Posts by kfogel@kfogel.org
(DIR) Post #Ai6iRrWeQ3DmhBtFVg by kfogel@kfogel.org
2024-04-04T17:51:44.240921Z
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My new go-to example for how changing one word can change what the other words mean:"Did you set the alarm for six?"vs"Did you set the table for six?"
(DIR) Post #Ai6z5bXor2p1ysPQJc by kfogel@kfogel.org
2024-04-16T05:52:05.077690Z
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The front face of fortune may seem bright, folks, but beware the back!(The Chinese on the back does not say "sauce"; it says "roast duck".)/CC @bokane, who has probably encountered such Quality Control issues before
(DIR) Post #AiT4gbpBDoEsNc0W6C by kfogel@kfogel.org
2024-05-31T18:46:12.445891Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
So, is there a patterned fabric you can use to make a shirt that is anti-optimized for modern video stream compression, such that your meetings totally bog down for all participants because everyone’s client-side code is working so hard to encode/decode the wildly demanding images of your shirt every time you shift slightly in your seat?Asking for a friend.Also adding tags at the request of @femme_mal : #FabricArts #Fabric #SecurityByObfuscation #Obfuscation_Techniques #CodeObfuscation #Nulling #NullingVideo
(DIR) Post #AjkNuG1omwlSSuw0ga by kfogel@kfogel.org
2024-07-09T04:35:31.577296Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
I changed /etc to /etsy on my computer and now the whole filesystem has a much homier, more handmade feel. I highly recommend everyone try it!
(DIR) Post #AkROF475dZGm1GqXoW by kfogel@kfogel.org
2024-07-29T21:47:54.739734Z
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This is my JD Vance explainer. (I've never met him -- this is all based on hearing him speak and on reading about him -- so if you know him better and want to correct or add to this, please do.)JD Vance started out with a feeling of class-based inferiority and powerlessness. (I sympathize; a country with its priorities straight wouldn't have a precariat and wouldn't put children in the position Vance was in.) Then, through a combination of talent, luck, and military service, he made it to prestigious institutions and found himself in positions where influential people could help him.One of the first and most important things he learned was how to manage upward. He learned how to impress influential people (e.g., Peter Thiel) as a bright, earnest, and ambitious young person -- the sort of person whom they'd want to place their bets on, whom they'd want to support.The problem with learning that lesson too well, though, is that it's of only limited use in public affairs. Managing upward takes place in private: you have conversations in which you speak freely, take some measured risks, and even make mistakes, and instead of it being caught on video for all time, it remains private -- indeed, if managed right, those conversations become a tool for building intimacy with your patron.None of that works in a campaign for public office, though, and you can see the deficiency of Vance's training and habits in his public appearances. He's trying to win over the crowd the same way he'd win over a Silicon Valley billionaire at a private dinner at La Bodeguita del Medio in Palo Alto. But it doesn't work, for two reasons: One, it's a crowd, not an individual person or a small group, so his carefully-tuned antennae for reading the room and getting a sense of who he's dealing with are miscalibrated. And two, everything he says is recorded and available for use by the opposition.Great politicians continue to learn. (I don't know whether Kamala Harris is a great politican yet, but she has certainly continued to learn.) What's most surprising about Vance is that he doesn't seem to be learning; he seems to be leaning harder into the person he became as a young adult, instead of discarding old lessons and replacing them with new ones where necessary.I hope he doesn't read this, though. I don't want to give him any tips :-).
(DIR) Post #AqyAvHZaYq0STClZS4 by kfogel@kfogel.org
2025-02-07T20:39:28.470360Z
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Dear Fediverse,What's your favorite FOSS support ticket tracking system? (Note I really do mean support tickets, not the kinds of bug-tracker tickets a software development team uses.)
(DIR) Post #AupRRKECJqUKdllp2W by kfogel@kfogel.org
2025-06-05T17:18:18.992911Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
On average, audits of individuals with high incomes return substantially more money to the government, so proponents have argued they are the most effective way for the tax agency to collect more revenue.(from this NYT article)Sigh. I guess when you're a journalist, you instinctively phrase "the sky is blue" as "witnesses say the sky is blue".But putting the sentence into that style of writing causes it to fail to adequately convey the overwhelming, massively lopsided mathematics of its point. If we just did thorough audits on the 50 or so richest individuals who pay taxes in the U.S., that would probably raise many times the revenue that would be raised by, say, auditing every person who has only one home.Keep the IRS hobbled has been a major policy goal for the very wealthy for decades now, and they've largely succeeded :-/.Here's what I'd like to see in fortune cookies across the country: "Oligarchy unchecked inevitably becomes kleptocracy."
(DIR) Post #AxQtPP1BbZ8Iyivmsq by kfogel@kfogel.org
2025-08-22T15:47:15.364965Z
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Just for next week, everyone switch to pronouncing "logic" with a hard "g" and "login" with a soft "g".
(DIR) Post #AxozW6AtKEYY5A5KUK by kfogel@kfogel.org
2025-02-05T17:15:05.457671Z
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"One of the ways the system protects itself is to describe as deviant behavior describing the behavior of the system."Wow.I always enjoy and learn a lot from Patrick McKenzie (patio11)'s "Complex Systems" podcast, but when he said that in a recent episode, I stopped what I was doing, backed the audio up a bit, and replayed it so I could transcribe it perfectly. (Right after it he gives a great example, by the way.)https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/outside-view-yatharth/
(DIR) Post #AyyMAS4AINeiQBDmc4 by kfogel@kfogel.org
2025-10-07T15:59:19.756962Z
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@danny Ask not for whom the bell tollsIt tolls for ^GFor those who hear it tolling not,It tolls but visually
(DIR) Post #AyyMAZ2eMPbS3VZAiu by kfogel@kfogel.org
2025-10-07T16:08:19.769530Z
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@danny (I don't know why it took me so many edits to get that right. Fortunately, no one on the Fediverse is keeping track of edits, we know that for sure, so only my latest version will ever be part of the historical record. Well. That's a relief.)
(DIR) Post #AzYOPGSev2YaN7QVW4 by kfogel@kfogel.org
2025-09-03T18:36:54.012145Z
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@shanselman This is a pleasing move (not meant sarcastically, I should add, this being the Fediverse). It's not often that one sees git commit times of "48 years ago" in the GitHub code overview UI!
(DIR) Post #AzYOPIBMWJuRi3Lipk by kfogel@kfogel.org
2025-10-24T19:49:29.621379Z
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@kgoetz @shanselman Hey, the standard metaphor is that "version control is a time machine", right?
(DIR) Post #B0BlQxklm6bfv8qRbU by kfogel@kfogel.org
2025-11-10T18:49:05.563795Z
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Dear Fediverse: Does anyone have any great examples of open source projects undergoing successful governance transitions? Or for that matter unsuccessful transitions?I'm interested in all types of projects that have done this, but in particular in those that started from a single founding organization and then later made a transition to effective governance by a broader set of stakeholders. The founding organization may well have encouraged this transition -- I'm not trying to focus on hostile or scandalous forks here, though if your example happens to fall in that category I wouldn't turn it down!(ICIM: Yes, I have read "Governance Matters: Lessons from Restructuring the data.table OSS Project" (Oliviera, Amoakohene, Hocking, Gerosa, and Steinmacher) and seen tickets #5676 and #5656.)
(DIR) Post #B0KWIDOWHrzkcYkKNk by kfogel@kfogel.org
2025-11-17T07:35:37.170072Z
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Apparently, the venerable "10x20" bitmap font from X11 has no equivalent under pure Wayland. I've just tried 19 alternatives, and none of them look nearly as good to my eye.This is all because I'm trying out compiling Emacs with the --with-pgtk option, to avoid stimulating GNOME mutter bug #4416 when switching back to the workspace that has Emacs on it. In a "pure GTK" build, Emacs won't fall back on X11 calls for anything -- it uses GTK alone, which in this case is running on Wayland, so bug #4416 stops affecting Emacs. Which is a win, except that now I can't use the font that has been lovingly glazed onto my retinas over several decades, and my hitherto comforting Emacs suddenly feels like an alien landscape, all jagged rocks and pools of liquid methane lapping at my tired feet.I just want my 10x20 font back. Is that so much to ask? We can build machines that not only pass the Turing Test but do so while arguing with you about the meaning and significance of the Turing Test, and yet we can't preserve a classic font across window manager changes?Progress, thou knave, fly thee from my house! Thy name is sultry betrayal.Now, I've been sticking so far to fonts available by default in Debian + GNOME, so maybe I need to install some more to try. But what I've seen so far is not encouraging.
(DIR) Post #B0KWIKCiy7idk0HVT6 by kfogel@kfogel.org
2025-11-17T07:41:44.778956Z
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Anyone curious about those 19 alternatives can see them in this diff:https://viewvc.red-bean.com/kfogel/trunk/.emacs?pathrev=6889&r1=6889&r2=6888#content
(DIR) Post #B0MH2fODhGJgN7Kcd6 by kfogel@kfogel.org
2025-11-18T03:19:23.229367Z
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@soaproot Thank you! I hadn't found that post, somehow. I did try FreeMono, but there may be various incarnations / size options that make a difference, so I'll give it some more pokes and see how good I can make it look. I wasn't really kidding about the psychological effect of missing the "10x20" font. For many years -- since before we met, if that gives you an idea! -- it's been one of the visual constants of my day-to-day computing experience. As soon as I'd see it in my Emacs, I'd feel a certain comfort, a kind of freeing of cares and at the same time a limbering up of technical competences -- the very shapes of the characters on the screen before me told me that I was on home territory.And that's gone now. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
(DIR) Post #B0QXA67D6bXNBamSOW by kfogel@kfogel.org
2025-11-20T05:02:05.500098Z
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@k3ym0 Wow -- this version is already a derivative of an earlier version I saw circulating just a couple of hours ago or so! (One in which the Microsoft avatar was in the same position but was less flamboyant.)I'm so glad that Randall Munroe publishes XKCD under at least CC-BY-NC (to bad about the "-NC", but in practice I doubt it interferes much with the kinds of derivatives people mostly want to make anyway).RT: https://infosec.exchange/users/k3ym0/statuses/115578093405308873
(DIR) Post #B0f1UrePM1l80Wcpn6 by kfogel@kfogel.org
2025-11-27T03:08:14.123452Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
What happens when you hire René Magritte as your headline writer:
(DIR) Post #B2MUl5yM7ODSqeuWiO by kfogel@kfogel.org
2026-01-16T21:16:12.562615Z
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I was just looking over some database documentation and momentarily misread "denormalizing" as "demoralizing". Well, er, yeah -- that's a pretty reasonable substitution, I suppose.