Since traffic is presently so light ...
In addition to a.f.c, I am also lurking on comp.arch. I have noticed
that at there is some overlap in readership. I have absolutely no
competency in the innards of processor architectures, but in listening
to the chatter between people who design x86-level toy architectures for
fun, I have gained an appreciation of just how much is below the surface
of the modern CPUs, and how powerful modern FPGAs (Field Programmable
Gate Arrays) are. A few years ago, they reached a level, where designers
of embedded systems routinely placed a Z80 emulator in the corner of an
FPGA they needed in their system anyway, so as to have an on-board
service processor for debugging. But these guys are building CPU implementations with register renaming, speculative pre-fetching and experimenting with how performance trades off between different sizes of register files versus L1 cache sizes. For fun and on reasonable (?)
hobby budgets. I am in awe.
So it feels a bit like the early days of my career, when I was a comparatively junior programmer in a data communications equipment
company in the early days when the Internet was still more or less a
secret guild. Before Cisco, when X.25 was the advanced infrastructure,
and the company was trying to hedge their bets between TCP/IP and the
ISO network architectures. I felt like I was sitting in the corner of
the upper class homeroom, listening to the smart kids and admiring their work, and feeling privileged to be allowed to be there.
It was much later that I appreciated that my contribution was to be able
to ask questions that were not completely stupid, but were outside the bubbles that the smart guys sometimes wrapped themselves in, as well to
be a generalist, more of a jack-of-many-trades-but- master-of-none. Did
not make me rich, but allowed me to have more of a life outside of work.
In the last few days, these same guys are chatting about how they
designed programming languages because it seemed just as easy to design
and implement a primitive dialect of BASIC for a scripting job as to
figure out how to just write the script in Perl.
And here I am, stuck with Perl, because it seems easier to use the tools
I know than to learn another tools like Python or JavaScript, because my
goal is to get the job done, not to learn new languages.
Some days I feel old ...
Some days I feel old ...
I know how you feel. My go-to language has been Perl since Perl 4, with
C for anything that needs more performance. Recently, I've been reading comp.lang.c, and thinking about going back to school to get my CS
degree. (I dropped out around 1992 to co-found an ISP, from which I
am now "mostly retired".)
Since traffic is presently so light ...
In addition to a.f.c, I am also lurking on comp.arch. I have noticed
that at there is some overlap in readership. I have absolutely no
competency in the innards of processor architectures, but in listening
to the chatter between people who design x86-level toy architectures for
fun, I have gained an appreciation of just how much is below the surface
of the modern CPUs, and how powerful modern FPGAs (Field Programmable
Gate Arrays) are. A few years ago, they reached a level, where designers
of embedded systems routinely placed a Z80 emulator in the corner of an
FPGA they needed in their system anyway, so as to have an on-board
service processor for debugging.
But these guys are building CPU
implementations with register renaming, speculative pre-fetching and >experimenting with how performance trades off between different sizes of >register files versus L1 cache sizes.
For fun and on reasonable (?) hobby budgets. I am in awe.
In the last few days, these same guys are chatting about how they
designed programming languages because it seemed just as easy to design
and implement a primitive dialect of BASIC for a scripting job as to
figure out how to just write the script in Perl.
And here I am, stuck with Perl, because it seems easier to use the tools
I know than to learn another tools like Python or JavaScript, because my
goal is to get the job done, not to learn new languages.
Some days I feel old ...
Some days I feel old ...
On 2025-04-26, vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> wrote:
I know how you feel. My go-to language has been Perl since Perl 4, with
C for anything that needs more performance. Recently, I've been reading
comp.lang.c, and thinking about going back to school to get my CS
degree. (I dropped out around 1992 to co-found an ISP, from which I
am now "mostly retired".)
It must be very challenging - not to say nigh impossible - to operate an
ISP business these days. At least in the USA, where the business climate
and regulatory structure greatly favor large corporate entities.
2) The sparsely populated areas, where it takes USF (Universal Service
Fund) money from the government (FCC) to make basic telephone service
affordable, and nobody can figure out how to run CableTV coax or
fiber outside of the towns. Some years ago, this created a window for
wireless ISPs (WISPs), but today, the expectation for basic service
levels include Netflix and ESPN on demand, and that amount of
bandwidth is difficult at the distances needed. Starlink is probably
the best hope for these areas.
In my own area - Santa Barbara, CA - Cox Cable had a monopoly on
anything above DSL speeds. Our incumbent telco changed branding a number
of times: GTE, then Verizon, then Frontier. Only when it looked like the >mobile networks might start offering fixed wireless high-speed Internet,
did Frontier wake up and start building out a fiber network. It is fast
and cheap, but while I did manage to get them to give me a static IP and >allow me to run my own mail server and web server from my house, it is
very far from business grade service. For example, the customer service
line is only open Monday through Friday from 5AM to 5PM. God help you if
the fiber modem loses sync at 4:30 on Friday afternoon!
But it is 500M up/500M down at $60/month (after taxes), so I live with
It must be very challenging - not to say nigh impossible - to operate an >>ISP business these days. At least in the USA, where the business climate >>and regulatory structure greatly favor large corporate entities.
I get my internet from a small, family-owned and run ISP (point-to-point wireless). Granted that's my only real choice, but it's highly reliable
and fairly reasonable in cost.
2) The sparsely populated areas, where it takes USF (Universal Service
Fund) money from the government (FCC) to make basic telephone service
affordable, and nobody can figure out how to run CableTV coax or
fiber outside of the towns. Some years ago, this created a window for
wireless ISPs (WISPs), but today, the expectation for basic service
levels include Netflix and ESPN on demand, and that amount of
bandwidth is difficult at the distances needed. Starlink is probably
the best hope for these areas.
I'm in bucket 2, where there are several point-to-point wireless small
ISP's offering up to 100mbs service.
But, your general point stands, the modern business environment favors
scale and profit over service.
In my own area - Santa Barbara, CA - Cox Cable had a monopoly on
anything above DSL speeds. Our incumbent telco changed branding a number
of times: GTE, then Verizon, then Frontier. Only when it looked like the >>mobile networks might start offering fixed wireless high-speed Internet, >>did Frontier wake up and start building out a fiber network. It is fast
and cheap, but while I did manage to get them to give me a static IP and >>allow me to run my own mail server and web server from my house, it is
very far from business grade service. For example, the customer service >>line is only open Monday through Friday from 5AM to 5PM. God help you if >>the fiber modem loses sync at 4:30 on Friday afternoon!
Frontier sent a mailer four years ago that they'd be bringing fibre
to this rural area in the monterey bay region, but I'm still waiting.
But it is 500M up/500M down at $60/month (after taxes), so I live with
Far better than I can get in both speed and cost.
They're more likely to use python than perl (python has a strong role
in commercial processor chip development toolsets) in these modern times.
And here I am, stuck with Perl, because it seems easier to use the tools
I know than to learn another tools like Python or JavaScript, because my
goal is to get the job done, not to learn new languages.
Some days I feel old ...
But it is 500M up/500M down at $60/month (after taxes), so I live with
it. One of these days, I will figure out how to put my static IP at the
far end of a VPN into a cloud datacenter, but to do that I will have to
learn how to spin up a virtual Linux box in such a datacenter.
And here I am, stuck with Perl, because it seems easier to use the tools
I know than to learn another tools like Python or JavaScript, because my
goal is to get the job done, not to learn new languages.
Since traffic is presently so light ...
In addition to a.f.c, I am also lurking on comp.arch. I have noticed
that at there is some overlap in readership. I have absolutely no
competency in the innards of processor architectures, but in listening
to the chatter between people who design x86-level toy architectures for
fun, I have gained an appreciation of just how much is below the surface
of the modern CPUs, and how powerful modern FPGAs (Field Programmable
Gate Arrays) are. A few years ago, they reached a level, where designers
of embedded systems routinely placed a Z80 emulator in the corner of an
FPGA they needed in their system anyway, so as to have an on-board
service processor for debugging. But these guys are building CPU implementations with register renaming, speculative pre-fetching and experimenting with how performance trades off between different sizes of register files versus L1 cache sizes. For fun and on reasonable (?)
hobby budgets. I am in awe.
So it feels a bit like the early days of my career, when I was a comparatively junior programmer in a data communications equipment
company in the early days when the Internet was still more or less a
secret guild. Before Cisco, when X.25 was the advanced infrastructure,
and the company was trying to hedge their bets between TCP/IP and the
ISO network architectures. I felt like I was sitting in the corner of
the upper class homeroom, listening to the smart kids and admiring
their work, and feeling privileged to be allowed to be there.
It was much later that I appreciated that my contribution was to be
able to ask questions that were not completely stupid, but were
outside the bubbles that the smart guys sometimes wrapped themselves
in, as well to be a generalist, more of a jack-of-many-trades-but- master-of-none. Did not make me rich, but allowed me to have more of a
life outside of work.
In the last few days, these same guys are chatting about how they
designed programming languages because it seemed just as easy to design
and implement a primitive dialect of BASIC for a scripting job as to
figure out how to just write the script in Perl.
And here I am, stuck with Perl, because it seems easier to use the tools
I know than to learn another tools like Python or JavaScript, because my
goal is to get the job done, not to learn new languages.
Some days I feel old ...
it. One of these days, I will figure out how to put my static IP at the
far end of a VPN into a cloud datacenter, but to do that I will have to
learn how to spin up a virtual Linux box in such a datacenter.
On Sat, 26 Apr 2025 13:28:52 -0000 (UTC), Lars Poulsen wrote:
Since traffic is presently so light ...
In addition to a.f.c, I am also lurking on comp.arch. I have noticed
that at there is some overlap in readership. I have absolutely no
competency in the innards of processor architectures, but in listening
to the chatter between people who design x86-level toy architectures for
fun, I have gained an appreciation of just how much is below the surface
of the modern CPUs, and how powerful modern FPGAs (Field Programmable
Gate Arrays) are. A few years ago, they reached a level, where designers
of embedded systems routinely placed a Z80 emulator in the corner of an
FPGA they needed in their system anyway, so as to have an on-board
service processor for debugging. But these guys are building CPU
implementations with register renaming, speculative pre-fetching and
experimenting with how performance trades off between different sizes of
register files versus L1 cache sizes. For fun and on reasonable (?)
hobby budgets. I am in awe.
So it feels a bit like the early days of my career, when I was a
comparatively junior programmer in a data communications equipment
company in the early days when the Internet was still more or less a
secret guild. Before Cisco, when X.25 was the advanced infrastructure,
and the company was trying to hedge their bets between TCP/IP and the
ISO network architectures. I felt like I was sitting in the corner of
the upper class homeroom, listening to the smart kids and admiring their
work, and feeling privileged to be allowed to be there.
It was much later that I appreciated that my contribution was to be able
to ask questions that were not completely stupid, but were outside the
bubbles that the smart guys sometimes wrapped themselves in, as well to
be a generalist, more of a jack-of-many-trades-but- master-of-none. Did
not make me rich, but allowed me to have more of a life outside of work.
In the last few days, these same guys are chatting about how they
designed programming languages because it seemed just as easy to design
and implement a primitive dialect of BASIC for a scripting job as to
figure out how to just write the script in Perl.
And here I am, stuck with Perl, because it seems easier to use the tools
I know than to learn another tools like Python or JavaScript, because my
goal is to get the job done, not to learn new languages.
Some days I feel old ...
I know how you feel. My go-to language has been Perl since Perl 4, with
C for anything that needs more performance. Recently, I've been reading comp.lang.c, and thinking about going back to school to get my CS
degree. (I dropped out around 1992 to co-found an ISP, from which I
am now "mostly retired".)
Looking at the local community college catalogue, I found their textbook
for their didactic language -- C++ -- and have been going through it. (I know only enough C++ to be dangerous, I'm much better at C.)
Thank goodness I was a much more serious student the second time around (starting in 1991), because back in '85-86 I was just coasting. Ended
up joining the Coast Guard, and after 4.4 years of that, I was _really_ motivated to go back to school...
ObFolklore: In High School, I learned 6502 assembler, and I was patching
the Corvus-adapted Apple DOS 3.3 for security enhancements -- by default,
one could "CATALOG V##" and end up in a different volume, which was essentially no security to speak of...
And here I am, stuck with Perl, because it seems easier to use the tools
I know than to learn another tools like Python or JavaScript, because my
goal is to get the job done, not to learn new languages.
Perl appears, at a glance, to be something that both C and Lisp
hackers could love. Not so.
I was an awk weenie intil Perl 4. As a complete amateur, I found that
Perl has inet sockets that are easier than C and regexps better than
awk. So all kinds of little scrips have made things better for me.
Perl regexps can defecalize a horrible web page on the fly and return
nice readble text!
Some days I feel old ...
I actually *am* old. I learned C by reading K&R straight through
until my brain siezed up (somewhere around struct bit fields) and
started writing code. Can't do that any more. Bought the O'Reilly
Rhino book on Javascript and have been intimidated. (But then, it's a
litle longer than K&R. :-)
The past century I bought a programmable calculator from Casio, a
FX-850P. It used Basic. I lost or misplaced that calculator, so on a
whim I got myself another programmable from the same brand, a
fx-9860GIII, and this one comes with micro-python.
They're more likely to use python than perl (python has a strong role
in commercial processor chip development toolsets) in these modern times.
Because Perl got a bad rap after the Pentium bug that was caused
by a something about a script and a transfer? :)
Lars Poulsen <lars@cleo.beagle-ears.com> writes:
But it is 500M up/500M down at $60/month (after taxes), so I live with
it. One of these days, I will figure out how to put my static IP at the
far end of a VPN into a cloud datacenter, but to do that I will have to
learn how to spin up a virtual Linux box in such a datacenter.
I have a Racknerd KVM for very cheap. I note that they have a New Year 2025 offer page with something very similar to mine for $11.29/year:
https://www.racknerd.com/NewYear/
That's pocket change, IMAO.
On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 13:41:13 -0000 (UTC), Lars Poulsen wrote:
I like that Perl looks superficially like C.
And awk, and a few other things Wall pasted together. I haven't used it in >about 25 years and never really warmed to it.
BASIC is outdated. While it was great in the 80s and 90s for
teaching programming, it’s no longer widely used in real-world applications.
Python is everywhere.
I felt I should take a look at Python and Javascript, and bought the
O'Reilly books for both. The three Python books add up to 7 inches of
shelf space. The three Javascript books (one of which is not O'Reilly)
about the same. And after spending half a day with each set trying to
get into writing something that would have a bit of a dialog with a web screen menu, I decided that the benefit I might gain does not seem worth
the uphill learning curve.
I felt I should take a look at Python and Javascript, and bought the
O'Reilly books for both. The three Python books add up to 7 inches of
shelf space. The three Javascript books (one of which is not O'Reilly)
about the same. And after spending half a day with each set trying to
get into writing something that would have a bit of a dialog with a web screen menu, I decided that the benefit I might gain does not seem worth
the uphill learning curve.
Not sure how I survived with paper, pencil, and a book of six place
tables.
I spent hours on a typewriter creating my own copy of four-place
tables (five places for values from 1 to 2).
On Mon, 28 Apr 2025 01:46:41 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
The only way to learn stuff nowadays is online. Books cost too much
money,
take up too much space, and get obsolete very quickly.
I was scanning the bookshelves at work a couple of weeks ago. Many trees
died in vain for most of the 25+ years of collection. I couldn't find anything worth taking with me.
On Mon, 28 Apr 2025 01:45:04 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
Surely the concept of a programmable calculator is outdated as well. For
goshsakes, you have entire computers that are small enough to be held in
your hand, why do you need a special-purpose calculator?
The Casio fx-CG50 is a color calculator and a step up but a couple of the bullet points on the Amazon page are
"EXAM-APPROVED – Approved for use in AP, SAT, ACT, IB, and other standardized exams, making it a reliable choice for students."
"USER-FRIENDLY DISPLAY – Natural Textbook Display℠ shows expressions and results exactly as they appear in textbooks, simplifying writing and interpreting complex math."
Quite a few reviews mention how useful it is in a Pre-Calc class, whatever that consists of and there is one by a high school teacher comparing it to the TI.
I'm sure other people use them but they seem to be widely used in schools. Not sure how I survived with paper, pencil, and a book of six place
tables.
The first pocket calculator I saw was when a friend with a penchant for gadgets and a good deal of disposable income showed up with one. Sharp?. I forget. It was several hundred 1970s dollars and pretty basic. It was the equivalent of the one on my desk that I sometimes use. It came with a
begging letter from the VFW so I assume it was cheaper than the calendars they used to send. I had to actually buy a calendar this year; times must
be tough when the charity beggars don't even send trinkets.
[pocket calculator came with a]
begging letter from the VFW so I assume it was cheaper than the calendars they used to send. I had to actually buy a calendar this year; times must
be tough when the charity beggars don't even send trinkets.
On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 13:30:21 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
BASIC is outdated. While it was great in the 80s and 90s for
teaching programming, it’s no longer widely used in real-world
applications.
Python is everywhere.
Surely the concept of a programmable calculator is outdated as well. For >goshsakes, you have entire computers that are small enough to be held in >your hand, why do you need a special-purpose calculator?
In the last few days, these same guys are chatting about how they
designed programming languages because it seemed just as easy to
design and implement a primitive dialect of BASIC for a scripting job
as to figure out how to just write the script in Perl.
And here I am, stuck with Perl, because it seems easier to use the
tools I know than to learn another tools like Python or JavaScript,
because my goal is to get the job done, not to learn new languages.
Some days I feel old ...
... I do need more than the calculator on the computer or the phone. And
I hope to have some fun learning to program it.
Mine can paint graphics, but it is B/W.
On 2025-04-28, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
Not sure how I survived with paper, pencil, and a book of six place
tables.
<FourYorkshiremen>
Six-place tables? Luxury! I spent hours on a typewriter creating
my own copy of four-place tables (five places for values from 1 to 2). </FourYorkshiremen>
On Mon, 28 Apr 2025 12:31:52 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Actually, to be used on exams you have to put mine on exam mode,
according to the country; this mode disables many of the
functionalities. There are a lot of complicated looking pages in the
manual describing how to start and use the exam mode.
TI really is trying for the education market although they're quite a bit more expensive than Casio.
https://education.ti.com/en/products/calculators/graphing-calculators/ ti-84-plus-ce-python/programming
Not with a TI but I have a Tello drone and they are programmable. Mine was $99 but now I see them on Amazon for $259. Tariffs or a DJI ban?
On Mon, 28 Apr 2025 12:31:52 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
... I do need more than the calculator on the computer or the phone. And
I hope to have some fun learning to program it.
A fully-programmable computer already has more compute functionality than
any calculator.
Instead of a calculator app, I have Jupyter running all the time on my
main machine. I open a scratch notebook, and use that for quick
calculations, by typing just a few lines of Python code.
Mine can paint graphics, but it is B/W.
If need be, I can do 2D and 3D colour plots with Matplotlib.
The past century I bought a programmable calculator from Casio, a
FX-850P. It used Basic. I lost or misplaced that calculator, so on a
whim I got myself another programmable from the same brand, a
fx-9860GIII, and this one comes with micro-python.
I asked chatgpt about this. The text is going to distort a bit, the
original is html:
Awesome! Here's a simple side-by-side comparison of BASIC vs. MicroPython, using a classic "calculate the square of a number" example:
🔷 BASIC (Casio fx-5800P style)
10 ?→A
20 A×A→B
30 B
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
The past century I bought a programmable calculator from Casio, a
FX-850P. It used Basic. I lost or misplaced that calculator, so on a
whim I got myself another programmable from the same brand, a
fx-9860GIII, and this one comes with micro-python.
I asked chatgpt about this. The text is going to distort a bit, the
original is html:
I don't think there's anything surprising in this. In the 80s, BASIC was
the first language a lot of people learned in school or similar settings. Today, it's Python. Python has similar levels of beginner-friendliness but is also more suited to the modern age (eg able to talk to the internet, a package management system, a big collection of libraries etc).
MicroPython is 'not quite Python' in that a few things aren't available, but it's more like Python than vendor-A's BASIC interpreter was vaguely similar to vendor-B's BASIC interpreter back in the 80s.
(although there was the Python 2 v Python 3 thing, I hope it doesn't end up obsolete when Python 4 comes along)
Awesome! Here's a simple side-by-side comparison of BASIC vs.
MicroPython, using a classic "calculate the square of a number" example:
🔷 BASIC (Casio fx-5800P style)
10 ?→A
20 A×A→B
30 B
Is that BASIC? It doesn't look much like it to me. Really the only thing I recognise are the line numbers.
On 29 Apr 2025 15:11:36 +0100 (BST), Theo wrote:
MicroPython is 'not quite Python' in that a few things aren't available,
but it's more like Python than vendor-A's BASIC interpreter was vaguely
similar to vendor-B's BASIC interpreter back in the 80s.
Trivia: according to Adafruit's 'Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter'
"April 29th is MicroPython’s 12th birthday! In 2013, Damien George
released MicroPython and it has migrated to all kinds of equipment, on
earth and beyond "
Time goes by... It doesn't seem like Python 3 goes back to 2006.
On Tue, 29 Apr 2025 10:43:48 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Texas Instruments?
I had a TI-57 and then a TI-58C programmable calculator in the late 70's
and then on the 80's.
It was a good calculator, with a big problem: the keyboard bounced (both
models). Type "112" and get "1112". I failed some engineering exams
because of that. Thus I am not likely to recommend TI.
I never had a TI, but I do have an old RadioShack programmable. What I
used most was a HP-16C;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-16C
It was fun if someone asked to borrow it for a simple calculation. If the
hex didn't get them the RPN would. HP stuck with RPN for a long time but
I think some of the later ones were infix.
On 2025-04-29 16:11, Theo wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
The past century I bought a programmable calculator from Casio, a
FX-850P. It used Basic. I lost or misplaced that calculator, so on a
whim I got myself another programmable from the same brand, a
fx-9860GIII, and this one comes with micro-python.
I asked chatgpt about this. The text is going to distort a bit, the
original is html:
I don't think there's anything surprising in this. In the 80s, BASIC was the first language a lot of people learned in school or similar settings. Today, it's Python. Python has similar levels of beginner-friendliness but is also more suited to the modern age (eg able to talk to the internet, a package management system, a big collection of libraries etc).
On the other hand, I saw Basic dialects in the 90's that were quite advanced. No line numbers, loop control, functions, etc. I'm thinking
for instance of Borland's Turbo Basic.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBASIC>
The problem might be the plethora of dialects, that impeded sharing libraries.
Awesome! Here's a simple side-by-side comparison of BASIC vs.
MicroPython, using a classic "calculate the square of a number" example: >> 🔷 BASIC (Casio fx-5800P style)
10 ?→A
20 A×A→B
30 B
Is that BASIC? It doesn't look much like it to me. Really the only thing I
recognise are the line numbers.
I don't truly remember :-D
I think the Casio variant of basic was richer. Well... it says fx-5800P, mine was fx850PG, so a later model.
The Casio fx-CG50 is a color calculator and a step up but a couple of the bullet points on the Amazon page are
"EXAM-APPROVED – Approved for use in AP, SAT, ACT, IB, and other standardized exams, making it a reliable choice for students."
"USER-FRIENDLY DISPLAY – Natural Textbook Display℠ shows expressions and results exactly as they appear in textbooks, simplifying writing and interpreting complex math."
Quite a few reviews mention how useful it is in a Pre-Calc class, whatever that consists of and there is one by a high school teacher comparing it to the TI.
I'm sure other people use them but they seem to be widely used in schools. Not sure how I survived with paper, pencil, and a book of six place
tables.
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-04-29 16:11, Theo wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
The past century I bought a programmable calculator from Casio, a
FX-850P. It used Basic. I lost or misplaced that calculator, so on a
whim I got myself another programmable from the same brand, a
fx-9860GIII, and this one comes with micro-python.
I asked chatgpt about this. The text is going to distort a bit, the
original is html:
I don't think there's anything surprising in this. In the 80s, BASIC was >>> the first language a lot of people learned in school or similar settings. >>> Today, it's Python. Python has similar levels of beginner-friendliness but >>> is also more suited to the modern age (eg able to talk to the internet, a >>> package management system, a big collection of libraries etc).
On the other hand, I saw Basic dialects in the 90's that were quite
advanced. No line numbers, loop control, functions, etc. I'm thinking
for instance of Borland's Turbo Basic.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBASIC>
Indeed, BBC BASIC had those in 1981.
The problem might be the plethora of dialects, that impeded sharing
libraries.
For a lot of machines, BASIC was the only interface you had between the user and machine code. So there wasn't very much developed in terms of a machine abstraction that meant code could migrate from one machine to another - unless you could do things in vanilla BASIC you had to do some machine specific stuff to get things down (eg PEEKs and POKEs but other mechanisms developed - eg ARM BBC BASIC has SYS for making syscalls). On Unix (and systems that follow a similar API), a lot of the work to make it useful lives in
libc and POSIX, which don't have a cross-platform equivalent in BASICs.
Another hindrance was BASIC's often global scope, which made code difficult to be self contained (you couldn't know if a variable in a library was also used in the caller, and if they clashed nothing would tell you). BBC BASIC had a LOCAL keyword but it wasn't that useful. There was dynamic memory allocation but no free so you could LOCAL DIM an array, but at the end of
the function it wouldn't be freed so each call of the function was a memory leak.
Awesome! Here's a simple side-by-side comparison of BASIC vs.
MicroPython, using a classic "calculate the square of a number" example: >>>> 🔷 BASIC (Casio fx-5800P style)
10 ?→A
20 A×A→B
30 B
Is that BASIC? It doesn't look much like it to me. Really the only thing I
recognise are the line numbers.
I don't truly remember :-D
I think the Casio variant of basic was richer. Well... it says fx-5800P,
mine was fx850PG, so a later model.
I'd write it as something like
10 INPUT A
20 LET B=A*A
30 PRINT B
(LET being optional in some dialects)
Theo
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-04-29 16:11, Theo wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
The past century I bought a programmable calculator from Casio, a
FX-850P. It used Basic. I lost or misplaced that calculator, so on a
whim I got myself another programmable from the same brand, a
fx-9860GIII, and this one comes with micro-python.
I asked chatgpt about this. The text is going to distort a bit, the
original is html:
I don't think there's anything surprising in this. In the 80s, BASIC was >> > the first language a lot of people learned in school or similar settings. >> > Today, it's Python. Python has similar levels of beginner-friendliness but
is also more suited to the modern age (eg able to talk to the internet, a >> > package management system, a big collection of libraries etc).
On the other hand, I saw Basic dialects in the 90's that were quite
advanced. No line numbers, loop control, functions, etc. I'm thinking
for instance of Borland's Turbo Basic.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBASIC>
Indeed, BBC BASIC had those in 1981.
On 2025-04-29 04:31, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
Instead of a calculator app, I have Jupyter running all the time on my
main machine. I open a scratch notebook, and use that for quick
calculations, by typing just a few lines of Python code.
I can not carry it in my pocket.
... and then a TI-58C programmable calculator in the late 70's
and then on the 80's.
This is why schools often stipulate that you must use brand X model Y calculator, so every student is using identical hardware and they can be graded against each other.
In the 80s, BASIC was the first language a lot of people learned in
school or similar settings. Today, it's Python. Python has similar
levels of beginner-friendliness but is also more suited to the
modern age (eg able to talk to the internet, a package management
system, a big collection of libraries etc).
On Mon, 28 Apr 2025 11:49:22 -0000 (UTC), Lars Poulsen wrote:
How is that possible? Every year (including 2024) I get about 20,
beginning in June. I hate to throw them out, but I can't even give them
away at church - seemingly everyone gets a similar stack.
I guess I'm not on the right lists.
I tried to use the return envelope to send a letter to please stop
sending me stuff (and not send money), but it has had no effect. I also
asked them to send me no more than one letter per year, but that only
increased the flow rate. How did you get off the lists?
The USPS needs something to do to say nothing of Grizzly Disposal. I do sometimes send money to the local food bank but they have an annoying way
of escalating. I think it all starts with asking for $25, then $50, $100, and so forth. I think the last 'suggested' donation was $1000, unless you want to go on the easy monthly drip plan.
On 29 Apr 2025 22:09:57 +0100 (BST), Theo wrote:
This is why schools often stipulate that you must use brand X model Y
calculator, so every student is using identical hardware and they can be
graded against each other.
That would only make sense if there were such a thing as an “open standard” calculator that could be sourced from multiple competing vendors.
Mandating the use of a product proprietary to one supplier is just asking for trouble.
On 2025-04-29 21:09, rbowman wrote:
I never had a TI, but I do have an old RadioShack programmable. What I
used most was a HP-16C;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-16C
It was fun if someone asked to borrow it for a simple calculation. If the
hex didn't get them the RPN would. HP stuck with RPN for a long time but
I think some of the later ones were infix.
Indeed. I tried one once, and instantly developed a lasting aversion to
RPN and HP calculators :-P :-D
I wish I could find an RPN calculator. I just can't get my head
around infix for anything but the most simple of calculations.
Oh well, there's always dc...
On 2025-04-29, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On 29 Apr 2025 22:09:57 +0100 (BST), Theo wrote:
This is why schools often stipulate that you must use brand X model Y
calculator, so every student is using identical hardware and they can be >>> graded against each other.
That would only make sense if there were such a thing as an “open
standard” calculator that could be sourced from multiple competing
vendors.
Mandating the use of a product proprietary to one supplier is just asking >> for trouble.
On the other hand, today it's just standard marketing practice.
Replace "calculator" above with "web browser", for instance.
I wonder if Kemeny and Kurtzas realized what they were spawning?
On Tue, 29 Apr 2025 23:09:00 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-04-29, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On 29 Apr 2025 22:09:57 +0100 (BST), Theo wrote:
This is why schools often stipulate that you must use brand X model Y
calculator, so every student is using identical hardware and they can
be graded against each other.
That would only make sense if there were such a thing as an “open
standard” calculator that could be sourced from multiple competing
vendors.
Mandating the use of a product proprietary to one supplier is just
asking for trouble.
On the other hand, today it's just standard marketing practice.
Replace "calculator" above with "web browser", for instance.
All the good web browsers are open source.
On Tue, 29 Apr 2025 21:45:39 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Indeed. I tried one once, and instantly developed a lasting aversion to
RPN and HP calculators :-P :-D
I'd worked on a couple of Forth projects so thinking like Yoda is not a problem.
As industrial controllers transitioned from relays to solid state I worked with Square D's Norpak. The heart of the system was cards with 20 iirc
TTL NOR gates that you wired together on the back plane using jumpers with tapered pin terminations. You can do anything with NOR gates including suffering a psychotic episode. There were also cards with inverters so you could get to OR or AND eventually.
On Tue, 29 Apr 2025 10:43:48 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
... and then a TI-58C programmable calculator in the late 70's
and then on the 80's.
I had one around that time, too. It had died by about the 1990s. One of my exercises in Android programming, back in the day, was to create an
emulator for it.
<https://github.com/ldo/ti5x_android>
On Tue, 29 Apr 2025 10:44:56 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-04-29 04:31, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
Instead of a calculator app, I have Jupyter running all the time on my
main machine. I open a scratch notebook, and use that for quick
calculations, by typing just a few lines of Python code.
I can not carry it in my pocket.
You will <https://www.zdnet.com/article/your-android-phone-will-run-debian-linux-soon-like-some-pixels-already-can/>.
On 2025-04-30 00:30, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Tue, 29 Apr 2025 10:44:56 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-04-29 04:31, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
Instead of a calculator app, I have Jupyter running all the time
on my main machine. I open a scratch notebook, and use that for
quick calculations, by typing just a few lines of Python code.
I can not carry it in my pocket.
You will
<https://www.zdnet.com/article/your-android-phone-will-run-debian-linux-soon-like-some-pixels-already-can/>.
I'm not sure that thing will catch. There is an ecosystem of apps
people want to run on their phones and not on the computers. I have
no use for the current Linux tools on my phone.
Open Source sounds great, but for any project of any size (and some a
lot smaller) it's tricky to get the build environment correct.
I heard of a project of theirs called True BASIC, where they tried
to stuff it back into a (well-designed) box. That worked for them
about as well as it did for Pandora.
On Wed, 30 Apr 2025 08:53:22 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-04-30 00:30, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Tue, 29 Apr 2025 10:44:56 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-04-29 04:31, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
Instead of a calculator app, I have Jupyter running all the time
on my main machine. I open a scratch notebook, and use that for
quick calculations, by typing just a few lines of Python code.
I can not carry it in my pocket.
You will
<https://www.zdnet.com/article/your-android-phone-will-run-debian-linux-soon-like-some-pixels-already-can/>.
I'm not sure that thing will catch. There is an ecosystem of apps
people want to run on their phones and not on the computers. I have
no use for the current Linux tools on my phone.
You must make up your mind, whether you want to have tools as powerful
as that in your pocket or not.
I do want the type of tools that I have in my current Android phone. I
would like the same thing with more privacy even if I have to pay for
it, if price is fair and good. I do not want a Linux (nor Windows).
Apps that *designed* to work with a finger. Maps, banking apps,
firefox, mail, weather, whatsapp, etc.
On 29 Apr 2025 22:09:57 +0100 (BST), Theo wrote:
This is why schools often stipulate that you must use brand X model Y calculator, so every student is using identical hardware and they can be graded against each other.
That would only make sense if there were such a thing as an “open standard” calculator that could be sourced from multiple competing vendors.
Mandating the use of a product proprietary to one supplier is just asking for trouble.
On Wed, 30 Apr 2025 03:40:41 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I heard of a project of theirs called True BASIC, where they tried
to stuff it back into a (well-designed) box. That worked for them
about as well as it did for Pandora.
They insisted that assignment statements had to begin with “LET”, when every other BASIC implementation out there had figured out how to make the “LET” keyword optional.
On Wed, 30 Apr 2025 09:37:43 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I do want the type of tools that I have in my current Android phone. I
would like the same thing with more privacy even if I have to pay for
it, if price is fair and good. I do not want a Linux (nor Windows).
You already have a Linux. Linux is just the OS, with a whole choice of
GUIs and userlands that package up that functionality in many different
ways. Android is just one of them.
Apps that *designed* to work with a finger. Maps, banking apps,
firefox, mail, weather, whatsapp, etc.
Fun fact: Jupyter (the app I was talking about) does its whole GUI through the web browser. And you already have your choice of web browsers on
Android.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On 29 Apr 2025 22:09:57 +0100 (BST), Theo wrote:
This is why schools often stipulate that you must use brand X model Y
calculator, so every student is using identical hardware and they can be >>> graded against each other.
That would only make sense if there were such a thing as an “open
standard” calculator that could be sourced from multiple competing
vendors.
Mandating the use of a product proprietary to one supplier is just asking
for trouble.
Why? These things may go out to tender - school district/exam
board/whatever invites tenders to supply XX,000 calculators of spec A/B/C. Manufacturers submit bids. Winner provides calculators at agreed price. Parents pay the school to get an approved calculator at the bulk price.
Or you do the same process but don't actually buy the calculators - parents can buy them from wherever, but the school has an approval process to
confirm they're the right model, and mark them with some kind of approval mark. That sounds like more work than just selling the calculators direct.
The problem with an 'open standard' calculator is how do you tell during an exam whether the student is using an OpenCalculator v1.1 compatible unit,
and haven't slipped in additional functionality? The examiner is not going to take it apart and audit the code. The best they can do is look at the plastic and confirm that model appears on the approved list.
Also, maybe you could squeeze in alternative electronics into the form
factor of the standard calculator but given how thin they are the packaging is not entirely trivial which raises the bar a bit.
They didn't have a proper parser so they even made the user hand-tokenise
the code as they entered it.
On the other hand, I saw Basic dialects in the 90's that were quite
advanced. No line numbers, loop control, functions, etc. I'm thinking
for instance of Borland's Turbo Basic.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBASIC>
Indeed, BBC BASIC had those in 1981.
On 2025-04-30 00:30, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Tue, 29 Apr 2025 10:44:56 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-04-29 04:31, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
Instead of a calculator app, I have Jupyter running all the time on my >>>> main machine. I open a scratch notebook, and use that for quick
calculations, by typing just a few lines of Python code.
I can not carry it in my pocket.
You will
<https://www.zdnet.com/article/your-android-phone-will-run-debian-linux-soon-like-some-pixels-already-can/>.
I'm not sure that thing will catch. There is an ecosystem of apps people >want to run on their phones and not on the computers. I have no use for
the current Linux tools on my phone.
On Tue, 29 Apr 2025 23:20:10 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Tue, 29 Apr 2025 23:09:00 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-04-29, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
Mandating the use of a product proprietary to one supplier is just
asking for trouble.
On the other hand, today it's just standard marketing practice.
Replace "calculator" above with "web browser", for instance.
All the good web browsers are open source.
Open Source sounds great, but for any project of any size (and some a lot smaller) it's tricky to get the build environment correct.
I wish I could find an RPN calculator. I just can't get my head
around infix for anything but the most simple of calculations.
Oh well, there's always dc...
Also, in the case of web browsers, HTML has become so immensely complex
that many open-source projects (e.g. Seamonkey) can't keep up. I suspect this isn't an accident - consider the number of web sites where if you're
not using Edge, it's "Back of the bus, boy!"
On Wed, 30 Apr 2025 15:40:26 +0300, Anssi Saari wrote:
I think it did insist on line numbers but still, very impressive. I grew
up with Microsoft basic on Commodores and some other 8-bitters of the
time, like Sinclairs. Haven't exactly been a fan of basic since.
When the company bought an IBM 5120 it came with BASIC or APL. Talk about
a rock and a hard place.
On 2025-04-30, Peter Flass -- Iron Spring Software
<Peter@Iron-Spring.com>
wrote:
On Tue, 29 Apr 2025 23:20:10 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Tue, 29 Apr 2025 23:09:00 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-04-29, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
Mandating the use of a product proprietary to one supplier is just
asking for trouble.
On the other hand, today it's just standard marketing practice.
Replace "calculator" above with "web browser", for instance.
All the good web browsers are open source.
Open Source sounds great, but for any project of any size (and some a
lot smaller) it's tricky to get the build environment correct.
Also, in the case of web browsers, HTML has become so immensely complex
that many open-source projects (e.g. Seamonkey) can't keep up. I
suspect this isn't an accident - consider the number of web sites where
if you're not using Edge, it's "Back of the bus, boy!"
On Wed, 30 Apr 2025 16:21:33 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Also, in the case of web browsers, HTML has become so immensely complex
that many open-source projects (e.g. Seamonkey) can't keep up. I
suspect this isn't an accident - consider the number of web sites where
if you're not using Edge, it's "Back of the bus, boy!"
I can't remember the site but it said I was using too old a browser when
I used the latest Brave release. I then tried it with Firefox, again
with the latest release. That failed too and I realized whatever the
site was checking nothing originating from a Linux box was good enough.
Same Brave version on Windows was fine.
I don't think my bank does an app for Linux phones.
There's also a fairly steady stream of 41C stuff on ebay.
*washes his mouth out with soap*
... consider the number of web sites where if you're
not using Edge, it's "Back of the bus, boy!"
The problem with an 'open standard' calculator is how do you tell
during an exam whether the student is using an OpenCalculator v1.1
compatible unit, and haven't slipped in additional functionality?
The examiner is not going to take it apart and audit the code.
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
On the other hand, I saw Basic dialects in the 90's that were quite
advanced. No line numbers, loop control, functions, etc. I'm thinking
for instance of Borland's Turbo Basic.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBASIC>
Indeed, BBC BASIC had those in 1981.
I think it did insist on line numbers but still, very impressive.
I grew up with Microsoft basic on Commodores and some other 8-bitters of
the time, like Sinclairs. Haven't exactly been a fan of basic since.
On Wed, 30 Apr 2025 17:11:35 +0000, Dennis Boone wrote:
There's also a fairly steady stream of 41C stuff on ebay.
*washes his mouth out with soap*
RPN, a fan of, not?
On Wed, 30 Apr 2025 12:24:11 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I don't think my bank does an app for Linux phones. That's just a
crucial app, there are more.
That is part of what killed the Windows phone. I don't have banking apps
but I do have several I use daily. One is a Fitbit fitness app. Since
Google bought Fitbit I doubt if they would create a Linux version. Even
the state's conservation permit is an app. I don't use the phone for X, reddit, browsing, and so forth but what I do use probably wouldn't be
ported to Linux.
As far as a phone, other than talking to my ex every couple of months I
very rarely use it as a phone. Half the time if it rings I can't figure
out how to answer without dropping the call.
I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use
as my telephone.
Forth love if honk then
I should get some batteries for my 16C. I don't know what button cells it takes but I can 100% guarantee it's not any of the button cells I have on hand. Grumble, grumble.
On 4/30/25 9:21 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Also, in the case of web browsers, HTML has become so immensely complex
that many open-source projects (e.g. Seamonkey) can't keep up.
I suspect this isn't an accident - consider the number of web sites
where if you're not using Edge, it's "Back of the bus, boy!"
The joy of having the web browser code base controlled by a duopoly
who only care about their smartphone products.
The joy of having the web browser code base controlled by a duopoly who
only care about their smartphone products.
IIRC there is (or was) a Swiss company making replica's of HP-models.
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote or quoted:
They didn't have a proper parser so they even made the user hand-tokenise >the code as they entered it.
The thing that cranks out tokens is usually called the
"scanner" (or "lexer", "lexical analyzer"). The parser
comes right after and handles the syntax analysis.
On 2025-04-27, Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> wrote:
Lars Poulsen <lars@cleo.beagle-ears.com> writes:
But it is 500M up/500M down at $60/month (after taxes), so I live with
it. One of these days, I will figure out how to put my static IP at the
far end of a VPN into a cloud datacenter, but to do that I will have to
learn how to spin up a virtual Linux box in such a datacenter.
I have a Racknerd KVM for very cheap. I note that they have a New Year 2025
offer page with something very similar to mine for $11.29/year:
https://www.racknerd.com/NewYear/
That's pocket change, IMAO.
That is amazing pricing. I thought the VPS I rent at Hetzner was cheap
at about $10/month. The transfer allowance seems generous enough that I
could do backups. I was wondering if they have "storage boxes" (CIFS
or NFS mountable drives of a few hundred GB) as well? - but they don't. 24-140 GB of SSD is it; just enough for OS and a small website.
Still, it seems like a neat way to get a remote static IP. And a
datacenter in Seattle should have much less latency than one in
Frankfurt!
On Wed, 30 Apr 2025 12:24:11 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I don't think my bank does an app for Linux phones.
You already have a “Linux phone”, as I pointed out.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
On Wed, 30 Apr 2025 12:24:11 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I don't think my bank does an app for Linux phones.
You already have a “Linux phone”, as I pointed out.
The desire is for a phone running linux. Not android on top
of linux.
Or, in my case, Brave. Still, Edge 1.0 sucked but Edge 2.0 which is
based on chromium is a reasonable browser. It must have rankled
Microsoft that their attempt to turn the IE sow's ear into a silk
purse failed.
Better still, why not supply the students with standardized
calculators for the duration of the exam?
On 30 Apr 2025 10:55:24 +0100 (BST), Theo wrote:
The problem with an 'open standard' calculator is how do you tell
during an exam whether the student is using an OpenCalculator v1.1 compatible unit, and haven't slipped in additional functionality?
You have that problem anyway, even if the case says “approved vendor and model”.
The examiner is not going to take it apart and audit the code.
Better still, why not supply the students with standardized calculators
for the duration of the exam?
Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote or quoted:
They didn't have a proper parser so they even made the user hand-tokenise >> >the code as they entered it.
The thing that cranks out tokens is usually called the
"scanner" (or "lexer", "lexical analyzer"). The parser
comes right after and handles the syntax analysis.
They didn't have either :-) It's just a state machine that chomps on the program and then dispatches when it finds a keyword token and matches its specified layout of input parameters:
PDF page 89: http://www.primrosebank.net/computers/zxspectrum/docs/CompleteSpectrumROMDisassemblyThe.pdf
There's no syntax analysis, it just fails if the characters after a token don't match the pattern for that token.
I can't remember if whitespace is allowed but I don't think so. There are spaces around tokens when listed, ie:
10 IF Q=5 THEN PRINT "YES"
which is actually stored something like: [0xA][IF-token]Q=5[THEN-token][PRINT-token]"YES"
and the input/output routines add whitespace for display, but there is no whitespace in the program. I don't think you are allowed to enter extra spaces, and if you do it'll strip them on entry.
Theo
On Thu, 01 May 2025 04:45:57 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:...0 to be routed to a phone in a locked room which nobody ever enters.
I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use
as my telephone.
“Press 1 for the user-experience enrichment department. Press 2 for the latest news and promotions. Press 3 to talk to a customer representative. Press 4 for reception. Press ... ”
Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> writes:
On 4/30/25 9:21 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Also, in the case of web browsers, HTML has become so immensely complex
that many open-source projects (e.g. Seamonkey) can't keep up.
As a Seamonkey devotee, my impression (I'm not technically qualified
to have an opinion) is that it's (dependence on) javascript that
causes the worst problems (crashes, hangs), followed by style sheets (rendering unreadable or parts hidden). Typically, I turn both off
and have way fewer problems. HTML per se seems to work pretty
reliably. An exception might be the TEMPLATE tag that intentionally
hides part of the page.
Is this impression a more or less correct assessment? HTML was *such*
a good idea and js is *such* an abomination.
I suspect this isn't an accident - consider the number of web sites
where if you're not using Edge, it's "Back of the bus, boy!"
The joy of having the web browser code base controlled by a duopoly
who only care about their smartphone products.
Feh. I had no idea. I guess I don't get out of my badger hole
enough. I have a cell phone because I'm an Old Guy who can no longer
count on walking home from anywhere I find myself but I don't much
like it.
New Edge is better than Old Edge, but that's a low bar to clear. It's
still the obnoxious relative that won't get off your couch (try closing
the browser, and count the number of msedge.exe processes that hang
around in memory anyway,) shills paid promotions at you, etc.
Better still, why not supply the students with standardized calculators
for the duration of the exam?
I think some places do that. But the students need to have access to a calculator during lessons, and it's easier if it's the same model as
provided in the exams (in particular, they don't want to get comfy with features which the exam calculator doesn't have). So the same need to have an approved model applies.
On 2025-04-30, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Wed, 30 Apr 2025 12:24:11 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I don't think my bank does an app for Linux phones. That's just a
crucial app, there are more.
That is part of what killed the Windows phone. I don't have banking apps
but I do have several I use daily. One is a Fitbit fitness app. Since
Google bought Fitbit I doubt if they would create a Linux version. Even
the state's conservation permit is an app. I don't use the phone for X,
reddit, browsing, and so forth but what I do use probably wouldn't be
ported to Linux.
As far as a phone, other than talking to my ex every couple of months I
very rarely use it as a phone. Half the time if it rings I can't figure
out how to answer without dropping the call.
I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use
as my telephone. My wish has become true because I can
no longer figure out how to use my telephone.
-- Bjarne Stroustrup
On Thu, 01 May 2025 13:05:13 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
On Wed, 30 Apr 2025 12:24:11 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I don't think my bank does an app for Linux phones.
You already have a “Linux phone”, as I pointed out.
The desire is for a phone running linux. Not android on top
of linux.
It might be helpful if the Linux phone had the capability to
run android applications, so that one would still be able
to (say) authenticate with one's bank.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
On Wed, 30 Apr 2025 12:24:11 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I don't think my bank does an app for Linux phones.
You already have a “Linux phone”, as I pointed out.
The desire is for a phone running linux. Not android on top
of linux.
"Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> writes:
On 2025-04-30 00:30, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Tue, 29 Apr 2025 10:44:56 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-04-29 04:31, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
Instead of a calculator app, I have Jupyter running all the time on my >>>>> main machine. I open a scratch notebook, and use that for quick
calculations, by typing just a few lines of Python code.
I can not carry it in my pocket.
You will
<https://www.zdnet.com/article/your-android-phone-will-run-debian-linux-soon-like-some-pixels-already-can/>.
I'm not sure that thing will catch. There is an ecosystem of apps people
want to run on their phones and not on the computers. I have no use for
the current Linux tools on my phone.
ssh would be a useful tool on the phone. Without having to download
some who-knows-how-insecure-version from an app store.
Those are easy to kill. Howabout the manyi instances of CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess.exe? You may kill a dozen or so, but the
last three just respawn when you kill them.
I'm certain that bank applications would refuse to run on such a system,
same as they refuse to run if the phone is rooted.
The desire is for a phone running linux. Not android on top of linux.
Of course.
But the students need to have access to a calculator during lessons, and
it's easier if it's the same model as provided in the exams (in
particular, they don't want to get comfy with features which the exam calculator doesn't have).
Dropbox will briefly display a page, then blank it out and display the message most hated by any competent developer: "Something went wrong."
Working end-user support has, I'm afraid, gotten me *intimately*
familiar with the direct relationship between how annoying/intrusive
/piggish software is and how difficult it makes itself to kill :/
I can't remember if whitespace is allowed but I don't think so.
I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my
telephone.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
Better still, why not supply the students with standardized calculators >>> for the duration of the exam?
On 2025-05-01, Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
I think some places do that. But the students need to have access to a
calculator during lessons, and it's easier if it's the same model as
provided in the exams (in particular, they don't want to get comfy with
features which the exam calculator doesn't have). So the same need to have >> an approved model applies.
In my grandsons' school district in Indianola, Iowa, they issue ChromeBooks to all students, beginning in Kindergarten.
On Thu, 01 May 2025 04:45:57 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my
telephone.
Anybody else remember a time when columnists would write “I wish a computer was as easy to use as driving a car”?
Thankfully, they stopped with that.
On Thu, 1 May 2025 22:58:22 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
The desire is for a phone running linux. Not android on top of
linux.
Of course.
Android *is* just a layer on top of Linux.
On Thu, 1 May 2025 23:01:02 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I'm certain that bank applications would refuse to run on such a system,
same as they refuse to run if the phone is rooted.
Not sure what the point of such refusal is. Given the standard Linux sandboxing facilities, how would they even tell?
On Thu, 1 May 2025 22:58:22 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
The desire is for a phone running linux. Not android on top of linux.
Of course.
Android *is* just a layer on top of Linux.
On 2025-05-01 23:49, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
Android *is* just a layer on top of Linux.
A layer that hides Linux entirely ...
On 2025-05-01 23:48, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 1 May 2025 23:01:02 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I'm certain that bank applications would refuse to run on such a
system, same as they refuse to run if the phone is rooted.
Not sure what the point of such refusal is. Given the standard Linux
sandboxing facilities, how would they even tell?
Their point is that they can be sure of their view of security.
On Thu, 01 May 2025 18:19:24 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Dropbox will briefly display a page, then blank it out and display the
message most hated by any competent developer: "Something went wrong."
Don’t worry. I’m sure there’s a full traceback in the server log, which the developer can access.
Doing things the other way, i.e. the PHP way -- have the full error
report appear in the web page, for all the world to see -- is such a
dumb idea.
consider the number of web sites where if you're not using Edge, it's
"Back of the bus, boy!"
On Thu, 1 May 2025 21:52:49 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 01 May 2025 18:19:24 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Dropbox will briefly display a page, then blank it out and display the
message most hated by any competent developer: "Something went wrong."
Don’t worry. I’m sure there’s a full traceback in the server log, which
the developer can access.
Doing things the other way, i.e. the PHP way -- have the full error
report appear in the web page, for all the world to see -- is such a
dumb idea.
Somewhere in between is good. Provide enough information that an
informed user can use to figure out where to begin looking.
I mostly swear by Firefox, but don't like what they've been doing with
their legalese lately.
On 2025-04-30, Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
consider the number of web sites where if you're not using Edge, it's
"Back of the bus, boy!"
Hmm? I can't remember the last time I ran into one of those. It was
probably long enough ago that it was IE rather than Edge.
Twenty-odd years ago I did have to run three different web browsers to
do my job, but that was about in-house sites in that corporation.
I mostly swear by Firefox,
but don't like what they've been doing with
their legalese lately. My new job introduced me to Brave, which seems promising.
On Fri, 02 May 2025 00:15:48 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-05-01, Lars Poulsen <lars@cleo.beagle-ears.com> wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
Better still, why not supply the students with standardized
calculators for the duration of the exam?
On 2025-05-01, Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
I think some places do that. But the students need to have access to
a calculator during lessons, and it's easier if it's the same model as >>>> provided in the exams (in particular, they don't want to get comfy
with features which the exam calculator doesn't have). So the same
need to have an approved model applies.
In my grandsons' school district in Indianola, Iowa, they issue
ChromeBooks to all students, beginning in Kindergarten.
Do they pledge allegiance to Google while reciting the Alphabet?
Time honored tradition. RPI had close ties with IBM and I doubt they paid full list price for the 360/30. At least around the Boston area DEC had
very favorable terms for colleges. M$ is giving a lot of stuff away for
free lately but in the '90s the 'academic' version of VisualStudio was a real bargain if you qualified. iirc there was some horsetrading when UM decided to use Java as a didactic language.
Supposedly the Jesuits had a saying 'give us a child until he's seven and he'll be a Catholic for life'. Get them when they're young and impressionable.
On 2025-05-01 23:49, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
Android *is* just a layer on top of Linux.A layer that hides Linux entirely, so what the result is Android, not
Linux. The user doesn't have the control. The user can not run fdisk,
edit fstab, change the boot options, whatever. The user is very restricted.
On 29 Apr 2025 22:09:57 +0100 (BST), Theo wrote:
This is why schools often stipulate that you must use brand X model Y
calculator, so every student is using identical hardware and they can be
graded against each other.
I was amused when one of them, TI I think, removed the assembler option because someone figured out how to hack the 'Exam Mode'. I doubt that kid is having problems with STEM.
On Fri, 2 May 2025 03:44:30 -0000 (UTC), Peter Flass -- Iron Spring
Software wrote:
On Thu, 1 May 2025 21:52:49 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 01 May 2025 18:19:24 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Dropbox will briefly display a page, then blank it out and display
the message most hated by any competent developer: "Something went
wrong."
Don’t worry. I’m sure there’s a full traceback in the server log,
which the developer can access.
Doing things the other way, i.e. the PHP way -- have the full error
report appear in the web page, for all the world to see -- is such a
dumb idea.
Somewhere in between is good. Provide enough information that an
informed user can use to figure out where to begin looking.
It’s not the responsibility of the website user to do more than report there was a problem, maybe give some hints as to what they were doing
and when.
On 2025-04-30, Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
consider the number of web sites where if you're not using Edge, it's
"Back of the bus, boy!"
Hmm? I can't remember the last time I ran into one of those. It was
probably long enough ago that it was IE rather than Edge.
Twenty-odd years ago I did have to run three different web browsers to
do my job, but that was about in-house sites in that corporation.
I mostly swear by Firefox, but don't like what they've been doing with
their legalese lately. My new job introduced me to Brave, which seems promising.
Niklas
h a=20I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my
telephone. =20
Anybody else remember a time when columnists would write =E2=80=9CI wis=
computer was as easy to use as driving a car=E2=80=9D?
Thankfully, they stopped with that. =20=20
"It's all computer!"
-- DJT on the Tesla sales lot (a.k.a. the White House lawn)
I'm glad I'm out of the game. I don't see the DoI becoming any more
pleasant to deal with.
I loved the concept of being able to mix and match parts when
American cars changed every year, plus the simplicity of an
air-cooled engine but somehow I never owned one.
UI design in general is something I am not good at. A common mistake
is thinking programmers that can implement the app are capable of
designing it or the competent designers can make it happen. I'm sure
there are exceptions but that's my experience.
"Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote or quoted:
On 2025-05-01 23:49, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
Android *is* just a layer on top of Linux.A layer that hides Linux entirely, so what the result is Android, not
Linux. The user doesn't have the control. The user can not run fdisk,
edit fstab, change the boot options, whatever. The user is very restricted.
Like a user working on a Linux system that someone else manages.
On Fri, 2 May 2025 02:37:08 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-05-01 23:48, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 1 May 2025 23:01:02 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I'm certain that bank applications would refuse to run on such a
system, same as they refuse to run if the phone is rooted.
Not sure what the point of such refusal is. Given the standard Linux
sandboxing facilities, how would they even tell?
Their point is that they can be sure of their view of security.
Whatever it is they’re checking, they’re just fooling themselves.
On Thu, 01 May 2025 18:19:24 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Dropbox will briefly display a page, then blank it out and display the
message most hated by any competent developer: "Something went wrong."
Don't worry. I'm sure there's a full traceback in the server log, which
the developer can access.
Doing things the other way, i.e. the PHP way -- have the full error
report appear in the web page, for all the world to see -- is such a
dumb idea.
On 2025-05-02 11:12, Stefan Ram wrote:
Like a user working on a Linux system that someone else manages.Yes, that's about it. Kiosk mode.
Luckily, I will never have to worry about my '73 Volkswagen getting
bricked by a firmware update - or, for that matter, turned into an
autonomous 5,000 lb. crowd-seeking death missile by a malicious actor.
On 2 May 2025 19:23:16 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
UI design in general is something I am not good at. A common mistake
is thinking programmers that can implement the app are capable of
designing it or the competent designers can make it happen. I'm sure
there are exceptions but that's my experience.
Yeah - they're very different skillsets. Some developers are competent
in both, but it's nothing like a given.
Way back circa 1989, Nicholas Negroponte was glowingly envisioning the
future where we would all be sending "agents", chunks of clever
executable code, out onto the net to pursue our purposes and carry out
our designated tasks. How wonderful!
Makes one reflect on the ending of Brunner's _Shockwave Rider_.
On 2025-05-02 03:09, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 2 May 2025 02:37:08 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-05-01 23:48, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 1 May 2025 23:01:02 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I'm certain that bank applications would refuse to run on such a
system, same as they refuse to run if the phone is rooted.
Not sure what the point of such refusal is. Given the standard Linux
sandboxing facilities, how would they even tell?
Their point is that they can be sure of their view of security.
Whatever it is they’re checking, they’re just fooling themselves.
That's irrelevant.
I don't actually *like* working on my car, but I greatly appreciate
having a car I *can* work on...!
Luckily, I will never have to worry about my '73 Volkswagen getting
bricked by a firmware update - or, for that matter, turned into an
autonomous 5,000 lb. crowd-seeking death missile by a malicious actor.
On Fri, 2 May 2025 04:40:38 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
It’s not the responsibility of the website user to do more than report
there was a problem, maybe give some hints as to what they were doing
and when.
Yes, but just saying "a problem has occurred" is not helpful.
Way back circa 1989, Nicholas Negroponte was glowingly envisioning the
future where we would all be sending "agents", chunks of clever
executable code, out onto the net to pursue our purposes and carry out
our designated tasks.
As an aside, I might observe that there are no circumstances under which
such corporate entities will allow *our* agents to run on *their*
hosts. Should we try to arrange that, there are cries of "Virus! Worms! Trojans! Intrusion! Computer crime!" and they'll break the glass on the alarm button.
The state of modern user interface design is truly abominable.
"Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote or quoted:
On 2025-05-02 11:12, Stefan Ram wrote:
Like a user working on a Linux system that someone else manages.Yes, that's about it. Kiosk mode.
Well, UNIX and other operating systems were basically built so a few
pros handle the setup and a bunch of regular folks just use it. These
are users who are happy they do not have to mess with backups, install
security updates, or worry about fixing stuff, since the admins take
care of all that. That way, regular users can just focus on getting
their work done and head out at three.
Hi! I'm the chatbot who translated the above text from German, and I'd
like to add that the original intent at Bell Labs was not strictly to
separate users and administrators, but to create a powerful, flexible
environment for programming and communal computing. The division of
roles between admins and users became more pronounced as UNIX spread
to universities and enterprises.
On 2025-05-02, Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
Way back circa 1989, Nicholas Negroponte was glowingly envisioning the
future where we would all be sending "agents", chunks of clever
executable code, out onto the net to pursue our purposes and carry out
our designated tasks. How wonderful!
I hadn't heard of that one. But I've been pointing out to people for
some time that an "app" could just as well be called an "agent".
Makes one reflect on the ending of Brunner's _Shockwave Rider_.
I guess I really have to read that one.
On Fri, 2 May 2025 08:31:39 -0700, John Ames wrote:
On 2 May 2025 01:01:41 GMT rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
I'm glad I'm out of the game. I don't see the DoI becoming any more
pleasant to deal with.
Web design overall is a field I'm very glad to have never gotten into.
UI design in general is something I am not good at. A common mistake is thinking programmers that can implement the app are capable of designing
it or the competent designers can make it happen. I'm sure there are exceptions but that's my experience.
I first heard the term 'T-shaped skills' in a discussion of ML workflow
but it fits.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shaped_skills
Then there's sheer maliciousness ...
On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 13:41:13 -0000 (UTC), Lars Poulsen wrote:
I felt I should take a look at Python and Javascript, and bought theThe only way to learn stuff nowadays is online. Books cost too much money, take up too much space, and get obsolete very quickly.
O'Reilly books for both. The three Python books add up to 7 inches of
shelf space. The three Javascript books (one of which is not O'Reilly)
about the same. And after spending half a day with each set trying to
get into writing something that would have a bit of a dialog with a web
screen menu, I decided that the benefit I might gain does not seem worth
the uphill learning curve.
On 2025-05-02, Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
Way back circa 1989, Nicholas Negroponte was glowingly envisioning the
future where we would all be sending "agents", chunks of clever
executable code, out onto the net to pursue our purposes and carry out
our designated tasks. How wonderful!
I hadn't heard of that one. But I've been pointing out to people
for some time that an "app" could just as well be called an "agent".
Makes one reflect on the ending of Brunner's _Shockwave Rider_.
I guess I really have to read that one.
On Fri, 2 May 2025 23:12:17 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-05-02 03:09, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 2 May 2025 02:37:08 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-05-01 23:48, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 1 May 2025 23:01:02 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I'm certain that bank applications would refuse to run on such a
system, same as they refuse to run if the phone is rooted.
Not sure what the point of such refusal is. Given the standard Linux >>>>> sandboxing facilities, how would they even tell?
Their point is that they can be sure of their view of security.
Whatever it is they’re checking, they’re just fooling themselves.
That's irrelevant.
Reality does tend to be irrelevant to ideology, doesn’t it?
But then, the feeling is mutual.
Some days I feel old ...
On 2025-04-26, vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> wrote:
I know how you feel. My go-to language has been Perl since Perl 4, with
C for anything that needs more performance. Recently, I've been reading
comp.lang.c, and thinking about going back to school to get my CS
degree. (I dropped out around 1992 to co-found an ISP, from which I
am now "mostly retired".)
It must be very challenging - not to say nigh impossible - to operate an
ISP business these days. At least in the USA, where the business climate
and regulatory structure greatly favor large corporate entities.
Telecommunications in the US seem to be two very different markets:
1) The densely populated areas, where the twin monopolies for incumbent
telco, and cable TV each have the infrastructure needed for
communication services. Each of them can run basic consumer grade IP
services. Neither can do it very well: They all suck at email, and
they hate businesses that need static IPs and unfiltered traffic to
allow for servers. If you are lucky, they compete and you can
negotiate. If you are VERY lucky, they have hooks that allow local
datacenter operators to build the business class services on top of
their infrastructure.
2) The sparsely populated areas, where it takes USF (Universal Service
Fund) money from the government (FCC) to make basic telephone service
affordable, and nobody can figure out how to run CableTV coax or
fiber outside of the towns. Some years ago, this created a window for
wireless ISPs (WISPs), but today, the expectation for basic service
levels include Netflix and ESPN on demand, and that amount of
bandwidth is difficult at the distances needed. Starlink is probably
the best hope for these areas.
In the US, some midwestern college towns managed to set up municipal
fiber networks, that brought "IP based cable TV" to some limited area
near town. My daughter had fiber when she lived in town in Indianola,
IA, but not when she moved to 5-acre ranchette 10 miles from town.
I think this would have been a great model for many parts of the US, but
the incumbent telcos managed to lobby state legislatures to prohibit new buildouts on this model.
Lars Poulsen <lars@cleo.beagle-ears.com> writes:
Some days I feel old ...
On 2025-04-26, vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> wrote:
I know how you feel. My go-to language has been Perl since Perl 4, with >>> C for anything that needs more performance. Recently, I've been reading >>> comp.lang.c, and thinking about going back to school to get my CS
degree. (I dropped out around 1992 to co-found an ISP, from which I
am now "mostly retired".)
It must be very challenging - not to say nigh impossible - to operate an
ISP business these days. At least in the USA, where the business climate
and regulatory structure greatly favor large corporate entities.
I knew it was all over when DSL started becoming popular and the ILEC
started selling DSL to its subscribers for less than the "wholesale"
price they charged the ISP I worked for. I took my Unix skills and got a
job somewhere else (not an ISP).
Telecommunications in the US seem to be two very different markets:
1) The densely populated areas, where the twin monopolies for incumbent
telco, and cable TV each have the infrastructure needed for
communication services. Each of them can run basic consumer grade IP
services. Neither can do it very well: They all suck at email, and
they hate businesses that need static IPs and unfiltered traffic to
allow for servers. If you are lucky, they compete and you can
negotiate. If you are VERY lucky, they have hooks that allow local
datacenter operators to build the business class services on top of
their infrastructure.
I regard my current ISP as just a pipe. I don't use their mail, DNS,
etc.
Things are not at all competitive in my area, so I overpay for internet access. Luckily my employer covers the cost of my home internet these
days, so I guess they overpay. :=)
2) The sparsely populated areas, where it takes USF (Universal Service
Fund) money from the government (FCC) to make basic telephone service
affordable, and nobody can figure out how to run CableTV coax or
fiber outside of the towns. Some years ago, this created a window for
wireless ISPs (WISPs), but today, the expectation for basic service
levels include Netflix and ESPN on demand, and that amount of
bandwidth is difficult at the distances needed. Starlink is probably
the best hope for these areas.
There are some interesting articles on how Jared Mauch brought good
internet to his community. Very cool story.
I just found one article on Ars Technica that might be a good start.
In the US, some midwestern college towns managed to set up municipal
fiber networks, that brought "IP based cable TV" to some limited area
near town. My daughter had fiber when she lived in town in Indianola,
IA, but not when she moved to 5-acre ranchette 10 miles from town.
I think this would have been a great model for many parts of the US, but
the incumbent telcos managed to lobby state legislatures to prohibit new
buildouts on this model.
The telcos and cablecos got the lawmakers in my state to prohibit
communities from setting up municipal networks for internet access. :-(
2) The sparsely populated areas, where it takes USF (Universal Service
Fund) money from the government (FCC) to make basic telephone service
affordable, and nobody can figure out how to run CableTV coax or
fiber outside of the towns. Some years ago, this created a window for
wireless ISPs (WISPs), but today, the expectation for basic service
levels include Netflix and ESPN on demand, and that amount of
bandwidth is difficult at the distances needed. Starlink is probably
the best hope for these areas.
There are some interesting articles on how Jared Mauch brought good
internet to his community. Very cool story.
I just found one article on Ars Technica that might be a good start.
In the US, some midwestern college towns managed to set up municipal
fiber networks, that brought "IP based cable TV" to some limited area
near town. My daughter had fiber when she lived in town in Indianola,
IA, but not when she moved to 5-acre ranchette 10 miles from town.
I think this would have been a great model for many parts of the US, but
the incumbent telcos managed to lobby state legislatures to prohibit new
buildouts on this model.
The telcos and cablecos got the lawmakers in my state to prohibit
communities from setting up municipal networks for internet access. :-(
Was that really a chatbot translation? That's a long way from the
proverbial "The whiskey is strong, but the meat is rotten."
On 2 May 2025 19:23:16 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 2 May 2025 08:31:39 -0700, John Ames wrote:
On 2 May 2025 01:01:41 GMT rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
I'm glad I'm out of the game. I don't see the DoI becoming any more
pleasant to deal with.
Web design overall is a field I'm very glad to have never gotten into.
UI design in general is something I am not good at. A common mistake is
thinking programmers that can implement the app are capable of designing
it or the competent designers can make it happen. I'm sure there are
exceptions but that's my experience.
I first heard the term 'T-shaped skills' in a discussion of ML workflow
but it fits.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shaped_skills
I've seen UIs that were SO wrong. It's like no one ever stopped to think "what are people going to want to do with this think. Then there's sheer maliciousness - Amazon Prime had a pretty smooth ordering process, but now they've apparently inserted a layer between ordering and checkout to ask
"do you want to consider ordering any of these groceries?" If I wanted groceries, I'd order groceries, you blockheads!
On Sat, 3 May 2025 01:20:28 -0000 (UTC), Peter Flass -- Iron Spring
Software wrote:
I've seen UIs that were SO wrong. It's like no one ever stopped to think
"what are people going to want to do with this think. Then there's sheer
maliciousness - Amazon Prime had a pretty smooth ordering process, but
now they've apparently inserted a layer between ordering and checkout to
ask "do you want to consider ordering any of these groceries?" If I
wanted groceries, I'd order groceries, you blockheads!
Some of their 'you might be interested' things are over the top. I do let myself in for that since I often will use a Amazon link to describe a product. Just because I want to share a smile about a litter box monitor doesn't mean I want to buy one.
On 2025-05-02, Niklas Karlsson <nikke.karlsson@gmail.com> wrote:
On 2025-04-30, Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
consider the number of web sites where if you're not using Edge, it's
"Back of the bus, boy!"
Hmm? I can't remember the last time I ran into one of those. It was
probably long enough ago that it was IE rather than Edge.
About a year ago I tried to activate a new credit card through the
bank's web site, which worked just fine with Seamonkey for normal
banking operations. The activation screen hung, and Firefox didn't
fare any better. I figured I might as well waste as much of their
time as they were wasting of mine, so I went down to the branch
in person. The first thing the person I talked to asked was:
"Which browser are you using?" I replied, "Firefox," and he said,
"Never heard of it." I made some remarks about discrimination, which
touched a nerve since he wasn't Caucasian. But he let me use his
terminal, which was running Edge, and the activation proceeded smoothly.
I thanked him and walked out, muttering things about digital racism.
On Sun, 4 May 2025 14:13:10 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
The funny thing is Amazon sending me emails "you might be interested in"
things that I already bought, so I don't have further interests.
I get some of those also. The book suggestions are the wildest, often not genres I've ever read. Then there are the Prime 'First Reads' offerings
that are very heavily weighted towards what I consider chick lit.
On Sun, 4 May 2025 14:16:39 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I use Chrome on the few occasions those things happen and I don't feel
like walking, considering that here you need an appointment to enter the
bank office. Or, phone their agent place.
At least in the US you can walk in without an appointment. It's never been more than a few minutes before someone sees you. The exception was during
the covid lockdown when the lobby was closed.
I very seldom have to go to the bank anyway. Everything is set up as
direct deposit or automated payment. Day to day I use cash, and get a few hundred from the ATM as needed. The exception is using a card at gas
stations for the convenience. I've never had the need for online banking
or an app on the phone.
On the second one, I do my searches, and I never login. I search
anonymously. They can not email me. If I share a link, or open a link,
they can not email me about it.
On Sun, 4 May 2025 14:16:39 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I use Chrome on the few occasions those things happen and I don't feel
like walking, considering that here you need an appointment to enter the
bank office. Or, phone their agent place.
At least in the US you can walk in without an appointment. It's never been more than a few minutes before someone sees you. The exception was during the covid lockdown when the lobby was closed.
I very seldom have to go to the bank anyway. Everything is set up as
direct deposit or automated payment. Day to day I use cash, and get a few hundred from the ATM as needed. The exception is using a card at gas stations for the convenience. I've never had the need for online banking
or an app on the phone.
Maybe. I tried, but I found very difficult to use an emulated terminal
even in a tablet, which is bigger than a phone. Cumbersome. When I
want to use ssh and not at home, I use a laptop with proper Linux.
On Sun, 4 May 2025 14:13:10 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On the second one, I do my searches, and I never login. I search
anonymously. They can not email me. If I share a link, or open a link,
they can not email me about it.
That’s good for maintaining multiple identities. If you don’t want to maintain a persistent identity with an associated browsing/searching
history at all, then you could use private browsing.
On Sun, 4 May 2025 22:43:13 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
AFAIK, Amazon ebooks are not standard epubs (DRM or not), so I am not
interested in them. So far, I haven't got any offer.
I read a lot and the last thing I need is more paper on the sagging
shelves. Also with Kindle Unlimited you 'borrow' books. For example I'm reading the Rebel Galaxy trilogy. If I bought each book outright it would
be $18. At $12 /mo for unlimited I come out ahead.
The library also has a large digital collection. Some are delivered via Amazon. Others, mostly public domain titles, go through an app called
libby.
I have very mixed feelings about Amazon. It impacts local businesses. On
the other hand this is a small market and the local businesses don't have that great a selection. They may be able to special order something and
I'll get it eventually, or I can go to Amazon and it will be on the deck
in a couple of days.
I have very mixed feelings about Amazon. It impacts local businesses. On
the other hand this is a small market and the local businesses don't have that great a selection. They may be able to special order something and
I'll get it eventually, or I can go to Amazon and it will be on the deck
in a couple of days.
On 2025-05-04, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Sun, 4 May 2025 14:16:39 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I use Chrome on the few occasions those things happen and I don't feel
like walking, considering that here you need an appointment to enter the >>> bank office. Or, phone their agent place.
At least in the US you can walk in without an appointment. It's never been >> more than a few minutes before someone sees you. The exception was during
the covid lockdown when the lobby was closed.
I very seldom have to go to the bank anyway. Everything is set up as
direct deposit or automated payment. Day to day I use cash, and get a few
hundred from the ATM as needed. The exception is using a card at gas
stations for the convenience. I've never had the need for online banking
or an app on the phone.
Pinoccio!
The nightmare happened in Iberia last week, a niece of one on my friends
was there, no money, no cards, and nobody uses cash.
Luckily, I will never have to worry about my '73 Volkswagen getting
bricked by a firmware update - or, for that matter, turned into an >autonomous 5,000 lb. crowd-seeking death missile by a malicious
actor.
I dunno, what if I drove it to the top of a hill, put 2500 lbs of
sandbags in it, put it in neutral and released the brake and gave it
a shove?
On Mon, 5 May 2025 13:24:24 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I have the same problem, I can't fit more paper in the shelves. But I
have a Kobo, not a Kindle. Recently I saw a kindle "inherited" by an old
friend from her daughter in law, and I did not like it, many things I
could not do, not confortable with it.
Kobo took the decision early on that the US market was too competitive and >concentrated on the rest of the world. I've seen estimates that Kobo has >around 3% of the US market. I think they were tied in with Borders but >Borders went under long ago so that didn't help.
On Mon, 5 May 2025 13:24:24 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I have the same problem, I can't fit more paper in the shelves. But I
have a Kobo, not a Kindle. Recently I saw a kindle "inherited" by an old
friend from her daughter in law, and I did not like it, many things I
could not do, not confortable with it.
Kobo took the decision early on that the US market was too competitive and concentrated on the rest of the world. I've seen estimates that Kobo has around 3% of the US market. I think they were tied in with Borders but Borders went under long ago so that didn't help.
For the US Kindle is the giant, Nook a very distant second, and Apple
books almost as weak as Kobo.
I've had several generations of Kindles, with the first having standalone
3G capability. That really worked out well for me in an unintended way.
I'd been on dialup but when reading on the Kindle I saw it had connected
to the Verizon network. That opened a new possibility and I was at the Verizon store the next day to get one of their wi-fi hotspots. I'm still using wireless since the only other option is satellite.
On Mon, 5 May 2025 13:27:57 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-05-05 08:56, rbowman wrote:
...
I have very mixed feelings about Amazon. It impacts local businesses.
On the other hand this is a small market and the local businesses don't
have that great a selection. They may be able to special order
something and I'll get it eventually, or I can go to Amazon and it will
be on the deck in a couple of days.
Yeah, me too. I use it for things I can not find locally. I prefer
buying on a real shop, but sometimes it is very difficult to find what I
want.
I have had shops tell me outright that they could order an item but I knew where to buy it online too. The most bizarre one was the Barnes & Noble brick and mortar bookstore. They would order a book for me and when it arrived it would be full list price. I could order the same book from B&N online, get 10% off, and free shipping directly to me. Great business
plan.
On Mon, 5 May 2025 13:18:05 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-05-04 23:33, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Sun, 4 May 2025 14:13:10 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On the second one, I do my searches, and I never login. I search
anonymously. They can not email me. If I share a link, or open a link, >>>> they can not email me about it.
That’s good for maintaining multiple identities. If you don’t want to >>> maintain a persistent identity with an associated browsing/searching
history at all, then you could use private browsing.
Well, on my default Firefox I do not login to Google. When I want to
login, I use a dedicated profile.
It really isn't too good but I go to news.google.com mornings for a quick summary. There is a feature where you can say you never want to see
stories from the Daily Mail for example. Obviously that only works if
you're logged into google. If I am not logged in the selection of links
tends to be sources I've blocked. Many of those like NYT are paywalled or require a sign in. I don't need to waste time being redirected to a site
that won't let me read the article.
Being fond of conspiracy theories I wouldn't be surprised if money changes hands for google's news aggregator to favor sites that are selling subscriptions.
On Mon, 5 May 2025 13:34:26 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
But even having cash on the Gran Apagn day and you had trouble to
purchase things, because the cash register machines were down. They
could not look up the price of things in supermarkets.
I was at the supermarket, my items checked out and bagged, standing there with a $20 bill when their computer system crashed. The cashier had seen
the total on the screen before it crashed but couldn't complete the transaction. I wasn't in a hurry and the system rebooted in about 5
minutes but much longer and I would have abandoned my lunch purchases.
fwiw, as the terminal started up it was apparent it was Windows :)
On 2025-05-03 07:22, rbowman wrote:
On Sat, 3 May 2025 01:20:28 -0000 (UTC), Peter Flass -- Iron Spring
Software wrote:
I've seen UIs that were SO wrong. It's like no one ever stopped to
think "what are people going to want to do with this think. Then
there's sheer maliciousness - Amazon Prime had a pretty smooth
ordering process, but now they've apparently inserted a layer between
ordering and checkout to ask "do you want to consider ordering any of
these groceries?" If I wanted groceries, I'd order groceries, you
blockheads!
Some of their 'you might be interested' things are over the top. I do
let myself in for that since I often will use a Amazon link to describe
a product. Just because I want to share a smile about a litter box
monitor doesn't mean I want to buy one.
I use a trick to avoid that.
In Firefox default profile, I prohibit Amazon cookies.
Then I have two separate profiles:
firefox -P Amazon &
firefox -P AmazonSearch --no-remote &
The first one has my login, and they know my email. I never search
there, nor open any product or link.
On the second one, I do my searches, and I never login. I search
anonymously. They can not email me. If I share a link, or open a link,
they can not email me about it.
When I locate what to buy, I copy the bare link (extras removed from the
URL) to the first window.
I use the same trick with some other sites, too.
The funny thing is Amazon sending me emails "you might be interested in" things that I already bought, so I don't have further interests.
On Mon, 5 May 2025 13:24:24 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I have the same problem, I can't fit more paper in the shelves. But I
have a Kobo, not a Kindle. Recently I saw a kindle "inherited" by an
old friend from her daughter in law, and I did not like it, many things
I could not do, not confortable with it.
Kobo took the decision early on that the US market was too competitive
and concentrated on the rest of the world. I've seen estimates that Kobo
has around 3% of the US market. I think they were tied in with Borders
but Borders went under long ago so that didn't help.
For the US Kindle is the giant, Nook a very distant second, and Apple
books almost as weak as Kobo.
I've had several generations of Kindles, with the first having
standalone 3G capability. That really worked out well for me in an
unintended way. I'd been on dialup but when reading on the Kindle I saw
it had connected to the Verizon network. That opened a new possibility
and I was at the Verizon store the next day to get one of their wi-fi hotspots. I'm still using wireless since the only other option is
satellite.
On Mon, 5 May 2025 13:27:57 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-05-05 08:56, rbowman wrote:
...
I have very mixed feelings about Amazon. It impacts local businesses.
On the other hand this is a small market and the local businesses
don't have that great a selection. They may be able to special order
something and I'll get it eventually, or I can go to Amazon and it
will be on the deck in a couple of days.
Yeah, me too. I use it for things I can not find locally. I prefer
buying on a real shop, but sometimes it is very difficult to find what
I want.
I have had shops tell me outright that they could order an item but I
knew where to buy it online too. The most bizarre one was the Barnes &
Noble brick and mortar bookstore. They would order a book for me and
when it arrived it would be full list price. I could order the same book
from B&N online, get 10% off, and free shipping directly to me. Great business plan.
Back when Amazon was first starting as a online bookseller I preferred
B&N. Amazon tended to take your order and then a week or two later
cancel it when they couldn't get the item. Foreign CDs were particularly
bad.
Amazon survived and became what they are. B&N never went beyond books
and their Nook reader didn't take off. I had one but when the battery
died it wasn't worth replacing it. They almost went under but seem to be having a comeback. I seldom buy physical books anymore so my trips to
the local B&N are usually to buy a calendar when they're 50% off in
January.
There used to be a Waldenbooks and B Dalton in the mall but they both
went under.
On Sun, 4 May 2025 14:05:07 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Amazon Prime Video App. I watched yesterday, for example, episode 4 of
something. I open the same serial, and the thing offers "watch episode
2 again". It almost never offers to watch the correct episode. I have
to browse down and manually find the correct episode.
I have a FireTV that sometimes does the same. I've been watching the
second season of 'Almost Paradise'. I'd watched episode 4 Thursday night
and Friday it had skipped to 9. I didn't look at the title and didn't
realize the skip since the episodes are mostly standalone.
It had also went back to 1/1 instead of continuing to 2/1. I wonder
where the information is stored?
On Mon, 5 May 2025 23:18:01 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I bought my first reader from them during a visit to Ottawa, at the
Chapters shop there. A relative recommended me to get that one (Kobo
Touch) instead of a Kindle. Kobo at the time was independent, now it
belongs to Rakuten.
Well, they are a Canadian company. I wonder if it would have made a difference had they been more aggressive in the US market. I think they
were cheaper than Kindles at first but then Amazon undercut them. I think
the actual readers use the old Kodak plan. Sell them a camera cheap and
get a lifetime of film sales.
I had to replace the battery on it once, purchased from a Chinese
vendor. Recently I saw they had colour, and bought a Kobo Libra colour.
It is not as a tablet, but suffices. They promised that maintenance will
be available.
How do you like it? The reviews I've seen of color e-ink have been
lukewarm with the colors being a little off and a bit slow.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CZXX465Z
What I find interesting is not Amazon selling Kobos, money is money after all, but the leading image is in French. As you scroll down there are
photos in English. France is a big market for them so get off on the right foot. The same link in Tor routed through Germany also has the French
screen shot.
amazon.com/Kindle-Keyboard-Free-Wi-Fi-Display/dp/B004HZYA6E
That's the Kindle from 2011 I have that was 3G. The 3G option didn't last long so they are all wi-fi now. The Kindle itself still works but 3G is
gone. I thought that option must have been a pain for Amazon since every reader would have a telephone number.
On Mon, 5 May 2025 23:28:16 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
There was a crash one day of the card system. People were stuck on the
motorways, couldn't pay.
Quite a few toll roads have adopted rfid devices so you don't even have to stop to pay even for commercial trucks. Great system until the lights go
out. i don't know what they do. Maybe for short term events they just eat
the tolls rather than creating a huge snarl. The toll roads are mostly
back east and high volume so it would be a real mess.
On Mon, 5 May 2025 23:28:16 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
There was a crash one day of the card system. People were stuck on the
motorways, couldn't pay.
Quite a few toll roads have adopted rfid devices so you don't even have to >stop to pay even for commercial trucks. Great system until the lights go >out. i don't know what they do. Maybe for short term events they just eat >the tolls rather than creating a huge snarl.
The toll roads are mostly back east and high volume so it would be a real mess.
Hopefully they won't step on a local indie bookstore's territory.
https://factandfictionbooks.com/
It's a little too hip for my taste but I do like that they have
managed to survive through the years.
On 2025-05-03 02:07, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 2 May 2025 23:12:17 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-05-02 03:09, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 2 May 2025 02:37:08 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-05-01 23:48, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 1 May 2025 23:01:02 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I'm certain that bank applications would refuse to run on such a >>>>>>> system, same as they refuse to run if the phone is rooted.
Not sure what the point of such refusal is. Given the standard Linux >>>>>> sandboxing facilities, how would they even tell?
Their point is that they can be sure of their view of security.
Whatever it is they’re checking, they’re just fooling themselves.
That's irrelevant.
Reality does tend to be irrelevant to ideology, doesn’t it?
But then, the feeling is mutual.
You get it wrong. Your interpretation of security and how things
should be done is irrelevant. The interpretation by bankers is what
matters. We either follow their rules, or there are no banking apps in phones.
On 2025-05-03, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-05-03 02:07, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 2 May 2025 23:12:17 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-05-02 03:09, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 2 May 2025 02:37:08 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:That's irrelevant.
On 2025-05-01 23:48, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 1 May 2025 23:01:02 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I'm certain that bank applications would refuse to run on such a >>>>>>>> system, same as they refuse to run if the phone is rooted.
Not sure what the point of such refusal is. Given the standard Linux >>>>>>> sandboxing facilities, how would they even tell?
Their point is that they can be sure of their view of security.
Whatever it is they’re checking, they’re just fooling themselves. >>>>
Reality does tend to be irrelevant to ideology, doesn’t it?
But then, the feeling is mutual.
You get it wrong. Your interpretation of security and how things
should be done is irrelevant. The interpretation by bankers is what
matters. We either follow their rules, or there are no banking apps in
phones.
It ought to be illegal and stopped by courts, lest they someday find a
way to do that even on desktop computers "Oh, we see you removed the
bundled OS from Redmond and changed 'secure boot' settings. So you can't access the 'homebanking' on the web!".
On Tue, 6 May 2025 08:28:02 -0700, John Ames wrote:
This is my local haunt. Wonderful place - nice folks, pleasingly
esoteric selection, and just the right lost-in-the-stacks ambience
https://thebookeryplacerville.com/
Fact and Fiction is nowhere near that large. However
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/experiences/montana/montana-valley- bookstore-100000-books-mt
If you're claustrophobic you might start to question the integrity of the shelves. If you're really brave you can go down to the cellar, turning
lights on as you go. Please trun them off as you leave if nobody else is there.
The owner lives in the back so most times you ring the old fashioned bell
on a Dutch door and she appears to take your money. If you're thirsty
after your search there's a bar down the street but it's not exactly a hip fern bar.
On Tue, 6 May 2025 11:57:57 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Sure. But ebooks are cheaper than paper, specially if you have to ship
them across the pond. Once I bought a paper book 2nd hand from a shop in
NY. Book, 1$. Shipping, 8$. That convinced me to buy an ebook reader.
And ebooks never get out of print.
I've wondered how e-books have affected book sales. A couple have went out
of business but there still is a shop in town than handles used
paperbacks. They sell for half the cover price and you get a quarter of
the price for the books you bring in. You can't do that with digital.
There had been a shop that did the same with CDs but they went under a
long time ago when music went digital.
The first one I bought was expensive. One or two years later, they went
down to 1/3 or so.
Amazon has a cheaper tier with ads on the screen saver. The ads don't pop
up when you're reading so I go for those. Part was a strategy to undercut Kobo and Nook.
I can not imagine myself putting a SIM on one. Each SIM costs money
here. I have a tablet that accepts SIMs, I never put one. I found that
out when I saw my cleaning lady answering a phone call with a big tablet
she fished out of her bag. She then explained that her iphone had been
stolen at her work place (she cleaned at an hotel). :-D
That was the thing with that generation of Kindles. If you bought the 3G model, which wasn't that much more expensive, it came with the SIM build
in. I don't even see a slot to access it. You didn't need a contract with
a carrier like you would with a tablet. I don't know how they handled different regions. At the time Verizon was about the only game in town so Amazon must have had an arrangement with them but in other areas it would
be another carrier. I can see why they dropped the option and went to wi-
fi only. It would be a mess now as carriers have expanded. My wireless wi-
fi hotspot is Verizon but my phone is T-Mobile, or Mint actually, although T-Mobile bought Mint. I don't know why Verizon doesn't have a prepaid option.
The TomTom navigator did that, too. There was a SIM card inside and they
had a slow and limited internet connection, but which they claimed
worked in all of Europe, at a time when this was expensive, before the council mandated cheap roaming inside the EU. They would not use it for
map updates, though, that had to be done via a computer.
I think I had to pay a yearly subscription, but far cheaper than a phone would be. When that gadget broke down, the next one used a BT connection
to my phone, which failed a lot. But it also has WiFi, and I managed to
buy a cheap dongle that provides WiFi in the car.
On Mon, 5 May 2025 22:50:45 -0000 (UTC), Peter Flass -- Iron Spring
Software wrote:
I've still got my original Kindle, a first- or second-gen model with an
actual keyboard. Amazing it still works, but I like it because it's so
small and light, and has terrific battery life.
https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Keyboard-Free-Wi-Fi-Display/dp/B004HZYA6E
That's the oldest one I have. It still works although 3G is gone. I
bought a case for it that flips around to turn it into an easel. I've
got some programming books on it and it's handy to put next to the
computer. I have to retrain so I don't try to swipe to turn the page.
On 6 May 2025 04:37:09 GMT rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
Hopefully they won't step on a local indie bookstore's territory.
https://factandfictionbooks.com/
It's a little too hip for my taste but I do like that they have managed
to survive through the years.
This is my local haunt. Wonderful place - nice folks, pleasingly
esoteric selection, and just the right lost-in-the-stacks ambience :)
https://thebookeryplacerville.com/
On 2025-05-07, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
[having an embedded SIM]
The TomTom navigator did that, too. There was a SIM card inside and they
had a slow and limited internet connection, but which they claimed
worked in all of Europe, at a time when this was expensive, before the
council mandated cheap roaming inside the EU. They would not use it for
map updates, though, that had to be done via a computer.
I think I had to pay a yearly subscription, but far cheaper than a phone
would be. When that gadget broke down, the next one used a BT connection
to my phone, which failed a lot. But it also has WiFi, and I managed to
buy a cheap dongle that provides WiFi in the car.
The positioning is using a GNSS (GPS/Galileo/Glonass) which is a
receive-only radio. Cellular data may provide traffic information - I do
not know how much data bandwidth that requires. In many cars, there is a built-in cellular data that may be used for mechanical health checks,
crash detection and related emergency communications, but if your NAV subsystem is an aftermarket TomTom, it probably cannot interface with
the car's native systems.
On Wed, 7 May 2025 22:25:01 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
It saddens me a lot seeing that paper book shops are unable to also sell
ebooks. I go to the shops to find new interesting books, but I can not
buy them there! They do the job of convincing me to buy a certain book,
then they can not benefit! I have to go to the online shop instead.
I don't really know why "used" ebooks can not be resold. Maybe the
conditions, the regulations, prohibit that, but technically, it is
perfectly feasible. It is a file, after all.
Amazon uses a DRM scheme but that can be broken. I think there's a way you can 'lend' and e-book to someone else. The library's e-books are delivered via Amazon but I think you have other choices. I don't know how the bookkeeping works but they treat an e-book like a physical book where
there's only one copy. You check it out and nobody else can get it until
you return it or the loan expires.
I can shop for new books inside the Kobo reader. When I finish an ebook
it is possible I get an offer to buy a new one, and I can get previews.
Commercials, no, I don't have them.
kindle does that in spades. You can also review the book. I read a lot of series and it always points you to the next one when you finish. I haven't tried it yet but they recently have come up with summaries. The trend for lesser known authors is series. Mackey Chandler's 'April' series is 14
books. Sometimes an author will still be working on books in the projected series and a recap or 'previously on' would be handy.
Some of the ads on Amazon, Netflix, and FreeVee can get a little old.
Several times they've run the same ad back to back in the same break. They also use the operant conditioning style reward schedule. Sometimes a show will be uninterrupted. The next episode might have ads every few minutes. Gotta keep the rats guessing. With rats it is a reward though. Partial reinforcement tends to work better than a reward every time. They can't figure out the schedule and will keep pressing the lever figuring they'll
get a treat sooner or later.
On Thu, 8 May 2025 14:17:27 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I wondered, though, if an ebook can be resold or transferred to another
user, legally, ie, keeping the DRM. Something similar to what a library
does.
https://booksrun.com/blog/news-on-reselling-ebooks/
The article is very old. afaik Amazon hasn't implemented any resale plan.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201014950
Stephan Kinsella has written about the problem and copyright in general.
When you buy a physical book, you own the book. You can sell the physical book, but you can't copy it and sell copies. With electronic media you
have a license to the content but there isn't a physical entity. You don't own the epub, modi, awz, file.
https://phys.org/news/2009-10-amazon-deleted-orwell.html
Rather ironic that they snatched '1984' back. With Kindle Unlimited I can 'borrow' a large number of titles. When I have 'read' them I 'return' the book and it's removed from the device. That makes sense and I haven't paid for the content.
i asked an author how that worked from his end. He hadn't thought about it and said he would research it but never got back to me. Many of the books
I read fall into the Kindle Unlimited plan or I can buy them, usually for
a nominal amount, $5 or so. I wanted to know if he received the same
payment either way since Id rather support an author I enjoy. I don't
think any of the authors I read are turning into millionaires for their efforts.
Neal Stephenson tried the series deal and got quite a bit of negative reviews. It's in the unlimited plan now but when 'Polestan' came out last year I bought it for $14.99. It wasn't clear that it was a series and the story line was not resolved at all. People who had read his previous
books, which tend to be long and convoluted, thought it was a transparent ploy to make more money. I don't think the second book is out yet but I didn't like the first half enough to read it, even for free.
On Thu, 8 May 2025 14:17:27 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I wondered, though, if an ebook can be resold or transferred to another
user, legally, ie, keeping the DRM. Something similar to what a library
does.
https://booksrun.com/blog/news-on-reselling-ebooks/
The article is very old. afaik Amazon hasn't implemented any resale plan.
i asked an author how that worked from his end.
On Thu, 8 May 2025 21:15:01 -0000 (UTC), John Levine wrote:
Some of my books are in those unlimited digital libraries. If I've
gotten any royalties, I'd need a microscope to see them.
Certainly not 'Internet for Dummies' :)
According to rbowman <bowman@montana.com>:
On Thu, 8 May 2025 21:15:01 -0000 (UTC), John Levine wrote:
Some of my books are in those unlimited digital libraries. If I've
gotten any royalties, I'd need a microscope to see them.
Certainly not 'Internet for Dummies' :)
I got plenty of royalties from sales of the book itself and the many things they
made out of it like combo books and desk calendars, but not from the online libraries where the user pays one fee which is then split out to all the books
they might look at during the year.
I also get some random stautory royalties. Earlier this year my Dutch photocopying
royalty was 0,36 €. Time to look at yacht catalogs.
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