mastodon 4.7.3Software crafter/engineer/TDDer; open source developer; real-time/fault-tolerant systems; Transputer & FORTH enthusiast; radio amateur MØCUV; Couch to 5K runner (lapsed); learning Japanese 🇯🇵. Uses AI/LLMs conscientiously.
Let's stick with the past, 'cos the future won't last.
Will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, de-briefed or numbered!
[Avatar: photo of me & my dog Oscar, a white cockerpoo; Header is a quote from the Postlight podcast entitled "Can We Understand Coders?"]
So the sleuths are out in force, trying to unmask #AngineDePoitrine, which I find sad. I don’t need to know who they are, just like I didn’t benefit from that recent exposé on Banksy: my life isn’t enriched by such exposures. These guys just want to bring a mix of exceptional musicianship and bizarre performance art to the world; I think we need something real like this, at a time when things seem increasingly artificial. I’ve been grooving to their KEXP performance all day. More 🔺 please!
I think the essence of Docker was captured perfectly in this picture “Reflecting on Docker Compose”, by @vangogh@mastodon.satire.
Well I didn’t get to do the POTA I thought I might, but the battery box is done, and I now have all the measurements & configurations needed to rapidly deploy the red slug & JPC-350 coil/whip for all HF bands 80m-10m, plus a possible 6m (oops missed 5MHz). It’s quite a versatile antenna! I’ll blog it….
Further progress on my Morse re-learning.. I’ve continued with Ham Morse (iOS), doing 25 sets of 5 random characters (perfect audio/timjng), to get my recall back - still writing everything down, but also using “QRQ CW” (iOS) by Ake SM6Y - which plays random words, abbreviations, callsigns, number sets etc then after a pause, speaks them - to (hopefully) improve my head reading. I’m not writing, listening with eyes closed. It’s perfect (very nicely keyed) Morse. Also Morse Walker (mobile web)..
Latest earworm that’s boggling my mind: Angine de Poitrine. #Microtonal #prog #jazz and visually… well, take a look!
https://youtu.be/0Ssi-9wS1so?si=AFlYJLvv8M6qlleR
🔺
One of those rare moments, when you're puzzling over a large body of code and think "I could really do with getting back into Microsoft Project to work through the critical path of these deliverables!".
SEND HELP.. I'm actually contemplating getting Windows 2000 installed in a VM and Office/Project 97... (possibly the last good version of all this before the rot set in).... I have the media & keys still...
Docker is very useful, but my visceral loathing of it is because… I’ve … seen things you people wouldn’t believe… …
Has anyone tried modifying store e-ink shelf displays to turn them into useful gadget displays? I see them in many stores now - some are around 4 inches square, quite a useful size, with several colours. I looked on Aliexpress, and they certainly don't seem cheap in unit quantities - £35ish? There must be economies of scale for shops. Pimoroni sell their 'Inky wHAT' 4.2" 4-colour display for £36. Are there cheaper options? #eink #electronics #display #hamradio (ish)
Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.
Except when docker is involved, then it’s more like WTF, OMG, Waaaaah!, Why me, O Lord?
A candidate outside the polling station was wearing Meta AI glasses, and asked me for my polling card number; I declined and said “Nice Surveillance Glasses”. I believe photography at polling stations is illegal?
Hrumpf. Having to update to iOS 26.4 to protect against that nasty security problem on iOS 18, which Apple aren’t fixing on phones that can upgrade to 26. Wonder if I can win a speed record for world’s fastest disabling of Liquid Glass ugliness after initial update? But I’ll be stymied by having to prove I’m old with the new age verification idiocy. Pardon me while I find my original vinyl of Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen” to play at the damned phone.
How might one clone, say, Debian? Not an installation of it - create a mirror of all its sources, and set up a build infrastructure to create a distribution of it? Or other popular distros - in case they “go evil” or start introducing freedom/privacy-impacting things like “age verification “ (surveillance) ?
.. to practice callsign reception with simulated band conditions, timing variance, fading. Also reading up on POTA, going to crack this!
The “red so239 ground spike telecopic whip antenna” kit from AliExpress has arrived - an article on the parts is at https://brokensignal.tv/pages/20-meter-vertical-whip-antenna-under-25.html - lunchtime shenanigans, methinks.
I love the whimsy that prog bands enjoy. Only in prog would you find a song called “a pleasant major chord that says something about what it's like to see without being seen” (Google translation from the original Norwegian). From Actionfredeg’s first album “Turist in eget liv” (Tourist in one’s life)
Other activities: reading The Mystery of the Aleph, recounting the life and work of George Cantor and the development of transfinite numbers, set theory etc. a very enjoyable read that’s making me wonder if I could re-attempt understanding Analysis afterwards… or would it just lead to more embogglement?