Notices by Aaron Toponce ⚛️:debian: (atoponce@fosstodon.org)

A play in 2 acts.

@ekis As a mathematician, I want real numbers. 1/6 is a real number, but in programming languages, it's an operation instead. This triggers my OCD.

@ryanc Yeah, I guess. 1/6 is a number though just as much as 0.16666666666666666. I guess I could do:

{
"n": [0, {"/": [1, 6]}, 2]
}

And handle the operation in my code, but that's annoying.

This should be valid JSON:

{
"n": [0, 1/6, 2]
}

But alas:

"Invalid JSON!
Error: Parse error on line 2:
{ "n": [0, 1/6, 2]}
-------------^
Expecting 'EOF', '}', ',', ']', got 'undefined'"

Ugh.

#javascript #programming

@mkj @dangoodin I'm not advocating that you should use it. I'm only drawing attention to the fact that Saturnin is a symmetric block cipher designed specifically with quantum computing threats in mind. That's all.

@bosak Indeed. Everyone communicates temperatures to each other accurate to one decimal point, right? 😉

Some of us are aware that -40° Celsius is also -40° Fahrenheit. It's the only point where the two scales agree.

But did you know there are palindrome temperatures and they're very useful also!

16° Celsius = 61° Fahrenheit
28° Celsius = 82° Fahrenheit

#coffee #math

@tychotithonus @ryanc Doesn't 0x1E solve this problem as a record separator, or am I misunderstanding?

@evan This is some wild stuff! TIL.

Generative AI is garbage, exhibit 99:

#ai #math

"BSD, Lunix, Debian and Mandrake are all versions of an illegal hacker operation system, invented by a Soviet computer hacker named Linyos Torovoltos, before the Russians lost the Cold War. ... Torovoltos is a notorious hacker, responsible for writing many hacker programs, such as 'telnet', which is used by hackers to connect to machines on the internet without using a telephone."

#Linux #BSD

https://web.archive.org/web/20110226033326/http://www.adequacy.org/stories/2001.12.2.42056.2147.html

I'm not a #NixOS user. I've never installed it. I've only seen discussion about it on Reddit. I'm vaguely familiar with its intended audience and purpose.

But this purge is wild. I mean, you can't separate politics from software. Software is inherently political strictly because the developer who is writing it has political opinions which will inevitably make it into their project.

But for the vocal minority to overwhelm a project, its founders, and core devs? Wow.

https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5819317/nixos-commits-a-purge-of-nazi-contributors-forces-abdication-of-founder

Geordi La Forge weighs in on the "tabs versus spaces" debate.

#programming

TIL Richard Stallman stole source code from Gosling EMACS, replaced the license headers with his own, and integrated it into his #GNU #EMACS. Over time he eventually replaced all the original code, but only after initially replacing the license headers first.

Why wasn't he sued? How do you sue a homeless man? What do you sue him for?

@ryanc Let me think about it.. I stuck with Diceware to pay homage to Arnold Reinhold, seeing as though it's based on his PassGen2. But it could probably use another word list.

HUZZAH! Trivium test vectors pass. Time to integrate.

Much excite.

Got the ChaCha RNG working with "absorb" and "squeeze" sponge-like functionality (it's cheating).

I think I need to completely rewrite my Trivium code and take a different approach. I just can't match the test vectors. Probably something to do with endianess.

An idea crashed into my head over the weekend and now I'm committed to seeing it through.

In addition to the Spritz cipher as a DRBG for PassGen3, what if I also added the ChaCha8 and Trivium stream ciphers, allowing the user to choose?

ChaCha8 is written and passes test vectors. Implementing it though means adding "absorb(data)" and "squeeze(count)" functions so I have a consistent API with Spritz.

Trivium is written but doesn't pass test vectors. I'm pulling my hair out as to why.

If you want to play around with it.

https://atoponce.github.io/passgen3/