Hacker News: erbo

New comment by erbo in "Options vs. Cash"

erbo — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 16:15:12 +0000

This shows why I've long said, "Put not your faith in stock options."

Like it or not, options are basically Monopoly money. You can't get your landlord to accept them, or the grocery store, or the credit card companies.

New comment by erbo in "SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage has landed at LZ-1 [video]"

erbo — Mon, 01 May 2017 19:21:46 +0000

Coming down on its jets, the way God and Robert Heinlein intended!

New comment by erbo in "Scunthorpe Problem"

erbo — Wed, 05 Apr 2017 18:07:43 +0000

That's like the British joke about which three football teams have swear words in their names: Arsenal, Scunthorpe, and MANCHESTER FUCKING UNITED. :-D

New comment by erbo in "The Biggest Difference Between Coding Today and When I Started in the 80s"

erbo — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 17:40:31 +0000

Of course, there also wasn't as much you needed to know back then. I look at something like a modern "Roadmap to becoming a Web developer in 2017" [0] and I wonder how anyone is able to get through all of that.

[0] https://github.com/kamranahmedse/developer-roadmap

New comment by erbo in "Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder"

erbo — Wed, 15 Mar 2017 23:01:01 +0000

They don't do anything Google Drive, Microsoft OneDriveol or Apple iCloud doesn't do

AFAIK, neither Google Drive, OneDrive, or iCloud will work on Linux.

New comment by erbo in "Andy Weir’s Best Seller ‘The Martian’ Gets a Classroom-Friendly Makeover"

erbo — Mon, 27 Feb 2017 18:52:07 +0000

"Profanity is the one language that all programmers know best." - Troutman's Sixth Programming Postulate

New comment by erbo in "Andy Weir’s Best Seller ‘The Martian’ Gets a Classroom-Friendly Makeover"

erbo — Mon, 27 Feb 2017 18:46:26 +0000

PG-13 movies are allowed two uses of the word "fuck." The Martian had Matt Damon use them fairly early on, first, when Watney yanks the piece of the antenna out of himself ("FUCK!"), and second, when he makes up his mind to survive ("Fuck you, Mars"). They allude to its use in many other places, though, such as the memorable shot from outside the Rover where you can clearly see his lips saying "What the fuck? What the fuck?" Then there was some "censored" text in the chat logs, a reference to Watney telling the botanists to "have sex with themselves," and so forth.

New comment by erbo in "Linus' reply on Git and SHA-1 collision"

erbo — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 18:19:38 +0000

Or, as Raymond Chen puts it (quoting Douglas Adams), "It rather involved being on the other side of this airtight hatchway."

New comment by erbo in "Theranos might be on life support"

erbo — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 21:49:48 +0000

Where she ought to end up is in jail for fraud, but that's probably wishful thinking.

New comment by erbo in "Carrie Fisher has died"

erbo — Tue, 27 Dec 2016 18:49:30 +0000

http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/

New comment by erbo in "The Resurgence of C Programming"

erbo — Tue, 27 Dec 2016 17:44:59 +0000

Maybe it's time to revive this little ditty: http://www.poppyfields.net/filks/00259.html

New comment by erbo in "Mars Pathfinder Mission Home Page (1997)"

erbo — Sun, 04 Dec 2016 22:44:48 +0000

And now Pathfinder is just sitting there, waiting for Mark Watney to come along and salvage it to use to contact Earth...

New comment by erbo in "Tell Trump How to Make America Great"

erbo — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 22:42:56 +0000

I submitted the following:

"I would Make America Great Again by forcing the medical monopolies to break up, by prosecuting them under 15 USC (the Sherman, Clayton, and Robinson-Patman Acts), which the President can direct to be done on his own, without input from Congress. This would cause prices of medical goods and services to drop by 50-80% or more, solve many of our economic problems, and usher in a new era of prosperity. See the writings of Karl Denninger for details, www.market-ticker.org."

If we don't do this, and if it isn't done within a year, the Federal Budget and economy are headed for collapse. See: https://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231661

New comment by erbo in "California has legalized recreational marijuana"

erbo — Wed, 09 Nov 2016 19:07:41 +0000

I'd have expected Hillary to send in the Federal troops and shut down marijuana sales, simply because she's been in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry and they're already complaining about how cannabis is cutting into their sales and profits. [0]

But Trump? Maybe not. He's a businessman, after all, and marijuana has proven to be some big business indeed. [1]

Anyway, I don't think it's on his priority list.

[0] http://thefreethoughtproject.com/legal-marijuana-destroys-bi...

[1] http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/colorado-racks-bill...

New comment by erbo in "Live Free or Die: The Origins of the Geek License Plate"

erbo — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 11:59:45 +0000

Compaq later created similar promotional license plates with the number "LINUX," and yes, they still said "Live Free or Die" on them. I managed to wheedle one out of a trade show representative, knowing the history of the original "UNIX" promotional plates.

Besides the motto and the big number, the plates carry the Compaq logo, "1999" (the year they were made), and the statement "LINUX is a Registered Trademark of Linus Torvalds."

New comment by erbo in "Steven DenBeste, writer of USS Clueless, has died"

erbo — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 06:34:47 +0000

Back when Steven first stopped writing USS Clueless, I was concerned that the content would go away. He sent me, at my request, an archive of the site, which I hosted at Electric Minds for a time. That archive is now available on my site [0].

He was a great influence on everyone who read him, including me. He will be sorely missed.

[0] https://erbosoft.com/ussclueless/

New comment by erbo in "The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory"

erbo — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 19:13:30 +0000

If you're interested in this sort of thing, look for Wendy Carlos' album Switched-On Bach 2000. She revisits the material of her classic electronic music album with modern synthesizer equipment, and uses authentic Bach tunings for the pieces as well. The liner notes for the album explain the tuning systems used, and how they differ from the modern, mathematically-perfect equal temperament. She notes that Bach was himself a first-rate tuner and theorist, and was not above retuning "on the fly" to improve the sound of various compositions. Of course, with synthesizers, a tuning is just a block of data, which can be reloaded as needed.

(As a "bonus track" on the album, she included a realization of "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor." Especially appropriate for the season!)

New comment by erbo in "FreePascal and Lazarus Foundation"

erbo — Wed, 06 Jul 2016 23:25:44 +0000

He'd probably appreciate it more if you made his science fiction books hits, as he's been trying to get back into SF writing recently, and has joined the indie publishing revolution (after getting talked into it by Sarah Hoyt).

Available on Kindle Unlimited: his novel The Cunning Blood [0], a newer novel, Ten Gentle Opportunities [1], and his collection Souls in Silicon: Tales of AI Confronting The Infinite. [2] More to come, too, stay tuned!

(Disclaimer: I've designated myself as Jeff's "#1 fanboy.")

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Cunning-Blood-Jeff-Duntemann-ebook/dp...

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Ten-Gentle-Opportunities-Jeff-Duntema...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Souls-Silicon-Tales-Confronting-Infin...

New comment by erbo in "FreePascal and Lazarus Foundation"

erbo — Wed, 06 Jul 2016 23:14:10 +0000

I posted a link to the Foundation's Web site to Jeff's Facebook page. (He's been busy getting his house in Colorado Springs ready to sell, as he and his wife are moving to Phoenix for health reasons. Facebook is about all he has time to check these days.) I'll also link this HN comment thread to him.

Jeff's blog is at http://www.contrapositivediary.com/ , and he updates that more frequently than his main Web site. (Which is to say, pretty infrequently at the moment, though I expect that to change once his big move is over.)

New comment by erbo in "For first time since 1880s, more young Americans live with parents than partner"

erbo — Tue, 24 May 2016 21:44:20 +0000

I'll echo what Bill Quick said[0]:

"Yep. Just the sort of thing you'd expect to see from a healthy, booming Obama economy. But #NeverTrump. Because we need more great news like this."

[0] http://www.dailypundit.com/?p=122315