I had heard about Z80’s 4-bit ALU (2x for 8-bit math). Is this considered a major bottleneck? Were there later extensions that added higher bit integer math?
I’m curious whether an open source version of the chip will enable new features and variants.
That is unfortunate. Does anybody know what options are open after the main acceptance window?
How many people hire education consultants these days, especially for the competitive schools? And at what age? College applications seem like an arms race that is quite unhealthy for the mental health of students or their parents.
I once went to a drive-up ATM and withdrew $100. It deducted $100 from my account, but the machine gave me $300 instead. I walked into the branch and returned the money. They were thankful, but I never followed up with what happened. It was one of those small town credit unions. I guess weird things must happen frequently.
It’s good to recoup some energy. But in a cold climate, you could be using a heat pump to move 2-5x more heat into the home for the same amount of energy as electric resistive heat.
The backstory of the Tomy Tutor is interesting. This seems like it was a tremendous longshot, financially. It’s hard to imagine how this would be greenlit in today’s age. There are so many weird architectures of the 1980s — I appreciate the quirkiness and diversity.
Not advocating. Very few companies can be overhauled in a significant way while remaining public. Boeing is a strategically important company from an economic and military perspective, so I have to imagine it will be treated as a special case.
If a Private Equity group decided to buy them out and restructure, it would make a fascinating case study. If some radical restructuring does happen, I hope they bring along a film crew to make a documentary in the process.
> This caused an explosion of computer variety in a few short years for a single platform.
The impact of this point can not be overstated. 99% of businesses make a much larger investment in software (and people!) than hardware. The idea that compatible hardware systems existed was a great hedge on their investment in software and training. For most businesses, this would be a no-brainer!
Over a short time, other propietary/non-compatible systems were relegated to home use, education, and gaming.
With cppfront, Sutter is explicitly not trying to create a successor language. His goal (like TypeScript to JavaScript) is to provide a complimentary, parallel language which provides complete forwards/backwards compatibility with C++. His hope is that (like TypeScript), the languages and communities evolve together.
Any other technology that involves developing new tools, migrating code, or lacks completely frictionless interop will be inherently fragmentary. It reminds me of the classic XKCD comic:
https://xkcd.com/927/
IMHO, Herb Sutter was spot on in his talk (https://youtu.be/fJvPBHErF2U) that it is impossible to walk back features of a language once they are in the wild. His cppfront is an interesting and refreshing approach. I think his “create a TypeScript for C++”, ie. generate safe, easy to understand, conforming C++ is the optimal path for where we are.
Dealing with legacy codebases to evolve the language into something else is monumentally more difficult.
And I tend to argue that maintaining legacy C++ systems with decades of features and bug fixes is okay for the right applications today.
Judging by my nine year old, Epic will be doing fine for some time. They have an ecosystem of other tangentially related games available, including a Lego RPG-type game all built on top of their v-bucks payment system and their account/social network.
> The GP's example of needing to reinstall because they wanted to change desktop environments is nonsensical
I agree that trying out a new desktop environment by selecting a distro package would not normally require a reinstall.
However, in general installing and removing packages (not specifically a desktop manager), especially custom ones with conflicting dependencies can lead to things being broken without a clear direction forward.
To paraphrase Tolstoy, each broken system tends to be broken in its own way — which makes it hard to find help. Maybe wifi, sound, or BlueTooth get inexplicably flaky. Or power management. It is not hard for me to imagine a situation where a user just gives up and reinstalls.
Reading up on Silverblue (which someone else mentioned) and other technologies like Nix give me hope that things are improving.
I was not familiar with Silverblue. It looks very promising. The idea of creating a fundamental, shared base system should make troubleshooting significantly easier — possibly an exponential reduction in the possible installed permutations. Thanks for the suggestion!
I think this is the reason Linux hasn't penetrated the desktop more than it has. “Just reinstall” is too often the solution to issues.
Starting over will often throw away hours of someone’s time. This can be catastrophic for a non-technical user.
I wish the Linux desktop was implemented more like a user extension on top of a rock solid base server layer (eg hypervisor). Maybe such a setup exists, but I’m unaware of it.
I was recently reminded about an urban environment that I have known for more than twenty years — that cities are living and evolving organisms. Neighborhoods change composition as children grow up and adults change jobs or retire. Bars, restaurants, shops, and hangouts come and go. Immigrants and transplants pick new and upcoming areas. It’s part of a constant cycle of change and renewal. It’s sad sometimes to consider the cultural losses along the way. But, at the high level, it’s a critical part of how cities avoid ossification and retain authenticity.
The article is paywalled, so it’s difficult to check the sources. Are there any links provided or surveys cited? The article matches my guy feeling, but I am curious about geographic and socio-economic variance. It wouldn't surprise me if higher cost of living areas have suffered the most.
I know someone with a 6 year old Tesla X that now has a range of around 120 miles. This is becoming a serious impediment for them. What happens to all the buyers of these vehicles when their range is halved before their life expectancy is up? Needing to pony up another $10-15k will probably be unaffordable for the average Joe.
This might be correlation rather than causation. Perhaps Alzheimer’s Disease is associated with mental changes earlier in life that reduce the desire/need for Viagra. In that case, staying sexually active with a partner later in life and using Viagra is a sign that one is less likely to develop Alzheimer’s.
I get the sense that many Americans feel like they are personally doing well, but are convinced that on average, Americans are not doing well. It’s hard to tell when many numbers are used to spin/promote an ideology or attract eyeballs with sensationalist viewpoint.
In college, I knew someone who went on to become a quartermaster for the US Army. They were in charge of a group that packed parachutes. As CO he was required to periodically jump with one of the parachutes that his team had packed. Having skin in the game provides a natural incentive to keep quality up.
A commercial airplane is a tremendously complex piece of equipment. Failure can come over time and in unexpected places. But Boeing executives and high level managers should fly commercially rather than having a fleet of private jets.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. At this point, it seems likely that they will be forced to take some extreme measures to counteract the bad publicity.
Isn’t it in both the FAA and Boeing’s interest to produce safe and reliable airplanes? It seems like the regulatory picture is not effectively fulfilling its duties, but the ultimate responsibility is with Boeing’s leadership structure for promulgating a culture where design lapses can persist and human error can be compounded.
I am sorry to hear about your dog. Pets can be an integral part of one's family, which often (sadly) goes unacknowledged. My first dog died of hemangiosarcoma. There were no treatments besides chemotherapy at the time. From a cursory search, your dog's treatment appears somewhat reasonably priced. Scientific progress is amazing. I hope the treatments go well.
I’m not sure about the loss of flavor, but we have definitely seen waves of homogenization with macro beer producers. From what I’ve seen, this led to an explosion in regional and local microbreweries. There are lots of eclectic options out there nowadays.
Even the most deranged employees likely won’t have weapons on them. Most of the workplace violence seems to happen when a disgruntled (ex)employee returns to their place of work some time after the fact.
Can anyone tell me who the big consumers of used recyclable plastic materials are? Are any of these uses repeatable? If not, then we should stop pretending that recycling plastic is good for the environment and convince people that they should avoid buying plastic products that they might throw away.