JetSetIlly

It really is mad.

Whenever you hear someone say, "everyone has a phone these days", you must push back against that. It might seem like it to them but it's just not true. I've always chosen to point out that it isn't true because I was worried that one day, it would be become a legal requirement to own one. It seems that day has arrived, in the UK at least.

I'm a little in disbelief that I will soon be legally required to own one of these things.

It's not so much the money but rather being forced to do business with a company I do not want to do business with. If this were an optional activity, like driving a car and being forced to do business with an insurance company, that's one thing. But this will be a forced commercial interaction simply to be employed in the UK. That's a very novel abuse of power.

That's not really the issue people have with it.

The issue I have is that it provides a convenient way for people to hassle me for my identity. Being able to identify myself is not a problem I've ever had and I don't like the idea of being forced to buy a smartphone just to remain an employed citizen in the UK.

This is the most alarming aspect of the proposal to me. I find it wild that the government will require me, by law, to buy an expensive electronic device I don't want or otherwise need, in order to be employed. It's absolutely amazing to me that the government is forcing me to spend money in this way.

You can compile to WASM from Go.

> The forced layout of files, cmd directories etc etc.

You don't need to have a cmd directory. I see it a lot in Go projects but I'm not sure why.

I'm reminded of Graham Nelson's "Bill of Player's Rights" which neatly summarised the concerns of the time. https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.int-fiction/c/F_gosVUpd...

That's assuming the child is smart enough to only use a paid-for VPN. I can foresee a lot of children being suckered into using a dodgy VPN.

According to the article, Ofcom are encouraging "parents to block or control VPN usage by their children to keep them from dodging the age checkers."

This might be stupidest advice I've ever heard. If parents aren't willing to block or control access to porn sites, there's even less chance of them blocking or controlling VPN usage. But if nothing else, it does show up this law for the nonsense that it is.

That's fun. I gave this a try myself. I took a different approach to the solution and used a bash script.

https://gist.github.com/JetSetIlly/97846331a8666e950fc33af9c...

Not yet. I'm writing it because of a new 7800 cartridge type somebody is working on and that work needs an emulator. I'm waiting for him to complete his half of the project before releasing it. If I release it now, it'll let the cat-out-of-the-bag too soon :-)

I have a fully working 2600 emulator that's publicly available. That'll give you an idea of what I'm aiming for. https://github.com/JetSetIlly/Gopher2600 Because the 2600 and 7800 are so similar, I plan to merge the two projects together in the future.

An Atari 7800 emulator. The world needs another 7800 emulator I think.

Okay. So it's really just a protection against Google deciding to stop its own development and leaving everyone hanging. That's good. I could get on board with that.

For me however, I think it would be a challenge for the foundation to maintain the slow-and-steady development that we've seen under Google.

To bring it back to the main topic: I think a language that rarely introduces major new features, is good for teaching purposes. From that perspective, I think Go is a good language for teaching core concepts.

I understand your concerns with regard to what languages should be used for teaching purposes and I agree with them. But I don't agree that it applies to Go.

> Not to mention that there's really no second implementation of go for the specification,

Is that true? The GCC frontend is a little out of data with regard to the current spec but it was written to the spec as it existed at the time. Also, TinyGo matches the language spec I think. It has limited compatibility with the standard library, but the specification doesn't talk about the standard library at all.

> and who has the ability to make changes to this specification?

There's nothing stopping anyone taking the current Go specification, extending it and using the Google implementation of Go as the base for something new. Although you wouldn't call it Go in that case.

I personally like that there is a central arbiter with the final say on the specification. Admittedly, I would prefer it if it wasn't Google, but I'm not convinced a Rust like foundation model would be any better in the case of Go.

True. However the control really only extends to the name and the amount of human effort allowed by employees on the Google implementation, as far as I can tell.

If Google decide that they were no longer developing their implementation of the language and moving the employees to other things, there's nothing stopping a foundation from being established. It would be ideal if this was organised by Google as part of their exit, but failing that I would expect other stake-holders in the language to organise something.

What advantages would moving to a foundation like structure bring to Go?

The Google version of Go uses a 3-clause BSD like license. There are other implementations besides the one maintained by Google, and there is a complete specification for the language freely available. The language is not owned by Google.

The simplest 2600 games were just 2k in size not 4k. Combat for example, is a 2k rom.

If you want to increase your chances of finding something but still generating a "complete" rom, then limit the size to 2k.

There's also PyDPainter. A reimplementation in python. https://pydpainter.org/

It's a good idea and something I will be interested in using

However, I was very confused by the interface at first. I started a with a 3 gap exercise. I dragged what I thought was the correct word into the gap. Listened again, changed my mind but I couldn't drag in my new choice. It was a while before I realised that the correct word had been inserted for me. This was despite me not completing the other gaps.

It would be better if the answers weren't given until the user submits the answer.

> I'll take that as high praise considering you're not a huge fan of LLMs :)

Heh:-) I mean to say that I've not really encountered a convincing use case for them before now. From my point of view, your tool is perhaps the closest to a killer application for LLMs that I've seen.

If there's one occupation that requires a full-time assistant, it's the high-school teacher. But as we all know, that's an unobtainable luxury so this might be the perfect use for an LLM.

> Yes for sure. That viral hook is soon to come. I have ideas for a marketplace where teachers can list their presentations and make some money selling them too, but I'm getting a little carried away now ... that's for further down the line.

I wish you all the best in this. It's very inspiring.

This is a great idea. I've worked as a teacher and I think people severely underestimate the amount of time teachers have to prepare lessons. Anything like this will be seen as a major time saving. I'm not a huge fan of LLMs but I can see how they would be genuinely useful here.

That said, I don't think I would use it to create an entire lesson. I think the killer application for this sort of tool is to help create worksheets, plenary activities, etc. If I were still teaching, I would definitely try it out for that.

Ideas for the future: If I were you, I would consider making it easier for teachers to share what they've created with each other. Sharing of resources already happens now and it would be great if this tool facilitated sharing of generated content.

Fair. I wanted to compare the German and UK thresholds more generally (the German threshold seems very low to me even for labour-only sole traders). But I would agree with you that trade in goods across borders would very likely cross the UK threshold very quickly.

Many businesses in the UK operate comfortably with revenue less than £90k. Sole traders mainly. But yes, once you employ staff it's likely you'll be looking at needing a higher revenue.

How does Germany define low revenue for VAT purposes? In the UK, the threshold for compulsory VAT registration is currently £90,000 annual revenue, which I would say is quite large.

Beej, your Guide to Network Programming helped me through my early UNIX career. In fact, your guide was so influential to so many people, it very quickly became recommended reading in my university's network course.

I'm delighted to see that you're still active and still producing guides. Well done!

There's a recent homebrew for the 2600 called "Burying ET" about this very thing. Amusing. https://florentdeloison.itch.io/burying-et

There's a couple of really good versions of pac-man. My favourite is this one. It's an 8k game, unlike the original, but it's worth it for the sound.

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/229152-new-pacman-for-atar...

Can we use git trailers for this? Something like "commit: incomplete" in the commit message.

Right. I'll go back to the shop and have a closer look in that case. I like the idea of a streaming device to connect to a normal stereo system.

TBH, I didn't even know such devices existed. I thought that if I wanted to stream from Spotify without a PC I would need to go down the Sonos route, which I obviously don't want to do.

The problem with not having good branding is that potential customers walk right past your products. It's only chance comments in this thread that's made me take a second look. Thanks for the info :-)

Oh interesting. I was recently in my local HiFi shop (been a customer there for 40 years) to buy a new CD player and I noticed a WiiM box behind the counter in a display cabinet. I just assumed it was some sort of aging Nintendo Wii gimmick.

I'm being serious. If it has nothing to do with Nintendo then it's terrible branding.