Notices by Colin the Mathmo (colinthemathmo@mathstodon.xyz)

OK, here's a challenge.

I distinctly remember reading a story or novel in which, at one point, two computers were "talking" and one offered the other a banana. This was apparently an aggressive thing to do, basically an insult or attack of some sort.

Do any of my peeps recognise this? My search-fu has failed me completely.

Boosts for reach welcome, and thanks in advance.

OK ... #Linux help needed.

I'm trying to update my 20.04 machine to 22.04, thence to 24.04. I've run:

$ apt update
$ apt upgrade

But I'm getting :

E: The repository 'https://repo.skype.com/deb stable Release' no longer has a Release file.

N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.

Then when I try:

$ do-release-upgrade

I get:

Checking for a new Ubuntu release

Please install all available updates for your release before upgrading.

Help?

Should I somehow work to expunge all knowledge of skype (and I'd be more than happy to do that) or should I somehow force the upgrade?

TIA

I've tried doing web searches for this, but everything seems to be assuming more knowledge than I have, and nothing seems to make sense. I've looked at the suggested man pages, and I can't see anything relevant.

I will continue to search while I wait for any assistance.

@pettter I've tried to do that ... the web search suggests:

nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xyz-ubuntu-ppa-focal.list

But that file doesn't seem to exist.

@pettter Just done that, and have this:

# ls /etc/apt/sources.list.d | cat
alex-p-ubuntu-tesseract-ocr5-focal.list
alex-p-ubuntu-tesseract-ocr-focal.list
alex-p-ubuntu-tesseract-ocr-focal.list.save
google-chrome.list
google-chrome.sources
linrunner-ubuntu-tlp-focal.list
linrunner-ubuntu-tlp-focal.list.save
signal-xenial.list
signal-xenial.list.save
skype-stable.list
skype-stable.list.save
ubuntu-esm-apps.list
ubuntu-esm-infra.list

In particular:

# ls /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sk* | cat
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/skype-stable.list
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/skype-stable.list.save

Should I just delete those files?

Do you know a young person?

Ask them what famous people they've heard of from before 1950 and let me know.

For example: Einstein? Marie Curie? Cleopatra? Donatello? da Vinci? Isaac Newton? Queen Victoria? Elizabeth I? Henry VIII? William Tell? Robin Hood?

Ask them, and let me know ...

(PS: Boosts would be welcome to get this outside my bubble ... TIA)

@neil Seen on a bumper sticker recently:

:w! saves

I was driving, so couldn't get a photo ...

Why would *anyone* choose to cross a border into or out of the USA at the moment?

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/2026/03/20/canadian-mother-and-her-seven-year-old-daughter-detained-in-texas-husband

Paperwork fully in order, legally permitted to be in the country, and hauled off into detention.

#USA #Travel

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone" -- Blaise Pascal

"It is difficult to get someone to understand something when their salary depends upon their not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair

Apparently in Italian there is a word for:

"Men of retirement age who spend their time watching construction sites, especially roadworks – stereotypically with hands clasped behind their back and offering unrequested advice to the workers."

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

@blockforest One could say "I nearly caught it" which, despite the presence of "caught" means you actually missed it.

I read "I just about caught is" as equivalent to, but even more whisker-like, as "I nearly caught it".

@david @ykonstant

"I once absent-mindedly ordered Three Mile Island dressing in a restaurant and, with great presence of mind, they brought Thousand Island Dressing and a bottle of chilli sauce." -- Terry Pratchett

Just a reminder that while the amount of time of daylight will, in the Northern Hemisphere, now start to increase, nevertheless the time of sunrise will continue to get later until it reaches it's latest time on Dec 29th or Dec 30th.

It's just that the sunset is *also* getting later, and from now on (for a few months) at a rate greater than sunrise.

Just thought I'd mention.

#Solstice #Solstice2025

@neil If you take the "c" from the from and the "x" from the end of "cardboard box" you get

"Ardbo Ardbo".

"Fox News did to our parents what our parents were afraid video games would do to us." -- Stephen King

If you are unfamiliar with the Quakers, also known as "The Society of Friends", you might not realise just how ... direct ... this language is. It feels so mild, but I can feel them vibrating with anger.

https://www.quaker.org.uk/documents/re-statement-of-policy-on-provision-of-trans-inclusive-facilities

Asking about #Portuguese ...

If you're a native speaker, does this sound natural to you?

"A investigação não foi suficiente para explicar muito."

Understand that, in my head, as:

"The investigation was not enough to explain everything".

But the "muito" makes me think:

"The investigation was not enough to explain a lot".

But that doesn't sound natural to me, a native English speaker[0].

Thoughts?

[0] Actually a weird mix ... I grew up in Australia, but always had a slightly odd hitch here and there in my use of language.

"I've said I want to die on Mars. Just not on impact." -- Elon Musk

@johncarlosbaez Also:

Mathematics in archaeology: return to basics. Science and Archaeology 28: 32-7 (1986)

I should see if I can find copies of these on-line. Or indeed, IRL.

CC: @sarahtaber