Thanks for this. Good read and also kinda inspiring.
Readit Newsjonnypotty commented on Writing a basic Linux device driver when you know nothing about Linux drivers crescentro.se/posts/writi... · Posted by u/sbt567
jonnypotty commented on Preparing for when the machine stops idiallo.com/blog/when-the... · Posted by u/foxfired
If farmers had blogs during industrialization, I suspect there would’ve been a lot of this.
Most people don’t know how to grow a potato. So?
The problem comes when no one knows how to grow a potato any more, not when most people don't.
I was thinking the other day how people really don't want to pay to buy a programming language - this was the doom of Delphi because it was super popular and alot of people liked it but people really hate paying for programming languages.
On the other hand, people seem OK with paying for IDEs - witness Jetbrains with maybe $1BUSD revenue versus Embarcadero at $100MUSD (extrapolated from 2021 numbers). The numbers are a guess but the point remains.
So perhaps Delphi might have had a different future if it explicitly made all its language free and sold its IDE. People might have been pretty happy with that, because as I recall the Delphi IDE was really nice.
Anyhow that's all history.
The IDE is much nicer these days
jonnypotty commented on The muscular imagination of Iain M. Banks: a future you might want robinsloan.com/moonbound/... · Posted by u/fanf2
You might want to live there, but I wouldn't. Virtually all humans in the books -- and I'm aware of the fact that they're not Earth humans but a wide variety of humanoid aliens -- are kept as pets by the ships, for amusement, basically as clowns. Everything important about the flow of human life is decided by the mighty ship minds; humans are left to nibble at the margins and dance to the tune of their betters. There are a small subset of elites, in organizations like Special Circumstances, that are granted a modicum of independent agency, but even this is rather difficult to justify under the circumstances.
Most of the drama in the books comes to pass when the ship-dominated Culture interacts with a "backwards and benighted," but still vital and expansionist, species.
It's just not a human future. It's a contrived future where humans are ruled by benign Gods. I suppose that for some people this would be a kind of heaven. For others, though...
In a way it's a sort of anti-Romanticism, I guess.
The way I interpret the philosophy of the minds is a bit different.
Some seem to conform to your analysis here, but many seem deeply compassionate toward the human condition. I always felt like part of what banks was saying was that, no matter the level of intelligence, humanity and morality had some deep truths that were hard to totally trancend. And that a humam perspective could be useful and maybe even insightful even in the face of vast unimaginable intelligence. Or maybe that wisdom was accessible to lower life forms than the minds.
jonnypotty commented on You should make a new programming language ntietz.com/blog/you-shoul... · Posted by u/pansa2
I agree. I think programmers who want to build stuff but lack creativity and entrepreneurship can end up chasing rabbit holes while telling themselves their being productive.
"I'm learning" is not a great measure of value.
All depends on what you value, really.
jonnypotty commented on Delphi 11 Community Edition embarcadero.com/products/... · Posted by u/peter_d_sherman
Is there anybody still using Delphi?
-- I have a friend which only develops in Delphi, but I love to tell her that joke.
A large proportion of the UKs independent bookshops run on a delphi developed system.
jonnypotty commented on The Windows desktop is dying computerworld.com/article... · Posted by u/elorant
I'd rather kill myself than pay Microsoft $41 a month for windows 11 - let alone windows 12, whatever amazing pile of shit that turns out to be - especially when it CANT respond in less than 100ms to anything. My god. At least it means someone will have to do something better.
The person writing this article is almost definitely part of the 1%. Who cares what gender the 62 richest people in the world are; these people cannot be the victims of inequality. What evidence is presented here that says "if rich people earnt less then poor people would earn more" which is the obvious inference. It is intuitive but is it true? If rich people pay more tax this doesn't get given to poor people as wages, so how does the tax question relate to the poverty issue? I agree that more tax revenue is good as it pays for better public services but there isn't any talk of 'wealth' provided by public services being part of the discussion.
I wish programming was easier sometimes too.
jonnypotty commented on Photos Always Pointing at the Pointer (2012) pointerpointer.com/... · Posted by u/Gedxx
Why do I find this so funny? Good work. Thanks.