Lab report: Reading a 4th Edition Research Unix tape image on Plan 9 — http://a.9srv.net/reports/index.html#v4

Awk to take lines from Plan 9's /lib/unicode and prepend the actual glyph and a tab: awk '{cmd=sprintf("unicode %s", $1); cmd | getline c; printf("%s %s\n", c, $0)}'

The most infuriating 3 seconds of using this Mac every day are the first time I run man and it calls home to see if I'm allowed to do that.

Current toy project: an image feed generated by mk(1). Still some edges to clean up but it's nice: http://a.9srv.net/img/_readme.html

My main domain name turned 24 years old today. That feels weird.

I updated wordwrap.[ch] to more closely match the interface for string(2); it's now just that plus a margin. I also updated litclock and marquee to match. http://a.9srv.net/src/index.html

After submitting a correction for Apple Maps when they got the name of the Gulf of Mexico wrong, I wrote a letter to Investor Relations: http://a.9srv.net/b/investor_relations

One of the things I love about Plan 9 is how the interfaces make this possible: add snapshots to any block storage, at the kernel level, in less than 700 lines of code. http://9p.io/sources/contrib/blstuart/snap/devsnap.c

Cleaning up some of the 500 open tabs on my phone. I realized that if I don’t have some place to stash the good ones, I won’t go through any. http://a.9srv.net/b/2025-01-16

I forget where I found this, but it's really beautiful, for the right kind of nerd (hi, it's me!) — Docubyte's Guide To Computing. https://www.docubyte.com/projects/guide-to-computing/

I've been using nile, my alternative WM for #plan9, for over a decade now. I just made some additional improvements and finally gave it a web page: http://a.9srv.net/src/nile/

Happy New Year, UTC-08:00! 🥳

First we got 9fans to be moderated, now we've brought back comp.os.plan9! Come say hi! #plan9 #usenet

9fans is now a moderated list. It'll take time, but I'm hopeful we can get it back to being a good source of discussion. https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T124eb3ec9c594189-M83bd6a0d97304a9b5cffd91d/9fans-now-moderated

I've talked about how I do backups on unix a bunch of times, but someone asked again today and I realized I didn't have it written down where I could point to. So I wrote a lab report: http://a.9srv.net/reports/index.html#vac-unix

I wrote about making Glenda's Joy Division cover (with updated colors and a link to source): http://a.9srv.net/b/2024-11-23

Glenda’s on a Joy Division kick: http://a.9srv.net/image/jocelyn.x3y2o10t1.png

For example, this links to the previous post, no crypto needed: http://a.9srv.net/tw.txt#:~:text=2024-10-23T18:59:49-07:00

Huh. I had long forgotten about text fragment URLs. Seems relevant for linking to discussions around linking to individual twtxt posts. https://alfy.blog/2024/10/19/linking-directly-to-web-page-content.html

New post (mostly follow-up on the previous with a few new points) on the twtxt v2 discussion. http://a.9srv.net/b/2024-10-08

TWO HOURS wasted today trying to figure out why an image wasn't loading on some web page and what I was doing wrong... when the issue is the friggin' DSL router is injecting headers into http (non-https) pages. GAH! I'm ready to throw the thing. I've never been so mad at CPE. 🤬

Reading about browser security measures and getting sad we don't live in a world where cross-site scripting is a feature instead of a bug.

This is only first draft quality, but I made some notes on the #twtxt v2 proposal. http://a.9srv.net/b/2024-09-25

Earlier this week I found myself on the RIAA’s side in a legal dispute. Now I think Amy Coney Barrett got it right in her SCOTUS dissent. Truly we are in Bizarro World.

Fire-proof safes are generally designed so the internal temperature stays at or below ~350°F. Is there a computer medium I can write that's likely to survive an extended stay around that temperature? Storage size doesn't matter too much; a CD would be plenty (although an actual CD would presumably turn to soup).

This was interesting: I didn't expect so much variation in reported times. If you happen to have #plan9 running on some other VPS, I'd love to hear your results. https://pdx.social/@a/112481970480703254

Started writing something from scratch yesterday using thread(3) and wow do I miss writing in Limbo instead. :-/ #plan9

"Magic Clock" for Plan 9 (and p9p). http://a.9srv.net/src/img/magicclock-p9p.png http://a.9srv.net/src/magicclock.c (man and other info at http://a.9srv.net/src/).

Just over here writing my Senator's office to see if we can get a new Federally Funded R&D Center created. 😳🤞

Also, incredibly excited that XOXO is coming back, even if just for one more year: https://2024.xoxofest.com

I wrote up a lab report on my daily to-do tracking "system", mostly so I could stop thinking about it. The report is at http://a.9srv.net/reports/daily.pdf and the referenced code is at http://txtpunk.com/daily/index.html.

FOR SOME REASON I'm now archiving my plan files (as shown via 'finger a@9srv.net') at http://a.9srv.net/plans

Well crap. I think I just realized that if my profile photo was a person it could vote in this year’s election. Probably time for a new default one.

I've added myself to the registries at registry.twtxt.org and twtxt.tilde.institute. I wonder if there's a list of registries. #meta

Huh. At some point, my twtxt-via-ssh shortcut from my phone stopped working. It does again now! I've changed nothing. Yay black boxes! 🤷🏻

First task of 2024: renew an expired cert. I like that it's calendar-themed.

Spent a few hours the last two evenings fighting with tftpd. Party like it's 1999!

TIL my high school publishes its own research journal. https://www.pingry.org/our-community/students/pingry-community-research-pcr-journal

I needed something to help with a morning schedule for two kiddos. It highlights the current 5-minute block as it goes. I think this was my first time reaching for JavaScript for a personal project. https://sidequest.club/stages.html

One of the frustrating parts of using twtxt for conversations is the URLs are, well... ugly. Anyone (like y'all yarn folks) looked at using webfinger for translating user@domain accounts to URLs?

I was just reminded of this interpreter for an APL/J-like language by Arthur Whitney, the absolute weirdest bit of C code I've actually gotten something out of, and thought I'd share: https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Essays/Incunabulum

TIL there's a Director's Cut of Miley Cyrus's Wrecking Ball video and it's much better than the original.

If I have an image that has clearly been naïvely upscaled, is there a program that can reasonably reliably tell me what the "true" size is?

Watching the ISS fade out in the sky as it moves into earth's shadow remains one of the coolest things in the world.

I'll likely take this down soonish as I think it's pretty bad for usability, but as a fun hack, one of my weird side projects web pages now has monitor burn-in: http://txtpunk.com/index.html

A read-only, finger(1)-based social network, maybe? http://txtpunk.com/fingers/

I want a browser for iOS that's basically Mobile Safari but without JavaScript (or at least an easy toggle). Does such a thing exist?

I realized my twtxt client isn't validating what it pulls once it gets a valid response when a domain started returning js-heavy parking pages for every URL. Oops. Weekend project, I guess. 🤦🏻

@adi Also, I noticed you followed me on Twitter, but you might enjoy @anths if you want techie stuff instead of Oregon politics. 🤣

Given that we don't have a "home phone", what's the best way to create a "hunt group" for my partner's and my cell phones? My first thought is Asterisk on a VPS, but my knowledge of such things is years out of date. Is there a better way?

Good weekend for random tech projects: this rackmount server I got free boots Plan 9 without issue, and my ttl adapters and wii nunchucks just arrived. Now where can I find a serial modem?

I have only just discovered this and need to dig in more, but so far it looks like a really nice reference for electronics pinouts: https://pinouts.org/

Only 1 day of activity so far, but I've started a new project log for whatever the heck I end up doing to this Monroe 425 I got. http://a.9srv.net/monroe425

About two years late, but I finally finished setting up an iOS Shortcut so I can post to my blog via ssh. http://a.9srv.net/b/

Anyone seen a pixel-addressed display (any tech; lcd, eink, oled, whatever) in the range of 8"x1"?

Seeing "http://ftp" in a URL makes me happy.

Nominally, my seen/read list for 2021, but I missed a lot of short readings. I may try to write more about these things this year. http://a.9srv.net/media/2021

Web3 being "democratic" makes perfect sense if you can't tell the difference between a dollar and a person.

I just went to type the phrase "I avoid Linux like the plague" but then remembered that we've all learned that most people won't actually go much out of their way to avoid the plague.

As a postmaster, Gmail remains the most irritating domain to send to. Soooo many false spam hits, such little information provided, so many hoops to jump through.

Spent the weekend with the state Democrats at our platform convention. Good work and glad to have participated, but 20 hours of zoom over 60 hours is a lot of zoom.

Killing time in Goodwill, I picked up a desk calculator from a pile. Dude standing next to me goes "what's that for?". 😳💀

I fork bombed my computer! With ed(1)!!! Haven't done that in a while.

A 556 IC is functionally the same as two 555 ICs, but I've decided the 555 is better because search engines don't confuse it for ammunition as much.

Use C do crime! https://cdn.masto.host/pdxsocial/media_attachments/files/107/294/565/215/390/680/original/1d29c85c0aa4c9a5.png

💉3️⃣✅ Thank you, Dolly Parton!

I want NaNoWriMo but for tech writing.

Dug out my old usb audio device and now my Plan 9 raspberry pi can play music. 💯

This week I turned 16,000 days old.

@jlj I like your website's look, but i was disappointed to find that 'finger' doesn't seem to actually work. ;-)

Based on spam logs, I am (again) considering banning a bunch of TLDs at the server level. Has anyone ever gotten legitimate email from a .work, .casa, or .today domain, for example?

I was on a call this evening discussing various redistricting proposals. Some dude seriously asserted that over-representation by Multnomah county in regional politics might lead to... genocide. 😳

“I’m afraid I don’t have time at the moment to defend positions you’ve made up for me. Have a nice day.”

Yesterday's surprising find: a little Gochu Jang (~tsp) does a nice job of improving uninspiring Italian tomato sauce. Nothing dramatic, but good.

Get vaccinated if you are able. At this point, if you are able and choosing not to, you are being incredibly selfish, full stop.

My kid just uncovered a bug in a program I wrote by grabbing my laptop and smacking the keyboard a bunch. Biological input fuzzing; a real-life chaos monkey.

I wrote a 'banner'-like program for Plan 9 (and p9p) that uses the Unicode box drawing characters: http://txtpunk.com/banner/index.html

As of about an hour ago, I'm the chair of the Columbia County Democrats. 😳🎉😱

Today I swapped out our water heater for a new hybrid one. It took twice as long as it should have and 3 extra trips to the hardware store, but it doesn't seem to be leaking and is producing hot water, so 🎉🎊🎇

First pass at sticking my twtxt in a web page. It's not escaping all the html properly, and generally needs work, but it's a start: http://a.9srv.net/tw/following.html

My toddler just figured out "hey Siri".

[20:22:00] -tower.freenode.net- Server Terminating. Received SIGTERM

Fixed another bug in my finger client: rfc1288 says lines have to end with crlf, but I was just sending lf.

Looking at raw IRC traffic streams to debug a client issue and it's 1997 again.

Fixed a bug. Found a new bug in yesterday's work. Fixed that bug.

Plan 9 got three slots in GSoC; we'll be working on an updated Japanese input method, updating edwood, and getting Oauth2 support. 🎉🐇

“Remember: the internet didn't have to be like this. A better world is possible.” I love this. telnet issue1.anewsession.com

I just timed it: 59 seconds for my Raspberry Pi to boot, 33 of which is waiting for my keyboard firmware to initialize. That's just absurd.

I've published my silly finger implementation: http://txtpunk.com/finger

Pinboard describes itself as "Social bookmarking for introverts". Maybe txtxt is social networking for introverts.

Dynamic linking was a mistake.

Anyone (preferably in the PDX area) have a way to read QIC-80 tapes?

Just over a week left to apply to Summer of Code. Plan 9 is in there, and ~200 other good orgs. Go apply and tell students you know. https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/

Bell Labs has now transferred Plan 9 to the Plan 9 Foundation, who has in turn re-released all releases under the MIT license. I am very excited about this. 🐇🎉

I am very excited for tomorrow.

Someone brought us pie for Pi Day. 💯

At some point, for reasons I do not understand, my feed reader replaced cabinporn dot com with freecabinporn dot com, which is not the same thing.

Plan 9 is GSoC! 🎉🐇 I've missed participating this program. https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/Ta35cde1382617430-M32af07f289087f227189b74f/plan-9-in-summer-of-code

This is a good morning. 🚀🐇

I am very excited about this, and it seems like something the twtxt crowd might enjoy: https://anewsession.com/

@prologic Bug in your profile links: it's repeating a segment. For example, your face tries to get to https://twtxt.net/user/https://twtxt.net/user/prologic/twtxt.txt

My finger server now includes the last post from tw that doesn't have a subject. 'finger a@9srv.net'

I just made the decision to allow a domain I own to expire. Personal growth is possible!

I have been using Unix for 25+ years and I just learned about the status character in shells (often ^T). Huh.

Fixed the race in tw. Mostly; now it's just while tw/r is running. Close enough.

The GSoC application period is closed, and Plan 9's is in. Now the waiting.

Ooo, tw has a race condition between tw/r and pull/mktl, in the case you /r after a new post but before pull & mktl have run. Oops.

Plan 9's GSoC application is now in. 🎉

I want read-only iOS client that just does the simplest model: pull a list of feeds, make a timeline.

Pushed small updates to tw. Next: make discoverability optional.

@xjix Saw your oldish note about wanting an offline/async twtxt workflow. Do you have something that works for you? My (very young!) client was designed with that in mind.

I'm unclear if I'm going to do the twtxt.net discovery protocol; neither my web server nor Plan 9's default capture agent strings. :-/

My silly Plan 9 rc twtxt client now has a web page: http://txtpunk.com/tw/index.html

@prologicYes, I think tags should just be #foo, and let the client figure out searching if it cares.

@lyse Yes, I often read the raw messages. But more to the point, the simplicity of the format is the bulk of the appeal.

@movq No argument that threading is an improvement. But I think (#hash) does that, and I think figuring out how to search should mostly be up to the client.

I don't have any issue with the (foo) subjects, it's the proliferation of the (foo url) tags. They're just too long and ugly.

Hah... my silly twtxt client now has "stories" mode.☺

I don't think I'm implementing twtxt.net-style hashtags (for now?). The "" is bad enough for nicks, but they just make the plain text unreadable.

@prologic I've just never had it be a rewarding experience.

@prologic rc, the Plan 9 shell.

I ran fortune for something to stick in a text-centric side project, and it said "You can't build a bomb at 300 baud." which is just about perfect.

Announcing the Plan 9 Foundation — http://p9f.org/ — https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T973ff41a99053355/plan-9-foundation

Last night I spent about 30 minutes putting together the bare framework for a dumb project I want to do. I'm so excited to work on it, I keep checking the website to see if I've posted anything new.

Today, out of the blue, somebody thanked me for some minor tech work I did in 2008. That felt pretty nice.

One of these days I will learn not to argue with the bitcoin bros.

Started the #gsoc application for Plan 9 yesterday morning; spun up a new cpu server last night; poking at it today. I miss being able to spend more time on this.

My daughter grabbed my mouse and started smacking it arouond and managed to do things I didn't know you could do with my WM with a mouse... nor how to undo them.

Documentation on i2c devices is so-so. Lots of good documentation on higher-level APIs, but not a lot of "this register does this" stuff.

On the up side: I got my first successful comunication over i2c on Plan 9 on a Raspberry Pi today! Looking forward to playing with that more.

I have ~10 different kinds of USB cables/adaptors, and I can't make the conversion I need.😞

Thanks to a pointer from Richard Miller, got screen rotation working on my Pi 4s. Makes this absurdly wide display more practical.

Wrote a man page for this thing. I miss writing man pages.

Okay, a bit better: it now preserves the author, although it prints a hash right now. Tomorrow's problem.

Well, my twtxt reader is a bit too simple; drops who actually wrote the message before it's printed. 🤦🏻

Okay, my #twtxt reader works-ish. Need to properly deal with timezones (and, um, maybe do any error checking).

I have a working model for the reader portion of what I want this twtxt client to do.

Okay, well, if we're being all txtpunk, I want troff macros for zines.

Apparently I did something for this like three years ago, and can't find it. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Hello, world.

Made something because my head was on sideways all day.