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novalis bonked 28 Aug 2025 13:24 +0000
original: Gargron@mastodon.social

"Sideloading" is the rentseeker word for "being able to run software of your choosing on a computing device you purchased". There is no reasonable case for an operating system developer having a say over what programs you run on your hardware.

#Android #Google

novalis bonked 27 Aug 2025 00:55 +0000
original: mjd@mathstodon.xyz

@artnacrea @b0rk I've veen trying for forty years to tell the difference between a process that has been niced and one that hasn't, and I have never yet been able to do it.

novalis honked 26 Aug 2025 20:09 +0000

I went to CityMD recently, and the offered a bizarre choice of languages. Despite being in absolute agony, it was very hard for me to resist choosing Old English. The only word I know is "hwaet", but it was still hard to resist.

Unrelatedly, if you are considering going to CityMD, and you don't have a great need to practice your Old English, don't go. Take a vicodin and find a real doctor the next day.

A screenshot of a dropdown list; the choices are English; English, Middle (1100-1500); English, Old (ca. 450-1100); Erzya; Esperanto; some more; Finno-Ugrian languages; Fon

novalis honked 13 Aug 2025 16:52 +0000

Would Ronan and I be on the same side of the bit war?

novalis honked 04 Aug 2025 14:29 +0000

How long after the disappearance of Metrocards will the Metrocard-swiping gesture, meaning "please swipe me in", persist?

novalis honked 31 Jul 2025 14:46 +0000

Consider the following sentence:
"Use another sorbet flavor, such as a citrus-adjacent blood orange or grapefruit or a fruity raspberry or strawberry."

Some editor at the New York Times let this cursed sentence through. Imagine describing blood orange as "citrus-adjacent" (yes, it's adjacent to the original lemon, but you just can't use words that way). Imagine having to add the adjective "fruity" in front of "raspberry", as though to distinguish from a meaty raspberry. Why?

novalis honked back 30 Jul 2025 19:10 +0000
in reply to: https://mathstodon.xyz/users/mjd/statuses/114943207530766595

@mjd I sometimes just end a file to CraftCloud and get a model in the mail in a few weeks, if I need nicer finishes than my (probably poorly-calibrated; I got it for free) printer.

If you don't like the surface feel and don't want to spend 100 years with sandpaper, I recommend a two-part epoxy called XTC-3D.

novalis honked 22 Jul 2025 16:15 +0000

Half a loaf is better than none, but half a phone is e-waste. But the last three fifths of a phone is a whole.

novalis bonked 05 Jul 2025 00:56 +0000
original: mhoye@mastodon.social

"America has been vaccinating people for fifty years. If vaccines caused autism, America would have trains, okay? We would have so many trains." - Jon Allen

novalis honked back 26 Jun 2025 15:51 +0000
in reply to: https://minidisc.tokyo/notes/a9h0h6mm89

@SuperDicq I heard it, myself, from the person to whom it happened. I have to admit that I forget who I heard it from, but I remember where it was (a book release party for a fantasy novel, in NYC, in either 2006 or 2007). I was either working for, or had recently quit working for, the FSF.

novalis bonked 25 Jun 2025 14:31 +0000
original: igb@mastodon.hccp.org

@nedbat

External Attachment: A photoshop job by @igb that has taken the weird taxonomy of Google Docs classification system and added Borgesian categories like "Those belonging to the emperor", "Those that from afar look like flies", and "Embalmed ones" to the usual "Owned by anyone" and "Not owned by me" buckets. The docs displayed in the view behind the modified drop-down are all Borges texts or references: "The 3 Versions of Judas", "The Garden of Forking Paths", and "The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge".

novalis honked back 18 Jun 2025 14:16 +0000
in reply to: https://honk.tedunangst.com/u/tedu/h/RRN2c1M2K7BPfY7h36

@tedu Actually, honk query for you: Imagine that I'm following person A, and person B, whom I am not following, replies to person A. I can follow the link to A's instance and see B's reply, but how do I reply to B's reply without following B? Ideally, I would like a "load replies" button on the convoy, but maybe there's a better way?

novalis honked 12 Jun 2025 23:11 +0000

I don't think this will help me prepare for a database exam. Good thing I don't have a database exam coming up.

novalis honked 23 May 2025 19:12 +0000

Some loud military type planes flew by as we were walking, startling us. Later, I realized it was because it was Fleet Week.

I wish that when the Navy offered to hold Fleet Week here, we had said, "No thanks, our city doesn't need an enema."

novalis honked 20 May 2025 17:36 +0000

I realize that McMaster Carr is a very silly place to buy a roof turbine, but weirdly, Lowe's doesn't sell the size I need, and the McMaster one is not made in China.

Also, since last time I checked, McMaster started telling you shipping costs before you order, which means that their web site is now perfect in every way (I am serious -- if you haven't tried it, go right now and find a 1/8 long in brass set screw on Amazon. Then try to find the same thing on McMaster Carr.)

novalis honked 12 May 2025 17:10 +0000

One thing I like about the Slow Horses novels is how mannered they are. Nobody talks like any of these characters, but it doesn't matter, because they are so much fun to listen to.

Also, I love Jackson Lamb as the perfect example of Stage 3 ethics.

And in terms of his role in most of the novels, he's a lot like Gandalf, except, you know, an asshole.

novalis bonked 09 May 2025 15:39 +0000
original: futzle@old.mermaid.town

Happy Multiply By Today's Date to Convert Your Temperature To The Other Scale day to those who celebrate.

(Please ignore the 32 offset.)

novalis honked 09 May 2025 01:55 +0000

The new VNV Nation album, Construct, is now available on Bandcamp (at least). This is supposed to be the positive one of two paired albums, but it's got (another) "please don't kill yourself" song and also one about an apocalypse, so I can't wait to see what Destruct brings.

novalis honked back 08 May 2025 16:18 +0000
in reply to: https://mastodon.social/users/CStamp/statuses/114468193128832510

@CStamp It's fruit juice, as opposed to whole fruit. It's there as a sweetener, but there's no need for a sweetener. (Even the concept of baby food is pretty suspect -- babies can do a surprisingly good job on many ordinary foods despite their lack of teeth. You haven't lived until you've seen a one-year-old go to town on a chicken leg.)

novalis honked 05 May 2025 16:27 +0000

What do you call an awful bipolar Cape Cod cop?

A detestable unstable Barnstable constable!

novalis honked back 01 May 2025 17:10 +0000
in reply to: https://kind.social/users/bekit/statuses/114431217838402943

@bekit Imagine passing a law that said, simply, "Don't be evil." Clearly, that wouldn't work -- no lawmaker would ever write a law like that. And if you visited a place with a law like that, you would be in constant fear.

So your license will succeed in making nobody want to use your software, and if that's your goal, you've succeeded.

Like, I wouldn't use your software -- the supply chain for my current game will include roughly a hundred companies and individuals, most of which I know nothing about, and the license seems to require me to publish this information -- that's way more work than I have time for.

novalis bonked 25 Apr 2025 15:51 +0000
original: ranjit@oulipo.social

filmmaking tips

filmmaking tips

With good lighting and color grading you can film Friday for Thursday and it will look almost totally natural

novalis honked back 21 Apr 2025 15:38 +0000
in reply to: https://masto.nyc/users/jmac/statuses/114376603741344305

@jmac I think back then memory was expensive, so shared libraries were very important (leading to DLL hell, of course). I think Linux was more of a minority platform then, so there was more emphasis on following the traditional Unix directory structure.

Apt was pretty magical back in the days before anyone else had an "app store", and it's kind of a shame that now instead of one place to get apps, we have at least four (apt, snap, flatpak, and appimages). Back then, of course, one regularly had to build from source, so maybe this complaint wouldn't have happened?

There's also a reflexive neophobia among technologists, for good reasons, although I think that was less of a thing in the Slashdot era.

So on reflection, I think the major complaint back then would have been memory and disk usage.

novalis bonked 18 Apr 2025 21:36 +0000
original: bkuhn@floss.social

I encourage everyone to please sign this petition that asks #OpenSource Initiative to release the election results for #OSI's 2025 Board of Directors Election.

3 methods available to sign:
* email <sign@osi-petition.org>
* Pull request on Codeberg: https://codeberg.org/OSI-Concerns/election-results-2025
* Pull request on Github: https://github.com/OSI-Concerns/election-results-2025

I thank @wolftune & @iank's leadership in shepherding the drafting of this petition.

OSI's work impacts everyone involved in #FOSS, so everyone is welcomed to sign.

novalis honked 11 Apr 2025 21:26 +0000

Does anyone have a reliable way to, given two photos of the same subject from the same location at different exposures, compare the focal lengths of the two photos? I don't need an absolute measure of focal length -- just "are these two focal lengths the same?".

novalis bonked 07 Apr 2025 13:38 +0000
original: joe@f.duriansoftware.com

“I get no respect” —Rodney Dangerfield
“I get no respect or division operator” —Rodney Dangerring
“I get no respect, division, or multiplication” —Rodney Dangergroup

novalis honked 26 Mar 2025 17:21 +0000

I made a blog post responding to some Hacker News comments because I don't have a HN account.

Plus, another video of me working on the game.

novalis bonked 25 Mar 2025 13:00 +0000
original: mjd@mathstodon.xyz

I'm looking for a job. I have 30 years of experience doing complex systems programming in many languages, most recently Typescript, Haskell, and Python. I learn quickly. I can do advanced mathematics.

In 2024 I helped a company migrate 15,000 customers from another company into their own systems.

In 2023 I helped develop a differential privacy database product written in Haskell.

Before that I helped develop a laboratory information management system that tracked up to 40,000 Covid-19 tests per day.

I live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, but I have years of success working remotely, and I am also willing to consider relocation. I can start January 1.

Please check out my CV.

https://plover.com/~mjd/cv/Mark%20Jason%20Dominus.pdf

novalis honked 24 Mar 2025 14:56 +0000

I think there's a 50-50 chance that there's a Ginger puzzle in the Mystery Hunt, if not in 2026 then in 2027.

novalis honked 10 Mar 2025 19:55 +0000

Does anyone know anyone at Steam who could maybe help me get a store page approved? The support staff has thus far refused to do anything other than point me at the docs (which I have of course already read and heeded to the best of my abilities).

novalis honked 10 Mar 2025 17:26 +0000

I read about a former porn star who wrote some sort of anti-trans screed. She really put the terf in centerfold.