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Happy Days.
I remember walking into them a few short years later and yup - same thing here.
There'd be 3 or 4 machines in the shop, each on their own little plinth. The cheapest one, a 386-33 if I remember, was about $3k and 486s were years off. Remember standing in line at a shop once and listening to the bloke in front asking about the 80486DX and 80486DX2. He was querying the poor soul about memory latencies and about wait-states. It looked to our teenage minds like the sales-bloke was about to have an brain aneurysm.
Last week spied on old Toshiba Portege with an i5, 4gb, 256gbssd and full-hd 10-point-touch panel.
They wanted $259.
I still remember looking in the green-guide (telly/tech guide offered in a newspaper) at the price of ram. $65 a megabyte? Holy sheet that's cheap!
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Great story. Remember 486SX (no math coprocessor) vs DX (with coprocessor)?
I worked at a shop that was building and selling at that time (386s and 486s just came out).
Ram got cheap at $40 per megabyte.
4 Mb at $160 Phew...
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Hoped you'd find it a bit of fun.
Oh gawd. Yes! I've probably still got some of the programs that 'upgraded' an SX to a DX. Naturally of course, they'd just install exception handlers then make the computation in software when you tried to execute an fpu instruction and the exception handler was fired.
40 bucks?! Wauw - lucky..
I can even still remember seeing cache ram (70ns) for sale. Try convincing people of that these days.
What? Are you telling me the cache wasn't on-chip?
Felt like royalty when I got a DX4-100 with 8mb.
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They gave up on all kind of hardware... Wonder why?
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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For the same reasons Apple gave up on all the various hardware they tried selling. Profit, focus, consumer needs, and some that were just dragging the brand down.
They are powering ahead with the Surface brand, though, and good on them I say.
Now if they would just ditch that ridiculous hinge on the book.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Test-driven development was supposed to eliminate the need for independent testing. Alas, it doesn’t go far enough. Who will test the tests?
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TDD is good for core code that doesn't require an interface, or that can generate tangible results that can be validated, but testers are STILL required to make sure things look okay and that the displayed data makes sense.
TDD is NOT a panacea. It's simply a dev tool.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010 ----- You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010 ----- When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Quote: Test-driven development was supposed to eliminate the need for independent testing.
From what alternate universe has that author been living in?
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The writer has, obviously, never worked in the IT industry.
Who ever said TDD would eliminate independent testing only ever held a management job and never wrote a single line of code.
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Dave Kreskowiak wrote: Who ever said TDD would eliminate independent testing only ever held a management job Although I don't really like all managers... are you not being a little bit too harsh?
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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No, I limited my scope to just those who thought TDD was the "silver bullet". Not all management thinks that way.
Not all management are complete idiots. I've worked for some really good management types, and some really, really bad morons too.
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I forgot again the joke icon...
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Management has been trying to rid of programmers and testers for over 40 years.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010 ----- You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010 ----- When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Almost every firm sees software development as a cost center, even if it's critical to their success. Few of them see themselves as being in a software business, even if most of their sales are from software. They do nothing to promote a culture of design excellence and act as if software is produced by developers who aren't all that different from assembly line workers.
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An upcoming movie will take the concept of robotic acting to an entirely new level. She is type-cast as a robot though
Arnold wasn't available?
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Kent Sharkey wrote: Arnold wasn't available?
He has the robot part down perfectly. Perhaps he wasn't willing to declare as a female?
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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This will de-volve into porns featuring sex-robots looking like whomever the hot actress of the day is.
... and give new meaning to the still-new term, "Deep Fake"
Director of Transmogrification Services
Shinobi of Query Language
Master of Yoda Conditional
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OMG... that's creepy.
The robot looks as the head were turned around 180° like the girl on the exorcism
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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It seems the creators trained it to behave as human as possible - so what the point? Let the robot be a robot, that will be much more fun...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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Some actresses and actors are robots already.
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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Three Republican senators introduced a bill this week to codify "lawful access," a legal framework that would allow law enforcement to access encrypted digital devices with signed court orders. Apparently, gentlemen *do* read each other's mail
Yeah, a little political, and only just proposed legislation.
Sorry.
But as this is even caused a minor discussion in my inbox, I think it's worth it.
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I was expecting it since the beginning of that situation with Apple saying "no" to the enforcements law last time.
With the promise of security trying to get give some steps in the direction of control.
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Quote: "Tech companies' increasing reliance on encryption has turned their platforms into a new, lawless playground of criminal activity," Cotton said in a statement. "Criminals from child predators to terrorists are taking full advantage. This bill will ensure law enforcement can access encrypted material with a warrant based on probable cause and help put an end to the Wild West of crime on the Internet."
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Tom Cotton is an idiot if he thinks this is going to put even a small dent into crime on the 'net.
Wait. I should have removed the "if". He ranks at the bottom of the intelligence spectrum in Congress, right there with Louie Gohmert. Lindsey Graham is no different, with his allegiance going to the highest bidder and thinking nobody notices his flip-flopping stances.
With all the open source implementations of crypto out there, what's to stop someone from building their own encrypted, under the radar platforms? NOTHING! It has already happened!
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Dave Kreskowiak wrote: With all the open source implementations of crypto out there, what's to stop someone from building their own encrypted, under the radar platforms? NOTHING! It has already happened! Like back in the day with PGP - Phil Zimmerman was pretty much considered an international terrorist for that.
TTFN - Kent
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Dave Kreskowiak wrote: With all the open source implementations of crypto out there
Well, then of course there have to be laws to make open source crypto implementations illegal!
But seriously, the Russia-collusion hoax proves that they can lie to the courts and get warrants without any probable cause, so warrants mean nothing these days.
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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