Hacker News: tragomaskhalos

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "'How do you reduce a national dish to a powder?': the world of crisp flavours"

tragomaskhalos — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 08:39:25 +0000

It's a shame that the tyranny of volumetrics referenced in the article means that in the UK some of my favourite crisp flavours have been brief one-off novelty runs - coronation chicken, baked bean, and numerous flavours rolled out for world cups in the form of nationality-themed assortment bags.

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "Shane MacGowan has died"

tragomaskhalos — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 18:03:27 +0000

When it comes to Christmas songs, I'm afraid you will have to prise Slade from my cold dead fingers

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "BBC Basic returns on multiple platforms, open sourced"

tragomaskhalos — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 11:08:22 +0000

Built-in graphics commands are a massive win, and a big gap in today's standard language offerings for kids. Any old timer will tell you that the ability to trivially get sprites up on the screen, or hell even a coloured circle, is the clue to the young programmer that putting together a simple game is within their immediate grasp, and this is very much the gateway drug to programming in general.

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "Brother have gotten to where they are now by not innovating"

tragomaskhalos — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 08:45:30 +0000

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "Magic Carpet Ride"

tragomaskhalos — Sat, 18 Nov 2023 10:04:12 +0000

many years ago an older relative went on a holiday to Spain and was outraged that their apartment did _not_ have carpet. I deemed it futile to point out that carpeting is desirable here because our climate is so wretched, but as flooring in a hot country would actually be pretty icky.

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "Magic Carpet Ride"

tragomaskhalos — Sat, 18 Nov 2023 09:57:44 +0000

I had no idea that each 'Spoons has its own custom carpet design. They are a much-derided chain but this is a nice detail, and by keeping drinking affordable they ensure the next generation of Britons can keep alive the vital tradition of a night in the pub laughing and talking bollocks.

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "Apostrophe Protection Society"

tragomaskhalos — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 18:34:59 +0000

In the UK a misplaced apostrophe (in a plural or in possessive its) is called a "greengrocers' apostrophe", presumably due to folks in that trade being particularly susceptible to errors in their signs, in turn partially due to the slightly unusual nature of the nouns they are pluralising; "bananas" is slightly teasing you to stick one in, but "mangos" more so as just looks like a Greek island otherwise, unless you opt for the -oes form.

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "Ask HN: Harvard Entrance exam 1899. Can you pass it? [pdf]"

tragomaskhalos — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 17:09:52 +0000

I would have crashed the Greek paper because we were not taught accents, but the instructions make it very clear the answers require them!

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "Fourteen Years of Go"

tragomaskhalos — Sat, 11 Nov 2023 12:30:34 +0000

It's worth reiterating that Go was created by Google to solve Google's problems. If it also solves your problems, or a worthwhile subset thereof, then that is a happy serendipity, but it's not a design goal.

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "How did people deal with punch cards?"

tragomaskhalos — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 10:00:10 +0000

Slightly younger than the punch card era, but one bit of "old" tech I don't miss is the line printer. We had one in an office with a nylon carpet, and you'd approach that thing with utter dread because some combination of the action of the paper spewing out at speed, the metal guide bars for the ejected paper, and that bloody carpet meant that collecting a printout gave you an even chance of a massive static electricity shock.

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "Casio fx-CG50 calculator comes with Python built-in"

tragomaskhalos — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 11:39:10 +0000

Dismayed to learn that it's now virtually impossible to obtain an RPN calculator of any sort. Swiss Micros make HP clones but for the more casual user their prices are pretty prohibitive when compared to how 'mainstream' calculator prices have tumbled.

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "π in Other Universes"

tragomaskhalos — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 07:43:54 +0000

Based on the attitude of its advocates, a flat earth would lack science and mathematics entirely, so pi would be undefined?

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "One (1) new Wii U console was sold in the U.S. during September 2023"

tragomaskhalos — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 13:06:01 +0000

Prediction: one beaming grandma vs one bemused, crestfallen kid on Christmas morning.

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "Why I eat old cheese (2020)"

tragomaskhalos — Sat, 14 Oct 2023 10:58:08 +0000

My mum briefly worked as kitchen staff for Winston Churchill, and she tells the story that they had to wrap his stilton in a piece of greaseproof paper, hold it up and listen for weevils moving about - for only when it was at that stage would the great man eat it.

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "British sandwiches and walking 300km of Wainwright's coast to coast"

tragomaskhalos — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 12:57:39 +0000

Ha, indeed! To test this theory, next time I re-read the book I'm going to imagine Louis Wu speaking in a West Country accent throughout :)

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "British sandwiches and walking 300km of Wainwright's coast to coast"

tragomaskhalos — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 23:52:40 +0000

In Larry Niven's 'Ringworld' the explorers are always eating 'hand meals': for the longest time I resisted the obvious interpretation and imagined some unfathomable futuristic repast, but let's be honest - they're sandwiches aren't they.

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "Isambard Kingdom Brunel"

tragomaskhalos — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 10:46:53 +0000

Also - material science and computation being less advanced, they just built bigger margins of error into everything that required resistance to force etc. Compare to today where everything is done to wafer-thin margins to minimise cost, hence fiascos such as RAAC.

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "Isambard Kingdom Brunel"

tragomaskhalos — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 10:43:09 +0000

OK I'm now imagining a 19th century job interview when the candidate is given three weeks to 'devise and construct a steam-powered apparatus capable of emulating the popular parlour game based on multiples of 3 and 5'. I'm sure modern steampunk enthusiasts can be nerd-sniped into having a go !

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "Pantographia: 1799 specimen book of all the known alphabets"

tragomaskhalos — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 10:36:01 +0000

The vocabulary section is also very iffy, assuming some common Japanese words haven't changed their vowels in the last two centuries!

The whole section is a reminder of how much we take for granted freely available and accurate information from the other side of the world, something that was absolutely not the case when this book was written, instead relying one presumes on sources based entirely on "travellers' tales".

New comment by tragomaskhalos in "C uses "&" for the address-operator because 'ampersand sounds like "address"'"

tragomaskhalos — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 15:23:35 +0000

Thought that as well, but try to imagine someone bellowing the word over the incessant clacking of teletypes and it _almost_ works ...