Notes

I don't know how I never heard of Station Eleven before this week, but that was a great series

Maybe GPT will replace us after all...

Can you find the bug in this code?

A beige Zip drive for my beige computer

Me: Web browsers and W3C specs are too bloated these days

Also Me: There should be a WordArt CSS spec

It is scary committing in usr.bin/ssh/

"Will this change make me responsible for the next 0-day on most of the ssh servers on the internet?"

MacTCP on my Macintosh Plus has non-configurable DNS-lookup and TCP-open timeouts of 45 seconds.

I like imagining that UDP or SYN packet reaching the router on its 10BASE2 ethernet and then getting queued while the router initializes its modem, dials a phone number, waits while it rings, waits for its PPP login credentials to be verified by the RADIUS server, and then finally sends its queued packet out to the internet, where it gets a reply that is routed back to the Mac after 35 seconds.

I wrote a quick article on how to take a better scanline-free photo of a CRT screen with a phone:

https://jcs.org/2023/03/04/crt

Through the Looking Glass (1984)

Whenever I see my Framework laptop collecting dust in the closet and think "I should use this more", I start typing on it and immediately remember that the obnoxious lid wobble is the biggest reason why I don't use it.

I upgraded the lid to the CNC version but it didn't help any. Framework says the stronger hinges actually make the wobble worse so I'm avoiding those.

I wish they would figure out how to eliminate that like other vendors have.

I finished cleaning and restoring these blue guys

I like the authenticity and weight of the mediterranean blue 2500 (on the right) but the ringer is so loud even on its quietest setting

The AT&T 100 feels kind of cheap but its digital ringer has a very 80s feel and the blue matches my office nicely

Dumb things have been written:

- binkp module connects to hub, logs in, and downloads all outstanding files, caching them to disk
- each file in the local cache directory is processed and any pkzip files are parsed, looking for ".pkt" files inside them and inflating them in memory
- each fidonet packet is processed, ready for importing to the BBS's local database

Now I'm just waiting for my application to join fsxNet to be approved

Dumb things I am having to write today in 2023:

- a Fidonet "bink" protocol parser (https://www.ritlabs.com/binkp/)
- a PKZIP in-memory extractor (https://pkware.cachefly.net/webdocs/casestudies/APPNOTE.TXT)
- a Fidonet packet parser (http://wiki.synchro.net/ref:fidonet_packets)

I get that BBSes are mostly dead and this technology hasn't changed much since the 80s but I wish one of these message networks would throw away all these ancient protocols and just pass around JSON messages for syndication

Beware of Geeks Bearing Diffs

"If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough."

http://muezza.ca/thoughts/openbsd_imac_g4/

I made a little utility for OpenBSD that listens for left and right two-finger touchpad swipe gestures and generates keyboard events so Firefox will navigate back and forward accordingly

https://github.com/jcs/tpadnav

Current mood

https://deskto.ps/u/jcs/d/4jthj0

lol

and what would a little toy computer be without its own custom over-engineered multi-threaded compositing window system