William D. Jones @cr1901@mastodon.social

Joe Armstrong, a creator of the Erlang language and all around interesting guy... He passed away today.

I will miss you, Joe. May your inboxes never overflow.

https://twitter.com/FrancescoC/status/1119596234166218754

You know how the source code to Infocom's games was posted to Github?

https://hackers.town/@drwho/101944549341598370

Here's Stever Meretzky's manual on how to learn ZIL (Zork Implementation Language). I don't know if it's enough formal grammar to write an interpreter or compiler, but I think it might be enough to get started...

https://archive.org/download/Learning_ZIL_Steven_Eric_Meretzky_1995/Learning_ZIL_Steven_Eric_Meretzky_1995.pdf

Game of Thrones is HBO Naruto

As #Easter is coming up, a reminder that rabbits are very complex animals with more needs than most realise.

They live 10 or more years, aren't usually big on being cuddled, cost as much as a dog, and need a lot of time, space to run around, and attention. They should allay be kept in pairs at least.

A whopping *75%* of rabbits in the UK are neglected. Please, if thinking of getting a bunny, know what you're getting into or stick with chocolate http://bunny.nipple.solutions

home of challenge kissing

The iCEBreaker FPGA March campaign update is posted! Check it out! :) https://www.crowdsupply.com/1bitsquared/icebreaker-fpga/updates/march-2019-production-update

Today, it was announced that one of Japan's large Mastodon servers, friends.nico, will be shut down after a month.

There have been changes to operators on large servers so far, but it is the first time for large servers to be shut down, and attention is being paid to what effect this may have.

Japan's mastodon user's timeline is temporarily bustling with this topic.

Official announcement
https://blog.nicovideo.jp/niconews/105071.html

News Site Articles
https://www.itmedia.co.jp/news/articles/1903/28/news112.html
#mastodon

@Gargron

Doris's whole life is easy mode

#mastocats #cats

saenic the hegemony

##yamahasynths on Freenode is doing a PCB run of TubeTimeUS's Snark Barker (Sound Blaster 1.0 clone), and you're invited! All you have to do is fill out this survey:

https://goo.gl/forms/Iubo5HCcLHVoRI7h1

Boards will probably cost ~$10 USD + S&H. Special thanks to @wohali for arranging this!

Car analogy time.

I like retro computers more than modern gaming machines in the same way that I like a 67 Mustang fastback more than a Tesla.

The Tesla may be objectively, safer, faster, more efficient, and more reliable, but I sure know which one I'd rather take for a spin.

the "analogue hole" refers to the idea that no matter how hard you try to make sure nobody can make illegal copies of videos, music, or text, there's always a "hole" in the protection that occurs when it's no longer digital. digital content can be protected - video files can be encrypted, music players can limit you to five devices - but analogue signals can't be. for example, itunes can disallow you from putting a song on more than five computers, but if you play the song through your speakers and record it, what you do with it is beyond apple's control.

one of the few remaining analogue outputs on a modern device is the audio jack. this is where you connect your headphones or speakers. your laptop only knows that something's plugged in. it doesn't know what's connected. you could be playing it through earphones or a massive speaker system and it wouldn't be able to tell. meanwhile, HDMI is a digital output format. it can tell if it's been plugged into a TV or a recording device, and can automatically disable output if you're recording it to make it harder for you to make copies of movies.

if the audio jack is replaced by USB-C or bluetooth, it becomes possible to tell what you're connecting to the laptop or phone. your phone might disable audio playback on anything but headphones to prevent you from hosting a public event with the music. it could also detect a recording device that you're using to (for example) make a copy of a song you're listening to on spotify and turn off the playback.

of course, at some point, digital needs to become analogue. humans can't watch electrical pulses, we need to see patterns of light. we can't listen to streams of 1s and 0s, we need vibrations in the air. this means that it's impossible to truly defeat the analogue hole - no matter what you do, someone can always just point a camera at their TV. it'll have worse quality, but it can never be stopped.

the analogue hole is one of many ways to circumvent DRM, or digital rights management. you can read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_hole

#LynneTeachesTech

Mister Feisty Britches Jr. enjoying his afternoon nap in the sun.

#Cats
#Photography