I’m programming I get a little lost in trying to make a pipeline more efficient. While it’s a noble goal, I have to remind myself: “somewhere here, you have to pay the piper”. No matter how you squeeze the bits, distribute the work, or optimize the input, you still have to draw those pixels to the display.
The simplification and optimization makes it easier somewhere in the process, but all of those pixels still have to be drawn, somewhere, sometime.
Extending the metaphor a bit far, we’re about to try to draw the entire buffer. And we’re still populating it.
Since all our local markets have introduced handheld scanners, I don't even bring my bags in. I put everything in the cart barcode up, get to the checkout, scan everything, pay, and go.
When I get to the car I unload into the bags. I'm sure it's not a thing for everyone, but I feel like I'm cutting out a fair bit of shuffling.
I wrote some 6502 as my final project for school (An NES game, so a specific environment) and I found it fun and extremely challenging. I'm sure there is a lot to be said for writing ASM in a modern context, but I think it's a good exercise in learning. One of the benefits you get out of working with an 8-bit processor is dealing with data bigger than 8-bits.
Yes, I think he is. And I don’t think his claim is unreasonable. I have heard of Lebron and Messi, but haven’t seen either of them play. Ever. Lebron is Basketball, and I’m pretty sure Messi is soccer, but I only know that because the latter came up in conversations about Apple buying sports rights. I would say there are more people engaging with Instagram and Facebook than there are with basketball.
I get what you’re saying, but I think it’s a limited viewpoint, just as mine is.
No, Conway's Law[1] is attributed to Melvin Conway, a different computer Scientist. Also unrelated to either Lynn Conway, or Melvin Conway, is Conway's Life, which is named for John Conway[2]
One of the biggest challenges modern OS developers face (Apple and Microsoft namely) is how to make the new version of the OS appealing enough for users to move to. There are carrots like a fancy new feature, or sticks like “we’re not supporting this anymore, so if you want your computer to be secure you need to upgrade.”
A lot of people don’t care about the carrots though. Their computer does everything they need it to and does so reliably. In a lot of ways the OS is a solved problem, but the companies who make them still need to pay the bills for all the security work that will always need to be done.
It makes me wonder if Apple (for example) put macOS into a no-new-features mode and just improved security from here-on-out what the long term effects would be for users and the industry.
This might be a stretch (and also is 100% speculative), but maybe it’s a tax write-off thing. They put money into something, decided they wanted the tax breaks more than to sell the product, and there’s your loss.
Some people are finding themselves excluded from their social group because of platform choice - basically not being able to use iMessage (sometimes) means people don't want you in the group chat (because mixing iMessage and SMS messages makes a bad experience.)
It is incredibly difficult to get a social group to change messaging platforms, especially if that social group's shared interest isn't "using a good messaging platform"
The easiest solution is to conform to the existing messaging platform in the group. In the case of a bunch of iOS users, that might mean leaving Android for iOS. People don't want to do this (For a variety of reasons.) So being able to participate as a first-world-citizen of the platform has its appeal.
I think they also realized they didn’t want to be a video archive service but a “come back for the new thing” service. Otherwise they’re just holding everyone’s home movies
I’m sometimes shocked at how much my wife relies on and accomplishes through her Pixel 3. She uses a computer only when she wants a bigger screen - photo editing or watching a show. Everything else she uses her phone. Is very surprising to me. I feel like I can barely do anything on my phone.
The Disney properties were already self-governing. The Florida legislature revoked that in political retaliation, and passed the cost on to nearby counties.
The trouble I have is that the cost for using the system is the same as if you try to buy your own Facebook-free headset. The advertisers still demand all your info and demand to be able to sell to you.
I feel like we’re all hoping that there will be a VR version of the early web, free and open, and mostly just neat things to connect with or about. I worry there is increasingly no chance of that.
Neil deGrasse Tyson said in an episode of Cosmos that even the Romans understood lead was dangerous, but it was a convenient metal to work with, so they used it anyway
The simplification and optimization makes it easier somewhere in the process, but all of those pixels still have to be drawn, somewhere, sometime.
Extending the metaphor a bit far, we’re about to try to draw the entire buffer. And we’re still populating it.