mdhughes

I follow a simple diet called "half". I eat a half portion of whatever I'd like. I don't eat any better or worse, just less of it. Did you know a frozen burrito has 300+ calories? Eat one, not two. Portion controls are essential, don't get a tub of ice cream, get a box of little ice creams, and then eat one instead of gobbling two or more. Giant bowl of pasta? Half now, half goes in the fridge for tomorrow, instead of packing my gut full.

I probably cheat enough that I'm getting 2/3 or 3/4 of my full calorie intake, but it's good enough that I've lost 30 lbs in a couple years, I'm not putting it back on, and it's required no real hardship.

John Varley's 8 Worlds books (pre- and post-reboot) have had to colonize the rocks of the Solar system, tho they're not that technical, and he rarely moves past the Moon. Also Gaea (Titan, Wizard, Demon) has an extremely alien habitat; there are other Gaea creatures, just the protagonist one is crazy but also Human-friendly.

Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky is about life on STL, multi-generation starships.

Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix is mostly set in habitats, asteroid mining, and Martian terraforming, but also a very alien hive.

2. NEVER BORN. “You mean we all came from Earth?” said Nikolai, unbelieving.

“Yes,” the holo said kindly. “The first true settlers in space were born on Earth—produced by sexual means. Of course, hundred of years have passed since then. You are a Shaper. Shapers are never born.”

“Who lives on Earth now?”

“Human beings.”

“Ohhhh,” said Nikolai, his falling tones betraying a rapid loss of interest.

There are collected "issues" on analog nowhere and non-series pages on mini

It's clearly secondary to correctness: A program that is well-written but doesn't work right is worthless. Many hairy balls of mud have shipped to great acclaim.

Human readability & comprehension is nice for maintenance, but you don't get to maintain something that never worked right to begin with.

… Of course, Windows is existence proof that you can be successful with neither.

Yes. It's Apple's second most profitable platform. If I go out to a café (which admittedly was before pandemic), half the people have one, much more than laptops now. In business, it's a super common way to take around documents, presentations, etc. The kids really love them.

I've been in love with it since launch, it's a magic book.

Maybe you've heard of this device that plays music on tiny headphones, great for listening while walking. It was called a Walkman. Came out in 1979. By the time the iPod came out, there were plenty of digital music players; I carried a Rio Volt (CD-ROM full of MP3s), but the Nomad was the one CmdrTaco compared iPod to.

Many people carried Palm Pilots, Newtons, cell phones, pagers, portable games (GameBoy, Game Gear, Lynx), film & digital cameras. I used to carry so many gadgets. Sharp/Tandy PC-3 was a great little calculator/computer, so was HP-35s.

Apple's done an amazing job of making vastly better versions (eventually, in some cases; I waited for gen 3 iPod with USB), and folding multiple things into a device, and competing with themselves. So now most of those devices are gone, and we just carry an iPhone (or lame knockoff). I have a bunch of portable game devices, which live on my desk because why carry them? iPad rolled over the MacBook for portable computing. And now Vision Pro is going to roll over that (in a couple versions, probably).

The "one-hit wonder" assertion just requires someone to have lived a cave since 2006.

Every morning since Feb 2 started, I hear "I Got You, Babe" on the radio. I dunno if it'll ever change. I don't even like Sonny & Cher.

Aggressive dialogs begging for my email = close tab. I don't care what your excuse is.

Also, 404 (Not Found) is the dumbest name for any site ever, so I'm just as glad to see it go away.

Not really. A good code editor has:

1. Editing.
2. Syntax highlighting, paren matching.
3. Filters - basic functions like sort, up to your own scripts.
4. Build/send to REPL.

ed doesn't have highlighting, but it's perfectly useful. Notepad's basically useless, you can't highlight or filter, can't build. Vim does 1-3, and then you just type :!make or whatever.

A Taste of Armageddon

Captain James T. Kirk : All right. It's instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes. Knowing that we won't kill today. Contact Vendikar. I think you'll find that they're just as terrified, appalled, horrified as you are, that they'll do anything to avoid the alternative I've given you. Peace or utter destruction. It's up to you.

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