Boosted. Great piece. Paul Graham had thoughts that might mesh with this. He observed that if you have a group (say, females) whose performance is far above their male counterparts, it's a sign that females *have* to be that good before they can progress in the organization. He said this was a method for detecting bias in employment practices and correcting it. Can't seem to find that essay right off, but that was the drift of it.
Also, I've been reading up on the history of the first digital computers (ENIAC, etc.). It sure seems like females had a big impact, although little credit. And yet there's Adm Hopper, who was a leader from nearly the beginning, and had great influence on the field. In her NSA lecture, she mentioned that she hired young people and told them to "try it!" instead of waiting for approval.
Why she's not more central to the history is a mystery. But a great role model.
On Friday, September 13, a truck bound for the Georgia-based tabletop and video game company Trivium Studios took a turn too sharply, spilling 216,000 gaming dice onto Interstate 75 in Atlanta in what could be the biggest unintentional dice roll ever…
The Final Programme (1973): By the director of Dr. Phibes based on a Michael Moorcock book that I never read. WTF did I just watch? It's like Captain Kronos meets Zardoz. I am baffled that this came to be. Zeta One (1969): Again,... jwz.org/b/ykYy
if you haven't watched KAOS yet, it might be very in your wheel house or up your alley or relevant to your interests, or whatever the kids say these days.
Announcement: Firefish will enter maintenance mode For those who have been supporting Firefish and me, I can’t thank you enough. But today, I have to make an announcement of my very difficult decision: As of today’s release, Firefish will enter maintenance mode and reach end-of-support at the end of the year. The main reasons for this are as follows.
In February, Kainoa suddenly transferred the ownership of Firefish to me. This transition came without prior notice, which took me aback. I still wish Kainoa had consulted with me in advance. At that time, some people were already saying that “Firefish is coming back”, making it challenging to address the situation. Also, since there were several hundred active Firefish servers at that point, I could not suddenly discontinue the project, so I took over the project unwillingly.
Over the past seven months, I have been maintaining Firefish alone. All other former maintainers have left, leaving me solely responsible for managing issues, reviewing merge requests, testing, and releasing new versions. This situation has had a significant impact on my personal life.
Frankly speaking, there are numerous bugs and questionable logic in the current Firefish codebase. While I attempted to fix them, balancing this work with my personal life made it clear that it would take ages, and I’ve started thinking that I can’t manage this project in the long run. Additionally, vulnerabilities have been reported approximately once a month. Addressing vulnerabilities, communicating privately with reporters, and testing fixes have proven overwhelming and unsustainable. Moreover, a certain percentage of users have made insulting comments, which have severely affected my mental well-being and made me fearful of opening social media apps.
I will do my best to refund the donations made to Firefish via OpenCollective, but that’s not guaranteed.
firefish.dev and info.firefish.dev will remain operational until the end of February 2025, after which they will return a 410 Gone status.
Server admins may downgrade Firefish to version 20240206/1.0.5-rc and migrate to another *key variant, or may fork Firefish to maintain.
Probably the strangest chip that you'll see today: the Intel 2920, a digital signal processor (DSP) from 1979. It was the "first microprocessor capable of translating analog signals into digital data in real time." Chips are usually 16-bit or 32-bit, but this was a 25-bit processor. It didn't have any jump instructions, instead running code in a loop from the 192-word EPROM. Each instruction combined an ALU operation, a shift, and an analog I/O operation. 1/7
Why is the die photo distorted at the edges? Because I took the photo through the chip's round quartz window. In the olden days before flash, you could store code in an EPROM, memory that could be erased by exposing it to strong ultraviolet light. The quartz window lets the light in. 2/7
There's something I never realised I didn't know: how does an EPROM actually work at the component level? (And is it related to the thing about not being able to take flash photos of an uncased Raspberry Pi without it crashing?)
@darkling The quick explanation is that an EPROM has a transistor with a"floating" gate for each bit. You program a bit by forcing electrons through the insulating oxide with high voltage, and the electrons are trapped there. Ultraviolet causes ionization in the oxide, releasing the electrons and erasing the chip.
Thanks! So the programming voltage is applied across the gate and drain, and is sufficient to temporarily break down the resistance of the oxide? Then the surplus electrons sit in the depletion layer, making it not depleted any more, and allow current to flow between source and drain?
The Intel 2920 was designed for a wide range of analog applications from filters to speech synthesis to missile guidance. It was created by Ted Hoff (one of the inventors of the microprocessor) and Marshall Townsend. Although the chip was called "Product of the Year" by the magazine Electronic Products, it was buggy and not a market success. 3/7
The 2920 had four analog inputs and eight analog outputs. The digital-to-analog converter (DAC) was unusual and large: a chain of 256 tiny resistors arranged in a grid. Energizing two digital switches (i.e. transistors) provided a tap for the desired voltage. Analog-to-digital conversion was built on top of the DAC, "guessing" one bit at a time. 5/7
The chip didn't have multiplication or division in hardware, but it had a barrel shifter to quickly multiply or divide by a power of 2. The compiler for the chip is very unusual. Instead of normal code, you define poles and zeros and the compiler builds the code to implement the desired filter. 6/7
Am I understanding it correctly that it takes analog signals as input, digitizes them, processes them, and then outputs them as analog again? Strange indeed. I've always thought of DSPs as specialized chips that process an already digital signal that may come from an ADC but also from memory for example.
@grishka Yes, that's how the chip works. It has 4 analog inputs and 8 analog outputs and the analog/digital conversion is done on the chip. There are no digital inputs or outputs (unless you use an analog I/O as digital).
I remember these! When I was getting my EE degree at Arizona State University back in the mid-80s we had a few development systems for these chips in the lab and I remember reading up on them at the time. They were already obsolete and unused AFAIK but it definitely piqued my curiosity. Sad that they didn't fix the bugs and expand on the concept as it definitely would have been useful. Microchip's dsPIC products came along years later and were very successful in the same space.
also true of almost any kind of conventional financial advisor / stock-picker / columnist. Like Fox "News", they are entertainment designed to separate people from their money.
yeah I get really strange ads on youtube from middle age badly dressed unhealthy looking ppl in front of a small yacht or house advertising how they got rich and they can teach it and it is so sad.
This reminds me of a story someone posted on how much money they make from a DIY car wash she bought. Seller-financed and only takes her a few hours a week to keep it running and her huge profits. But no mention of setting side money for future repair costs. She might be doing OK but what are profits after the inevitable repair/replacement costs.
And not everyone can find someone selling a profitable business and willing to finance the sale that provides passive income.
"here's my definitely-not-a-rental 4-storey mega mansion, and here's my collection of 10 totally-not-rented supercars, and here's my mega-yacht that I actually just borrowed from a friend solely to film me looking like a billionaire and throwing fake cash off the boa-..."
Indeed. Billionaires don't support certain politicians because it will make MORE billionaires. They support them to get laws that will get them MORE $$ and results in LESS entering the club.
They could also benefit from people making uninformed mistakes with trading, so it is best to learn the ins & outs and benefits vs. risks from informative, neutral sources before embarking on such an adventure!
but of course. When everyone is digging for gold, the best way to get rich is to sell shovels and pickaxes. When everyone is wanting to get rich doing nothing, the best way to get rich is selling them courses on how to get rich doing nothing...
One of the most exciting aspects of the new Bus Pirate is how easy it is to create add-on modules -- which the community have started calling "planks" to go along with the Pirate theme.
The Bus Pirate multi-tool has held a place of honor in many a hardware hacker’s toolbox for years, and the latest generation of the gadget powered by the Raspberry Pi RP2040/RP2350 offers sig…
@vagrantc Nice! But, what's the frame for? Couldn't there just be the rear part that you lash to the lumber, and the hitch that you lash to the other end of the lumber?
We are Freexian, a company specialized in providing security support and other services for Debian GNU/Linux. You might know about us as the company funding work of the Debian LTS team (wiki.debian.org/LTS).
We also offer support for multiple PHP releases across multiple Debian/Ubuntu releases with the help of @ondrej
You can find more about our mission statement and our history at freexian.com/about/.
"This remake of the classic horror film is set in San Francisco. Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland) assumes that when a friend (Brooke Adams) complains of her husband's strange mood, it's a marital issue. However, he begins to worry as more people report similar observations. His concern is confirmed when writer Jack Bellicec (Jeff Goldblum) and his wife (Veronica Cartwright) discover a mutated corpse. Besieged by an invisible enemy, Bennell must work quickly before the city is consumed."
Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.
Perché casa mia è piena di oggetti mucca? Perché sono così pazzo? Perché tutte queste domande? (continua nel commento) Le risposte, amico mio, stanno soffiando in questa storia. #mucche #amiche #regalistrani #chiarlaura
My latest model! This is an IBM Series\1 with a 5251 terminal. This is a 1:12 scale model! Any of you worked with or on one if these back in the days? What was it used for where you worked?
Non ho molti dettagli, il cavo elettrico sembra risalire se non a questo secolo almeno alla fine del secolo scorso, quindi credo abbia discrete probabilità di funzionare ancora (e non prendere fuoco appena la si attacca alla corrente :) ).
Ci sono anche un po' di spazzole.
Le mie ambizioni piccoloborghesi non sono al livello da voler lucidare regolarmente i pavimenti :D
Se nessuno esprime interesse, al prossimo giro finisce in discarica.
Does Logitech understand how often I wear out the actual hardware of my mouse? Do they really think they want to be in charge of maintaining that forever?
@TerryHancock Maybe. Meanwhile, I have a $200 #DasKeyboard Professional 6 that I've already had to RMA once and I can't get firmware updates on even though it "supports #Linux".
I still find it utterly hilarious that kindergarten grade math, a function that computers are literally built on, is beyond the reach of "advanced AI".
@WhyNotZoidberg Hint: what's sold to the public as "Artificial Intelligence" is not what the public, conditioned by decades of SF, think of as artificial intelligence. It's just spicy autocomplete.
Oh I know. Doesn't help that Tech Bros (not to be confused with people who understand tech) fret about it becoming sentient and / or being the salvation to all our problems.
@gsuberland German has "Wink mit dem Zaunpfahl" (Waving the fence post) as idiom for "giving a broad hint for something that should have been pretty obvious". And a fence would literally be what is missing here.
Also, helmets, but I've given up hoping that anyone working with heavy head-level loads would care to wear one. Looking at the complete event tech / stage tech sector there.
« Now that our 1987 Canon Cat is refurbished and ready to go another nine innings or so, it's time to get into the operating system and pull some tricks. »
I must not reply. Replying is the mind-killer. Replying is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face the bad take. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the take has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Michael Catanzaro from #GNOME published yesterday this interesting blog post about binding C libraries and a nice feature of #Vala; at the end there is the convenient solution (you can skip to it if you want ;) blogs.gnome.org/mcatanzaro/202… #ValaLang #GNOME #GTK #GTK4
Useless robots (or useless machines) are devices that, when switched on, exist only to turn themselves back off. They are fun and fairly simple builds that are easy to personify, and really invite …
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