janvdberg

Im sorry for your loss Matt.

Awesome to find DFW content on HN!

Love this piece!

I will surely blog about it on davidfosterwallace.nl in the coming weeks (it'll be in Dutch though).

Does anybody know the specific keyboard make/model/type? Doesn't look like a foldable from the image?

I love the talk! But I do feel something critical is missing. You can not talk about semi-conductors without at least mentioning Walter Schottky (but I think that doesn't fit the narrative because he was a German).

Side-note, for those interested, I want to point out a new CMS: https://pureblog.org/ Not a SSG in the strict sense, but it generates md files and serves those on the fly.

There is a WordPress migrate-tool that worked flawlessly.

I tried changing it, but I guess when a post hits the fp this is not possible anymore (only by mods).

Dutch daily blog: https://janvandenberg.blog/

https://j11g.com/

My first command is always 'w'. And I always urge young engineers to do the same.

There is no shorter command to show uptime, load averages (1/5/15 minutes), logged in users. Essential for quick system health checks!

This reminds me of a project I saw more than 24 (!) years ago. Someone made a webserver for the GBA.

It seemed magical to me at the time and I still remember going to this site often to see updates (that's why I remember the URL).

Thankfully the Wayback Machine still has it:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030204043536/http://fivemouse....

Anecdote: In 2022, while visiting San Francisco, I had the chance to explore the campus. Wandering through the quiet, empty halls of the summer buildings, I was just about to leave when I unexpectedly came across Knuth's office [1]. I had to do a double take—it was surprisingly small for someone of his stature. Yet, in a way, it felt perfectly fitting, a reflection of his unassuming nature.

https://janvandenberg.blog/wp-content/img_1813-scaled.jpg

About the checks: I have not 1 but 2 checks. Small typos, nothing big: but wonderful to have these two documents.

Exceptional read! I love it.

It's the most complete history of git that I know now. Exceptional!

I'd love to read more historical articles like this one, of pieces of software that have helped shape our world.

Great, I am gonna watch this. Hopefully this video also explains what the name 'Netscape' means or implies or is based on. Because I've always found it kind of striking that the name has the same letters (and sort of sounds) like 'NCSA' where Mosaic was originally developed, that seems like more than a coincidence?

This! It is so strange when posts don't have a date. It feels like those posts are trying actively to hide something. It's almost suspicious.

I also have a couple of other things I look for in a good blog: https://j11g.com/2024/06/24/a-good-blog-has/

Does anyone know what the name 'Netscape' means or implies or is based on?

It's kind of striking that the name has the same letters (and in the same order) as NSCA where Mosaic was originally developed, that seems like more than a coincidence?

Almost ten years after I asked! :)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7847368

Awesome!

Tom is why I understand UTF-8 [1].

And it is not so much WHAT he explained but HOW he explained it, what really made it stick. It was his sheer unbridled genuine enthusiasm that put him on the map for me.

One of the best to do it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MijmeoH9LT4

Does it have j/k navigation yet?

A book / library / reading progress app:

https://j11g.com/2019/11/16/foster-how-to-build-your-own-boo...

Related: for the Knuth fans, a Knuth Podcast [1] from a series of earlier lectures [2] 'Donald Knuth Lectures on Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About'

[1] https://j11g.com/knuth.xml

[2] https://j11g.com/2020/12/30/podcast-donald-knuth-lectures-on...

I want to point out Ruben Schade bookmarks page. It's quite wonderful. An OPML file that is also a webpage.

https://rubenerd.com/blogroll.opml

Side-note: sites likes these are the old internet that I got to know and love and they embody the spirit of what makes the internet a wonderful place: highly niche sites run by dedicated, passionate people that could only be discovered by word of mouth. This is digital heritage in its purest form.

Side-note: I will always be in awe of the BitTorrent protocol. A resilient and efficient piece of tech that at its height was responsible for LARGE amounts of internet traffic (facilitated by sites like the TPB) and was (mostly) developed by just one guy: Bram Cohen.

Could this actually be a response by Knuth? I doubt it.

It doesn't read like him (i.e. I don't think he would call it 'Donald Shell's idea'). Also you don't have to print and mail Knuth. He doesn't use e-mail, but his staff does. I know because I myself have interacted this way with Knuth before.

Overall there is no other 'proof' that this is actually a response by Knuth.

I love this as another example where restriction breeds innovation. More often than not this is found not in abundance but in limits.

I agree repetition is key. But here's what I noticed from personal experience. When I first read something interesting, it might not stick.

When reading it again (say: the same book a year later), knowing I must have read this very interesting thing before, but apparently forgot I more or less have the same reaction as being SURPRISED. And more often than not THAT is when it really sticks.

This is from anecdotal, personal experience, but being surprised sort of unlocks things in the brain that make things stick (I could go on, on how this would be a biological advantage etc. but that is reaching) and I guess that is what Sivers is pointing at?

More like an evergreen. The thing with evergreens is that there will always be someone who will encounter it for the very first time.

Not to diminish the effort here, but I just want to point out (as someone who has tried lots of bookmark managers) that Floccus is everything I want from a bookmark manager (effortless sync across devices and just using the bookmark manager in your browser).

I am pointing this out, because I wish someone would have pointed it out to me.

https://j11g.com/2023/03/04/floccus-is-the-bookmark-manager-...

Wow amazing! I did not know this was available on YouTube. Thank you. It is kind of bonkers considering how well it works for a prototype that all-in-all (based on the comment by Lane Roathe) took just 48 hours to make!

In the excellent Masters of Doom it is explained that Keen was the Mario-like game (i.e. sideways scrolling). They offered the tech to Nintendo as an option to port Mario to the PC. Nintendo declined, thus Keen was born.

It was a vast leap for PC gaming and it opened an new era of PC gaming.

However, here is what I never quite understood, what was so different about the NES and PC tech that Nintendo had figured out to do sideways scrolling years before the PC?