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themadturk commented on The mysterious MS-DOS reboot (2021)   edn.com/the-mysterious-ms... · Posted by u/geox
themadturk · 21 hours ago
Back in the early 90s I was working IT at a law firm in Seattle. One secretary was having problems with her machine -- I'm no longer sure about the nature of her difficulties, only that none of us on the IT staff could figure it out.

She finally solved it by hanging garlic cloves around her cubicle. Of course there's no reason this should have worked. But she had no more difficulties after that.

themadturk commented on In the Beginning was the Command Line (1999)   web.stanford.edu/class/cs... · Posted by u/wseqyrku
irishcoffee · a day ago
Potato, po-tato?
themadturk · 21 hours ago
Somewhat different, I think. She had no direct financial interest in IBM's decision; she convinced the guy at IBM to look at Bill for the PC's operating system. Sure, at that level favors and family can have a lot of influence, but there wasn't a direct business relationship.
themadturk commented on Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri   reuters.com/world/us/rubi... · Posted by u/italophil
themadturk · 4 days ago
Maybe when (if?) the Democrats take back the House and Senate in 2026. Right now Congress is solidly right-wing and sees no reason to impeach...nor would a conviction ever happen, even if the trial was held.
themadturk commented on My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)   jeffhuang.com/productivit... · Posted by u/simonebrunozzi
davidzimmerjr · 4 days ago
txt file is great. Makes me wonder, does the author always have their laptop on them since that's the only place I know of where a txt file can live? Do they go to sleep and wake up next to their laptop?

I've always been an iPhone user and have never seen a .txt file on one and probably you wouldn't be able to edit one on an iPhone if you did have it in Files app - I'm not counting Notes app as a text file here.

I do quarterly notes inside of Notes app but it mostly non-work related stuff and doesn't integrate well with desktop since its kind of a pain to login to iCloud from browser. Quarterly notes bc once the note gets too long, it gets very laggy on phone and is difficult to navigate; i.e. getting to the bottom to write a new line can be tough on mobile.

themadturk · 4 days ago
There are multiple text editors that work just fine on iPhone, certainly on Android as well. Textastic and Runestone are two for iOS (there are more). They read and write text files just fine. You can even keep them version controlled in Github or other Git systems using Working Copy, which allows flexibility in modifying the text file in multiple locations.
themadturk commented on Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far   grocerydive.com/news/krog... · Posted by u/JumpCrisscross
imtringued · 6 days ago
Reading these two comments is bizarre from my perspective. How is Amazon competitive with anything? They tend to have higher prices than other online retailers and the intransparent market place system tries to protect shady sellers with product focused reviews instead of seller based reviews. The moment you get even a single fake product or wrong delivery all the perceived savings evaporate at once.

The idea of paying a subscription for the privilege of being scammed sounds ridiculous. The cost of deliveries doesn't magically go down because you're paying a subscription. You're paying for it either way. Either you're overpaying on the subscription because you're not ordering enough or you're overpaying in the form of higher prices that contain the remaining delivery fee.

themadturk · 6 days ago
I've been scolded online for buying from Amazon. "Oh, if you look around enough you can get anything locally." I live in the Seattle area, and I certainly cannot get everything I want locally, unless by "locally" you mean taking an hour or two to drive a 40 mile round-trip to a suburb to the north. I know, of course, that Amazon is partly responsible for being unable to find some things locally, but if I want or need something and I can't get it here in town, yeah, I'm using Amazon.
themadturk commented on Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far   grocerydive.com/news/krog... · Posted by u/JumpCrisscross
infecto · 6 days ago
That’s mostly my problem. Some of the apps have locations, often I find things not there. But for most stores they want you to wander and shop.
themadturk · 6 days ago
Though I don't like shopping at Walmart, I still have to (no store in my area, even "supercenters," has everything I need), and their phone app is absolutely stellar at telling me where a particular product is. Especially handy where there's no staff on the floor (as often happens).
themadturk commented on Cassette tapes are making a comeback?   theconversation.com/casse... · Posted by u/devonnull
themadturk · 6 days ago
I don't miss cassettes, but they were an important thing to me in the 1980s. When my wife and I got married we were as poor as could be. Our first stereo was a little radio/cassette deck with four inch speakers. We played a lot of cassettes on that thing.

I moved to digital players as soon as I could afford them. The most memorable (before the iPod) was the Creative Nomad with its 5GB hard drive. It was too big to fit easily in my jacket pocket, but I shoved it in there anyway. I didn't have to choose the tapes I had on my long bus commute anymore. And when the second-gen iPod came along, it was like heaven.

I'd never go back to cassette...but it was great when there was little else available.

themadturk commented on Las Vegas is in trouble. Everyone has a theory about why.   slate.com/business/2025/1... · Posted by u/walterbell
altairprime · 7 days ago
Walter, this content is hard-paywalled; please post a workaround.
themadturk · 7 days ago
I had to clear a "We need to talk about your ad blocker" notice, after which it let me read the whole thing (without turning off my ad blocker).
themadturk commented on Notes on Shadowing a Hospitalist   humaninvariant.substack.c... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
kbelder · 15 days ago
It grates on my American ears as well. Never heard it before this article, and I'm hoping it's a fad word that won't leave southern CA.
themadturk · 13 days ago
I first encountered it in 2009, in Seattle, when I spent time in a hospital. I'd never heard the term before...but then, I'd never spent time in a hospital before, either.
themadturk commented on Writerdeck.org   writerdeck.org/... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
backscratches · a month ago
What part of your writing requires so much storage? I thought the alphasmart only did text files.
themadturk · a month ago
The Neo has small storage, and is divided into documents, which I believe take up a fixed amount each of that total storage. Any decent-sized novel is going to strain the storage of the Neo. Still, it's a great little distraction-free writing tool.

u/themadturk

KarmaCake day1070October 12, 2020
About
I'm a configuration admin in the Seattle area, solidly in the Appleverse but a regular Windows user and Linux dabbler as well. I've written a few unpublished novels and am thinking about writing a few more, but I spend too much time flirting with different text editors.
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