ManMachine
@max@manmachine.me
Every year, the HDMI Consortium meets with hardware manufacturers to plan where to place HDMI ports on monitors. Through a rigorous series of testing, they ensure that each monitor has its port locations optimized to be impossible to plug the HDMI cable in without turning the whole monitor around and eyeballing the port like some kind of spaceship docking procedure.
When they have all agreed on the best location, they go out for pizza.
It’s still baffling to me that Helm got as popular as it has… like, using text templating tools to generate a structured, whitespace-sensitive format?! Why did we do this to ourselves?!
Sysadmin-me of 2002-2012 would be absolutely livid. We templated weird formats that had little formal structure and zero tooling… past-me absolutely craved a structured syntax that had support across every language!!
So most languages have yaml or at least json (which is valid yaml) support… it’s universal. And instead, now we use go’s text/template to concatenate strings into what we hope is correct yaml. Aaaahhhhhhhhh
(Any helm folks out there, I ❤️ u)
Real talk. Googlers, tell me: Was Helm a trauma response to Borgcfg? Because… I would understand that.
@whack Was helm made by people from Google? I would be extremely disappointed if that were true. Borgcfg is terrible, but it’s not “just use the equivalent of C preprocessor to render files in an actively hostile language” terrible.
@whack anyone who decides to use YAML should have a stern talking-to, and anyone who decides to use text interpolation to GENERATE YAML should have their software engineering license revoked
Writing Perl for as little as six months will engrain this conclusion in you permanently https://studio8502.ca/@mos_8502/116914686499380319
Unfortunately then rustfmt and similar tools get angry at you for the rest of your life :(
@mcc I truly don’t understand why rustfmt considers writing it in a way easy for a human to be confident it is correct to be bad style. Those are my emotional support redundant parentheses
@0xabad1dea @mcc I have pondered this at length over many such systems and concluded that the job description attracts the type of person who thinks so highly of their own opinions that they simply cannot rest until they have formed and imposed as many of them as the grammar possibly allows.
@0xabad1dea @mcc The average programmer uses several languages, some only maybe once or twice a year. Even if they can be arsed to memorise the different operator precedence rules for all of them - and why should they?? - it's grossly unreasonable to expect everyone who's ever going to read your code, including those who've never seen that particular language before, to have memorised them too. Put the ***ing parentheses in FFS.
Back when I was on Spotify I used to listen to a fair bit of jazz. Especially in the realm of like soft jazz.
No lyrics, or excitable brass.
It appears I never ported over those playlists when I left and now I've been missing it.
Anyone got any recs for me? Think music that is good background for reading, winding down.
@MsHearthWitch I love Keiko Matsui, most of her albums are very emotional but easy to listen to, and very few have vocals. It's one of my go-to things to listen to while drawing
@nina_kali_nina Ahh that's pretty. It's not quite what I'm looking for from the few I've sampled, but it is really nice!
Has anyone out there toyed with the "snac2" ActivityPub service? It's Mastodon *compatible* and seems to be geared toward "low powered devices"
The fact it's completely Javascript free makes it extreeeeeeeemely tempting for retro computing stuff in particular.
Has anyone out there used it and do y'all have any thoughts?
@ltning oooouuugh that looks amazing!
How would I go about getting that kind of theming on mine? (and is it still retro browser compatible if i do?)
@ltning What was the name of the front-end by the way? I tried pointing Firefox 3.6 at wii.cafe but it looks like it's being served with modern TLS only
@CursedSilicon Yea there's modern TLS on that one. You can start by looking at smolfedi[1] maybe?
@ltning Is that what wii cafe is running for its front-end? I wanna just road test a bunch of them and see what works best for our (extremely niche) use case
A good illustration of shifting baselines in #technology and perception of social networks specifically: it's been 17 years since Facebook introduced its "algorithmic" feed, gradually making the chronological one harder to toggle, and about 5 years ago Twitter repeated those steps, normalising the lack of chronological "followers" feed across popular social networks. And now plenty of people can no longer imagine having a modicum of control over what they see and for how long.
#enshittification
@max it's hard to prove and yes, this could be snark, but I keep seeing a very similar sentiment in various comment sections outside fedi and tech-savy bubbles for years now.
Also it seems like the popular discourse around attention mining keeps going in circles in a weird amnesiac "history of this platform doesn't exist" way, which feels like a marker/vibe of total normalisation.
High Pressure Differential SCSI
so if an enemy has launched large reflective satellites into orbit around your planet, how much laser power would it take to push them out of that orbit?
because surely a ground-based laser could get them to act more like a solar sail?
*styropyro joined the chat*
Like most problems in life, this one can be solved with very powerful lasers!
@foone This seems a very "what-if" xkcd sort of question, but my first thought is: is this going to be the sort of thing where the answer is "enough to boil the air around you before you achieve anything"
Reflect Orbital's satellites are 18x18 meters. Tiny for a solar sail.
I should check Atomic Rockets for the math on solar sails.
I know firing up through the atmosphere isn't gonna be great, but it's not like we have a bunch of laser satellites out there.
if we were still doing pre-craig bond movies, they'd have already done an film where an evil tech billionaire reveals his communication satellite array is actually an orbital laser system, allowing him to dominate the globe
@foone Unfortunately it seems that in today's world, the evil tech billionaire will launch an orbital laser system that is secretly a communication satellite constellation.
@foone I wouldn't be above assuming that SpaceX's practice in guiding automated spacecraft onto small target may also be applied to deorbiting satellites aggressively.
@foone SpaceX Starlink satellites launched since 2021 are in fact an orbital laser system. OK, so the lasers are communication crosslinks aimed at other Starlink satellites in the same orbital plane, but nevertheless.
@foone It doesn't have to work like a solar sail to make for a decent reflector that might allow someone with a sufficiently powerful ground-based laser to put some serious energy down on basically any spot on earth. Line up a couple reflectors in the right way and the focused energy from your GW d̶a̶t̶a̶ ̶c̶e̶n̶t̶e̶r̶ laser could end up wherever you want...
@foone you'd imagine that a satellite designed to reflect the full power of the sun without being pushed out of orbit can't be dislodged with a ground based laser. I guess one problem is you can only push up which is already the direction station keeping wants to push
@foone
I think it would be more efficient to invest in solutions to make the launcher not start or fail the mission that to try to push a fully operational battle station
@foone Nowadays I think a more efficient approach would be to find out the satellite’s IP address, SSH to it with the default admin/admin credentials and cat /dev/urandom to /sys/motor_control. Or maybe do some ../ magic on the embedded web server they forgot to disable.
@foone given that the concept of power satellites exists, where satellites collect solar energy and shoot down an energy beam, and
1. For that to be useful it would need to be a very powerful energy beam
2. This functions the same as shooting up an energy beam (laser) as far as momentum is concerned (ignoring the double momentum transfer of reflecting the ground based laser)
3. This momentum doesn't seem to be a concern in the discussion of power satellites
I conclude that your ground based laser would need to be ridiculously powerful
Solar sails are only good if your main goal is to conserve fuel and you don't care how long it takes
Marathon 2026
| it's cool: | 13 |
| it's ok I guess: | 8 |
| it's bad: | 8 |
| who the what now?: | 99 |
Closed
@eniko no I'm still training, I might get in a half-marathon this year but I'm not ready for.... wait there's a game?
@eniko I hundreds of hours really love it. It’s a weird niche game with an abrasive learning curve that fully made clear to me the appeal of an extraction shooter as an engine for building play narratives out of social dynamics in lots of cool overlapping ways. And the consecutive map designs just layering metagame on metagame on top of the base mechanics is so cool.
@eniko Pfft, Marathon 490 BC was absolutely groundbreaking, this remake is a joke at best and an insult at worst.
@eniko I thought it was about running.
Sony will never make back the Bungie money. What a disaster. Next time they should just pay me 1/4 of that and I won’t cost them a dime afterwards. Still cheaper.
@eniko it’s not my kind of game (I like the art, but not aggressive pvp with internet randos), but some of my friends love it
@eniko my “it’s cool” comes with large caveats: I don’t think it’s that mainstream (due to the tenseness of it becuase its PvP) but i like it. However, the onboarding is fucking terrible.
@eniko looks great, managed to feel like a horror game sometimes, feels exceptionally good. Buuuuut I wish it was PvE.
Inside of you are two wolves, wild and free.
There's also a very weary owl, a wine-drunk wombat, and a harried little hedgehog who often feels the weight of the world.
Even more excited to become a librarian now that I learned that Fox News called libraries, “drug infested, sex dungeons”.
Secret Panel HERE 🔥 https://tinyview.com/mrlovenstein/2026/04/08/ruinternet
Almost 90 boosts for this one but no ALT text. I'm not gonna add that now, cause tired. Maybe later. Someone else ? 
@MrLovenstein I am seeing your stuff on many places outside and inside the #fediverse and most of the time people are editing out your they chop away (edit out) your 'name' 😩
@MrLovenstein This author is great. I really like their work, but they could really level up their comics by adding alt text everywhere they post them.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-oil-industry-donations
Oddly enough, the fossil fuel industry's insatiable greed is to blame for both.
https://www.desmog.com/2025/12/11/the-koch-network-is-pushing-trump-to-accelerate-ai-documents-show/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/20/us/politics/koch-network-2024-election-trump.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/technology/saudi-arabia-ai-exporter.html
@MrLovenstein No, you have to go to the other side of town, behind the gates, where the good person is working on a pest donation. Or you can try to rough the alps and call it a good time. Just tell them you'd like to get good and become smooth at solving unnecessary problems, so you don't have to deal with not solving real ones. They'll understand. And if they ask, the code phrase is, "Wayward Soulless".
If Reform lose the election for the Greater Manchester mayor they will claim that it's because it's campaign resources had to be diverted to a by-election forced onto the Dulwich-educated ex-commodities broker bankrolled by millionaires who's been a full-time politician for three decades and has side-hustles pitching for gold bullion to make him fight The Establishment's chosen champion, some bloke with a bucket on his head.
@Stevenheywood now now, that's just wrong. Count Binface has a bin on his head. Buckethead is a legally different person... ;)
Buckethead is a legally different personWell to be fair I don't think anyone tried electing a genius guitar player, perhaps it would work better
@max https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Buckethead Who doesn't want an evil overlord who will actually tell you he _is_ an evil overlord... ;)
is it feasible to have an album which is about equal proportion pop songs and improv? I think yes
A scientist, a philosopher, and a poet walk into a bar.
They all drink heavily to try to forget the state that society is in.
got some good work done on You Have Died (And Been Reincarnated As A Fox Girl) today. four way menus and submenus are in now. kind of hard to make a cool screenshot or video showing that off but have a screenshot anyway i guess!
Kinda weird to be making a game where the menus *are* the gameplay. I'm so used to menus being something you have to add *alongside* gameplay
Gotta say, it does make me hate doing the menus less
@eniko i've become enamored with making Godot UI menus with the new local offset stuff. It's fun, and wiring them together is relaxing.
@Craigp local offset stuff?
@eniko OH HO HO YOU WILL LOVE THIS
It's VERY new. If you're running a few versions slow, you don't have it.
@eniko I'm told by Calvin's father that all video games are either parkour or menus. I'll post the meme if I find it again.
@eniko That was surprisingly easy.
@disorderlyf wait how is counter strike menus
@eniko My guess is the meta of very quickly cycling through menus to get the optimal loadout and planting/diffusing bombs. Though, I'd argue it's more parkour than menu.
@eniko One of my quiet joys is noticing how many JRPG battle themes have an internal structure that can be summarized as "SOMETHING EXTREMELY EXCITING IS HAPPENING oh wait the thing you're actually doing here is picking things off of menus, well, uh, ready when you are, tick tock, buddy".
Xenogears' "Stage of Death" *nails* it
@eniko Looks like Shining in the Darkness for Genesis/Megadrive. Is that an inspiration for this game?
Gym Bro: I get up at 4am and go for a run, by 6am I'm at the gym training... That's the peak of being an alpha male.
Me: Not it's not... Have you ever actually seen an apex predator... they're all lazy as fuck. Bears hibernate for months, lions sleep most of the day as do tigers, cheetahs and other large predators.
Gym Bro: So
Me: You know who gets up a 4am and runs about the place.
Gym Bro: Who?
Me: Squirrels... you're a fucking squirrel.
I remember back in the 2000s I was maintaining some Java code using Spring and thinking there was too much fiddling with XML documents and not even coding for my blood.
"Boy I hope the next two decades of my programming career isn't just modifying metadata in XML files!"
I got my wish, technically. It's all JSON, YAML, and TOML.
@foone At my first encounter with knative, I quipped about it being Java EE for millenials.
The joke was not well-received, but I hold that history has proven me right.
Early 90s Alice: BOY I HOPE I'M NOT EDITING INI FILES FOR THE NEXT THREE DECADES, I GOT INTO THIS PROGRAMMING THING TO WRITE PASCAL!
early 90s alice is an alternate path my live could take, not an accurate representation of myself then, btw.
I never got into pascal. I grew up on BASICs.
going back in time and handing my young self a pentium laptop with a copy of Borland Turbo C++ installed on it, with some good C++ books.
Future!Alice: yeah. study these, use this, now you've got a computer that works. any questions?
baby!alice: yeah. why are you a girl?
Future!Alice: don't worry about that. just stay away from Visual BASIC, okay?
@foone I was very into Pascal for about a year when I learned it in college and I was using it to program the HP3000 in the lab. It seemed like such a step up from BASIC. I abandoned it though when I wanted to program the new NeXTs in the lab and made the effort to get my head around C. Took me several months after learning C to make sense of Objective-C.
Hallucinations Caused By Recalled Clams [Whatever's funniest] » 🔓
@decay@gts.todayiwilllaunchmyinfantsonintoorbit.com
@foone 10 PRINT "HI"
20 GOTO 10
RUN
@decay the funny thing is both the BASICs I grew up on (Q/Quick and Visual) didn't use line numbers. I only got into traditional lube number BASICs later, for retro computing
Today's word of the day is tribology
Tribology is the science of friction and lubrication.
Use this knowledge responsibly.
I missed reading Starlink's latest conjunction report when it came out a bit over a month ago. I just skimmed through it and I think I need to go lay down for a while. It's terrifying how close we are to major collisions in orbit all the time... (I especially love the note about how space-track.org being offline briefly caused them to miss a potential collision... SO FRAGILE AAUGH)
Article summarizing the report here: https://ca.pcmag.com/networking/16653/260-starlink-satellites-burn-up-in-earths-atmosphere-as-more-head-for-fiery-ends
Full report here: https://www.scribd.com/document/1057502572/SpaceX-Gen1-Gen2-Semi-Annual-Report-7-1-26
Oh gosh I just did the math on the maneuver rate, which I couldn't bring myself to do earlier. More than 207,000 collision avoidance maneuvers in 6 months.
That means that somewhere in the Starlink megaconstellation, a satellite is performing a collision avoidance maneuver EVERY 1.25 MINUTES (EVERY 75 SECONDS)
AAAHHHH I'M SURE THAT'S FINE.
And now I find myself reading about asteroid collisional cascades. For no particular reason...