Splint.rs

Marklar Makes a Good Marklar

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

When I complain about struggling with vague language, people often tell me 'you know what I mean'. This always makes me think about the South Park episode called Starvin' Marvin in Space (season 3, episode 13), and the language 'Marklar'.

On the planet Marklar, everyone is called 'Marklar'. The language ('Marklar') is like English, except that every noun is 'Marklar'.

So when the marklars come from marklar, the young marklars don't understand everything said, but they can make a lot out just from marklar.

I Don't Belive Your 2FA

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Two factor? Which two factors?

Something you have, something you know, and something...

No, not in theory - in reality. Which two factors?

You need a PIN from the phone to access resources, such as email.

Do you have email on your phone? Because that's one 'factor': your phone. Once someone controls your phone, they can use your email account.

Right, but phones are secure. PCs are not.

That's your PC, not my PC. Regardless, can we just say 'secure device authentication' or something?

ed

Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

For the past month or so, I've been using the standard editor: ed. It's standard because it's old and has outlived everything which came before it. And it's so old that using it has become a bit of a meme, but it has lessons for anyone who wants to take it seriously.

Ken Thompson created ed to run on a typewriter connected to a computer (i.e. a 'terminal'). He would type out what he wanted, and the typewriter would type any response. But long responses, like DOCUMENT SAVED SUCCESSFULLY or ALTERATIONS ACCEPTED. NEW LINE READS AS FOLLOWS: ... would waste paper. Instead, ed communicated success by staying silent, and communicated errors in your coding by typing ?. If you want to know what that ? means, you can get help by typing h. And if you want to know that typing h will help you then Ken Thompson expects you to read the manual before you start using the thing (it's only 11,000 words, about the length of a newspaper if you ignore most of it).

Types of Wrong

Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I know two ways to be wrong very well, but people have more ways to be wrong, and I don't know the rest very well at all. But I'd like to.

The first way to be wrong - and the most wrong someone can be - is to make a contradiction. People do this when they get their sums wrong, miscounting how much money to give to a shopkeeper; or when they make contradictory statements, claiming that a politician they dislike has no right to do something, then claiming that everyone has a right to do the thing the next day, because their own political party's members did the thing.

Markdown Processors: Surprisingly Bad

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The modern wiki software shipped by Gitlab and Github assumes that everyone writes their docs just for the platform, and the project will never need to leave. Their strange syntax means nobody can just use the regular markdown notes they might have, either for their own purposes or from another Git project.

Gitlab's wiki uses Gollum, which insists that links look like this:

1Golum is an awful wiki.  See my [review here](/wikis/golum_review/).

But while you're writing the file wikis/overview.md, then the natural way to link to wikis/golum_review.md should be a link to that file:

My Documents

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Every computer I see up-close has the same sad story. A mess of files sit on the desktop. In 'Pictures', random pictures sit (the user downloaded them before making a half-hearted attempt to organize) with a few folders, some marked 'holiday' (which one?), and others given names by the computer. Renaming the lot would require an unknown amount of time, none of it rewarding.

But it's not the users' fault. It's like moving into a house with a 'room for small things', containing books and a toothbrush rack on the wall, and a 'room for wet things', containing the toilet, shower, and kitchen sink. The place comes with an in-built ontology, a default way of thinking, and all of it's wrong.

Review: Kubernetes Built-In Docs

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Kubernetes documentation feels like malicious compliance, a rebellion against the concept of clarity.

Kubernetes lets you ask about anything with the command kubectl explain $thing. So I did:

1kubectl explain namespace

The results make me wonder if anyone sober has read the 'explanations'.

KIND:       Namespace
VERSION:    v1

DESCRIPTION:
    Namespace provides a scope for Names. Use of multiple namespaces is
    optional.

Uhuh. So 'namespace' is a space, or 'scope', for 'Names' (why the capital?).

A Bland Knowledge Base in Vim

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This article was written for the lazy bear's Vim Carnival

I have notes on lots of things. When you write notes in markdown it's called 'a knowledge base', which sounds classy. So now I have lots of knowledge bases, and I strive to keep them bland and featureless.

A good knowledge base has no fancy features. Features are bad. They tie you down to particular software, or one workflow. Everything 'integrated' with the notes also holds onto your notes, jealously.

Managing Dotfiles with a Makefile

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Assumed Knowledge: make, GPG, git.

You can manage dotfiles with nothing but make and standard tools.

Copy standard configs.
Track changes with git.
Keep separate branches for each computer.
Securely handle secret files with GPG.
Manage crontab.

The Setup

Mine looks like this:

 1config/:
 2 aerc         cava       khard         rofi      tut            picom.conf
 3 alacritty    cmus       lf            s         vdirsyncer     powerbash.sh
 4 amfora       dunst      ncmpcpp       sc-im     waybar         powerbashrc
 5 bat          gtk-3.0    newsraft      sway      zathura        redshift.conf
 6 bottom       himalaya   procps        systemd   compton.conf
 7 bugwarrior   i3         profanity     task      mpd.conf
 8 calcurse     i3blocks   qutebrowser   tspreed   mpv.conf
 9
10home/:
11 gnupg   mozilla   vim   bash_profile   gitconfig          inputrc     xinitrc
12 local   unison    w3m   bashrc         gitignore_global   tmux.conf   Xresources

Hard Links

Standard configs are made with hard links, which means these two files are the same file:

Newcomb's Box is Empty

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 17:00:00 +0000

If we accept the premises of the Newcomb Problem, then it's not possible to receive $1,001,000 from playing this game. But you have the choice to take both boxes, and therefore the mystery-box is empty.

Once you approach the boxes to make your decision, the boxes have been determined. From this point, we know that:

(A) You cannot end this game with $1,001,000.

We know this because it's a stipulation of the problem: nobody walks out of here with both boxes full of cash. We can't violate this rule, or we are negating the premise of the paradox.

Watching Your Health

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I have a minor health problem, and I'd like to look it up. Going to a corporate health clinic just results in some tests to determine which other tests they'll hand out next so that they can make a menu, and ask the patient to pick. Since I'd have to pick from a menu of tests, I may as well look things up myself now, before paying.

Once anyone starts searching for their health problems, umpteen trackers and spiders and all manner of eyes turn to face the inquirer, find their entry in a dozen databases, and put labels on them. The labels might raise prises for health insurance, or alter health plans, or may do nothing. Nobody knows what their labels are, or what they do. We only know that we all have a name in a dozen databases, and our entries get labels when we search for things. So I'd best use the Tor Browser and avoid those labels.

Memetic Junk

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I heard a rumour once that some DNA is just along for the ride. It does nothing, but since the whole system's there to replicate, it replicates along with the rest.

Maybe memetics works the same way. Maybe every language has bits of crap, lying around, not doing anything. Perhaps jokes are memetic dross, hanging around without function, just because some contraction rhymes or sounds like a rude word.

Maybe internet-memes are a cancerous infection; a growth in the mind-space of humanity.

Preaching to the Enchanted

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Hail, traveller! The roads have been busy with everyone fleeing the Pit of the Demon King. So you're going South I see...

Yes, everyone's going South to the Domain of the Shadow Lord.

Well not 'everyone'. I'm going North, to the Holy Lands of Eternal Blessings, to live at the Bastion of Righteous Faith.

Never heard of it. Hopefully better than the Pit of the Demon King.

It is definitely an improvement on the Pit of the Demon King. No demonic screeching at night, no pissing blood from all the hexes, no swarms of enchanted children wandering around selling energy drinks. It's nice.

Review: Posteo Email

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I've used posteo.de for my email for about four years, and I recommend it. I can't say why I recommend it. It's just email.

That's pretty much it. It doesn't have special features. It doesn't have problems. It's email and it costs €12 per year for 4 gigabytes of storage.

Actually, it has one feature - it has no 'Spam' folder. Instead, it has this:

Spammer: Please buy thing.

Posteo: Your email has been deleted.

Narratives on Freedom

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

An anti-open-source narrative has become louder lately. It doesn't say 'down with open source', it begins with 'I understand', and 'listen, we need to talk', 'we must be realistic'. Soon after (but never from the outset) 'you know what I mean, if you understand business'.

People want to understand business. More than that, they want to say that they do, and don't want to sound like someone who doesn't understand business.

The Social Contract Stinks

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Something stinks about 'social contract theory'. They way we live - the philosophers say - has the form of some contract where we relinquish the complete freedom to do just anything our bodies might do, and in return we acquire peace.

This thing, where it's all chilled, and we have an understanding, is very much like a business arrangement, though I recall no papers being signed upon my birth.

It stinks when you stare into the wrong end of the arrangement. The arrangement, in fact, began before paper or words. People chill. All animals chill. And humans have sat about, polishing bones and fishing, and we knew not to hit each other or take too much fish from someone who didn't catch as many as they wanted. Humans knew it all before the contracts.

A Small Gripe about Obsidian

Sun, 02 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Obsidian is a note-taking app with a proprietary licence. This makes it prone to the usual abusive behaviours.

But I only hear good things about it:

Obsidian is ultimately just a markdown editor, so you can extract all of your notes in plain text any time you want, without fear of lock-in.

It sounds like the users are safe from having their notes held hostage by a sudden change in policy, sign-up services, free and paid tiers, et c., et c., ad AI.

Review: GraphHopper

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

GraphHopper provides map information to people who write phone apps. They also have an app, though, so you can ignore all the different phone applications that want you to see this or that, and just see everything.

I took a while to get used to the app, as it structures information in a fundamentally different way. Most transport apps expect you to tap-tap on the phone's fake keyboard, until it understands the name of where you want to go, then it shows you a path which you must follow to get there, talking to you in a robot-voice the entire time.

A Syllabus for Programmers

Sun, 29 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Formal education in programming is surprisingly useless. Some people with a formal education in 'Computer Science' can tell you about set theory, but can't pick an appropriate database for a project. They can tell you when to represent a number with hex, but can't clone a repo. And worst of all, most of the computer-qualified people I've spoken with did not enjoy learning about computers.

So here's my much-improved course, based on every joy I've found while learning how to computer.

Anarchy in Linux

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I see a standard story, repeated in FOSS spaces. It starts with an exchange.

Open source projects are not actually as anarchic as people think. They work very much like a corporation, with a single person in charge, in a pyramid structure.

I hear these repeated gripes that people do not understand open source development, but it always sounds like people don't understand anarchy. Perhaps they imagine ten thousand headless-chickens writing code with entirely different aims, and occasionally squawking at each other 'pull request! Buck-buck-buck-pull request!'.

Instructions Must Not Have Links

Sat, 24 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

IT documentation has a disease: in-text links. The disease-inducing thinking is quite clear: someone writing the documentation writes 'install the drivers for your graphics card', and then provides a link to how to install graphics cards because they saw others do that sort of thing. But once you accept the general rule - that instructions can contain links to other instructions inside the text - then the instructions which you link to may also contain links.

Quis Manualis Manuales?

Tue, 13 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Could you drive the car over to my sister's place? Then she'll give you the KEYS once you're there.

What a confusing request! What keys could this person mean?

The car KEYS, for the car that she needs. You'll get the KEYS once you're there.

Now you have found the confusion - this person is not thinking clearly. You will need keys, first, or you will not be able to drive the car.

Fear of the FOSS

Thu, 17 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We - the open source zealots - talk a lot about corporations with unkind interests quashing the movement, pushing their proprietary code, and violating everyone's 'privacy'. We don't talk much about push-back from coders, but it exists, because writing in the open is scary.

We can say to engineers, 'your users will be better served, with better security, if you develop in the open, so maybe you should recommend that at your company'.

The Age of Morlocks

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I am a morlock - a naturally technocratic creature, comfortable with the darkness. When the pandemic hit, I heard the shock waves across the internet, and noticed every day how little my life had changed. It was at times, almost a nice excuse to sit and tap on the keyboard, and make dinner slowly to the sound of Nine Inch Nails. The world has been shifting to accommodate me and my kind for a while now, and it's awful.

Old School Blues

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Can we stop pretending it's the 80's?

I like Unix-style programs. I like the expectation of a manual with every program, instead of every programmer coming up with their own way to telling people how something works. I like being able to ignore licences, and there's no better licence to ignore than the GPL - it will never turn on you, or pull shady shit. But I'm getting tired of seeing this archaic notes in man-pages:

Through a Pint Glass

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Anglophone reporting on the current Serbian political situation has been a general failure of the ears and eyes. Every report I've seen only elucidates the strength of the reporters' political prescriptions.

One of the worst distortions I've come across was listening to The Rest is Politics - a political podcast, by two educated people, who should have known better than to waffle without looking.

The podcast begins its notes on Serbia by mentioning Trump. He has nothing to do with the collapsed canopy in Novi Sad, but the reporters have Trump on their mind, so they absent-mindedly wonder how he may be involved, before moving on. This is the left wing equivalent of asking 'is this because of woke?'. It never serves to untangle thoughts or suggest new research - it only serves to simplify thinking and give enough of an answer to not ask anything more.

The Backup Paradigm

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Over the years, I've become convinced, that 'backups' are a bad paradigm, and should be left to edge-cases. We should instead focus on 'synchronization' where possible.

Where backups say 'make a copy, on tape, place it in the basement, and lock it tight', they immediately have to follow this statement with '...and remember to test your backups'. When people inevitably fail to test their backups, the blame is laid on the people taking backups, not on the paradigm itself.

Learning as Stepping Stones

Sun, 16 Feb 2025 19:02:12 +0000

Stepping Stones: rocks to step on, to avoid the surrounding mud or water.

When crossing a river, the more stepping stones it has, the better. Walking across six stepping stones feels much better than hopping across three, and hopping across three is better than jumping to one stepping stone in the middle of a river, and then jumping again.

Learning works the same way. We should never worry about the 'amount' of learning needed, only the size of our steps.

Perfidious Oracle

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Erik Uden noted some disquieting statements by Oracle's CEO Larry Ellison, and shortly after found his Oracle account terminated.

Reading the full fediverse thread doesn't paint a better picture.

I can't imagine doing business with a company that deletes a database account, then refuses to elaborate on what has happened to the data.

And I can't constructively guess what lead to this event. Eric Uden is well-known on the Fediverse, meaning he's actually quite obscure. Was Larry Ellison wandering Mastodon, wondering what people say about him? Does the PR team look up the company's rep, and then report back to Larry saying 'sir, a man on Mastodon was mean to you'? I can't imagine a sensible history.

Belgrade Protests

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 00:00:01 +0000

The tragedy of November 1, 2024, when the collapse of a reconstructed canopy in Novi Sad claimed 15 lives and permanently injured two people, was just the latest in a series of events that confirm selective justice in Serbia - institutions are not performing their functions, deepening inequality and endangering the protection of all citizens for which they are responsible.

Overview from Support Students

The GPG Program is the Devil

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

GPG (GNU Privacy Guard) is better than good, it's necessary. But the gpg UI inflicts more pain than 100 Microsoft Office licences combined.

The Autocomplete Options

Typing gpg<TAB>, I get this nonsense:

1gpg                gpg-wks-client     gpgsm
2gpg-agent          gpg-wks-server     gpgsplit
3gpg-card           gpgconf            gpgtar
4gpg-connect-agent  gpgparsemail       gpgv
5gpg-error          gpgscm

This is too many programs.

If I type gpg --<TAB>, I get this nonsense:

1Display all 431 possibilities? (y or n)

This is far too many options.

Baldurdash Psychics and AI

Sat, 18 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A fascinating article wandered across my feed, arguing that LLMs like ChatGPT replicate the mechanisms of a psychic's con. 'Fascinating' because it's devilishly clever, and quite seductive, but seems like complete bunkum for the most part.

'People get fooled into thinking LLMs are clever', Baldur Bjarnason says, very much like they are fooled by a psychic, who does cold-reading, and uses Barnum statements. The article gives us a long list of things psychics do, and finds a parallel for each with LLM-enthusiasts.

How to RSS

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

RSS¹ is a magic button that lets you get the latest stuff from the web.

Any stuff on the web.
Any place on the web.

My RSS feed has updates for:

Youtube channels
Blogs
BBC news
Wikipedia topics
Software changes

You can add just about anything to an RSS feed. Sometimes sites have RSS icons which look like this:

When you see that, you can right-click and copy the link for your RSS reader, or just use NewsFlash, which figures out where the link is for you.

Content Creator

Sun, 05 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Everyone's talking about "Open"AI and Google scraping their entire website every 10 minutes, just in case anything might have changed. But not mine. I checked the logs for the first time in a long time, and there's not much traffic. The last 20,000 requests show only 111 from http://www.google.com/bot.html and only 24 from the various OpenAI bots.

Why Don't You Love Me, ChatGPT?

Google.com informs me the reason is 'SEO', and after looking up what that means, I decided to make 'content'. Once I have more content, ChatGPT will surely love me, and learn from me.

Review: CalyxOS

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The moment I have to engage with the world of mobile phones, I feel like flapping my arms like a flustered chicken, and shouting 'I am not a computer person'. So, despite living part-time in a terminal, believe me when I say that CalyxOS, the Android-fork for mobile phones, works well for non-technical users, or at least users who don't want to be technical.

The initial choice of CalyxOS came from a few reasons.

The Yank Tax

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

English settlers in America once grumbled about the taxes they paid to the King of England, but now the tide has reversed, as a trickle of everything done anywhere in Europe must pay a little of the proceeds towards Microsoft, Google, Amazon, et c., for the privilege of running a computer.

When British schools need computers, they start by purchasing computers with a pre-paid Windows Licence for the classrooms, then fill the staffroom with Windows laptops, and administer the whole thing from Windows Servers using Microsoft's Active Directory. And hospitals, and rubbish collection, et c. et c.

Review: FDroid vs PlayStore

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A direct comparison between the FDroid store and Google's PlayStore isn't possible. When you open the FDroid store, you see all recent apps. You can see everything, and even search in alphabetical order; start to finish. Google will never let you see everything, because of the unfiltered garbage on their platform. They don't have the manpower necessary to audit the software, but even if they did, the platform allows completely unaudited software from anyone able to compile some code, and press the 'upload' button.

Open Credit

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

When coders use the GNU Public Licence, they have no obligation to give anyone credit for anything.¹ Despite this, coders almost always receive credit for everything they do, down to the exact line-changes.²

Meanwhile, the Creative Commons licences - far more popular with artists - have explicit stipulations, but don't have the same shining record of every contributor receiving credit for their exact work, or receiving any at all.

The difference is the tool. If you want to give proper credit to an artist, you have to take special pains. You need to make sure they've put the proper licence on their work (not just 'this is CC') and that you have their name right, and that any assets they've used also have all of those licences handled properly.

Features are Bad

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Feature-comparisons always turn into a murky mess when people compare proprietary software to FOSS. The proprietary software tends to try to do everything, while the FOSS-tools try to do everything by doing nothing.

Office 365 vs Libreoffice

Office 365 advertises a chonky list of features:

Powerpoint
Word Processing
Backups
File sharing
Email

Anyone comparing this to Libreoffice might think 'Libreoffice has no email, so it has fewer features'. Of course, anyone using Libreoffice can have an email client - they can use any email client.

WTFM

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The absolute fucking state of Linux documentation shows undeniably that nobody ever reads it.

Open a terminal, and just try, in earnest, to learn about what is happening:

 1$ ?
 2$ help
 3
 4
 5GNU bash, version 5.2.37(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
 6These shell commands are defined internally.  Type `help' to see this list.
 7Type `help name' to find out more about the function `name'.
 8Use `info bash' to find out more about the shell in general.
 9Use `man -k' or `info' to find out more about commands not in this list.
10
11A star (*) next to a name means that the command is disabled.
12
13 job_spec&]                            history [-c] [-d offset] [n] or hist>
14 (( expression ))                        if COMMANDS; then COMMANDS; elif C>
15 . filenamearguments]                  jobs [-lnprs] [jobspec ...] or jobs >
16 :                                       kill-s sigspec | -n signum | -sigs>
17 arg...                              let arg [arg ...]
18[ expression]                        local [option] name[=value] ...
19 alias-p] [name[=value] ...          logout [n]
20 bgjob_spec ...]                       mapfile [-d delim] [-n count] [-O or>
21 bind-lpsvPSVX] [-m keymap] [-f file>  popd [-n] [+N | -N]
22
23  ...]

Nothing is remotely clear to anyone who doesn't already know everything they need to. This 'help' cannot help anyone.

No Leftie Mice

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I switched to a left-handed mouse for the first time, at the ripe age of 38. It's unviable, so I've stopped.

Finding a mouse was easy - my mouse is already symmetrical. Reversing the keys was just one command.

But you can't use a computer with that mouse. All the GUI shortcuts - Ctrl + c, Ctrl + f - all focus on the left-hand side of the keyboard. Every day demanded new adjustments, and eventually, I gave up.

Trinary Programming

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I used to think of programming as something natively binary. 0's and 1's, [ True, False], just like the Propositional Logic in first year Philosophy. And file-systems do work that way on the disk - every picture is made of 0's and 1's.

However, Philosophy, or Logic in general, has other systems. Some of them use 'True' and 'False' like tick boxes. So you can still do this:

True
False

and this:

Opening Fae Doorways

Mon, 28 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I asked an older family member about old Scottish legends. She told me about what she heard when she was younger, from someone older still, and I suppose that puts the legend at least a hundred years back.

There are ghostly bagpipes that foretell death...there are banks of primroses, where, if you pick the wrong number, act as a code to open the hillside and reveal the fairy kingdom - if you enter, you rarely return.

Learning IT

Sat, 19 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Among certain circles, there is a general agreement that university Computer Science courses don't teach practical basics, or equip students to work with actual computers. This begs the question, what would a reasonable course look like?

When I worked at an IT outsourcing company, I would test people's computer skills. Droves of people with fancy qualifications would enter the course, and fail at very basic tasks.

Interacting with highly-qualified people online and in the flesh has left me astounded that they struggle to modify their own operating system, or even to use git.

Schrödinger's Licence

Sun, 01 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Software licences neatly fall into three categories - open, closed, and the uncertain - a kind of Schrödinger's licence, which must become one of the other two types in time.

Ignorance can only end with knowledge or death. Once someone fixes a mistake in their thinking, by understanding the truth, and how they made that mistake, repeating the same mistake becomes unlikely. The same principle applies to software licences, and more strongly. Anyone can take a software project under an Apache licence, MIT licence, or anything similar, and change it for another, with very little fuss. But once changed, that licence has nearly no ability to change back, or change to another licence.

The Modern Seneschal

Thu, 15 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Some centuries ago, nobles learned about the riches in their estate through their seneschal, who would walk about counting things.

10 lambs, 8 sheep, 1 exceptional sheep, 2 sickly sheep, 50 pounds of turnip, 400 pounds of cabbage,...

So on and on the counting would continue, so that the lord knew how much wealth he owned. Of course nowadays counting money doesn't take so much time or manpower. Someone can just have 'one million pounds' and we know what that entails, or what it could potentially entail when cached out, in terms of actual stuff.

Musings on the Next Search Engine

Fri, 19 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Google's began by indexing massive portions of the internet, and rating sites according to which sites had the most links going towards them. You might state the general goal like this:

We will write a program to rank the quality of writing on websites.

This worked well for a while, but people with businesses saw how to game the system quite early, and generated websites which had many links pointing to their business. Google responded, and a cat-and-mouse game began, where Google developed more advanced 'spiders' to crawl across the web, sorting and rating the quality of websites according to rules which would not allow corporations to trick them, and the corporations developed better tricks, then eventually split off into specialized companies who had the sole job of 'SEO' - full time staff would attempt to trick the spiders.

Native IT Food

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

'Traditional' food has fat, and has sugar if the region could import lots of it in the 1800's. Traditional Serbian food includes fat-fried meat with meat on it. Traditional Scottish food includes an egg, wrapped in meat, fried in bread-crumbs. I'm guessing most European countries follow suit.

These diets were developed for people who would lift rocks, break trees, tell pigs what to do, and build their own house as a side-hustle. When you meet these people, they may just look fat, because they are; but underneath that fat sits muscles which can break stone.

Faith

Sat, 22 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In recent years I've slowly changed my thinking on the concept of 'faith'. Or perhaps I've been thinking about attitudes, and just made very narrow use of a very broad word. Here's the thought:

Someone with a cool mind, an impartial attitude, and some very basic arithmetic can optimize. It's fashionable to make fun of these people,¹ but attempting a little cool-thinking and multiplication obviously makes for a good habit, on average.

A Small Note on Comparisons in the `xz` Fiasco

Sat, 08 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The xz fiasco has made fascinating reading, and brought up some real questions about open source development and overall safety. It's also brought up a slightly malformed thoughts on 'open source vs proprietary'.

If comparisons were to juxtapose operating system safety, then it seems misplaced, given that Windows, OSX, and Linux all use xz. The choice of OS doesn't seem to help here.

Or if the comparison were to juxtapose development methods, this seems to compare a known thing - how xz is developed - with an unknown thing - how Windows develops its tooling.

The Teeth in Nouns

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Going to a gathering in a synagogue, my partner said something about the 'Jew party'. This raised a tiny heckle, but I couldn't see why. She'd invited me to a gathering with her community. Most were Jewish, some brought non-Jewish partners (like she brought me). What's the problem?

Her native language is Slavic, and all the Slavic languages I know prefer nouns over adjectives. Where Anglophones say 'he works as a police officer', or 'she is black', Slavic languages would normally construct this as 'he is a cop', or 'she is a...' - and we have another oddity.

A General Failure in Tone Indicators

Thu, 09 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Some American made a video on Balkan history which flipped between saying that the Balkans has many cultures, then mentioned some war or similar catastrophe, then went on repeat. The video asserted bluntly (if not explicitly) that multiple cultures coexisting created all the strife in the Balkans.

I commented:

It looks like multiple cultures together create war. This must be why the United Kingdom has never had any fights, either inside, or outside its borders.

Neomutt & Bad Documentation

Sat, 06 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Neomutt exemplifies everything wrong with documentation.

Neomutt advertises itself as an email client for the terminal.

I like email, and I like terminal stuff, because it's easy to automate, and works with all my automation stuff.

That was me, and probably a great many other unsuspecting victims of neomutt.

However, once I opened the man page, I only found out how to colourize my configuration files.

"My fucking what?"

(I cried, in hysterical confusion)

Unhackable Humans

Fri, 08 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

People just can't see reason, and perhaps that's a good thing.

Nobody feels happy about it when explaining a stark, obvious fact, and hearing lazy, irrelevant nonsense as a reply. Telling people that X is a genocides, and all genocides are bad should make sense. Hearing 'yea-but', and 'whatabout' can make the blood boil. I don't have much consolation for this, except that this has to be the case, because the alternative might bring worse problems.

Code Checkers Make You Boring

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I can't stand coding helpers which suggest auto-completions, and this is why.

When the spelling checker came along, it helped writing a great deal. Nobody wants the job of looking up how to spell words. Then one dark day, I wrote a twisted sentence, subverting some standard English phrase in order to emphasise a point or make a joke, and blue (not red, but blue) squiggly lines appeared under my phrase. A right-click informed me that Microsoft or Google or whatever suggested I change the phrase back to the standard. The machine clearly hadn't understood the genius linguistic flourish. I dismissed the prompt with contempt, but I don't think everyone else will dismiss it so quickly. Anyone less secure in their writing could see those blue wiggly lines, and decide to return to the 'proper' (i.e. 'normal', i.e. 'boring') sentence structure.

Online Artists Don't Understand Open-Source Licences

Mon, 19 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I regularly see indie artists posting some great images, and encouraging open-source-adjacent use, but messing up the latter completely.

Just to clarify:

Professional artists probably understand art licences well enough, and likely don't care about 'open source'. This isn't a post for them.
Other artists don't care about open source work (or 'creative commons'), then this post isn't for them either.

Confusion 1: Licence isn't Wishes

Legally speaking, a licence sort-of is a wish for how people might use your work, but artists can't craft that kind of use. They say 'this is open', or 'can be used for commercial purposes, just give credit', or something equally vague.

Arch Linux: The Easy OS, No Joke, Not a Meme

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Arch Linux often does what Ubuntu tries and fails at.

I started with Arch due to a simple problem; every so often I'd read on some cool new program I wanted to check out, then feel disparaged as I read over the instructions.

1sudo apt update
2sudo apt install lib-xyz kitchen-sink python3-kitchen-sink

In the early days of the command-line, I hadn't a clue what I was doing, and the cheery articles never elucidated much. It felt even worse when they explained the commands, because I didn't understand, but had to read an extra few pages just in case they contained necessary instructions.

Distribution Beats Encryption

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

XMPP can be a nightmare to operate, but I still think it provides better long-term benefits than Signal, because XMPP without any encryption gives all the benefits of distribution, which grant better protection than encryption, overall.

XMPP is a Nightmare

My journey with XMPP so far has been:

Use OTR encryption.
Ask your friend a question in order to confirm their identity (I mean, she's standing right there, but fine).
Repeat for each contact, while pretending you're a reporter about to spill the beans on some major activity.
OTR no longer works, use omemo!
Omemo encryption isn't supported with profanity, try finding a plug-in.
Your phone is a different device (look at mister fancy, owning TWO DEVICES!), your keys won't work here.

I keep using encryption, because only techies message me through XMPP. However, the general population wouldn't have any problem using it without the encryption, and I think that's a better idea.

Photoshop Makes Bad Users

Fri, 17 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Every time Adobe does something horrible, hordes of Adobe Photoshop users attempt to migrate - generally to either GIMP or Inkscape.

They arrive and start a standard string of complaints:

This UI is bad (it should be like Photoshop, but it's not)
GIMP can't do vector graphics properly.
Inkscape can't do bitmaps properly.
Why does typesetting not work properly?

The Swiss Army Knife

Adobe Photoshop began as a program to doctor images, but since pivoted to do everything. It will format your dissertation on complex quadratics, make a film poster, and export both to HTML, all for the cost of €500 per day, and whatever it costs to get a next-generation PC (but it will still crash the entire OS faster than any computer game).

Reality Check on Why People Don't Use Linux

Sun, 05 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I cannot fathom why anyone debates this topic, because the answer sits plainly in front of you.

Shops
Schools
Advertising
Games
Precedent

Before you use a computer, you must buy it. You buy it from a shop. The shops have no Linux laptops. Linux laptops only come from new and obscure computer manufacturers.

If people could buy Linux laptops in shops, most still wouldn't. They know Windows from school, because Microsoft has wormed their way into every school system on the planet, and ensured - with the usual corporate black-magic - that every child knows Windows.

Why IT People Rarely Unionise

Tue, 31 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I've seen this question come up a few times, so here's my collection of reasons which makes sense to me:

It's new

Film has been around for a century, so those people have had plenty of time to unionise. Linux has only existed for 20 years, so 'Linux sysadmins' have only had 20 years of experience, and that's an example of a group which might think of itself as a group in the minimal viable sense. This brings me to my next point:

Learning Programming Languages

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

When learning computer languages, order matters a lot, and I think I got lucky by learning them in roughly the best possible order.

Just like a linguistic ladder, it's better to take many small steps than a couple of big steps.

bash

Bash is a great first language because you can start instantly, and do regular things easily.

Consider the following python commands to see which files are in a directory:

The Zen of i3-gaps

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I feel that the i3-gaps window manager perfectly encapsulates the spirit of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. If you haven't read it, I won't repeat it, but perhaps this will make sense anyway.

For a perfectly Romantic desktop environment, we have the classic Mac (and please picture every stereotype you think other people have about Mac-users). It looks sleek, the windows wobble and spring about just-so, and it speaks of a lifestyle as much as anything else. It forms part of a romantic image. It's also deeply unsavoury to anyone of a technocratic bent, who just wants to get things done, and understands how the machine works.

Markdown GUIs

Fri, 29 Sep 2023 09:00:00 +0000

'Organizers', 'wikis', 'note-taking apps', et c. - these apps are mostly Markdown with an attached GUI. Today, I'm trying each of them out for twenty minutes apiece.

AnyType

Site: anytype.io
Size: 383 MB
AnyType comes encrypted, meaning you can't easily grab the raw markdown notes and stick them in a Git, or do much else with them.
It comes with its own synchronizing feature, so you're discouraged from using your own.
It recognizes various 'types' of things very well, with
- bookmarks for youtube links (with an icon), along with the ability to leave notes in the bookmark,
- task lists
It may be encrypted, but it starts up and just starts synchronizing with...the broader internet. That's still a little spooky for me.
Onboarding goes quickly, as the task-list is pre-populated with notes on how to learn the app, and the knowledge-base is populated with knowledge about the app.
Pressing Alt+F does not open the 'File' manager, which I take as a personal insult.

Zettlr

Site: zettlr.com
Size: 383 MB
LaTeX support works by integrating with other LaTeX programs, which warms my heart, but also confuses me. Who uses LaTeX but computer science nerds?
Very FOSS-friendly,
- with a link to a Mastodon feed for the project.
The split-view lets you view many notes at once, and reminds me of vim.
It seems to use pandoc, and the integration looks sensible.
Under the hood, there is no markdown, so once again, no easy way to integrate git.
- But apparently you can make or open Markdown anywhere, so that all works fine.
- I should have tested that function with AnyType as well to make the tests equal. cba
Once again, Alt+f fails to open File at the top bar.

Qownnotes

It has AI integration.
Why do people need to do this to everything?
"Yes, I need a stupid-pen that's stupid, please, do you still have any without AI? Actually gimme that ink, I'll go find a crow" - that'll be me in a few years.

LogSeq

Site: logseq.com
Size: 531 MB
The name LogSeq sounds too nerdy.
It opens in light mode, unlike the others.
- Selecting a theme gave me the options:
  - Light mode
- This made me think it was a bar of options to click on.
- It kept burning my retinas.
- I really hate this.
- When I found a more general theme option, it merged with my local system theme, and now looks amazing. All is forgiven.
It's so minimalist it looks like nothing but a wrapper for Markdown, with no options or abilities. Top score.
It has an option for when to 're-index', which tells users who don't know what that means that this app is not for them.
When renaming a whiteboard, a popup asks 'Are you sure?' I think I hate it again.
Whiteboards feel like a CLI-user's idea of what GUI users want, but then again I make maps in vim so what do I know?
The onboarding assaults you with random animations. I don't like it.
All settings are in plain text, which is obviously a much-needed feature, but comments are made with ;;, which is weird.
The standard notes display as simple markdown, and on startup LogSeq asks where it should save information. This isn't an 'app', it's a program.
The automatic graph of pages shows how each links together.
Everything confuses me.
- Why is everything a bullet point? Where is the normal text?
- I realize I'm typing this from an all-bulleted post, but that's beside the point.
- The bottom of the page says '0 Unliked References': what does this mean?
- I can make links because I know markdown, but it has no buttons to do this as far as I can see.
- With no File bar across the top, I can't see how to access menus and discover the abilities. I just have to click buttons with random unicode symbols.
It's been 40 minutes and I don't know what I'm doing. Time to stop.

Zim

Site: zim-wiki.org
Size: 11 MB
The interface is just a bunch of buttons to do what markdown does.
Typing raw markdown into the interface doesn't seem to work - you need to actually click that header button, you can't just type # Heading.
I can't seem to get it to take an existing wiki and import it.
This is not a markdown editor - it uses its own markup language.
The git integration means standard users can use git.
- Unfortunately you can only commit by clicking 'save version', and people won't know what that means.
Zim cannot work with other markdown software. It's so close, but ultimately pointless.

Ghostwriter

Site: ghostwriter.kde.org
Size: 2.69 MB
Beautiful.
What the hell is 'Hemingway mode'?
- I can't delete text any more!
- Outstanding!
Why can I not add metadata, like a title?
- Found it: go to Settings --> Preview Options --> Pandoc.
It only handles one file at a time.
- No directory overview.
- No jumping between files as links.
- No creating files, except 'File -> New'.
- 'Importing' works: you just open any file in any type of markdown.

Distasteful Preaching

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I feel an unstated agreement among disparate civil society that one shouldn't preach. Breaching the preaching rule quickly looks like hypocrisy, because everyone has more work to do on themselves.

Easier Said than Done

Someone - usually young - preaching about veganism, trans-rights, the effects of aeroplanes on climate change, feels the rightness of their cause, and begins to lecture, then soon switches to practically ordering people how they should eat, speak, and travel. The one cause should obviously bind us, and if people could only be rational, we could all - easily - solve this one issue in a short time.

Open Source is the Best Term

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I once met a man who, having talked to some FOSS-enthusiast, felt moved, and told me he was sure to use 'free' software, but not that 'open source', software. His attempts, of course, would be futile, because the words refer to the same software.

The Free Software Foundation (could they not at least have called themselves the 'Foundation for Software Freedom'?) have stated that 'free software' does not mean the same as 'open source' software, because big, nasty, companies use the term 'open source', to remove the ethical questions about the freedoms of software. Now I'd like to give this remark more attention than in deserves.

A List of Missions to Venus

Thu, 24 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

My favourite wikipedia article is called List of Missions to Venus.

Nowadays we're all amazed that astronomers can send a rocket out, and expect it to fly around the planet three times, nip round the moon, change trajectory while passing Jupiter, and land on some asteroid like a cautious butterfly, so it can send high-resolution images back home. But every master began as a student, so of course our initial excursions went less well.

Review: Soft Serve

Wed, 21 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Soft Serve is a git server for the command line. You can see the maintainers' version here, with ssh:

1ssh git.charm.sh

It looks like this:


   Soft Serve 

  • Repositories    About

  ┃ Bubble Tea                                                                                                                                                     
  Updated 31 minutes ago
  ┃ A powerful little TUI framework mirror]
  ┃ git clone git@git.charm.sh:bubbletea.git

    Soft Serve                                                                                                                                                         
  Updated 3 days ago                                                                                                  
    A tasty, self-hostable Git server for the command linemirror]                                                   
    git clone git@git.charm.sh:soft-serve.git

My Server

I've been running one my own Soft Serve instance since 2023. When the server died, I took a backup of the data from /var/lib/soft/, dumped it into the new server, and continued uninterrupted.

Alternative School Programs

Fri, 12 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I find it bizarre how similar all schooling is, and how few alternatives people have tried.

Of course some experiments exist, such as Summer Hill, run by Neil, which famously did not demand that pupils attend any classes, and showed why children would attend classes anyway. And of course different schools exist - boarding schools - with harsher standards than the lower-class school I had to attend. Despite slightly-different schools and rare outliers, I find the lack of variety strange.

Critical Thinking: An Introduction

Sun, 07 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Fallacies and critical thinking are all the rage in some circles, but I hear a lot about (and occasionally experience) people making 'logic-noises' who clearly haven't studied the subject. In fact, they seem unaware one can take a University course in the subject, as they've missed the first lesson every student of Logic learns - the Principle of Charity.

The principle of charity means that we should interpret any statement charitably, that we should assume the speaker is acting in good faith, and that if someone looks like they have mad beliefs then we should clarify the intended statement rather than denouncing it. I'll give an example of a statement, and counterargument:

Auto Eugenics

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Once in a while I hear of someone who's decided to not have children because of bad ideas. I don't want to argue that anyone should or should not have children, but I do want to remove those bad ideas. The bad ideas usually go something like this:

"I have this condition, and I don't think I should inflict that on anyone, so I'm not having children"

This sounds reasonable - not wanting to inflict some nasty condition on someone. But it's not reasonable.

University Degrees are Weird

Wed, 26 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I imagine the conversation between a University and potential student going like this:

    I'd like to get qualified in a subject.

Four years.

    Woah there, I haven't told you what I want to learn yet.

Doesn't matter. Everything takes four years to learn.

    Really?  *Everything*? Art and medicine? Computing and Sociology?
    A basic understanding of the field takes four years of study for
    each?
    
    Where did you find out this amazing fact?  What amazing study
    was made, and what was the methodology?

Fuck off.

Building a Meme in Under a Month

Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

People have parroted that old cyber-security phrase - 'depends on the threat model' - so often, so quickly, and so vacuously, that I find my toes curling at the sound of it. But after some dealing with some imbeciles on Reddit's /r/privacy, I have to write this article about the importance of the threat model.

It started with /r/NewIran, where hopeful and irate Iranians, sick of the Unitary Theocratic Islamic Republic (i.e. 'government') and their Supreme Leader (his actual title), talk about dissent and share memes. Someone posted a message: "do not share details with people on the subreddit, as Neẓām'the government'/ 'the system'] may pretend to be a supporter in order to find out who you are" (and we know what happens then).

Neutral News

Sat, 15 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

"News sources are biased", and "everyone lives in a bubble", we all hear constantly (or perhaps that's just my bubble). But what would a non-biased news source look like?

Taking a strict middle-ground gives immediately ridiculous conclusions. Perhaps the UK's food banks suggest some problem, but not much of a problem? This seems less wrong than saying food banks don't suggest any problem, but still wrong. And should this neutral position exist on a per-country basis - so all the countries can have balanced, and unbiased, but totally different news stories - or planet-wide? ( - I can't even imagine what madness that would summon)

Pens Must Die

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I'll miss pens when they go. I like how they feel. I like that handwriting is almost impossible to fake. I like that when I receive a letter, I can tell who sent it just from how they write the address. But it all has to go.

Pens have some advantages over computers. One can generally access a pen-record faster - just open the notepad and it's there. Modern software is so badly programmed that it's often easier to find a page in a notepad than to open a text document. And it's resilient - even if rain doesn't do paper any favours, anyone can still read a page which has been rained on. Taking out a computer in the rain is just madness.

The Inescapable Algorithm

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I wake, and enter my algorithm-free RSS feed. It is perfect and pure.

I see a list (in the order I select) of everyone I want to follow. YouTube channels show up just like everything else, and I see only the name. With a quick shortcut-key, I tell the computer I want to watch the video later.

Onto the next feed, I find a news article. I open the blog in w3m, the CLI browser, sidestepping all JavaScript.

Do Mention the War

Fri, 03 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I felt so very bored with learning in high school that WWII was bad.

The lesson plan, as far as I remember, was this:

War happened, it was bad.
It was bad the war happened.
Nazis did a war, which was bad.
Nazis did it because of racism, which is also bad.
(English class) Poetry about how the war was bad
11 Million dead - bad.

I GET IT! Can we do the Romans now?

The Mythical Beauty of Scotland

Sat, 25 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

About a quarter of the time I say I'm Scottish, someone mentions how beautiful the nature there is, and how much they'd like to visit.

Putting aside that they might just be saying this as a conversation piece, and putting our 'autistic caps' on, the idea's baffling.

I've travelled a reasonable chunk of the planet, and I've never seen somewhere with ugly nature. It's all beautiful.

Scotland may be extremely green, but then so are large swathes of Pakistan.

Victim Blaming in Security

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Fediverse has just suffered from an all-out spam attack from some script kiddies, and the moralizing tones I've heard from some people tell me that some people have the wrong attitude about cybersecurity, and the internet.

The only right attitude is that of a chess player.

Chess Strategies

Every few decades, someone announces a new strategy in chess. Perhaps people once read chess strategy books about the 'Kaspersky pirate-bate opening' (or whatever), and then the three counter-moves, and so on. Then the new opening comes out, which annihilates the Kespersky pirate-bate opening, forcing check-mate within 15 turns, with near-Mathematical certainty.

What I Wish I'd Known Before the Philosophy Degree

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Be Rich or be Poor, but Don't Work

Working a side job during University lowers grades, a student should be rich in order to get the best grades, get a good time from clubs, and get the best results.

If you can't be rich, best to be poor, and try to scrape by without work; minimize socializing, don't go to university clubs, don't see friends. Make friends with the study material.

I Don't Like Ancient Greek Translations

Wed, 15 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Reading Plato's various Dialogues, I've come across a few very strange choices from the translators.

Firstly, a pig could be dedicated as a 'sacrifice' to a god. I've read that people would then eat the 'sacrifice', and initially thought this was a cop-out - if you eat the meal, then you're not really sacrificing anything. It might make sense when someone sacrificed a pig by giving it to a temple, after which those at the temple eat it, but if one 'sacrifices' at one's own dinner table, this looks like clear cheating. I wonder why translators didn't simply use the word 'dedication'.

Are You Sure?

Fri, 20 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I really hate computers engaging in pretend conversations.

Hey, you left this.

Okay.

Do you still want it?

No.

Are you sure?

Yes, leave it.

Okay, before you go...would you like to sign up for this newsletter?

No.

Can I go now?

I don't want a conversation, I want actions. I don't want to ask to save, I just want to save. When I say 'exit', and I have 3 hours of work open, I want the program to instantly shoot itself in the face so its body can be reconstituted into free memory. Sure I might lose important work, but I've learnt to save once in a while with this workflow. It's not hard.

The Absolute State of YouTube

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

My partner watches YT videos in the background while working, and the nonsense I hear is unreal.

People stop to discuss the algorithm, and request audience intervention, persistently.
People use code-words for drugs, death, suicide, and anything else they think the algorithm may dislike.
Sponsorship ads last minutes, interrupted by YT ads.

That last one requires some browser extension to cut the YT ads, and intelligently figure out where the sponsorship message lies inside the video.

Automation Creation

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Automation is more than time-saving, it lets you do and create what you otherwise never would.

I publish these little articles with as much automation as you can imagine. If I did this manually, the steps would be:

Add a publication date for the future to evenly space articles (I write loads, then stop for ages)
Transfer to the computer which has the keys to upload this stuff.
Commit it in a git.
Convert the new article from Markdown to HTML.
Transfer to the computer which hosts it on the web.
Convert the new article from Markdown to Gemini.
Transfer it to the computer which hosts it on the gemini capsule.

With that on the to-do list, I wouldn't write more than a couple of things a year. However, once it's all set up, I just write stuff, and it goes out.

The Written Word is Senile

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I don't know how long until people cannot use pens, but it seems their days are numbered.

Whatever time it might take, certain stages seem inevitable.

Those currently in the government seem unlikely to change the education system to remove pens. I find it more likely that a group who broadly haven't used a pen more than once a decade would find it natural to remove teachings they've never used.

Those Who Can Do, Should Not Teach

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I'm fast learning not to listen to experts when learning.

I say I'm starting my second Python project. I'm trying to work a nested dictionary.

You should use classes

No, I really shouldn't. I haven't even become comfortable with nested dictionaries.

It reminds me of people asking which Linux distro to install, and finding the reply 'just install Arch'.

I have no idea how these people manage to forget how long it took them to use these tools properly.

Federating with the Devil

Tue, 22 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Tumblr will soon attempt to join the Fediverse, and I'm going to argue that this is - overall - a good thing.

Methodology

I'm going to assume a consequentialist outlook, because I'm a consequentialist, and because other schools of ethical thought have no ability to do anything but argue over methodology.

I also want to avoid the temptation to consider what 'the Fediverse' should do, because there is no such place or person - the choices will be made by individual administrators, I have to assume that some administrators will federate, and others won't. Even if we could all achieve something amazing by working together, it doesn't mean that individual servers should do it - everyone instance makes the choice alone.

Slowing the Terminal

Sun, 20 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The original terminal interface let you type to the computer in a type-writer, and the computer would type back - no screen required, just typed-text. Since then, computers have become so fast that no human could possibly read the text spat back out at the user.

I don't think proper distinctions have been made with a lot of this text. Should I read the output of and update? In this case, is the interface assuming that I should scroll up and read from the top, since nobody could possibly read the real-time output? In this case, should the terminal not have a maximum character limit which guarantees that you can read the output? Or some way to ensure that no more than 3,000 lines of text come out?

My Hobby: Finding Realism in Sci-Fi

Wed, 16 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Any idiot can spot mistakes in sci-fi. Finding excuses makes for a better game.

Star Trek shows every race in the world speaking the same language, because they have universal translators. But then we hear klingons shouting in Klingon, and hear random Bejoran phrases. Clearly lazy writing.

But better writing might suggest universal translators work at will. Maybe klingons stop using them because they're occupied by a fight. And maybe idioms don't translate so well, and Bejorans slip into phrases more than most others.

How to Install Linux

Sat, 05 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Tired of fighting your computer, but not sure how to go about all this Linux stuff? If so, I wrote this for you.

Overview	Time
Check your software works on Linux	~1 month
Check what you need to back up	1 afternoon
Downloads & a USB stick	30 minutes
Pick a distro	1 minute
Installation	1 hour
Rediscover the computer	1 hour

Check your software works on Linux

If you need a program, check if it works on Linux. If it does not, search for an alternative program which works on Linux, then try that out.

Explaining Security with Metaphors

Mon, 24 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I wonder if people might struggle less with computer security if we employed metaphors for previous technology.

People have attempted to get videos off the internet, showing a clear misunderstanding of how computers work. If they thought in terms of many people photocopying a picture, I'm sure they would understand how futile the efforts are.

People get phished all the time, because they believe the 'FROM: ' field far too quickly, but if those same people received a letter saying 'hello this is the king of england', they would spot the ruse immediately.

I Don't Understand What I'm Reading

Sun, 23 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The Guardian informs me that Suella Braverman has resigned, stating:

Earlier today, I sent an official document from my personal email to a trusted parliamentary colleague as part of policy engagement, and with the aim of garnering support for government policy on migration. This constitutes a technical infringement of the rules … nevertheless it is right for me to go.

I don't understand any of this.

Standard users make mistakes like this all the time. The only thing you can do is help them by making the interface easier. If this is a firing offence, you only encourage people to never send email, and instead have others do it for them, to release culpability. This rule does not seem any more realistic than demanding that someone never stutter publicly.
If this is because she's suspected of bad intentions, it doesn't do anything - secretly leaking information with plausible deniability is not only trivial, but easier now than at any point in human history.
How is anyone else understanding this? Is the regular viewer meant to hear this and think 'by Jove, chatting about work with a PERSONAL EMAIL ACCOUNT - the absolute nerve of the woman! I would never!'?

I put out the Guardian article as it's the most digestible, coming with at least some explanation of the events. The explanation here is that Braverman has not in fact resigned over accidentally sending an email from the wrong address, which answers questions 1 and 2. However, the third point remains. Why release an explanation which seems so suspicious? Why not simply resign and state one's disgust with the current practices of the government?

Where are My Philosopher Kings?

Thu, 13 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Plato's Republic can come across as naïve, and I find that fact tragic.

Broadly, the book climaxes with a plan to make a state ruled by Philosopher Aristocrats. While Plato calls these rulers "Philosophers", we shouldn't picture modern Philosophy students, but academics.

I find the failure tragic because all rulers - whether by committee or a single ruler - have failed spectacularly at plenty of basic questions.

As a quick rundown, I want to state the obvious, and obvious methodology.

I am an Internet Lawyer

Fri, 07 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I'm getting real sick of the 'I am not a lawyer' everywhere. Everyone's not a lawyer, nobody's not a doctor.

I get that people think their suggestions may have legal consequences. I don't think mine will though. I'm an internet lawyer - go murder someone, it'll be fine. This is legal advice.

I just can't picture someone violating the GDPR, then going to court, and saying 'there was some guy on Reddit, and he said he knew for definite that this was fine'. Let's assume you track the guy down. Could any court seriously accept that this person - because they didn't end every post with those magic words - wanted to hand out legal advice as if he were someone's personal lawyer?

Hope You Win

Tue, 04 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Little things annoy me that nobody else in the world could possibly care about. One of them is E-Bay's message at the end of every sale:

"You have bid £3.40 for the item. Hope you win".

Who hopes I win? E-Bay the corporation? The browser? Clearly I'm the only one inferring meaning here, so maybe I mean it, but I'm not the meaning the sentence - I mean I probably do hope that I win, but it's not like I mean to say that sentence. If I'm giving the sentence meaning, what meaning am I to give it? A 'nobody' meaning? Nobody hopes that I win? (except me, obviously)

Learning Languages (by a monoglot)

Tue, 27 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

My basic education included 11 years of French classes, and I don't know any more French than 'le chat'. Those lessons could hardly have failed harder in Britain's schools.

I recall the counting in Maths, and most people can square something, and understand what, roughly, Maths can do. I still read well, so evidently English classes were a good use of my time. So French class does not show a general pattern for us to forget our education once done, it has a special place - last.

Bring One Back

Tue, 20 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

     When you're eating bacon...


               I don't each bacon.


     Right, but when someone eats bacon...

I find this sort of thing happening routinely. I suspect everyone else feels more comfortable with waiting for the meaning of a sentence to emerge later.

Whatever happened to saying 'one', as short for 'someone'?

It sounds pretentious to most people, but obviously that comes from history, and not from any problems with the word's use. Germans, and presumably others retain a separate, short word, to express what the relevant people do.

Relative Power

Sun, 18 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

We're not all in power, by definition.

(Ricky Gervais)

Pouring the rest of my soup into a Tupperware container, my girlfriend-at-the-time asked me to stop.

"That won't fit", she said.

"Obviously it will", I replied, pointing to the remainder of the pot.

And it did, with a millimetre to spare.

"Oh, you're one of those people"

Only then, in my mid twenties, did I learn that other people couldn't eyeball volume so well. At first I felt happy about my new-found powers. Then I realised I didn't have anything new, other people simply had less than I wanted.

Anglophone Deficiencies

Fri, 19 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Native English speakers commonly muck-up every sentence thrown at them in a way one doesn't normally find with Spaniards, Serbs, Finnish, or Germans.

This cannot come from the same reasons that few Europeans can pronounce Cantonese words - that we simply don't have those sounds. We have 'con', but cannot say 'pivo'. When a native Polak makes the noises 'pee-voh', the anglophone states, 'pivō', as if it rhymed with 'bungalow'.

Richard Stallman: The Philosopher

Wed, 03 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The most efficacious piece of Philosophy written this century was buried in a software licensing agreement, and the Philosophy faculties of every major university have missed it.

While clicking 'I agree', to all those licences, everyone will have come across this piece at some point.

## Preamble

The GNU General Public License is a free, copyleft license for
software and other kinds of works.

The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed
to take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast,
the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom
to share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it
remains free software for all its users.  We, the Free Software
Foundation, use the GNU General Public License for most of our
software; it applies also to any other work released this way
by its authors. You can apply it to your programs, too.

Stallman doesn't reference other Philosophers, so one might not initially see him as part of the larger Philosophical conversation. However, he does have a good understanding of Logic, and an impressive beard.

The Rule of Two

Wed, 20 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I have a personal rule concerning arguments. I accept only two.

I've made this a tight habit. If anyone protests (as they have) that they didn't put forward their strongest argument at the start, then I say this indicates a waste of time even more. Why put forward bad reasons, if you have good ones?

This saves time, but even better - it provides an interjection for when debate becomes heated, and someone's not playing the game charitably. It allows you to say

The Eaterateri vs Buzzfeed

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A group of Victorian gentlemen called the 'Eaterateri' wandered various Scottish restaurants, trying all they could. The now well-known Adam Smith and David Hume regularly talked in the group about their ideas.

I don't know if Hume felt bold enough to speak about Atheism, but Adam Smith may well have developed those ideas which he later published in The Wealth of Nations.

I've always liked this idea of a small group, having an evolving conversation. People can consider ideas, see how they feel about them, then bring them up again later, adding addenda, or objections.

On Political Optimism

Mon, 27 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Any time I hear a patronizing sneer towards hopeful political thinking, I imagine just how insane representative democracy must have sounded when it first reached circulation.

Oh young one! So you think you have a fun idea to bring down the king. God himself has ordained that he rule, but you disagree.

And instead of a king, you bring us this idea from your expensive education, from a town in Greece where (you have read in a book), the men stood in a circle, put their hands up, and made laws together.

In Defence of Crypto Currencies

Sat, 25 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

People rightly irritated by NFTs often lump Bitcoin et al. into the mix, and some of the complaints go too far.

The Use Case

A friend owed me €100, and wanted to send that money to me online. The traditional banks demanded:

Looking up the IBAN
About €15 processing (possibly more for Scotland to Serbia, I never looked up the specifics)
Three days' waiting.

Instead, he set me up with a wallet in about 20 minutes, then we took another 10 to transfer the money. It cost €0.35 to transfer.

Linux vs the MSP

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I was working on the tech-support frontdesk from my flat when my girlfriend-at-the-time asked how to watch films on Linux. I was maybe 30 minutes into some bullshit ticket, and probably watching a crappy web-interface load.

[ 00:00 seconds

I turned to her, stared for a moment, and thought 'popcorntime'. This program should be able to let her watch any TV show she wanted.

[ 00:02 seconds

I switched to the Linux connection I had open, and accessed the PC she was on over ssh.

I Read It on the Internet

Mon, 20 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I feel like we all need to stop using 'Did you read that on the internet?', in such a derogatory way. The internet contains just about all writing at this point. It contains academic journals, books, and intelligent discussions by professionals, often on Reddit.

Snarky comments about Reddit also apply - the space contains both good and bad, so labelling something as 'from Reddit' really doesn't damn anything.

The same applies to Wikipedia. I've seen mistakes in my own field of expertise, but when the only real error found lies with some obscure Philosophical theory, this speaks rather well of the platform.

There's No Such Thing as a Rodent

Mon, 20 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Fun fact: There's no such thing as a fish.

This 'QI'-style factum results from the notion that fish do not all belong to the same genus (or 'family', or 'phylum', or some other Biological category). If we take one genetic branch of fish as the real fish, then we miss out a lot of animals which everyone calls 'fish'. But if we broaden our definition and include the other fish, we must include foxes in the same gene-line.

I Will Prove vim is Easy

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

It's literally three commands:

i to insert text
Escape to not insert text
ZZ to save and exit

An old girlfriend once asked me if she could write a website. This came out of the blue - she had no experience with computers beyond installing Sims.

"Is it easy?", she asked.

I said "yes", then showed her:

1
2<BODY>
3	<H1> My Title </H1>
4	<p> First line. </p>
5</BODY>

That was it for a while. When she asked how to do colours, I showed her how to "mix paints" (e.g. '#aa9900') for red and green, and for everything else I just said 'google it'. 30 minutes later, she'd made a basic site, with a pink background, detailing her favourite computer games.

You are a Utility Monster

Tue, 07 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Robert Nozick created his 'utility monster' thought-experiment to show a fatal flaw in Utilitarianism.

Utilitarian theory is embarrassed by the possibility of utility monsters who get enormously greater sums of utility from any sacrifice of others than these others lose...the theory seems to require that we all be sacrificed in the monster's maw, in order to increase total utility.

The Stakes vs Fiction

Utilitarian Ethical theory attempts to create a rigorous, basic, formula for determining good actions from bad. If humanity found that it reliably works as an ethical theory, we could put an end to all manner of ethical debates.

Comparisons are Fine

Fri, 27 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I've seen a meme trending hard of late. Not a 'funny picture' meme, but an idea: 'Don't compare your thing to another, just show us your thing. Don't say why it's better than the other thing, just tell us what it does'.

This advice might work in some limited way to stop bad writing, but then we may as well just stop bad writing, not comparisons.

The advice can work to the detriment of an explanation for a few reasons.

Leaving Passwords

Wed, 25 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

We're all going to die, so we have to share passwords.

When family die, we already have a mountain of nonsense to deal with, and I have no doubt that we'll see a growing number of people wrestling with American corporations, attempting to regain access to Coinbase accounts, banking apps, et c.

Clearly, we would all have an easier time by simply sharing some master password. Most of use have password stores nowadays, so we may as well. A piece of paper, with the master password written down, in a favoured book, should suffice. It's not as secure as it might be, but at least if the house is robbed, everyone would know to reset that password post-haste.

GPL Worries

Tue, 17 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The GPL states that any users can use the source code under the GPL, or any later version released by the Free Software Foundation. So the entire FOSS movement hinges on the continued sanity of the Free Software Foundation.

Theoretically, a GPLv4 could come out, allowing people to not release the source code, which would effectively turn all GPL projects into MIT.

FOSS Enthusiasts aren't Enthusiastic Enough

Fri, 13 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Games

I hear Linux podcasts and bloggers pulling themselves back, with an eye to keeping things realistic, and too many end up with unwarranted pessimism.

'You have to admit that computer games are just better on Windows'.

And I won't disagree, but I don't see why they phrase the situation like that.

Linux is the second best gaming system on the planet.

It has better games and more system modularity than all Nintendo platforms, than any gaming console, and more than OSX. All the other platforms run totally proprietary code. We shouldn't compare 'Windows vs Linux', and note Windows works better, we should compare all top gaming platforms, and note the fastest growing one, with amazing support (despite its lack of advertising or userbase), is Linux.

The Tell Rick and Morty Missed

Mon, 09 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Rick & Morty's parallel episodes show myriad alternative versions. There's Fat Rick, Juggling Rick, et c.

From the point of view of Fat Rick, all alternative Ricks have an easy tell - they are all skinny. And of course the Drama-Morty can instantly spot alternative-universe Morties because they don't have the same flair for drama.

The Rick and Morty we see suffer from a kind of improper 'defaultism'. If all the alternatives had pointed ears, they could be known as 'round-ear' Rick, or similar.

Silent Mode was a Mistake

Sat, 07 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

My phone bings three times, and I really want to tell it 'listen, matey, if I haven't answered the first three bings, I won't answer the next'. I wander over and tell it to shut up.

Of course if I forget to turn off silent mode, I could miss something important in a few hours. The entire approach here misunderstands how people work. Nobody likes constant, nagging, bings.

This is where the do-it-yourself computers really shine. I've cobbled together a short script for all notifications to run through. It works like this:

FOSS and Disability

Wed, 04 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Ella the Cat posted up their i3-gaps configuration to help with Parkinson's, and it got me thinking a lot about how FOSS software typically views disability. Briefly, they have Parkinson's Disease, which causes tremors, which makes the mouse a pain to use. The i3-gaps desktop is keyboard based, so it doesn't require much mouse interaction. They then modified the key-bindings to stop their specific tremors in the left hand from exiting a program accidentally.

Video Games and FOSS

Sat, 30 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The FOSS community have generally grown a kind of tacit acceptance of proprietary computer games. Everyone loves them, so nobody wants to make too much of a fuss, but I think we have good reasons to treat them differently.

Computer games do not - by default - require environment interaction. They can (mostly) operate in a container, without the need for theming, or opening various system files. They have no need to access a user's home directory.

Returning to Games after a Decade

Fri, 29 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I never had the money for serious gaming, and perhaps it did me well; I've focussed on other things. But when the pandemic hit, I decided that this was exactly the time to start playing again, so I bought Tomb Raider from 2013.

Having not played anything much since Metal Gear Solid 3, I was blown away. The seamless way the creators had pulled the graphics into the story, the attention to detail in the face, and of course the first puzzle.

Causation & Ethics

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Causation is a matter of Ethics, not science.

A man drinks some vodka, and soon after starts a fight in the pub, concerning a political point.

So what's the cause?

The man claims the vodka was the cause, and he should stop drinking vodka.
The barman claims the man was the cause of the fight.
The man's friends note that a number of fights have started due to politics, and conclude that discussing politics causes fights.

People point and blame things which they want to change. The man blames the vodka in order to not blame himself. His friends have a similar tactic, but offer a tantalizing solution which promises to stop many fights in the future. The barman just wants to not deal with that guy again.

Look up Etymology Instead of Spelling

Sun, 24 Apr 2022 18:02:51 +0000

Instead of looking up how to spell a word, I always look up the Etymology and find a link to another word I can spell. I don't know Latin or Greek, but just seeing the links between words often shows why people construct the spelling in this way or that.

Defence or defense?

It's 'defence', because it has the same root as a 'garden fence' (although both come from Latin 'defensus'

Windows Cannot Error

Sat, 23 Apr 2022 20:02:48 +0000

I started the entire path to Linux due to a single Windows Error message. My little netbook couldn't handle the massive book I was writing (pictures every two pages, tables and formatting galore, et c.). I needed a real PC.

A friend kindly gifted me her old computer parts. She handed me a plastic bad full of plastic and silicone parts. I hated computers, but knew I had to get this thing working to complete the book.

Bringing Back the Symposium

Tue, 19 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

My friends had a spirited debate after too many drinks. I suggested bringing back the Greek-style symposium, and it lead to a far more interesting debate.

First, we agreed on time - two minutes. Then someone kept the time, and motioned to indicate when only thirty second remained.

Everyone felt heard, nobody interrupted each other (well they did a bit, but the timekeeper added more time to account for it), and we suffered far less repetition. When a subject arose I didn't have any care for, I remained silent, which shortened the debate.

Terry A. Davis

Thu, 14 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you haven't heard of him, he could only have been described as a 'mad genius'.

Looking at his work, I found myself astounded by the fact that if he hadn't existed, I would have sworn that what he did was impossible.

He made a full operating system.

At this point, before learning that he actually did this, I would have pushed for a number of corrections, and I would have been wrong.

The Sleep Command is Great

Sun, 03 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Using a command-line interface allows all manner of expression that clicking a list of buttons could never achieve. But for all the nice tools in bash, the one I use most often to make my life easier is just sleep.

Want to shut down the computer and leave, but don't want to shut off the music just yet?

1sleep 5m; sudo shutdown -h now

Want to download a film, but can't lose the bandwidth right now?

E-Readers are Great

Thu, 31 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I bought a Sony PRS-600 e-reader, and it's great. I've started reading again, after not reading any books for some years.

Nothing could be easier. You plug it into a computer, stick on an epub book or pdf, then the e-reader lists the books you have, keeps the last page open of the books, and lets you make notes. This means the notes can be backed up.

I haven't the faintest idea who might want the various other features modern e-readers advertise. There's no use in having Wi-Fi. There's also no use in having 500 gigabytes of storage - nobody can read that much.

Bash is worse than it needs to be

Thu, 24 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I love bash, but it's worse than it needs to be.

Earlier today I was updating a script, and had to create lines of text in a file.

It was working fine with echo, and using \\n to place a new line into what I made. However, on the server, this stopped working. Same script, same operating system, same updates, same programs installed. However, the local computer was using dash as the shell (/bin/sh), while the remote was using bash.

My Workflow

Sun, 20 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This isn't advice. If I have any advice, it's just to try various things and find out what works for you.

When it comes to productivity tools, I focus always on speed before and above anything else. If some new tool has a wonderful new feature, but takes three seconds to load, it's off the table. I won't even consider it.

A standard response might look like this:

Receive a dunst notification that an email has arrived.
Switch to workspace 2 with aerc showing email.
If something needs done, I can press one button, and pull up the calendar (calcurse).
The task gets entered in with a date, or on the task list.

Nothing I run really 'loads', because loading times interrupt thinking, and I don't care about anything as much as my own peace of mind.

Focus

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I've never been able to focus.

I'll be cleaning, or messing with spreadsheets for work, and all of a sudden I wonder 'could you type prose in the international phonetic alphabet (IPA), so you could put accents into a book properly?'. And then I think 'can I use the IPA as a keyboard layout, like I use the Polish layout? Thirty minutes later, I'm wandering around how X and Wayland understand keyboard layouts, and the distasteful memory of the spreadsheet task has faded while the dishes have developed a semi-sentient mould.

Nothing is Complicated

Tue, 15 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

For the last ten years, I've tried to expunge the words 'simple' and 'complex' from my vocabulary and thinking.

Good and Bad Words

Different cultures use different words. I can't say how much it affects their thinking - people have levied many criticisms of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Still, I suspect bad words inflict bad thinking.

I just called words 'bad', but the Mbuti would never do that. They don't have the words 'good' or 'bad', so their language forces them to specify what problem they want to state. Words can give you the wrong impression, and food can poison you, and the Mbuti never have to call the food 'bad'.

Small Utilities I Like

Sat, 05 Mar 2022 18:02:09 +0000

Standard Linux

stat

Show file info.

1stat little_programs.md

  File: little_programs.md
  Size: 5277            Blocks: 16         IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: 805h/2053d      Inode: 6554954     Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid: ( 1000/   ghost)   Gid: ( 1000/   ghost)
Access: 2022-02-21 20:48:37.840867061 +0100
Modify: 2022-02-21 20:41:44.774001797 +0100
Change: 2022-02-21 20:41:44.778001768 +0100
 Birth: 2022-02-21 20:41:44.774001797 +0100

file

Show what type of file something is.

1type /tmp/\*

amfora_temp:           directory
dbus-U00gxuKxNT:       socket
scoped_dirNCvmsA:      directory
serverauth.ELLhbMvz60: X11 Xauthority data

watch

Watch a command for changes in the output.

aerc: a pretty good email client

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 20:32:56 +0000

Pronounced 'ark', this programme lets you send email from the terminal.

I wrestled with neomutt (an awful CLI email client) to send emails in the terminal, and found aerc a comparative breath of fresh air.

aerc begins with sensible defaults, and a wizard to help you set up your email quickly. Just tell it your email account, a password-command (or just give it your password), then an IMAP port (you might need to look it up on your email provider's site, but aerc will probably guess correctly). aerc then writes the config file for you.

Modern Media

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 16:02:12 +0000

I found out about the Russian invasion of Ukraine from a meme-site, where someone had cobbled together all the public footage available from the ground. The sirens, the little lights in the sky, the military aeroplanes, and the sound of bombs.

Jumping to Youtube (where I watch news channels), I found they have less information - just commentary, and one reporter on a street. I returned to the linked posts from the user known only as IDontEatBooty. The modern media, to get those images and videos, would have to contact each individual, and complete a contract, stating that they could use the footage. And they would have to talk over them - viewers would not receive the raw footage, to examine and replay as they pleased.

Duck Duck Go is Pretty Good

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 20:02:30 +0000

I always find what I need with Duck Duck go. I've heard others don't, and I have a suspicion they're using it wrong.

Anyone used to Google might search for a film by typing in 'that guy with the beard', and find exactly what they're looking for, because Google's algorithm has cached thousands of similar results, and tracked users until it determines exactly which result they want. This probably instils certain habits in constant Google users.

Gemini vs Minimalist HTML

Sun, 20 Feb 2022 00:02:51 +0000

A lot of people who see the Gemini protocol for the first time come up with the same criticism:

If you hate the modern web's bloat, why not just use minimal html?

Gemini has a number of advantages over a series of small html websites.

Unity

When people say 'minimal html', they all have different ideas about what that would look like. Some would like only html, others would include some CSS, and still more might want a world without any tables.

Background Noise

Sun, 20 Feb 2022 00:02:32 +0000

Sysadmins refer to the low-level scripted hacks as 'the background noise of the internet'.

So apparently if the internet could speak, it would sound like

Let me in, I am admin. Password is admin. Let me in. I am root. Let me in...are you still there? Let me in...

Sile: The LaTeX Alternative

Tue, 15 Feb 2022 11:02:12 +0000

Sile's a typesetting program which makes nifty pdfs. It's been going great for me, so I thought I'd share the journey so far.

The Good

It's based on lua, which is super-simple. You don't need to know any lua to use it, but if you want to poke about, it's easier enough for a non programmer to get an idea of what's going on.
It focusses on fields, so typesetting multiple columns, large headers, et c., is more reliable than Latex (no images wizzing off the page margin yet).
Less breakable.
It creates variables (\newcounter) if you haven't declared them.
Variables are universal, so no worrying about which things tcolorbox recognizes, and what gets passed to tabular. Everything gets passed unless you tell it not to.
Packages work together better IME, so far. I've only been playing for a while, but you can string arbitrary packages together and commands work as you expect them to.
It's tiny. ~7 Megs, including all basic packages, rather than 4.5 Gigs for a full Latex install.
Select any font.
UTF-8 supported natively - no problem with Cyrillic, katakana, et c.
Random system fonts are used without problem or added packages (actually the docs notes you might have some problems).
Clear documentation. Less than 100 pages. I have over 30 megabytes of Latex documentation so far.
Development on the git's been pretty steady, so it looks pretty future-proof.

The Bad

Youth. (Doesn't have many packages)
It's set up to support tikz-like output well, given the XML support, but I suspect that actually doing tikz-things would involve learning a lot of Lua.
No subsubsections in the book class.
Limited documentation. If you don't find what you need in the basic docs, you have to look at source code.
Maths formulae are not the goal, so support will probably continue to be limited.

Overall

The Sile Website has great documentation already. I really hope it supersedes LaTeX one day, because LaTeX is deeply flawed.

False FOSS Dichotomies

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 20:02:51 +0000

People often talk in terms of the false dichotomy between pragmatic software use, and ethical software use.

'Us pragmatic folks', they begin, 'just want to use what works'. We should understand of course that they have nothing against people who have principles, but would prefer functioning to non-functioning computers.

This is bunkum. Nobody likes their computer to not work. The real distinction we should draw lies in long-term thinking, and short-term thinking.

LaTeX is Broken

Sat, 05 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I love LaTeX because it can do things nothing else can. I have to use it, because it can do things nothing else can.

But it has some deep problems.

Packages

I think the biggest root of problems is having packages, rather than just having people submit a pull request on a central repository and add whatever feature someone wants.

LaTeX' basic tabular environment is awful. If you put in a long line, it'll whiz off the page. Not a single human in all the universes, fact or fiction, have ever wanted to print something outside a page. So this was replaced by tabularx, which demands the user download it (or find some LaTeX package manager), and then pull it up while LaTeX compiles the document.

Fun Terminal APIs

Wed, 26 Jan 2022 15:03:04 +0000

These are some commands you can do from any Linux terminal. They all run through someone else's server, so any information you send will be visible to the owner.

Get the Current Weather

curl wttr.in

It's best to open the terminal full-screen here to see the full result.

You can also do a city. For some reason, the default 'Glasgow' is somewhere in America, so I have to look up the real Glasgow by suffixing a tilda.

Overview: Void Linux

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 19:00:29 +0000

It's the little things that make me feel comfy.

Services are Simple

Systemd is fine, but I have to look up how to make a new unit file every time, and then input the path to the executable, which is generally some script I've written. With Void's runit, the service file is the script. There's nothing to learn or look up - you just write out a normal script, put it in a file called run, and runit will run that script.

Self Driving Cars may not happen

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 11:01:12 +0000

I have doubts about self-driving cars. The entire argument rests on analogy with software translators.

Software translators began as simple dictionaries. You type in 'cat', it returns 'le chat'. Next, programmers started to feed in simple rules, so 'black cats' could return 'les chats noire'. The rules became so advanced that eventually, the computer could take simple sentences such as 'I see a cat', and get the right answer back 90% of the time.

The Jimbo Problem

Sun, 02 Jan 2022 00:12:30 +0000

In one episode of the cartoon South Park, Chef declares that the town flag is racist, and should be replaced.

Uncle Jimbo disagrees that it should be taken down, and makes arguments about the importance of history. However, at this point the KKK arrive behind Jimbo and start shouting in support. From that point on he has lost the argument - once the KKK agree with you, nobody can hear what you have to say.

Privacy for One

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 12:12:49 +0000

Privacy for one makes very little sense. As individual as an individual might be, humans think in groups. We talk, research, and revise ideas together.

I once had super-encrypted email with Tutanota. Nobody could see it, even with a court order, because the emails were persistently encrypted on the server's disk, and would display unencrypted only in my browser, which had my password cached in RAM.

Then I sent an email to my friends on Gmail, making the entire thing pointless.

Robot Non-Wars

Wed, 22 Dec 2021 15:12:09 +0000

Printers never waged war on pens, they simply made pens redundant.

I suspect that if robots ever take over, we'll go the way of the pen rather than the dodo.

Once machines can bake bread, calculate the proper tax rate and generally take care of what needs done, and do so cheaply, humanity can take a breather. I'm not sure if we actually will take that breather, as some people seem determined to work even when it's not necessary, or at least determined that others should work.

Arch Linux is an Act of Faith

Sun, 12 Dec 2021 19:09:54 +0000

Too much ASCII has been spilled debating about whether or not Arch Linux is worth the time, but I'd like to offer yet another way to judge the situation, starting with the cost.

Costs

Starting Arch requires that you already know the basics of bash (or zsh). Playing about with a terminal in Ubuntu and following installation instructions from random websites is more than enough practice.
After that, you will need about two afternoons to install the thing, starting with a couple of trial runs with a virtual machine.
To get the system going properly, with the desktop you like, and the best login manager, you'll need another afternoon or two, depending upon your requirements.
In the early stages, it's best to just update when you have time to fix problems. There's not too much to know here, just a basic understanding of when and how to deal with those .pacnew files, and some familiarity with the AUR. Once you've done this section, things which used to be 'arch is broken', become just a two-minute config change. New Arch users will consider a system 'broken', where older Arch users will fix or avoid those problems without even thinking about them.

Within a few months, the Arch user will have tinkered with their system in their free time, and have a much more streamlined workflow.

Documentation and Washing with Soap

Fri, 03 Dec 2021 00:12:43 +0000

My grandmother had thirteen children. Each one was produced by her leaving in a taxi, and returning not-pregnant, and with a child. It's not that the waiting room was too close for comfort - someone had to stay to look after the children. On one of these occasions, my grandfather had to cook for the children. He took out the simple instructions he had been left (he was very proud of having recently learned his letters). They began:

Android Security is Mad

Thu, 02 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The basic idea seems to be that if the user wants to install random, unaudited software, they can safely do so without worry that the application will steal their contacts, record their voice, or otherwise engage in bad behaviour. What keeps the user safe is the ability to allow or deny an app access to these various resources on a case-by-case basis. However, the more detail we add to this story, the stranger it becomes.

A Response to the Knowledge Argument

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 22:12:43 +0000

The knowledge argument wants to show us that the world contains more than physical facts.

Mary is a colour scientist, and has studied every possible fact about colour, from how light-waves work, to how it's processed on the human brain. However, Mary has been raised in a black and white room, and has never seen colour. One day Mary steps out of the room, and sees a red rose for the first time. At this point, she has learnt something new about the colour red.