gnomon

mhoye, 6 months ago to random

If you ever wondered what happened to that TextBlade kickstarter project, the answer is "they succeeded in building what they set out to build, and then a patent troll cut them off from being able to ship anything, ran them out of funding runway, and now they have several shipping pallets of working hardware stored somewhere in California, a stack of legal bills and no way to ship the finished, working product they've built."

gnomon, 1 year ago to random

Me: I want a device that watches over me and the people I love while we sleep. It must be capable of such keen, decisive action that even absent actual flames it can rouse slumberers early enough to save their lives. It must last a decade and cost $30.

Smoke alarm manufacturer: we understand and accept the solemnity of this request, and we have built it.

Me: now I want something that will scream like a demon every time I boil water.

Smoke alarm manufacturer: you're not going to believe this

gnomon, 4 months ago to random

Build small, simple, inspectable programs.

Build them this way so others can understand them; so Future You can fix them, even when you're tired, when the duties of life rest heavily on your aching shoulders, when it would be easier to let the breakage lie.

Build simple things because fulfilling duty and taking responsibility is more important than automation.

gnomon, 2 months ago to random

If you have a few little scripts hanging around in your ~/bin/ that use regexes to destructure and/or synthesize URLs, give @bagder's trurl(1) a look. It's small, simple, speedy, and super useful; it makes the intent of the transformation a lot easier to infer from its implementation. I don't know whether it'll grow to be as popular as its big brother curl(1) - the niche is smaller - but I hope it does!

https://curl.se/trurl/

https://curl.se/trurl/manual.html

https://github.com/curl/trurl

gnomon, 2 months ago to random

Does anyone have any recommendations for a good computer case that keeps the motherboard horizontal instead of vertical, with a preference for something cube-like? My top choices of the Coolermaster HAF XB Evo and Thermaltake Core X5 are apparently like a decade out of date. There are some decent cubes for mini-ITX but I think I'll need an E-ATX enclosure.

No particular hurry on this, I'm waiting for X870E boards / Ryzen 9000 CPUs to ship in Q2/Q3. Just planning ahead for now.

gnomon, 2 months ago to random

A very happy Miette Day to all who celebrate

https://twitter.com/TriciaLockwood/status/1108102037072433153

gnomon, 4 months ago to random

Today I went for a long walk in the forest with some good pals. We saw some fantastic trees, some excellent moss and lichen, cool fungus, and a bunch of absolutely superlative banana slugs.

Best day in a long time.

#mosstodon #lichenSubscribe #thickTrunkTuesday #bananaSlugsAreFantastic

A side view of a tree trunk cut straight through some time ago. The rings of the felled tree are visible, though obscured by age and rot. The outer perimeter of the trunk circle is dotted with bright orange fungus, and in the center there is a cluster of slightly disturbing looking pink/black bulbous fungus of some kind, or possibly large insect eggs.
Another felled tree trunk, this one obviously a bit fire damaged too, where the top crescent half of the trunk circle is covered in bright orange ruffled fungus. Rufflungus.
A BANANA SLUG! Enormous yellow slimy boi! The slug is about as long as the base of my palm to my fingertip, with a little black spot near its butt that only intensifies the banana comparison. Its two little eyestalks are pointed to the right of the frame and a bit away from the camera as it unhurriedly slugged across the damp tree and plant matter making up the forest floor.

gnomon, 9 months ago to random

Reminder: "milestone" should be pronounced as "minestrone"

gnomon, 2 months ago to random

A pal of mine accidentally carbonated his toilet water for an unknown number of days recently

I just like to remind myself of this every once in a while.

gnomon, 9 months ago to random

It is time to ask people on the internet about their cats

gnomon, 1 month ago to random

Everyone joining the fediverse should learn the guiding principle ABC: Always Boost Cat

gnomon, 8 months ago to random

For everyone getting a little bit sad about the CBC no longer broadcasting the time signal¹, please know that the NRC is still..:

• broadcasting the signal itself via shortwave²

• maintaining a "Canada's Official Time" page³

• providing a stratum-3 NTP server as a public service⁴

I configure my servers to use time.nrc.ca for reference and it brings me a small delight every time.

¹: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/cbc-stops-broadcasting-national-research-council-long-dash-time-signal-1.6988903

²: https://nrc.canada.ca/en/certifications-evaluations-standards/canadas-official-time/nrc-shortwave-station-broadcasts-chu

³: https://nrc.canada.ca/en/certifications-evaluations-standards/canadas-official-time

⁴: https://nrc.canada.ca/en/certifications-evaluations-standards/canadas-official-time/network-time-protocol-ntp

gnomon, 4 months ago to random

Fediverse, I don't ask for much¹, but I am asking for your help with signing this petition to get my member of Canadian parliament on the fediverse. #e4769

The petitions are here:

EN: https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4769

FR: https://www.noscommunes.ca/petitions/fr/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4769

Please help me achieve my dream of making a distinguished eighty five year old senator have to be briefed about wound cube and mega-glute elephant friend

We can make this happen

I believe in us

¹: this is a categorical falsehood of the highest order

gnomon, 10 months ago to random

Look, I'm sick and tired of people insulting Pierre Poilievre's dress sense and physical appearance.

It pains me to say this but these things do matter a little bit: they reflect on the competence of his campaign staff and the effectiveness of his media training.

But they do not reflect one whit on the content of his character, the value of his policy proposals, his professional or personal ethics, or his behaviour.

We don't make fun of how people look. Cut it out.

gnomon, 3 months ago to random

Does anyone out there know whether the Orange Pi Zero 2W will accept a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W sandwich-style heatsink shield case, e.g. https://geekworm.com/products/zero-2w-armor-case ?

I'm curious about tucking one of those things into my purse along with a battery pack to act as a little standalone computer I can use and actually trust, unlike my phone. It probably wouldn't rack up more than four or five hours of running time in a given week.

gnomon, 11 months ago to cycling

Hey #bikeTO #mastobikes #BikeTooter, there's a group ride tomorrow (2023-07-12, 1950h EDT) from Bay St / Charles St to City Hall to welcome in our new bike-riding mayor.

Could be a fun time!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CuiglRutfdv/

🔄🙏

gnomon, 7 months ago to random

If you want to see how a die-hard free software / open source person gets that way, look at a fundamentally functionally closed ecosystem that tries to attract contributors, and will eventually betray them. VSCode, Android, Roblox, any of the several incompatible versions of PowerShell, anything Oracle has ever hatefully spat out into the world, Chrome, Apple.

Every time they betray fractions of their contributors, more people understand.

We get to do better than that, and do it together.

gnomon, 20 days ago to random

The more time I spend with GitHub Actions, the more convinced I become that workflow files belong in a repo but not in the commit history graph of the default ref; maybe under a different namespace, refs/ci/* or something. There's too much value in keeping them right next to the code, but too much negative value in requiring their changes to be intermingled with codebase commits.

That said I also firmly believe that workflow files should be STRICTLY orchestration; execution logic is app code.

gnomon, 2 months ago to Toronto

Jin "jnyyz" of Biking In A Big City attended an online session recently by Councillor Morley¹ (ward 3, Etobicoke-Lakeshore²) about the Bloor street extension planned for that ward. Brief post, good read: https://jnyyz.wordpress.com/2024/04/04/ward-3-online-meeting-on-the-bloor-st-west-complete-street-western-extension/

#bikeTO #Toronto #mastobikes #topoli

¹: https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/council/members-of-council/councillor-ward-3/

²: https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/neighbourhoods-communities/ward-profiles/ward-3-etobicoke-lakeshore/

gnomon, 1 month ago to random

When I pass on I want there to be a party, a proper one with music and drinks and dancing. I want professional staff, generously paid and properly treated by all; the band too; and I want three solemn volunteers at the exit to ensure everyone gets home all right, by themselves or in a hired car or with an escort if need be, and to extract a promise: that each attendee, before the next full moon, will take one task from their neighbour's todo list & fulfill it to the very best of their ability.

gnomon, 28 days ago to random

Is there an idiomatic SQL (sqlite3) way of mapping a subset of selected records from a large table ("users") to unique values in a smaller table ("coupons")? It's easy enough to select all the user records not yet mapped, and to select all as-yet unmapped coupons, but then what's a nice clean way of mapping one to the other? Order doesn't matter, only that the mapping once established can be queried again in the future.

My brain is stuck thinking sequentially about this, frustratingly.

gnomon, 1 month ago to random

Get your timed mute buttons ready, #monsterdon kicks off in five minutes!

I just put the DVD in the player and boy howdy, if the movie is anything at all like the intro clips we are in for a ride tonight

gnomon, 1 month ago to random

I have a little fanless Intel N5105 machine about the size of a bus station paperback. It's called a MeLe Quieter3C. It spends its time pulling down 1-2W at idle, running Kodi on Debian, quietly waiting for us to remote control it into playing back video files from the household fileserver while we eat dinner on the couch instead of at the kitchen table. (Sorry, Mum.)

Once a week or so it boots into its copy of Windows 11 so it can run Syncplay for a movie evening with distant friends.

1/2

gnomon, 2 months ago to random

Get your timed mute buttons ready, folks, we're about to do a #monsterdon.

gnomon, 5 years ago to random

Just putting it out there: if anyone ever wants help - debugging, problem-solving, tutoring, whatever - with the Linux CLI (bash/ksh93, GNU coreutils..., vi, emacs, sed, awk) and/or git, I'll help.

I won't make you feel bad for anything you don't already know. I promise. (Nobody ever should.)

I'll reiterate every once in a while. Boosts appreciated!