• 8 Posts
  • 384 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 14th, 2023

help-circle


  • The Apple II’s big selling point, compared to the other two big brands introduced in 1977 (the Radio Shack TRS-80 and Commodore PET) was colour.

    But it was a weird and colour scheme that took advantage of clever Wozniak hacks to make it viable on a cheap machine. Good video hardware, and enough memory for the colour display, were spendy. That’s why even into the 1980s you’d have machines like the ZX Spectrum with limitations like “every 8x8 block can only have 2 colours” which used less memory, and 40-column screens that were readable on TVs instead of dedicated high-res monitors…





  • I was always disappointed that celebrity and character voice packs weren’t a thing for the voice-assistant platforms. I’d pay literal ones of dollars for a voice assistant with a Sebastian Michaelis intonation and theming.

    Cortana for Windows Phone came closest, I think they did use the same voice actress as the game character.


  • I doubt they enjoy having their balls in TSMC’s vice.

    Intel is the only option remotely available to leverage against them.

    • Starting from zero will cost bajillions and take decades to get competitive
    • Samsung’s probably not divisible in a way that makes their fabs buyable
    • They can’t buy into any of the 7nm/5nm level players in the PRC and fund their modernization due to sanctions
    • Does anyone else have sub-10nm at anything buy lab scales?









  • Maybe it’s time to re-randomize the map. Six Californias, merge a couple Dakotas, and a new state called “Steve” in the middle of Texas for no good reason.

    States seem to be a classic seemed-sensible-in-1790 hack, goofier and less relevant as time goes on. At best you get arbitrage plays, finding the most comfortable jurisdiction for your particular graft. At worst, it seems to be a great line for the scum too stupid and/or crooked to get a federal position to settle at.

    I wonder if a UK-style model, where the regional governments are devolved narrow lists of things they can play at government with, would work better.