marathon @marathon0@qoto.org

Hello, Mastodon. I'm Spike.

I founded and run a comics publisher, Iron Circus Comics, out of Chicago, Illinois.

I draw and write, and am currently updating a story-heavy, low-fantasy comic called Blikada, which is definitely *not* about Elf Bolshevism. Honest.

You can find links to both these ventures on my profile page.

This Mastodon will be primarily for art.

Thanks! Here's a self-portrait.

#introduction #introductions #intro

"How I hacked an ESA's Experimental Satellite"

https://www.deadf00d.com/post/how-to-hack-an-esa-experimental-satellite.html

What is freedom 2? The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor. Boost this post if you LOVE this freedom!

"How to get your domain suspended in five easy steps!"

https://www.cnx-software.com/2022/04/05/how-to-get-your-domain-suspended-in-five-easy-steps/

@aral

What do you think about filtering #Mastodon users by their cities / locality in the interface? (much like Geocities had?)
(and having it optional as visibility via checkbox option)

I can see clear uses +/- (and both at the same time)... but also highlights for me ---> "How to defend use-cases when a tool allows both good / bad usage"

So in this case locality-based interface it could be
--> (positive) for sharing and finding people instantly
--> (negative) for ****ing and finding people instantly !!! <---

I think that applies to ANY of our advanced tools!!!!

WOW WHAT A DILEMMA!

I'm unsure how to solve that... Happy to hear on that before anything

As folks know, I've been on something of a journey of re-discovery with respect to mainframes, thanks in large part to the public availability of MVS 3.8 and Hercules.

I'm detecting MVS's influences on Unix, which I've touched upon earlier, but also other environments as well, like Commodore's 8-bit environment. The "screen editor" has strong 3270 vibes, and the Commodore DOS shares much with the mainframe's management of data sets, while advancing on the state of the art at the same time.

In light of the fact that I've already received one "good riddance" toot, though, I can't help but notice that the NIH of the Unix community has infused itself into the greater Linux community. To be expected, I suppose, seeing that Linux is a POSIX OS.

Look, no system is perfect; and as much as I'm finding MVS actually preferable to use over Linux for some things, it goes without saying that MVS isn't perfect either. How can it be? It's literally the first OS of its kind in human history.

My advocacy/excitement for MVS should never be construed to also mean that I don't appreciate contemporary operating systems.

But, one thing I am seeing, though, is that the age-old truism by Henry Spencer can apply just as well to systems which came before Unix. The recent recommendation of using timeout to enforce a time limit on a process on a case-by-case basis (versus uniformly across the whole system, where trusted binaries are the exception, not the norm) is a case in point here.

And anyone who dares to tell me that I should just wrap everything in a shell script to establish the environment prior to launching the binary has just walked right into justifying the existence of JCL.

Remember, you only get to be smug because you won the mind-share, not because you won technologically. That's a subtle, but important, difference.