In Ed Abbey's book, Desert Solitaire, he writes about a search mission to find a lost hiker somewhere in Canyonlands National Park, who was ultimately found dead, dying of heat and/or dehydration. He goes on to give some advice if you ever get caught in a similar situation, and, unlike this man, no one knows where you are and thus no rescue can be expected. In that case, wants to congratulate you for your noble death—it is good luck to die out in the open, alone, instead of under the “leech and priest.” Your bleached bones will remain where you died for some hiker to find someday and marvel at.
Readit Newssizzzzlerz commented on Desert Graves (2021) desertmountaineer.com/202... · Posted by u/cut3
sizzzzlerz commented on Show HN: A zoomable, searchable archive of BYTE magazine byte.tsundoku.io... · Posted by u/chromy
Well this made my day. Randomly clicking on the covers, I hit on November 1979. It turns out that this issue had an article on software to solve SOMA cubes and Pentominoes written in 6502 machine code and Basic for the Pet PC. When I originally read this, 46 years ago, I had an Apple II+. So I made some adjustments to the code for the Apple in both the machine code and basic and got it working. That article (along with Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth) started my obsession for Pentominoes that exists today. I've taken that code and rewritten and improved it in Fortran, Pascal, C, C++, and Python. I'd copied that article and carried it with me for years until it got lost in an office move. What a treat to stumble across it today!
sizzzzlerz commented on The McPhee method for writing deeply reported nonfiction jsomers.net/blog/the-mcph... · Posted by u/jsomers
McPhee was recommended as someone whose writing "makes boring things interesting". I did enjoy The Curve of Binding Energy (nuclear science) and to some extent Coming out of the Country (Alaska). Both of those featured interesting vignettes and colorful characters which propelled along the narrative.
However, I then turned to his magnum opus on geology, Annals of the Former World. That was a long slog which, although I enjoyed moments of it, now I wonder if my time wouldn't have been better spent reading something more interesting.
I own every book McPhee published and have read each one at least twice. He is, without question, the finest writer of non-fiction I know. Annals, as you may know, was originally published as 4 separate volumes, each covering a particular US region. Assembling California is my absolute favorite McPhee work. I have a layman’s interest in geology and plate tectonics that I developed specifically because of this book.
sizzzzlerz commented on Installing a mini-split AC in a Brooklyn apartment probablydance.com/2025/08... · Posted by u/ibobev
It costs next to nothing if you do it like the K-man
sizzzzlerz commented on Why Is California So Chilly This Summer? nytimes.com/2025/08/01/we... · Posted by u/Stratoscope
I live in the San Jose end of the bay. We haven't had temps above mid-80s all this summer. Typically, July has at least one week of 100+ temperatures. This summer, its been mostly 70s and low 80s. I'm not complaining and we still have to get through August and September so we'll see. It is unique however. I've been living here since '78 and it is definitely the coolest summer in that time.
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That brings back some memories from my early days. I worked on a project that had decided to use the newish C language for a 68000-based system. They chose Whitesmith compiler for it, probably because it was the only one available. For some reason, I was selected to attend a class on learning C and became responsible for installing the compiler and assisting the other engineers on using it. The project was ultimately successful but I don't recall what issues we had with it. I do remember contacting Whitesmith a couple of times to resolve some problems. I guess it possible I was talking directly to P.J. Plauger himself, although, at that time, I would have had no idea who he was.
Even more. The two primary reasons I believe it harder to find tech jobs when you're older are
1) Your salary demands exceed the budgeted amount for the position
2) You probably aren't willing to work insane hours any more
Even if your skill set vastly exceeds that of a wet-behind-the-ears engineer and can work at a far higher level, be more productive, and produce higher quality work, it's almost impossible to make that apparent when interviewing, especially when those doing the interviews are much younger.
Douglas Adams said it best:
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
Has a very easy answer in the US: No.
You do not own your airspace. The FAA owns your airspace.
You can build a tall structure (subject to local laws). But anything above that is outside your control.
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This article, however, is about Ireland.
Not quite. The height of a structure, antenna, tower, etc., can be limited by the FAA based upon the distance of the structure from a nearby airport. Beyond a certain distance, the height is no longer an FAA issue.
sizzzzlerz commented on I'd rather read the prompt claytonwramsey.com/blog/p... · Posted by u/claytonwramsey
This is equivalent to students using AI to complete computer programming assignments. They misconstrue the purpose of an assignment as just one of generating output instead something to teach the principles and techniques they'll require later if they want a job in the profession. While they may believe they're fooling the teacher, all they're really doing is fooling, and cheating, themselves.
Whether it be writing or computer programming, or exercising, for that matter, if you aren't willing to put in the work to achieve your goals, why bother?