Long ago I was working for a programmer writing an accounting system for a client (I wrote the user docs). The machine we were replacing was an old NCR plug-board system. Programmed by wires plugged into holes on a board. One person left at the client knew how the machine worked. No one knew how the programming worked. If the wires fell out of the holes it could not be put back together again. At one time someone knew that, but the knowledge was lost. This is the system we are building again today.
Readit NewsFinnucane commented on Nobody knows how the whole system works surfingcomplexity.blog/20... · Posted by u/azhenley
Finnucane commented on Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month theverge.com/tech/875309/... · Posted by u/x01
he was convicted of soliciting prostitution (not of minors), right?
why do we assume that the people he was hanging out with knew the details of what he did wrong?
He ran a sex-trafficking ring that involved hundreds of girls and women. Possibly over a thousand. He wasn't keeping it all to himself.
Finnucane commented on Omega-3 is inversely related to risk of early-onset dementia pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4... · Posted by u/brandonb
I like to get my omegas from the following sources, no fish needed!
- hemp hearts (complete protein, goes best with oatmeal for breakfast, on salads, or in soups for an extra bit of nutty / fatty flavor)
- pumpkin seeds (also good source of iron, iirc)
- algae-based supplement (currently taking an omega3 + vit D + vit K combo capsule from nordic naturals)
Note that one of the authors received funding from Big Walnut.
Finnucane commented on I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams kirkville.com/i-now-assum... · Posted by u/cdrnsf
This suggests that there are online ads that are not scams. Who knew?
Finnucane commented on Amazon is reportedly in talks to invest $50B in OpenAI techcrunch.com/2026/01/29... · Posted by u/jnord
Cheaper than paying staff, I guess.
Finnucane commented on Last Call for Mass Market Paperbacks publishersweekly.com/pw/b... · Posted by u/barry-cotter
This was pretty much inevitable. The real death-blow was the collapse of the independent distributors. The effect of centralized buying and distribution was fewer slots for 'midlist' books and more slots for lead titles, so for most books, it was harder to push out enough copies to actually make any money. Print runs declined and unit costs rose. It was easier to sell trade paperbacks in traditional bookstores, then ebooks came and ate the bottom of the market.
Finnucane commented on If you tax them, will they leave? theatlantic.com/economy/2... · Posted by u/JumpCrisscross
Wealth taxes are very, very different from higher income taxes.
People are mad about buy-borrow-die, so they’re proposing extraordinary new measures.
Personally, I’d just make capital gains taxes apply at the “borrow” stage to actually fix the problem. That would have a host of compliance issues but they’d be localized in the finance industry which already has an army of people figuring out compliance.
But they made exactly the same arguments against it, and it was bullshit.
Finnucane commented on If you tax them, will they leave? theatlantic.com/economy/2... · Posted by u/JumpCrisscross
Mass. passed a high-income surtax a few years ago, with the result that we raied a lot of funds for schools & infrastructure, and we atill have plenty of rich people. Wealthy people hate paying taxes, but after paying, they're still pretty wealthy. And, some of them like living in a state with decent schools, health care, etc.
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2025/11/17/do-millionai...
I found this very distressing and dispiriting when I read it was mostly used books from sources like BetterWorldBook. That undoubtedly means many rare books have been permanently destroyed, even some last remaining copies. The least they could do is release the dataset.
Rare and unique books usually end up at specialty dealers, not generic websites. But it is possible that some hard-to-get items could be lost, and there's no way to know without an inventory.
Finnucane commented on Windows 11's Patch Tuesday nightmare gets worse windowscentral.com/micros... · Posted by u/01-_-
Oh, Yes. Windows 10 had big issues on arrival. But this is also selective Amnesia. The Windows 8 UI was nearly unusable on release. Windows Vista was so legendarily broken on release, that even after it became stable, the majority of technical users refused to give up Windows XP went straight to Windows 7. And even Windows XP that everybody fondly remembers was quite a mess when it came out. Most home users migrated from the Windows 9x line of Windows, so they probably didn't notice the instability so much, but a lot of power users who were already on Windows 2000 held up until SP2 came out. And let's not even talk about Windows ME.
The only major Windows version release that wasn't just a point upgrade that was stable in the last century was Window 7 and even then some people would argue this was just a point upgrade for Windows Vista.
I'm sure that Microsoft greatly reducing their dedicated QA engineers in 2014 had at least some lasting impact on quality, but I don't think we can blame it on bad releases or bungled Patch Tuesdays without better evidence. Windows 10 is not a good proof for, consider Vista had 10 times as many issues with fully staffed QA teams in the building.
Every version of Windows released was an unusable piece of garbage, back to the beginning. MS put it out, it was crap, but somehow managed to convince users that they needed to have it, patched it until it was marginally usable, then, when users were used to it, forced them to move on to the next.