Not just preserving culture but the early MP3/download era, despite all the initial legal brouhaha, really did change how we buy and listen to music and video.
Only recently did I have a similar conversation with friends and I mentioned the common radio phrase, "Don't touch that dial!" There was a youngster (20s maybe) who asked about the dial. She had never seen an analog radio before.
@peteorrall@Lazarou@estherschindler What I thought was wild about MP3s before they became about existing media, was how many of the ones I found were bootlegs of live shows that no one would have bothered to record. Someone went to some Dead Kennedys show in some bar in ‘79 and recorded it to cassette and then to MP3
@gdinwiddie Yes, there are times to talk about productivity, and effectiveness, and efficiency. They're quite different things, I think. And I agree that measures of output are less interesting than measures of usefulness. That's why we have different words for those things. I don't think we need to redefine "productivity" to mean the same thing as "effectiveness" just because we're more interested in effectiveness than
productivity. Different words came into use to express different concepts.
We thought we knew how Voyager would end. The power would gradually, inevitably, run down. The instruments would shut off, one by one. The signal would get fainter. Eventually either the last instrument would fail for lack of power, or the signal would be lost.
@jgamble think about how the ones who built the original Starcraft 1 (and then watched Blizzard destroy itself) are likely millionaires now and Musk got rich on treacherous paypal while those who built legendary tech that pushed the boundaries of the possible may have to worry whether they’ll be able to eat when there’s a government shutdown. @estherschindler
@estherschindler one of my undergrad jobs involved converting hundreds of magnetic reel-to-reel tapes of Voyager 1 data over to exabyte tape format. it was a long and boring job, but it helped me pay for school and also sometimes provided me with an airconditioned place to sleep (i did not have AC in my shitty apartment in Tucson, AZ) when it got too hot. so thanks for that, little duder, god speed. can't imagine hardware like that being built with today's move-fast-etc etc engineering culture.
@mlevison@estherschindler
Also known as "the big blue box," the MDS was Intel's computer it sold for developing code for Intel's 8-bit microprocessors. It's the machine on/for which Gary Kildall wrote CP/M, though he couldn't get Intel interested in that. The later wrote their own disk operating system for it--ISIS.
"I do have One Weird Trick that I have found incredibly useful to re-enter flow and continue working on large problems: Before stepping away, leave the code in a state where it is Obviously Broken, but Easy to Fix."
I do the same with writing. Leave a paragraph unfinished. The next morning, I have to complete it... and I get back into the work.
A little while back, Apple released a collection of Steve Jobs' speeches, interviews, and emails, all put into a book, which is totally free. https://stevejobsarchive.com/
@estherschindler@grammargirl slight correction, it’s not Apple who did that, but Steve Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell-Jobs.
From their FAQ:
The Archive was launched by Steve’s friends and family in 2022. Although we work closely with the companies Steve helped build and meant so much to him, the Archive is an independent organization.
#baseball DBacks Season Ticket Holders Trip Acquired!
This package will include:
Pre-Road Trip Suite Night on September 5
Roundtrip airfare via Southwest Airlines
Three-night stay at The Ritz-Carlton, Chicago
Tickets to two D-backs vs. Cubs games
Private Tour of Wrigley Field on September 9