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musicale

10,017 karma · joined January 5, 2019

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musicale··on Placard Is an 8-Bit Computer with No Microprocessor
> Davis originally intended to use only 7400-series logic chips but switched to PLDs after realizing how many individual gates the design would require.

See also:

https://www.homebrewcpuring.org/ringhome.html

musicale··on Apple opens the door to a nightmare world of always-listening tech
This will be helpful for arguments with family members, bosses, et al.
musicale··on Is Curiosity Good for Us?
Yes! -cats
musicale··on So I guess everyone uses LLMs to think now
> garbage llm summary Google puts at the top of every search page

I assume they don't want to pay for something that would make search results better rather than worse.

musicale··on Pharo 14
Why yes, and that's why Squeak isn't called... oh wait.

> Welcome to Squeak/Smalltalk

> Squeak is a modern, open-source Smalltalk programming system with fast execution environments for all major platforms.

https://squeak.org

musicale··on Apple Is Entering Its Slop Era
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
musicale··on Nintendo's worst nightmare begins as Switch 2 games start running on PC and Mac
> selling decade old games for 80 bucks

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is $60; I don't think it's correct to add the DLC price to that.

Also Deluxe is improved in a number of ways: new characters, new battle mode with 8 new courses, two items at once, smart steering, etc. And it supports 12 players in LAN mode (though MK World supports up to 24!)

Super Smash Bros Ultimate is also significantly improved vs. its Wii U incarnation (its roster includes basically every character from the series - hence "ultimate"), and is also $60 (though DLC will almost double that if you want everything.)

They are both fantastic games that you can basically play forever. The Wii U games were also great - but the Switch versions are even better.

Historically Nintendo game cartridges were expensive than disc-based games for PlayStation etc., but these game cards at least are still $60 - same price as the Wii U disc versions (and the Wii U game prices are equivalent to $84+ in 2026 dollars.)

Nintendo's deal is that the consoles are platforms for their outstanding games, and first-party exclusives are the biggest reason to buy a Nintendo console (though they are also great handheld systems and support local multiplayer gaming without an internet connection.)

musicale··on Apple's New Touchscreen MacBook Pro Costs Up to $14,549
Such a bargain. But you know they're going to sell almost all of the M5 Max 128GB that they can make.

Apple being Apple; they probably sold a lot of PowerBook 170 laptops at $4600 each in 1991 (~$11.3K in 2026 dollars.)

musicale··on Apple's git still trusts the compromised eMudhra certificates
> docker

If only we could somehow share libraries and configuration files across apps rather than duplicating them and having to update them for every app individually.

We could call it a "shared library" system and an "operating" system. Someone should really invent this.

I mean, even docker could maybe use a shared base image or something right? ;-)

musicale··on Apple's git still trusts the compromised eMudhra certificates
> Apple fucked this up, but I really don't think the situation is "as bad if not worse" than if MacOS just didn't do this.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/149555

musicale··on Pharo 14
> Pharo is its own system, heavily inspired by Smalltalk to the extent that non-language lawyers look at it and say "it's Smalltalk".

That is a pretty good argument for calling it "Pharo Smalltalk" or something, which would be accurate and descriptive.

musicale··on Behind the scenes at the NeXT Computer office
Probably, for the most part. ;-)
musicale··on Pharo 14
I don't understand why Pharo doesn't proudly acknowledge that it is a version of Smalltalk on its landing page, rather than this lukewarm statement on its About page:

> A dynamic, pure, reflective object-oriented programming language in the tradition of Smalltalk

Why not call it a modern Smalltalk, which seems to be what it is?

Smalltalk is a great language and its ecosystem deserves to grow.

musicale··on AI use leads UC Berkeley math professor to see 'no point' in grading homework
Homework grades are supposed to provide feedback and some incentive to do the work.

However, counting homework grades toward course credit also creates an incentive to cheat. It probably makes sense to remove (or at least drastically reduce) that incentive.

musicale··on AI use leads UC Berkeley math professor to see 'no point' in grading homework
Apprenticeship is a good model. The tutorial system also seems to work at some universities.

Personally I have found well-organized, clearly presented university courses to be great ways to learn the material. The combination of readings, textbooks, lectures, tutorial sessions, writing, labs, problem sets, course projects, etc. has been effective for me. Good textbooks and online resources have also been very helpful. Obviously it only works if you actually do the work yourself.

musicale··on AI use leads UC Berkeley math professor to see 'no point' in grading homework
You're not wrong about grading being largely a numerical ranking system for resource allocation - with minimal effort from the allocator.

Even in the age of AI, I think I still prefer a portfolio system where you accumulate a body of work that you can present and defend in an interview for a job or graduate school position. Unfortunately diligent portfolio assessment can be a lot of work when there are hundreds of applicants for a single slot, so the first stage is usually reviewing a summary or list of work rather than the work itself, and that system can be gamed.

In any case, personalized feedback for student work is still very useful, and it may be more beneficial if it is focused on helping students individually rather than ranking them or sorting them into bins.

Without some sort of pre- and post-assessment, it can be hard to determine whether students actually learned anything in a course. The question is: how do you use that information? I think it should primarily be used as feedback to the students and the instructors, with the aim of improving learning.

musicale··on AI use leads UC Berkeley math professor to see 'no point' in grading homework
> grad students are lucky they aren’t being asked to pay extra to be provided with research topics and lab time to pursue them

It depends on the field, but grad student wages in science and engineering are usually much lower than what industry would pay for similar work. Academic research is very cost-effective because most of the work is done by underpaid graduate students.

musicale··on AI use leads UC Berkeley math professor to see 'no point' in grading homework
Research tends to be deep but narrow - more like an internship than an undergraduate semester; courses can focus on teaching the fundamentals and background material in a broader and more systematic way.
musicale··on Moreutils: The utilities package every Unix/Linux/Mac OS developer should know
If you are building for linux, why not use linux tools, in a linux container (which runs on a linux kernel running on a hypervisor?) Apple even provides a Container tool, Containerization framework, etc.

For using Unix tools in native macOS workflows, ports systems like homebrew, macports, pkgsrc, etc. are a decent option.

musicale··on Moreutils: The utilities package every Unix/Linux/Mac OS developer should know
That's very disappointing.

In my dreams this might breathe more life into homebrew alternatives for macOS. (I also wonder whether some of the port systems for BSD and macOS could/should be unified.)

musicale··on Moreutils: The utilities package every Unix/Linux/Mac OS developer should know
I keep hoping people will stop using gnu parallel or that distros will remove its citation begging.

> For 99% of the use cases moreutils' parallel (AKA Tollef parallel) is an equal, or even better, alternative.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15319859

musicale··on The Curse of Soldered RAM
> I then had to manually transcribe this, which [w]as “fun”.

Can't you select and copy the text in the photo (on most smartphones and PCs at least)?

musicale··on The Curse of Soldered RAM
> Bash me all you want, but after CPU, GPU, memory controller & a host of other things integrated in modern System-on-Chips (SoC), I've long held the belief that next logical step would be to integrate RAM

Haven't Apple (A-series, M-series) and others been copackaging memory for a while? (SiP or MCM?)

musicale··on iPhone Duo Owners Report Screens Breaking Along the Hinge
Jobs wasn't exactly wrong (the antenna worked OK if you didn't bridge it with your finger):

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

But the "fix" was also disappointing: an insulating bumper, or $15 if you didn't want one:

https://www.cultofmac.com/apple-history/antennagate-payout

musicale··on iPhone Duo Owners Report Screens Breaking Along the Hinge
No one could have predicted this.
musicale··on New Apple TV 4K
Agreed. Adhesion contracts that consumers cannot understand or meaningfully agree to should not be enforceable.
musicale··on Epic Games Inc v Apple Inc
Epic still being Epic.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/08/as-epic-attacks-apple...

musicale··on Software engineers don't get to be Luddites about AI
I suggest using a semicolon and adding "the":

> "Kept pace with" is fine; consider using this in the future.

Thanks.

musicale··on DHS Inspector General Finds That TSA Is Not Safeguarding Facial Recognition Data
Probably safeguarded just as well as the other data they collect.
musicale··on I designed a nose guard for my dog and gave it away. Now 500 dogs wear one
> I designed a nose guard for my dog and gave it away.

poor dog

> Now 500 dogs wear one (snoutcover.com)

enterprising dog

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