gramie

My kids' mother (who lived overseas) won a contest. She didn't win a Wii, she one the opportunity to buy a Wii. She sent it to them for Christmas, and twenty years later I don't think I have ever seen them so excited.

For about a year, we played Rockband (especially the Beatles version) for an hour every day. We had the Rockband 3 keyboard, and one of the kids decided that he'd like to learn the piano. Twenty years later and a B.Mus. and M.Mus. later, we just attended the premiere of his musical (not, not a big one, but still...) in Toronto.

His career literally wouldn't have happened without the Wii.

Neal's site is one of the quirkiest but most engaging websites I know.

I think the idea is that anything that happens will make gas prices go up.

That was true even into the Delphi days. Around 2007 I was able to compile about 400,000 lines of code in 2-3 seconds on my desktop.

> And I realized that when I asked Claude for a bunch of ideas and then I selected the best one based on my experience, I was exercising that exact skill. I wasn't exercising the skill of coming up with the solution from scratch.

Makes me think of Japan, where young people learn to recognize kanji. They type the sound of a word into a computer, then choose the appropriate one.

When they have to write by hand, they often draw a blank (not only children, I had a university professor I knew temporarily forget the character for "police").

An article from 2012 said that 66% of Japanese surveyed believed that they were losing the ability to write kanji.

Yes, scrolling with the arrow keys does nothing for several presses, then jumps, then acts normally, then jumps again. Really stupid and annoying.

Also, Alt-Left Arrow doesn't return me to the previous page (Hacker News) and I have to use my mouse.

Wow, I've had that wrong for several decades. Thanks for the correction!

I have probably watched this movie a dozen times, and I delight in all the tiny, barely-acknowledged references throughout.

The Italian and French soldiers walking into the bar, and the Italian not able to get a word in edgewise.

The German couple saying, "Leibchen, what watch is it?" "Six watch" "Such watch" because that is the literal translation into English of the German "uhr".

The singing of "La Marseillaise" by extras who were mostly themselves refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe -- the emotion was real.

I've heard a lot of stories in my time. They went along with the sound of a tinny piano playing in the parlor downstairs. "Mister, I met a man once when I was a kid," it always began. (Rick is calling Ilsa a whore.)

Every scene is a gem.

The launch price for the 64 was $600, but by June 1983 it had dropped to $300 and was often on sale for less (I paid $250).

I started with the VIC-20, and I'm now 62. After years of resisting the draw to turn my hobby into a career, I started working as a software developer almost 30 years ago. I feared that I might lose the joy, but (for the most part) it's still there.

I had to keep accessibility in mind a lot in my previous job (web development for a university). The thing that I consistently found was that, the more accessible a website was, the better the experience for everyone, not just people with disabilities.

Here (in Canada), we are paying about USD$65/month for 500Mbps down and 500Mbps up. Our only choice is Xplornet (the provincial government sold monopoly rights to each area of the province) but I think their prices are regulated.

You have more problems than just the monopoly. Like the FCC, among other federal agencies, being completely captured by big business.

You are right, there is cable as well. I'm in an area that does not have cable, so our internet is all fibre.

Still, cable can get up to 1Gbps, and probably higher, so it's a distinction without a difference.

The push to make sure that 100% of people have access to high-speed internet is the most important thing.