beosrocks's comments

beosrocks | 13 years ago | on: Why I Left Google

I don't know what you meant by tarbaby

If you don't know what a word means, the first step is to check the dictionary! "tar baby: a difficult problem that is only aggravated by attempts to solve it".

beosrocks | 13 years ago | on: Why I Left Google

Fascinating account, but even more fascinating is the author's consultancy:

http://spencertipping.com/zeroconsulting/

You email me with a problem you'd like me to solve. (Be sure to put "zero" in the subject so that my email filter catches it.) This could be anything: a debugging project, advice about something, a library you need, end-user code, etc. Anything you send me is confidential. I'll then follow up with you with any additional information I need and any initial impressions I have.

I will then try to implement a solution _and will never send you a bill_. I may or may not be able to implement something, depending on a variety of factors including my skill set. If I'm successful, I'll send you what I come up with. You may, at your option, pay me whatever you think my solution is worth. It's fine if this is nothing at all; that's useful information for me (I won't nag you about it, for instance).

beosrocks | 13 years ago | on: The Open Goldberg Variations

I'm confused why Gould came up at all

Perhaps Wikipedia can help clear your confusion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Gould

"Glenn Herbert Gould was a Canadian pianist who became one of the best-known and most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He was particularly renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach. His playing was distinguished by remarkable technical proficiency and capacity to articulate the polyphonic texture of Bach’s music."

beosrocks | 13 years ago

Clicking the link returns a page that says simply: "You do not have permission to preview drafts." Looks like we'll need sysadmins a little longer.

beosrocks | 13 years ago | on: The Open Goldberg Variations

Amen! For anyone unfamiliar with Glenn Gould, check out these two videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB76jxBq_gQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVODxskoHFQ

He was perhaps the greatest piano player of the 20th century and had a strong hacker/genius/Aspergers aspect. My favorite quote about him comes from Composer Dimitry Tolstoy: "Gould was an alien on this Earth. People simply cannot play the piano like that!"

http://www.wqxr.org/#!/articles/wqxr-features/2011/jan/06/va...

beosrocks | 14 years ago | on: I'm leaving Bitcoin

Wow - didn't realize on first reading that the comment was actually directed to Zhou Tong, who replied that he would "definitely pay attention to every single detail." Forensic's response was prophetic: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2976031

EDIT: panarky has now updated his post above to make it clear that the advice was to Zhou Tong.

beosrocks | 14 years ago | on: I'm leaving Bitcoin

If I did something seriously wrong, I would definitely admit it.

Trying to run a financial site without the chops to do it was seriously wrong. Of course, it was wrong of users not to do more due diligence on the service, its record, the team (you, I guess), etc - after all, it was (was) their money.

The recent hack is not my fault.

You've got a lot to learn.

beosrocks | 14 years ago | on: The Dawn of Haiku OS

dr_dank's comment on Slashdot ( http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=66224&cid=6095472 ) pretty much sums up its awesomeness:

BeOS was demonstrated to me during my senior year of college. The guy giving the talk played upwards of two dozen mp3s, a dozen or so movie trailers, the GL teapot thing, etc. simultanously. None of the apps skipped a beat. Then, he pulled out the showstopper.

He yanked the plug on the box.

Within 20 seconds or so of restarting, the machine was chugging away with all of its media files in the place they were when they were halted, as if nothing had happened.

If you've never played with BeOS on an old Pentium II, it's hard to imagine the kind of performance it was able to squeeze out of that hardware. Here's a rough idea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsVydyC8ZGQ#t=17m36s

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