BC TECH
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

does bubble memory count as solid state?
I guess? I mean, it has no moving parts. but it requires preheating and involves movement of magnetic fields across a surface...

 it's kinda like a traditional hard drive where you don't spin the disc, you just trick all the bits to migrate off the edge
who called it "bubble memory" and not "lemming bits"
(obligatory "lemmings don't throw themselves off cliffs, that's an urban legend")
(obligatory "the idea that disney invented that urban legend it itself an urban legend, they just helped popularize it")
@quartizine has the good point that it's not just about movement. Vacuum tubes aren't solid state!
https://t.co/VG3XdoQ6OZ
in any case, that still probably means bubble memory is solid state.
It has to warm up, yes, but it doesn't melt. The crystal remains solid, and only the magnetic fields move.
interesting this sort of solid-vs-gaseous/liquid distinction means that for optical discs (which aren't normally solid state, because they spin) could conceivably be made solid state... EXCEPT for CD-R/CD-RWs when you're burning them.
because CD-Rs involve a (very brief) one-way state transition from solid->gas->solid, and similarly CD-RWs are solid->liquid->solid every time you write them.
and by "could be made solid state", there's no actual reason WHY a CD-ROM has to spin. It just means you don't need as complicated a laser arrangement
because if you think about how an optical disc works, it's really a 2D surface: you've got the in/out axis (towards the spindle hole or towards the edge) and the around-the-disc axis
and the laser head in your CD-ROM drive has a stepper motor or voice coil that's used to move the laser on the in/out axis.
The other axis is managed by spinning the disc, and waiting for it to rotate around.
but you could totally build a CD-ROM drive that works more like a plotter or 3D printer: you could move the head in two dimensions, and not have to spin the disc.
why would you do this?

there's really not any reason.
although the Lasercard format works this way.
https://t.co/JlCPyOXXzL
I've not opened up my lasercard drive (I was kinda hoping to find some media for it...) but I think it doesn't fully move the head. it's mostly a moving-mirror system.
although that brings up another point worth arguing about for a medium:
does it count as solid state if doesn't move while in use, but it's connected to things that do?
although if you want to get relativity-absurdist with that, you could then argue that, because there are no special reference frames, that technically traditional hard drives don't spin.
they're immobile, and the universe spins around them?
although now t hat I'm thinking about it I'm not sure rotating reference frames count as "normal", because you can feel forces from the rotation that wouldn't be the same if it was the rest of the universe spinning around you
it's too 6am for this physics bullshit
ANYWAY I think the point out vacuum tubes made me realize something:

solid state discs aren't "solid state" because they're not moving. not moving has nothing to do with if they're solid state or not
solid state disks are solid state because they use solid state electronics, and traditional spinning-rust media does not.
"solid state electronics", as a term, was coined to distinguish semiconductor electronics from vacuum tube electronics.
vacuum tubes use a (near) vacuum and a gas of particles/electrons/ions moving within it.
whereas solid state electronics use a semiconductor, which is a solid crystal. It's just currents being controlled by currents within the solid piece of silicon or germanium or whatever.
so "solid state" refers to things like transistors and diodes and integrated circuits.
and what are SSDs made out of?
integrated circuits. all the flash memory stuff happens inside a die of silicon.
whereas traditional discs are a bit circle of rust spinning around with magnetic fields on it, with a little electromagnet on an arm that moves around it to read off or write magnetic domains
which is a lot of things, but it's not transistors, diodes, or integrated circuits. So it's not "solid state" in the same way an orange isn't solid state: it's not made of remotely the same things.
so I think the answer to "is bubble memory solid state?" is both "yes" and "no".
it's "yes" in the sense of: the state of the memory storage medium is solid, and is always solid. at no point is it liquid or gas.
it's "no" in the sense of: when we say "solid state", we mean "solid state electronics", which it isn't.
It's a chunk of garnet, not anything semiconductory
btw, this also means that core memory isn't solid state either, since it's similarly electromagnety, even though nothing is moving.
so I'd argue that you could say it's something like "solid phase memory" but "solid state" has a pre-determined meaning in electronics and applying it to things that aren't made of "solid state electronics" is confusing and incorrect.
ANYWAY this reminds me of something I was talking to @gewt about the other day:
I want to make a rotating solid state disk.
the obvious way to do this is slip rings. I did a whole thread on these:
https://t.co/aVU1sri57P
but I think SATA might be too fragile and complicated to easily put through a slip ring, so I think I'm gonna go for USB.
basically take an SSD, a SATA2USB adapter, and then get a USB slip ring (I think Moog (not that one) sells off-the-shelf ones!) and a motor.
you see?

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So Sony has this format called Optical Disc Archive, right? It's a high-density storage cartridge, but it turns out it works by cheating.


because if you open it up (which you should never do. trust me on this one)
it turns out... it's blu-ray.


it's a big STACK of blu-ray


And the idea is that Sony built some very complicated drive which you can slot this cartridge into, and it'll open it up and grab out the right disc and just read/write that one

then when you hit the eject button, it shoves the discs back in and closes up the case, and hands you the cartridge.
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foone
foone
@Foone
So I was talking to @gewt about Job: A Comedy of Justice and I came up with a theory that I think explains why Heinlein's late-period work is so kinda-terrible and why I still enjoy it so much


So Heinlein had always been very interesting in the short parts of his novels, like the little snippets inside chapters. He had a very fun writing style, and wrote some fun dialogue with fun characters, right?>
It probably comes from how much of his early stuff was short fiction

And I think what happened with a lot of his longer works is that he'd just start writing fun bits and hope it would end up going somewhere or having a bigger plot by the end. like eventually he'd figure out where this was going, then go back and rewrite it into a cohesive whole

and I'm sure he had editors that'd help this process. No editor would let you publish something as rambly and changing-gears-every-other-chapter as The Number Of The Beast, for example... unless you were God-King Of Science Fiction 1980s Robert Heinlein.

so basically I think what happened is that by the 80s (when he was in his seventies!!) he lost the drive to go back and rewrite and he was too Untouchable for editors to make him.
CULTURE
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foone
foone
@Foone
So someone on IRC mentioned the ending(s) to Zero Wing and I found out there's a cheat code to skip to it. I thought it might have some more "All your base" style dialogue I could put in the generator, but I really wasn't prepared for what ending #1 looked like


ending #2 is some very thin credits


ending #3 is reportedly the "true ending", at least on the European release. The Japanese version has 35 endings.

This one is... more serious? a little?


The other 32 endings are translated here, by

functionally all the japanese endings work like this. you get CONGRATULATIONS and then CATS says something to you.
usually something silly, or possibly the debug menu cheat code
GAMING
foone
foone
@Foone
time to get back to "repairing" old computers


The funny thing about making the 8-bit-guy into a meme about "repairing" computers with powertools is that the obvious heightening joke would, like, the "8 rounds guy", who fixes computers with firearms

but that would also be him, given that he's also a big gun enthusiast.

so it's inherently hard to satirize the repairing-computers-with-dremels guy, since they're also the guns-guy.

you'd have to go up to like a mythbusters level of overkill.

"this hard drive from 1986 won't spin up. We tried freezing it, tapping it with a rubber hammer, and opening the case to lower the friction... there's only one option left: GET OUT THE C4 EXPLOSIVES!"
INTERNET
foone
foone
@Foone
I didn't have a picture handy to post today for my sleep-picture, so here's an old picture of when we brought in our recliner and Babby SCSI thought it was a fun new toy to climb on


she also liked to get in the way of keyboard repair process


her favorite youtuber was @TheCaptainSauce


and sometimes she'd just hang out near the keyboard and be like "why are you reading wikipedia and not PETTING ME?"


sometimes she was unaware that an evil wizard was sneaking up on her
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So, I want to talk about how sexual harassment and fair pay are linked at Google (and beyond), because I think that's an angle that isn't being highlighted enough in the coverage of these walk-outs. I'm going to frame it largely around my personal experience there. Thread.

When I was sexually harassed by the director of the area I was working in, I was afraid to report it because I was worried that "getting him in trouble" would result in the subtle retaliation of missed leadership opportunities.

I wanted to continue working on the team I was on, because I'd gained a lot of very deep knowledge and expertise in that area, as well as reputation and camaraderie with the other folks working in that area. I didn't want to make the situation more "difficult."

To get promoted at Google, several need to happen: 1. you need opportunities for ownership and leadership above your current level (basically, opportunities to show you're working at the next level you're trying to get promoted to). The work you're "assigned" has a big impact.

2. You need glowing reviews from peers, *at or particularly above the level you're hoping to get promoted to.* Basically, you need people a lot more senior than you to say you're doing awesome work.
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The 2018 State of JavaScript survey is out. They got 20,000 responses and have some delicious, delicious data. I'mma thread in some highlights:

First up: JavaScript flavors. There's TypeScript at 47% adoption, a tad higher than npm's own survey results (which said 46%). npm's survey is coming up again soon and will ask about TypeScript in a lot more detail.


I really, *really* like SoJ's "would not use again" question, which lets people who've abandoned a tech self-identify. This is noticeable in the graph above with Flow users -- 41% of people who've used Flow say they wouldn't use it again.

Now JavaScript frameworks. It's been a full year since npm's survey, so these numbers differ from ours in the directions I expected:
React 65% (vs. 60%)
Vue 29% (vs. 24%)
Ember 5% (vs 4%, I was expecting a bigger rise)

But there's a shocker in here: Angular.


npm's survey had Angular at 40% last year and SoJ has it at either:
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- 24% (if you count only those who like it)
Since npm's question didn't ask if they intend to *continue* using it I think that might explain this.
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Jessie @ Chicago
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@jessiedotjs
Why did I leave Google? A thread.

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When I joined Google, I fell in love with the company immediately. I was excited to come to work, not just for the technical challenges, but because I really felt I was making a difference and working for the good guys.

I spent 20% of my week working on an app that helped people find lost loved ones after natural disasters. I spent more free time speaking to students about technology and diversity. For an entire school year, I taught CS classes twice a week at a local low income high school.

The company was open. We had a weekly meeting called TGIF where anyone in the company could ask questions of, and raise concerns with, the execs. We got real answers.
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John Carmack
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@ID_AA_Carmack
The vast majority of images are jpegs, which are internally 420 YUV, but they get converted to 32 bit RGB for use in apps. Using native YUV formats would save half the memory and rendering bandwidth, speed loading, and provide a tiny quality improvement. It would also be \

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⚡️🧠Impact = Environment x Skill

A framework for making big career decisions by @iambangaly (Reforge Partner, Former Instacart, Instagram)

Full post -> https://t.co/dU0l7e0BWR

🧵 Thread...

1/ Career decisions about your next role/opp are the most impactful decisions you might make in your career. As an operator, all of your eggs are in one basket at a time, and we get a limited number of swings at the plate. So getting good at these decisions is important...

2/ At FB, Bangaly managed Rotational PM's. At the end of a rotation, he'd have the same convo: How are you going to choose your next rotation/role?

As a result, Bangaly got a lot of reps guiding this type of decision and created a framework to help with it...

3/ The framework is Impact = Skills x Environment

The goal is not to try and boil this type of decision down to a spreadsheet of inputs that spits out the answer, but rather it helps with 4 things...


4/ It can help with:

- Identify individual variables that are inputs into the decision.
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🌿𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒂 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓 : 𝑫𝒉𝒓𝒖𝒗𝒂 & 𝑽𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒏𝒖

Once upon a time there was a Raja named Uttānapāda born of Svayambhuva Manu,1st man on earth.He had 2 beautiful wives - Suniti & Suruchi & two sons were born of them Dhruva & Uttama respectively.
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Hinduism is a minority religion in Punjab.

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Durgiana Mandir is one of the oldest temples of Amritsar. According to the regional Hindu tradition, the temple was built on the spot where Lava and Kusha bound Hanuman. The temple annually attracts millions of Hindus from all over the country.


Amristsar has a very ancient Hindu history.

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26 January 1565

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HISTORY