An e-mail client is the archetypal demo-in-a-weekend, ten-million-lines-in-production program. Not to deny the power of coding agents, and maybe you can vibecode something that's just right for reading your e-mail, but…
Tried and failed in my thirties, succeeding much better in my forties. I doubt you've lost neuroplasticity.
I feel that DHTML Lemmings deserves a mention - an implementation of Lemmings in Javascript in 2003 or 2004. At the time I saw it, my understanding of websites was basic HTML - I had no idea web technologies could be so…
So... someone has been posting cryptic adverts annually from 1981 through 2026, which together constitute logic puzzles and obscure references. The main thing I think is quite cool, besides the sheer persistence, is…
I used Lotus Notes until 2022, in a British blue-chip company. Stopped because I left that company - I am almost certain they're still using it, because they weren't close to migrating off the last few use cases. It was…
I worked for a company whose factory really was just a room - the company was a machine-builder, a B2B manufacturer of custom production equipment, but with very little investment in special-purpose machinery for its…
The EU has mildly outperformed the UK in overall economic growth by perhaps 1 percentage point over the last 5-6 years, i.e. ~7% vs ~6%. While of course both massively underperformed the USA. It's hard to avoid…
So... It's an interpreter (together with a virtual filesystem and some utilities) packaged into a program with a graphical display window? Still good for lots of interesting uses, I suppose, but surprising. Since it's…
You can run all the Office apps in a browser, and update documents that are on SharePoint live in collaboration with someone else. Maybe that's not earth-shattering, but it's quite a big change from huge separate Office…
This is a fascinating post but I don't believe it reflects (most) human memory development, which has a pronounced forgetting phase called 'childhood amnesia'. When your kid starts to talk, it's startling what a…
Those applications seem pretty weak. In a similar timeframe I seem to recall possessing a standalone dictionary/crossword solver device, and a five-language translator/dictionary. Both of which were much more compact…
People are reacting negatively to the ads, but there's a bigger point. This is bearish as heck for AGI. If OpenAI were recursively improving their general-computer-using agent, who was going to be superhuman at every…
I have all my photos back to my first digital camera in 2004. (Plus digital photos a few years further back - I used to use a service that developed and printed your film rolls and also delivered files on CD-ROM). The…
I've read this book. It's definitely one of the more interesting and readable maths texts out there. I wasn't exactly sure I'd use the methods. Working as a mechanical engineer I probably go straight to numerical…
Try a gaming store that offers a guarantee? I don't know where you are, but here in the UK, second-hand stores such as Cash Converters are full of PS2s, fat and slim. Dedicated second-hand entertainment stores like CEX…
I think the claim is that plugging in the USB device is enough. If people needed to try running an executable from the device, some devices would still be compromised, but with lower frequency. I don't know exactly what…
The strength of feeling some English lovers of history have for the Anglo-Saxon kings slightly mystifies me. Athelstan created a unified English kingdom. Briefly, till he died and it un-unified. England was fully…
I am a Durham graduate, still somewhat involved with the university via some voluntary roles, and a bit of a 'booster' in the sense that I'll sing its praises to anyone. I also have a postgrad degree from Cambridge and…
Might rather see it the other way around - Nvidia getting license to create products with x86(_64) CPUs integrated in the silicon. Nvidia are the big boy in this transaction and they'll get what they want out of it. But…
The biggest bottlenecks are hardware design and software design. Materials science to an extent, particularly battery materials, but we could build robots with currently-available materials and power density if only we…
Fair enough, I'm not able to evaluate counterfactuals in American maritime law. But on the roulette analogy, I reckon the everything-bagel approach gives you a healthy edge against the house and is well worth betting…
> It's a requirement that vessels which operate between US ports must be made in the US, crewed by the US, and flagged to the US. The everything-bagel approach. One of those requirements incentivises US shipbuilding,…
> If any bullets were found and if the gun was shown to be a ballistic "match," the article neglected to mention it. Good point - maybe I read too much into "The search turned up what police say is the murder weapon".…
They had a bunch of CCTV and no name. The AI gave them a few names, they looked at its report which had photos from the guy's social media and were like 'yes that's him', and then got a warrant to go to his house and…
Embarrassment at discussions of bugs from 2007 that are still not fixed. (For clarification, I doubt that is really the (main) reason, but longstanding bugs in CAD systems are definitely a thing, and I guarantee there…
An e-mail client is the archetypal demo-in-a-weekend, ten-million-lines-in-production program. Not to deny the power of coding agents, and maybe you can vibecode something that's just right for reading your e-mail, but…
Tried and failed in my thirties, succeeding much better in my forties. I doubt you've lost neuroplasticity.
I feel that DHTML Lemmings deserves a mention - an implementation of Lemmings in Javascript in 2003 or 2004. At the time I saw it, my understanding of websites was basic HTML - I had no idea web technologies could be so…
So... someone has been posting cryptic adverts annually from 1981 through 2026, which together constitute logic puzzles and obscure references. The main thing I think is quite cool, besides the sheer persistence, is…
I used Lotus Notes until 2022, in a British blue-chip company. Stopped because I left that company - I am almost certain they're still using it, because they weren't close to migrating off the last few use cases. It was…
I worked for a company whose factory really was just a room - the company was a machine-builder, a B2B manufacturer of custom production equipment, but with very little investment in special-purpose machinery for its…
The EU has mildly outperformed the UK in overall economic growth by perhaps 1 percentage point over the last 5-6 years, i.e. ~7% vs ~6%. While of course both massively underperformed the USA. It's hard to avoid…
So... It's an interpreter (together with a virtual filesystem and some utilities) packaged into a program with a graphical display window? Still good for lots of interesting uses, I suppose, but surprising. Since it's…
You can run all the Office apps in a browser, and update documents that are on SharePoint live in collaboration with someone else. Maybe that's not earth-shattering, but it's quite a big change from huge separate Office…
This is a fascinating post but I don't believe it reflects (most) human memory development, which has a pronounced forgetting phase called 'childhood amnesia'. When your kid starts to talk, it's startling what a…
Those applications seem pretty weak. In a similar timeframe I seem to recall possessing a standalone dictionary/crossword solver device, and a five-language translator/dictionary. Both of which were much more compact…
People are reacting negatively to the ads, but there's a bigger point. This is bearish as heck for AGI. If OpenAI were recursively improving their general-computer-using agent, who was going to be superhuman at every…
I have all my photos back to my first digital camera in 2004. (Plus digital photos a few years further back - I used to use a service that developed and printed your film rolls and also delivered files on CD-ROM). The…
I've read this book. It's definitely one of the more interesting and readable maths texts out there. I wasn't exactly sure I'd use the methods. Working as a mechanical engineer I probably go straight to numerical…
Try a gaming store that offers a guarantee? I don't know where you are, but here in the UK, second-hand stores such as Cash Converters are full of PS2s, fat and slim. Dedicated second-hand entertainment stores like CEX…
I think the claim is that plugging in the USB device is enough. If people needed to try running an executable from the device, some devices would still be compromised, but with lower frequency. I don't know exactly what…
The strength of feeling some English lovers of history have for the Anglo-Saxon kings slightly mystifies me. Athelstan created a unified English kingdom. Briefly, till he died and it un-unified. England was fully…
I am a Durham graduate, still somewhat involved with the university via some voluntary roles, and a bit of a 'booster' in the sense that I'll sing its praises to anyone. I also have a postgrad degree from Cambridge and…
Might rather see it the other way around - Nvidia getting license to create products with x86(_64) CPUs integrated in the silicon. Nvidia are the big boy in this transaction and they'll get what they want out of it. But…
The biggest bottlenecks are hardware design and software design. Materials science to an extent, particularly battery materials, but we could build robots with currently-available materials and power density if only we…
Fair enough, I'm not able to evaluate counterfactuals in American maritime law. But on the roulette analogy, I reckon the everything-bagel approach gives you a healthy edge against the house and is well worth betting…
> It's a requirement that vessels which operate between US ports must be made in the US, crewed by the US, and flagged to the US. The everything-bagel approach. One of those requirements incentivises US shipbuilding,…
> If any bullets were found and if the gun was shown to be a ballistic "match," the article neglected to mention it. Good point - maybe I read too much into "The search turned up what police say is the murder weapon".…
They had a bunch of CCTV and no name. The AI gave them a few names, they looked at its report which had photos from the guy's social media and were like 'yes that's him', and then got a warrant to go to his house and…
Embarrassment at discussions of bugs from 2007 that are still not fixed. (For clarification, I doubt that is really the (main) reason, but longstanding bugs in CAD systems are definitely a thing, and I guarantee there…