@RogerBW@discordian.social cover
@RogerBW@discordian.social avatar

RogerBW

@[email protected]

#Emacs, #Perl, #Rustlang, #PostScript, #Linux sysadmin, polyglot programming, #boardgames, #RPGs, too many #podcast s, 3d modelling and #3dprinting, and an occasional #ukulele.
He/him or they/them.
Here's a nickel, kid. Get yourself a better computer.
If I unfollow you it's probably for my mental health/distraction rather than anything you've done. If you want to follow me, have a profile that looks as if it was written by a human.

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@VileLasagna@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar VileLasagna , to random

Can confirm, it's Monday in the server room, alright

Photo of a server power supply. There is a plastic loop used to pull it from the server. The loop has broken off, leaving two studs with metal screws inside still attached to the power supply itself
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RogerBW ,
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@VileLasagna Hmm, all installed at the same time, all in he same atmospheric/temperature conditions since then…?

@VileLasagna@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar VileLasagna , to random

I'm quite disappointed that there seems to still be no extension to remove the "most relevant" section YouTube shoved into the subscription feed. There's no option in YT itself to remove it, that I could find, but that was never going to happen

RogerBW ,
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@VileLasagna This may be more faff than you want, but my use of YouTube is entirely via yt-dlp (mostly over tor too). No logins, no advertising, no "most relevant" or anything else, just the video.

@VileLasagna@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar VileLasagna , to random

There is this YouTuber I stopped following after he expressed support for the right wing trucker protests in Canada way back

Regardless of how sad this was, one thing he always said stuck with me:

"When you're fixing something, always think of the next person who has to come and fix it again. Chances are that person will be you anyway"

This is some powerful shit and I try and live by it. It's why I'm not just removing the cage nuts from the rack. We storing this properly

Photo of a table top with many small assemblies of a screw, a plastic washer and a metal nut. Each set joined for easy pick up later on. On the top a small plastic bag is filled with more of these beside a small cage nut removal tool, which looks like a bit like nail cutters
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RogerBW ,
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@VileLasagna "Past Me didn't document this stuff properly and now I have to fix it. But I'll get my revenge on Future Me…"

@VileLasagna@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar VileLasagna , to random

It seems the curse is spreading. This report I'm writing, I just straight up, immediately and unprompted, decided to write it in org.

Soon enough I'll be the emacs user to bite someone else and pass it forward

RogerBW ,
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@VileLasagna I resisted emacs for many years but org-mode got me hooked.
(I remain an emacs heretic. I just use it as an editor, not as a compiler or a mail client or etc.)

@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us avatar ChrisMayLA6 , to random

Academic publishing may be about to see a major hole open up in its business model:

Publishers have used the free labour of academics (as editors, peer reviewers, and as writers) to subside their publications, which they then sell back to the academics' institutions.

But, I'm seeing increasing evidence of a growing backlash from early career academics unwilling to continue to be part of the exploitation.

Might there about to be a sea change in academic publishing?

RogerBW ,
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@ChrisMayLA6 Open access was meant to fix this…

@VileLasagna@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar VileLasagna , to random

Motherfucker, it drives me absolutely bonkers that for like 60% of electronic presentations the person doing the presentation never takes the like 10-15 minutes to make sure they know and understand whatever conference system they will use beforehand

Having worked as a teacher, it's outright insulting

RogerBW ,
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@VileLasagna I've been to a few user group meetings where we didn't know what would be available. Consensus: PDF. Every piece of crap laptop can show a PDF.

@VileLasagna@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar VileLasagna , (edited ) to random

Youtube throwing MrBeast and BabylonBee on on my recommended? What is going on with ThE aLgOrItHm? Urgh

Let's hope it does remember the "don't recommend channel"

UPDATE:
Oh, I figured it out. This was on the other channel's account. These are the generic exploratory recommends for someone who doesn't watch anything

Yikes, but understandable, I guess? To some extent? No wonder that feed looked so bizarre

RogerBW ,
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@VileLasagna Like any advertising-driven firm, it'll recommend whatever brings in the most ad revenue. Just like Facebook or Twitter, that means showing you stuff that will get you angry so that you keep watching. Your mental health or next quarter's dividend: no contest.

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

At an event that has not occurred in five years and at which facemasks are mandatory. Everyone effectively has temporary functional faceblindness. In addition to which a statistically significant percentage of the audience is regular faceblind

RogerBW ,
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@mcc I use a lanyard from a convention 25+ years ago which has the revolutionary system of strap attachments at both the top corners. It also has various pockets that fit hotel keys etc. These do not seem to be available in quantities of less than a few hundred.

@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

The only context in which I encounter attention being paid to a new product is that it is in the process of being crowd-funded.

99% of these things vanish without a trace even upon successful crowd-funding.

That's not a great sign for a culture is it? It's a bit like that scene in the Big Short where they go and check out some mortgaged property and it turns out it's a half-finished development on swamp land owned by a load of strippers who took out 100 year mortgages.

RogerBW ,
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@Taskerland In financial terms, the hobby is D&D, a bit of Pathfinder, a bit of Call of Cthulhu, and noise.
In player count terms too.

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

So for most of this year the official C# dotnet packages have not worked on Debian 13/Trixie (former "unstable"). For the least couple months I've been entirely unable to tell if Debian 13 is supported.

https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/issues/48973#issuecomment-3326058047

https://github.com/dotnet/core/issues/9649#issuecomment-3218332720

My current experience is that there is no official Debian 13 package or documented support, but the Debian 12 packages work on Debian 13. Microsoft keeps closing github bugs without clarification. Separately, Powershell may or may not be broken.

RogerBW ,
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@mcc The way they took over and support npm?

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

What's the oldest piece of machinery that you own that still works, for its original purpose, in (mostly!) its original state?

RogerBW ,
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@NanoRaptor "Minerva" hand cranked calculator, probably 1950s.

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

The NeXTlevel was NeXT Software's first handheld device, eagerly awaited but canned just two weeks from release when Apple purchased NeXT and chose not to pursue gaming. All 250,000 release devices were pulled from channels and unceremoniously rolled into landfill out northwest of Dubbo.

A picture of a black NeXTlevel handheld gaming device, by NeXT. It opens vertically to show two landscape screens, a dpad, and four buttons in NeXT colours. On the bottom screen is the NeXT desktop with the Info window for Chess showing. On the top screen is Chess in its 3D NeXT style glory. Either side of the top screen are the speaker grilles. It sits on a blue fabric background, lit from the side.
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RogerBW ,
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@NanoRaptor It originated as a way for salesmen to demonstrate the graphical power of the NeXTStation without needing the convoy of trucks to provide system, monitor, modular reactor, etc.

@VileLasagna@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar VileLasagna , (edited ) to random

I've long wanted to wean off of VSCode and this has only become an increasingly urgent need

There's only really one thing that holds me but it turns out be a pretty huge deal: Remote Dev extension

This was always great but with me being more sysadmin than developer these days, it's increasingly important to rummage around servers and VMs and what have you

But I can't seem to find an actual good alternative to it. Is there really no such thing?

RogerBW ,
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@VileLasagna Well, if you're using emacs (yes, I know) with TRAMP (installed by default) and you can ssh into the target machines, you can do:
emacsclient /scp:hostname:/path/to/file
or if you have rsync at both ends:
emacsclient /rsync:hostname:/path/to/file

RogerBW ,
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@VileLasagna I am not an emacshead the way many users are; I don't speak Lisp, and I just use it as an editor rather than everything else too. I did indeed get into it because of org-mode.
I've just tested it and emacs/TRAMP does the directory browsing mode too - so I can load up e.g. /rsync:HOSTNAME:~/Mail/ and get the directory listing for it, with all the navigation and editing options.
(It even works with the scp transport, though I'm not sure how.)

RogerBW ,
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@VileLasagna FWIW 95%+ of my emacs use is in its own window rather than terminal mode. I don't really want an IDE; my work cycle is more like (move to editor) (edit stuff) (move back to terminal) (cursor up, return to recompile) (view errors) When I started sysadminning (mumble) years ago I learned vi because it was the editor that would in some form exist on all our varied fleet of boxes, but as a result that's the way I think of it, and a heavyweight thing like vim seems to me to miss out on what vi is good for.

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

You find a data port on your body and plug in a diagnostic cable to download your status and error codes.

Which codes is your body throwing?

RogerBW ,
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@NanoRaptor Out of paper on drive C.

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

Looking at this long list of Rust ORMs. I do not understand what the fuck a Rust ORM is supposed to be. Rust claims that it is not an object-oriented language.

RogerBW ,
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@mcc I think there was a Perl thing that was supposed to offer a single consistent interface onto multiple database engines, in the manner you're suggesting for Rust - but I found it such a pain to use, effectively having to learn a new way of talking to a database that was vastly less efficient, that I never did much with it.

@dysfun@treehouse.systems avatar dysfun , to random

you know what would probably be an interesting niche to fill? dynamic-style programming language with integrated webserver and database. not scaling to the moon, but very easy to do stuff with.

RogerBW ,
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@dysfun @mcc Technically SQL is a 4GL. 😀

RogerBW ,
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@pndc @dysfun @mcc @davidgerard Yes, I've been pointing this out to various people. Also when object orientation was the inevitable future. And the Atari Transputer. And…

RogerBW ,
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@pndc @dysfun @mcc @davidgerard I do find the 4GL comparison particularly apt because the big selling point was "you won't have to hire programmers any more, you;ll just tell the computer what to do in plain English". Turned out (a) this wasn't true and (b) plain English is a truly terrible way of specifying precise technical instructions.

@VileLasagna@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar VileLasagna , to random

What kind of blog post is:

"We wanted to know how X performed. We were interested in it because of ABC. We looked around and the tools that could give us the information were these ones, we chose tool Y. <end of post>"

WHERE ARE MY FUCKING CHARTS?!?!? WHAT TYPE OF NERD ARE YOU?!?!?!?!??!

RogerBW ,
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@VileLasagna My dear chap, allow me to show you my blog post for today. https://blog.firedrake.org/archive/2025/09/OSMAnd_vs_Organic_Maps.html Breathe. Breathe. 😀

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

[BIKESHED COLOR ADVICE REQUEST]

I do all my self-hosting on a couple of VPSes. Because I have been using a single configuration for a couple decades, they both use MySQL for all databases.

Do you want to try to convince me I should switch from MySQL to PostgreSQL? If I should switch, why?

RogerBW ,
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@mcc Separately from the technical points, MySQL is in an apparently endless cycle of selling out, open source fork, selling out again, and you may want to stay clear of that.

@VileLasagna@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar VileLasagna , to random

It's pretty surprising that in <current year argument> the Steam client still doesn't allow you to set a standard CLI call for games so, say, if you don't want steam itself to perma gamemode your machine, you need to go and tweak every single title individually

RogerBW ,
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@VileLasagna "-applaunch <gameID>"? Or am I missing something from what you want? (That's how I have it set up - I have no interest in the client running in the background during the vast majority of the time when I'm not playing games.)

RogerBW ,
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@VileLasagna Oh fair enough. I add those to my wrapper script, but I play very few games (mostly Tabletop Simulator and Shapez 2) and they don't need much tweaking.

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

Been switching to Codeberg because it's nice but increasingly looking like I soon will HAVE to abandon Github, because the entire interface will soon be just one giant maze where at each intersection one path leads to the feature you wanted and the other path is Copilot

https://fosstodon.org/@anuytstt/115009836366326911

RogerBW ,
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@mcc It was"independent"? How,when it always did exactly what the corporate masters wanted? Maybe the "CEO" finally noticed.

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

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    RogerBW ,
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    @NanoRaptor Horoshy, that's what it is.

    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

    It is now legal to shoot software

    Email from the Arturia corporation, subject line: "Software Season Starts Now"
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    RogerBW ,
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    @mcc only adult software, no betas.

    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

    Anyone who believes that "AI" is a real thing that serves a function, should be instantly disqualified from government service. This includes Mark Carney.

    https://beige.party/@mayintoronto/114855358584056650

    The minor harm of this is all that money will come directly out of real public services, which Carney is cutting across the board. The major harm is that, since he is paying for "AI" products, there is a severe risk someone, somewhere in the government, will actually use them. The potential harms of THAT are unbounded

    RogerBW ,
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    @mcc In the same way that a big company buys AI to justify job cuts, a government buys AI as a means of denying benefits. It doesn't have to work, all it has to do is turn down some claimants so that they have to go through whatever appeals process may still be allowed, always in the face of "computer says no".

    18+ @VileLasagna@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar VileLasagna , to random

    Oh no, I guess there IS such a thing as too much coffee

    Photo of an old dried up corpse of a tiny yellowish jumping spider laying on top of a pile of coffee beans
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    RogerBW ,
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    @VileLasagna I wished them no harm, and it wasn't my kitchen. 😀

    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

    I really gotta stop using this website, huh

    A google search for "2^32". To the left of "All" is "AI Mode".
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    RogerBW ,
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    @hyc @mcc units is also good, if you have the gnu version that lets you put a whole expression into one argument.

    @NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

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    RogerBW ,
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    @NanoRaptor but all the things you don't suffer from can now be ignored.

    @RogerBW@discordian.social avatar RogerBW , to random

    Yeah, we get that a lot. Hear what @lordof1 and I thought of 1981's Escape From New York in http://ribbonofmemes.org.uk/archive/2025/Escape_from_New_York__1981_.html

    @RogerBW@discordian.social avatar RogerBW , to random
    @VileLasagna@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar VileLasagna , to random

    Hey, @Vivaldi did you just remove the option to sort out my right click menu on a tab? It was extremely inconvenient that you changed it all of a sudden and now I can't find it again!

    RogerBW ,
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    @VileLasagna @Vivaldi Firefox is going AI and adware. Librewolf is a fork that seems OK for now.

    @RogerBW@discordian.social avatar RogerBW , to random
    @RogerBW@discordian.social avatar RogerBW , to random
    @RogerBW@discordian.social avatar RogerBW , to random
    @RogerBW@discordian.social avatar RogerBW , to random
    @RogerBW@discordian.social avatar RogerBW , to random

    Is 1986's Top Gun a masterpiece? Or a highway to the toxic masculinity zone? Find out what @lordof1 and I thought in https://ribbonofmemes.org.uk/archive/2025/Top_Gun_and_Maverick.html

    @RogerBW@discordian.social avatar RogerBW , to random
    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , (edited ) to random

    Let's say I like and trust the mastodon.social moderation team and their choices, but I'm thinking about setting up a self-hosted server (I was thinking GoToSocial) for technical/personal reasons. Is there a way to configure a Mastodon server so that all moderation decisions are just plain delegated to another server? Like at least in terms of "federate with this server, softblock this server, defederate this server", have it just follow what mastodon.social was doing.

    RogerBW ,
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    @mcc Hmm, thebad.space publishes its block lists, but I don't see an obvious way to import them. (But I don't know Mastodon internals at all.)

    @RogerBW@discordian.social avatar RogerBW , to random
    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

    Is shutdown -r now still how you reboot a linux box or is there some new systemd command for it

    RogerBW ,
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    @mcc systems took out the fsck-on-reboot option because Lennart didn't like it so nobody should have it.

    @RogerBW@discordian.social avatar RogerBW , to random

    Our third slice of werewolfy goodness moves into the 2000s, with Ginger Snaps and Dog Soldiers. Find out what @lordof1 and I thought in https://ribbonofmemes.org.uk/archive/2025/Werewolves_III.html

    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

    Say I have a series of URLs and I want to put them in an RSS feed, but I don't have "preview" information for these URLs (eg no titles, summary etc). Will RSS allow me to syndicate these? Okay wait wrong question. If I make an RSS feed out of these will clients be able to usefully present the information?

    RogerBW ,
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    @mcc Yes, but at the very least you should probably duplicate the URL into the title field so that it's not empty.

    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

    INDIVIDUALS DESIGNING COMMERCIAL WEB APPLICATIONS. FIXED POINT NUMBERS. LEARN TO LOVE THEM.

    Checked bags for Andi [lastname] 1 checked bag - $26.3 Total baggage fees - $26.3
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    RogerBW ,
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    @mcc Round here (west of London) menus with prices like that are a sure sign of a place that's charging too much and trying to be trendy

    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

    I stopped using Reddit because the company was feeding my words into a large language model, and I stopped using StackOverflow because the company was feeding my words into a large language model, and I will stop using Discord if the company starts feeding my words into a large language model

    https://www.theverge.com/apps/673208/discord-ai-forums-anniversary-gamechat

    Another involves LLMs. “There’s an incredible opportunity now with large language models and their ability to summarize conversations,” he says. That could help Discord take a long conversation between multiple people — “what is essentially a really poorly structured shareable object,” he says — and boil it down to “something that could be more shareable and then potentially syndicated to the web.”
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    RogerBW ,
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    @mcc What, Discord are still claiming they're not doing this? I don't believe it for an instant.

    @Alice@beige.party avatar Alice , to random

    When should I start preheating the oven to cook this 20 pound turkey for Thanksgiving dinner?

    RogerBW ,
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    @Alice You'll have to cook faster. Get a few gallons of liquid oxygen…