edlinfan

Javascript

A quick note: your spreadsheet had better support arbitrary-precision currency math, if it doesn't already. That's table stakes for a spreadsheet.

To answer your real question, I'd suggest doubling down on the sqlite side and taking things in a relational direction. Spreadsheets are good at tracking 1:1 or 1:many relationships, but my spreadsheets inevitably grow in a many:many direction and I find myself wishing for queries and junction tables.

In this case, web search with site:XX.name worked better than the LLM.

Breakpoint synthesis https://nathan.ho.name/posts/nonstandard-oscillators/

Box tone isn't a term I'm familiar with, but from context the author seems to be talking about the sound contributed by an instrument's soundboard or cabinet. EDIT: Another possibility, https://gearspace.com/board/mastering-forum/1401491-box-tone...

Should you be interested in doing so, my suggestion would be to offer an "offline" version. It could be feature-limited as follows:

1. Do not include the planned online collaboration features.

2. Support only Excel, Access, CSV/TSV, and Sqlite data sources.

Charge a fair one-time license fee for this, and you would create an attractive tier for individual power-users, without cannibalizing subscription sales of the "online version" for businesses and contractors who care about collaboration and interacting with large production databases.

Just my $0.02.

Eirik, in case you're still watching this thread:

I would pay you $400 for this tool without hesitation. I would also pay for upgrades. However, the $400/yr subscription model is a deal killer. This is fine if you're targeting business users only, but it puts the tool out of reach for all but the most determined individuals.

You might want to consider the pricing model used for many digital audio workstations -- a perpetual license for a few hundred dollars, with free patches until the next major version. Then the next major version also costs a few hundred dollars. Rinse and repeat.

This gives you a solid income stream, without ripping your software out of the hands of a customer the instant they're short on cash. It also means the program could work without an internet connection or other constant DRM/activation nonsense. This will likely matter for the technical audience you're targeting.

Best of luck!

Important for these COVID-19-related findings was the lack of informal communication that the project team suffered in the absence of face-to-face interactions. In the past, JPL's success typically relied on senior members of projects and technical line organizations "walking the floor", dropping in for conversations at office doorways, or chatting in the cafeteria. Without these informal communication mechanisms, contextual clues and situational awareness were lost. Team members working the floor found it difficult to report problems up the chain over Webex, especially when attendees kept their cameras off."

... The lockdown conditions contributed significantly to the question of why Psyche and JPL leadership did not know of the severity of the problems with GNC and V&V until it was too late to correct course.

... The IRB recommends that, given these exceptional circumstances, the team should minimize remote work conditions.

JPL has been suffering a brain drain over the last few years, and it sounds like the remaining cadre of managers are not so competent. Remote work is a convenient scapegoat, but it is far more likely that the problem is an ossified chain of command and a lackluster set of communication tools (Webex, shudder).

https://archive.is/mrpNt

Was this inspired by the classic 1970s Lisp demonstration SHRDLU?

https://hci.stanford.edu/winograd/shrdlu/

This is a wonderful tool and goes a long way to scratch the "library itch" I've felt since the start of the pandemic. Projects like this make me very happy that I donated to IA this year, and I'd encourage anyone else who likes them to do the same.

One question: are there any plans to sort fiction by author, similar to what is done in real libraries? A lot of fiction is already available in this tool, filed under DDN 8xx, but the groupings are pretty broad.

I use Orgzly and find it quite nice.

The main difference seems to be that Orgzly is a native Android app, while Organice is a (self-hosted) web service that happens to render nicely in a mobile browser.

I didn't to run a a whole separate server just so I could edit my org-mode files from a phone, so I like Orgzly better. But YMMV.

Lately I am trying to migrate to just running the native emacs on my phone with Termux :>

Came here to say this! This program would be even cooler if it supported the dict protocol in addition to scraping OED.

The dict protocol and CLI tool [1] were invented to solve the exact problem of browsing dictionaries without a bloaty web browser. You may wish to check them out.

On debian, sudo apt-get install dict, and you're off and running.

The most popular dict server may also be queried via a web UI [2] if you'd like to try it out before installing any software. It queries a few public-domain dictionaries, WordNet, plus some fun stuff like the Jargon File.

This being an open standard, you may also run your own dict server if you wish. It's pretty cool. dict has become a vital part of my CLI workflow since I discovered it many years ago. Its only downside is that it's blocked by some corporate firewalls =(

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DICT

[2] http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict

IMO the article overstates the danger of cubesats. If deployed to a low orbit (~ISS height) they deorbit in months due to atmospheric drag. You don't really run into the problems described in the WaPo article until you start putting them into higher orbits where they will last longer.

Here is a more detailed article describing the cubesat problem and potential mitigations.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2015/07/30/nasa-tracking-cubesats...

The simplest way to deploy your homebrew ROMs to a real NES is to use something called a "flash cartridge"[1]. This is equivalent to a real NES cartridge except it is backed by rewritable flash memory instead of a permanent ROM. It contains all of the necessary glue logic[2] so the console can't tell the difference. You can rewrite the flash if you connect the cart to your computer via USB.

The magical thing to google if you want to do your own research is "NES flash cart".

The "EverDrive" that aji suggests is, indeed, an example of a flash cart. It may or may not be the best one for the NES - I honestly don't know, all of my experience is with the GameBoy.

dpflan's approach of erasing and reprogramming a REAL NES cart is also possible, if you enjoy pain and suffering in the name of being lavishly historically accurate. (I know I do sometimes.)

  [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_cartridge
  [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_management_controller

The C64 has at least one web browser as part of Contiki OS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contiki#Features

I couldn't find any screenshots of the C64 version of Contiki, but here is the Apple ][ version browsing the web.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMzgp7xTp1k

The booster couldn't make a soft landing due to a failure in the hydraulics system.

“Of course one of our goals is reusability, and unfortunately we didn’t get to recover the propulsion module because we lost pressure in our hydraulic system on descent,” Jeff Bezos wrote in a blog post. “Fortunately, we’ve already been in work for some time on an improved hydraulic system. Also, assembly of propulsion module serial numbers 2 and 3 is already underway – we’ll be ready to fly again soon.”

From: http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2015/04/30/jeff-bezos-...

And here's the aforementioned blog post, from Blue Origin's own website. It presents a little more information about the flight:

https://www.blueorigin.com/news/blog/first-developmental-tes...

Many credit-card POS terminals still use dial-up. Ever wonder why they take so long to authenticate?

Moreover, about 3% of Americans still use dial-up as their primary Internet connection.[1]

[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/08/21/3-of-america...

Sure, if you use a space elevator. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

This won't get you out of Earth orbit, though. If you want to go to other planets, you have no choice other than reaching escape velocity.

However, once in orbit, I'm pretty sure you can reach escape velocity as gradually as you want. You'd just gradually increase your orbit's apogee until you stop orbiting.

Ever read the study of atmospheric flight on Venus? It focuses more on sustained flight than gliding to a landing, but it's still the first thing I thought of.

http://media.cleveland.com/science_impact/other/Landis%20Ven...

No problems with FF29 on Win7.

Because televisions aren't square.

You can always switch to Basic HTML view. It's dated, but it stays out of the way.

I have copied mspaint.exe from a WinXP machine. It doesn't seem to have any prerequisites, and still works fine!

I don't know how much Devi has revealed about the superhuman feats mentioned in the article, but she did write a book on how to do basic math very quickly. It's a good read.

http://books.google.com/books/about/Joy_of_Numbers_the.html?...

I had the same reaction to Philips' blog post. I agree with his main argument, but not how he supports it.

Basically, Philips dismisses a broad range of 8-bit media without knowing how it is made. He says all you do is run some existing art through "a little bit of filtering", and like Instagram, there you have it. Basically, it's just a nasty-looking (or sounding) ripoff of existing artwork.

Problem is, that's not how chip music is produced. At all. Most songs are original compositions, and even cover versions are not simple "degradations". Think of covering a Miles Davis song on classical guitar, and you'll be closer. You have to recompose the material from the ground up, and stretch both yourself and your hardware platform to make things begin to work. It's both an artistic and technological feat. Now think of composing an original song this way. Some people have spent decades perfecting chip music, just as others perfect jazz or photography. Philips says the entire body of work is worth less than one good picture.

http://www.linusakesson.net/hardware/chiptune.php (NOTE: This is not me.)

http://ay-riders.speccy.cz/

Worst, the criticism of chip music is tangential to his main argument -- that Baio screwed up by trying to sell a work without thoroughly licensing it. Philips went out of his way to be an ass about it, for no good reason. That's what bothers me.

Eterm does this. It does help, but it is kind of ugly.

Here's what I got from the article.

- Island style backlit keyboard

- No more physical buttons for the touchpad or pointing stick

- Function keys now default to Media keys

- "Thinner and sleeker" is more important than anything else.

In other words, the machine is getting more and more similar to standard mass-market notebooks. I don't know why they'd ditch exactly what sets them apart from the competition.

A great reminder that code is data, and data code.

Now I want to see how all my programs look as bitmapped images... brb.

> the filling of the pixels with carefully chosen colors

See, to me this means "reading the colors from the printout". It's ridiculous that anyone could get the least significant bits of the color right by just eyeballing it, and I don't think the author ever claimed he was doing that.

Warning: While this story is interesting, it also launches a full-screen Javascript popup that autoplays a Youtube video.

Seriously?

True, space junk is an issue, and I don't know what Planetary is doing to mitigate that.

But, bear in mind that only the Arkyd 100 is supposed to stay in Earth orbit. The planned 200, 300, etc. all boost off in various directions (investigating and later, exploring asteroids) so their eventual fate doesn't matter as much.

Planetary's approach to microsatellites is VERY daring. Instead of flying bulletproof, radiation-hardened single vehicles (like NASA or JPL), they plan to put up scads of cheap, disposable spacecraft using off-the-shelf hardware.

This is an uncommon approach, and IMO it perfectly meshes with their exclusive use of unmanned vehicles. Who cares about reliability, it's just a robot and there are many more where it came from...

As an example of the "off-the-shelf hardware" thing, they are even looking at using WiFi (and high-gain antennas) to communicate with orbiting satellites until they can get laser communications (or enough money to buy time on the Deep Space Network).

EDIT: Another example is that instead of a purpose-built real-time OS (like VxWorks, which JPL used on the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers), they are using Linux with a real-time patch. Maybe it's not quite as reliable, but it's much more powerful.

Source: Planetary recently gave a talk at my university. I'm sure most of this is up on their website as well.