pjbrunet

FWIW, eating once a day is recommended in the "Hacker Diet" book, written by the author of Autocad. The book says multiple (smaller) meals are fine too, but you have to read it yourself, I won't do it justice here.

I agree, it wanders all over the place like they had to meet a quota of words. I don't think the article really communicates what it was like for the "computer nerds" off in a weird, unproven, tiny little corner of the world nobody cared about or believed in. I think if you explore that, you'll start to understand why women weren't as much a part of that weird subculture. It wasn't all bad, I worked closely with women at IBM in 1994 (working on OS/2) that was also the year WIRED started to go mainstream. TV ads started to show URLs. Java went mainstream in 1994. But before 1994, almost nobody knew what the Internet was. Once the Internet went mainstream, people already familiar with the technology had a huge advantage: nerds.

In 1994 when I was at the University of Florida, only one dorm on the entire campus had "Internet" access. But it wasn't web access, we only had telnet. The moldy dorm was 100+ years old and barely had air conditioning. They called it "Fletcher Island" because we were cut off from everyone else--there was maybe 6 of us guys on the whole campus that had Internet. And there was only one guy that knew how it worked--he never spoke, was very pale, and he lived like a hermit back in the dark corner of this ancient building. The air quality was so bad that I got sick and had to move out. Maybe 2-3 women lived under us but we never saw them because the hallways were locked to keep the sexes apart.

Hypothetically, let's say this writer is really talented. Few writers use hyphens for maximum effect. So few readers get to experience the hyphen-joy. When they do finally encounter it, they might be confused or annoyed. To some of us, that's sad, and aggravating. The technical glitch, at least at first glance, feels like the symptom of a larger lapse in longing for literacy and appreciation for poetry.

None of these are bad enough to ban a book. Even though "red-head scarf" is strange, it sounds like intentional wordplay in that sentence. Remember, writing is a creative activity. It's not engineering.

I was too young to remember much TI-BASIC but as for "draw pixel" I really enjoyed VGA's "Mode 13" which was very fast, great for making games, even without tricks like page flipping.

I still keep the Casio fx-7700GE on my desk and I still use it for quick calculations. Hasn't failed me since ~1990. Faster than using my tablet. The programming language was useful for some tests that involved using a formula. For example, I took a business statistics class a few years ago and stuff like this is still in memory: NCX x (P^X) x (1-P)^(N-X)

I think that's a great question and I could list some contributing factors but I think a thorough answer could upset a lot of people. I lost 100+ karma just for some criticism of Apple ;-) Yeah, let's critique all the modern languages, tools and libraries--that will go over real well here.

Looks like typical apps we all created during the early 90s. I taught my little brother Pascal in what seemed like a few minutes (I think he was in 5th grade) and within a weekend he created a file manager that would blow this one away. My brother is very smart but my point is, coding some DOS games or a file manager is not anything remarkable, even if you only had the manual to work from. Most developers during that time period worked from a manual. We did not have StackExchange, haha. Where do you think RTFM comes from? I'm surprised this is trending. If you want to see what was typical of the early 90s, take a look at the Graphics Gems books http://www.amazon.com/Graphics-Gems-Andrew-S-Glassner/dp/012... every bookstore in the US had Graphics Gems.

I agree. And what are the implications? Wasn't Google sued by people unhappy with their rankings (Howard Stern?) and wasn't Google's defense that their algorithm was unbiased? (Not a rhetorical question, I never followed how that played out.) Once you introduce human reviewers, you're going to have more unhappy businesses. I'd rather a SEO spammer push me down (nothing personal) than know an actual Googler secretly decided my website wasn't good enough--a personal bias against me in particular. Who are the reviewers, what do we know about them, what are they looking for, not looking for, have they reviewed you personally, etc. I think Google may call it a "manual action" in Webmaster Tools, an ambiguous way of saying somebody at Google manipulated the algorithm against you. Do they have different levels of manual actions? Are manual actions always disclosed?

At first Google was a search algorithm, but at some point they decided to have humans review and rank the important queries. Important as in query volume.

Why use humans? People can decide if your navigation is intuitive. They can decide if your page looks like crap. If 230,000 people are searching for "coconut oil" per month (actual numbers) then it's worth having an intern spend 15 minutes to make sure page 1 of "coconut oil" looks right.

Google can afford that. They need a human to decide if the "user experience" is actually good vs. disallowing the back button and forcing the browser to crash, which is how I suppose you could fake a "time on site" metric if this was just an algorithmic problem.

Google is now more like playing Zork. You type "Go North" like 10 million other people before you typed "Go North" and Google has already crafted that experience you'll find in next room. (Which makes me wonder, do they score how boring you are based on predictability?) This is becoming more and more obvious over time as a search for "calculator" shows you an actual calculator that a human at Google created. That's not an algorithmic response.

Similarly, I see that human touch coming more into play with voice recognition, Google Glass, Siri, etc. Call that "AI" or whatever. You ask Google a question and Google has already sculpted a slick answer based on tons of testing. That's how I see Google as a search engine now. Part of the crawling is interesting (recognizing objects in photos?) but I think human reviews of all the important websites and SERPs, that's harder for a competitor to reproduce.

Drawing your own Windows was great because every application had its own character and style. It was an art. Then Windows came and made everything boring. (I see Zuckerberg following Gates footsteps--let's make the interface boring.) My mind was blown by Amiga--the music, multitasking, deluxe paint, video editing, 3D animation, it was a machine for real professional artists that made Windows & Mac look like a Timex Sinclair.

The random shell output from "background" apps never bothered me that much ;-) Crunchbang you can just press F2 and get auto-complete and launch commands with no shell output. Ubuntu has something similar. If you have terminator, just split the pane if you need a fresh one, or drag the terminal to another workspace and it's out of the way. Also tmux has ^bd to "detach" I think.

How viable is this in the real world? I could imagine it working on a lone, quiet server at 4am with no other people on it. The average server with 100s of accounts, 1000s of users all doing various stuff, that's going to introduce enough random delay to throw off your analysis. Maybe you could try to calculate averages but that's going to increase the number of requests. Would a good hosting company block an attack like this at the hardware level? I'd guess yes, but I don't know.

Looks like "folk art" to me.

Like dropping an IBM PC on Gilligan's Island ;-)

You have to pay if you want to play.

Note: I decided this was too off topic and deleted the post.

Sorry, I assumed you were the OP because you were talking about the market, etc. So I was writing in Levleframes general direction ;-) I agree, he could succeed with the right marketing, especially with a lot of tutorials for the DIY market.

As far as a Klimt poster, it's surprising what people spend to frame posters. Ordering online is nothing new and tons of people order posters online, but people don't frame online because it's time-consuming work that takes practice and a lot can go wrong. You would be surprised how many people have a lot of difficulty using a ruler! Even professional framers. Which leads to returns & recuts for this website. Did the customer drop the frame, did the moulding warp from humidity? How do you know?

If you brought me a poster and you're not telling me you're on a budget, I'd work with you to choose frames for you and the art and depending on your level of involvement, I'd pick colors that we both agree look awesome. Often cost is the last thing discussed. Some stores, maybe you're spending more time to dial back a design to save money. It's like selling anything, what seems like a lot to me is affordable to somebody else. There are ways to save money but that's a long tangent.

Cost mostly depends on the scale, the quality of glass and your taste. Some frames are just expensive because of the labor involved, the country it's from, etc. You can also go crazy with fabric mats, stacking fillets, raising/floating elements and on and on. For prints 20" wide (just reading your website) that's going to be more affordable because you're using smaller sheets of glass and standard mats. But maybe with medium format film, those prints could be huge. Larger scale means larger glass, oversize 60" mats, shipping gets more expensive, everything is more difficult and cost goes up exponentially.

There's no typical scenario, that's why custom framing is so interesting. A microchip manufacturer could spend the same framing chip designs as the cigar bar framing ads for urinals.

I don't know what your market will be, do you? Is $900 for a picture frame expensive? Depends what we're framing, how big is it and how long will it take to build? Are we framing a Celtics jersey with a cigar and some tickets? I always billed six hours of labor for shadowboxes. Not many framers do big shadowboxes. Then you're talking about cutting a custom jersey insert out of foam, pinning the sleeves just right (two more inserts) then jig up the cigar. This was years ago but my shadowboxes were usually in the $600-$700 range. Obviously bigger frames cost more, especially if you get the museum glass and spare no expense.

I'm not a camera expert but I bet your camera was made in a factory, not designed to your exact specifications, just for you. Your camera wasn't assembled in the US either. Nice camera though.

What you wrote about wanting an app to do this, it reminds me of my freshman year in art school when I was so excited about programming games, computer graphics, 3D models, the demo scene, etc. It was really difficult to get out of my comfort zone which was all this technology I grew up with. I eventually got into non-objective abstraction and sculpture and oil painting and realized it was really satisfying to learn from these dead artists who had so much to offer me. Anyway, I don't know you, maybe we're nothing alike but I hope you talk with more picture framers and learn as much about picture framing as you can before you become this huge company crushing artists out of business.

I tried your widget and I wouldn't really call that "custom" picture framing. If I was you, I wouldn't call custom picture framing a racket. Your suppliers won't be pleased to hear you belittle their passion. Your two examples demonstrate no understanding of color or form. It's like you folded an Origami crane and you're already calling Michelangelo a hack.

Here's a tip, the shape of the frame moulding can enhance the structure of the composition. You need a good eye for composition to see something like that. That's just one of many factors you would consider when choosing frames, mats, fillets, etc. Your Joey Roth print there would look better with a tapered frame. Even if you could represent a moulding in 3D, you need a professional designer to coordinate all the desires of the customer. Custom picture framing is a personal, intimate, complex business.

Here's my full response: http://pjbrunet.com/custom-picture-framing-falling-glass-raz...

"You could swap in a Budweiser or Heineken and no information would be lost."

Corona is a lighter beer, which is what you want on a hot beach where you're sweating and thirsty.

Yahoo Answers: Corona - 4.6% Heineken - 5.4% Budweiser - 5.0%

I agree with this. Often the colors are there, that edge is warm and that edge is cool, but sometimes a shape is just not very interesting, the color isn't interacting and your job as the artist is to make everything work. Through that process you learn to see color.

It's learnable and takes a lot of practice mixing colors and you need the right teacher. I picked up this ability in art school and it absolutely makes a sunset more beautiful. But to keep seeing this way you have to practice regularly. Use it or lose it. If I'm not painting regularly, it's gone.

Like if you play chess for hours and hours every day, eventually you start to experience everything in terms of chess moves. It's the same with color. Look at just about any flat surface long enough and you'll notice it has a hue, saturation and value. Just go into Photoshop and you'll see that boring white wall has variations in hue, saturation and value, it's no medical mystery in my opinion.

This part is a tiny more green, that part is a tiny more blue. I'm not giving you an art lesson here but you get the idea. Artists know they can make things look farther away by painting them blue/gray, decrease saturation with distance, etc. The painter learns to exaggerate because she just has a 2D surface to work with. Anyway, through the process of painting our perception of color improves, even when we're not painting.

K-12 the goal is just paint the sky blue and the grass green, color inside the lines and get your grade. But if you want to be a serious painter at some point, you may want to look at things fresh, more intently. When people see your paintings, don't expect them to care how long it took to mix the color. Only a few artists will notice and they're not the ones buying your work.

So even for artists, seeing color is not terribly useful, because mixing color is very time-consuming. It's more a hindrance than anything because I can finish an ink wash in 1/100th the time and sell that for the same price as an oil painting of the same subject.

If you have all the time in the world and don't need money, I say go for it, buy some expensive oil paint and send me an email, I'll tell you what to buy. Stretch the canvas yourself and go all out.

After getting my first traffic-camera ticket yesterday, I'm 100% behind self-driving cars.

I'm not against reproduction if care is taken to preserve what can be preserved, as close to the original as possible while giving credit, compensating creators, etc. In your example, I think reproduction/conservation technology was available but the studios couldn't justify spending the time/money it would cost to preserve their entire library. Who would have paid for that? I don't know. Supposedly, half of Van Gogh's entire lifetime output was burned because he was too poor to find a place to store it. At the same time, I'd rather see a bug-eaten Van Gogh with fugitive reds long faded away, than a flat, lifeless high-def copy. I suppose it's a complex subject and each work is unique. Sometimes I'm thrilled when I can find an old page in "Wayback Machine" but what they manage to save is typically broken and low quality.

Something is more likely to "slip between the cracks" if it's small. It's an analogy I heard in a Jason Calacanis interview several years ago, that the blockchain is smaller than a pirated video and therefore more difficult to detect.

I'd rather a page go offline than have it taken out of context. As if plagiarism wasn't bad enough already. (Yahoo Answers cough)

These crooks will even steal your copyright notice. It's quite possible the original content producers are offline because scraper thieves stole so much content that it's no longer possible to earn a living.

As an artist, this reminds me of the condescending attitude that gave us fake Rolexes, Facebook & North Korea's 28 state-approved haircuts. Either it's "just content" to stuff in a database somewhere or you understand the medium is the message too.

Besides the point of developers' influence, isn't the blockchain getting bigger and therefore easier to filter/block, hypothetically?

Have you tried Rapportive? https://rapportive.com/ It shows additional information about the person in your Gmail sidebar.

Also you might want to check out Nimble, like Rapportive it pulls info from other social networks. If there's a feature you want, it seems they listen to ideas.

I've also used http://www.cerberusweb.com/tour for sorting email and importing additional data about people, but that might be overkill. With Cerberus you would have to import the location data info yourself, for example. It's a "power user" type of application, very versatile.

I haven't been there in over 10 years but it was the most direct way by car to get to Long Beach from say downtown Los Angeles. It was strange to see that industrial wasteland along 710. I tried to find a shortcut through there once and ended up on a distant, post-apocalyptic planet ;-)

No kidding. I'll get downvoted for this but the Hacker News demographic hasn't spent much time on the road. Try driving down 710 toward Long Beach. Last time I lived down there, tons of trucks, tiny lanes, uneven pavement, completely insane. I want to see a self-driving car navigate Manhattan or Brooklyn during the day, normal driving rules do not apply there, New York drivers mean business ;-)