Notices by yakkoj 🦊 (yakkoj@mastodon.sdf.org)

One of my pet peeves as a "programmer" (by which I mean, "whenever I write something hopefully restricted to my own use") is when I find code that closes a file and doesn't check for an error from the close.

It's why all my perl programs tend to have something like "close(FD) or warn;" in them. Who knows when your disk will disappear, or suddenly become read-only?

Wil Wheaton's done with social media. I'm certain he'll be happier for it.

What the fediverse and twitterverse before it did to him is inexcusable, no matter anyone else's hot take (especially mine). No god-damned wonder he's done.

Let's try and do better. At least in this small corner of the fediverse, I enjoy seeing none of the toxic shit I was subject to on 🐦 (and I wasn't even a target!)

One of the primary reasons email sucks is the allowance of "text/html" with no text/plain part, or worse, something like "Turn on HTML" as the text/plain part.

I display my email as plaintext for a few good reasons: first, because software is generally shit, they reuse a web browser component which was never intended to be used with email. Result: you suddenly run javascript, load remote images, etc. Pretty much anything email should NOT be doing.

My MacBook Air is compliant enough with UEFI to at least boot memtest86 as \EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI

(I hate the excessively glossy screen, even with something that cuts the glare)

AUI to 10baseT transceivers beside a TI-30 from 1978.

The big transceiver is from 1991. The small one's from 1997.

Note that the TI-30 was famous for costing $25 in 1976. The sheer lack of electronics is the reason why. The transceivers probably cost $100 or more 15-20 years later.

It's a bit of a bodge at this stage, but WE GET SIGNAL (in this case, RESB goes low (and the LED lights up) for ~250ms when this circuit gets power!)

Now to buy the address decode logic, and ROM and RAM. I've been using the 6502 since 1984 and never realized how simple making a working computer from one was.

Here we go again with the rubbishy licensing checker MS shoved down every company's corporate gob https://mastodon.sdf.org/media/66nuJHVyMQV-20VCHKQ https://mastodon.sdf.org/media/NDMfIUpUQTaeZKdOulA https://mastodon.sdf.org/media/NVx1VPqC3gAqdTWg278 https://mastodon.sdf.org/media/x_izYm1cvyFtwTWILmI

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA thats awesome

Definitely going to have to make this sub-hack work-safe (unfortunately) https://mastodon.sdf.org/media/vsgFMjxmq84jMgbjWbU

25 years ago, I was sent to Germany, where they had an entire infrastructure built around recycling everything, and you HAD to do it by law, even in multiple-dwelling units. It was one of the things I missed when I came back to USA.

I didn't get to start seriously recycling again until 2014, and even then, they don't accept things like glass! (STILL better than throwing everything away.)

https://mastodon.social/@Tdorey/99159126858683733

Welp. C64 issues are definitely thermal. SID's roasting despite doing nothing. All the RAM's hot, the CPU's hot, the PLA's hot (duh), the CIAs and ROMs are cooler but still hot... and that's with it doing nothing.

A comparison pic of an Apple IIe running a program. It's stone cold compared to the C64.

https://mastodon.sdf.org/media/nVAsZbTxwc8i7WLbyYc https://mastodon.sdf.org/media/4CtMd8MGwJiThhojZ8w

Poking the possessed C64 again. This time with a sharper stick.

It locked up at first with some bad RAM, but I scared that gremlin off, apparently. (Probably a thermal issue.) https://mastodon.sdf.org/media/LZZaTAKA95ldq-4Tkls

Oh dear... I just realized something:

I've got several game consoles full of software that only exists in digital form. There are the PSN games that go poof with PSN (which I'd expected), but there are also games I bought that can't be preserved (for the moment).

If ever there was a case for physical media, this is it. Those who demand physical media are not just clinging to an impossible past.

I fear my days using Firefox are numbered. I have to use some of these extensions to get a decent UI. I MUST use some other extensions to have a secure browser. I'm convinced the whole house of cards will collapse and catch fire in a few weeks.

"Firefox 57 is so fast we're calling it Quantum" ... yeah, but at what cost? https://mastodon.sdf.org/media/38z6pbaxCVxSzc5QR6o