- Without government interference, someone who is stronger/more brutal than you can kill you and take your property, partner, and anything else they like. It is in the top 10 in the world for homicides.
Haiti is a horrifying place to live, for most people. The UN says that 85% of the capital is controlled by gangs, and they are spreading out into the rest of the country.
- I believe that the frequency hopping technique is still used everywhere today, for things like wi-fi and Bluetooth.
- I also have hearing loss in one ear. I have a hearing aid for that ear, and it dramatically improves my higher-frequency hearing on that side. My wife certainly appreciates it. If I start speaking loudly, she will often say, "Do you have your hearing aid in?", and either I forgot to wear it or the battery is dead (typically lasts about 16 hours).
One drawback is that I can't listen to Bluetooth music because it only comes through the one side. It's good enough for podcasts, through.
Mine is a Costco one (manufactured by Phonak, I believe). Nothing really fancy, but only $1,000 -- and the Ontario government covered half of that.
I kind of resisted getting a hearing aid for a long time -- even though I used to date an audiologist -- but it's a significant improvement to my quality of life.
- I travelled from Australia to Malaysia to Canada (with a stopover in Dubai), and all the time I had 2 1/2 bottles of water (probably 1.5 litres) in my carry-on bag that I had forgotten. Something about a 46-hour journey, perhaps.
I went through 8 security gates, and no one ever stopped or questioned me about the water. And when I found it at my destination, I threw it out.
- The Canadian government recently announced automated tax filing. I assume that you still file your exemptions because there is no way (I hope) they know what charities I am donating to!
- I recall rebuilding an application with about 200,000 lines of Delphi Pascal code in about 2005. Took 2-3 seconds to compile and link, I think.
- The oldest version I heard of was in Japan in the 1990s. Scammers would call elderly people, claiming to be grandchildren, and demand money or they would be arrested/scandalized.
It was called the "ore ore" (pronounced "o-ray o-ray") scam because they would typically use the word "ore" for "I", a familiar and often brusque or aggressive form of the first person singular.
- Not a good sign when the website (granted it's the blog website, not the main one) for a commercial development tool is unreachable.
Sad, because I still have a soft spot in my heart for Delphi.
- Brian Kernighan wrote:
Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?
— The Elements of Programming Style, 2nd edition, chapter 2
So if vibe coding produces code that is as clever as -- or more clever than -- you, then you have no chance of debugging it.
- I would kill just for the [Reveal Codes] functionality on any word processor.
- This was happening to people I knew when I lived in Japan 30 years ago. Many people were using wa-puro (word processors that let you type in the phonetic form and choose from the appropriate kanji). I imagine the effect is far more common now.
I remember one time when a university engineering professor couldn't remember how to write the kanji for "police". He didn't seem embarrassed asking someone else. I don't know if they still do, but they would often demonstrate by writing out the character with their index finger like a pen in the other hand's palm.
- Loopop's guide looks interesting, but to unlock the book I had to join (for free) the Patreon channel. Then it immediately tells me that to unlock the book I have to become a paid member.
It turns out that the free tier only gets you notifications when new content is published; to read that content, you have to pay.
I wouldn't mind paying, but dislike the bait and switch approach.
- Sorry, I couldn't finish reading because the entire article is in capitals.
- Is Thomas Middledich (the central character in the TV show Silicon Valley) really the Chief Creative Officer?
Jeri Ellsworth as Technical Advisor is also a solid member of the C64 community.
- I'm not a very critical reader*. When I read something, I don't have conversations with myself about "this could be better if..." or "the writer shouldn't have..." Instead, I accept what has been proffered and at the end decide if it had value for me.
* unless I make a conscious effort to, like when I'm asked to review someone's work
- That was a fascinating article. I have no doubt that Putnam's work is far beyond me -- considering that it is beyond leading academics in the field -- but I appreciate the description of a man who tried his best to find the right path for himself, even if it was at odds with what the world expected of him.
- Radiooooo has the most annoying popup "Sign up now!" dialog ever. It literally appears every time I click on the web page. Hard pass for me.
- That reminds me of using Twister, that optimized the position of sectors on the floppy disk to minimize seek times and speed loading dramatically (and I think they squeezed a few more sectors onto the disk so that it could hold more -- maybe more sectors on the outer rings of the disk?).
- I think that I used the Megamax C compiler back in 1987-8. I was just messing around and experimenting, not programming professionally, but it worked well for me.
The problem is when you have a dirty dish and assume that the dishwasher contents are dirty too (because usually we unload the dishwasher soon after it finishes). Then you put a dirty dish in, possibly making other dishes dirty. So you have to either hand-wash several dishes or re-wash the entire load.