@HauntedOwlbear
There is a direct DMOZ successor, though it's often either slow or completely down: https://curlie.org/

I was working in silence today, for no better reason than I hadn't turned the speakers on, but then this gently-delayed crowdfunded album landed: C:\Change by Doctor Octoroc. That'll do nicely for a Monday, that will.

#music #vinyl #chiptune

@alvariviris It's possible to strip it all out - I've got a Windows 11 laptop with no ads, no web search, no LLM, no weather, no news - but it's not easy. I spent an entire afternoon getting mine to that point!

@NormanDunbar @alvariviris Only trouble is, it's short-lived. One of the reasons it took so long is half the solutions out there - like disconnecting the NIC to force the creation of a local user account during installation, or using a shortcut key to bring up a command prompt during the setup wizard - don't work any more, as Microsoft keeps tweaking the OS to block 'em.

Remember that #Acorn #Archimedes game I was trying to hunt down a while back?

https://mastodon.social/@ghalfacree/113533616652282871

I (and others) searched *everywhere* - the Archimedes Archive, fan pages, every issue of Acorn User and similar that the Internet Archive has available, even PD library listings. Came up blank.

Well, my father-in-law has come up trumps... not only finding the name of the game *but the game itself*. Including documentation and the shipping packaging.

#VintageComputing #RetroComputing

@waifu
I'm in my third decade of using Linux exclusively on all my machines. I've been published in Linux magazines. I've written books on Linux... *on* Linux.

@HauntedOwlbear Remember AllOfMP3? Dodgy Russian site where you could buy, I'm sure totally legitimate, MP3s... but you paid by the kilobyte, and could choose the bitrate accordingly.

@haitchfive I can, and I wasn't suggesting them as a replacement for Z80s (or any other eight-bit microprocessor).

Human-comprehensible silicon is exactly what Tiny Tapeout's about, though - to the point that it includes SiliWiz, an open-source browser-based tool to teach you how semiconductors work at the metal-and-silicon level:
https://app.siliwiz.com/

If you're interested and have a few minutes to spare, I've an interview about it all up on Make:
https://makezine.com/article/electronics/diy-silicon-design-your-own-chips/

@haitchfive I disagree about a lack of progress in the affordability and accessibility of fabrication facilities: today it's possible to design your own chip using an open-source toolchain and process design kit and have it manufactured for under $10,000 via Efabless' chipIgnite:
https://efabless.com/products

If you want cheaper, you can use a multi-project chip approach like Tiny Tapeout and have your (small, admittedly) design produced for as little as $150:
https://tinytapeout.com/

@feld That's fair: my experience of libmagic has (thankfully) been purely as a consumer.

@Polychrome It's great, isn't it? Tamzen, a fork of Tamsyn - both pixel-perfect bitmap fonts, great for the terminal and readable down to a very small size!

https://github.com/sunaku/tamzen-font

Oh, and how long did each take to run?

Magika:
real: 0m0.289s
user: 0m1.282s
sys: 0m0.717s

File:
real: 0m0.006s
user: 0m0.003s
sys: 0m0.003s

The Future™!

Google, following the industry trend to AI-all-the-things, has released Magika - a machine learning model which can identify file types. It claims it can outperform traditional methods by 20 per cent.

I pitted it against BSD File on something I figured Google hadn't included in its million-file-strong corpus: CU Amiga's Mega CD-ROM coverdisc from November 1995.

Magika identified... one file correctly, a plain-text document. File? File got 'em all, and quicker too.

(An unfair test, I know!)

@HauntedOwlbear The @internetarchive's got your back there: https://archive.org/details/snagglepuss

@HauntedOwlbear I know foot-pounds, but only 'cos I have a few air rifles (which are legally regulated to under 12ft/lbs of pressure before you need a Firearms Certificate) and air pistols (which are regulated to 6ft/lbs, above which they're Very Very Illegal.)

Why yes, I have been having to handle a Windows 10/11 system today, why do you ask?

Dear Microsoft. Here is a list of things I want the Start Menu to do:

* Show my installed programs
* Search my local files
* Provide access to system settings

Here is a list of things I do *not* want the Start Menu to do:

* Show the weather for a randomly-selected town near my network's public IP infrastructure
* Show tabloid headlines
* Show programs I *don't* have installed
* Search the web via Bing
* Show adverts(!)
* Attempt to engage me in conversation with a hallucinating LLM

Thanks.

@Bemused @admin @babe Dunno if this counts, as it's not a Model M - but my Model F was built in 1985. Still fully-functional, using an AT-to-PS/2 adapter into a PS/2-to-USB adapter!

Listening to the #GhostInTheShell OST this afternoon. (I swear, I do *have* albums that aren't #anime soundtracks...)

(Also, I'm mostly just posting this because my mum says she likes seeing 'em - hi, mum!)

#music #vinyl