Notices by THE MARTYR OF BUTLERIAN JIHAD (icon_of_computational_sin@mstdn.starnix.network)

Software is almost exactly like magic. It's spells and arcane incantations, written in obscure languages.

And just like with magic (in some fictional universes), modern software tends to be more flashy and complex, yet fails to solve a lot of problems where old software excels. Hence many still use Emacs.

I wish this wasn't the case.

@phnt GNOME doesn't pay even GNOME developers except some gay trans black outreachy interns. And they certainly didn't pay the libxml2 maintainer. The library isn't a part of GNOME, they just provided the hosting for code and CI.

@phnt core parts of many things depend on libxml2, and yet here we are.

Then again, I've no idea what your point here even is, other than "it's all GNOME fault". Can you sum it up in a single concise sentence?

@phnt fair enough. Then again, anyone who depends on this project could chip in. There was no need to get to this.

Or we could all just collectively agree that XML sucks donkey balls and burn it with fire.

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libxml2/-/issues/976

Remember, lads. You don't owe corporations any security fixes for free.

You don't owe them security fixes. Period.
You don't owe them taking their money.
You don't owe them any support.
You don't owe them 90 days grace period before disclosure.

In fact, the abhorrent "responsible disclosure" practice is among the factors that power the currently existing software monoculture. Without it, Windows and macOS and Linux systems would be ravaged and burnt by viruses exploiting 0day holes every week, if not every day, forcing the users to diversify their software choices. Can anyone even remember that lack of viruses was among the main reasons that drove nerds to Linux some 20 years ago in the first place? Meanwhile, today Linux is the largest provider of botnet devices.

FULL DISCLOSURE is the only way forward. If you know something, say something! If you find a 0day bug, tell the whole world about it as soon as possible!

@phnt Linux kernel is underfunded. Out of some $300 million of Linux Foundation annual budget, only ~2% go to maintaining the kernel. Torvalds gets more money in annual bonuses on top of his salary.

In fact, Linux Foundation and other similar non-profits are more tax avoidance schemes that software development funds.

More news at 7.

Are there any internet forums focused on tech and programming left alive? I'm not talking about social networks with followers and like or karma-based garbage like Reddit and StackOverflow.

Literate programming is among the most underappreciated ideas. Imagine, this code could've had proper diagrams with references and links to other parts of the program. Instead we're stuck with plain text.

Which would've been fine, except the most popular programming editor runs on a browser engine and comes with the embedded XBox controller driver.

I could agree that LaTeX is an overkill for writing code. But something similar to Orgmode would totally nail it.

How do I even? Why? What the fuck? Why is GNU tooling always broken? What the hell is this bullshit? I can't take this GNU delusion seriously any more. Any piece of their software that I touch is either ridiculously broken when I use it in a slightly non-standard way (gcc, gdb), designed to only understandable by violently deranged autists (emacs), or is plain bloated crap (glibc).

LLDB works fine by the way.

There's CondUwUity :apu_wow:

https://matrix.org/ecosystem/servers/

Which Matrix server is going to give me the least headache in the coming couple of years? Dendrite is on life support. CondUwUit is dead. Synapse is a clog. What else do we have?

I find it immensely ironic that it was the L'Eunuchs eunuchs who eventually gave us Goolag and Facebook out of the best possible intentions they had, not the IBM suits or Microsoft fanatics. Loinus Torovaltus with his free and endlessly modifiable kernel is much more gullible for creating the digital panopticon than Gill Bates could ever be. :rms: unknowingly brought on the nightmares he predicted himself while doing nothing substantial to avert or at least postpone them.

If you ever see a L'Eunuchs fan who claims that free software will save the world, spit in his face. He is a part of this problem, a useful idiot to someone else's much more evil cause.

"The Eternal Mainframe" by Rudolf Winestock is some quality read.

Anyway. The point is that people moved away from mainframes because they wanted to be free. They didn't want to be shackled by IBM's by-the-minute CPU charges and other restrictions. They didn't want their destiny altered by anything other than their own free choices.

This is why “free” and open source software (FOSS) will not help us. A software license touches on the software, not on the human relationships which the software mediates. It is those relationships that lock us into positions where Zuckerberg's foot is on our necks. In fact, it's FOSS that has enabled the web companies to bootstrap their start-ups so quickly and cheaply. It's FOSS that gave those web companies the flexibility to insinuate themselves as gatekeepers over our personal data.

The desktop computer won't completely disappear. Instead, the outward form of the personal computer will be retained, but the function — and the design — will change to a terminal connected to the cloud (which is another word for server farm, which is another word for mainrack, which converges on mainframes, as previously prophesied). True standalone personal computers may return to their roots: toys for hobbyists.

Link: https://www.winestockwebdesign.com/Essays/Eternal_Mainframe.html

Surprisingly, there are lots of people defending Telegram with an argument that "nobody has a proof that Durov cooperates with FSB/CIA/Mossad".

The problem here is, there doesn't need to be one. On the contrary, in the modern day and age a service provider needs to convince its users that it doesn't leak data. And Telegram does a shit job of this.

P.S. even if Telegram doesn't leak data today, too much of it is transmitted and stored in the cleartext. Therefore, this will happen eventually.

I mean, yes? How is this news to anyone?

Link: https://rys.io/en/179.html

When in order to write software, you must debug the tools you have used, and then it turns out you need to also debug the tools you need for debugging.

What am I even doing with my life? Does anyone know a good GUI frontend to GDB? I really need something more advanced that CLI.

Jay Kreps chose to name the software after the author Franz Kafka because it is "a system optimized for writing", and he liked Kafka's work

Yeah, you can really tell.

Turns out, Arch Leunuchs people build Haskell packages with dynamic linking because... Arch maintainers build packages on their own computers instead of a centralised build farm.

Source: https://reddit.baby/r/linux/comments/9emwtu/arch_linux_ama/e5qssdz

>___<

L'Eunuchs systems should not just break ABI across distros and software versions, but across boots of the same system. Either you compool everything on launch or GTFO. This would organically force all software distributed in source code only, thus fulfilling the GNUtard wet dream.

Win32 is the only stable ABI on Linux

Duh...

Link: https://blog.hiler.eu/win32-the-only-stable-abi/

p.s. i believe there's a letter missing in that domain