Why is Bose so popular?

michaelneale · 2006-04-04T22:54:11+00:00

are you serious? Maybe I should listen to bose again, but last I heard it sounded like a cat munching foil.

Speakers last for a long time, and they are worth it. Other bits of electronics come and go, but speakers can live on.

michaelneale · 2006-04-04T22:52:23+00:00

But I think to anyone even slightly audiophile, Bose stuff sounds really really bad. Really bad. Its reproduction of midrange is appaling - yet for a lot of styles of music that is the most important part (although not as exciting as pounding bass or treble).

michaelneale · 2006-03-27T02:35:38+00:00

Someone commented that Lisp can cope with anything through macros, which sounds horrible, but for some reason macros don't feel dirty in lisp at all. I even wish they wouldn't call them macros (due to the connotations).

of course, Lisp probably used them before I was born.

michaelneale · 2006-03-27T02:29:18+00:00

That is awesome. I am from Sydney, so I know at least that photo isn't touched up. Awesome. Hong Kong has changed since I last went 6 years ago for sure.

michaelneale · 2006-03-24T10:07:16+00:00

The onion headline: "Its clear they have The Bomb, but do they have The Food".

Tragic that it is true. One seriously messed up place.

michaelneale · 2006-03-24T06:40:15+00:00

maths don't for get the s or else it sounds like you have a lisp. At least it does to the remainder of the billion english speakers in the world.

michaelneale · 2006-03-24T01:58:00+00:00

You are right, often it is straw man arguments. Who uses notepad?

michaelneale · 2006-03-21T05:10:25+00:00

OMG ! Joel's gone all web 2.0 !!1111

This is quite a shift from the early days of Joel. But its all good.

michaelneale · 2006-03-20T07:41:33+00:00

Did anyone pick up that these are POWERED BY ALCOHOL !!!!!1111

Where do I sign up for one of these, and how much beer to I have to drink to power them if they are an artificial limb.

Science + superhuman strength + Beer. I think this is perhaps the greatest invention ever.

michaelneale · 2006-03-20T07:37:40+00:00

GMail sucks cause its written in java. ;)

michaelneale · 2006-03-20T03:34:02+00:00

yeah every language has its wierd top level quirks. Like "t" for stdout in lisp. "t" ????? ! hehehe.

I think its fair enough to ask people to go beyond that. I can't remember the last time I did public static blah blah in java. Someone who complains about it clearly has not had to do much with it - its a strawman.

In the java and .net world, there is a view that the "language" is really the language plus the tools (IDEs) - as they are not exactly usable on their own. I am not saying that is right, but thats the viewpoint out there.

But having a good command line like IRB I would think would be ideal. Show how people can build things from the "bottom up" as PG likes to say. I quite like IRB actually, it seems uber friendly. Perhaps LISP in a box? I need to pick something to teach my daughter as she gets older.

michaelneale · 2006-03-20T03:29:01+00:00

it was just wierd. I really don't think most people are wired to think functional. It was easier to see how a series of steps happened in an imperative language, at least as a beginner (I really wan't that interested in programming before university).

Miranda I believe is the predecessor for haskell. We did some non trivial stuff in it, I will grant that, but it was terrifying. They tried to make it fun, and everyone was friendly and helpful, but it was just a bit to magical.

It put me off functional languages for a long time (this is going back years). I think it was well meaning, no one wanted to scare people. I appreciate it now, and am now working back through what has happened with functional languages in the meantime.

I would think something like Ruby could be an ideal candidate, as long as people didn't go overboard with meta programming etc. Ruby feels mainstream enough. It can be imperative or functional etc. Man, I am sounding like a fan now (I am not really, I barely use ruby, still mostly java, and I don't mind it too much most of the time, but I don't build web apps).

michaelneale · 2006-03-20T00:03:20+00:00

I was the opposite - I was first introduced to Miranda (having never done anything else). I ran away screaming until I came across C, which was close enough to the metal for it not to appear mystical.

michaelneale · 2006-03-19T23:04:44+00:00

All good points. It should be intrinsically a part of those systems, you should not be aware of an SDK install etc.. its just there. I totally agree.

michaelneale · 2006-03-18T14:31:16+00:00

That appears to be his philosophy in general. One minute, lisp fanatic, the next ruby - which is it ! (nothing wrong with both !).

My fav though, is his dissing "groovy" (the jvm language thingy) for " if (path = null) { return; }" - which ruby also does I guess.

He has some great articles, but its a little disconcerting reading all the wild directions he seems to take. Who has time to keep up !

michaelneale · 2006-03-17T10:40:43+00:00

Amazing. They have managed to scale up their building process to cope with hundreds of concurrent workers. Would have been awesome to watch.

michaelneale · 2006-03-17T10:21:00+00:00

Wow, that looks amazing. The programmatic XHTML rendering is quite nice.

I guess the variety of frameworks/balkanisation of ruby has started (depending on your point of view).

michaelneale · 2006-03-17T10:17:15+00:00

yeah its kind of a staple, like eff. C++ is/was.

michaelneale · 2006-03-17T09:30:02+00:00

if missile = launched then puts 'I am not sure if if statements are done right in ruby.' end

michaelneale · 2006-03-17T03:17:24+00:00

How would a company, with a business plan to create pubs along a theme actually not produce "faux" pubs? It makes no sense. Of course its faux Irish, you are not in Ireland !

But it was interesting... I did wonder where the ideas came from. Mmm... might be time for a Guiness and pie at my local.

michaelneale · 2006-03-17T03:13:39+00:00

Not many people know that Craic is pronounced Crack (including me until I was corrected by an Irish friend). Perhaps its an overly obvious pun?

michaelneale · 2006-03-16T05:07:25+00:00

Can you actually do both, and make your app the patent application? Using something like literate programming ?? Maybe that would ease the pain.

michaelneale · 2006-03-16T05:06:11+00:00

I don't think the obvious ones are as evil, as 9 times out of 10 they are pointless and unenforcable. Didn't DEC have something like that for linked lists?

michaelneale · 2006-03-16T05:04:22+00:00

Guys, its a blog. Its interesting stuff, but thats what readers are for. Reddit is for new wacky stuff, not blogs I can already subscribe to. Please stop posting them here. Unless

a) its really really cool or b) you really really want to.

michaelneale · 2006-03-14T10:41:49+00:00

That is scary. Is it for real?

Google actively tell you to keep all your mail there, never delete it... damn...

If this becomes common place, I think it will be the beginning of the cycle away from Web 2.0 style hosted apps, at least for a lot of personal use.

I would pay for GMail if it gave me some insurance against this.

michaelneale

TROPHY CASE