pdt 🛸 @pdt@mastodon.sdf.org

Lest you're now tempted by JSON:

https://nee.lv/2021/02/28/How-I-cut-GTA-Online-loading-times-by-70/index.html

When you need to change your name to be compatible with modern software standards:

https://twitter.com/_rsc/status/1368212098321367045

Celebrities come in all shapes & forms (business, tech, entertainment, politics, science, ...). In our fame-obsessed times, it's increasingly important to be conscious of the fact that people can be good at some things & terrible at others

My very naive theory of why inventing tonnes of money out of thin air doesn't lead to inflation: excess money goes into made-up stuff like tech stocks & BTC, which inflate & balance an imaginary equation while milk & eggs stay the same.

Sample program in LOLCODE.

‘AWSUM THX’: I love it so much.

https://web.archive.org/web/20071002042159/http://lolcode.com/

Image description (alt text):

Program FILEZORZ:

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
PLZ OPEN FILE "LOLCATS.TXT"?
AWSUM THX
VISIBLE FILE
O NOES
INVISIBLE "ERROR!"
KTHXBYE https://mastodon.sdf.org/media/GLvOazyXEzaeKibwmFQ

Sometimes the only real path to anti-fragility is Darwinism.

Make the Edge Cloud Again

I officially give up on wanting to roll out my own Signal client. The unfortunate part is, I usually end up resenting anything that feels unnecessarily complex or inefficient.

Lest you think crypto is some amazing technological marvel: we wouldn't need any of this security/privacy hell if people were just nicer. Adding complexity and effort to counter humanity's vices is not my idea of progress.

TFW you thought you'd simply add TLS delivery on top of libsignal-protocol-c and have a command-line Signal client, and you end up half way implementing a (bad) database and swimming in glue just to send a bloody text message.

The world is turning to Rust.

Digital growth for the perplexed:

Controversy scales better than content

Value obfuscation & leeching off existing economic transactions are 'innovative business models'

Fundamentals are for losers. Winners have coolness & fairy dust

I started looking at Signal libs this weekend thinking I might write a small command-line client in C, but the number of operations & indirections involved in sending a simple message made me want to go back to sending postcards instead.

I also solicit craft ideas with tin cans b/c I like how clean they look out of the dishwasher and am liable to be buried under the rising pile.

My new take on chili con carne involves no meat or beans, consisting instead of canned lentils heated in the microwave with fresh chili and garlic.

Showing how tolerant we are by the level of outrage we exhibit

It's so much easier to destroy than to create, to break than to mend.

Listening to old recordings of Iranian-Armenian singer Viguen perform Armenian and Azeri folk songs is a sad reminder of what has been, within my lifetime, irretrievably lost.

I save a lot of time by reading the synopsis of popular series on Wikipedia instead of watching them.

One of the first things to learn in any business is what discount factor to apply to what people are telling you.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-02-26/startups-sometimes-stretch-the-truth