I think I did also get my hands on a free version of Liberty BASIC from another book at one point, because it was on an included CD-ROM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_BASIC

I also moved into the Web sphere, because of course there were HTML books and I was already looking at JavaScript. I ended up picking up PHP for awhile, then eventually got into Java (especially after Minecraft was on the scene) and that has served me well career-wise.

I ended up also finding a No Starch Press book on JavaScript, and porting the BASIC listings to ye olde pre-Node JavaScript as my first foray into programming.

Then I also got a Commodore 64 on eBay some time later.

It resonates with me, because I get uncomfortable if I do too much passive consumption and am not making something.

I can't really say much about the central theme without giving away a disc-shaking change to the world, because it's about that event and the next generation (Tiffany) carrying on. It's a very sad story, but also meant to be encouraging, and clearly intended to be his last book.

Yamaha, Korg an Roland were the defining instrument producers of the 80s and 90s. Few things have altered the course of popular music as much as the TR-909 and TR-808, M1, DX-7, Juno, Jupiter. All of electronic music grew out of those.

The Walkman and Discman were iconic.

Honda was building P3 and ASIMO. The PlayStation 1/2 and Nintendo 64/GameCube were a thing.

I didn't even get into anime, the language or music from there until decades later. But all of the cool things came from Japan back then. Honestly, they still kind of do.

Or, for that matter, Apple. If they subscribed to that philosophy, the iPhone wouldn't exist. Honestly, they would have kept trying to make the Apple II.

A lot of companies simply have no direction and aren't looking to build new products. They had a success, rotated in some myopic execs, flipped into rent-seeking mode and are trying to wring more cash out of the same progressive enshittified product.

Layoffs are a strong signal that a business is not investing in growth and is just trying to wring more profit from the same thing. If investors were rational, they'd walk away.

Maybe replacing the expensive C-suite with an LLM would help make better, growth-oriented decisions.

* A majority of Americans consider the risk of AI to society high, a minority consider the benefits high

* A majority are more concerned than excited about AI

* Americans feel strongly that it’s important to be able to tell if pictures, videos or text were made by AI, but are not confident in their ability to do so

https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2025/09/17/how-americans...

It seems almost universally reviled in creative fields, and the use I mostly see from ordinary people is more along the lines of natural language searches with Gemini.

AI fans are a bubble within the bubble of technology enthusiasts. It's hardly even universally liked among software engineers.

However, it's a 2L engine and the whole thing puts down 200hp, netting acceleration that beats a Civic SI and ~50 miles per gallon.

They first trialed it in Japan and Europe as the Civic EHEV a few years ago, and as of 2025 it has replaced the Sport and Sport Touring trims' former turbocharged 1.5L power train.

And in the late 90s, being on a plane and the chairs had a metal folding door on the armrest that exposed an ash tray. Smoking on planes was already gone or going away, but the hardware lingered for quite some time.

Alcohol is involved nearly half the time as well...but the driver is intoxicated only 18% of the time. Usually it's drunk pedestrians stumbling into the road.

https://www.cdc.gov/pedestrian-bike-safety/about/pedestrian-...

Pedestrian fatalities are largely not a vehicle speed issue so much as a street design issue. Cities should be planned so nobody is ever walking near higher speed arterial roads, with crosswalks at controlled intersections, foot bridges over long/wide streets, and separated sidewalks. Then areas that need lower speeds (residential areas, downtown areas with street parking) should use narrower designs.

In contrast, the city I live in is primarily built around a handful of four lane streets that all of the businesses are along, with no crossings for miles and places where sidewalks randomly disappear. So you'll see pedestrians standing in the middle of a lane, waiting for a gap to run across the next two lanes. It's wildly dangerous, but the problem has nothing to do with people exceeding the speed limit...and even lowering it would achieve nothing.

One time, several people cheated on physics homework (apparently in a very obvious way), and the professor took fifteen minutes out of the next lecture to basically say "you know who you are, you got a zero, and if I see it again, I'm going straight to the Provost."

They also preserved old books. But now I guess they're becoming middlemen for access to limited ebook platforms that ensure books disappear when publishers lose interest.

The "Information Age" is proving to be the setup for a dark age, when nonprofitable things are just thrown out and efforts to preserve them are actively fought.

The overly cautious recall announcement was promptly clarified to owners by dealerships, and impacted a small subset. (I have a Civic.)