vjust

how do you use claude from within emacs - is it gptel? just curious. what you describe is worth trying

awesome, I will try it

This article seems to focus mainly on Western civilization. Not saying they aren't wonders. There were many engineering feats in the South/East Asian subcontinents that are not covered.

I have a bunch of these pencil brands Tombow, Mitsubishi. I usually buy them on ebay. Its an amazing experience to write with them... I usually use the H, HB to write, and its fascinating, how the premium ones H differs from an ordinary H. There is some paraphernalia that goes with it - sharpners, erasers.

I had lost the writing habit..coding invariably takes you to the keyboard. Gradually I'm writing more, and it slows down, and that helps. Its a very analog experience, and is a form of digital detox. I am also learning to draw, hence the splurging on pencils in the first place. While I'm not an artist (yet!) - its a whole another world with an amazing spectrum of varieties of pencils.

I bought a Dell 34 inch widescreen curved monitor 2 years ago for ~500. Somedays even that feels too narrow when I'm coding. 32 inch would feel restrictive.

Support for linux was there, since the very early days of Azure. But at the time this was clearly Nadella's baby. AWS was running away with market share, and Azure gained some decent marketshare, at one point they said 25% of Azure revenue was on Linux, this was about 5 years ago or more, that can only have grown to now. No one lays that credit to Ballmer.

Microsoft's documentation wouldn't even acknowledge the present of Linux, I kid you not, till maybe 2012 or so. For example, pathnames like "My Folder" (spaces in folder names) - which are a no-no on any kind of server code (leave alone the block letters). This was as someone pointed out, Gates, since he was the tech architect (and hated linux or feared it ). In a sense, Linux rescued Azure, and Microsoft. Quite ironic, today we see Gates smiling (cluelessly imo), but Window's is still not a good environment for development - be it C# (a fine language), or Web. My colleagues on Windows struggle to run any Python code - all you need to do is git clone, followed by Pip install - that's still a challenge comparatively on Windows.

Ballmer hated Linux & open source. He would've driven their cloud division to the ground trying to sell Windows servers in the cloud. It would've taken him another 20 years to accept that Linux was key to the cloud. VSCode (Visual Studio Code) - would never have taken birth. Microsoft survived and thrived once Ballmer had no option but leave.

In this era of Python development, Microsoft Windows still feels a step or two behind as far as using a Windows laptop for coding in the cloud. Python is the language of AI - not Asp.net, not C#. Ballmer would never have seen the writing on the wall. He would've pushed something wierd, like VBA .

Companies profiting off Open Source is a very common pattern. Look at AWS (amazon web services) long list of 'managed' services, and there are quite a few open-source candidates. I'm not saying Amazon is not adding anything to benefit users there, they are, but adding a management layer (with all their in-place templates/patterns for similar things) - wouldn't be a huge development or research effort - contrast that to developing the original code from scratch.

Then there will be engineers who will get certified on this tech, training companies, and the ecosystem just keeps taking root, where the source of the innovation is all but forgotten.

The owner of WPEngine is investing in billions - and they are contributing relatively little to the software that they never wrote, but got for free.

In my past non-profit we used WPEngine, that was about 10 years ago. Yes they were expensive but we didn't have people, nor did I (a backend python guy) want to mess with websites and be on the critical path. If I had been aware of, or known how this company was profiting from Open Source, I'd have taken my business elsewhere. Roughly 1K per year, base plan at the time, so, not a huge amount. We were broke, so there was no question of upgrades.

The question is why has that innovation of breakthrough ideas dried up. Past glory is small consolation, or none at all. How long will we keep sharing these 1000-year old memes in 'modern' India? Maybe innovation still happens (likely) - but no one recognizes it, and it gets lost in the endless clamor and noise of meaningless rituals that define religion in India today - or there may be no ecosystem to surface it, ie bring to market.

What religion/culture was then in the time of Aryabhata (which no one really knows I suppose) - is very likely totally different than what it is today , i.e. a way to impose majority opinions with zero debate. Because Aryabhata and others created works which made it through the centuries of strife, they survived, they had an ecosystem that supported the genius - which seems to be lacking now in Modern India - which might explain why it has dried up - i.e. Indians aspirations are far less lofty, the bar is set quite low - because there is no lack of money, there is no lack of tools. Whether now, or 1000 years ago, they were recognized as authoritative, transformative works - do we have the current generation creating anything (to which the average Indian response is the last 70 years of liberal rule has to be ruled out, and undone first).

You're likely as old as my kid, so I am sad to see this. Yes, take your health into your own hands. Medicate as little as possible - but this won't work for many people - in fact it could be dangerous. I am lucky to not have chronic conditions so I could afford not to believe my medical professional.

In my case - just to get the facts on Blood pressure took quite a bit of digging - thanks to some independent doctors who went against the grain and had a conscience and courage to dissent. Cholesterol is an even murkier pool. Its amazing how muddled the picture is.

Geeks who worked 24 hours straight to remedy the outage earned their cup of coffee. Uber is happy for sure.

Land of the free, home of the brave - doesn't come cheap.

By definition "Leadership" in this capitalistic society is predatory - this style extends to the armed forces, where everyone is expendable.

She goes back to skydiving. I have mixed opinions about that. She should've not revealed that part.