Ted Spence

Teacher and engineer, focusing on API design and data analytics.

Blog: https://tedspence.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tedspence/
Twitter:
GitHub: https://github.com/tspence

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Last Notes

2025-03-28 17:57:58 UTC

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At one point I helped to save a large deal, and I was proud of it until I told the database admin guy about my work. He calculated the number of units sold by the profit per unit and he told me, "Congrats, you just lost the company $300k by saving that deal" ;)

2025-03-28 17:56:59 UTC

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AST was a fantastic company until they bought Tandy in 1993. The entire company's momentum shifted, and although I joined in 1997 there was still a glimmer of the old company visible at the time. The big problem of course was cost cutting; we started moving manufacturing to a lower cost (and lower quality) production line. You should have seen the AST Ascentia laptop with the 150% return rate - its inside was filled with bodge wires.

2025-03-27 22:46:44 UTC

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How cool! In 1997 Geoff called me up after he had done some work on a small mod for Marathon and asked for advice. I got him a job offer from my company at the time, AST Computer, but it didn't seem like it would be his passion. He didn't accept and then took the job at 989 studios shortly thereafter. I remember visiting him a while before the EQ-launch and getting a tour of their art and design sections. Great stuff.

2025-03-27 22:42:28 UTC

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I met GZ the Archmage in the late 1980s via some random MUD we played together. He ended up being one of the lead designers of Everquest many years later. Quite a career!

2025-03-27 22:38:56 UTC

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I love it! I met some lifelong friends on an LPMud in the 1980s/early 1990s. Great times :)

2025-03-17 00:54:34 UTC

This feels really bad
https://cdn.masto.host/indiewebsocial/media_attachments/files/114/175/031/115/532/755/original/706f57a9e2e74be0.jpeg

2025-03-15 17:06:16 UTC

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can you link the article or some context? This is awful

2025-03-04 05:53:16 UTC

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what
Does Dr Cat know about this

2024-12-08 23:05:39 UTC

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This windowing system is getting pretty! Love it. Also, birds.

2024-12-04 18:31:38 UTC

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any context available here?

2024-11-29 17:26:11 UTC

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neat! Is there a link to code?

2024-11-29 17:24:51 UTC

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could I ask - what project is this? I must have missed the original announcement but I seem to recall you mentioning this was a raspberry pi device

2024-11-24 00:15:56 UTC

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If only these things weren't controversial ...

2024-11-21 22:49:02 UTC

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Is this the library? https://github.com/rsta2/circle
I gotta love their rectangle drawing code.
https://github.com/rsta2/circle/blob/master/lib/2dgraphics.cpp#L113-L127

2024-10-23 19:37:44 UTC

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This is pretty neat :) Is source available? It looks fun!

2024-10-03 16:12:21 UTC

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My favorite bit is that I set up a little workstation with a barcode gun where we could scan UPC codes for each product, so we could distinguish between similar but not identical versions. :)

2024-10-03 02:33:03 UTC

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EEDAR was active from 2007, so most of our customers were producers building Xbox 360/PS3/Xbox One/PS4 generation console games. I left the company in 2012 and they eventually sold to NPD (now "Circana"). The library was probably sold or discarded. Very sad. https://www.circana.com/industry-expertise/video-games/

2024-10-02 19:30:05 UTC

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At EEDAR, we decided to have a permanent library of every retail game from the 2000s and onwards. We started collecting and eventually filled multiple rooms with our library. Researchers could check out any old game and compare it to modern ones. Of course this is all irrelevant now that games are downloads ;)

2024-09-11 23:21:37 UTC

Trying to donate to Harris Walz today and I'm getting 429 errors (e.g. rate limit - site overloaded). That's a good sign.

2024-09-03 04:18:07 UTC

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Same thought, slightly less aggressively: "What do these people do with all the time they used to spend typing 'unctio'?"

2024-08-30 15:56:07 UTC

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Curious to hear your perspective here - what's the advantage of having multiple implementations?
I worked with Java in the 1990s when everyone had a subtly incompatible implementation. I worked in C++ when every compiler developer had slight differences and moving from one to another was a nonstarter. In both those cases I hated being the person who had to choose a product because it felt like a trap.

2024-08-29 16:21:57 UTC

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Big improvements in Rust vs C/C++:
* The language has a single standard implementation
* There's a standard package manager and a method for publishing/retrieving/auditing dependencies
* The elimination of exceptions in favor of Option patterns that must be unwrapped

2024-08-29 16:20:36 UTC

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I personally don't like Rust because it feels like a massive step backwards from C#/DotNet, but when I have occasionally tried to write C/C++ code I realize how much of an improvement Rust is.

2024-08-14 16:09:30 UTC

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Does it ... you know ... actually work? Did they just daisy chain a bunch of smaller capacitors into a line or what did they do?

2024-08-12 17:31:09 UTC

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"What do you mean, an add-in-card? That's the motherboard ... I ... oh wait"

2024-07-16 19:49:46 UTC

Health insurance in the United States is completely broken. Providers are now demanding upfront payments and refusing to send bills. One company insisted they record me saying "Yes, I approve these credit card charges" on a monitored line in order to even begin service.
End this madness. Medicare for all.