Type in Morse code by repeatedly slamming your laptop shut

Post by xg15 » Fri, Jul 19, 2024, 4:56 PM UTC

nocoiner wrote: post #124

jvanderbot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beautiful wording. So, I had to see where it was from, if anywhere else (Amazon.com): A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. This exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that…

You are a liberal arts major at an American university in the first half of the first decade of this century. At every house party you attend, you see a copy of this book on every coffee table. You are aware that it is critically acclaimed and you participate in numerous conversations regarding its merits (or lack thereof). You have never read the book. You regret nothing.

Post by roughly » Fri, Jul 19, 2024, 5:42 PM UTC

digging wrote: post #152

nocoiner wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a meme, the man really can’t write an ending to save his life. But generally the pages other than the last ~25 make it totally worth it (other than that post-death MMORPG book, that one was terrible and just a slog the whole way through).

Have you read Termination Shock, and if so, how do you feel it stacks up? It was, regrettably, my first (and still only) Stephenson book, and I thought it was really quite bad in all the ways that matter to me. (The action was good, but I don't read sci-fi for the action.) But I see so much love for him in hacker circles online that I wave on whether or not I should give his more famous works some attention.

Post by mbonnet » Fri, Jul 19, 2024, 6:21 PM UTC

OuterVale wrote: post #88

anfractuosity wrote: post #44

Haha. Tangentially - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Send_Me_to_Heaven - "developed by Carrot Pop which measures the vertical distance that a mobile phone is thrown. Players compete against each other by seeking to throw their phones higher than others, often at the risk of damaging their phones."

My first phone was a RugGear RG930. If you think Nokia’s 3310 was built like a brick, then this thing may as well have been a rubberised titanium brick. It was so solid I used to play ‘catch the phone’ with friends, and it ended up face down on concrete more times than I can count, but I don’t think it ever sustained so much as a scratch. If the RG930 ran Android, I reckon I could go for the high score.

Post by JJMcJ » Fri, Jul 19, 2024, 7:40 PM UTC

fellerts wrote: post #125

stavros wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it now, though? I read it and didn't manage to get into it much, and don't really remember anything from it. I think it's one of those works of art that were so revolutionary that they started a whole genre, but now they seem badly done and clichéd just because everyone has copied them and iterated on them.

I found it witty and somewhat educational, but man is it long . I read it on the kindle and when I thought that I must be getting close to the end, I had only read 30% of it. It takes some determination to get through.

Post by JJMcJ » Fri, Jul 19, 2024, 7:45 PM UTC

anfractuosity wrote: post #41

linsomniac wrote: post #36

This reminds me of that section in the book Cryptonomicon, where our hero is programming on a laptop that he knows is being spied upon using Tempest and probably more, and is using clandestine input via morse code on the shift (?) key. I really enjoyed that book.

I think it was something to do with one of the keyboard keys with an LED if I recall correctly, so possibly caps/numlock. Edit: seems I'm misremembering, just read - https://www.reddit.com/r/programmerchat/comments/3aknvw/pris... the LED was to output data, but they used another key to tap code