Love it! My personal sites tend to start hand-written, evolve into a bash script, occasionally advance into python, but mostly just stay in bash, because it's convenient, doesn't need to please anyone else (nor would it!), and is already built for text processing into files. (I write a lot of scrappy shell scripts for my job too. I guess I should start asking an AI to generate whatever I want directly instead. Cobbling together a script is more fun though...)
> If a lawyer wants 500€ per half hour of advice, whereas some AI tool is almost zero-cost, even if the advice may only be up to 80% of the quality of a good lawyer, then there is no contest here. AI wins, even if it may arguably be worse
Interesting example, because when I look at it I think of course I'm going to pay for the advice I can trust, when it really matters that I get advice I can trust. 20% confidently wrong legal advice is worse than no advice at all. Where it gets difficult is when that lawyer is offloading their work to an AI...
Indeed the biggest threat to the legal profession is not chatbots used by non-lawyers. It is chatbots used by lawyers, undermining performance of and confidence in the entire profession.
And yet, imagine it's 100 million jobs, at 100K per job. That's 10 trillion dollars a year, well worth the investment! Except that it won't be 100K per job that AI companies will capture, it'll be 2K. So that's not 10 trillion dollars a year, it's 200 billion. Which is about what a big tech company makes in advertising already.
Takes me back! I always wanted to live in a 30s mansion block when I lived in London, and did once look around a flat in the building pictured in Belsize park, the one which recalls the sort of ocean liner a Wodehouse character would use to travel to New York. And it was beautiful and the rent not too dear. (This was around 2010.) And it also smelled strongly of mildew.
It was, in retrospect, a weird time. Because absolutely yes, everyone knew it was unsustainable and could not logically last forever, yet I think it lasted long enough that we forgot that part, and got used to it, and here we are. Very similar (intimately connected in fact) to the low interest rate world we also started to think was normal.
Small Gods will always be my favourite (not least because I got mine signed by the man himself, many years ago in Dorchester. Though isn't the joke that he signed so many books that it's the unsigned ones that are more valuable?). For starters though, I'd pitch Wyrd Sisters or Guards! Guards! Both are wonderfully constructed, early, but late enough that he's stopped satirising fantasy novels and has started satirising the world.
Lots of interesting replies here. I'd question the premise though. At least where I grew up, programming was a niche interest. Plenty of people I knew had Amigas and Atari STs; very few had any interest in programming them. It wouldn't surprise me that just as a small proportion of people back then did learn to write their own programs (or tried to), a similar proportion today are delving into XCode and Android Studio - and Unity and all the rest, and doing so for free, with a wealth of tutorials.
I had to read the email I got about this several times because it didn't seem to make sense. Hang on, my New York Times subscription is going to end in September and then... that's it? The Kindle is wonderful for reading newspapers on, and now - what? And why? I'm sure that someone has a very good reason for the change. I'm also sure that I've never seen a deprecation so poorly communicated.
Amazon doesn't want you to have a subscription to the New York Times. Amazon wants you to have a subscription to Amazon Unlimited, which would include access to the New York Times. Amazon would then pay the New York Times and all other periodicals an amount that Amazon thinks is fair based on how many people are reading their articles, like Amazon Unlimited books.
This is very bad for big periodicals with many subscribers. Under the current model, they get a predictable amount of income and are motivated by keeping the bar high for their content, lest they lose subscribers. Under the new model, their income is entirely based on how many people pick up that issue and read it, which makes it very hard to budget. It also likely means an inevitable slide into "politician SLAMMED other politican, and you'll NEVER BELIEVE what happened next" headlines, since extra clicks are very directly your periodical's source of income.
This is very good news for Amazon because it gives them far more bargaining power against publishers. Right now, if The New York Times decides that Amazon's terms favor Amazon too strongly, the Times walks, and Amazon doesn't get any more money from Times subscribers. Under this system, if the Times walks because Amazon terms favor Amazon too strongly, Amazon keeps the subscribers.
This is moderately good news for customers who read a bunch of stuff on Amazon Unlimited. You now get to read whatever you like for probably around the same cost, and the stuff you naturally choose to read will end up getting a bit of money from it. Yay.
This is probably moderately good news for niche, popcorn periodicals. If you have a "Werewolf Romance Weekly Short Fiction" magazine or "DIY Productivity Tip Of the Week" newsletter, you'll quite possibly make way more money by attracting idly browsing Amazon Unlimited customers than you would have been able to if you had needed to convince people to subscribe to your service.
At the same time, having to subscribe to specific periodical keeps me from doing it all. I see the these subscribe pop-ups every time I visit a newspaper, at least 5 different newspapers per day. It is just not affordable to have 5 subscriptions, so I end up subscribing to none.
Or even worse is Apple News where it's pieces of major newspapers like the WSJ and then dumbed down newspapers like USA Today and nothing of the caliber of Financial Times.
What I want is an app/site that has all the news, strong blocklists so I can get rid of junk (USA Today), stuff I'm just not interested in (Wrestling Today if such a thing exists), and get more stuff that I didn't know existed (Upper Siberian Mining Monthly :-))!
None of the libraries I’m currently a member of has it, but the next city over does, so I’ll see if I can join that library - thanks for pointing this out!
I pay something like €5 to The Guardian and $2 to NYT (which I read very occasionally) every months. And then another €15 to a Swedish newspaper. That is very cheap to support independent journalism.
Wow, $2 is a good deal. I feel I paid that little to start, but now NYT charges me $20 CAD a month. I regularly debate whether it’s worth it or not, and it definitely stops me from subscribing to other publications.
This really isn't a big deal if you use credit card policy to your advantage.
When I canceled a subscription to a local paper (Dallas Morning News), their policy said I had to call to cancel. Instead, I sent an email informing them I was rescinding authorization to charge my credit card.
They initially responded stating that I had to call to cancel my subscription. One more email reminding them that charging my card without authorization would be credit card fraud turned out to be enough to have the phone call requirement dropped.
They always increase the price after a year, and I go through the cancelling forms in their website until they offer me the lower price again. I guess that they know how little I actually use the subscription, so it’s no point in trying to get more money from me.
The Guardian is one of the best examples of independent journalism. It's owned by the Scott Trust. It was set up by the original owner in the 30s to ensure editorial independence. People do sometimes confuse "editorial independence" with "taking an editorial line I personally disagree with", however.
Because publications like the NYT depend on access for their "journalism" [0]. Independent/investigative journalism requires an adversarial relationship to power, and looks more like [1]. In past decades, the establishment was occasionally forced to grapple with this [2] [3] but at this point the public discussion is so captured, it's no longer necessary.
Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent lays it out in depth.
As a longer time and now former NYT reader, it has definitely fallen off. It's abandoned balance and objectivity for trite left-leaning talking points. The breakup came when I realized I could not longer trust it to inform me to the depth and breadth I needed.
At this point, it's an average news publication - notice I didn't say journalism - riding on the fumes of its history. It's not bad. But every since the internet its become more and more generic.
The magazines you can read on Readly are the full prints at least. Like a pdf-version of the hard copy magazine. I tried it for a couple of months and I did not see any difference or pages missing.
Thank you for the thoughtful explanation. I never thought about it from that angle before, that is such a powerful move from Amazon that I believe most of us can learn something from.
"I'm sure we could learn something from how Amazon contributes to the destruction of something already both so fragile and crucial, the press" isn't exactly a good look, but go ahead.
Except customers will just leave Amazon. Like they are doing with Music, and Video, and Prime. This move disadvantages everyone except Amazon. It should be investigated by SEC.
The NYT has held their quality standards up pretty well, but most of the newspaper industry had already raced all the way to the bottom by the time Amazon ever launched the Kindle newsstand.
That ship basically sailed away a long time ago. Newspapers gave everything away for free, raced the content to the bottom, and then after nearly 20 years of that finally realized it didn't work.
The content in your online newspaper needs to be very, very good if you want $20-30/month to read it versus the aggregated news services wanting $9.99/month to read news from a wide swath of sources. NYT is good, but it's terrible at replacing your local news sources.
I remember, that in Slovakia we had something like an "Amazon Unlimited", it was called Piano, but it ultimately didn't work. The problem was, that for large publishers it was not profitable, and the system more or less favoured small publishers. But after a few largest publishers left the platform, the whole offering was weak and not worth it.
Horrific to see another business model get put on rails resulting in a lowering of quality. Reminds me of MSN firing their news team and having AI journalists write all the articles. Now you get large walls of text with no overall message that often times are devoid of any conclusions.
> Amazon would then pay the New York Times and all other periodicals an amount that Amazon thinks is fair based on how many people are reading their articles
Presumably this would only happen after the NYT has first paid Amazon for access to the platform.
Aside from the NY Times and maybe Conde Nast this will be Amazon squeezing blood from a stone. Most publishers are barely treading water right now and are getting killed by off-platform news consumption.
> Amazon wants you to have a subscription to Amazon Unlimited, which would include access to the New York Times. Amazon would then pay the New York Times and all other periodicals an amount that Amazon thinks is fair based on how many people are reading their articles, like Amazon Unlimited books.
The "spotify model".
It's pretty bad for content creators. It is great for the distribution platform in the middle position. I think it's arguably pretty good for consumers, at least initially -- but generally the point is locking in consumers to eventually squeeze them, and I don't think it's great for _society_, which of course effects "consumers".
For a bunch of reasons I'm done with Kindle. For a decade (~2010-2020) I've bought hundreds of books and read quite a few on Kindle. But from late last year when I started reading physical books again (Kindle version wasn't available) I've gotten to appreciate the physical form again. Nice fonts, ease of flipping pages, random access etc., And as an added advantage my kids now get to see my taste and maybe find some of books interesting just because they are on a rack. I'm back to building my physical library. Could also be due to me growing old. But I don't want to beholden to Amazon's whims.
I like this idea a lot, but the size of many of the books I read constrains me. I can slip the kindle into my pocket when going on an errand and read while waiting in line, etc. A physical book -- even a "pocket" book -- would necessitate some sort of carrying vessel.
Similar for magazines. I did subscribe to print issues back when I spent long times commuting on a train because I could just as well bring a print issue then. But now that I move a lot by walking or biking and would prefer to avoid bringing a bag of stuff -- I don't see it as equally likely.
I'm not the person you're responding to but I'm the same as them, having gone back to physical books. I don't take books with me on errands, I read saved articles on my phone. Going on holiday I make a small selection and just have to live with that restriction. It doesn't feel like a particular problem because I've made the conscious decision to do it. There are trade-offs, but for me they feel worth it. The upsides beside the improved (for me) aesthetic are that your book doesn't run out of battery (I recognise that Kindle batteries last for a long time though) and no people or systems know what I'm reading, where I've read to etc. I find the gamification of reading on Kindle - certificates, streaks etc - extremely off-putting. I also like having physical books on the shelf, as it's a much more pleasurable experience than scrolling through the books on a Kindle and can be much more serendipitous. It's also a nice way of reminding myself of the books I still have to read. There's a nice article on that here: https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/do-i-own-too-many-books/
Last decade I more or less binged on books. I was chasing some useless metrics like number of books read. But COVID induced mass isolation made me take things easy and go slow. Since then I've learned to enjoy the process of reading and I realised physical books enable exactly that. So I don't feel like losing out if I'm not reading when I'm on an errand or I've some free time on my hand. Now when I step out I just absorb the surroundings and if I've to wait out somewhere I just wait without doing anything.
Also, I've reduced my range of interests from about 10-12 to 2-3 and I simultaneously read 3-4 books to get different viewpoints. And I take it real slow. I go a few days without reading any page it's totally cool. It helps me absorb and internalise the content slowly and thoroughly.
And I'm really enjoying the process of re-building my physical library because this time I'm doing it more deliberately.
If I read a book I constantly jump to the same line. With adjusted fonts, font size, line spacing I do not have these issues. My kindle is jailbroken and runs KOreader. Even more funny the lowest brightness setting 0 would still have backlight on (stock FW - Kindle PW3). This isn't the case anymore. I read in bed on the sides and nothing is more annoying than a big book to hold.
If I want to read fast I prefer one word on the screen at 250-450 words per minute.
This was mind blowing to me. I can understand games did not become much cheaper by being electronic-only (though it did give rise to much cheaper indie games) but like 16 years ago when Kindle came out, I thought paperless books would slash the consumer prices by at least half. Turns out the publisher just increased their margins.
This is where used books win, and why physical books need to exist. I will never purchase a digital file for $9.99. I have however purchased PDFs directly from the writer's website, usually for no more than $5, which is OK.
The cost of printing a mass-market paperback is under a dollar if you're doing a large run. A hardback is a few dollars. Producing the physical book has a negligible effect on the publisher's costs.
Lately I've taken to reading almost only classic literature; since books published before 1923 are in the public domain, the ebooks are very cheap indeed (i.e. completely free via Project Gutenberg).
The other advantage of this approach is that classic works are better than the books I was reading before, and there are enough of them to last me several years at least.
I refuse to go back to physical books. The Kindle is far easier to hold than a physical book. Ultimately it is more portable, because all books are the same size, no matter how many pages they have, and I can read them on multiple devices. The fonts are adjustable, which my eyes are not. I can have thousands of books in my library, which I cannot contain in my house.
The advantages of Kindle (or similar eInk readers) are overwhelming to me. Are the prices too high? Maybe, but if they're the same as print prices, what am I losing? (Ignoring the question of DRM and whether or not I own my digital editions or not.)
From reading the article and its subsequent links, it sounds like they're trying to transition from a la carte purchases, to an all-in-one Netflix model. It's probably just a power play against publishers - swap to Kindle Unlimited and take a [presumably] smaller cut, or get nothing at all. And I'd expect it to work.
I've had a Kindle subscription to The Atlantic for a long time. I only look at it from time to time, but the price is low, and I don't feel guilty when I read their website for free. I couldn't quickly find out if they're even on Kindle Unlimited, and I don't read enough to make KU worth it.
Absolutely agree on it being poorly communicated, only heard about in this thread!
In terms of alternatives, buying an Android powered E-reader and subscribing to the publication via the app or the e-newspaper service could work, although it will not be as optimized for E ink of course. The advantage of Boox and other Android E-readers is that you can access whatever you want, and the browsing experience for text heavy websites is decent.
I'm returning to my childhood home in a couple of days after many years away, and now I'm wondering about searching the attic for my A1200, and whether any of the games I wrote for myself way back when, in Amos and then Amiga E, are still recoverable. Probably not; if the disks exist they're almost thirty years old, and probably best kept running in some corner of my memory. I'll try though.
Please recap your old hardware before powering it on, and use a newly made power supply - way too much stuff gets fried when people neglect these things. Also if your Amiga has a working RTC, that's powered by a battery that will often leak and ruin your motherboard. So you'd need to replace that as well.
IIRC Amiga 1200 PSUs are not so bad, it's the C64 and oldest Amiga 500 PSUs which stink. A1200 does not have RTC in standard configuration. (Amiga 4000 and 3000 have.)
A standard ATX (or AT) power supply can be used with an Amiga 1200, so that's an easy route if you have one. Cut off the cables (Amiga PSU donates connector), some electrical tape, and a paper clip to jumpstart the ATX PSU, and Bob's your uncle.
> I'm returning to my childhood home in a couple of days after many years away, and now I'm wondering about searching the attic for my A1200
By an incredible stroke of bad luck the first Covid lockdown (the one that lasted months) happened when I was far from my wife and kid. By chance I was in my childhood home (alone).
Out of boredom I started watching YouTube videos about fixing and maintaining old computers. It motivated to go the attic and garage and find all my old computers. Took the battery out of an old Mac. Greased my Commodore 128's 1570 drive.
Booted the C128 and checked which floppies were still working.
And quite some still worked: it was a complete and total blast from the past to see the game Commando, with its incredible soundtrack, booting!
I don't know if the A1200 is prone to leaking capacitors or not: if it is send it to someone who can recap for you.
It was really fun to get these old machines back to life: I really encourage you to do it.
In February 2019 I decided to try retrieving some information from some 5.25" floppy disks for the Apple 2c we had since the 80s. They had some of the first bits of programming I had done amongst other things (school work etc). Using ADTPro I think I only encountered 1 disk which I couldn't transfer - I've got 19 of them. I was then able to get information off them quite easily. So you may have more success than you think.
I notice now the internal drive of said 2c isn't working and won't boot anything (I could get ADTPro onto a spare floppy without booting anything). I did use it to do the transfer in 2019. I can boot from an external drive with some patching from the monitor program. I suspect the drive either needs heads cleaning or some realignment, but I haven't had more time to try.
Sadly I no longer have my A1200 (or A600). I have a few disks from it still.
Probably not; if the disks exist they're almost thirty years old, and probably best kept running in some corner of my memory.
I came across an old box of 3.5 discs a few years back that I had stored away since the early 90's. I recovered them using ddrescue to create images using a cheap USB floppy drive.. was great fun.
Absolutely, barring any environmental issues (moisture or heat), they will probably image just fine. But please note that Amiga formatted disks won’t be possible to read in a standard PC floppy drive. You’ll either need to use an Amiga with some kind of transfer software, or custom hardware for disk imaging.
Edit: I just noticed that they are discussing this very thing a little further down the thread, with lots of concrete options.
I have heaps of mid and late 80s floppies (5.25" and 3.5" DD), and almost all of them work just fine. Until the late 90s, floppies were incredibly sturdy and reliable. Late 2000s HD floppies are crap, OTOH.
Anecdotally, I've had better luck reading Amiga and ST floppies from the 80s and 90s than floppies from the 2000s. I'm guessing disk quality took a nosedive somewhere around 2000..?
You may want to get some kind of removable media for your Amiga, many people use a compact flash card as a hard drive, then use an IDE to CF adapter [1] to attach it to an A600/A1200/A4000. You can format the CF card as a standard Amiga hard drive, then you can remove it and read the Amiga drive on a more modern computer with unadf [2] and you can convert your AMOS source code to readable text with listamos [3]
I recently did this and found pretty much everything still worked. The creator of AMOS is still around at https://www.aoz.studio and their Discord will help you with any AMOS issues!
Yes, this. If there's one issue I've seen again and again limiting engineers it's them fixing some part of a system without understanding the system as a whole, while assuming that someone (the code reviewer say) does understand it. It's a machine for manufacturing bugs and technical debt, and it keeps the engineer in a junior mindset.
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