Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ha, so banks can have fractional reserves but libraries can't. Typical.
Gotta keep the wealthy bankers happy
They'd keep librarians happy if librarians donated to political campaigns.
Quotes from 1992
51–60 of 149 posts
Re: Quotes from 1992
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
has this person never checked out an ebook from their local library? To be fair I don't know anybody who has either. I know it's possible and I know my local library offers this, but I've never met anybody who's actually used this service.
My county library has a poor electronic collection. Still, I tried to check out a book and got put on a waiting list with 30 other people. That was before Christmas. I haven't heard anything else about it.
Waiting lists happen with popular new books with physical copies as well. If you look for books that are a year or so old, or are something other than popular fiction (science or history for example), normally you can get a book immediately in my experience.
Re: Quotes from 1992
#53It's weird seeing 1992 associated with some kind of far off distant time.
I tend to think of the "modern world" as starting with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, but now that I am beginning to work with adults with graduate degrees that weren't even born then, it's beginning to be a bit absurd.
Re: Quotes from 1992
#54... has this person never checked out an ebook from their local library? That Adobe DRM is the industry state-of-the-art.
Ehm, haven't even seen a library in the past 10 years. Pretty sure the amount of people who has checked out an ebook from a library here is very small.
Re: Quotes from 1992
#55Re: Quotes from 1992
#56I obsessively read I, Cringely when I was in college in the late 90s. It was the Stratechery of its time, and taught me an immense amount about the tech business.
I read it too in highschool. I even found a Dover Art book containing a copy of that suited-frog spot art sketch he used and cribbed it for my blog. Wonder what old Cringely is up to these days
Re: Quotes from 1992
#57Cringley was involved in adapting this book into a 3 part documentary called Triumph of the Nerds. It's a fun glimpse into the early days of computing. Cringley managed to interview Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, and a whole host of figures from those days (too many to list).
Re: Quotes from 1992
#58One of the most interesting characters from the documentary "Triumph of the Nerds" was Kildall. His company created CP/M, and depending on who's telling the story either lost the deal with IBM to create the operating system for the PC, or just didn't care about it.
Here's the quote about him:
Let's say for a minute that Eubanks was correct, and Gary Kildall didn't give a shit about the business. Who said that he had to? CP/M was his invention; Digital Research was his company. The fact that it succeeded beyond anyone's expectations did not make those earlier expectations invalid. Gary Kildall's ambition was limited, something that is not supposed to be a factor in American business. If you hope for a thousand and get a million, you are still expected to want more, but he didn't.
If this is true, he was the polar opposite of almost everyone else in the story. It reminds me of that line in Breaking Bad when Jesse asks Walter how much is enough. Kildall knew the answer, and stuck with it. I didn't get that sense from any other character, except maybe Woz.
Kildall spent the later part of his career hosting The Computer Chronicles, a PBS weekly news show that ended up documenting the entire early history of personal computers. The shows are on YouTube and are fascinating to watch:
Re: Quotes from 1992
#59It's weird seeing 1992 associated with some kind of far off distant time.
It was 26 years ago. End of the Road by Boyz II Men came out and topped the charts. I saw Home Alone 2 in the theaters. The little blond munchkin who met the future President in that movie is now 38. Cartoon Network premiered. Bill Clinton became President. Windows 3.1 and Microsoft Works were released.
It's a long-ass time ago.
Re: Quotes from 1992
#60Dear Hacker News
I am most disappointed with you. I was expecting this thread to go off on a tangent about DRM etc, I was expecting clever suggesting on OCRing screenshots of iphone screens.
But no, on my brief scan through the comments, nothing.