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1. pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist: (p@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jan-2023 17:43:15 JST pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist:

   • Trade Minister Tagomi
   @TradeMinister
   
   > So when there even is a Don't Autoplay Videos flag, it does nothing.
   
   The solution is ditching software that does the things you don't want.
   
   > Judging by the constipated quality of the Math Dept head, doubt he ever had any.
   
   :pressf:
   
   > 'Because we can' is not always the best coding philosophy.
   
   Seconded.
   
   > and for the heavy lifting, there just weren't that many who could just do it
   
   This is still true, there's just a lot of work that doesn't require heavy lifting nowadays. The first-pass smoke check we used to use at an old job when interviewing was that they write a function that, when passed a string, reverses it and returns the result. Language of their choice. 90% still failed.
   
   You see how many people are afraid of C? Like, actually worried about programming in it, and then they will tell you how terrible it is if you write C. The kernel and the userspace are C, their language is implemented in C, the database they're talking to is written in C, but they think of C as something that can't be used for anything.
   
   > (I was a total 'maverick', not even a BA let alone B.Sc.)
   
   About half of the best programmers I have personally worked with were dropouts; I myself am a dropout. My first serious boss was an excellent guy and smart as hell; he's a VP Eng somewhere, he didn't finish high school.
   
   > And BBN was a totally engineering-driven place: as good as it got I figure. UCB CS and Sun were probably aa good.
   
   I think I would have had some fun at Sun back in the day. (If there's a place like that now, I should dust off my resume.)
   
   > That and *bsd weren't even things then; they became visible early '90s, UCB 386-BSD first
   
   I read the old thread announcing Linux; one of the guys that replied said it looked like it'd be fun to play with while waiting for 386BSD, which I thought was kinda quaint. It seems like 386BSD has been preserved by the original author: https://github.com/386BSD/386bsd .
   
   > But it was obvious the wintelitary-industrial complex thing would sweep all before it despite being ugly crap.
   
   It was a mess, but unlike things like ARM coming out of nowhere, x86 always seemed inevitable.
   
   > The 68020 was probably out or close; I read and loved their insn set.
   
   I never played with one of them directly, but people seem to have loved it. (kencc still supports 68000 and 68020, but I don't know if anyone uses it.)
   
   > If Apple had called me and said, 'hey we're building a system on the 68020’; I'd be incredibly rich now. I doubt I'd even have asked how much, just moved out there.
   
   Just enough to buy a house and flip it 15 years later would have netted a small fortune.
   
   > I really like the idea of RISC-V. Put open firmware on it, make a phone, I'll buy one. Hell, I'll buy stock in whoever builds it.
   
   The clockworkpi.com guys are shipping a kit with a SIM card, RISC-V is available. (Very fun hardware design, their CPUs are on swappable boards compatible with the RPi CM-3, so you can swap the ARM board out for a RISC-V board, swap the microSD card, and boot a completely different architecture.) They take forever to ship, but it's only a matter of time before someone gets it to do phone calls.
   • 🌲Number 1 Pleroma Criminal on XBL 🇵🇱|🇺🇸 (phenomx6@fedi.pawlicker.com)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jan-2023 17:45:34 JST 🌲Number 1 Pleroma Criminal on XBL 🇵🇱|🇺🇸

     in reply to

     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     @p @TradeMinister thin clients are kind of a big deal still, especially in hospitals and public libraries. Of course our public library used a bunch of as/400 terminals before we used thin clients (which really run RDP).
     
     The idea is old as shit with dumb terminals and xterms. In fact it's not uncommon for Costco and the like to be running 5250 term emulation software. It's just the idea of every business using it flopped thankfully.
   • Trade Minister Tagomi (trademinister@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jan-2023 17:45:35 JST Trade Minister Tagomi

     in reply to

     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     @p
     
     @TradeMinister
     
     
     > The solution is ditching software that does the things you don't want.
     
     Butbutbut So Convenient!
     
     
     >> and for the heavy lifting, there just weren't that many who could just do it
     
     > This is still true, there's just a lot of work that doesn't require heavy lifting nowadays. The first-pass smoke check we used to use at an old job when interviewing was that they write a function that, when passed a string, reverses it and returns the result. Language of their choice. 90% still failed.
     
     Tell me they all had CS degrees from India. Please!
     
     
     > You see how many people are afraid of C? Like, actually worried about programming in it, and then they will tell you how terrible it is if you write C.
     
     C isn't Safe! It's not a Safe Space! It should ne illegal!
     
     
     > The kernel and the userspace are C, their language is implemented in C, the database they're talking to is written in C, but they think of C as something that can't be used for anything.
     
     It's not interpreted! It has pointers! It has pointers to pointers! You can use hex constants as pointers to pointers!
     
     > About half of the best programmers I have personally worked with were dropouts; I myself am a dropout. My first serious boss was an excellent guy and smart as hell; he's a VP Eng somewhere, he didn't finish high school.
     
     This makes perfect sense to me. I think whatever made me apparently very good in my day also made classrooms excruciating.
     
     
     
     > > That and *bsd weren't even things then; they became visible early '90s, UCB 386-BSD first
     
     > I read the old thread announcing Linux; one of the guys that replied said it looked like it'd be fun to play with while waiting for 386BSD, which I thought was kinda quaint. It seems like 386BSD has been preserved by the original author: https://github.com/386BSD/386bsd .
     
     Anyways, after dropping out, I dropped a little bit back in in '88 at a small CS dept for work-study money. We had a couple of EISA-bus 486s waiting for something to run. Eventually I heard about this new *BSD thing, but it needed a BSD Unix to run. I talked with the Berkeley people got them to sell us a dirt-cheap license, but our university lawyers demanded it be under NC law instead of CA law, so it all fell apart.
     Then, around the same time, the first floppy images of early (pre-TCP/IP) Linux and some free BSD came out. Linux booted; xBSD didn't. Decision made.
     
     By around '91, something like 0.95pl14, the first TCP stack appeared in Linux. Shortly after, the professor I was working with was teaching a good load of students on them, text mode only, and we were hooking up anyone in the dept who wanted to be on the Net (one of the machines gatewayed to a VMS VAX over in the computer center). Fun times. I was living out of my van, often at whitewater outposts, or in an abandoned shack very deep in the Blue Ridge, occasionally eating up to a milligram of acid while gazing fire at night. (Messing with Skorps can set one to doing things like that).
     And eventually doing ceramics: cone 10-11 reduction-fired porcelain and stoneware, made a good copper-red tuned to our kiln and firing.
     Still use some of it. Coding and ceramics: work/life balance.
     Overall about the best period of my life, not that I realized it at the time.
     
     
     > >But it was obvious the wintelitary-industrial complex thing would sweep all before it despite being ugly crap.
     
     > It was a mess, but unlike things like ARM coming out of nowhere, x86 always seemed inevitable.
     
     Like that thing you run from in nightmares, but you know it'll get you eventually. Except, wait, that's probably just death. Wintel is worse
     
     > I never played with one of them directly, but people seem to have loved it. (kencc still supports 68000 and 68020, but I don't know if anyone uses it.)
     
     I never played with any of the really nice architectures, just read them. 68040: Extase! Touch my monkey!
     
     > Just enough to buy a house and flip it 15 years later would have netted a small fortune.
     
     Probably be living on a yacht now.
     
     > They take forever to ship, but it's only a matter of time before someone gets it to do phone calls.
     
     I'll wait until there's something like a RISC-V Pinephone, if ever.
   • pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist: (p@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jan-2023 17:45:35 JST pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist:

     in reply to

     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     @TradeMinister
     
     > Butbutbut So Convenient!
     
     Enemy technology, man.
     
     > Tell me they all had CS degrees from India. Please!
     
     I could *tell* you that, but they were Americans.
     
     > It has pointers! It has pointers to pointers!
     
     I don't know what people are afraid of. Worst case, the program crashes. It doesn't hurt, the computer can't melt your eyes. "I used the pointer wrong, now I have Weenie Necrosis."
     
     > I think whatever made me apparently very good in my day also made classrooms excruciating.
     
     I'm sure it's worse. Have you seen how "Common Core" math works?
     
     > I talked with the Berkeley people got them to sell us a dirt-cheap license, but our university lawyers demanded it be under NC law instead of CA law, so it all fell apart.
     
     IP lawyers ruin everything, episode number something.
     
     > By around '91
     
     I like this story. Makes me wonder when this profession turned boring. I have an idea, maybe it's a terrible idea, I'll remember it if it's not.
     
     > Still use some of it. Coding and ceramics: work/life balance.
     
     Excellent.
     
     > Overall about the best period of my life, not that I realized it at the time.
     
     There was a Calvin and Hobbes about this.
     
     > Wintel is worse
     
     We could have had worse, thin clients were supposedly gonna be a big deal. Neither terminal fish nor PC fowl. (Any similarities between "thin client hell" and "everything in the browser" are coincidental and probably hallucinations.)
     
     > I never played with any of the really nice architectures
     
     No time like the present.
     
     > I'll wait until there's something like a RISC-V Pinephone, if ever.
     
     There might be!
   • 🌲Number 1 Pleroma Criminal on XBL 🇵🇱|🇺🇸 (phenomx6@fedi.pawlicker.com)'s status on Sunday, 08-Jan-2023 04:34:28 JST 🌲Number 1 Pleroma Criminal on XBL 🇵🇱|🇺🇸

     in reply to

     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     I've noticed lately thin clients have been replaced by the "tiny" computers Lenovo and the like sell for a good reason; they're more powerful and can function as PCs. It's not like new thin clients are slouches anyhow, the Wyse DX0q I've seen mostly get repurposed as streaming boxes or emulation boxes since it has a quad core AMD Jaguar CPU (the A4-5000 from the Thinkpad X140e is the same CPU but rebranded).
     
     I'm tempted to buy one of these mini PCs again or similar from the ewaste places near me where I got my server, I've just been so busy lately. They hold their value on eBay as well.
     
     I'm only sure the reason that hospitals and the like still use them has to be regulatory bullshit reasons or security reasons (which once again, use RDP), and when a PC is required they just use those mini PCs instead. Schools definitely didn't embrace them either because they use Chromebooks or cheap laptops designed to be "rugged" instead.
   • pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist: (p@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Sunday, 08-Jan-2023 04:34:29 JST pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist:

     in reply to

     • 🌲Number 1 Pleroma Criminal on XBL 🇵🇱|🇺🇸
     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     @PhenomX6 @TradeMinister
     
     > thin clients are kind of a big deal still, especially in hospitals and public libraries.
     
     I don't know, how many of them qualify as thin clients? But thin clients (unless you count webshit) are not the normal course of doing business, people don't usually work that way. Even people that spend all their time ssh'd somewhere in some archaic vt100 emulator ("We added emojis, it's very modern now!") and could trivially use thin clients tend to buy these stupid laptops with 16GB of RAM.
     
     > (which really run RDP)
     
     All right, this definitely qualifies.
     
     > Of course our public library used a bunch of as/400 terminals
     
     Ha, wow. Last I saw, the LASD still uses some AS/400 terminal emulator for Windows.
     
     > The idea is old as shit with dumb terminals and xterms.
     
     Well, those were terminals, not thin clients. But "thin client" was a buzzword back in the 90s, people talked about it like they say "serverless" now.
     
     > It's just the idea of every business using it flopped thankfully.
     
     I think there wasn't a space where it made sense from a cost or usability perspective. Libraries, maybe, but even then, I think just "small computers" would work better.
   • 🌲Number 1 Pleroma Criminal on XBL 🇵🇱|🇺🇸 (phenomx6@fedi.pawlicker.com)'s status on Sunday, 08-Jan-2023 16:17:08 JST 🌲Number 1 Pleroma Criminal on XBL 🇵🇱|🇺🇸

     in reply to

     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     The thing with libraries these days is they've evolved to be "public spaces" at least here. Kids now use the library PCs to play Roblox (which is a bad idea), watch YouTube, and maybe "study". Mostly because they're phoneposters or have a poverty PC from 10 years ago.
     
     But that's what they used thin clients for, web browsing and the catalog when they replaced the AS/400s.
   • Trade Minister Tagomi (trademinister@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Sunday, 08-Jan-2023 16:17:09 JST Trade Minister Tagomi

     in reply to

     • 🌲Number 1 Pleroma Criminal on XBL 🇵🇱|🇺🇸
     @PhenomX6 @p
     
     > thin clients are kind of a big deal still, especially in hospitals and public libraries. Of course our public library used a bunch of as/400 terminals before we used thin clients (which really run RDP).
     
     The medical setting is weird. They still use fax machines! Seriously!
     
     A library catalog access machine would be a perfect place for a thin client: a Pi or such that could connect to a screen and keyboard and net: done.
   • pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist: (p@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:11:59 JST pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist:

     in reply to

     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     @TradeMinister
     
     > I can tell you stories...
     
     Fun ones, I bet.
     
     > Seems likely with LSD. I know a retired nurse who recommends microcoding with psilocybin mushrooms. Nothing at all compares to peyote: I'd microdose that if I could.
     
     Been wanting to try psilocybin because I hear it's got a maybe 50% success rate at just breaking a nicotine addiction immediately.
     
     > Time to rebrand. Those people love their front orgs.
     
     This is the thing that bugs me about people shouting down Clapper and Comey and Fauci and Schwab and the WEF and Davos and whoever else. Tendrils are discarded and regrown as needed.
   • xue (xue@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:11:59 JST xue

     in reply to

     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     @p @TradeMinister be a man, just stop smoking if you want
   • Trade Minister Tagomi (trademinister@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:12:00 JST Trade Minister Tagomi

     in reply to

     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     @p
     
     @TradeMinister
     
     > > And microdosing.
     
     > Ha, never tried regular-dosing the stuff.
     
     I can tell you stories...
     
     > I hear microdoses make people manic and annoying, though.
     
     Seems likely with LSD. I know a retired nurse who recommends microcoding with psilocybin mushrooms. Nothing at all compares to peyote: I'd microdose that if I could.
     
     > Apparently half the Davos Group members canceled their attendance this year. Maybe they're waiting for it to change its name.
     
     Time to rebrand. Those people love their front orgs.
   • Trade Minister Tagomi (trademinister@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:12:01 JST Trade Minister Tagomi

     in reply to
     @p
     
     > Seems like the popular corrective measure in $current_year is amphetamines and testosterone supplementation
     
     And microdosing.
     
     > Yeah, it's close enough that I wouldn't need much encouragement to hoist the black flag.
     
     
     WEF seemd to be getting really blatant.
     Diversity Inclusion Equity: DIE, wypipo!
     
     > "Credit Suisse" neck tattoos.
     
     Credit Suisse seems to be a troubled soul these days. Haven't read the details.
   • pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist: (p@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:12:01 JST pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist:

     in reply to

     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     @TradeMinister
     
     > And microdosing.
     
     Ha, never tried regular-dosing the stuff. I hear microdoses make people manic and annoying, though.
     
     > WEF seemd to be getting really blatant.
     
     Apparently half the Davos Group members canceled their attendance this year. Maybe they're waiting for it to change its name.
     
     > Credit Suisse seems to be a troubled soul these days. Haven't read the details.
     
     The bars do tend to hold their value.
   • Trade Minister Tagomi (trademinister@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:12:02 JST Trade Minister Tagomi

     in reply to
     @p
     
     > One of the great ironies is that, at 18, you *hear* people say "Youth is wasted on the young" and you do not really understand it the same way you come to understand it later.
     
     One doesn't really understand much of *anything* until maybe about 30. Except computers, math, physics: pretty much all the best work is done then.
     
     > The fear now is "you will get shouted at, possibly fired"; the fear then and there was that you'd be imprisoned or executed.
     They're tearing down some statues, the Cultural Revolution had every statue town down, thousand-year-old 50' Buddhas defaced and then emperors dug up so their bones could be denounced.
     
     Well, you're right, of course: what they're doing now is showing us what they want to do to us, the full Moanty if you will, and seething with purple-haired trantifa rage because freeze peach, guns and the hated so-called alleged 'Constitution' are interfering.
     
     > This stuff nowadays has plenty of Year Zero flavor to it (and may be the thin end of the wedge; obsta principiis), but it is really a different game at present.
     
     The haka dance warmup act.
     
     > >it's also essentially C
     
     > Kinda! It feels to me more like Java, there are guard rails everywhere, but it's significantly more trim, so it's still fun.
     
     First two examples looked C-ish, so cozy.
     
     > > a little Etherium: the one crypto I think may have actual value
     
     > I think the speculators have ruined some of it with hype. It's a global VM, the closest we have built yet to a real decentralized general computation platform, and it's one that barely anyone has noticed yet.
     
     I could buy some; brokerage has some kind of partnership with someone who will hodl it for me. But wait, brokerage->some unregulated something-> something that may have value? ERRMANYDEREFS
     Probably I should buy gold coins and bury them.
   • pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist: (p@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:12:02 JST pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist:

     in reply to

     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     @TradeMinister
     
     > Except computers, math, physics: pretty much all the best work is done then.
     
     Seems like the popular corrective measure in $current_year is amphetamines and testosterone supplementation.
     
     > what they're doing now is showing us what they want to do to us
     
     Yeah, it's close enough that I wouldn't need much encouragement to hoist the black flag.
     
     > First two examples looked C-ish, so cozy.
     
     Yeah, it's fun.
     
     > brokerage has some kind of partnership with someone who will hodl it for me
     
     Wouldn't trust it. Better to buy through an exchange and send it to a private wallet, or buy from a friend. You can use the testnet if you want to hack on Solidity stuff.
     
     > Probably I should buy gold coins and bury them.
     
     "Credit Suisse" neck tattoos.
   • Trade Minister Tagomi (trademinister@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:12:03 JST Trade Minister Tagomi

     in reply to

     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     @p
     
     @TradeMinister
     
     > Ha, that would have been fun! I think I'm not cut out for academia but spending the day on math or physics might have been worth it.
     
     When I visited Santa Cruz, I was in a basic chemistry class at Evergreen. I was in some coffeeshop in SC, sketching molecules like LSD, and some guy in chemistry or biology or something saw me and invited me to join his project. I think I probably should have, but I was like 18: an idiot, scarcely human.
     
     > My dream involves more guns/steaks/beer/topless women than whatever is going on nowadays.
     
     > You'd probably like Argentina, or maybe Brazil.
     
     > We might end up with a Cultural Revolution at some point but we're not there yet.
     
     All these purple-haired depravatroids getting people canceled? We totally are, except for actual physical executions.
     
     > I played with Solidity some, though; I think what's going on right now with Ethereum barely scratches the surface, it's a very cool system. I plan to play with it more when I get the chance!
     
     You're right, it is quite interesting, and it's also essentially C, so worthwhile. This makes me think I maybe should buy a little Etherium: the one crypto I think may have actual value.
     
     https://docs.soliditylang.org/en/latest/introduction-to-smart-contracts.html#simple-smart-contract
   • pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist: (p@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:12:03 JST pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist:

     in reply to

     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     @TradeMinister
     
     > but I was like 18: an idiot
     
     One of the great ironies is that, at 18, you *hear* people say "Youth is wasted on the young" and you do not really understand it the same way you come to understand it later.
     
     > We totally are, except for actual physical executions.
     
     That was what I meant, yes. My ex was born because her parents were terrified of being unusual: the normal thing was to have kids, so they had kids. The fear now is "you will get shouted at, possibly fired"; the fear then and there was that you'd be imprisoned or executed. They're tearing down some statues, the Cultural Revolution had every statue town down, thousand-year-old 50' Buddhas defaced and then emperors dug up so their bones could be denounced. This stuff nowadays has plenty of Year Zero flavor to it (and may be the thin end of the wedge; obsta principiis), but it is really a different game at present.
     
     > it's also essentially C
     
     Kinda! It feels to me more like Java, there are guard rails everywhere, but it's significantly more trim, so it's still fun.
     
     > a little Etherium: the one crypto I think may have actual value
     
     I think the speculators have ruined some of it with hype. It's a global VM, the closest we have built yet to a real decentralized general computation platform, and it's one that barely anyone has noticed yet.
   • pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist: (p@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:12:04 JST pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist:

     in reply to

     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     @TradeMinister
     
     > We could totally be colleagues! UCSC had a really nice campus back around '78, nearly transferred there from Evergreen, wish I had.
     
     Ha, that would have been fun! I think I'm not cut out for academia but spending the day on math or physics might have been worth it.
     
     > Solve the first ten problems and you probably get an offer you can't refuse from NSA.
     
     Ah, the first ten are possible to brute-force, the real difficulty kicks in later. Those are more like the tutorial level. (I've solved about 70 of them but plenty of my solutions were terrible.)
     
     > In our dreams.
     
     My dream involves more guns/steaks/beer/topless women than whatever is going on nowadays. We might end up with a Cultural Revolution at some point but we're not there yet.
     
     > Let me know if you come across Rick Rush.
     
     Will do. Because of time constraints, it's usually the two-minute bullet games.
     
     > As for Revolver: if Etherium 2.0 is lightweight enough, would it work as a transport layer?
     
     I don't think so. I mean, you could sort of do stuff like that, but on-chain storage is costly so they're all doing off-chain storage, which is one of the reasons IPFS was appealing to the NFT crowd.
     
     I played with Solidity some, though; I think what's going on right now with Ethereum barely scratches the surface, it's a very cool system. I plan to play with it more when I get the chance!
   • pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist: (p@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:12:05 JST pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist:

     in reply to

     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     @TradeMinister
     
     > It's *possible* that if I'd run into a good mafts teacher in elementary school, I'd be an acceptable theoretical physicist (meaning probably barista) now.
     
     Ha, someone asked me what I'd be doing if I wasn't a programmer and I had this vivid image of myself in the shittiest office in some physics department of a mid-tier university, dodging undergrads' questions and locked in some years-long battle with the administration over which areas of the campus I could smoke in. (I think law is interesting but I have no reason to expect I would have gone to law school, since I didn't think it was interesting when I was younger and did not have had the cash to cover law school. Maybe I'd have gone into EE.)
     
     > I remember reading a discrete math book, enjoying it. And concepts out of topology seem not so hard. But I still sort of sweat when I see equations.
     
     It's fun stuff! I think discrete math and number theory especially, like I had a lot of fun with https://projecteuler.net/ , maybe you'd enjoy it, maybe not. I think the same traits that make programming fun make this stuff fun (or maybe it's just the 'tism and "Here is a system of unambiguous rules for reasoning about abstract quantities" is appealing for the same reason programming is).
     
     > And/or it's some kind of commies
     
     That's my vote; I feel like we're re-hashing the Cold War but we're the USSR this time.
     
     > I'm reading "The Three-Body Problem" by Cixin Liu, very scientifically literate SF
     
     I've heard that's a good one.
     
     > You might enjoy it.
     
     I'll toss it onto the list; until Revolver's out, I've basically abandoned TV and movies and video games and recreational reading except for whatever time I spend on the toilet, but in there I've been reading "Coders at Work" mostly, sometimes I play chess on the phone. (I think the last new thing I watched was "Outer Range", which I liked a lot, and the last fiction I read was "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" but that had to be at least two years ago, it's all been books about computers or music since then.)
   • Trade Minister Tagomi (trademinister@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:12:05 JST Trade Minister Tagomi

     in reply to
     @p
     
     > Ha, someone asked me what I'd be doing if I wasn't a programmer and I had this vivid image of myself in the shittiest office in some physics department of a mid-tier university, dodging undergrads' questions and locked in some years-long battle with the administration over which areas of the campus I could smoke in. (I think law is interesting but I have no reason to expect I would have gone to law school, since I didn't think it was interesting when I was younger and did not have had the cash to cover law school. Maybe I'd have gone into EE.)
     
     We could totally be colleagues! UCSC had a really nice campus back around '78, nearly transferred there from Evergreen, wish I had.
     We could be ambling around the big trees (maybe even Redwoods) contemplating quantum gravity. Of course I at least would long since have been banned from California west of the 5, but it's an alternate timeline so maybe not.
     
     > It's fun stuff! I think discrete math and number theory especially, like I had a lot of fun with https://projecteuler.net/
     
     Solve the first ten problems and you probably get an offer you can't refuse from NSA.
     
     > I think the same traits that make programming fun make this stuff fun (or maybe it's just the 'tism and "Here is a system of unambiguous rules for reasoning about abstract quantities" is appealing for the same reason programming is).
     
     And they are both escapes from all that frankly somewhat unappealingly-primate people stuff. Better to leave that to women: they're designed for it, or we wouldn't exist.
     
     > And/or it's some kind of commies
     
     That's my vote; I feel like we're re-hashing the Cold War but we're the USSR this time.
     
     In our dreams. Unfortunately what we actually are is the Cultural Revolution, with purple-haired perverts as the Red Guards.
     
     > I'll toss it onto the list; until Revolver's out, I've basically abandoned TV and movies and video games and recreational reading except for whatever time I spend on the toilet, but in there I've been reading "Coders at Work" mostly, sometimes I play chess on the phone.
     
     Let me know if you come across Rick Rush. Interesting autist chess-player. Or David Harris aka Blackstone Chess.
     
     As for Revolver: if Etherium 2.0 is lightweight enough, would it work as a transport layer? It has that 'smart contract' ability, said to be useful for more than just fake money. Posts on the Etherium blockchain, with nodes having to do enough of whatever earns the 'gas' fees to post?
   • pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist: (p@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:12:06 JST pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist:

     in reply to

     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     @TradeMinister The Egyptians could at least approximate pi with fractions. I think you can show kids Peano arithmetic, I think that would make more sense. Even the math they were teaching when I was a yoof felt contrived and arbitrary. I dug up my aunt's old calculus book when I was young, the book was from the 1960s when we were trying to beat the USSR and schools had chess clubs, and it started with a proof of the existence of irrational numbers by walking through how the square root of two could not be rational. It was amazing, I'd never seen that: "Here's how this works, and why we need the concept." That kind of reasoning is going to appeal to the type of person that ends up being good at math, and we're doing now is not, so we have a dearth of people that understand basic arithmetic (let alone math). The solution is that we're trying to...what, make everyone hate math? Then we've got the nerve to be astonished that we're falling behind.
   • Trade Minister Tagomi (trademinister@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:12:06 JST Trade Minister Tagomi

     in reply to
     @p
     
     "I dug up my aunt's old calculus book when I was young, the book was from the 1960s when we were trying to beat the USSR and schools had chess clubs, and it started with a proof of the existence of irrational numbers by walking through how the square root of two could not be rational."
     
     I ran across this a month or so ago, looked interesting, bookmarked:
     
     https://calculusmadeeasy.org/
     
     "It was amazing, I'd never seen that: "Here's how this works, and why we need the concept." That kind of reasoning is going to appeal to the type of person that ends up being good at math, and we're doing now is not, so we have a dearth of people that understand basic arithmetic (let alone math)."
     
     It's *possible* that if I'd run into a good mafts teacher in elementary school, I'd be an acceptable theoretical physicist (meaning probably barista) now. I just remember tuning out somewhere in endless repetitions of the multiplication table, somewhere above 5, and then breaking out in a cold sweat when trying to multiply by 6 or more ever after, developed a mafts phobia.
     
     Did you end up being good at it? I remember reading a discrete math book, enjoying it. And concepts out of topology seem not so hard. But I still sort of sweat when I see equations.
     
     "The solution is that we're trying to...what, make everyone hate math? Then we've got the nerve to be astonished that we're falling behind."
     
     I think they're trying to dumb everything up and down so everyone is as bad at it all as Blacks are, so they feel better about being IQ85s. And/or it's some kind of commies and/or the Jewish Space Laser Aliens, destroying our country. China couldn't make a better investment than the Woke Mind Virus Party: probably FTX was laundering a lot more yuan than anything else into the Democrats and the Big Guy.
     
     Speaking of China: I'm reading "The Three-Body Problem" by Cixin Liu, very scientifically literate SF (what we would call 'hard', meaning racist because matfs an shit, SF). Reminds me of when our schools had chess clubs. I don't much like China: too big, too totalitarian, but like all North Asians (South, not so much) they are impressive, formidable. You might enjoy it. 1st of a trilogy.
   • pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist: (p@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:12:07 JST pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist:

     in reply to

     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     @TradeMinister
     
     > Fingers and toes?
     
     Oh, not too far off, it's doing addition by counting notches on a line. I would have torn my eyes out. Multiplication's worse.
     
     > Sounds weird, but good times.
     
     Nah, I get it. Does sound fun.
     
     > Part of their thing was a 'terminal server'/'packet assembler/disassembler' which I think was supposed to network a bunch of these smarter-than-VT100s but maybe not actual windowing systems.
     
     That might have been fun to work on, regardless of practicality.
     
     > But I think they wanted me to move myself to San Diego for the contract. Probably if they'd offered a furnished apt, I'd have taken the contract.
     
     It's possible to do worse than San Diego. That place is still really comfortable. (All the work down there is big companies or glowies nowadays, unfortunately.)
     
     > Make that 'a RISC-V phone with a side of Helium'.
     
     Ha, I don't think it'd be too difficult to just run whatever on those things.
   • Trade Minister Tagomi (trademinister@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:12:07 JST Trade Minister Tagomi

     in reply to
     @p
     
     >Oh, not too far off, it's doing addition by counting notches on a line. I would have torn my eyes out. Multiplication's worse.
     
     Neolithic math, if that.
     
     >It's possible to do worse than San Diego.
     
     I would have taken up surfing. Maybe surfed with Don Winslow.
   • Trade Minister Tagomi (trademinister@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:12:08 JST Trade Minister Tagomi

     in reply to
     @p
     
     
     >> Tell me they all had CS degrees from India. Please!
     
     > I could *tell* you that, but they were Americans.
     
     Oh. Maybe that's why all the H1bs from India.
     But the American CS grads could probably always use the correct pronouns for all 57+ genders.
     
     >> It has pointers! It has pointers to pointers!
     
     > I don't know what people are afraid of. Worst case, the program crashes. It doesn't hurt, the computer can't melt your eyes. "I used the pointer wrong, now I have Weenie Necrosis."
     
     "I used the pointer wrong ,and I'll never realize it."
     
     > I'm sure it's worse. Have you seen how "Common Core" math works?
     
     Fingers and toes?
     
     >> By around '91
     
     > I like this story. Makes me wonder when this profession turned boring. I have an idea, maybe it's a terrible idea, I'll remember it if it's not.
     
     The professor, whose name someone gave me, rode a motorcycle and wore a leather jacket. I heard about the Free Software Foundation from him, an early member. We immediately took to each other. He couldn't get me paid, until he got a work-study job set up ($500/mo), but I frequently parked my van/home in his driveway, shower, meals, endless strong coffee, PC with modem access. Sounds weird, but good times.
     
     > We could have had worse, thin clients were supposedly gonna be a big deal.
     
     I remember that! I almost worked at Encore computer, what a huge DEC guy did after VAX.
     Part of their thing was a 'terminal server'/'packet assembler/disassembler' which I think was supposed to network a bunch of these smarter-than-VT100s but maybe not actual windowing systems. But I think they wanted me to move myself to San Diego for the contract. Probably if they'd offered a furnished apt, I'd have taken the contract.
     
     > Neither terminal fish nor PC fowl. (Any similarities between "thin client hell" and "everything in the browser" are coincidental and probably hallucinations.)
     
     Yeah, I don't even think they were X-terms.
     
     > > I'll wait until there's something like a RISC-V Pinephone, if ever.
     
     > There might be!
     Make that 'a RISC-V phone with a side of Helium'.
   • pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist: (p@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Feb-2023 19:12:47 JST pistolero :thispersondoesnotexist:

     in reply to

     • Trade Minister Tagomi
     • xue
     @xue @TradeMinister This was my opinion about all addiction. Anything else in my life I have been able to pick up and put down. I've quit drinking by accident, just because I kept forgetting to buy whiskey. I quit caffeine cold-turkey with no problems. Codeine (wisdom teeth) and whatever they gave me after I had surgery for my broken wrist, I don't even like painkillers, I usually don't even fill the prescription. So I figured it was like that with any drug. On the other hand, first time I started smoking, I didn't stop.
     
     When I drop the nicotine, I feel like shit, I have trouble focusing, and then I get irritable and say terrible things to people I like, and people I like are noticeably relieved when I resume smoking. Here's this thing, it sometimes just immediately cures nicotine addiction: I'd like to try that rather than yelling at people for two weeks.