peterb

peterb, 3 days ago to random

I remember getting into a huge argument with some beardo at CMU CS because they were upset that people were sending mail with MIME attachments such as images "because they don't work in MH" even though it was in fact trivial to get MH to view graphical attachments and really what they meant was "i configured my email client in 1981 and i would rather inconvenience the entire world and reduce your functionality than learn a new trick".

Nonzero chance that @goob actually remembers this argument as a bystander.

peterb, 7 days ago to random

Pittsburgh

peterb, 7 days ago to random

Pittsburgh

peterb, 10 days ago to random

Advice

peterb, 13 days ago to random

I think the creator of this meant it to be a joke but, unironically, yes, English needs this and it should be deployed everywhere immediately.

peterb, 13 days ago to random

My father-in-law is a film director. He is insanely gifted. We were watching It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World together years ago and I asked him what it would cost to film it today. I will never forget his answer…"We can't, we don't know how to do it."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0HtDsEuJgI

peterb, 13 days ago to random

Which version of Wizardry 1 should you play? It will shock you to learn that...I have opinions.

https://youtu.be/is1hAqNRwR8

peterb, 16 days ago to random

Just had the idea for a new technology called "Redundant Array of Inexpensive 6502s" and I am drunk with power.

peterb, 29 days ago to random

Tampopo (Juzo Itami, 1985)

peterb, 29 days ago to random

My favorite fact about the Z-80 CPU is that although it is an 8-bit CPU, it's Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) is actually a single 4-bit ALU pretending to be 2 4-bit ALUs in a trench coat.

http://www.righto.com/2013/09/the-z-80-has-4-bit-alu-heres-how-it.html

peterb, 1 month ago to random

Today I learned that the word 'skunk' derives from an Algonquian word that means, more or less, "pissing fox" and I have never loved a language so much.

(southern New England Algonquian language seganku, from Proto-Algonquian *šeka:kwa, from *šek- 'to urinate' + *-a:kw 'fox'. The š glyph in Americanist Phonetic Alphabet is roughly equivalent to ʃ in IPA.)

peterb, 1 month ago to random

My way of dealing with being in a bad mood is, instead of going to therapy, to make a video about an AppleSoft BASIC computer game that almost nobody has played.
@dosgameclub @dosnostalgic @Cdespinosa

video/mp4

peterb, 1 month ago to random

is there a word for the sort of effete NYC intellectual who draws their paycheck entirely from pretending to make fun of effete NYC intellectuals

Not that I'm thinking of anyone specific, like say Claire Berlinski.

peterb, 1 month ago to random

The main reason college tuitions are out of control is the Bush-era decision to make student loan debt not dischargeable by bankruptcy. If banks (and colleges) could only lend to people who could afford to pay back the loans (or more accurately: if they had to bear the risk of making predatory loans to people who they know CAN'T pay back the loans), you'd see costs magically drop overnight as they reoriented their businesses to be sustainable.

peterb, 1 month ago to random

Japan has the chance to do the funniest thing.

peterb, 1 month ago to random

Why is there no animated feature film version of Emerson Lake and Palmer's "Tarkus"?

image/jpeg

futurebird, 1 month ago to random

Gold ring with quartz intaglio depicting an ant. Roman, 1st-2nd century AD

I wonder who wore this ring. Why did they choose an ant as their symbol? It's interesting to me that the depiction is specific enough that it can't be written off as a general "bug" the mandibles, and body plan make this explicitly an ant.

The ant motif appears on garnets in other rings.

This is up in New Haven at the Yale University Art Collection and I am not contemplating becoming a cat burglar.

peterb, 1 month ago to random

When I was 14 years old, the premise of how this dude in this comic book lost his job was jetpacks-and-flying-cars fantasy that would never happen, and now we're basically here.

peterb, 1 month ago to random

To this day i think a lot about the recipe that used to be on the ritz cracker boxes for "mock apple pie" where instead of apples, you just stuffed a bunch of ritz crackers into the pie.

peterb, 2 months ago to random

Every time I want to make myself mad I just think "It's called OCTober because it's the 8th month."

peterb, 2 months ago to random

🔥 When your language has an entire grammatical gender just for talking shit about people.

peterb, 2 months ago to random

Most people haven't heard of Luigi Boccherini, but his String Quintet in E major, Op. 11, No. 5 (G 275) is the absolute standard for "These rich people are having a fancy party" diagetic music.

peterb, 2 months ago to random

Good career advice from Joseph Heller.