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I was flipping channels in a hotel and I assume the Peter Jackson hobbit/Lord of the Rings were on. The scene I watched was some sort of interior castle scene and it looked really bad. I felt like it was very flat and cardboardy and filmed on VHS.

I don't think you really understand Middle East countries. 94% of Iranians are literate. They are a very sophisticated culture that dates back to pre-history.

They certainly may appear backwards from our western culture but that is only superficial.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Iran


It's possible to be both literate and backwards.

IF there literacy rate is 94% then it makes sense that Amazon wants them as customers.

> there literacy rate

Uh oh.


I never made any claims regarding my literacy.

The PC manufacturers had to pay MS for a license no matter what operating system was installed.

Indeed. Pepperidge Farm remembers Microsoft's campaign against "naked PCs"

Didn’t knew that, but only if they also sold windows pc? Like, if a company would only sold blank PCs without any offering associated to MS they wouldn’t need to pay MS anything.

That was the what the trial about. If you wanted to contract with MS you had to pay for a license on every box shipped. Dell, Compaq, Gateway, HP, IBM, Acer, and others had to sign the contract or ship only alternate OS’s If one sold a computer with OS/2 they also paid for a windows license.


In the northwest corner of Massachusetts I converted an old school into an apartment building. I installed 2" of polystyrene on the outside and about a foot of cellulose in the ceilings. We relay on heatpumps for HVAC. I also installed a 50kW solar array. We don't start paying for heating until Nov/Dec and stop paying in Apr/May. Our Electric usage goes through the roof in Jan/Feb/Mar. Our weak point is that the exterior walls are about 40% windows. I hope to install better thermal shades which will cost about $80k. We also last fall installed a solar thermal array to for hot water and heat the hallway which is radiant floor. I would like to think we could achieve net-zero but I will likely need to expand the solar array by about 200%.

Thermal curtains are more effective than good windows. Good windows are minimally helpful.


Thermal curtains are a godsend. I remember reading about your journey and I hope it works out! I think it'd be money well spent.

In my last house, I replaced single pane windows with properly installed, sealed, and insulated double-hungs and it practically cut my heat bill in half. I agree that modern window to modern window replacement probably won't get you much, though.


Thank you for the encouragement. I have all the units rented. I'm now trying to balance upgrades to reduce energy costs vs. maintaining a cash horde.

One of the good laughs I had watching 2001 was Haywood reading the instructions for the toilet. The joke being we have evolved to the point that our most basic human functions has become complex.

https://sites.google.com/site/theageofplastic3d/2001s-zero-g...


Cool article, nice sleuthing. Could be straight out of the “Typeset in the Future” book!

It is also in that book, page 36/37, with transcription and minor note on issues with ISS toilets in 2008.

Haywood reads anxiously! Memorable scene.

High stakes situation:)

True, but to each their own. There was trend line towards usability. I would say the Mac was a big step towards where they were going.

If you want hackability there were other choices. Usability was there focus. Having a floppy disk was a major advancement even though a cassette tape was technically usable.


Oh I agree the mac and lisa were infinitely more accessible than the II but they could've at least made some concessions earlier than they did (I don't think any of the macs had an expansion bus until the II)

The SE has a single NUBUS slot which is how we installed the Ascente ethernet cards. I would say the SE is probably the same generation of the II. I think the II the SE and the CI were probably all the same generation. I also think the II's code name was the Open Mac.

Apple clicked with me when our middle school computer lab conisted of an Apple II+ and a TRS-80. The TRS-80 seemed unusable as it required a cassette tape to save and retrieve files and the Apple II+ had floppy disks. I remember reading about the Lisa being a computer so simple that a 2 year old could use one. I thought that was the craziest thing I ever heard. I tried to imagine how that could be case. Years later my Mom (someone with a masters in english and made her living as a potter) happened upon a demo of the Mac 128k. She couldn't believe the experience and purchased one. Changed her career with desktop publishing.

My training was Industrial Design but I Have spent my whole career administrating Mac Networks. My first job involved networking a 30 person design firm. The computers were half Macs and half PCs. When System 7 was released the Macs we purchased Ascente ethernet card for them and they all worked. We needed to purchase ethernet cards for the PCs we had to move them off DOS, switch the from Word Perfect 5.1 (pissimg off the writers) and install Novell 3.11 to network the PCs and added a Mac NLM to the server to exchange files between the 2.

I love OS X but System 7 was better. I think the Mac lost it's simplicity when the Desktop was moved into the home directory. Everything became more complicated. I still think Apple caters to the founding spirit of simple computing tools for people. Computing has just become too complicated.


I think rope, twine, and weaving needs to be recognized as significant technical development. That has little record but would have been combined with wood for simple machines.

I'm sure an IC is not an integrated circuit or independent contractor. So what is it?


Individual Contributor, usually as opposed to any kind of management role.


It’s manager speak for “less than.”

The manager class sees worker units as fungible.


Must be from the divide and conquer school of management.


It is silicon valley speech for "programmer".


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