Roger BW 😷

@davidgerard@circumstances.run @tante@tldr.nettime.org "The last 213 times it was blatant lies and spin, but this time you should be scared!"

@tante@tldr.nettime.org Time to become a member, I'd been meaning to anyway. Thanks.

@zzt@mas.to @lproven@social.vivaldi.net @davidgerard@circumstances.run @denisbloodnok@mendeddrum.org More broadly I think Sinclair had learned quite early that you can cheap out on electronics if it still does something _amazing_ for the price (calculators, ZX80, 81, Spectrum). But the QL and the TV80 didn't do something amazing; and you just can't do that with mechanical parts in the same way. Broms and Birdys aren't just expensive because the bosses are greedy, it does take good quality parts and careful manufacturing to make it work.

@stephaniewalter@front-end.social Very glad to see this. ColorAdd (as used e.g. in _Sea Salt & Paper)_ is fine as far as it goes, but very basic, and has secret licencing terms. But alas they've used Claude Code, and Cursor too, so I can't touch it.

@handmade_ghost@sunny.garden A certain amount of "did I mention I'm a dinosaur?" murderbird there too.

@Simpike@mastodon.social @lordsplodge@brettspiel.space @alicemcalicepants@ohai.social @stephaniewalter@front-end.social Childhood flashbacks, when a book would refer to the red part of a map or diagram and it was blatantly pink.

It's the end of Whartstock 2026, as we complete Honeymoon in Hull. Hell. Definitely Hell. https://discussion.tekeli.li/t/whartstock-2026/6818 #TTRPG #ActualPlay #WhartsonHall

@Printdevil@dice.camp @BigJackBrass@social.vivaldi.net I remapped my caps-lock to Compose because I hardly ever use all-caps. So capslock " i or right-alt-] i would get it for me. But that's Linux.

@lordsplodge@brettspiel.space @Simpike@mastodon.social @alicemcalicepants@ohai.social @stephaniewalter@front-end.social Heh. A standard part of my teaching PUSH is "then you roll the die, and ignore the orange colour, this face is yellow, it has the same symbol as the yellow card".

@pndc@social.treehouse.systems @davidgerard@circumstances.run @zzt@mas.to Presumably it is driven to the site, and they have to pay the delivery driver by the hour.

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social The use of the rar archive format in the west is sort of my fault. In 1993 I got internet access for the first time through university (USENET and FTP mostly) and did the classic larval phase thing. One of my particular areas of interest was compression programs (I had to move the things I'd downloaded back home on floppies). I was poking around on ftp.kiae.su and found this thing called "rar", documentation only in Russian. So I translated the docs into English and uploaded the original plus my translation to I think it was funet. People got interested. Within a week there was a new official version with docs in English. I got no credit and they didn't use my translation.

English Pub Names #BlogFiredrakeOrg https://blog.firedrake.org/archive/2026/07/English_Pub_Names.html

@BigJackBrass@social.vivaldi.net Another good one for the "play the verse, stop and ask the audience to guess the song" challenge! Similarly the intro to "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree".

@alicemcalicepants@ohai.social @lordsplodge@brettspiel.space @nocto@social.lol Automobiles is similarly a problem: ten colours of cubes drawn from a bag. You could make it with cards instead, I've seen a home-printed version like that, but that's not what the publisher did.

@Simpike@mastodon.social @lordsplodge@brettspiel.space @alicemcalicepants@ohai.social @stephaniewalter@front-end.social The thing I've seen done more often than colour encoding is to give them some other characteristic too. So the apples are red but also the only apple-shaped thing, not just red cubes vs yellow cubes. Certainly when I'm designing components for 3d printing I try not to make colour the _only_ distinguishing characteristic. (Looking through my catalogue, I have not always succeeded.)

@BigJackBrass@social.vivaldi.net All that noodling about with G variants looks as if it could get quite exciting.

@BigJackBrass@social.vivaldi.net Phil Doleman played this at Shrewkfest last year, and stopped after the verse to let the audience try to guess what the song was…

@jess@blop.social When I was working for a place in Shoreditch, I'd go into the local Chinese once a week, usually ordering the sea spiced chicken. Each week they'd make it a bit hotter for me. Sadly the company went bust before I found out which of us would cave first.

@futurebird@sauropods.win "Why is your backback so big?" "Full of ant habitats. I'll leave one of them with you."

@davidgerard Mastodon: federated. Bluesky: says "federated" on the PR sheet.

A ukulele songbook with Crystal and Typst #CrystalLang #Typst #BlogFiredrakeOrg https://blog.firedrake.org/archive/2026/07/A_ukulele_songbook_with_Crystal_and_Typst.html

@Taskerland I've known a couple of groups have this when playing Eternal Lies (Trail of Cthulhu). We have basically bottomless expenses, why don't we just hire local investigators in these various spots round the world rather than travelling to places where we don't know the language, the society, etc.?

@davidgerard@circumstances.run @zzt@mas.to No fun on London roads; I saw one in the wild once and every jolt goes right up the tubes.

@Kingu@sakurajima.moe Wikipedia/wikimedia commons?

@AndreasDavour @Taskerland In many Traveller groups there's a player who actually enjoys the space accountancy, and can be left in the corner to cackle over spreadsheets and answer the dashing captain when he asks "which world should we go to next". Often that player is I.

@AndreasDavour @Taskerland I could see it as a set of campaignlets with different PCs: you are a bunch of local investigators in (country), you've taken on this job, play however many sessions and then turn in your report. Then occasional linking sections with the overall PCs reading the reports and deciding whom to employ next.

The Wreck of a World, W Grove #Books #ScienceFiction #BlogFiredrakeOrg https://blog.firedrake.org/archive/2026/07/The_Wreck_of_a_World__W_Grove.html

@BaronessWinter@beige.party (1) an Amateur Press Association, essentially an organisational entity to collate individual items ("zines") into a single periodical issue. Commenting on other people's zines from previous issues provides a venue for low-speed discussion. (2) I do not know much about them, but I should certainly have no objection! (I suspect Chess proper is better served elsewhere.)

@deinol@dice.camp Get paid. Twice in a row. In actual cash.

@Steve@social.coop IME there is no clean path for this. Only the most recent iterations of the PDF standard even support the concept of "this text in order" rather than "paint a string here".

@davidgerard@circumstances.run Similarly, I socialise with several people who like to have the new shiny including one guy who gets showered with free samples through his job, and I have never seen one being used.

@futurebird@sauropods.win @ireneista@adhd.irenes.space One answer is to use "concision" for the first meaning.

@DarkestKale @Taskerland GURPS! If you wanna keep the money, ya gotta spend the points. Otherwise you had a great time and now you're poor again.

@Taskerland @AndreasDavour "You were working for Big Louie. Big Louie had an accident. But you got a choice, you can work for us for a bit, get paid well, and then we go away, or you can take on the guys what just accidented Big Louie."

@Waxingtonknee@mastodon.org.uk "A rack of servers in the basement" is increasingly appealing. (I still have one.)

@revk@toot.me.uk They had to hire a new sucker after the last one found out how much he got paid?

Announcement delayed by ukuleles, but we're back, and it's time for #ImprovisedRadioTheatreWithDice . https://tekeli.li/podcast/archive/2026/My_Deep_and_Cranky_Knowledge.html #Podcast #TTRPG

@noodles@social.earth.li Snapcast. I use it with mpd.

@TindrasGrove@infosec.exchange Very very very basic. They are specialised experimental hardware. Anyone who claims otherwise right now is trying to sell you snake oil.

A Large eInk Tablet #BlogFiredrakeOrg https://blog.firedrake.org/archive/2026/07/A_Large_eInk_Tablet.html

Probably a bit of a long shot, but is anyone else on here going to be at #Shrewkfest next weekend? Looking forward to a twangy few days. #Ukulele

@williampietri@sfba.social This destroys advertising, so I'm on board.

@kyonshi@dice.camp #Typst can do it. (It's become my universal tool for making PDFs.)

@hannah@posts.rat.pictures If that's usgov it's probably public domain, but can you confirm it?

@hannah@posts.rat.pictures thank you!