gramie
gramie on Hacker News
My kids' mother (who lived overseas) won a contest. She didn't win a Wii, she one the opportunity to
buy a Wii. She sent it to them for Christmas, and twenty years later I don't think I have ever seen them so excited.
For about a year, we played Rockband (especially the Beatles version) for an hour every day. We had the Rockband 3 keyboard, and one of the kids decided that he'd like to learn the piano. Twenty years later and a B.Mus. and M.Mus. later, we just attended the premiere of his musical (not, not a big one, but still...) in Toronto.
His career literally wouldn't have happened without the Wii.
Neal's site is one of the quirkiest but most engaging websites I know.
I think the idea is that anything that happens will make gas prices go up.
https://www.b4x.com/Anywhere Software has several Basic variants, for different platforms:
* Android: B4A (free)
* Java (i.e. multi-platform): B4J (free)
* Arduino: B4R (free)
* iOS: B4I (paid)
They include the bytecode compiler, IDE, and a vibrant community (Erel, the developer, often answers questions and is very responsive fixing bugs and adding features).
That was true even into the Delphi days. Around 2007 I was able to compile about 400,000 lines of code in 2-3 seconds on my desktop.
> And I realized that when I asked Claude for a bunch of ideas and then I selected the best one based on my experience, I was exercising that exact skill. I wasn't exercising the skill of coming up with the solution from scratch.
Makes me think of Japan, where young people learn to recognize kanji. They type the sound of a word into a computer, then choose the appropriate one.
When they have to write by hand, they often draw a blank (not only children, I had a university professor I knew temporarily forget the character for "police").
An article from 2012 said that 66% of Japanese surveyed believed that they were losing the ability to write kanji.
Yes, scrolling with the arrow keys does nothing for several presses, then jumps, then acts normally, then jumps again. Really stupid and annoying.
Also, Alt-Left Arrow doesn't return me to the previous page (Hacker News) and I have to use my mouse.
Wow, I've had that wrong for several decades. Thanks for the correction!
I have probably watched this movie a dozen times, and I delight in all the tiny, barely-acknowledged references throughout.
The Italian and French soldiers walking into the bar, and the Italian not able to get a word in edgewise.
The German couple saying, "Leibchen, what watch is it?" "Six watch" "Such watch" because that is the literal translation into English of the German "uhr".
The singing of "La Marseillaise" by extras who were mostly themselves refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe -- the emotion was real.
I've heard a lot of stories in my time. They went along with the sound of a tinny piano playing in the parlor downstairs. "Mister, I met a man once when I was a kid," it always began. (Rick is calling Ilsa a whore.)
Every scene is a gem.
The launch price for the 64 was $600, but by June 1983 it had dropped to $300 and was often on sale for less (I paid $250).
I started with the VIC-20, and I'm now 62. After years of resisting the draw to turn my hobby into a career, I started working as a software developer almost 30 years ago. I feared that I might lose the joy, but (for the most part) it's still there.
I had to keep accessibility in mind a lot in my previous job (web development for a university). The thing that I consistently found was that, the more accessible a website was, the better the experience for everyone, not just people with disabilities.
Here (in Canada), we are paying about USD$65/month for 500Mbps down and 500Mbps up. Our only choice is Xplornet (the provincial government sold monopoly rights to each area of the province) but I think their prices are regulated.
You have more problems than just the monopoly. Like the FCC, among other federal agencies, being completely captured by big business.
You are right, there is cable as well. I'm in an area that does not have cable, so our internet is all fibre.
Still, cable can get up to 1Gbps, and probably higher, so it's a distinction without a difference.
The push to make sure that 100% of people have access to high-speed internet is the most important thing.
Quebec has high-speed internet available to all residents. Either fibre to the home, or subsidized StarLink.
Canada as a whole is expected to have 90% high speed internet by the end of 2026, and 100% by 2030.
And the nearest star to our solar system is 4.3 light years away. Coincidence?
:-)
Energy may not be so much of an issue here in Quebec, where electricity is USD$0.05/kWh (residential rate) and 99%+ of it comes from hydroelectric power.
Recently there has been a push to farm "dry-land" salmon. In other words, the salmon live in large tanks on land, rather than in pens in the sea.
At the moment a company is trying to start one of these close to me. Some local people are opposed, some are supportive, but most just want more objective study and information (i.e. not performed/paid for by the company itself).
The devil may be in the implementation, but it certainly has some big advantages over the coastal pens.
That's kind of how Nintendo worked the Wii (with "worse" hardware) against the PlayStation and XBox.
I don't find Costco necessarily cheaper than anywhere else. For example, if I'm careful and search flyers, local supermarkets will often have better prices.
For me, Costco has good prices, an excellent return policy, and reliably excellent quality. I don't need 15 choices of peanut butter, just a few (smooth and chunky, natural and sugary) good ones.
I also appreciate that Costco employees are always busy, but they seem positive and friendly. Most Costcos I go to, I look for the board that highlights long-term employees. The one nearest me has 8-10 people who have been there for 30 years or longer.
As the article said, Costco pays higher hourly wages than most other people. They also provide extended health benefits (in Canada, so basic health is already covered), paid sick days, paid vacation days (one woman I talked to had been working there for 25 years and had six weeks of annual vacation!), and more.
A few years ago I visited a small coffee plantation in Panama. The owner told us that Costco was the best customer for coffee growers by far, in terms of fair price, reliability, and prompt payment.
There has been a vaccine for dogs and cats for a while now, not sure why it hasn't been released for humans yet. Lyme can be really horrible. Some people we know have a 30-something son who was very active (camping, hiking, rock climbing, etc.) until he was bitten by a tick. Now he's quadriplegic.
I learned to love WordPerfect. I still miss the ability to "Reveal Codes" and see exactly where it had placed the non-printing codes to turn on/off bold, italics, to change margins, etc. When MS Word screws your entire document's formatting by typing a single letter, or moves stuff around the page seemingly randomly, your only option is to undo or reload the document.
You can read an insider's story of WordPerfect by Pete Peterson, one of the earliest WordPerfect employees. The PDF version is freely available on his website (https://wepeterson.com/almostperfect/).
It used to be a thing in India, I have read, that people would want to associate themselves with a prestigious university, even if they dropped out. It would be written like this (made-up example):
B.A. Political Science, Bangalore University (failed)
In Canada, I have to report my (small) self-employment income.
The other thing I have to do is enter deductions like moving expenses, tuition, charitable donations, medical expenses, etc., which the government doesn't have direct access to.
I went to their website. They have four things in their online shop, and all are "sold out" (never available?). Looks cool, but are they actually producing anything?
As far as I can see, the cameras are not live. Timestamps on the video seem to be off by many hours (12 hours for a camera in Taiwan, 1:40 for a camera in Calgary, 15:30 for a camera in Wisconsin).
Not complaining, just noting in case anyone is hoping for live feeds.
Not really related, but worth repeating: there's an old saying, "A gentleman is one who knows how to play the accordion, but doesn't".