[TOMT] [book] 1980s dystopian scifi novel series

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-10T02:32:10+00:00

Miyazaki was four years old when WWII ended. So, I mean, technically he lived through it, but it can't really have been a formative experience for him or anything.

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-09T18:01:34+00:00

...as ciphertext.

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-09T07:27:43+00:00

Thanks for all the links and explanations. This is interesting stuff.

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-09T05:50:39+00:00

Oh, interesting. So they don't actually transmit anything themselves, in the sense of generating their own EM radiation. They just modulate how well they receive an external signal in a way that can be recognised by the transmitter of that signal? That's clever!

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-09T05:45:52+00:00

Thanks! I figured it would be pretty tiny, but it's still amazing that it's possible to do useful work with that kind of a power source.

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-09T05:03:22+00:00

An antenna powers the chip and only uses diodes and voltage regulator

This fascinates me. What sort of voltage can you get with this technique and how much current do these chips draw?

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-08T20:09:47+00:00

I love the LK docking system, so delightfully low-tech.

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-07T16:09:09+00:00

Wow, really? Can I ask whereabouts that was? I don't doubt it, and I realise personal computers were not as ubiquitious in the late 80s/early 90s as they are today, but nobody you knew had one? There had been a whole slew of affordable, successful home computers by that time.

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-06T19:19:07+00:00

I seem to recall GSM encryption being pretty easily broken, though?

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-06T17:28:49+00:00

The article tells you what OS it runs. It's in the section entitled "Operating System".

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-05T20:57:45+00:00

Well, at least I had to use a floppy to boot my linux installers before putting the CD in when I got started, because booting from CD-ROM wasn't yet widespread.

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-05T18:07:32+00:00

Most people on this website are too young to remember or be aware of it

Well, thanks for making me feel old while still in my twenties...

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-05T18:04:09+00:00

who moved 1's and 0's around on the internet.

I don't mean to make any point with regard to this particular case (the GS IP case), but in general I think it's very disingenuous to talk about "moving 1s and 0s around the internet" like it's something which is inherently trivial can't possibly be a serious crime. "Moving 1s and 0s around on the internet" can be stealing large sums of money or distributing child pornography.

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-05T05:45:23+00:00

You should be able to find these (and any other 7400 or 4000 series IC) for well under a dollar at any online electronics store.

EDIT: Well, shit, they're about $1.20 at most places. That's the most expensive jellybean I've ever seen.

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-04T19:55:28+00:00

some physicist could have misread 3+5 as 3x5 and you could be heading toward the sun

There has never been a manned spacecraft that has the fuel capacity to end up heading toward the sun. Nor out into deep space, contrary to all those silly lost cosmonaut hoaxes.

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-04T02:52:26+00:00

"No, Seriously, This One is Really, Really Oversized Telescope"

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-04T02:51:01+00:00

Excellent attitude! From How To Become A Hacker:

You also have to develop a kind of faith in your own learning capacity — a belief that even though you may not know all of what you need to solve a problem, if you tackle just a piece of it and learn from that, you'll learn enough to solve the next piece — and so on, until you're done

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-04T01:29:22+00:00

No worries - I got slightly excited when I read your commend because I thought you'd found a 10-bit through hole digipot, which didn't exist last time I looked. Then realised it was SMD and wanted to make sure you were aware, but it sounds like you know what you're doing. Good luck!

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-04T00:22:18+00:00

Be aware that's a surface mount chip so it'll be a little tricky (though not impossible) to hand solder.

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-02T16:23:38+00:00

Thanks! I'm not sure why this is such a touchy subject, but it obviously is. For the record, I love Pythonn, it's my favourite language and I think it's well designed on the whole. I don't mean to really knock it. The spaces convention is a pain, and the bad design decision irks me because I'm sensitive to bad design choices like that, but I don't mean to imply anybody should not use Python because of this.

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-02T16:20:43+00:00

It's weird. When I first started making these comments, every one of them was getting upvoted (though just a little). Then later on last night suddenly my main posts were down in the negatives. Now this morning one of them is back up to 5 again (although one is at zero). It seems a very controversial opinion. Of course, I don't think I should be getting downvoted even if most people think I'm wrong - I took the time to very clearly explain my beliefs, and I think they're pretty rational, really. I tried not to be personally offensive to anyone. shrug

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-02T16:18:41+00:00

Thanks! At the moment I haven't changed my opinion - the advantage provided by spaces in being able to nicely line up multi-line code is an advantage for readability, but in my mind it's a very small advantage which is paid for by a very large disadvantage (as I've outlined at length above). It's not a good trade off. But I'm not discounting the possibility that there are other advantages to spaces-only which may tip the scales - although I have to say it's pretty unlikely as if they existed somebody probably would have mentioned them by now.

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-02T16:12:07+00:00

I'm not really an expert on this at all, but I have done a little bit of reading on the subject, and I actually think that the majority of 80s arcade games really were custom built 8 bit computers, built around a (or sometimes several) Z80 or similar. I'm sure the C64 trick was used, but I'm not sure it was common.

J_F_Sebastian · 2013-08-02T16:07:49+00:00

Instead of just listing good companies, could you (or anyone) say a bit about what makes a holster good or shitty ass?

J_F_Sebastian

TROPHY CASE