dajt

Modems are still connected via serial lines - our embedded project has a modem connected to the MCU via a UART. We ran out of MCU pins for HW flow control but it's essentially the same as how we did things in the 80s with external modems.

I assumed AT commands were still in use either because they're so easy to use or they're easy to test. I can't say whether the autobaud feature is still useful but the modem we use can do it.

I think (some) IoT devices can still use RS-485 which seems similar to RS-232. We're in ag-tech so the sensors we talk to use SDI-12, a shared bus serial protocol with 12v power and 5v signalling. Lots of weird stuff out there!

It has some wild features and crazy syntax and if you know it, it's probably awesome, but I too like to keep it mostly simple and obvious.

In my mind these games are no better than poker/slot machines. Adults should be responsible for themselves but kids can't be held to the same standard. So just one more thing I have to police.

This system is a rotten, rotten idea.

hackernoon and medium, not worth clicking on links from either of them.

As long as you can still run the OS of your choice at the top of this stack of vendor OSs, what do the vendors gain by this 'land grab'? Particularly the HW vendors. I can imagine Apple and MS are happy to lock things down so only their OSs run easily but What benefit does any HW vendor get from from UEFI? Surely the benefit to Intel from IME is being able to say "you can remotely manage and recover a borked server if you have our IME enabled", but I can't think what else it gives them.

I like the idea of a system running hardware that does the minimum of initialisation before running code of the user's choice but that is more due to my being an 8-bit kid and worries of buggy vendor blobs than assuming the HW vendors are being nefarious.

But a C64 is a very different beast from a ipad or even a rpi. I think the percentage of owners back then tinkered with them as well as just loading up games was much higher.

I haven't heard of a single kid in my son's classes who has tried programming. The thing is just a TV/mobile game console.

Thank god they haven't hit facebook yet, at least the ones I know.

Teachers giving homework printed on paper makes it easier for the student and parent to know what homework there is to be done.

And printing from tablets? Come on. I don't know about Android tablets but it ain't easy from an iPad.

My kids aren't living in some tech backwater - we have more than enough computers from 8 to 64 bits they could do something useful with.

But there is no upside to me having to buy each of them an iPad - not for me or them. Even iPad games are just stupid free-to-play-pay-to-speed-up-progress games. All the kids give each other for birthday these days are itunes cards that get spend on 'gems'.

The whole thing is a disaster. Get off my lawn.

An rpi or an arduino would be way better than an iPad.

I wouldn't be surprised if it let a bunch of unexpected inputs through as another commentor pointed out.

That may have been okay back then but in today's hostile environment and with so many people around that aren't natural programmers who dream of pointers you probably want something a bit more verbose.

I've been programming C since the late 80s so I'm not a new-comer. But I'm not a fan of that code even though I can understand it okay.

The more experience I get and the more people I work with, the simpler I like my code to be. I'll always take simplicity over speed and concision if I can.

I'm extremely hacked off that the high school I'm sending my kids to requires students to have an ipad. It's expensive for me, of no benefit to the student, and makes it difficult for students and parents to figure out what homework is due becuase it's scattered around various websites depending on the teacher's whim. It also means he has a screen to fight with us over that he would not have had otherwise. Then the younger kids get annoyed he has one and they don't. There is no upside.

I asked my oldest son why he doesn't invite his friends around more often and he said 'I can talk to them online'.

I've had to ask my boss a couple of time whether he's satisfied with my performance, output, etc.

While I like not having to go to the office everyday and the more flexible arrangement there are a lot of challenges:

1. You miss out on a lot of socializing. 2. You lose visibility within the organisation. 3. Things that would be solved in 10 mins if you could ask for help face to face take hours. 4. Timezones can be a problem for some, but luckily not for me. 5. Other family members don't understand you still work and just think you're available whenever for whatever. 6. I knew I'd have to give up my team leader role when I went remote - it made no sense for a remote worker to do that.

I started going to a coffee shop every morning years ago just to have people to talk to.

It's a hard way to work, but it has its advantages as long as you're not trying for a promotion.

I interviewed with Mike and Scott when there didn't seem to be many other people involved. A few days later the company I worked for started the process of getting acquired.

I tossed up what I thought my share options might be worth against two guys who seemed to be just out of uni with a bug tracker.

I called them back and said I'd stay where I was. My options were worth nothing. Joke was on me big time!

Later on lots of my dev team ended up working for Atlassian and I thought it might be time to check it out again. I went for an interview and was told I wasn't smart enough, despite the fact I'd already mentored a bunch of their devs.

At least they gave me an interview. Most places don't 'cause I don't have the book learning to get past HR.

I'm not part of the new world so I guess I don't feel at home there.

And their goods categorisation is abysmal - whatever department you're in you seem to get heaps of unrelated dross.

It's a terrible place right now.

When they pick their game up I don't think there will be much loyalty to existing retailers. Australians are well aware and sick of the Australia tax, and desperate to join the rest of the western world.

I assume ME and UEFI use DHCP to get their addresses yet my modem/router only shows the one from my user OS.

Where do they get the drivers for whatever NIC happens to be installed? Do the motherboard vendors have to put blobs in place during manufacturing?

It is an educational exercise.

I think his point about Tridgell's actions with BK reverse engineering were right, and El Reg was playing the OSS warrior card. It looks to me like Tridgell was trying to create a way to steal BK metadata - BK specifically required you to have a license to get that data.

OSS warriors annoy me as much as SJWs do, and seem just as narrow minded.

Another son is going through Swift Playgrounds and finding that easier to understand. He couldn't get HRM at all but immediately understood what simple functions were for in Playgrounds.

The blog author and a commenter make a good point about how back in the day getting the computer to do just about anything was thrilling, whereas now expectations are a lot higher but so is the knowledge and effort required to make that happen.

Switching on a computer and getting nothing but a ready prompt somehow made it easier (or more necessary?) to make your own fun.