From 8bbd48afb63496dbf9e7fa08ec0b8f9332764269 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Miloslav Ciz Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2022 22:32:33 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] Update --- binary.md | 3 ++- modern.md | 18 +++++++++--------- rms.md | 2 +- 3 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-) diff --git a/binary.md b/binary.md index d788eae..4aac7d1 100644 --- a/binary.md +++ b/binary.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ # Binary -Binary refers to to having two choices; in [computer science](compsci.md) binary refers to the base 2 numeral system, i.e. a system of writing numbers with only two symbols, usually [1](one.md)s and [0](zero.md)s. Binary is used in computers because this system is easy to implement in electronics (a switch can be on or off, i.e. 1 or 0; systems with more digits were tried but unsuccessful, they failed miserably in reliability). The word *binary* is also sometimes used as a synonym for a native [executable](executable.md) program. +The word binary in general refers to having two choices; in [computer science](compsci.md) binary refers to the base 2 numeral system, i.e. a system of writing numbers with only two symbols, usually [1](one.md)s and [0](zero.md)s. We can write any number in binary just as we can with our everyday [decimal](decimal.md) system, but binary is more convenient for computers because this system is easy to implement in [electronics](electronics.md) (a switch can be on or off, i.e. 1 or 0; systems with more digits were tried but unsuccessful, they failed miserably in reliability). The word *binary* is also by extension used for non-textual computer [files](file.md) such as native [executable](executable.md) programs or asset files for games. One binary digit can be used to store exactly 1 [bit](bit.md) of [information](information.md). So the number of places we have for writing a binary number (e.g. in computer memory) is called a number of bits or bit **width**. A bit width *N* allows for storing 2^N values (e.g. with 2 bits we can store 4 values: 0, 1, 2 and 3). @@ -30,5 +30,6 @@ As anything can be represented with numbers, binary can be used to store any kin - [bit](bit.md) - [hexadecimal](hexadeciaml.md) +- [De Morgan's laws](de_morgans_laws.md) - [data structure](data_structure.md) - [data type](data_type.md) \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/modern.md b/modern.md index 89a3400..8e8ca48 100644 --- a/modern.md +++ b/modern.md @@ -1,20 +1,20 @@ # Modern -Modern [software](software.md)/[hardware](hardware.md) might as well be synonymous with [shit](shit.md). +So called *modern* [software](software.md)/[hardware](hardware.md) and other [technology](technology.md) might as well be synonymous with [shitty](shit.md) abusive technology. In a [capitalist](capitalism.md) [age](21st_century.md) when everything is getting progressively worse in terms of design, quality, ethicality, efficiency, etc., newer means worse, therefore modern (*newest*) means *the worst*. In other words *modern* is a term that stands for "as of yet best optimized for exploiting users". At [LRS](lrs.md) we see the term *modern* as negative -- for example whenever someone says "we work with modern technology", he is really saying "we are working with worst technology we know of". ## Modern Vs Old Technology -It's sad and dangerous that newer generation won't even remember technology used to be better, people will soon think that status quo is the best we can do. That is wrong. It is important we leave here a note on at least a few way in which old was much better. +It's sad and dangerous that newer generation won't even remember technology used to be better, people will soon think that the current disgusting state of technology is the best we can do. That is of course wrong, technology used to be relatively good. It is important we leave here a note on at least a few ways in which old was much, much better. -And before you say "it was faster and longer on battery etc. because it was simpler" -- **yes, that is exactly the point**. +(INB4 "it was faster and longer on battery etc. because it was simpler" -- **yes, that is exactly the point**.) -- Old technology was simpler and **better engineered with minimum [bloat](bloat.md)**. Fewer incompetent people were present in the field and capitalism wasn't yet pushing as hard on extreme development speed and abuse of the user, products competed in true usefulness. -- **Old computers were faster** and astronomically more efficient. Computers with a few MhZ single-core CPU and under a megabyte of RAM booted faster to [DOS](dos.md) than modern computers boot to Windows 10, despite [Moore's law](moores_law.md) (this shittiness is known as [Wirth's law](wirths_law.md)). Old tech also **reacted faster to input** (had shorter lag) thanks to shorter input and output processing [pipelines](pipeline.md). { I've heard this confirmed from [John Carmack](carmack.md) in a talk on his development of [VR](vr.md). ~drummyfish } +- Old technology was simpler and **better engineered with minimum [bloat](bloat.md)**. Fewer incompetent people were present in the field and capitalism wasn't yet pushing as hard on extreme development speed and abuse of the user, products still tried to compete by their quality. +- **Old computers were faster** and astronomically more efficient. Computers with a few MHz single-core CPU and under a megabyte of RAM booted faster to [DOS](dos.md) than modern computers boot to Windows 10, despite [Moore's law](moores_law.md) (this shittiness is known as [Wirth's law](wirths_law.md)). Old tech also **reacted faster to input** (had shorter input latency/lag), e.g. thanks to shorter input and output processing [pipelines](pipeline.md). { I've heard this confirmed from [John Carmack](carmack.md) himself in a talk on his development of [VR](vr.md). ~drummyfish } - Old devices such as cell phones **lasted much, much longer on battery**. The old phones such as Nokia 3310 would **last long over a week** on stand-by. - **Old software was shipped finished, complete and with minimum [bugs](bug.md)**. Nowadays newly released "[apps](app.md)" and [games](game.md) are normally released unfinished, even in pre-alpha states and even "finished" ones have [bugs](bug.md) often rendering the software unsuable (see Cyberpunk 2077, GTA: Definiteve Edition etc.), user is supposed to wait years for fixes (without any guarantees), pay for content or even subscriptions. Old software was difficult or even impossible to patch (e.g. on [Gameboy](gameboy.md)) so it had to work. -- **Old tech had minimum malicious features**. There wasn't [spyware in CPUs](intel_me.md), **[DRM](drm.md) was either absent or primitive**, there weren't ads in file explorers, there weren't [microtransactions](microtransaction.md) in games, there weren't [autoupdates](autoupdate.md), there weren't psychologically abusive [social networks](social_network.md), technology was **designed to last**, not to be [consoomed](consumerism.md), there was much less [censhorship](censorship.md). -- **Old tech was much easier to modify and customize**, thanks to not being so overcomplicated and not containing so many anti-repair "features". Old software wasn't in the [cloud](cloud.md) which makes it impossible to be modified. -- **Old tech was much more independent**, did not require Internet connectivity, subscription etc. -- There was **minimum [bullshit](bullshit.md)**. True usefulness was more important than killer features to help marketing. +- **Old tech had minimum malicious features**. There wasn't [spyware in CPUs](intel_me.md), **[DRM](drm.md) was either absent or primitive**, there weren't ads in file explorers, there weren't [microtransactions](microtransaction.md) in games, there weren't [autoupdates](autoupdate.md), there weren't psychologically abusive [social networks](social_network.md), technology was **designed to last**, with replaceable parts; not to be [consoomed](consumerism.md), there was much less [censorship](censorship.md). +- **Old tech was much easier to repair, modify and customize**, thanks to not being so overcomplicated and not containing so many anti-repair "features". Old software wasn't in the [cloud](cloud.md) which makes it impossible to modify. +- **Old tech was much more independent and freedom friendly**, did not require Internet connectivity, subscription etc. Thanks to its simplicity and better hackability it was possible for people to partly control their devices, even if the devices were [proprietary](proprietary.md). +- There was **minimum [bullshit](bullshit.md)**. True usefulness was more important than killer features and marketing. - Old tech was **simpler and more [fun](fun.md) to program**, allowing direct access to hardware, not complicating things with [OOP](oop.md) and similar [shit](shit.md), and so **old programmers were more [productive](productivity_cult.md)**. - **Old "look n feel" of software was objectively better**. Just compare the graphics of [Doom](doom.md) and any shitty soulless "modern" game. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/rms.md b/rms.md index 1919e0e..b5ed9b6 100644 --- a/rms.md +++ b/rms.md @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ The great doctor Richard Matthew Stallman (RMS, also [GNU](gnu.md)/Stallman and Stallman's life along with free software's history is documented by a free-licensed book named *Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software* on which he collaborated. You can get it gratis e.g. at [Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5768). You should read this! -[tl;dr](tldr.md): At 27 as an employee at [MIT](mit.md) AI labs Stallman had a bad experience when trying to fix a Xerox printer who's [proprietary](proprietary.md) software source code was made inaccessible; he also started spotting the betrayal of hacker principles by others who decided to write proprietary software -- he realized proprietary software was inherently wrong as it prevented studying, improvement and sharing of software and enable abuse of users. From 1982 he was involved in a "fight" against the Symbolics company that pushed aggressive proprietary software; he was rewriting their software from scratch to allow Lisp Machine users more freedom -- here he proved his superior programming skills as he was keeping up with the whole team of Symbolics programmers. By 1983 his frustration reached its peak and he announced his [GNU](gnu.md) project on the [Usenet](usenet.md) -- this was a project to create a completely [free as in freedom](free_software.md) [operating system](os.md), an alternative to the proprietary [Unix](unix.md) system that would offer its users freedom to use, study, modify and share the whole software, in the hacker spirit. He followed by publishing a manifesto and establishing the [Free Software Foundation](fsf.md). GNU and FSF popularized and standardized the term [free (as in freedom) software](free_software.md), [copyleft](copyleft.md) and free licensing, e.g. with the [GPL](gpl.md) license. In the 90s GNU adopted the [Linux](linux.md) operating system kernel and released a complete version of the GNU operating system -- these are nowadays known mostly as "Linux" [distros](distro.md). For the whole time Stallman has been traveling around the world and giving talks about free software and has earned his status of one of the most important people in software history. +[tl;dr](tldr.md): At 27 as an employee at [MIT](mit.md) AI labs Stallman had a bad experience when trying to fix a Xerox printer who's [proprietary](proprietary.md) software source code was made inaccessible; he also started spotting the betrayal of hacker principles by others who decided to write proprietary software -- he realized proprietary software was inherently wrong as it prevented studying, improvement and sharing of software and enable abuse of users. From 1982 he was involved in a "fight" against the Symbolics company that pushed aggressive proprietary software; he was rewriting their software from scratch to allow Lisp Machine users more freedom -- here he proved his superior programming skills as he was keeping up with the whole team of Symbolics programmers. By 1983 his frustration reached its peak and he announced his [GNU](gnu.md) project on the [Usenet](usenet.md) -- this was a project to create a completely [free as in freedom](free_software.md) [operating system](os.md), an alternative to the proprietary [Unix](unix.md) system that would offer its users freedom to use, study, modify and share the whole software, in the hacker spirit. He followed by publishing a manifesto and establishing the [Free Software Foundation](fsf.md). GNU and FSF popularized and standardized the term [free (as in freedom) software](free_software.md), [copyleft](copyleft.md) and free licensing, e.g. with the [GPL](gpl.md) license. In the 90s GNU adopted the [Linux](linux.md) operating system kernel and released a complete version of the GNU operating system -- these are nowadays known mostly as "Linux" [distros](distro.md). As a head of FSF and GNU Stallman more or less stopped programming and started traveling around the world to give talks about free software and has earned his status of one of the most important people in software history. Regarding [software](software.md) Stallman has for his whole life strongly and tirelessly promoted free software and [copyleft](copyleft.md) and has himself only used free software; he has always practiced what he preched and led the best example of how to live without [proprietary](proprietary.md) software. This is amazing. Nevertheless he isn't too concerned about [bloat](bloat.md) (judging by the GNU software and his own creation, [Emacs](emacs.md)) and he also doesn't care that much about [free culture](free_culture.md) (some of his written works prohibit modification and his GNU project allows proprietary non-functional data). Sadly he has also shown signs of being a [type A fail](fail_ab.md) personality by writing about some kind of [newspeak](newspeak.md) "*gender neutral language*" and by seeming to be caught in a [fight culture](fight_culture.md). Nevertheless he definitely can't be accused of populism or hypocrisy as he basically tells what he considers to be the truth no matter what, and he is very consistent in this. Some of his unpopular opinions brought him a lot of trouble, e.g. the wrath of [SJWs](sjw.md) in 2019 for his criticism of the [pedo](pedophile.md) witch hunt.