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rip botsin space
botsin.space/@muffinista/11339…


Hey friends, it's hard to write this, but it's time to retire botsin.space. I wrote a post about it here: muffinlabs.com/posts/2024/10/2…

TLDR the site will go read-only on or around December 15th.

I'm so thankful for all the support and good times here ❤️ thanks everyone




On this day, six years ago, David John Duncan, well-known to some, unknown to most, but wonderful author of science fiction and fantasy novels, passed away. I have read as much of Dave's stuff as I can get my hands on. He is an author that I'm very fond of. I enjoy his books and the stories he tells.

My introduction to Dave was the first book in his Seventh Sword series, which is called The Reluctant Swordsman. It's a portal fantasy novel. It was published in 1988, and it follows the mind of a gentleman called Wally Smith, who ends up in the body of a swordsman of the seventh rank, the mighty Shonsu, who was killed in his fantasy world, and Wally's mind brought across to re-inhabit the body by the world's goddess in an attempt to complete a mission for her. The subsequent two books in the series complete that arc, and it's a very satisfying trilogy of books. 24 years later, Dave published a fourth book in the series, showing the evolution of the characters after the main quest had completed, and it was a very satisfying way to meet Dave as an author.

in reply to Sean Randall

Curious which came first, the audio recording or the written post? If the latter, then you really made it quite natural when reading it it out.
in reply to Sean Randall

Oh good on you. While I'm not self-conscious when actually talking to humans, I don't think I'd ever ad-lib something for the purpose of an audio recording. I should practice that more so that I would sound more polished when speaking off-the-cuff, especially minimizing the filler utterances.
in reply to Timothy Wynn

@twynn I hate the sound of my voice, but so few people come and speak about things they care for I feel like it's important to do when I can.
in reply to Sean Randall

When I tell people I've read over 18,000 pages of Dave Duncan's writing, they say to me, where do I start? Where do I begin? How do I get into this author? You know, what's a good opening? And that's so hard to answer, because although Dave's got a lot of tropes that he sticks to, and he's got a very distinctive style, he doesn't do the same thing twice, as counter to what I've just said, as that may sound. He makes a new world, a unique world, and then plays by its rules. And that's something that not a lot of authors can say. I think it's even rarer to be able to identify a piece of work as an author's, yet not know where it's going to end up. You know, that's pretty clever. So I would say that you should probably start with the opening to one of the series, because that way, if you don't like it, you don't have to read more. But if you do like it, you know there is more, and that's really cool. So we've got The Reluctant Swordsman, of course, is the start of the fantasy, portal fantasy, The Seventh Sword. The King's Blades books are also based on swordsmanship, although not portal books. And they're really clever, because the stories stand more alone there, and they sort of intertwine, but in a more subtle, non-serial way. The Great Game is a trilogy of books set both during the First World War, and in an alternate world called Nextdoor, one of my particular favourite series. Nostradamus is a series set in Venice, Italy. Those are just a few of the series that you can start off with. And if you like them, and you know you like Dave's Stile, then you can pick a standalone book and think, oh, you know, I'm in the mood for something this long, and give that a try. Lots of options.


dear menstruating ADHD people

There is a student running a survey on ADHD and Menstruation

reddit.com/r/AdultADHDSupportG…

Help them out with their assignment if you have the spoons

#ADHD #AFAB



Creo que algo que podría ayudar a vencer el racismo mexicano sería ayudar a los haitianos a abrir restaurantes

Estoy viendo sus recetas y básicamente están cómo

UN HABANERO DOS HABANEROS TRES HABANEROS JA JA JA



botsin.space PSA

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in reply to colin mitchell

botsin.space PSA

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spent some time today working on this diagram of how the ASCII control characters work in unix

there are a lot of mistakes/missing nuance but I think it's really interesting how little structure there is. Special codes (like `3` for SIGINT) that are handled by the OS are mixed with just regular keypresses (like `13` for "enter”) which are mixed with codes that are handled by the application (like `1` for Ctrl-A in readline)

(not looking for an ASCII history lesson right now)

This entry was edited (1 day ago)



Dneska jsme dali Bibury. Krasně bylo, hafiny si daly PupCup zmrzlinu a užily si to.
in reply to Archos

@archos půjčíme jí místo Vicka Snowy a kdyby jí chyběly děti, máme v rezervě dvě. A vína a ginu máme plný bar 😀


#Catima 2.32.1 is out!

This fixes a regression in 2.32.0 which could break text display in the add dialog in non-English languages which I sadly missed in review: github.com/CatimaLoyalty/Andro…

It also contains some translation updates that were submitted between the last release and just now.

Coming soon to an app store near you :)

#Android #IzzyOnDroid #GooglePlay #GitHub



#AndroidAppRain at apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid today brings you 10 updated & 1 removed apps:

SwiftNotes had to be removed again due to license/copyright reasons (a fork without giving credits), it's repo is meanwhile unavailable too.

Updated apps include Catima, fixing a regression introduced with yesterday's update (yupp, @SylvieLorxu is fast with fixing and really taking care! 😍).

All 7 #reproducibleBuilds succeeded as well!

Enjoy your #free #Android #apps with the #IzzyOnDroid repo :awesome:



#portfolio old illustrations for Mexican characters, included a "tamales calientitos" vendor (many of them use tricycles, which are both their point of sale and their means of transportation).
This entry was edited (1 day ago)


[Blog Post] Apple Introduces Redesigned Mac Mini, Updates iMac and Mac Accessories applevis.com/blog/apple-introd…


Be kind to your American friends this week. Being an American the week before a presidential election is a bit like being a dog during a fireworks show


Whats new in Fedora Workstation 41 lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_l…


How to turn the new Mac mini on/off.

This is not a joke. I repeat, I’m not joking

This entry was edited (1 day ago)


Democrats on #Twitter are shocked—shocked!—to discover that a mysterious cloak of invisibility has descended over their messages.

wapo.st/4fmNIvF

in reply to James Gleick

@simon Why do people even follow Elon? I tried for a few weeks a few years ago and figured he wasn't saying anything worth listening to...


At a GitHub workshop

me: *attempts to clone the workshop repo locally on a lab machine set up in the room*

HTTP clone: *auth errors*

`gh clone`: *timeout*

me: *creates an SSH key, installs it in the demo user account, tries to clone with GIT_TRACE=1 GIT_CURL_VERBOSE=1*

SSH: *stops transferring after the first 1.5MB*

me, to facilitator: "should I be expecting a git clone op to work here?"

hubber: "why are you trying to clone locally? You can run CodeSpaces in your browser."

I just,,,

🤦‍♂️

in reply to Ben Zanin

it *is* more or less possible to code remotely on a CI, but it's a monumental waste of time!

Personal computing forever.

in reply to Federico Mena Quintero

@federicomena I agree! It is! I've done it! That's why I'm instinctively avoiding it!

*extremely Hack The Planet voice* PERSONAL COMPUTING FOREVER!!



XMPP 2.0 is finally here (modulo the spec release)!
in reply to Daniel Gultsch

I think xmpp no longer meets the requirements of modern messengers. And no matter how you decorate it, nothing normal will come out of it. xmpp still doesn't have e2e encryption by default, tls is nailed to xmpp so it becomes problematic to use it in darknet networks where tls is not needed at all.



something_in_a_unit_test().unwrap();

^ Err type doesn't implement Debug so I can't call unwrap()

.map_err(|_| ()).unwrap();

I hate myself sometimes.

(That's the "toilet closure", BTW.)



Very upsetting that our barista had never heard of Tori Amos. We gave her a prescription of "Listen to 'Little Earthquakes' and call us in the morning."
in reply to Erion

@erion The slow build in that song is perfect.
This entry was edited (1 day ago)


Presidential Prediction

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in reply to Bruce Toews

Presidential Prediction

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in reply to Jason Fayre

Presidential Prediction

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Taťkovi hodinky.
Teď budou odměřovat čas na mojí ruce....
in reply to Kateřina

@Kateřina Nemůžu si pomoct, ale "taťkovy hodinky" mi evokují jednu scénu z Pulp fiction.
This entry was edited (1 day ago)


LOL. Best design in the world.

M4 Mac Mini's Power Button Has New Bottom Location

(Narrator: it's underneath)

macrumors.com/2024/10/29/m4-ma…




I just released a Windows MIDI driver version of Timidity. datajake.braillescreen.net/uti…
As with the VSTi, it requires a set of Gravis Ultrasound patches in order to work. Once installed, a Timidity Configuration option will be in the Control Panel, and from there you can point the driver at the appropriate Timidity configuration file.


It's official - Matrix 2.0 implementations are here and ready for mainstream use! 🎉🥳🎊 Come watch the keynote from The Matrix Conference and learn about the joy of instant sync ⚡️, next-gen auth 🔐, native VoIP 🎦 and Invisible Crypto 👻: matrix.org/blog/2024/10/29/mat…
in reply to hexaheximal

@hexaheximal not yet, but it may get simplified sliding sync automatically from matrix-js-sdk


Apple unveils a Mac mini with a much smaller design, M4 and M4 Pro options, two front-facing USB-C ports, up to 64GB of RAM, and more, shipping Nov. 8 for $599+ (Chris Welch/The Verge)

theverge.com/2024/10/29/242815…
techmeme.com/241029/p16#a24102…



How to print from Linux using only the command line lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_l…


Kali Linux Phases Out Obsolete 32-bit Architecture linuxtoday.com/blog/kali-linux…


The risks of OpenAI's Whisper audio transcription model: baldurbjarnason.com/2024/opena…


The wait is over, videos from The Matrix Conference 2024 are here!

Find recordings, photos, press, and our sponsor prospectus for 2025 in the latest blog post: matrix.org/blog/2024/10/29/mat…

#MatrixConf #Matrix #OpenSource #FOSS



Billionaire who pay no tax want to buy a business that is solely based on tax dollar paid contracts.

So much for trickle down economy.




In all the election news today something I missed - Canada could finally be getting HIGH SPEED RAIL cbc.ca/news/politics/high-spee…


We believe in the ability of Mastodon to create distinct, cohesive communities while also being able to talk to the world, so we’re excited to see people signing up for our inaugural meet-up via Zoom. There's still time to get the deets.

It’s happening this Saturday at 4 PM US Eastern time, 20 UTC. That’s currently 8 PM in the UK, 9 AM on Sunday in New Zealand, 7 AM in Eastern Australia.
This get together is open to CaneAndAble members. If you would like the Zoom link, please send a direct message to this account from your CaneAndAble account, and we’ll ensure you have the link in good time for the event.
Lynette and Jonathan will talk a bit about the instance and answer any questions or take your suggestions. Then we’ll just open it up for a conversation between all the members who attend. We’re particularly interested in getting questions or comments about making the most of mastodon, using Mastodon apps on various platforms, and other ActivityPub services.
We’re really looking forward to it. See you on Saturday.

in reply to Cane and Able Navigators

this is a great idea. I rarely participate in this sort of round table thing just because of blindness, there's often a perception that I want to speak to people purely because we share a disability.
But I love the community approach here and hope your meeting is wonderfully successful.



@panoramax The number of 'panoramax'-tags has suddenly skyrocketed. Maybe cause I've moved about 10K pictures?

For more info, see github.com/pietervdvn/MapCompl…

This entry was edited (1 day ago)

Pietervdvn reshared this.

in reply to MapComplete

For clarity: we are moving all images which are on imgur and which have a clear license in the description. These are 99% images which were made with MapComplete.

Why? Imgur updated their TOS and we are now in violation of it. This means that they could simply delete the images overnight and/or cut off our API-access overnight - like they did cut off our access to upload new images. (Luckily, @thibaultmol sprang into action to setup a server and @pietervdvn implemented uploading)

Pietervdvn reshared this.

in reply to MapComplete

We moved about 10K images already, about 2.8% of all 'image'-tags in the #OpenStreetMap-database. All those moved images are made in Flanders.

There are 19K images hosted on Imgur, of which the vast majority (probably 18K) are made with MapComplete and will be moved soon.

If your app supports the image tag, it might be neat to start supporting panoramax too. See the wiki for details. OpenAEDMap just implemented it (see github.com/openstreetmap-polsk…, might not be live ATM)

This entry was edited (19 hours ago)

Pietervdvn reshared this.




Where does the mastodon #embroidery crew hang out?

I've been playing around with art, and I wanna get inspired and chat with y'all.