If you were around when the Model T was first announced, you could have built the organizations that became Disney, McDonald’s and Holiday Inn, all of which were powered by cheap, plentiful cars. You could have become a major developer of suburbs, mortgage banking and even pop music record labels (car radios changed the way music was consumed).
When a resource can be used more efficiently, we end up using more of the thing, not less.
When you first start with a blank sheet, you’re forced to search your memory and put on paper what you know (or what you think you know) about a subject. As you read, you see that understanding grow as you add new knowledge to the foundation.
inxi is a handy script that provides you with the system hardware and software information about the Linux system it is executed on. Learn more about using it.
This animation of the Moon’s shadow across North America simulates the view from a spacecraft 125 miles high chasing the shadow! On April 8, 2024, everyone inside the shadow will experience the breathtaking sight of the Sun’s corona during the total solar eclipse. Totality races from Mazatlan to Newfoundland.
Jason Kottke recently said he could spend all day watching Koen van Gilst’s Pong Wars, a JavaScript-based mashup of Pong and Breakout (designed by Steve Wozniak with help from Steve Jobs) that feels like a hyperactive digital lava lamp. Pong Wars features two balls, Day and Night, that bounce according to the physics of those games. The Day ball travels through light areas and turns dark blocks light, whereas the Night ball does the reverse, turning light blocks dark.
Like pretty much any Apple device, you can directly connect a Vision Pro to external pointing devices—at least, you can connect the Magic Trackpad and some Bluetooth keyboards. I was able to get a Magic Keyboard connected to it simply by opening the Bluetooth area of the Settings app and selecting the Magic Keyboard. It really couldn’t have been easier.
iFixit's disassembly of the Vision Pro reveals several internal components, including an array of cameras and sensors, fans, lens motors, and more. Unsurprisingly, it appears that opening and repairing the headset will be difficult.
Maybe you know about the early (first?) 6502-based computer, the KIM-1 from 1976. I recently built a replica (the PAL-1) and wanted to flip through some of the original documentation. Fortunately archive.org has quite a bit of early KIM-1 texts.
The book that started it all for me. Sometime around 1979 #kim1 #6502 #robot #diy #developer
The 6 Most Captivating and Addictive Space Opera Book Series of Modern Science Fiction
Overall, I like Base and Core Data Lab better, but Base has been giving me a lot of internal errors lately, and I’m unsure whether it’s still under development. However, Ducklet looks promising, so I purchased it on sale.
Artificial intelligence still can’t beat a human when it comes to programming. But it’s only a matter of time.
The cover’s hero image draws you in. What is that beautiful-looking tape deck? (And wow, even today, that thing is pretty awesome.)
Web development moves at lightning speed. I still remember when I first started using libraries like jQuery, Prototype, script.aculo.us, Zepto, and many more. Even with modern tools like Angular, VueJS, React, Solid and Svelte, we still have to deal with the Document Object Model (DOM). While these frameworks encapsulate and hide direct DOM management, they still give us access to work with the DOM via refs and event handlers.
Good pizza is rare, even though the method to create it is well known.
In 2010, Airbus initiated a research collaboration with ENAC and Université de Toulouse III on a prospective study to define and validate an “Aeronautical Font”: the challenge was to improve the display of information on the cockpit screens, in particular in terms of legibility and comfort of reading, and to optimize the overall homogeneity of the cockpit.
Ah, the comfort zone—a snug emotional space where stress is scarce and predictability prevails. While it’s not all bad, staying there too long can effectively serve as a straightjacket for your potential. Let's peel back the layers and dissect the interplay between your comfort zone, personal growth, and the 'magic' that happens when you dare to stretch your boundaries.
Shoelace: A forward-thinking library of web components.
But behind the scenes, there’s a lot more going on. I’ll describe some of what happens, and (much much more importantly!) explain some tools you can use to see what’s going on behind the scenes yourself. We’ll use readelf, strace, ldd, debugfs, /proc, ltrace, dd, and stat. I won’t talk about the Python-specific parts at all – just what happens when you run any dynamically linked executable.
“The ability to do hard things is perhaps the most useful ability you can foster in yourself or your children. And proof that you are someone who can do them is one of the most useful assets you can have on your life resume.
I got a pair of AirPod Pro earbuds and set them up for my personal hearing needs. Later that day I went for a walk in my local woods and literally gasped out loud at hearing the birds I'd been missing for some years!
When you write some code and put it on a spacecraft headed into the far reaches of space, you need to it work, no matter what. Mistakes can mean loss of mission or even loss of life. In 2006, Gerard Holzmann of the NASA/JPL Laboratory for Reliable Software wrote a paper called The Power of 10: Rules for Developing Safety-Critical Code. The rules focus on testability, readability, and predictability: