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blue1

1,399 karma · joined December 8, 2008

Web/sw developer, Architect, Designer, Professor, Journalist

Location: northern Italy

Email: "blue1" dot "hn" at-sign "deepsky" dot "it"

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blue1··on Polyend releases the Tracker firmware source code
Yup. I remember the Yamaha TX16W sampler whose software was so horribly hostile that someone developed an alternative OS called Typhoon.
blue1··on Italian parliament votes for return to nuclear energy
I don’t agree. I’d bet Italians would kill nuclear power again, if asked again now about the matter.
blue1··on Italian parliament votes for return to nuclear energy
It wasn’t a government initiative. In Italy, citizens can request (500k signatures needed) a referendum to abrogate a law. This is what happened in this case, the law being the one that allowed nuclear reactors.
blue1··on Italian parliament votes for return to nuclear energy
Italian here. I seriously doubt this thing will lead anywhere. If something slightly more concrete than this will appear, there will be an insurrection. NIMBY is very strong in Italy (after decades of attempts, we are still without a spent fuel depot for this reason).

Also, in the past Italy already voted twice against nuclear. I doubt the popular opinion has changed meanwhile in any significant way. As soon as popular opposition will manifest, the politicians will forget the whole issue.

blue1··on Why are AI agents lying, cheating and coordinating?
Note that we already already apply this principle not only to software, but also to some sentient beings.

If your dog kills someone, you are accused of murder.

[at least, in the jurisdiction where I live]

If your dog gets this treatment, why not your AI?

blue1··on Iceland rejects reopening talks on EU entry
I would be curious to know the age distribution in yesterday's Iceland vote. In the case of Brexit, the brexiters were mostly old people and the bremainers mostly young; for this reason, the forces of demography are slowly pushing the UK back in the EU's orbit again (looking at the polls). Wondering if the same could apply to Iceland.
blue1··on The Story of Mac: A Just-So Story
Too bad an updated edition of PCL never materialised
blue1··on Sealed tomb filled with paintings and inscriptions discovered in Egypt
did you forget the "/s" or is it a serious question?
blue1··on Venetian Bridge Brawls in 17th and 18th Century Art
On Ponte dei Pugni (Bridge of Fists), which was the most famous venue for these spectacles, there are marble feet markings which were the starting positions for fighters.
blue1··on Show HN: Hacker News on a train station-style flip board
To my ears, the sound is wrong. At least the Solari flip boards had a typical rustling sound, this is too much clicking.
blue1··on The route from Prussian military headquarters to Gary Gygax’s basement
SPI does not exist anymore, but there are other publishers still doing it, although the market is much smaller now. The biggest one is probably GMT games.
blue1··on Mahjong: A Visual Guide
Interesting... However, ironically, EBGRIA is awful too, in its own way. The typography is rudimentary.
blue1··on The Perils of ISBN
ISBN prefixes does not always indicate a country. They may be are indeed countries, but others are language areas (e.g. 0/1=English) or "regions" (groups of countries) or even other subjects.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISBN_registration_grou...

blue1··on Common Lisp Screenshots: today's CL applications in action
High level programming languages were conceived by humans and for humans. Will AIs in future better use their own languages, or maybe even output machine language directly?
blue1··on Ripple, a puzzle game about 2nd and 3rd order effects
Unusable on iphone SE, the UI is cropped on the bottom and cannot be scrolled.
blue1··on The 'S&P 493' reveals a different U.S. economy
I was basically thinking about investing in the “S&P7”. No forecasting.
blue1··on The 'S&P 493' reveals a different U.S. economy
So a viable strategy would be to only buy the best 7 stocks? Like the Dogs of the Dow, but reversed? (The Gods of the Dow?)
blue1··on $2 WeAct Display FS adds a 0.96-inch USB information display to your computer
The Elgato Stream Decks, although not keyboards proper, come very close
blue1··on Seed: Interactive software environment based on Common Lisp
This project, which seems interesting, would greatly benefit from a better explanation of what it is, and some screenshots.
blue1··on PuTTY has a new website
I see no mention in this thread of KiTTY <https://www.9bis.net/kitty/>, no one uses this instead of PuTTY?
blue1··on Mezzano, an operating system written in Common Lisp
I agree in general, but this project HAS releases; At least, it had until a certain date. So if you jump to the releases page, it gives the impression that the project is now dead. If they have abandoned that model, they should at least write it somewhere.
blue1··on Mezzano, an operating system written in Common Lisp
Latest release is from five years ago, unfortunately. The project seems mostly abandoned.
blue1··on Fun with Telnet (2024)
Correction: books.com became barnesandnobles.com, not Amazon. Amazon assimilated bookdepository.co.uk, but much later.
blue1··on Fun with Telnet (2024)
In the 90s, Book Stacks (books.com, eventually bought-and-destroyed by amazon), in addition (or before?) having a website, had a text-only online bookshop via telnet. I bought some titles that way. It was pretty cool!
blue1··on Battlestar Galactica: Technical Manual (2005)
I remember enjoying it a lot until the end, which I found stupid and contrived.
blue1··on Generating Mazes
There's a whole book devoted to that, titled "10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1));:GOTO 10"
blue1··on Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport
I don’t know in France, but at least in Italy companies are not a shield for penal responsibility; crimes are always committed by persons. If a company does something criminal, someone is responsible for that decision within the company, and that could be the CEO.
blue1··on Simplicity is an advantage but sadly complexity sells better (2022)
I don’t think that’a true. Too many years have passed so I cannot cite makes and models, but I worked in an IT magazine back then and there were mp3 players with a lot of buttons, not unlike those overcomplicated VHS recorders which sold on “features”.
blue1··on Simplicity is an advantage but sadly complexity sells better (2022)
Apple used to sell stuff that had “curated UIs”: few control, few functions, and excellent UX. I remember the cleanliness of the iPod vs the overfeatured and complicated competitors.
blue1··on SeaMonkey All-in-One Internet Application Suite
What matters to me are certain small differences in the UI.
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