> Why was it that in the early PC days, IBM was unable to keep a lid on 'IBM compatible', allowing for the PC interoperability explosion
IBM didn't think to lock it down, the BIOS was the main blocker and was relatively quickly reverse-engineered (properly, not by copying over the BIOS source IBM had included in the reference manual). They tried to fix some with the MCA bus of the PS/2 but that flopped.
> almost every phone has closed drivers
Lots of hardware manufacturers refuse to provide anything else and balk at the idea of open drivers. And reverse engineering drivers is either not worth the hassle for the manufacturer or a risk of being sued.
> Why are there not yet a plethora of phones on the market that allow anyone to install their OS of choice?
Incentive. Specifically its complete lack of existence.
“In business, as in comedy, timing is everything, and time looked like it might be running out for an IBM PC. I'm visiting an IBMer who took up the challenge. In August 1979, as IBM's top management met to discuss their PC crisis, Bill Lowe ran a small lab in Boca Raton Florida.
Bill Lowe:
Hello Bob nice to see you.
BOB: Nice to see you again. I tried to match the IBM dress code how did I do?
BILL: That's terrific, that's terrific.
He knew the company was in a quandary. Wait another year and the PC industry would be too big even for IBM to take on. Chairman Frank Carey turned to the department heads and said HELP!!!
Bill Lowe
Head, IBM IBM PC Development Team 1980:
He kind of said well, what should we do, and I said well, we think we know what we would like to do if we were going to proceed with our own product and he said no, he said at IBM it would take four years and three hundred people to do anything, I mean it's just a fact of life. And I said no sir, we can provide with product in a year. And he abruptly ended the meeting, he said you're on Lowe, come back in two weeks and tell me what you need.
An IBM product in a year! Ridiculous! Down in the basement Bill still has the plan. To save time, instead of building a computer from scratch, they would buy components off the shelf and assemble them -- what in IBM speak was called 'open architecture.' IBM never did this. Two weeks later Bill proposed his heresy to the Chairman.
Bill Lowe:
And frankly this is it. The key decisions were to go with an open architecture, non IBM technology, non IBM software, non IBM sales and non IBM service. And we probably spent a full half of the presentation carrying the corporate management committee into this concept. Because this was a new concept for IBM at that point.
BOB: Was it a hard sell?
BILL: Mr. Carey bought it. And as result of him buying it, we got through it.
A second component is that statics require const initializers, so for most of rust’s history if you wanted a non-trivial global it was either a lot of faffing about or using third party packages (lazy_static, once_cell).
Since 1.80 the vast majority of uses are a LazyLock away.
Because `append` works in-place, Go slices are amortised, and the backing buffer is shared between `a` and `b`, so unless you never ever use a again it likely will have strange effects e.g.
a := make([]int, 0, 5)
a = append(a, 0, 0)
b := append(a, 1)
a = append(a, 0)
fmt.Println(b)
prints
[0 0 0]
because the following happens:
a := make([]int, 0, 5)
// a = [() _ _ _ _ _]
// a has length 0 but the backing buffer has capacity 5, between the parens is the section of the buffer that's currently part of a, between brackets is the total buffer
a = append(a, 0, 0)
// a = [(0 0) _ _ _]
// a now has length 2, with the first two locations of the backing buffer zeroed
b := append(a, 1)
// b = [(0 0 1) _ _]
// b has length 3, because while it's a different slice it shares a backing buffer with a, thus while a does not see the 1 it is part of its backing buffer:
// a = [(0 0) 1 _ _]
a = append(a, 0)
// append works off of the length, so now it expands `a` and writes at the new location in the backing buffer
// a = [(0 0 0) _ _]
// since b still shares a backing buffer...
// b = [(0 0 0) _ _]
> (some decent, some bad) bike lanes across the city center
Looking at cities like London or Paris there are two thresholds which need to be reached: 1. the infrastructure needs to be consistent and safe-feeling enough that the average resident doesn't feel like they're going to risk their lives at any point; and 2. the infrastructure needs to be widespread enough that they can do the things they need without having to think about it too much. "Surveys show that the lack of safe and contiguous infrastructure is a primary reason why most people don't ride more" (https://momentummag.com/biking-work-barrier-americans/)
That's pretty visible in Paris: there have been rental bikes since 2007, and they've been pretty popular and expanding, but it's as the infrastructure expansions of the bike plans started connecting properly that cycling really exploded.
A hodge-podge of disconnected bits is never going to succeed, because it fails on both safety and utility.
> American pickups are very practical for what they are designed for. Your 4 cylinder hatchback is not going to pull a 20,000lb trailer up a steep grade or haul enough lumber to frame in a house, or a 7,000lb bed full of gravel.
An f150 can do none of these things.
> While there are very visible idiots in the USA that drive big trucks for aesthetic reasons
That is 95% of the market.
> there are also plenty of farmers, contractors, etc. that need them as a practical tool to haul heavy loads.
For the average contractor a panel van would be more capable and useful. You can put 3 metric tonnes in a man tge (and actually have the space for it) and tow a 3.5 tonnes trailer. And it’s available bare if you need an open bed, or a custom rear (e.g. for a lift).
So? I gave specs for a typical 1 ton truck. A 1/2 ton F150 is smaller, cheaper, and more efficient. It depends on what you need.
A panel van is more useful for some things, a truck for others- it depends on what you’re doing. You’re not going to fill your panel van with manure or gravel and then transport it across a muddy field without getting stuck. I grew up in a rural area of the USA where everyone owned trucks they needed and used for work, most were old and rusty and they all also owned a regular passenger car they used when they weren’t hauling something heavy… people were poor and did not waste fuel driving a truck except when it was essential- not a fashion statement, just a tool.
My family owned a 3/4 ton truck that we needed for hauling our boat and livestock, but we drove an old Volvo at other times. My dad built the home I grew up in, and he had to transport all of the materials to build it himself.
I think the hate on here is coming mostly from a place of ignorance about what life in rural America is like, which is what full sized American trucks are engineered and perfectly suited for. Where transporting thousands of pounds of materials across a muddy field in 4WD isn’t something you do once a year but often twice a day just to survive.
So that's a small fraction of the market, and literally none of what's already landed in europe.
> I grew up in a rural area of the USA where everyone owned trucks they needed and used for work, most were old and rusty and they all also owned a regular passenger car they used when they weren’t hauling something heavy… people were poor and did not waste fuel driving a truck except when it was essential- not a fashion statement, just a tool.
OK. Apparently you're waking up from a coma and missed the last 20 year of US car trends?
> My dad built the home I grew up in, and he had to transport all of the materials to build it himself.
Cool. My grandfather did the same for his family, using an R4. And the odd rental when that wasn't enough.
> I think the hate on here is coming mostly from a place of ignorance about what life in rural America is like
Or you could just read what people actually write, and see that your "thinking" could not be more wrong.
There's never been less farmers in the US, or more trucks sold. And full-size trucks are nowhere near sales leaders.
My point is that full sized American trucks are uniquely effective at what they are actually engineered for, and plenty of people do need and use them for that. The fact that they are even more popular with people that have no practical need for them doesn’t invalidate my point in any way, despite your rude and dismissive tone. If you dislike people misusing a tool for something other than it’s practical purpose, that’s fine, but why project that onto me, or the tool itself?
I very much appreciate the capabilities and utility of American pickup trucks, despite not owning one because I don’t need one. I also find it distasteful when people use them as urban passenger cars to project some sort of “personal brand” without having an actual need, but that in no way diminishes my appreciation for their practicality when used appropriately.
I suspect people are in part so aggressively hateful of American pickup trucks because they see it as a symbol for an opposing side in a culture war. However that perspective seems really silly to anyone that uses them properly to meet a practical need.
The only culture war is between your ears, people are “hateful of American pickups” because as I already wrote multiple times and you refuse to read the overwhelming majority of their uses and users are what you claim to find distasteful. When “used appropriately” is closing on nonexistent and the misuses cause massive harm it’s a reasonable response. Even more so when per TFA your leaders are aiming to spread that plague by (economic) force.
> my appreciation for their practicality when used appropriately.
You can do that and still acknowledge that pickups are a massive problem. These are not exclusive thoughts despite your refusal to see it. It might be easier if you substitute pickups for mine trucks, excavators, or rollers, which I assume you don’t have the same emotional attachment towards.
> You can do that and still acknowledge that pickups are a massive problem
I never said they aren't, you seem to be trying to have an argument against a position that I have never stated or held. I was explaining how these vehicles can be practical when used for their intended and engineered purpose, and your rebuttals are targeted as some other assumed perspective or position that I simply don't have. Please drop the insults- that isn't how we discuss things on HN.
My acknowledgement of the practical utility of American pickups for their engineered purpose doesn't come from any kind of emotional attachment, or affinity for them, nor any delusion that most of their owners actually need or use them properly- that's all coming from you. I'm a European car nerd/snob and wouldn't personally be caught dead driving any American vehicle, I just really don't like them. I own a fuel efficient diesel German SUV that I tow a flatbed utility trailer behind, so I can do some of the things one would usually do with a pickup, without having to own one.
> They are heavily clustered around US military bases.
They’re clustered around areas of idiots with means. I’m nowhere near a us military base but there’s a bunch of these where I live, including two or three owned at houses I pass by on my way to work.
> My experience with protobufs is that it was created to solve problems in large systems with many teams and APIs
Also significant distribution such that it’s impossible to ensure every system is updated in lockstep (at least not without significant downtime), and high tail latencies e.g. a message could be stashed into a queue or database and processed hours or days later.
Or worse, for centuries mummies were ground into powder for “medicine” or pigments, during the Egyptology craze hundred of mummies were unwrapped and destroyed for the idle curiosity and entertainment of aristocrats, and tens of thousands of cat mummies are attested being used as fertiliser.
Even in building and electrical, just because B is better than A does not mean it’s allowed.
IIRC the first wago parts (221) were UL-listed in 2017, the 221 were released in 2014, and the original push-lever splices (the 222) were released in 2004.
reply