rchase · HackerTrans

3 months agodiscuss

I was hoping someone would point out slayradio. Incredible community of people, and I've been listening and chatting with those guys for decades.

rchase

5 years agodiscuss

    Gauloises
    Smoke
    Algorithms

    a different type of thinking

    Tonight mechanics of language ring
    like bells or machinery

    Or lust 
    after longing

    Circuits cut on paper
    Writ on paper
    Walls of paper
    carefully positioned

    Nights and nights
    Missing it missing you missing.

    Time to close to end it
    and/or just hit Enter

    Smoke
    Algorithms
    Cigarettes

    Return

rchase

5 years agodiscuss

Lady Astor: "If you were my husband, I'd poison your drink."

Churchill: "If you were my wife, I'd drink it."

-Apocryphal

rchase

6 years agodiscuss

I did not buy it. I traded Night Driver for it (and the paddles). 1980? And yeah, not to put too fine a point on it, just... no.

But, given the replay-ability of Night Driver, still a fair trade.

rchase

6 years agodiscuss

Quite challenging.

That game is impossible to solve without spoilers, so far as I'm concerned. And lord knows I tried. As far as Infocom goes, the only ones I managed to solve unassisted were Zork I and II and Planetfall, all of which are considered on the easy end of the spectrum. The later games were much more complex. Along with HHG2TG, Lurking Horror was really difficult too.

Tons of fun all of them, though.

Gosh I miss my C64.

rchase

6 years agodiscuss

Google is getting some serious flack.

From NPR this morning... https://www.npr.org/2020/12/18/947918291/google-researcher-d...

rchase

6 years agodiscuss

Maybe the 8th is an implied nested recursion. It's the story of Mr. Vonnegut telling the story of the other 7 shapes.

rchase

6 years agodiscuss

I learned spreadsheeting in Lotus 1-2-3 on DOS in the early '90s. It is so fast and super powerful. I still use the 1-2-3 keystrokes in Excel to this day (an option that I'm both infinitely pleased and super shocked still exists, Microsoft actually did something right!)

If anyone out there knows how to obtain Lotus and get it running in Linux, please please let me know!

Because, not to put too fine a point on it, sc, sc-im and oleo are completely useless without months of self-training, and even then... meh.

rchase

6 years agodiscuss

Yep. I had a C64 and my step-brother had an Atari 800. It was a cool machine as well. Same processor, but radically different graphics and sound chip, if I remember correctly.

rchase

6 years agodiscuss

Great book. Little dated, but still worth a read.

Love the HOLE HAWG analogy about tools that do what you tell them to, immediately and sometimes dangerously, regardless of whether what you told them to do was right.

rchase

6 years agodiscuss

I was happy to see the C64 called out near the end of this. I love that machine, and the Amiga so much. And reading about this Pi 400 the other day truly struck me in the same vein. I honestly don't care much about the couple obvious shortcomings, for $100, this is a purely nostalgia purchase for me.

I could do with some case color options, but that's a small niggle given what this thing can do. And I appreciate the focus on price point. Old school design constraints.

rchase

6 years agodiscuss

good god, man. well said.

rchase

6 years agodiscuss

Cool story. Here's a real one, if anyone's interested...

A Tiny Mistake https://pastebin.com/gZa36S0K

rchase

6 years agodiscuss

Nice catch. No judgment yet, but feels like bowdlerization to me.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bowdlerize

rchase

6 years agodiscuss

“The Secret Life of Machines”

My god how I loved that show. Tim Hunkin is such a weird and wonderful person. And though the show sorta predates the modern internet, as soon as the tech was available/undertandable to him, he put the whole damn series online for download (initially on an FTP server) for free.

The episode where he and Garrod make a an audio recording with some rust filings and Scotch tape (sticky tape ;) was simply amazing.

rchase

6 years agodiscuss

Years ago I took a tip from (the admittedly fictional) Mr. Sherlock Holmes: I never go anywhere without my small notebook and a pen. Back pocket for notebook (and yeah, the current one is 3/4 full and beat to hell) and pen in front pocket(preferably a black Pilot Precise V5, which is both cheap and high quality).

It's really impossible to express how many times a day this comes in handy. The most mundane information usually, for me, is also the most forgettable, and a quick jot fixes that.

And finally, when the thing is cashed, though most of the notations within are completely useless after a couple days, the object itself has, through wear and abuse, become a compelling and aesthetically pleasing artifact.

rchase

6 years agodiscuss

Very cool article. Having grown up on msoft BASIC and assembly on the C64, I really appreciate the low-level insights.

rchase

6 years agodiscuss

Holy crap that was a comprehensive article. Much more of this stuff, please.

I haven't power-read anything so dense in a long while. And I'm not even a Star Wars fan (other than having been 9 years old when A New Hope (as it's apparently called now) came out in theatres, and therefore having absorbed it all by cultural osmosis ever since.)

Doesn't matter if one is a Star Wars fan... the Millenium Falcon evokes instant nostalgia and smiles in most anyone over 40. And yes, it was fast enough for this old man, anyway.

rchase

6 years agodiscuss

various 8bit '80s BASIC implementations:

REM

Yes, it's the comment marker, standing for REMARK.

But it's also, metaphorically, a line that is "asleep."

Genius.

rchase

6 years agodiscuss

I would argue that we, humans, as mathematicians, carpenters and apiarists have worked together with the bees resulting in a net gain in honey over time.

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