Nostr notes by tom jennings

A key design feetch of newsgroups is that they predate the ...

2026-05-30T19:24:21Z

In reply to nevent1q…dh4t
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A key design feetch of newsgroups is that they predate the Internet; they are store and forward networks. Posts can persist on a host overnight, for batch send at night, etc, solving problems we no longer have.

Usenet once gatewayed with the FidoNet echo conference system, both have similar structures.

gmc (npub1jmv…l7za) RetroFun.PL (npub1t0z…fz20)

No user auth or id, so that can lead to wild spammers. TLS ...

2026-05-30T19:20:54Z

In reply to nevent1q…dh4t
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No user auth or id, so that can lead to wild spammers. TLS between servers. Its all pre security mindset.

I wonder how the low threshold for entry plays out vs inherent lack of monetization, today. Not as its a "fix" but 30 years of corporate internet has changed the stakes.

Ive forgotten what little i knew: can a particular group be housed on a particular host, where that host can restrict membership and posts to keep quality high (or ruin it, as the case may be)?

gmc (npub1jmv…l7za) RetroFun.PL (npub1t0z…fz20)

It's all just so terrible. I feel sorry for every participant ...

2026-05-15T01:16:54Z

In reply to nevent1q…xcqm
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It's all just so terrible. I feel sorry for every participant and nothing but hatred for the ruinous corps.

This last paragraph of yours is the core of it i see. It IS ...

2026-05-14T23:54:54Z

In reply to nevent1q…a56t
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This last paragraph of yours is the core of it i see. It IS unethical to contribute free labor to profit making corporations. And the software licensing applied pretty much guarantees you won't be.

Think of FOSS minus the corporations. That's the part that works as the popular vision of it says. Its not grounded in any reality.

The Internet fostered this particular kind of (technical) file sharing, and all but a tiny number of those original corps contributed back in any significant way i could ever see.

There are other models of openness. Open standards mostly works.

Certain projects work; compilers and languages. They're too large to capture I suppose. Compiler libraries work.

Is there any user/programmer organization looking at these breakdowns?

Why aren't there programmers unions?

Why do programmers so resist self organizing?

[@miss_rodent](https://girlcock.club/@miss_rodent ) Cassandra 📍 San Francisco (for real!) (npub1hzv…lzy3)

* It is amateurs that bring (and had brought) all of the joy ...

2026-04-14T17:11:14Z

* It is amateurs that bring (and had brought) *all* of the joy into computing.

* Students, if they are very lucky, retain some of this joy.

* Professionalism ruins joy.

There you go, that's my thesis.

Yeah, the clowns involved may be done for, then the rest us right ...

2026-04-13T23:35:45Z

Yeah, the clowns involved may be done for, then the rest us right after.

Americans of any stripe will be unwelcome anywhere you'd like to go.

Israel as a pariah state would be very ugly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIUdCjzSMEA

So histories on the metaphors used in computer editing of text ...

2026-04-11T20:52:29Z

So histories on the metaphors used in computer editing of text have been done, no surprise.

Only skimmed these myself, will read later.

In the timeline I'm in, there were coding sheets (recognizable; but never used though I did some hand coding), then the paper tape editors themselves (teletype reader, punch, edit one line at a time), then the "ed" family (that incorported the P.T. editors but had the crazy idea of a "screen"; includes ed, teco, emacs), then the widespread deployment of meece when it all ends and turns to shit with far too many options and our documents all looking the same "professional" (sic).

Pretty page, totally misses all points:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/evolution-text-editors-word-processors-miguel-rivas-perez-ilwbc

Oh, this one has much clue. And one of the few writings that makes it clear that the creation of jaquard loom cards was solidly "programming", in that it required fairly arbitrary transformations of data. It would not surprise me to find a loom that could count, and stop or something. Also: "women's work", an important story itself in computing generally.

https://lug.ncsu.edu/presentations/2019-11-13-text-editor-history.pdf

This idiosyncratic wiki isn't analysis or anything, but a good survey, emphasis in the early micro era. But digging out anything from the 50s and 60s would be serious work. Clearly a work of love here.

https://texteditors.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?HomePage

“But to micromanage the president with 535 CEOs of the country ...

2026-04-11T16:33:27Z

“But to micromanage the president with 535 CEOs of the country doesn't make a lot of sense to me—doesn't make a lot of sense to the American people.”

(Congress.)

If you could fill a room with cheese hole air, could you breathe ...

2026-04-04T21:18:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…nxrr
_________________________

If you could fill a room with cheese hole air, could you breathe it? I really need to know.

"In 1994, the largest company in America by market ...

2026-03-30T17:33:19Z

"In 1994, the largest company in America by market capitalization was Exxon, valued at $34 billion. Today, Google is worth $3.7 trillion."

Technofascism is what we have achieved.

Holy fucking garbage world. North korea we become. ...

2026-03-27T01:09:49Z

In reply to nevent1q…9c3h
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Holy fucking garbage world. North korea we become.

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0425

Peter Gibson, a spokesman for Keep Britain Tidy, asserts that ...

2026-03-22T15:30:51Z

Peter Gibson, a spokesman for Keep Britain Tidy, asserts that Banksy's work is simple vandalism.

Banksy's been outed? I hope he remains ok. I fear for them. ...

2026-03-22T15:19:28Z

Banksy's been outed?

I hope he remains ok. I fear for them.

Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy

Lol. Am I doing something silly? They do the multi-registrar ...

2026-03-19T01:53:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…ltug
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Lol.

Am I doing something silly? They do the multi-registrar searches and all the hard work, it's their job...
I'm usually thinking "hmmm is WORD available?", so it's not like I'm abusing them with a million searches, and the few times I've done this, I actually register it with them, so it's all win for them.

I go to my registrar and simply try to register it. "FOO.COM ...

2026-03-19T01:38:54Z

In reply to nevent1q…hyyh
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I go to my registrar and simply try to register it. "FOO.COM is not available try FOO.XYZ..." etc

OK I just re-created the reason I got in trouble with libreoffice ...

2026-03-15T23:29:58Z

OK I just re-created the reason I got in trouble with libreoffice writer in the first place.

I'm making a printed book, so I need left and right pages.

The front part of the book, maybe a dozen pages, preface, index, colophon, etc, I want no page numbers.

About a dozen pages in, I want to start page numbering, with 1.

Libreoffice can''t seem to do this. Each page style must select "next style" which means the first N pages need to each have style N, where style 1 "nexts" to Style 2, 2 to 3, ... n-1 to N.

Style N then links to "Left page" which links to right which links to left.

It's a disastrous design. I'd done all this and somehow it broke.

Lots of other folks have similar issues with style and the answer from the org is "LO is designed around styles" which is a non-answer.

I will probably punt, break the book into pieces, have the front matter book use one set of alternating styles, then the rest of it another, produce PDFs, and assemble in PDF.

OH WAIT I CANT: the table of contents requires it to be one document.

What a shit show.

Fkn Libreoffice has corrupted my 150 page book, and it's been ...

2026-03-15T20:33:13Z

Fkn Libreoffice has corrupted my 150 page book, and it's been damaged for over two weeks, in a section I wasn't working in.

None of the recovery features I find in web searches exist.

There's a page (8) that is a black hole -- page 7 is OK, page 9 OK, but between is a blank page 8 where inserts or deletes that would wrap text over the page boundary essentially delete the text.

Can't DEL can't backspace, can' select over it and cut or delete, fkn damaged file.

150 pages of months of work. What a fucking disaster.

#Permacomputing is about the future. Old CPUs suck (but can be ...

2026-03-15T19:07:36Z

#Permacomputing is about the future. Old CPUs suck (but can be fun). Permacomputing has little to do with #retrocomputing, except insofar as we can examine our past solutions for synergies and such. And pre-enshittification versions of current software. The rest is nostalgia.

Used gear is the future too. There are so many "adequate" systems made in the last 10 years, alone, that meet most peoples needs.

The only non-enshittified OSes today are *nix OSes; freebsd, netbsd, derivatives, and the various linux.

I run Debian 13, as vanilla as I can get for the least effort involved. But linux/etc today are essentially server-class installs used on the desktop/laptop. OK lots of folk on the fedi lurv to wield complexity for it's own sake and that's fine. And eg. Debian is shockingly, wonderfully reliable and given the underlying complexity, surprisingly easy to install and maintain -- if you have the skills.

But I keep wondering about how much could a linux distro be pared back to cut size and complexity? A brutally stripped distro that runs Libreoffice and not much else; and a fancier one with networking (browser memory hogs).

Is there/are there super low end linux distributions I'm not aware of?

I'm not seeing a lot of traffic about permacomputing that aren't entangled with retrocomputing. I'm hoping that's just a feature of my feeds and follows!

The Epson LX 350 is still sold, is a classic brick-shithouse, has ...

2026-03-14T00:21:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…26ry
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The Epson LX 350 is still sold, is a classic brick-shithouse, has serial, parallel!, usb interfaces. 9 wire dot matrix

Sheet or tractor feed.

The brand name ribbon is 6 us bucks rated for 4 million characters. Print head rated at 40 million or 400 million characters.

It has a really effective standby low power mode.

It is an example of what happens when a technology is allowed to actually *mature*.

Lots of old tucson mexican houses/ranches have an inside kitchen, ...

2026-03-12T16:37:47Z

In reply to nevent1q…0pyz
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Lots of old tucson mexican houses/ranches have an inside kitchen, and an outside kitchen under a ramada.

This amazing, snd terrifying and maddening article my Douglas ...

2026-02-27T01:41:21Z

This amazing, snd terrifying and maddening article my Douglas Rushkoff

https://rushkoff.substack.com/p/my-dinner-with-jeffrey

There's a parallel with my life in here in a small way, though i grew up poor, queer, in an abusive household, muddled through highschool then no further education. I was sharp, worked my ass off in entry level electronics because i loved it and was dependable, then i ran with every opportunity that came my way, never for the money, somehow.

I wrote some great code and took wild chances on innovative crazy projects that somehow worked out, and even made one bit of money that mostly paid for a house. Ive got no complaints.

When the microcomputer folks started making money very many of them revealed themselves to be scumbags. Drugs money and boys; i left (i was almost one of those boys). I left.

Dot dot dot in the middle of the FidoNet days i thoight id get a job for money, got hired at apple, OS/ROM group. I hated it, they disliked me. Lasted 9 months. Nothing overtly untoward, just aggressive male dicks, and snobs (me white trash).

My involvement tl;dr with san Francisco punk anarchist stuff, hones my abuse-derived skills of smelling bullshit from a thousand yards, and sealed my commitment to what i think now of a tiny thread of folks "illuminating manuscripts" while the tech world turned onto this shit we know now.

I did not forsee it but i smelled it, essentially, every time i had to deal with the mundane world. FidpNet was filled with them but there, i had power and i fucking weilded it and FidoNet as an institution never went normal.

For the 15 years leading up to trump1 i had been wondering, fearing, i had made bad life choices about work and livelihood, though jobs etc in fact had worked out ok.

But what i sensed, smelled, my bullshit detector firing constantly, is that computer/software/electronics had got rotten, long ago, with almost no exceptions, and those exceptions never had money, and so the mundane world never took them seriously.

1 of 2

I just scanned and put online the original Fido and FidoNet ...

2026-02-20T20:31:48Z

I just scanned and put online the original Fido and FidoNet manual, 114 page PDF. 2nd link here:

https://www.bleeve.me/

It was written by Scot Kamins, the author of Apple's Hypercard book (which was excellent also, as was Hypercard.

It's still a great manual, succinct, and drily witty here and there. Almost no one's seen it, because it went out, print only, to folks who bought my shareware. (The code was free, but not the manual).

"HTML"? That thing will never catch on.

2026-02-20T20:27:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…xzsj
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"HTML"? That thing will never catch on.

RE: https://social.wake.st/@liaizon/116102789652461052 Yes it ...

2026-02-20T19:00:00Z

RE: https://social.wake.st/@liaizon/116102789652461052

Yes it seems that way. As soon as i saw the suthors fedi page it was fairly obvious. And to some extent a priori i trust the folks who apply it in their work.

Scam detector I'm just writing off as noise. Thanks for this History!

quoting
note1kwq…kvad

knowing all the fine work CryptPad (npub14hd…q8qh) has been doing makes this scam detector sound like it might be a scam
Here's a little intro to their history https://ngi.eu/blog/2020/05/26/whos-ngi-aaron-macsween-presents-cryptpad-the-encrypted-collaboration-suite/

Anyone know what the story is about cryptpad.fr? A local ICE ...

2026-02-20T03:11:19Z

Anyone know what the story is about cryptpad.fr? A local ICE watch group is using it, and scam detector gives it a very low rating.

Mouse or lizard tracks left on the cast off front fender of an ...

2026-02-17T21:16:58Z

Mouse or lizard tracks left on the cast off front fender of an early 1960's Rambler. Joshua Tree CA.

Here is a "FidoNet Onboarding" extremely analogous to ...

2026-02-04T18:59:54Z

Here is a "FidoNet Onboarding" extremely analogous to fedi onboarding.

https://wiki.preterhuman.net/FidoNet_New-Sysop_Orientation_Information

There's more than a little revisionism etc going on here...

There were a lot of really awful people back then. The RC system ("Regional Coordinator") was a nothing volunteer post turned into coordinated power-trip-centers by 1) my naivete defining the RC function and 2) people who will fuck up anything if it gets them power.

(ZCs (Zone coordinators -- inter-continental generally) were also politically fraught, but that post and function was actually somewhat complicated (recall the Berlin wall was still in place) and getting packets into Poland and Hungary, then Bosnia, etc, earlier South Africa under apartheid (one anti-apartheid university connected to FidoNet via a party line (US telephony)!) were actually dangerous for some people.)

As an onboarding doc, at this late date, it's a good description of how it worked/was supposed to work.

For the record John Madill from Baltimore, Fido #2, dew the ASCII Fido dog and was always acknowledged as the author and maybe it's possible he donated it to IFNA, but I suspect not.

#FidoNet #BBS

I was drinking bagged oolong for a while, now loose green sencha. ...

2026-01-20T05:30:14Z

In reply to nevent1q…u29t
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I was drinking bagged oolong for a while, now loose green sencha. And coffee. We have a gaggia espresso machine, but french press too. For that I'll try lower temps.

20 years ago we were at Arcosante, at the cafe, the coffee was amazing... when I asked they said it was some cheap canned ground coffee... they made it by mixing the ground coffee with tap water and left it in the fridge overnight, this made a strong concentrate. It was diluted and heated for serving. I never did try this...

Zojirushi! We have their small (1 lb) breadmaker and its really ...

2026-01-20T05:24:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…udzp
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Zojirushi! We have their small (1 lb) breadmaker and its really great.

We just bought an electric kettle, from Costco, it too has temperature settings and coffee seems to be less acidy with 195F water. I just started experimenting with temperature for tea...

176! I'll try that!

Squirrel ate this much of an orange. Sliced the bitten part off, ...

2026-01-10T17:16:37Z

Squirrel ate this much of an orange. Sliced the bitten part off, the rest went into my yogurt. Seems legit.

And there was a nice FidoNet echo conference::Usenet/uucp ...

2026-01-02T20:20:27Z

In reply to nevent1q…m7u4
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And there was a nice FidoNet echo conference::Usenet/uucp gateway. Bidirectional.

coucouf ⏚ (npub1d3n…5g8h) s0me_d00d (npub1q67…4xez) Cory Doctorow (npub1fdr…lvhs)

Tim Yohannan vehemently denied that 924 Gilman St. Project was ...

2025-12-27T19:12:13Z

Tim Yohannan vehemently denied that 924 Gilman St. Project was ever called the "MAXIMUMROCKNROLL WAREHOUSE" but I have a flyer produced by Tim's crew, very early, calling it just that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Yohannan

It was nearly 40 years ago when I quit Apples OS ROM group, my ...

2025-12-22T21:10:34Z

In reply to nevent1q…hw2r
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It was nearly 40 years ago when I quit Apples OS ROM group, my last pro coding job in that sit at desk in office mode. I hated the corporate structure then, and disgusted by half (only half) of the people I worked with. And I know they thought poorly of me (totally accept that).

It's obviously only become worse, on all fronts.

Lol I did exactly that, here: ...

2025-12-21T03:11:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…puwh
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Lol I did exactly that, here: https://www.bleeve.me/fZ80/index.html

[@mos_8502](https://studio8502.ca/@mos_8502 ) has one... It is very intimate in that way. It's tight to the hardware. The emulated z80 performance is about 10x (50 to 100mhz estimate) but modern ideas hardware and techniques makes the difference.

There is no encroachment from the modern container, it *is* a z80. With very sweet peripherals (serial, disks, screen, all buffered). It's a classic black box.

We know so much more now, half a century of experiences and probably 1000x participants.

#fz80

[@mos_8502](https://studio8502.ca/@mos_8502 )

A succinct speech from Jacques of THE YES MEN on what artists can ...

2025-12-19T21:58:48Z

A succinct speech from Jacques of THE YES MEN on what artists can do in the current shit storm.

https://news.theyesmen.org/p/one-joyful-shit-ton-of-work?triedRedirect=true

The Internet is already dead.... I got to talk to a number of ...

2025-12-15T04:53:56Z

The Internet is already dead.... I got to talk to a number of queer and/or punk young people (teens and 20s) who are fairly prodigious makers of media stuff, all print and music, are clever with phones and computers, but don't put their stuff on the net.

Not only has it become difficult and expensive (shit hosting services, all of them) but once they put things up on the net, none of the promises come true -- none of its features work really at all. Search engines are dead. Absolutely no fucking human is gonna do the promotional bullshit that doesn't even work any more anyways.

I had a world changing experience at this Pretty Gritty show. Sold/gave away 90 or so of the 100 anthologies (so didn't have to cart them home). But mostly networking or the human kind, preparing for the long haul in front of us.

This Internet has been declining in relevance for me for some time. Soft nothing on my websites are searchable, and I know they're cleanly indexable. And I too find little of interest these days.

Technology on and of itself is fucked fascist crap I've long lost interest in. So no loss there.

My short term future is in print, and in computing machinery I can put my hands on, and put into the hands of others.

The net has become a bag on the side. I still deeply love computing, the mechanization of thought, the rigor and experimentation, but this corporate shit im utterly done with.

Law without power is meaningless Power without law is terrorism.

2025-11-29T20:20:03Z

Law without power is meaningless

Power without law is terrorism.

They are lovely aren't they! In so many ways its jus awful, ...

2025-11-15T05:50:25Z

In reply to nevent1q…ysww
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They are lovely aren't they! In so many ways its jus awful, probably 50 characters on the card and refrigerator sized readers. But the tactility of them is great. I like physical media.

I've had this lovely cup for 20 years, maybe more. Given to ...

2025-11-15T04:23:24Z

I've had this lovely cup for 20 years, maybe more. Given to me by a friend, a thrift store find. Someone bonked it bad, the steel was caved in and I used it for pencils etc.

Now I'm thinking I might try to rejuvenate it.

I carefully reshaped it (old ball end pushrods are great) and lots of citric acid got the rust off.

I don't have an enameling setup. I do have two really good hot air tools. Is there "spot" enamel?

I'm more interested in function than perfection. I could just JB Weld it I suppose.

A corporate informant won't let me watch it. ...

2025-11-11T17:01:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…f9v2
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A corporate informant won't let me watch it.

Nostr event nevent1qqs87qq6epyful52d73mmvh4zcydz9e79z6qnnjd3p7knqp9yqnhhfqzyzlmk3zyhhjecjeqjx2v20uj0acfg00j3jlmwhn5wez3kjtqd68rxlrmlv7

2025-11-04T15:57:58Z

So he's officially dead. How could they tell?

I fkn lurv aria ...

2025-11-03T19:38:10Z

I fkn lurv aria

https://aria.dog/barks/forklift-certified-license/

Yeah I read that too. It seemed an odd mention. I think I sounded ...

2025-10-28T04:50:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…mz9k
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Yeah I read that too. It seemed an odd mention.

I think I sounded more defensive of status quo then intended.

It's just that at this point, here in the US, I'm tending to think differently about comms and their survivability.

Signal is what it is. I do trust them, but they have this very large semi central system that has features, and vulnerabilities, and those won't structurally change in the short term. And no one knows if we're gonna have a long term here, just now.

Mastodon doesn't need to manage isochronicity at the ...

2025-10-28T03:10:25Z

In reply to nevent1q…k0a6
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Mastodon doesn't need to manage isochronicity at the milliseconds level.

I *trust* the Signal folk to do their own right thing. Which isn't the same as "believing".

Oh look I made up a stupid meme! No I didn't. ...

2025-10-24T20:39:44Z

Oh look I made up a stupid meme!

No I didn't.

Notes and sketching while thinking is advanced cognition. Hand ...

2025-10-22T05:27:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…kcru
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Notes and sketching while thinking is advanced cognition. Hand eye word. The hand moving is part of the cognition.

We're not meat machines with a ghost driving. That mind body separation thing is a groundless religious concept from another age, and needs to be extinguished from the world. It's fkn harmful.

Internet archive has this, 1996, well into gopherspace' ...

2025-10-21T02:47:40Z

Internet archive has this, 1996, well into gopherspace' demise.

https://web.archive.org/web/19961205055944/http://wiretap.spies.com/

Of course THIS IS NOT WHET WIRETAP LOOKED LIKE, at all, this is a web simulacra that includes some of the contents but has a lot of meta crap.

#gopher

The insides of computers today are about as interesting to most ...

2025-10-17T23:59:21Z

In reply to nevent1q…t9hs
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The insides of computers today are about as interesting to most people as the insides of other complex consumer products like automobiles.

It's too far into the dev cycle of either; this isn't the DOS days not the Ford Model A days. You can't fix them with just some first principles. Top complex.

Finally nailed all the reliability bugs out of MP/M. I've got ...

2025-10-15T19:08:25Z

Finally nailed all the reliability bugs out of MP/M. I've got two machines running heavy continuous programs in all four windows, not one single problem for five days. (Except one ill-designed BASIC test program generates math OVERFLOW errors every couple days.)

Making metal cabinets for them now. Latest board revision has a piezo and driver (hope it works) and so keyclick and disk noises and general purpose sound will come next.

MP/M is pretty minimal as an OS but wow, you can do modern-type work flows with it (editing in one window; perusing related files on another; compiles and tests in another.

No inter-window cut'n'paste but I think I can fix that at the device level...

Someone not me said thatr MP/M II 2.1 is probably the most sophisticated software ever written for the 8080, and I will certainly agree. Its pretty fkn amazing.

What kills performance is disk access. The OS does zero buffering. There's no memory. The driver is doing blocking/deblocking per-drive so there's that, and the CPU is very quick (and soon, quicker) but otherwise it's surprisingly usable, 40 years later.

In California, and other southwestern states, we don't have ...

2025-10-13T01:53:50Z

In California, and other southwestern states, we don't have very many towns along the borders to other states. Unlike say Midwestern states.

If I was truly a good person, I could afford to buy skin food. ...

2025-10-11T23:27:34Z

If I was truly a good person, I could afford to buy skin food.

(Out of town friend wanted to go there and see the consumptive horror, in person. She went alone; I'd probably start screaming.)

Plain white rice, precooked, in plastic grocery containers, is $11.75/lb.

DI.FM. Small private corp that does only dance and trance family. ...

2025-10-11T06:24:50Z

In reply to nevent1q…qr69
_________________________

DI.FM. Small private corp that does only dance and trance family. Inexpensive. I'm s member for years. Free has ads. Paid does not. Lots of channels.

Stepped on piece of chalk?

2025-10-11T01:36:52Z

In reply to nevent1q…z7px
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Stepped on piece of chalk?

Nostr event nevent1qqs09ldleg7wy2mkpmlxmqf43eyzwlzt23me5tlm9x4nc8napqlt4sszyzlmk3zyhhjecjeqjx2v20uj0acfg00j3jlmwhn5wez3kjtqd68rxz7drpc

2025-10-09T23:53:16Z

Great just got email spam from venmo saying venmo and PayPal will ...

2025-10-03T22:37:30Z

Great just got email spam from venmo saying venmo and PayPal will soon be interoperable.

I assume this really means PayPal is buying venmo.

By the end of the BBS era, many modems had dropped the old 300 ...

2025-10-02T20:35:11Z

In reply to nevent1q…mn8m
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By the end of the BBS era, many modems had dropped the old 300 bits/sec protocol. Does the Elsa manual say it supports it, but it's not working?

Is V.21 the same as Bell 103a? (U.S.ian here)

...

Hmm, this says V.21 is a variant of Bell 103... and most models are likely the older, Bell, standard.

I use the word "standard" here in it's 1975 meaning, which is "standards are great! we all have our own that's better!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ITU-T_V-series_recommendations

I don't see Notifications at all, or in any submenu. ...

2025-09-30T22:37:26Z

I don't see Notifications at all, or in any submenu.

My friend Bill Daniel is a massive photo geek, decades now, he ...

2025-09-28T22:52:43Z

My friend Bill Daniel is a massive photo geek, decades now, he somehow does crazy amounts of quality work on a shoestring. He's younger than me but not s lot, and a itinerant punk the whole time I've known him.

He was a bike messenger in San Francisco, where there was a huge messenger subculture, centered around warehouse living and biking and drinking and loud music. We had lots of bike messenger roomies at Shred of Dignity on Shipley St and Illin'noize St.

https://www.squarecylinder.com/2025/09/bay-area-then/

Gates and most other foundations themselves grow, even the ones ...

2025-09-25T22:36:17Z

In reply to nevent1q…f5s4
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Gates and most other foundations themselves grow, even the ones that do good things do things that accrue to their own benefit.

And it's an old model. And exceptions don't disprove the rule. Nothing is 100%.

Matt Hall (npub1awv…ktxl) ⏩︎VOTE⏪︎ ᶜʸⁿⁱᶜⁱˢᵐ⁼ᵃᶜᶜᵉᵖᵗᵃⁿᶜᵉ (Ben Royce) (npub1xw7…r9m5)

Absolutely. This is supported by the fact that nearly zero of ...

2025-09-25T20:09:13Z

In reply to nevent1q…ux24
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Absolutely. This is supported by the fact that nearly zero of them share that wealth. Dozens of cities have done variations of gauranteed minimum income, and every one of them have shown that ordinary folks, given money, spread that boon to everyone around them.

Other than Mackenzie Scott, I don't know of ONE SINGLE RICH PERSON doing anything even close. One billionaire could eg. pay off every American citizen's medical debt. Build 10,000 parks or libraries. They would be beloved for that single act. NOT ONE HAS.

I personally know one person that might have become a billionaire but they've been funding long shot social stuff and said out loud, 'my heirs dont need this much money'. So there must be others.

But an actual billionaire essentially cannot ever run out of money, it's self-perpetuating at that scale.

Each one, a virulent and dangerous sociopath. Every single one.

⏩︎VOTE⏪︎ ᶜʸⁿⁱᶜⁱˢᵐ⁼ᵃᶜᶜᵉᵖᵗᵃⁿᶜᵉ (Ben Royce) (npub1xw7…r9m5)

Hmm, lots... my 14" vertical mill, new in 1990. Many of my ...

2025-09-25T01:08:50Z

In reply to nevent1q…g798
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Hmm, lots...

my 14" vertical mill, new in 1990. Many of my hand tools I bought when I was 18, around 1972... Starrett tools I bought late 90s. Wilton vise, 30 years. I have a 6" precision steel rule made by Union Tool (Orange MA), easily 100 years old, I let it get pitted, so since replaced with a Starrett.

My Tektronix TDS-212 scope I bought new in 1995. Bench adjustable power supplies from the 1970s (bought used from Apex Electronics). Cheapest Giga-sample 2-channel scope at the time...

Though I don't use it, I could: Hewlett Packard Electronic Counter, 521C, five-digit display, electron tube monstrosity. Actually it needs a home, for free, must pick up in Los Angeles! Seriously. Worked perfectly last time I used it, a year or so ago. Come get! It's not that big.

A Cubic Corp V-45 digital voltmeter, alas, it's gone erratic, telephone stepper relay contacts oxidized I think, it's accurate to 0.1% still, it's a first-gen "DVM", a closed-loop automated Wheatstone bridge. Makes lovely sounds while operating. Lol, websearch it, up pops my own web page: https://www.sensitiveresearch.com/Archive/instruments/Cubic-V45/ (alas, sound sample is RealAudio)

Hallicrafters CB-3a CB radio, mobile or base. Perfect working order, I actually used it in an ancient car. Now it sits on a shelf. 1963 I think.

In an art project I made 25 years ago, I have some geiger-muller tubes made in the "Metallurgical Laboratory" at the University of Chicago, 1945. Probably by Fermi's technicians. Historic objects of no worth. One in use still works!

Please take me off this thread. Thanks.

2025-09-23T02:27:34Z

In reply to nevent1q…46y8
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Please take me off this thread. Thanks.

Yes! MP/M as cp/m dev machine is almost great... Editing C ...

2025-09-20T01:53:50Z

Yes!

MP/M as cp/m dev machine is *almost* great... Editing C source in grey window, running the program (grep) in the green one, compile and link in the blue window.

Lol fixing bugs that are basically cheats acceptable in cp/m that are not legal in mp/m, a large part of why mp/m did not catch on.

OMFG is it slow. Compile and link takes 15 seconds, was one. Most of that will improve with known solutions, but probably not all of it. But wow three windows is wonderful.

It may be that a two window solution is optimum, we'll see.

I've often wondered why grapheneOS doesn't run on pine ...

2025-09-19T20:36:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…tvkt
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I've often wondered why grapheneOS doesn't run on pine phone and other libre phone projects. But I haven't asked, either.

Is there any stated reason?

LΞX/NØVΛ (npub1lg0…7yqy) Torsten Grote (npub1a50…evl6) GrapheneOS (npub1kwa…e0nj)

Very agreeable article; but what is a "stocking frame"? ...

2025-09-19T20:15:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…8j78
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Very agreeable article; but what is a "stocking frame"? The device, part of weaving technology? What's the metaphor?

Nice! How many of them, now?

2025-09-19T16:16:53Z

In reply to nevent1q…lvtm
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Nice!

How many of them, now?

And there was never corporate support for Black Lives Matter! ...

2025-09-18T15:04:32Z

In reply to nevent1q…dgfu
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And there was never corporate support for Black Lives Matter! Name one! And a bus ad doesn't count.

Hmmm no. What far-left exists? first of all, and name one ...

2025-09-18T05:05:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…l33p
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Hmmm no. What far-left exists? first of all, and name one corporation that supported such a thing, ever?

Second, no. The dual pressures of bad press and cronyism between corp and fascist gov makes them all comply in the *same way*. As the ones that have complied demonstrably have.

Name one that deviates.

Every single publicly traded corporation is or will soon be ...

2025-09-18T04:25:49Z

Every single publicly traded corporation is or will soon be fascist-supporting.

Prove me wrong.

You can't and won't.

I used these modems back then, they were pretty good. 16,800 ...

2025-09-15T22:42:11Z

In reply to nevent1q…6lkh
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I used these modems back then, they were pretty good. 16,800 bits/sec. Zyxel u1496.

The world didn't/doesn't take standards all too seriously. Zyxel's were non-standard, but did adhere to many standards, so were quite interoperable.

People want fast and cheap. Committees want standards. Cheating and shortcuts are common.

Here's the manual for the 1496, this and the next talk about compatbility. In real life things worked pretty well.

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/527254/Zyxel-Communications-U-1496-Series.html?page=3#manual

Often the modems themselves emulated file transfer protocols on the serial side, so that internally they could cheat with their neighbors. As long as the serial link to serial link conveyed bits fast and reliably, most people didn't care much! lol

Oh and this was probably the last modem I ever used: pretty damn great. Here's the manual also open to the compatiblity page

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/185522/Us-Robotics-Courier-V-34.html?page=18#manual

It's partly apples and oranges comparisons: the 8 bit 8080 ...

2025-09-14T15:32:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…6alw
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It's partly apples and oranges comparisons: the 8 bit 8080 had an average instruction size of 2 or 2.5 bytes or something. An Intel i7 instruction l, nop, is 8 bytes minimum. So right off HELLO WORLD is probably huge.

I assume i7 bare iron initialization, powerrcon to program execute, is larger than all of cp/m and basic utilities.

Of course that i7 may umm accomplish a little more computation once running...

🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑 (npub1sk8…h5th) Bitslingers-R-Us (npub12nd…w7nk)

Much of the bloat of modern computing is in UI. Even today a no ...

2025-09-13T17:29:07Z

In reply to nevent1q…m0fe
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Much of the bloat of modern computing is in UI. Even today a no GUI Linux is fairly small.

UI is one of those places where tech folk spend a lot of picky picky time worrying about feetch.

"Traditional values" must have novel at some point. ...

2025-09-11T18:07:29Z

"Traditional values" must have novel at some point.

Except they weren't, because the whole concept is recently made up revisionist ideology.

"Chauvinism (/ˈʃoʊvɪnɪzəm/ SHOH-vih-nih-zəm) is the ...

2025-09-07T02:01:42Z

"Chauvinism (/ˈʃoʊvɪnɪzəm/ SHOH-vih-nih-zəm) is the unreasonable belief in the superiority or dominance of one's own group or people, who are seen as strong and virtuous, while others are considered weak, unworthy, or inferior.[1]" --WIKIPEDIA

True chauvinists (not mere uber-fans-of-whatever, many of us are that!) are not trustworthy people. Belief in innate hierarchy is deeply suspect to me. Racism is at base chauvinism, a horrible one.

I've innately never liked or trusted in-built hierarchists. The tech chauvinism here gets intolerable sometimes, requiring Drastic Measures.

Luckily we have the tools!

So 1970s! In new never-opened new condition, slight yellowing, ...

2025-09-07T01:14:24Z

So 1970s!

In new never-opened new condition, slight yellowing, absurdly cheap from feePay.

Spot. On. The deep culture of denial that got the religious into ...

2025-09-06T18:05:49Z

In reply to nevent1q…rwu4
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Spot. On.

The deep culture of denial that got the religious into that bind, propelled them through the 80's, it just added more things to hate. Their power and actions today are directly in line with that recent past.

Thank you for the succinct summary!

myrmepropagandist (npub1ppe…qv2g)

Look up "magnetic amplifier" and saturated cores and all ...

2025-09-06T17:14:06Z

In reply to nevent1q…5mn9
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Look up "magnetic amplifier" and saturated cores and all sorts of magnetic weirdness. Saturated core voltage regulators! No active components!

It's well discussed in texts, of course pre net. Not much of ...

2025-09-06T17:12:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…5mn9
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It's well discussed in texts, of course pre net. Not much of the world is on the Internet.

If you can find 1950s McGraw Hill Electrical Engineering titles -- there's probably close to 100 of them, I have maybe 20 -- that world will open right up.

Old tech and especially old science is intentionally thrown away; unlike arts, eg music, where the past can be both ignored or reversed but always valued.

40s through 60s a lot of "analog" techniques -- aka physics -- were of course applied to every problem.

Now that "everything's symbolic" physical approaches are forgotten.

Exactly none of them are interested in "configuring" ...

2025-09-06T17:05:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…qkn6
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Exactly none of them are interested in "configuring" computers. You really need to watch, and warmly understand, how people use these machines.

The snobbiness inherent in the tech world frankly disgusts me. It's divisive, at the least. Nerds are not better people. They're often worse, and the evidence is thisckond of better-than-thou divisiveness, which you can often observe is applied to other things in life, and those very stepwise hierarchical social things are the basis of everything wrong in the world. Please stop.

nixCraft 🐧 (npub1n4n…6ax6)

"Rebinding keys". @npub1n4n…6ax6

2025-09-06T16:59:37Z

In reply to nevent1q…wdyx
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"Rebinding keys".

nixCraft 🐧 (npub1n4n…6ax6)

Camille Paglia.

2025-09-06T05:06:18Z

In reply to nevent1q…98a7
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Camille Paglia.

Thanks! I follow her! She's great! It is. I skimmed, will ...

2025-09-06T04:24:57Z

In reply to nevent1q…jd2w
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Thanks! I follow her! She's great!

It is. I skimmed, will read tomorrow.

Oh I doubt you are wrong about pink. Mundane folk are obsessed ...

2025-09-05T21:25:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…9h0x
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Oh I doubt you are wrong about pink. Mundane folk are obsessed with gender correct signalling esp color.

Our dogs have pink tshirts, chosen by what's available plus were fine with pink. (Red preferred because dogs are filthy slobs.) People on the street insist, in various ways subtle and not that they are or should be girls. It's very very weird to me.

No one says anything to me when I wear pink. But it's ok with dogs, sufficient deflect built in. Sheesh.

He lives in a toy fantasy world. And we help him do it. Every ...

2025-09-05T21:21:36Z

In reply to nevent1q…p0mk
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He lives in a toy fantasy world. And we help him do it. Every other week or so we have to machine wash all the toys (disgusting I mean crusty, crusty) and we pour the huge armload of warm over his head while he sits in the dog bed and there is much joy.

Or a dance party.

2025-09-05T15:57:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…nxr4
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Or a dance party.

Devo says goodnight. ...

2025-09-05T06:04:21Z

Devo says goodnight.

Hey there now young man! You can't be me! Even I have a hard ...

2025-09-05T01:42:34Z

In reply to nevent1q…2gm6
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Hey there now young man!

You can't be me! Even I have a hard time doing it!

(To quote I think Tallulah Bankhead.)

Carl Malamud (npub1jre…alex)

Oh I think the solution is for the US to have its own Nobel ...

2025-09-05T00:40:49Z

In reply to nevent1q…n5f4
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Oh I think the solution is for the US to have its own Nobel system then they'll all get prizes. Then the people will love them.

It's not mean to say I don't think. An 80s, 90s pop ...

2025-09-05T00:31:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…thdp
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It's not mean to say I don't think. An 80s, 90s pop feminist, oh damn what's her name, she said a bunch of stupid things later and fell from grace but was often spot on with her potty mouth, said then, yeah, it's between my life and that zygote, fine, I choose me.

I do think a lot of harm is done by polite people needing to be polite over all other things. Sometimes you just have to accept you'll piss some folk off. This is one of those.

The billionaire class has enough money for 1000 lifetimes. They ...

2025-09-05T00:26:30Z

In reply to nevent1q…pj3l
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The billionaire class has enough money for 1000 lifetimes. They don't need an economy.

I don't want to even imagine the depravity of the things they want to do.

Only along, or close to. the equator though. @npub1f6l…k9zj

2025-09-05T00:13:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…wl67
_________________________

Only along, or close to. the equator though.

mhoye (npub1f6l…k9zj)

Fake photo is fake! Lol That must be quite jarring. Neato.

2025-09-05T00:12:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…3au8
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Fake photo is fake! Lol

That must be quite jarring. Neato.

It doesn't help we have an underfunded and politicized ...

2025-09-05T00:07:47Z

In reply to nevent1q…ty7r
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It doesn't help we have an underfunded and politicized education system where this stuff isn't mentioned.

They're probably trying to look more attractive, in their ...

2025-09-04T23:57:58Z

In reply to nevent1q…kfpl
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They're probably trying to look more attractive, in their push to ai-shittify everything.

Everyone one with money is obsessed with decorum, maintaining it. ...

2025-09-04T21:46:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…uy55
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Everyone one with money is obsessed with decorum, maintaining it. Weird unquestioned class baggage. Except the fascists, who've realized they can work the room because no one wants to be fucking impolite.

I'm standing in an outside cafe the other day, telling someone about the lovely dog seat on my bicycle but you can't buy them anymore because the Nazis in office are grifting off tarriffs. People around me cringed.

Nice well spoken middle class hipsters are fucking cowards. Pretty much every fucking one of them.

This specifically includes all the professions and tech folk. Speak the fuck out and loud and in public.

The volumes of gas fish deal with are very small. And with low ...

2025-09-04T21:40:16Z

In reply to nevent1q…y3n9
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The volumes of gas fish deal with are very small. And with low volume comes low absolute force -- it's force per unit area that matters. So some molecular mechanism at a membrane can put tremendous but tiny force on O2 molecules to pass into a bladder, but the circumstances are nothing like a macroscopically large pressure cylinder. This is an apples vs oranges comparison.

They've probably enshittified.

2025-09-04T21:28:35Z

In reply to nevent1q…6afc
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They've probably enshittified.

I wasn't thinking of electronics though.

2025-09-04T15:50:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…46yt
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I wasn't thinking of electronics though.

Oh believe me I did.... But now we have no ability to import to ...

2025-09-04T15:49:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…kjjl
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Oh believe me I did.... But now we have no ability to import to the US.

Gary :party_porg: (npub1m72…u75y)

1967 gay rights (anti police) protest, Los Angeles. Sigh, the ...

2025-09-04T15:45:02Z

1967 gay rights (anti police) protest, Los Angeles.

Sigh, the signs are almost identical to black civil rights movement signs (same problems, same causes) as is now obvious even to us white folks, now. A bummer it wasn't then.

I was 11 or 12, and on the other coast. I didn't see the commonalities in my youth...