cylinder714

>(I still miss the Computer Literacy bookstore)

I used to drive over Highway 17 from Santa Cruz just to visit the Computer Literacy store on N. First Street, near the San Jose airport. (The one on the Apple campus in Cupertino was good, too.)

Now, all of them—CL, Stacy's Books, Digital Guru—gone. Thanks, everyone who browsed in stores, then bought on Amazon to save a few bucks.

The last commit happened three months ago, so it's not exactly abandoned, but it could use more attention.

There's no relation to CLISP. There's a brief history on the home page; it started out as Kyoto Common Lisp in '84, then William Schelter took it up to support his work on GNU Maxima.

Do any HN folks do Crossfit, or do burpees on any kind of regular basis? Seems like burpees would be the ideal application/exercise for implementing this.

The hard-rock band Nothing More features a bit of Watts in the song "Ships In The Night," the second half of this music video: https://youtu.be/lR4yR_rjhEg

I recommend not watching the actual video; I really detest the dark imagery and lyrics of rock music and worry about how such imagery affects people, even in a subtle manner. (In Buddhism (perhaps primarily in Theravada) there is the notion of "guarding the sense doors," being careful about what one allows into their head. I enjoy the music in spite of that, but the imagery I think is problematic.)

GCL (GNU Common Lisp) - https://www.gnu.org/software/gcl/

I'm stoked to see this as it's one more platform that can run OpenBSD 7.2. From the release announcement last week (https://www.openbsd.org/72.html):

    New/extended platforms:

    - Added support for Ampere Altra
    - Added support for Apple M2
    - Added support for Lenovo ThinkPad
      x13s and other machines using
      the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3
      (SC8280XP) SoC.

FWIW, the V folks demonstrate translating DOOM source to V and compiling it:

https://youtu.be/6oXrz3oRoEg https://github.com/vlang/doom

For a start, try searching for "homeschooling resources". My sister homeschooled her children for a time until it became too difficult for her as a single parent. Even then, there were many resources for interested parents; now, with the Internet, it's easier to find help and other homeschooling families online.

It's an interpreter, and it's proprietary, commercial software free for personal use, but OpenLisp runs on thirty platforms as of today:

http://www.eligis.com/

It's an implementation of ISLisp/ISO Lisp. The paid version can compile applications to C.

Rivers Cuomo, Weezer frontman, is doing work in Python:

https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/25/rock-star-programmer-river...

Model Karlie Kloss has been spearheading an effort to expose girls to programming, and has worked in Python as well, if memory serves.

https://www.kodewithklossy.com/

"Our free (yep, free!) two-week summer program for young women and non-binary individuals ages 13 – 18 will teach you to build real-life apps whether you’ve never written a line of code or you’re a full-fledged hacker. The scholarship is for anyone who's passionate and interested in learning a new superpower. Don’t be shy, APPLY!"

What operating system are you running, if I may ask?

Eli Bendersky solving and generating puzzles in Go, which references Norvig:

https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2022/sudoku-go-and-webassembly...

ISTR that Wyse Technology (fond memories of their WY-60 terminals) made thin clients out of Raspberry Pis.

Stratodesk makes them now:

https://www.stratodesk.com/solutions/raspberry-pi-thin-clien...

How Good is the new Raspberry Pi 4 as a Thin Client? (2019)

https://www.stratodesk.com/how-good-is-the-new-raspberry-pi-...

I saw those at the Sony store at the Metreon in San Francisco. I'm glad it worked well, I couldn't justify the purchase but loved the concept.

I kinda think that the Steam Deck and the other new handheld gaming PCs are the new incarnation of the netbook. Powerful enough to be useful, with a usable screen, you just need a mouse and keyboard to do basic tasks. Plug in a monitor, you're all set.

Zotac just introduced their new ZBOX PI336 pico pocket-sized computer:

https://www.zotac.com/us/product/mini_pcs/zbox-pi336-pico-wi...

It's not a single-cable device, but it has a lot of ports. It runs a slow processor, has only 4G of RAM and 128G of storage...and reviews of previous generations have not been kind.

My personal tiny PC lust object is the Ockel Sirius A Pro:

https://www.ockelcomputers.com/sirius-a/

It's six years old now?, and runs an Atom processor...and they're asking USD$800 for one, but it's got 8 gigs of RAM, 128 gigs of storage, and has a battery and 1080p touch display. Hopelessly underpowered and overpriced, I still desperately want one.

EDIT: Finally, there's the MeLE Quieter3Q, available on Amazon. See the reviews on YouTube.

I think somewhere on the Pocket Reform site they describe it as a "sofa PC," more comfortable to use than a regular laptop, more capable than an Android phone running Termux.

I had an Averatec N1200, the smallest, lightest netbook made, and it ran OpenBSD without difficulty, so I'd recommend that over FreeBSD. I eventually gave it away because the Atom processor and two gigabytes of RAM and slow SSD became intolerably slow.

The keyboard was also very cramped, so while I still LOVE the idea of tiny PCs and netbooks, I'm not sure they can ever be comfortable enough to use.

It's an awesome hack, though. "Approved!"

So that's what those are! I've seen those atop hills along Highway 12 near Napa, California. Growing up in the area, I always wondered why there were what looked like blank billboards on those hills. Thank you, _Microft, for clearing up the mystery!

David S. Touretzky's Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation is in print; I picked up a copy at Barnes and Noble a few years ago.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/

I cannot believe no one has posted Markus Kuhn's excellent page on the subject, first appearing in 1996:

https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html

Code was last modified two years ago: https://github.com/z505/powtils

I understand the Lisp family of languages leverage the interrelationship between code and data as well, might be worth investigating.

Stellar cartography!

I think Jef was the original author of the excellent PBM image-conversion utilities: https://acme.com/software/pbmplus/

They're still usable, but the netpbm project has expanded upon Jef's work: http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/

I still remember the exact moment in 1981 when my friend Bill planted a seed, wearing a Wagner t-shirt at a party. I knew of Wagner, but as we talked, my interest grew. John Boorman's movie Excalibur came out about that time, too, and cribbed extensively from Wagner.

Later, when Hans-Jurgen Syberberg's...unconventional adaptation of Parsifal hit the local art house, with the set built around a giant copy of Wagner's death mask, I was hooked.

San Francisco Opera's production of Parsifal was my first live opera, followed by an amazing production of Strauss' Elektra, and, finally, The Ring itself.

Bill died of AIDS sometime later. I will always regret not thanking him for the difference he ultimately made in my life, by the simple act of wearing a t-shirt.

...

Please, if you can, search YouTube for "Parsifal prelude." I can't guarantee it'll change your life, but you won't be disappointed.

I never thought I'd have an opportunity to post about this, given that Java applets are no longer supported, but: S. Sverdlov in 1998 created an Oberon-2 compiler in Java called "J()B" for creating applets. The first such applet was a Black Square implementation: https://pm.vogu35.ru/JOB/

John McCarthy had an idea for a "Common Business Communication Language" implemented using s-expressions; here's a link to the proposal:

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/cbcl2/cbcl2.html

Thank you for reminding me: I want to study OpenBSD's vmm and vmd virtualization tools, and getting Alpine to run thereon should be fun.