2
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watersb
Joined 2,554 karma
[ my public key: https://keybase.io/watersb; my proof: https://keybase.io/watersb/sigs/eusMak8bFw_GTlmsxUEG0vSFiMJPXG2uSkzCMfrJk1c ]
- It's 2025 and there's still no way to use web-based emulators from touch devices with no physical keyboard connected.
Because the JavaScript in the emulator doesn't expose an editable text element, no touch keyboard input.
(I can imagine difficult security implications of JavaScript capture of the text input, but I can still wish for things.)
- I would love more people to know about science fiction strangecore author qntm:
There Is No Antimemetics Division freaked me the hell out. Recommended.
- I haven't been able to find Eric Nylund's "Signal to Noise" and sequel "A Signsl Shattered" in ebook format.
But they are strange and great.
- A coworker in the 1990s used Hot Dog Stand, and indeed he had a form of color blindness. The contrast helped.
Today I learned this use of Hot Dog Stand was not intentional. It was just one of a limited choice of color combinations.
- John Siracusa's passionate, long-form reviews of early macOS, when it was "OS X".
When design choices mattered.
- macOS Tahoe has declared war on app icons with distinctive shapes.
No silhouettes. If your icon isn't a squircle, it will be shrunk to fit inside a default shape. The penalty box.
https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2025/6/2.html
The loss of icon silhouettes is a big step down in usability. Erases decades of design guidelines.
https://pxlnv.com/blog/roundrect-dictator/
Frankly it's senseless.
https://www.flarup.email/p/through-the-liquid-glass
Insane but still working legacy workaround:
https://simonbs.dev/posts/how-to-bring-back-oddly-shaped-app...
…
macOS isn't fun anymore.
- Smalltalk, but in C
- This must be different from straight up sleep deprivation.
Most moments of discovery in my experience have arrived only after a good night's sleep. Shower thoughts... Hmm. The state of waking up?
- Some i3 models, like mine, lack the internal-combustion engine and its fuel tank, and i3 enthusiasts call it the "BEV", for Battery Electric Vehicle. The one with the gasoline engine is the "REx", for Range Extender.
The REx models use an engine design based on one of BMW's motorcycle engines; as such, I'm pretty sure that it's not a diesel. The gas tank is only about two gallons; to qualify for EV tax credits in some markets, the battery capacity needed to exceed the energy available from fossil fuel.
That battery capacity for initial models is woeful by today's standards. The design started with 17 kWh, upgraded batteries in later model years doubled that figure. Mine is a degraded original with about 12 kWh available. Freezing temperatures can cut that by half.
I drive it like grandma and get more than 4 miles per kWh. But it was less $$ than a golf cart. (I learned about EV tire expenses after purchase.)
- I'm about to change the transmission fluid in my i3.
It's at 100k miles and there's no user-facing documentation for the procedure, as the oil lasts "for the lifetime of the vehicle".
Turns out, this particular procedure is simple.
(Other common wear items, like the suspension damper boots, or the engine mount, or the AC compressor, or a set of tires every 12000 miles ... it adds up.
The i3 was a cheap acquisition. Doesn't drive like a BMW, but apparently it wears like one.)
- All hail the embedded Scheme interpreter to apply Style transformations!
Although I feel like we've already explored this with XSL. The XML syntax was perhaps too much to swallow.
- It's possible that most business projects fail.
Most advertising campaigns fail.
- ∀ X = Twitter; X != X Display Manager
- Once you've privatised government operations, the tax revenue flows directly to the NATIONAL SECURITY contractor, so extra taxes is all good. You're paying enterprising folks for the privilege of walking around in a free country.
- FWIW I was watching a warfare simulation game on YouTube yesterday, and the players were talking about the 1998 Cavalese cable. I remembered reports of it vividly; as a student pilot, one of my recurrent nightmares is of massive electrical cables everywhere, flying through that and trying to escape.
It was far worse for the people on that cable car. It was awful then and still awful now.
- The SD card on the camera was intact but encrypted. Decrypting the data required a key stored on a separate SOM board, but the SOM was damaged. The investigation team delivered the SOM and SD card to the camera manufacturer in Newfoundland, and they were able to decrypt the card.
They found a couple of images, but
After all that work...No data with a timestamp after May 16th was found on the camera, so it is likely that none of the data recorded on the SD Card were of the accident voyage or dive.If you're interested in data recovery, you will enjoy reading this report, about 10 pages, clearly written. The technical language mentioned they didn't see a LUKS header on the card so they figured it was a custom dm_crypt setup.
- Doubled feeding our cat is a feature not a bug!
Feed cat!
- A sort of non-logarithmic slide rule, the E6B Flight Computer, was still in use when I was a student pilot 20 years ago. I still carry one: they don't require electricity (although using one in the dark requires a light source).
> Unlike the Peter principle, the promoted individuals were not particularly good at any job they previously had, so awarding them a supervisory position is a way to remove them from the productive workflow.
> An earlier formulation of this effect was known as Putt's Law (1981), credited to the pseudonymous author Archibald Putt ("Technology is dominated by two types of people, those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand.").
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_principle