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DerekL

1,049 karma · joined January 19, 2010

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DerekL··on What’s New in C in 2023?
Probably because some code already defines “bool”, “true”, and “false”, so adding those to an existing header would break it.
DerekL··on If Earth Is Average, We Should Find Extraterrestrial Life Within 60 Light-Years
The article was about life, not intelligent or technological life, so communication isn't relevant.
DerekL··on Tabs are objectively better than spaces
> Betamax was also objectively better than VHS.

No, Betamax was worse for most uses than VHS. The picture quality of Betamax was better at roughly the same tape speed, but the cassettes held about half the amount of tape. Slowing down the tape to improve capacity made the quality advantage go away.

DerekL··on The urgent need for memory safety in software products
* hazard

Hazzard is a fictional county in Georgia that's the setting for the TV show “The Dukes of Hazzard”.

DerekL··on Getting into Pinball
Which “Star Wars”, Stern, Sega, or Data East?
DerekL··on How the Mac didn’t bring programming to the people
If you look at all types computing platforms combined, then Windows is ahead of iOS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste...

DerekL··on TSMC Arizona chip plant will be a paperweight
Chrysler is only 98 years old, not 150.
DerekL··on MUNI Bus Killed San Francisco Man at Center of Robotaxi, Firefighter Dispute
What do you mean? If the emergency lights and sirens are on, then other vehicles must pull over to the right and stop. “Well, you can pass me on the right” is not the standard.
DerekL··on MUNI Bus Killed San Francisco Man at Center of Robotaxi, Firefighter Dispute
Title is misspelled, it should be “Muni”, not all-caps.
DerekL··on iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus
* anecdotal
DerekL··on Linux becoming a Windows / OS X clone
They're two names for the same thing, but yes, people should use the current name.

Also, it was never “OSX”, like the article uses, but so many people call it that.

DerekL··on Go CLI to calculate total media duraton in directories
Title is misspelled, it should be “duration”.
DerekL··on Invented tradition
“Coca-Cola invented the modern image of Santa Claus” is itself a myth.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-claus-that-refreshes/

DerekL··on RadioShack’s new owner plots old comeback strategy
That’s what they were before they went out of business.
DerekL··on Salesforce Benioff warns he may pull conference from SF over homelessness drug
There used to be many more SROs in the city. https://ccsroc.net/s-r-o-hotels-in-san-francisco/

> S.R.O.’s, including residential hotel units and rooming houses, may have numbered as high as 90,000 in San Francisco at the inception of the 1930’s, meaning they were nearly as prevalent as apartments. By the early 1990’s the number of S.R.O. units in San Francisco had been reduced dramatically, to approximately 20,000.

DerekL··on The $2.98 Computer Library (1977)
It only took until 1988 for CD-ROMs and players to become widely available. Also, there was a craze for LaserDisc-based arcade video games, starting in 1983.
DerekL··on Breaking copy protection on a 1983 game for Apple 2
This is a limitation of the NTSC composite signal. Eighty columns of text will never be readable through a composite connection, no matter how good the monitor is.
DerekL··on Unix is both a technology and an idea
* Pyrrhic
DerekL··on Update Complete: U.S. Nuclear Weapons No Longer Need Floppy Disks (2019)
Even before then, 5.25" was popular among personal computer makers, such as Apple, Radio Shack, Commodore, Atari, and Osborne. (Though the TRS-80 Model II used 8".)
DerekL··on Update Complete: U.S. Nuclear Weapons No Longer Need Floppy Disks (2019)
From the subhead of the article:

> The Defense Department has transitioned away from a 1970s-era nuclear command and control system that relied on eight-inch floppy disks.

DerekL··on Cruise vehicle gets stuck in wet concrete while driving in San Francisco
That's from the New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/us/driverless-car-acciden.... The linked article is currently from SFGATE. It may have changed since you made this comment.
DerekL··on The Character Generator ROM
No, the title is correct. Even though it’s on atariarchives.org, it’s not talking about Atari computers.
DerekL··on Objective-C Internals
Apple File System

Apple events

DerekL··on Apple Vision Pro: Why Monitor Replacement Is Ridiculous
Title is misspelled, should be “ridiculous”.
DerekL··on Subway tuna lawsuit has been dismissed
What does this have to do with the article? The lawsuit against Subway was dismissed.
DerekL··on Tesla has a range inflation problem
It's “CO2” (or “CO₂”, to get fancy), not “C02”. (Oh, not zero.)
DerekL··on LK-99
* losing
DerekL··on Sony just spilled confidential Playstation information because of a Sharpie
I've been wondering something. Has the PC ever been the majority platform for video games?

It depends on how you define it. I'd define it as having more than half of all game software sales (including DLC, subscriptions, microtransactions, etc.). You could also include hardware spending, but most people bought computers to do other things. You could also use time spent playing games, and in that case, the PC might win because of Solitaire and Minesweeper.

I'd define “PC” as a machine running MS-DOS or Windows. Also, I'd include any machine with a built-in compatibility layer, like the Steam Deck. I wouldn't include other personal computer platforms.

I've been searching the web, but I haven't been able to find the stats on this.

DerekL··on After Montana Banned TikTok, Users Sued. TikTok Is Footing Their Bill
It doesn't matter who's paying for it, the plaintiffs still have a case.

The law is crap. If lawmakers were concerned about privacy, they'd pass a privacy law regulating all services, not just one.

DerekL··on Deceptive example for malicious usage of .zip domain
I just tried the fake URL by pasting it into Safari's address bar, and it “helpfully” percent-encoded the special slashes and tried to go to v1271.zip.
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