@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

penguin42

@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk

Chocolate eating computer geek, Manchester, UK
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revk, (edited ) to random
@revk@toot.me.uk avatar

I have tried to explain some of the issues with #2038 and time_t. And some about #Y2K

https://www.revk.uk/2024/03/2038.html

I mean, maybe boost it a bit if people need to know this shit?!

penguin42,
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

@revk Oh the British standard anecdote is great.

peter, to retrocomputing
@peter@area51.social avatar

Some interesting new photos of Colossus have just been released.

GCHQ has released never before seen images of Colossus, the UK's secret code breaking computer credited with helping the Allies win World War Two.

The intelligence agency is publishing them to mark the 80th anniversary of the device's invention.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67997406

A photograph of Colossus showing cables hanging and a teletype in front of it released by GCHQ - Crown Copyright
A photograph of Colossus with two women operators on either side and some components labeled. released by GCHQ - Crown Copyright

penguin42,
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

@peter The set at https://www.gchq.gov.uk/news/colossus-80 has some different ones as well (although that PDF is broken for me?). That doesn't have the 'block diagram' that's shown on the BBC page, and I'm curious when that was written (it uses the phrase 'Bit stream' which seems interesting if it was actually from the 40's)

penguin42, to Electronics
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

The cursed 74 series chips made in 1974 when the date code may be the type.

penguin42, to random
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

A friend just sent me this old AT&T video with the UNIX team explaining Unix from 1982. Very nice!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvDZLjaCJuw

(The variety of terminals in it is pretty amazing - now you can see why they needed Termcap!)

penguin42, to random
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

Just finished reading that Bates vs P.O technical appendix - it's very good! I'll put some notes into a thread here; although IMHO the biggest problem is just the P.O. not considering the possibility the inconsistencies were bugs, anyway
1/n :thread:

penguin42, to wildlife
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

penguin42, to random
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

I first heard when my dad timeshifted the radio series from BBC Radio 4 on reel-to-reel tape (Probably close to the date of 1st broadcast). Here are the tapes; It looks like the left one is on a metal spool (bolted together!) in a very old EMI box.
Hmm, I must get the R2R player going.

A pair of Reel-to-reel tapes; the left one is a metal spool in an old EMI box, the right one is a plastic spool wrapped in a plastic bag.

penguin42, to random
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

OK, Luks rebuilt on my main machine, argon stuff; I had to recreate the luks layer because it said there wasn't room to do a conversion from LUKS1 to LUKS2; it's not FDE, just one LV with LUKS ontop; so I created a new LV a little larger, luksformatted that, ahem resized it a bit bigger again..., and then dd'd over the cleartext; zero'd the original and deleted the old LV. Note I needed a good extra 16MB (or was it 17??) bigger, otherwise the luks device was smaller than the origianl.

penguin42, to random
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

It could be worse; you could be on call for the UK air traffic control.
✈️

penguin42, to ai
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

Impressive Image by BING/Dali-3; 'a rock hopper penguin enjoying a chocolate ice cream in the sunshine.'

penguin42, to hamradio
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

I'm trying to sell my dad's 60ft Telescopic Strumech tower, seen below.
Well maintained, was in use until this time last year; sitting ready to be collected from Manchester, UK. 3 sections + top section, partial base.

Perfect Christmas present of course...

DM for details etc.
Please pass on to anyone you think might be interested.

penguin42, to random
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

This looks the source of annoying Powerpoint presentations (from 1582):

https://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/galileopalazzostrozzi/oggetto/CommissioneRiformaCalendarioZoom.html

penguin42, to random
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

' In all these cases, the counter calculated a value of 1p and the calculations
carried out at the host gave a value of £0.0099. As the first three digits were 000 the
system took this to be 0p and so reported a false discrepancy. There was however no
financial discrepancy.'

penguin42, to random
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

ChatGPT does have a reasonable answer to 'Why do humans like Tea?'

penguin42, to random
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

I reckon some channel will show Independence Day as normal, and then show V for Vendetta after the polls close
(UK election 4th July)

sysop408, (edited ) to retrocomputing
@sysop408@sfba.social avatar

Anyone have any idea what kind of cable this is? One end looks like SCSI. It has markings that say Belkin F2N984.

penguin42,
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

@ochaos @sysop408 Wikipedia says it was an HDI-30; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCSI_connector

revk, to random
@revk@toot.me.uk avatar

Anyone else with me on this?

https://www.revk.uk/2024/03/missing-unux-file-open-option.html

@torvalds

penguin42,
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

@revk @torvalds Hmm does this already exist? I see in the flags for open(2) there's 'O_TMPFILE' - 'The pathname argument specifies a directory; an unnamed inode will be created in that directory's filesystem. Anything written to the resulting file will be lost when the last file descriptor is closed, unless the file is given a name.......linkat(2) can be used to link the temporary file into the filesystem, making it permanent,

revk, (edited ) to random
@revk@toot.me.uk avatar

The general consensus is we need this to be 14 days at least. The more LNS and routers we have on line with latest code during that, the more confident we can be. The sword still hangs for now.

To explain: Typically, with a couple of "vulnerable" LNSs we lasted a week. With all LNSs and routers updated, 2 weeks is pretty clearly "OK", if that makes sense.

penguin42,
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

@revk But is it more likely to fail on a long bank holiday weekend?

pwaring, to random
@pwaring@fosstodon.org avatar

Am I right in saying that, on every processor in commercial use (i.e. not something an academic has dreamed up to discuss a hypothetical that no one else cares about), ADD is a faster (fewer cycles) operation than DIV?

(I know that a compiler might change a division to MUL, ADD, and some form of shift.)

penguin42,
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

@pwaring https://www.agner.org/optimize/instruction_tables.ods has timings for all x86 showing each instruction type. Add is essentially a single shot - except for the propagation of the carries; so generally fit in a single cycle (or less! Pentium 4 often managed 0.5 cycle!). Division is iterative just like doing it by hand.
Note division by a known constant can be easier; divisions by powers of 2 are shifts, which can be free on some architectures; divisions by other values can become mult which are faster than div.

revk, (edited ) to random
@revk@toot.me.uk avatar

New and improved...

penguin42,
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

@revk It's not a great Stroop test is it?

revk, to random
@revk@toot.me.uk avatar

Wow, OK, set during initial COVID waves, but still, S18 is depressing…

penguin42,
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

@revk I haven't bothered watching Series 20 that recently started on 5. Finally gave up after watching it pretty much from the beginning.

revk, to ethelcain
@revk@toot.me.uk avatar

Being a tad philosophical for a change. Oh not that much off a change...

https://www.revk.uk/2024/03/one-can-dream.html

penguin42,
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

@revk This is part of why newer religions had a devil; it's not the god that punishes.
(Still of course inconsistent of the power of the omnipotent god)

revk, (edited ) to zerowaste
@revk@toot.me.uk avatar

Is this not proper madness?

https://www.revk.uk/2024/03/learning-to-count-in-recycling.html

How is this shit itself not a news story? Boost and maybe it will be.

Tell me I am being picky if I am, please do.

I'm trying to do the right thing by asking my council about these 8 or 9 types of separate recycling from this one item. Will be interesting too see how they reply.

Arg! And how to I dispose of the label, and the backing of the label.

How did someone make that leaflet with a straight face?

penguin42,
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

@revk There's some weird history where the recycling people came up with the 3 arrow symbol to signifying recycling but never trademarked it properly; then the plastic people took it and put the numbers in to signify the different types of plastic, but that doesn't actually imply anything about recycling.

revk, to random
@revk@toot.me.uk avatar

I may possibly look even more suspicious now, or get mistaken for inspector gadget!

penguin42,
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

@revk If you add a Pi, then you could install Fedora on a Fedora.

revk, to random
@revk@toot.me.uk avatar

Is there really any good reason why the UK legislation government web site (https://www.legislation.gov.uk) asks if I want to consent to cookies?

Why would the web site need cookies at all?

It provides a useful service to allow access to UK legislation.

Does it really need to track who I am? What laws are most popular with my demographic? Which SIs I like to read regularly?

What laws it can try and sell me?

FFS this is mad!

penguin42,
@penguin42@mastodon.org.uk avatar

@trink_uk @revk I'd assume the Met Office is heavily cloud based....

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