Mark Tomczak @mtomczak@qoto.org

Some notes on chapter 1.1 of #Knuth 's "The Art of Computer Programming (volume 1)".

https://blog.fixermark.com/posts/2023/knuth-1-1/

Watched the “Fairies” episode of #Bluey.

You know, of all the ecological disasters visited upon Australia by the Colonialists, we don’t pay nearly enough attention to the introduction of the Greater Brittanian Seelie Court Fae to the continent.

… which party that was a disaster for, I don’t know. I’m not honestly sure who wins in a fight between a Bwbachod and a cassowary.

Seven injured in a shooting in Richmond after a graduation.

Just life in America.

https://personal-blog.fixermark.com/posts/2023/i-dont-know-how-it-gets-better/

Oh man.

#cplusplus supports a user-defined literal. So if you define an MyDistanceType operator""_km(long double val) function, it’ll allow you to say const auto distance = 12_km; and cause that to evaluate to a MyDistanceType representing 12 kilometers.

Cute, but I really can’t see why anyone would bother when the language already supports const auto distance = Distance::from_kilometers(12);

Modern software compilation be like https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxL9PhboBv5_pODCovAH3ubmBWKPwVUkrI

I think the next evolution in electronic music is gonna be hyperpatriotism and militaristic nationalism. Lots of marches and mixing in old warhorse speeches, military jargon hooks, and remixing battle standards.

You know, #corpscore.

I'm impressed by how PayPal continues to get more complicated but never actually get better.

Me: "PayPal, I'd like to login."

PayPal: "Cool. Oop, you need to two-factor. I've sent your code via text message to this phone number."

Me: "Well that's a landline so it'll never get received."

PayPal: "Oh, our bad dawg. In that case, just give us another phone number."

Me: *gives Google Voice*

PayPal: "Not that one! We can't use that!"

Me: "Sigh..." *gives raw cell number*

PayPal: "Thanks! Okay, we are sending a code to that number."

Me: "Sounds g~ wait: why are we doing this again?"

PayPal: "Two-factor authentication!"

Me: "Right, that security system where..."

PayPal: "You guard against attack by requiring something the user knows and something the user owns. Along two different channels!"

Me: "Right. In other words, me... a potential attacker... supplied the password. And the ID code. Sent to the phone number. That was just supplied by me. The potential attacker."

PayPal: ".... look, do you want your fucking $23 or not?"

“Why do people keep making web UIs when it could just be a desktop app?”

Great question. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to re-install Discord again, from scratch. See, they made a minor version bump, and the Ubuntu version can’t self-update, so every time they pop out a minor tweak my ten-second login becomes a two-minute install (and a trip to some website to look up, again, the command in Ubuntu to install a downloaded package…).

Hahaha j/k I used to do that now I use the web interface. ;)

There's plenty of obscurely-named command line apps that are super-powerful but nigh-on inscrutable.

Credit where credit is due: yeah, you have to read all the docs to really take advantage of it, but "ImageMagick" does what it says on the tin.

General #Mastodon question:

What’s the equivalent in Mastodon to “I don’t want to follow this thread?” Like, if there’s a conversation being had that spins off from a topic I started and I don’t care to follow it but (a) I don’t really want to block anyone, I just don’t care to see this rabbit-hole and (b) I keep getting @’ed into the stream, what’s the tool to down-sample that signal in my feed?

I ask because I notice when I reply to a big thread that like four people will get @’ed in; I don’t want to remove them in case they are following the discussion, but it feels awkward if I end up in a back-and-forth with one person and I have no idea if anybody else cares about our little deep-dive. I have no signal on whether to delete the other @’s.