asciilifeform: at the rate the bureaucrats work, might die of old age. can never get quality service around here!

asciilifeform: that, etc.

asciilifeform doesn't own airplane, will probably have to settle for slipping in his bath with a cocked nailgun

asciilifeform: or should they sue the bartender who mixed the a saxitoxin cocktail?

asciilifeform: what are they to do - sue the nice folks who put the thermite limpet in the turbine the night before?

asciilifeform: in usa.

asciilifeform: that makes what, 6? 7? 'interesting' people died in private airplanes in the past year or two

asciilifeform: the bureaucrats simply bent under the weight of the seemingly inevitable

asciilifeform: don't make the mistake of thinking of this as a 'prime mover' though

asciilifeform: decimation: u.s. software industry was essentially exempted from ordinary consumer liability by statute some time in the '80s

asciilifeform: threw out hundreds of perfectly good ibm green screens

asciilifeform: decimation: i distinctly recall when the libraries here went winblows

asciilifeform: decimation: nothing like the target corp. 'hack' takes place without the cooperation of managerial traitors

asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: try using 'clitoral mouse' on the old toshibas, for example

asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: on the contrary, using portables as a student is what got me using 'ratpoison'

asciilifeform: etc

asciilifeform: microshit comes and offers to 'help'

asciilifeform: the way this usually works is that old vendor (say, ibm) either 'end of lifes' or decides to charge a fortune for support

asciilifeform: (the lisp machines ran a fraud detector heuristic gizmo, afaik the first of its kind.)

asciilifeform: they sold thousands of surplus boxes when they moved to some 'enterprise' crudware

asciilifeform: AmEx was once the largest customer of smbx

asciilifeform: sure

asciilifeform: etc

asciilifeform: proggys dating to gulf war 1 (at least) for which there will be no substitute

asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: unlike the airplane folks, this is a case where the rubber actually hits the road. there's a couple dozen ancient boxes, that cannot be replaced.

asciilifeform: it's more like 40-50k

asciilifeform: there is scarcely anyone left alive who could take his work

asciilifeform: i doubt the contract will be honoured when dks finally succumbs to old age

asciilifeform: it's worth about what a decent restaurant in a small town is.

asciilifeform: re: symbolics: if anyone has a $mil or two in their sofa cushions, can probably buy it. but then you'll be conscripted into supporting the ancient contracts.

asciilifeform: can't say that i can

asciilifeform: decimation: if i recall, they do cartography there

asciilifeform: it brings in a few $10k/yr in maintenance contracts, dated into eternity

asciilifeform: http://usaspending.gov/search?form_fields=%7B%22search_term%22%3A%22SYMBOLICS+TECHNOLOGY+INCORPORATED%22%2C%22recipient_duns%22%3A%5B%22966978090%22%5D%7D&sort_by=dollars&per_page=25

asciilifeform: what the present-day symbolics corp. is for is not a secret:

asciilifeform: mallery is a 'man of wealth and taste', possibly consults for nsa & friends.

asciilifeform: for some years it ran www.whitehouse

asciilifeform: mallery wrote cl-http, infamous for draconian license

asciilifeform: after topping (con man) died

asciilifeform: a source that didn't want to be named told me that one dr john mallery (mit) bought it for fire sale price

asciilifeform: didn't know a thing about computers

asciilifeform: even had artificial heart, bought on a kited cheque

asciilifeform: died with millions in debt

asciilifeform: for some years, it was a new york (?) serial con man, who bought and sold corpses of old companies

asciilifeform: and, of course, the owner.

asciilifeform: the only other 'playing characters' in the outfit are, afaik, a fellow named kalman reti (software support; wrote the x86-64 emu)

asciilifeform: the man is in his 80s i think

asciilifeform: (that's where i got mine)

asciilifeform: but if he does, and you want one, he'll pick up phone, invite you over.

asciilifeform: not sure if he has any left to sell these days

asciilifeform: david lives in a little house, generously stocked with parts, and fixes the remaining machines for a modest fee. ☟︎

asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: http://www.symbolics-dks.com

asciilifeform: used to be on 'nasdaq' as smbx

asciilifeform: symbolics corp.

asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: afaik he's a sworn vassal of the estate. and some bozo bought it.

asciilifeform: decimation: ?

asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: from your link: http://www.cracked.com/article_21165_6-works-propaganda-that-backfired-in-hilarious-ways.html

asciilifeform: decimation: by and large they care about... paycheck

asciilifeform: (in approximately the same way emacs does)

asciilifeform: on top of whatever os you're stuck with

asciilifeform: cad app is one of those cases where a 'proper' solution involves essentially re-creating a smbx box

asciilifeform: the set of folks who design hardware and actually give a shit about workflow (or their lives) is approximately null.

asciilifeform: educate whom? the chinese folks graduating from american schools, who will design with a crayon if ordered to?

asciilifeform: (camel gotta piss)

asciilifeform: ask why there is a desert, not why the oasis is a puddle of piss

asciilifeform: if you ever sit and 'my life suxx', consider that people... live with this

asciilifeform: and other unspeakables

asciilifeform: MB of... .bat script

asciilifeform: not only did it not build, but the entire tool chain was... winblows

asciilifeform: at one point, some years ago, i tried to build the turd intel was passing off as their version of 'open source bios'

asciilifeform: and condemned to use various cockeyed substitutes provided 'helpfully' by the turdware folk

asciilifeform: the real nasty re: orcad isn't the cost (leech it) but that you end up in an os with no sane infrastructure (where's grep? etc)

asciilifeform: 'enterprise!'

asciilifeform: i.e. 100% of users are paying out of someone else's pocket

asciilifeform: decimation: the field suffers from 'golden toilet' problem

asciilifeform: like kikad's.

asciilifeform: there are not (and probably cannot be) 'good' autorouter, but there are plenty of terrible ones.

asciilifeform: due for a really good ai << np-complete. good luck.

asciilifeform: e.g. does it 'let you help', or resists valiantly

asciilifeform: the difference is not irrelevant in practice

asciilifeform: varying degrees of suction

asciilifeform: used, wasn't particularly impressed

asciilifeform: 'spice' is pretty good for what it is (mechanism for solving unsolvable problem)

asciilifeform: (vlsi package)

asciilifeform: with possible exception of 'magic'

asciilifeform: in electric world, open source sorta never really happened

asciilifeform: other than cadsoft's. it's rather turdalicious, but usable

asciilifeform: took me a week to get it to build, too

asciilifeform: i suspect they only test under winblows

asciilifeform: decimation: it. and the gui (shits snow on the screen)

asciilifeform: decimation: now if only it... worked

asciilifeform: get '1'

asciilifeform: wow, never knew it went retarded

asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: what minix is that? certainly not the one in my schoolbook

asciilifeform: for unsatisfied masochist - 'menuet'

asciilifeform: ;;google men were men and wrote own device drivers

asciilifeform: for a masochist - minix...

asciilifeform: (not only about what you don't want)

asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: re: choice of softs: helps to sit and think about what you actually want from the machine, other than heating the room

asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: hanging on locked file?