asciilifeform: unfortunately BingoBoingo may be the only man alive who can see this similarity

asciilifeform: profanity65 << pure genius.

asciilifeform is not particularly in love with the 68k

asciilifeform: (9 was to have memory protection, but the brass over-ruled it)

asciilifeform: aha, 'cooperative multitasking'

asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: i know of no serious difference between 7.5 and 8

asciilifeform: in most ways - better. because less retardation in the payloads.

asciilifeform: aha.

asciilifeform regular user of 'lynx', perhaps one of ten left...

asciilifeform: and that's more or less it.

asciilifeform: 'lynx' - yes.

asciilifeform: my point earlier was that code bloat is ubiquitous and pestilential and finally made the old hardware unusable with software of even moderately distant (starting '05 or so) vintage.

asciilifeform: i still have 'doom' on a stack of aol floppies somewhere.

asciilifeform: although they were shoddy

asciilifeform: i liked the aol floppy disks.

asciilifeform: and with lamers

asciilifeform: yes, but for money.

asciilifeform: bbs-en - yes

asciilifeform: never even saw them alive.

asciilifeform: not 'aol' either

asciilifeform: nope

asciilifeform: a recent openbsd (what i eventually settled on for that machine) consumes virtually the whole 64m.

asciilifeform: as recently as 2004, you could.

asciilifeform: the main culprit is the www crud

asciilifeform: tried it personally, and put in a good effort, a year or so ago

asciilifeform: i know of no setup where it is possible to set up even a very decent 486 in such a way that it can be used for serious work today.

asciilifeform: you'll get nowhere.

asciilifeform: incidentally, try this today.

asciilifeform regards all mousy wm as turd

asciilifeform: lol kde

asciilifeform: but the cost, for people who did not spend the last decade with it, is high.

asciilifeform: this is why folks use it.

asciilifeform: well yes.

asciilifeform: undata: i still haven't forgiven the xorg thing

asciilifeform never tried 'funtoo', cannot speak for it

asciilifeform: undata probably updates his box

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: to some extend it exactly mirrors the bitcoind situation - in that every serious user more or less has his own private fork.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: gentoo << complicated. the lead dev surrendered to microshit (literally) some years ago, and it's been run by a skeleton crew ever since, with numerous high-profile catastrophes (of the 'your machine is suddenly rendered unusable by a perfectly innocent-looking action' variety) -- but there is -no- adequate replacement to this day.

asciilifeform: decimation: because he is familiar to the folks here

asciilifeform: decimation: the example i usually offer is n. taleb

asciilifeform: which is to say, not really at all.

asciilifeform: 'few months' is about as useful as 'few thousand usd'

asciilifeform: can he take a few months off like ascii dreams << when did i ever say 'few months'

asciilifeform: language school or medical/technical fields << what were you hoping to become instead ?

asciilifeform behind the times

asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: what was the offered place? ball turret gunner?

asciilifeform: when will the academics finally starve.

asciilifeform: arrakis os << yet another 'c' microkernel os. snore. snore...

asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: they mostly had uni degrees though

asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: when working as an r&d contractor grunt, i met plenty of folks in uniform happily 'flying the mahogany bomber'

asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: how did you resist the army?

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: i do not exactly believe b-a is intended for the workaday people. << do elaborate. should all of us but you & kako pack up? or some other thing implied

asciilifeform: BingoBoingo is trying to retain some dignity (has not yet fallen into programming, for example)

asciilifeform: decimation: but at one point exhausted ram, but blockchain remained wedged upon restart

asciilifeform: decimation: wasn't a memory stop as such

asciilifeform: ben_vulpes: but simply happens to be when my box exhausted ram from leakage and began to fandango on the db.

asciilifeform: ben_vulpes: i suspect that there is nothing magic about that block

asciilifeform: if you watch the right televised strange, one could believe that one possible option for space flight is to light one's farts.

asciilifeform: decimation: i don't think anyone here has trouble getting money by working.

asciilifeform: as in, physically go places and do things

asciilifeform: decimation: but they have to work.

asciilifeform: decimation: or city dogcatcher, lol

asciilifeform: or, alternatively, in the other direction of spectrum, perelman mode.

asciilifeform: e.g. 'taleb mode'

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: the discussion was not about 'enough money', but about the distinct and clearly identifiable phase transition where your time becomes 100% your own

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: however, ben himself wants a tower of hydrocarbons. and if he gets it, he'll want something else. << actually, afaik what he was speaking for is my escape rocket metaphor.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: not from my puny brain.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: it's not a bad theory in any sense. got any policy proposals based on it ? << beyond 'open a physical empire where we can all defect to and die like men in the janissary corps' - no useful idea.

asciilifeform: it was mentioned here on at least one occasion

asciilifeform: don't recall precisely what.

asciilifeform: possibly once, on 'youtube'

asciilifeform: TheNewDeal: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=939

asciilifeform: he may be rehashing an argument made, among other places, in my 'microscope hammer' article.

asciilifeform: every day that this has not yet taken place, i am pleasantly surprised.

asciilifeform: i, for instance, expect to end up slowly dismembered in a cia dungeon. ☟︎

asciilifeform: i conjecture that it's all a problem of expectations.

asciilifeform: this is merely the picture seen through my own 'shit-coloured glasses.'

asciilifeform: i can't claim to have a handle on what ails pankkake et. al. ☟︎

asciilifeform: nubbins`: that was the 'success' i was theorizing about people being disappointed in not having.

asciilifeform: nubbins`: could you?

asciilifeform: nubbins`: let's say you wanted to close your printery and spend the rest of your days as a taleb-like scholarly man of leisure.

asciilifeform: http://log.bitcoin-assets.com/?date=19-01-2014#449496 ☝︎

asciilifeform: example,

asciilifeform: wage labour is wage labour, whether for usd, btc, or gold dubloons

asciilifeform: i'd imagine i'm not the only one who considers 'success' as implying a total exit from 'don't work a day - don't eat a day'

asciilifeform: well, exit from wage labour

asciilifeform: 'successful' i'd propose, would be in this context, folks who once had to prostitute themselves for fiat who no longer must, on account of something they worked on in collaboration with the people here.

asciilifeform: kako?

asciilifeform: it is precisely the existence of 'success stories' in #b-a that creates the problem (if you will) of nonzero expectations.

asciilifeform: the funny part is that nobody quit, e.g., a model airplane club, because they realize that it will not make them rich.

asciilifeform: impossible.'

asciilifeform: l of this "code sharing" is an economic surplus phenomenon. It works only when none of the people involved in it are in any form of need. As soon as the need arises, a lot of people discover that it has cost them real money to work for the community and they reap very little benefit from it, because they are sharing value-less services and getting value out of something that people take for granted is hard to ☟︎

asciilifeform: marry, start a family, buy a house, have an accident, get seriously ill for a while, or a number of other very expensive things people actually do all the time, and the value of your work starts to get very real and concrete to you, at which point giving away things to be "nice" to some "community" which turns out not to be "nice" _enough_ in return that you will actually stay alive, is no longer an option. Al

asciilifeform: 'The whole idea that anything can be so "shared" as to have no value in itself is not a problem if the rest of the world ensures that nobody _is_ starving or needing money. For young people who have parents who pay for them or student grants or loans and basically have yet to figure out that it costs a hell of a lot of money to live in a highly advanced society, this is not such a bad idea. Grow up, graduate,

asciilifeform: ^ naggum on the subject

asciilifeform: http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3217750625724755@naggum.net.html

asciilifeform: they, i suspect, reach a point of thinking 'i can't eat hope'

asciilifeform: not precisely

asciilifeform: this may also explain the disappearance of moiety and a few other folks.

asciilifeform: some people don't react well to a (perceived) collapse of fantasy of escape from gravity well.