jntun

"Lighthouses in the sky" was pro-slavery & pro-racism Virginia Senator John Randolph's criticism of John Quincy Adams policy to build astronomical observatories throughout the US. Adams referred to the observatories as "lighthouses of the skies" and Randolph turned the phrase during the Congress of Panama to embarrass Adams. Could be complete coincidence that Dr. Getting used the same phrase, but this time with a productive connotation.

Bytecode is not machine code, and I specifically said source files "or usually bytecode". A C program is compiled into machine code (and more specifically a platforms given executable format) before dlopen(3) is called on it. Not sure what point you're really trying to make.

They asked if it could be "as fast as the JVM", which JIT is a crucial part of how the JVM achieves its performance. JIT in this context is referring to the process of a source file (.rb, .js, .c, etc), or usually bytecode, being compiled into machine code. I cannot think of an instance where a C source file is JIT compiled and dlopen(3) will not be happy if you tried to call it on a C source file.

This is an incredibly convoluted hypothetical trying to negate the idea that users notice and/or appreciate how quickly their applications start. Usually as a PM you are managing multiple engineers, one of which I would assume is capable of debugging and eventually implementing a fix for faster start times. Even if they can't fix it immediately due to whatever contrived reason you've supposed, at least they will know where and how to fix it when the time does come. In fact, I would argue pretending there is no issue because of your mountain of other problems is the worst possible scenario to be in.

Instruments is implemented under-the-hood with dtrace, that could be what they are referring to.

Because the analog equipment back then could only do binary panning.

Of course!

What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry [2005]

Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age [2000]

Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date [1996]

Palo Alto [2023] (This is more for capturing the full scope of San Francisco / Palo Alto since the founding of California as a state)

Those are some off the top of my head right now being away from my library, probably also the most impactful to me in no specific order.

I've recently been reading lots of books about 50/60/70s computing & especially the San Francisco element of it, so I've been watching Engelbart's demo myself on and off for the last few weeks. It really is amazing being "close" to all this time of history, even if the only way we can interact with it is over USB nowadays!

Tiniest footnote correction but not only were the desk & offices designed by Herman Miller; the chair Engelbart is sitting on during the demo was also specially designed by Herman Miller!

Well I don't want to talk about that first part, mainly because it's a very poor interpretation of history. You brought up the Taliban and I wanted to investigate that thought you had further. You seem to be trying to paint an ideological picture unrelated to the topic and insist on a leading question built on the assumption "if you give the artifact back, it will be destroyed".

> to show off things that were of no interest in their original countries at that time

You have a very cynical and skewed view of things.

Do you have any interest in talking about the British & American roles in funding, training, and arming the Taliban in the 70, 80s, and early 90s? Or would you prefer creating a hypothetical where we are burdened to take care of the people who just can't take care of themselves (after we wreak havoc on them)?

Looting and pillaging is fine, as long as you build an entire economic / social system around it? Because that is the only semblance of logic I can take away from your statements. These museums didn't just pop into place for the artifacts to reside in; they were built to show off their spoils.

Excellently written history on a period of time I am fascinated in.

However, I think the author puts too fine a point on the literal exact geographic position of the technology, and not the historical & material forces that manifested. Obviously every computer advancement didn't occur in sunny Palo Alto directly (just reading where your device was "assembled" will tell you that). But even this article trying to highlight the other places where all of this was going on; the author cannot be unburdened by the massive forces coming out of the Bay Area. This is most obvious when the author has to mention Xerox PARC but not interrogate _why_ Xerox chose that of all locations to let them start a "wild unsupervised west-coast lab".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmentation_Research_Center

Very much a personal nitpick on a very well written entry so I hope this doesn't come off overly negative.

> Causing thousands of Americans to unknowingly act in the interest of the CCP

This is not a factual statement. It is a statement that contains something resembling a fact, however it is still just your subjective opinion.