#pest | 2025-10-18

10:42

􏿽http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/asciilifeform/2025-10-16#1117201 << there was another turn of the wheel of samsara, and common lisp is not a thing anymore. oh sure some of the same people who were hacking on it a decade ago are still doing it, but the mid 2000s revival is over and d

10:42

phf

􏿽ead. so the problem of "windows gui" remains as unsolved as it ever was. your best bet, so as not to waste time on bullshit, is to purchase a hobbyist version of lispworks, for 350 or whatever it is, build a product, and then decide if it's worth to buy the 3k license to distribute

10:43

10:42	phf	􏿽http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/asciilifeform/2025-10-16#1117201 << there was another turn of the wheel of samsara, and common lisp is not a thing anymore. oh sure some of the same people who were hacking on it a decade ago are still doing it, but the mid 2000s revival is over and d
10:42	phf	􏿽ead. so the problem of "windows gui" remains as unsolved as it ever was. your best bet, so as not to waste time on bullshit, is to purchase a hobbyist version of lispworks, for 350 or whatever it is, build a product, and then decide if it's worth to buy the 3k license to distribute
10:43	asciilifeform	oh hey wb phf
10:43	phf	hello, sir
10:44	asciilifeform	phf: what've you been up to ?
10:44	asciilifeform	( asciilifeform -- experiments, but of yet nuffin worth publishing result of )
10:47	phf	horses, daughter, learning apl
10:47	phf	"Are you interested to know what the people round Tomis are like, and the customs of those I live among?"
10:48	*	asciilifeform notes that sadly not only winblows gui unsolved, but gui per se
10:48	asciilifeform	a neato
10:48	asciilifeform	iirc trinque also had daughter recently
10:48	phf	i feel like that's a second or third child in trinque's case?
10:49	asciilifeform	not afaik but he's tuned in, will correct
10:50	asciilifeform	can't resist to ask, why apl
10:50	asciilifeform	(not that it aint interesting, but phf afaik is a practical fella, presumably baking sumthing concrete?)
10:54	phf	i briefly worked with AW on shakti/k, doing bitch work of writing avx512 optimizations, that gave me the necessary push to learn the apl proper. it's more of an avocation, reading historic papers in my spare time
10:54	asciilifeform	a.
10:55	phf	there's an element of searching for that silver bullet? i mean i've been writing code for such a long time, after a while it's just all the same
10:56	phf	you said at some point something that stuck with me, that we have a limited number of keystrokes, a kind of programmer's momento mori clock. APL is an attempt to stave of death, by making each keystroke carry as much information as possible :D
10:56	asciilifeform	phf: ever experimented with logic design? it's afaik the one place where 'not same'
10:57	asciilifeform	sorta similar to flavour of aplism, but minus the 'interface to idjit os' albatross
11:03	phf	vaguely, on and off? it's my training. but i suppose with apl you can still extract useful function, where's logic design is purely tinkering
11:05	asciilifeform	errything's pure tinkering when you haven't yet found concrete use, neh
11:09	*	asciilifeform after escape from wageschwitz, eventually started again the 'build sane computer' thing, if lives long enuff, will publish. no illusions re whether who else still wants such a thing
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11:10	phf	i saw in the logs you're a man of leisure now!
11:11	asciilifeform	quasi-leisure, lol, nobody cancelled greenspun's effect
11:11	asciilifeform	'hey asciilifeform , washingmachine needs a new mobo'
11:14	asciilifeform	no horse, no servants (maybe if exchrate grows a new 0 after all, lol)
11:16	phf	one way to solve this problem is of course to move somewhere cheap, and live cheaply. horse is much easier to have than an electrone microscope
11:16	phf	but see also http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/pest/2025-10-18#1035256
11:17	*	asciilifeform has a # of other things wants to do before 'exhausted keystrokes', in particular the uwb thing; but this'd require at least a little interest from other people, and thin since 'war over'
11:17	asciilifeform	right
11:17	*	asciilifeform will prolly move again eventually
11:21	phf	i'm now officially a /professional/ trainer. bought horses who needed improvement, and sold them improved for profit! i could also work for a few days and make as much money, but if i really wanted to step off the carousel, this is an option.
11:22	phf	something something honest living
11:22	asciilifeform	horse trainers prolly live longer than chopper trainers (greenspun), wins
11:25	asciilifeform	defo honest living
11:25	phf	i don't know if that's a measure of life though. tiktok hikikomori, which seems like the default state of every single zoomer i know outside of where i live, probably lives a long time also
11:25	*	asciilifeform regards pretty much anyffing not involving marinating in front of a comp as 'honest living'