Zach 111 111 107 @zachdecook@librem.one

Spent too long today tweaking CSS, then got annoyed, decided I didn't like site design and scraped 90% of the stylesheet. Now it looks ace.

:drakeDislike: binary
:drakeLike: negabinary

If you don't know what negabinary is, it's base -2

In maths, when you have a base, you multiply each digit by the base power the position before summing them up

For instance in decimal (base 10), 367 = 7 * 10^0 + 6 * 10^1 + 3 * 10^2 = 7 * 1 + 6 * 10 + 3 * 100

In binary (base 2), 101 = 1 * 2^0 + 0 * 2^1 + 1 * 2^2 = 1 * 1 + 0 * 2 + 1 * 4 = 5

In negabinary, it's interesting, you get 110 = 0 * (-2)^0 + 1 * (-2)^1 + 1 * (-2)^2 = 0 * 1 + 1 * (-2) + 1 * 4 = 2

What's interesting in negabinary is that it achieves a similar result to balanced trinary, which is getting every natural number from -infinity to +infinity without using a bit for the sign. But it achieves it using 2 states, which is easier to have with current technology (transistors only make 2 states, and technologies that make 3 states are much more expensive)

Although there is a guy that has a tractor with a trailer that he put some old church pews in that goes around the villages at the weekend so people can get about.

Need help with #vim? just remember these helpful sayings.

h - hold up i gotta take a left
j - justin im going down
k - karen im trying to go upstairs
l - right

"Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better"

Edsger W. Dijkstra

How do people feel about 'programming ligatures'? I have some thoughts.

(see Fira Code for examples: https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode)

It shouldn’t be a surprise that Facebook has joined Section 230’s critics: it literally has the most to gain from decimating the law. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/dont-blame-section-230-big-techs-failures-blame-big-tech

The argument against the word "master" is based on the unproven assumption that the term is loaded with racist connotations, and the mandate for change is based on the fact that the possibility of the assumption's truth is nonzero and that the side-effects of the change are small.

If that were true, I would be on board with it. However, it's plainly clear that the impact of git upstream switching the default branch name to "main" is going to be huge. Many scripts with the "master" hard-coded are going to break, scripts written on the valid assumption that the name "master" was an intrinsic, unchanging property of git.

Every programmer who works with repositories before and after the change are going to constantly mis-remember which is which, and we'll have to guess at the default when working with new or unfamiliar repositories.

This event is going to establish a new epoch in git. We should take that seriously.

Which means we have to confront the fact that the assumption (that inherent racism is present in the word "master" and is causing harm to those who have suffered under racism) may not actually be true. The claims do not hold up well under scrutiny. And, as far as I can tell, the cause is championed disproportionately by white people.

The moralized nature of the question puts an external pressure on decision makers on the git project, which is normally not present for other patches. They have to consider, if they review these changes negatively, will it affect their personal reputation? Their careers? If there's even a slight chance of this, is it better not to argue the matter at all, and rubber-stamp the patches? I don't think this change is being developed under the right conditions.

On the left, we have a tendency to rubber-stamp social causes with a lesser degree of scrutiny. I think that this is a testament to how much we value empathy and solidarity, but I don't think it's a healthy way to approach our problems. Software breakage has a social cost, too.

Funkwhale is looking for new maintainers https://blog.funkwhale.audio/~/Announcements/funkwhale-is-looking-for-new-maintainers/

@sir
I had it when some minor update caused #fishShell to interminably hang (all because my home directory was network mounted).
My general tech advise to average people: Never update anything that already works.

Looking at you, literally every meme systems programming lang

Looking at you with extreme prejudice, every meme shell 😠

If your project aims to become a fixture in the computational substrate of infrastructure on top of which everything else runs

I will have pretty high standards for your work

p = 49429002897777261000839566786960900348661596779839481928152034285352681641807686782292757653824830822496391192085567895071852258385592280527115222429444042313542936301974046594875899181233742229945549738766655661560628018266563543784515148821370566306893780280151659623161213410927305309695027848755504091783

q = 53602170802863928289500972217307025477290164757146419371852251620670300136901587204821451746991406880988053571342615187459978423766579984968561470104139545987787266751875098417999761783952366342302556060906681062460952347680147798276356366502237505269309185857430061068092584194979239221868593482021566547439

n = 2952619226006031733278005132921693726100042011592660779869675820212138145939883834312253789060663461194528411412874982355146048292836507534000115353036163880492136645451564382009196182566124637478277389304691251397819894417106558057773147299342857185830516918343274468842497499522414750028740163342718036209925403503207235945059541974923084211147227388348091101183403929204074586611952779802158116643840147678791643283706927948872797793849591629882391903699724329001797545580009544763555067611040895630150211640906898700482769873702547829023169433411394249565049633221004211830736052381384491512655254513796679593737

d = 142033101700003260678755863863267700134374886049156296238778043258513471417667391237505300342672722921505586813412391537592394712287451780540489111338082979901966887630936873112829448279475520471433931949082770983040743133849146064289054900225131501940560027662491217132619227565578893295128589581903273904124801461070363532834633728769178636552784294153467969250254358604276515140477045217505629092433114246051368410587618590542410950189868285511930901887132942539241081579465767831350539339965000260768249119651905050152151634478714116343168832447694793716937575319879226685046081583200335708696821445923072794535

e = 65537

@sir
Well, I'm late to the party, but already have some (original, never-before-seen) content:
gemini://gemini.zachdecook.com/capsule/2020-11-01-action-jones.gemini
Action Jones (The Story of a Lost Piece of Cultural History)

How a (formerly) online webseries captured my imagination, and the grief of its loss to the world.