Notices by slash (agreeable_landfall@mastodon.social)

@mwl Years ago, I couldn't get traceroute to work. I discover that our IT folks block ICMP as a security risk. Knowing arguing on the facts was useless, I opted for: "Here's the thing. I can't tell if the problem is mine or yours unless I can get all the way out (of my network.) So when I have a problem at 3am, I'll be forced to call you, just to determine it's my fault." That worked like a champ. Now both ping and traceroute work. ;)

@amszmidt

I think this would trigger the GPL clause requiring source to be provided in "the preferred form of the work for making modifications."

And remember, you are permitted to charge a fee for this sort of thing. It's a "nominal" charge, meaning the cost of media, the time to prepare it, and shipping costs. The Free Software Foundation used to charge $900 for their "everything" tape, back when 9 track tapes were the norm.

@ltning @forgejo @mms

@mms Years ago, there was a music-centric GNU/Linux distribution which did not distribute source, since everything they put out was already available elsewhere.

The FSF explained that each distributor had to provide code themselves, not rely on other repos, because those might become unavailable.

I think Microsoft GitHub counts, as long as the account belongs to the project in question.

GitHub, AFAIK, is available worldwide. Being blocked by a gov or boss is outside the reach of a license.

@jwz Just last night, I walked into a restaurant, asked for a table, and got "What is your phone number?" I ask why they need to know, and I get some story about how they can return lost property, get me points on my <some app I've never heard of>, etc. My companion was only too happy to give out her number. But it still burns me up. If I had been alone, I would have walked out.

@jwz I think they've realized that their targets are people who will never notice that. At best, I'll wager they get <1% click-through, so there's little incentive to do extra work. ;)

@delroth @fosdem @jwz Sorry if I missed the point; I really wasn't opposing the idea since I have no real clue if Dorsey is a horrible human or not. I just read this part "In my view, billionaires are not welcome at FOSDEM." and wanted to share a story about a good person who was a billionaire.

@obsoletesony @jwz What I'd really like is something similar, but which uses an optical scanner. It rotates the record, images the physical groove, and extracts the waveforms for both stereo channels. Then converts those, with corrections for warping and damage, to a full-fidelity audio file.

If it could do that in real time, it would be awesome. And modern computers are so fast, especially with some DSP magic, that it should be possible.

As a bonus, save the optical scan for archival use.

@evacide I can't wait until all those Congress-critters get home on Sunday, and their kids start complaining that "the internet is down" because they can't reach tik-tok. Maybe *they* can explain it to our leaders, because we sure haven't been able to.

@bsdphk 1971 was a _significant_ year. Just scan through this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971

And old article, written by Douglas Hofstadter ("Godel, Escher, Bach"), as an introduction to Lisp.

https://gist.github.com/jackrusher/5139396

@ErickaSimone Vaguely related factoid: The CEO of Digital Equipment Corp (Ken Olsen) put his businesses in marginal areas, and hired locals to boost the economy. When he found out that his black employees were unable to get home mortgages, he started a credit union which loaned them the money at lower rates. And this was back in the 70's.

DEC is gone, but the DEC Credit Union is still in business.

@jwz Per Ted Sturgeon's 1944 story "Killdozer!", this should be a Caterpillar D-7.

They had one on display at the Seabee museum in Ventura, CA. I sorely wanted to add this note to their sign.

@jwz That's weird. I use a Sansa Fuze running Rockbox, and I can mount the drive immediately. I use rsync (actually a wrapper that adds the options to keep FAT from freaking out on me...) to upload all my media. Size never seemed to be an issue, nor number of files. Though I suppose that's primarily because I never hit the FAT limits.

@jwz "Moisturize me! Moisturize me!" Said the last living human...

@glynmoody @pitrh I've been telling people for a very long time: We saw what he was capable of, when he just wanted to stay in power. Now he has real crimes hanging in the balance, and if elected can simply order them to go away (there's a flaw in the system there somewhere...). How far will he go to avoid that? It's literally his only hope.

Watch the video of 1) the guy who leaked a few docs on Discord, and 2) the "raid" on Mar-a-Lago. Discord guy: 16 years. Golf guy: still no trial...

@mms Ugh. I refuse to get a Microsoft account just to tell some FOSS guy his code has a problem. And don't get me started on Discord. Why do people think it's OK to force others to give up their privacy?

@WarnerCrocker What's interesting is how much His Orangeness relies on that "not in force" document to keep him out of jail. And if he were to be elected, I guarantee he'll depend on it (and the SCROTUS) to legitimize the "unitary executive" powers he'll want to exercise.

@babe Does anybody actually read what the FSF has written? Back in the 80's, they were clear: pointing out where documentation is lacking *is* contributing to the project.

This reminds me of my company's helpdesk, who actually said, "Well, no one else has this problem. I'm going to close the ticket." (Which is when I started calling them the "no-help" desk.)