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peterb

@peterb@mathstodon.xyz

effort + coffee = software

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peterb, to random
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New Video for the New Year: someone told me about "Ludus Mortis", an early-access game that can fairly be described as "Wizardry, but in ancient Rome, and with zombies" and let me tell you, dear reader, I RAN to purchase it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcXKp79Nm-U

peterb, to random
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Part 1 of my "Let's Play" of the classic 1987 Mac puzzle game The Fool's Errand. https://youtu.be/C-5GqpbWanI

peterb, to random
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My most controversial wine opinion is not only "corks are stupid" but in fact the more expensive the wine the stupider sealing it up with a cork is. Imagine paying $150 for a 40 year old port and it's ruined because the baby boomers are too thickheaded to understand that a good metal seal would have protected the wine better. (Not hard to imagine, actually, because nobody seals Port wines with anything other than a useless, failure-prone cork, so if you buy a bottle you've got a good chance of a ruined wine.)

EDIT: apparently I wrote about this in 2007 (crumbles into dust, like every goddamn cork)

http://tleaves.com/2007/05/08/put-a-cork-in-it/index.html

peterb, to random
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Some people have asked me how they can support the Tea Leaves Programming channel, and I've been loath to use Patreon because I don't want to turn my hobby into a job, and because I don't want to make promises I can't keep.

However, I often work on videos for a while before publishing them. So, as an experiment, I'm announcing an "Early Access" membership on YouTube that gives you early access to videos not yet published. On average, you should expect to see things about a week early (and feedback is welcome.) If this works out, you get to support the channel in return for a concrete benefit, and I get to use your feedback to improve the videos. Click "Join" at the below link if you're interested.

https://www.youtube.com/@TeaLeavesProgramming

peterb,
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I wrote these paragraphs 16 years ago and I stand by them today.

"I agree with you that wine can (and does) go bad in many ways that don’t involve corking. At the same time, corking is a particularly galling type of failure because it is so damn preventable. Let’s re-cast the problem in a different light: suppose a small component in your fermentation tanks randomly caused 5% of your batches to go bad. Would you let that continue indefinitely? Not in a million years: you’d seek out an implement a better solution to the problem within weeks.

The only reason cork spoilage is a continuing problem is because the cost is bourne exclusively by the consumer, which is to say, me. I’m sure you’re a caring vintner who would absolutely replace any bottle of corked wine brought to your attention by a customer. I’m also equally sure that for every 100 (hypothetical) bottles of corked wine you (or any other producer) sells, only 1 consumer bothers to contact you, because it’s simply too much trouble."

peterb, to random
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The only correct answer to the question "How do I cook rice if I don't have a rice cooker?" is "Step 1: Buy a rice cooker."

peterb, to random
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Choose Your Fighter.

peterb, to random
@peterb@mathstodon.xyz avatar

New Video: QED, the Propositional Logic Game https://youtu.be/yJ_ZIWhHffQ

Hat tip / blame to @aris_uu on Twitter for letting me know this exists and thus inadvertently forcing me to make the video, and a hat tip to @nomeata for getting me interested in the problem space in the first place. Apologies to @tao for the many, many things I probably got wrong when describing the project.

peterb, to random
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Color is a lie. These are the only real colors that exist. All other colors, except squant (not pictured) are imaginary.

peterb, to random
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To the matter that you mention
I have given some attention
and I think
I am sufficiently decayed

peterb, to random
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Saturday night means a version of The Magic Flute with Link as Tamino and Mario as Papageno. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v111Y8nBJY

peterb, to random
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What's the German word describing the deep feeling of betrayal one feels when opening a navel orange and finding that it has seeds?

peterb, to random
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Will once again casually mention the story here about Lorenzo da Ponte, the librettist of most of the mozart operas we actually like, Jewish orphan turned Catholic priest fired for sexing and gambling and being friends with Casanova, lucked into work in Austria, wrote three of the most famous operas in the canon WITH FREAKING MOZART, left Austria, narrowly dodged going to France to serve Marie Antoinette right before the Revolution, fled England and bankruptcy for New York, became a (failed) grocer in Pennsylvania, returned to New York City, helped found the American obsession with Italian opera, became Columbia’s first Jewish AND ALSO first Catholic professor, and I DID NOT MAKE ANY OF THAT UP.

The man had a life that spanned multiple continents, empires and eras.

Lots of books about the guy, but I'll recommend "The Librettist of Venice: The Remarkable Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte" by Rodney Bolt if you want to know more.

peterb, to random
@peterb@mathstodon.xyz avatar

My hottest airplane take is that trijets are beautiful and while I know there are good design reasons why planes like the Boeing 727 and the Lockheed L-1011 aren't made any more, I still love them and wish more of them were flying.

peterb,
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Just look at this 3-engined boi.

peterb, to random
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Had the epiphany today that Philip Glass's Satyagraha uses a motif from Mahler's Symphony No. 1 fairly extensively.

peterb,
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@mcc I don't think it's sampled. This is the motif in question: https://gustavmahler.com/site/audio/symphony1/1st-movement/1-NatureTheme-Bars18-21.mp3

peterb,
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@mcc Once again my earthling humor training has failed me! Curse you, Zargulon-73.

peterb, to random
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My good friend @psu_13 and I got into a fistfight over pointers and he wrote an article about it. Dude has a MEAN left hook.

https://mutable-states.com/what-is-in-a-pointer.html

peterb, to random
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New video: spoilers for a 40-year old game: The Murphy's Ghost trick in Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord. https://youtu.be/Mc-AOYbPfs0

peterb, to random
@peterb@mathstodon.xyz avatar

I'm not an observant Jew, but it is VERY funny that nearly every year the exact moment I learn that it's Yom Kippur is right in the middle of taking a huge bite of a delicious sandwich.

peterb, to random
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To borrow a phrase from Martin Amis, it is a symmetrical convenience -- for Trump -- that a true description of the Republican party exactly resembles a demented slander of the Republican party.

peterb, to startup
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This one goes out to everyone who has ever worked at tech startup.

When I was first talking about joining [startup] I had a sit-down with one of the founders and agreed in principle to work there as one of their early employees. As we were finishing up lunch I said “Oh one more thing, just for the record: I’m really looking forward to working here, but I want to give you a heads-up, right now, that the VERY first time you don’t make payroll, I will walk out the door and you will never see me again.”

The founder paused for a minute and said “Well, let me get back to you after I have payroll set up.” He called me 4 weeks later, assured me they would never miss it, and I was employee number 6 instead of employee number 3.

If your employer can't make payroll, don't walk. Run. You aren't in an employment situation anymore, you're in an abusive relationship. Anyone who screws up their cash flow so badly that they can't make payroll is not going to be able to succeed in business, ever. You lose absolutely nothing by leaving.

Context: https://www.goingconcern.com/croft-and-frost-payroll-layoffs-wtf/

#startup #financial #employment #finance

eschaton, to random
@eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

Isn’t it interesting that the same people who will insist until they’re red in the face that any form of central planning or shared resource management cannot possibly work for a society have absolutely nothing negative to say about how the largest and most powerful non-government organizations are extremely effective while being fully centrally planned?

It’s almost as if their justification for the former has nothing to do with the effectiveness of central planning.

peterb,
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@eschaton Every so often I think "I wonder what it would be like to work for SAP?" but then I eat something sweet until the feeling goes away.

peterb,
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@eschaton The incentives just aren't right. Anyone who would be good at doing this wants to monetize it; so the fully open source solutions are worse than terrible.

Odoo is almost good (but not quite). And its half-monetized status is hilarious (in short: "Here, all of the mostly useless stuff is free, but if you want the accounting module (aka the one thing everyone actually wants) you have to pay us."

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