Technology
04 Nov 21
29 Mar 22
@venda saidIn fact I want to clarify:
I understand there are now some places that accept crypto currencies for transactions as opposed to just looking at virtual numbers on a screen.
I still wouldn't go near it though.
There's supposed to be an energy crisis at the moment.
If so much energy is used by generating the things you'd think the government could suspend all operations to save energy but all we hear is ...[text shortened]... ople are expected to change their ways while crypto currencies carry on regardless.
Nothing changes
* Bitcoin makes money for some.
* Bitcoin doesn't add value to humankind (as far as I can tell).
I myself never have owned any bitcoins, nor do I plan to do so in future.
30 Mar 22
@ponderable saidPresumably,whoever it is that runs the computers which use so much energy are paying enormous electricity bills for the privilege,which will generate profit for the company that provides it and thus revenue in taxes for the government.
In fact I want to clarify:
* Bitcoin makes money for some.
* Bitcoin doesn't add value to humankind (as far as I can tell).
I myself never have owned any bitcoins, nor do I plan to do so in future.
I still maintain that if the government is committed to saving energy cryptocurrencies should be suspended.They won't be of course.The only thing us mere mortals can do is to ignore cryptocurrencies.If nobody buys them they will go out of business.Another forlorn hope I fear.
11 May 22
@trickyt57 saidThat's true and it's been happening for thousands of years.
Anything which changes price all the time has a value. Why? Because some people will believe that they can outsmart other traders and make a profit from the price changes
I don't care what traders do on the stock markets,although it can impact on everyone because of price increases etc.
My issue with bitcoin is that the computers that generate it use vast amounts of energy which could be used elsewhere.
I'm told to switch off all my appliances to save energy and suffer the inconvenience of waiting for my systems to boot up in the morning, while these things are churning out algorithms 24/7
23 May 22
@athousandyoung said3 - 👍
I don't understand it 100% either but here's my understanding:
There is some sort of publicly available numeric code at any particular time which describes all of the previous BitCoin transactions somehow. There is a function that can be applied to this code to create a new code but it requires you to guess a starting number from a HUGE range of possibilities. If ...[text shortened]... ing and the stronger their computing power, the more likely you are to get the correct answer first.
25 May 22
@chris-guffogg saidNo I don't.
@venda
Do you remember the good old days of Bit Torrent & Pirate Bay - although little packets that are inviable Oh.... The beauty of file sharing globally through CAT or WiFi.
Switch off your machine when out or asleep.
😑🚬
I remember the zx spectrum and the commordore 64 though.
Great fun.
Apparently there is something written into the code of bitcoin which sets the limit at 21 million.The sooner this is reached the better.We can then turn off all the computers and save some real power and let the traders do what they like with their 21 million virtual assets
19 Jul 22
@venda
Ah yes, the old Commodore 64. I used to work there back in the day, north of Philly.
My buddy Howard Moskovitz was a chip designer at AT&T and he convinced his bosses to make a digital audio chip and was successful and his chip was used on the 64, first digital sound chip on a computer. Besides that, Howard is an excellent banjo player and synth master, he had a synth band called Zeroid entity, something like that. They did total improve on several synths, one of them would noodle some lick and the other would run with it, new stuff every time🙂.
When he moved he gave me his ten inch Dobsinian telescope.
19 Jul 22
@sonhouse saidThe zx spectrum was very similar to the 64,but with the option to load the games from different cassette recorders as opposed to the 64 inbuilt one.
@venda
Ah yes, the old Commodore 64. I used to work there back in the day, north of Philly.
My buddy Howard Moskovitz was a chip designer at AT&T and he convinced his bosses to make a digital audio chip and was successful and his chip was used on the 64, first digital sound chip on a computer. Besides that, Howard is an excellent banjo player and synth master, he had a syn ...[text shortened]... uld run with it, new stuff every time🙂.
When he moved he gave me his ten inch Dobsinian telescope.
We had 3 or 4 cassette recorders as some games would load on one and not the other.
There was a particularly awkward game called "the double" which was about managing a football team.Oftem after the 7 minutes loading time it would simply crash.One night after everyone had gone to bed I got it to load first time!
I selected my team,played the game and then went to the results page.
Every game's score was 0-0!!
I went to bed!
19 Jul 22
@shallow-blue saidWhen you couldn't afford to buy JetPac, you had to make JetPac.
The ZX Spectrum started many real careers in programming, including my own.
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19 Jul 22
@russ saidIt's still available somewhere on the web. Not on worldofspectrum, which - all the better, to secure at least most of the Speccy's heritage for the future! - plays as strictly as it can within the rules of the law and therefore distributes programs from almost all Speccy publishers but not from Ultimate, who unfortunately refuse such republication; but, if you look for it, you can find it in less official archives. Ditto Atic Atac and all the others.
When you couldn't afford to buy JetPac, you had to make JetPac.
20 Jul 22
@shallow-blue saidCorrect.I think my son still has a spectrum emulator which allows him to play spectrum games on a pc.
It's still available somewhere on the web. Not on worldofspectrum, which - all the better, to secure at least most of the Speccy's heritage for the future! - plays as strictly as it can within the rules of the law and therefore distributes programs from almost all Speccy publishers but not from Ultimate, who unfortunately refuse such republication; but, if you look for it, you can find it in less official archives. Ditto Atic Atac and all the others.
I had a go at programming with the spectrum but didn't get very far.I'm too lazy.
What I did do was type in some of the "cheats" for games you could readily find in magazines,notably Crash magazine.
Sometimes though they didn't work(misprints?) so I used to work on the code to correct it.
As for buying the games,all you needed was one person to buy a game and you could then copy it onto a blank cassette which cost very little
20 Jul 22
@shallow-blue saidTalking of which, the maintainer of WorldOfSpectrum contacted me years ago regarding this.
Not on worldofspectrum, which - all the better, to secure at least most of the Speccy's heritage for the future! - plays as strictly as it can within the rules of the law and therefore distributes programs from almost all
They wanted to at least show that all developers involved* are happy for work to be made available, which may in turn convince the copyright holders to relax their rights a little.
* I was involved with a couple of projects - and even have my own page on WorldOfSpectrum - what an honour! 🙂
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20 Jul 22
@russ saidYes, Martijn was good at that. Very good. Pity he left.
Talking of which, the maintainer of WorldOfSpectrum contacted me years ago regarding this.
They wanted to at least show that all developers involved* are happy for work to be made available, which may in turn convince the copyright holders to relax their rights a little.
The site hasn't been the same thing ever since. The data is, probably, the same; but the fore-end, now, is horribly Web2.0. I can't find my way around any more. I used to supply a file or two now and then, back when. I can't be bothered to now they've ruined it.