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Cody Boone Ferguson
@xexyl@fosstodon.org
mastodon 4.7.3I have the honour that I have written several tools (txzchk, others) for the International Obfuscated C Code Contest [IOCCC] judges and co-developing several other tools (e.g. jparse, a JSON parser in C) with Landon Curt Noll, a founder and judge of the IOCCC . I'm also a six time winner of the IOCCC. I love dinosaurs, volcanoes (and all other natural disasters fascinate me as well) and space. I'm an avid reader, Tolkienist and a Second World War buff. I've loved bears since I was a baby.
38 Followers
36 Following
41 Posts
Joined November 30, 2022
Main page:
Winning IOCCC entries:
GitHub:
Personal IOCCC website:
Replying to
@neatnik@social.lol as for Braille this is the craziest one I know of (though I haven’t sourced it - however some people have said that blind people can learn anyway which sounds totally bonkers to me but I don’t know).
I have seen other amusing Braille things but I think this one is more insane.
But given some children have been ‘taught’ to shoot an Uzi and one ended up killing the instructor (in the US - where else?) I don’t find this hard to believe.
Replying to
@arstechnica@mastodon.social I am so utterly shocked. My view of Microsoft is shattered.
I thought they had everything in order now! How can this possibly be ?
(To the uninitiated this is sarcasm. Of course this is the case. And obviously it’s just a long history of the same thing. If Microsoft Windows had a GC it would have to free itself or else it would also be buggy.)
Replying to
@Keldrim@meow.social @nixCraft@mastodon.social Oracle is indeed horrible.
On the other hand many people who can only get a job there could easily lose their livelihood. All because of recklessness that they can’t control.
So I don’t know.
Replying to
@Ruhrnalist@mastodon.social @peterritchie@mastodon.social I'm too tired to make a further mod: but the close button should be cropped out. Since often it doesn't even exist. Or it takes you to where they want. I have no sympathy for ads. It's not my fault people have failing business models. Throw in malvertisements and resource wastage and it's even worse. I have a rather large DNSBL and ad blockers. They can piss off. Google ads even allows people to spoof their websites, last I knew, to trick unsuspecting visitors.
Replying to
@madeindex@mastodon.social I guess some basic users don’t mind it that much but I have filed so many bug reports and very few have even been addressed. And I read (not confirmed but) that the reason they are naming the next one is the year release. So why is it 26? Do they have a time machine besides Time Machine? When last I checked we’re in 2025. Unless they are skipping a year (like they should have recently) it should be 25! And every successive release will be off by one year. Amazing.
Replying to
@madeindex@mastodon.social oh well. Hopefully it’s not as bad as 18 (macOS is also buggy but perhaps not as bad except in Photos - actually I take that back for I have filed many bug reports for it too) but rather than redesigning everything again (I thought they just did that?) they should release a major release that fixes all the problems they have unleashed on everyone the past couple years. Apple ‘Intelligence’ should just be axed but they’ve built newer products on it so it’s not leaving.
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@madeindex@mastodon.social well in this case it wasn’t Apple but yeah Google too. Neither should ever have been released. Both are appallingly bad. The hilarious part about the Apple one though is because they were trying to be clever with the name (despite being not AI) when it goes wrong (and it does spectacularly) it makes THEM look bad because it’s named after them! #iOS 17/18 are astonishingly bad. I will comment in another reply as I am running out of space here.
Replying to
@madeindex@mastodon.social anyway I am waiting for a spoon with ‘#AI’. Or hell why not the bog? It might even be relevant to the product then! Honestly I would not be surprised if some of these things happen. It seems every company is in on the ‘AI’ craze. Unfortunately this prevents them from actually creating something useful since they are so focused on something they don’t even understand (if we’re to go by those in the ecosystem so far). Although a toilet with it might still be useful…?
Replying to
@madeindex@mastodon.social something that companies believe is that they have to release SOMETHING to remain relevant. The irony is that they do indeed remain relevant but for the worst reason. iOS18 photos is horrible. I checked google for ‘iOS photos 18’ and top searches: ‘app sucks’, ‘terrible’ and even more some people wanted to revert to the previous version! Not surprised. It’s a mare. They are proud of this. I can’t comprehend it. I am not sure how it even got to alpha!
Replying to
@madeindex@mastodon.social as for google more generally. I do not buy into the good versus evil but they certainly have serious ethical problems. And yes chrome is a serious one. They even let ad customers make their website look like OTHER websites. There was a malicious website that looked strangely like GIMP. I read somewhere on that that google allows that - for some awful reason. Aren't IDN homograph attacks bad enough without google? (Screenshot was posted on reddit and then I looked too - confirmed it).
Replying to
@madeindex@mastodon.social I took these screenshots. 22 December 2024 for the 2023 one; it claimed the year was 2023. The other one is it claiming Apple 'Intelligence' is available in British English - if you change your device to US English. I wish I had a screenshot but I saw it say you could see Northern Lights - on Fridays, as if it was tied to that. The problem is it scrubs data and it seems to have no filters in place, worse than some of the others. LLM has no oversight but it seems to be the worst.
Replying to
@madeindex@mastodon.social oh do not get me started on 'AI' in medicine! The same with self driving cars - think of emergency vehicles. As someone with a lot of medical problems those are the last things I want in the way. Yes it's hype and it's embellishment. Which says the product is not as good as you think. Now I'm not saying that Apple is not quality but iOS17/18, macOS14/15 .... those are another story. Siri has always been an idiot. At least she's somewhat contained unlike google, like you say.
Replying to
@madeindex@mastodon.social I have seen a lot of hilarious things too. But only funny because it’s so utterly stupid or ridiculous. It’s the tech Frankenstein. And they have opened Pandora’s box. Time will tell I suppose.
Replying to
@madeindex@mastodon.social well I think that’s a far too generous view. One thing Google’s so called AI Overview did was repeat that something you can do if you’re depressed is jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. I have seen it say petrol can be a spice. That you can eat stones (it was from a ridiculous satirical article). The first one is obviously the most appalling one. There’s absolutely no excuse for that. Ever. As someone who’s been there and barely made it: that could be enough.
Replying to
@madeindex@mastodon.social the fact a blocker of ‘#AI ‘ exists shows just how rampant the scam is and it is astonishing how bad. Companies now think if you add AI to something it is somehow better even though at best it’s a mediocre #LLM (and often much worse and even deadly like Google’s AI Overview). The truth is if you have to embellish your product it’s not as good as you think. #AppleIntelligence is incredibly bad but #Apple has built products on it. Probably its beta won’t even leave.
Replying to
@madeindex@mastodon.social … and the fact that they even released beta code in a major release should horrify all programmers (it does me). It’s been over a year. Now it’s just in fine print. They don’t care. They don’t have a good way to report problems (Siri has no way and Siri is astoundingly stupid). After a certain time it’s just an excuse for releasing shitware. Perhaps it’s also vapourware. Still: some #LLM output can be quite hilarious. Because it’s so utterly stupid and baffling.
Replying to
@gedeonm@mastodon.social @RedStateExile@mastodon.social once you enable it I could swear that it’s even worse! I might be wrong. It’s hard to be sure because every update is worse but soon as iOS 18.2 came out (as in as soon as British English was allowed) I enabled it and I have had additional problems.
I guess my initial reply might’ve missed something but anyway you’re not missing much with ‘Apple "Intelligence"’ anyway. Except more ways to be amused maybe.
Replying to
@Hyperlynx@aus.social @gedeonm@mastodon.social would be even better if it was Mel Blanc.
Replying to
@evacide@hachyderm.io on the subject of dealing with issues, for instance internal demons: as a child I learnt in therapy that one should pick the easiest thing to take care of first. Doing this will make the next easiest thing slightly easier even if it’s hard.
Another thing I learnt is to always be kind to yourself. Always take care of yourself. If you can’t take care of yourself you can’t take care of others.
These are things that I have had to do since I was a child and I am almost 43.
Replying to
@sabik@rants.au @neatnik@social.lol well that would be the most admirable thing. I am admittedly sceptical all the more since someone said blind people can learn (which is insane) and the other thing I mentioned. But who knows? Although it would be better I kind of hope not as it would not be nearly as funny (due largely but not totally to the absurdity).
Replying to
@sirwumpus @ioccc and since I mentioned it. My mum’s speciality.
And @landonnoll here you can see how my mum does the icing. You can also see how there’s much icing in between the two layers. For next time you make the cake (btw did you enjoy it as I suspect?).
Still was sad that you couldn’t share pictures of it during judging of #ioccc27 though.
Replying to
@famousringo@mstdn.ca @lowqualityfacts@mstdn.social with your ‘name’ I really hope that is a reference to Imagine. Is it? (If so it’s quite clever.)
Replying to
@krautdragon@mastodon.social their so called AI is one of the worst LLMs I have seen. Large language model if you don’t know. I wouldn’t trust them to add 1 + 1 correctly. And neither should anyone else. Unfortunately the AI craze is on us. It’s a giant scam. Almost all if not all of it isn’t even AI! It’s non deterministic. Exactly like LLM. They don’t even know this. Snopes asked them about something and they tried to duplicate it. It’s the tech Frankenstein. It’s done far worse things.
Replying to
@madeindex@mastodon.social it's things like this that make me really want it to happen. I mean I wanted it to happen before your comment but...
Even so I would not put it past some company to do this. The IoT has the craziest ideas too. A skateboard connected to the Internet I believe? And a rifle I also think I saw once?
I mean what could go wrong there?
Maybe the IoT/'AI' toilet would decide to flush when it is getting full even when it's clogged and then overflow with ...? I could see that happening!
@WedaleBooks I am not near the bookshop (but I wish I was as I would want to go there). Bibliophile and bibliomane. But I also am an ailurophile so I wonder if I would share an actual photo of the kitty? I would love to see it (him? her?).
Replying to
@earsmeardius @david_chisnall it MIGHT be this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6S3e2oj0m6o
Obviously total rubbish.
7 Signs You're Dating a Reptilian Shapeshifter! - Illuminati Alien Reptilian Hybrid Shapeshifters
Replying to
@luc0x61@mastodon.gamedev.place @jcrabapple@dmv.community please give a link! (It sounds brilliant)
Replying to
@arstechnica until earlier this year (!!) in the UK shingles was ‘prevented’ by not vaccinating against chickenpox because somehow not getting vaccinated decreases the chances in adulthood of not getting shingles despite the fact that if you get chickenpox you have it in you. If they were REALLY concerned they could vaccinate both. The fact ‘experts’ were doing the exact opposite of what they claimed to be doing is astonishingly daft.
Replying to on infosec.exchange
@catsalad@infosec.exchange I have a shirt of the usual needs but the bottom says Internet. Which I agree with.
I am not a fan of teams either though. Just for one friend. It's worse than Skype. By a lot.
Replying to
@nixCraft@mastodon.social well it’s not like it’s really AI anyway. LLM.
Hopefully that upsets them even more. The vast majority of them (at least) are horrible in really bad ways: deadly even. They should be condemned. The things I personally saw google’s stupid LLM say. It’s astonishingly bad.
Like petrol can be used as s spice. Eating stones is healthy. Eating arse is healthy. And worse of all is it repeated something that encouraged suicide.
So he can sod off.
Replying to
@neatnik@social.lol and since I read a comment claiming that they can learn: that’s also insane. Inclusivity is irrelevant to that. The mere thought is totally bonkers.
Replying to
A nurse motivated by spite
Tied her infantine charge to a kite;
She launched it with ease
On the afternoon breeze,
And watched till it flew out of sight.
- Edward Gorey
Replying to
@lowqualityfacts@mstdn.social I am currently rereading a twelve volume set with 5440 pages total. I am also rereading another book that I read every year usually several times a year.
Plenty of people read books too yes.
As they should. I have been told that I hoard books. There’s no such thing as hoarding when it comes to books.
There’s no such thing as too many books; there’s only too little space to put them!
Replying to
@neatnik@social.lol maybe. That’s assuming that’s what it’s for and I am quite sceptical of that for many many reasons.
But since I don’t know what the person who put it up was thinking I don’t know.
Actually that’s NOT what I find insane about it. That’s something else. It’s absurd to think about blind people going to a shooting range to actually shoot and even that part is more complicated in what I mean.
Whether it’s to tell them or not is not entirely relevant to my comment.
Replying to
@9to5Mac@mastodon.online ‘Last week, Apple introduced a new Edge Light effect on macOS Tahoe 26.2 beta 2, which adds a virtual light around the edges of the display during video calls.’
Good to know #Apple doesn’t give a toss about bricking devices. Clearly visual effects are more important.