jdshaffer

Very very impressive work! I tried the Hassan agent and the conversation felt pretty real, though he seemed to nod and move his head an awful lot. Starting to feel like he had neck problems. :-) Great work, though!

Thank you for your kind comments, and I'm very glad you like the samples. I actually can't remember what I wrote with my comments, though I tend to not take myself very seriously. smile

I'm not an expert with M1 assembly, just a tinkerer, so I never felt wise enough to write a blog or record videos. I wish I could have found some for myself!

Here are some simple programs in assembly for the M1 chip, annotated as best as possible. Perhaps they will help?

https://github.com/jdshaffer/Apple-Silicon-ASM-Examples

It's a great introduction. I used it a lot when trying to work out a collection of sample introductory assembly programs for Silicon. I only share as it's on topic:

https://github.com/jdshaffer/Apple-Silicon-ASM-Examples

Living in Japan for the last 25 years or so, I with the BOJ would have a bit of a lower trigger. The weak yen is not very fun to live with at the moment...

The really good restaurants, even small joints, are full all the time, even without tourists. So, if you want a really excellent meal, be prepared to wait, or find a place where you can make reservations. :-)

Thanks for the head's up! I grabbed a copy. Not a big gamer, but it looks like a lot of fun. Thanks!

Thanks for the recommendation. I've been wanting to read the Iliad for awhile, but always wondered which translation might be approachable.

Interestingly enough, this speech ends up in Japanese High School English textbooks quite often. Like, for the last 10+ years at least.

But this goes to eleven... ;-)

Thanks for the warning. I really appreciate it.

Unfortunately, I'm kind of up against a wall. I need to use my laptop for work, but I can't keep sending it in for repairs (and I can't afford out-of-warranty repairs). I'm extremely gentle, but my MacBook Air needed the USB-C port replaced TWICE in just one month.

So, I went with the "let's not somehow magically break the physical port" route. I certainly hope the unofficial MagSafe connectors don't blow it out...

It makes me very happy to read about things like this -- support where it's needed and appreciated AND absolutely no strings attached. Wow. Wish there were more cases like this.

Best wishes in your work, jph00!

Something was wrong with their design of the last MacBook Airs with USB-C charging port. I'm very gentle with my electronics and yet the charging port broke two times in a row (fixed under warranty). My daughter's MacBook Air had the same internal break as well (fixed under warranty).

I suspect they didn't properly support the internals so the force of inserting a USB-C plug caused a crack or break over time (and a short time!).

I went out and bought cheap "MagSafe" like USB-C connectors for my machines and my kids (in college) machines. I personally WELCOME the return to MagSafe!

You have a very good point (so I'm not sure why you were downvoted).

I currently read Japanese at an upper-intermediate level. For example, I can read most of Harry Potter in Japanese an only look up a word every page or two.

The biggest problem with switching Japanese to "all gana" is the homophones. Many similar words sound the same but have different nuanced meanings such as hear and listen -- 聞く and 聴く -- both pronounced "kiku". This happens so often, that I think dropping kanji would be a disaster.

An additional benefit to the kanji is that when you get to know enough of them, you can begin to guess the meaning of new words, similar to learning Latin roots and morphemes like "un-" or "re-".

I'm seeing an increase in college students in Japan with iPads and Apple Pencils. And most of the visiting students from other countries have them for sure.

I've tried doing iPad-only several times, but I'm a bit of a digital packrat, a highly-organized packrat, though. So I really miss a solid File Manager.

I know Android is much better at this, but the default "Files" app in iOS just sucks -- I feel like I have to bounce between three or four apps just to get something simple done.

Has anyone found a reasonable way to manage files on iOS?

That reminds me of the time my friend downloaded the ENTIRE Yahoo! search database to a 1.44MB floppy. I think that was back in 1993. laugh

Tom Shippey, a very well known and respected Tolkien scholar gave a talk about the book vs the Peter Jackson movies. It also ended up in an edited version in one of his books (I cannot remember if it was "Tolkien: Author of the Century" or "The Road to Middle Earth".)

In short, he argues that Jackson actually did the best he could to present the book in a format that movie studios would accept, and even then was able to press through on some typically non-Hollywood elements (such as having at least nine main characters split across two to three major story arcs).

Here is an online transcript of his talk, "Tolkien Book to Jackson Script: The Medium and the Message":

https://www.swarthmore.edu/news-events/tolkien-book-to-jacks...

Thanks for the input. I might go back and give book two a try then! :-)

I enjoyed most of book 1, then it suddenly went "slapstick" with the alien engineers at the end. That really turned me off to the rest of the series.

However, for those who have read books 2 and beyond, does the writing return to serious and deep or does a slapstick element remain?

Wondering what everyone else things. I teach English as a Foreign Language and am finding I need to make similar changes to my grading -- no more essay assignments or email homework. Thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas?

Nice find! :-)

But libgen doesn't have "Good night, Gorilla". :-)

Personally, I stick with paper books for kids, even books (and not picture books.)

EDIT: Added a missing closing parentheses. I'm a bad LISPer...

I kinda enjoy the SideQuest version of Minecraft, but I cannot remember all the controller buttons.

That's actually a pretty good idea. I might have to try it selectively, though it'd be too much for 200 students submitting diaries and summaries every week. laugh

They once said I should join Line then we can all talk, then I asked if it's possible to talk in groups of 200+ and their eyes got really big.

My goal is for them to learn. And yes, I can just carry on, and some will cheat. I've caught cheaters in the past, of course, but they were far and few between. With ChatGPT and even improved translators like DeepL, it's hard to get them to do the practice they need to learn.

And as a teacher who really WANTS them to learn and to get that feeling, "Hey, I can actually do this!", it's depressing to think of the one who do cheat themselves. Oh well...

Well, I teach English as a second language in a non-English speaking country. I often used short essays and diary-writing for homework. The students have had lots of English input over the years, but not much experience with output. So, writing assignments work out very well for them. Alas, with ChatGPT on the rise here, they no longer have to write it themselves.

The upshot of which is, the useful writing assignments I used to give as homework will either have to be done in class (wasting valuable class time) or given up altogether (wasting valuable learning experiences).

Very similar experience here. I have a Quest 2, handed down by my mother who bought it and never used it. I initially used it to run three screens via Immersed, but after a month or two, I only turn it on to check for updates. shrug

I have the same experience. GPT4 seemed surprisingly better at first, but now I can't tell a big difference between the two. Admittedly I'm bantering back and forth about history, literature, and languages...

Not sure what to think. Makes me wonder just what kind of data it was fed with...