honestly relieved to hear that wayland doesn't work on netbsd because I rely heavily on accessibility features of my xorg setup and I've been super nervous that debian would just suddenly decide it's not supported in the next release

Rejecting LLMs for humans writing code: Unambiguous good imo

Rejecting git for svn: Bold choice but on balance better I think

Rejecting Linux for BSD: Seemed harmless but pointless up until now, but now Linus has gone metalhead seems prescient

Rejecting svn for cvs: No. You have gone too far. Stop using those floppy disks

imagine if the official linux foundation account helped you with your wifi

dreamed I invented a new number called snezem

it was equal to slightly more than seven point two

the monthly #fennel group is this Saturday!

10:00 US Pacific / 17:00 UTC

come hang out with us online: https://fennel-lang.org/events

"your computer is so old, it doesn't have a UART, it has a THOUART"

Landlord on the phone: just go on in and take whatever you want, feed on whoever you like

Vampire: trying but I can't get in

Landlord: what, but I invited you in

Vampire: yes but I can't come in, you're sure this is your home? Other people seem to live here

Landlord: yes I own it!

Vampire: you own it, but do you live in it?

Landlord: what does that matter? It's mine

Vampire: it's your *property*, it's not your *home*

Landlord: it's mine! who cares if I live in it?!

Vampire: magic law, why do you want me in anyway

Landlord: the tenants are late on rent, I figure this was a cheaper way to get rid of them...

Vampire: yeah this isn't going to work

Landlord: but don't you need to feed?

Vampire: don't worry, I figured out an alternative, thanks for inviting me in

re this: seeing it with the "passkeys are bad" discourse. one segment of people wants to argue about the technical theory of whether and how the technology is supposed to work, and another segment wants to argue about whether the corporations pushing them should be trusted to not use the technology to control and abuse users

my X260 was my main machine, so before I put NetBSD on it I swapped the drive with its Debian install out into this T410 (where I'd tried and failed to put netbsd ~a month ago)

and I just can't get over how much nicer the T410 is overall with its classic keyboard, better aspect ratio, and matte display (if only it ran netbsd!)

I could just stick with the X260 and not buy a T480 now that it's booting NetBSD, but the display is just soooo bad... I can put up with the keyboard because I'm often using at external kb anyway

as much as I'd like a T480 I'd rather not make this thing e-waste unnecessarily, but if I'm gonna stick with this as my main I'm going to have to at least look into replacing the display with a matte one, ugh

after some prodding on IRC I gave another shot at doing a #netbsd install on my thinkpad X260

I'm not sure what I did wrong last time, but this time it came up just fine? suspend and wifi are solid

so what I've observed with six data points is a 100% success rate on thinkpads from within the last ten years and a 0% success rate on thinkpads older than ten years, which is, uh, not at all what I'm used to from linux where older generally means better-supported, but ... I'll take it?

(if you try this, note that ebay will try to trick you into buying a shitty T480s when you search for T480; do not be fooled! check the model number and don't assume that you're looking at what you actually want just because it showed up in the search results)

after reading about Linus's supervillain arc (https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linus-Torvalds-Claude-Code) I decided to give NetBSD another go since my kiddo recently got a thinkpad upgrade; their cast-off T480 has a wrecked keyboard and flaky charging circuit, but I figured it'd be worth a shot to see if the basics worked on it

ran into a very annoying bug in the installer where the keyboard settings only affect the internal keyboard (which doesn't work) so I had to set a fully-numeric password so I could be sure I'd be able to type it, but other than that it was fairly smooth

imagine my surprise when I brought it up and both the wifi and suspend worked! a few months ago I tried netbsd on 5 different older thinkpad models and never came close to this level of functionality

now I've got ebay open and am scrolling thru the T480 offerings...

By now this world is comfortingly boring to most people, but it's interesting to Alex and Tim. Hell, it's _exciting_ to Alex and Tim, because they're home. Home and not-home. Home and future home. They're _at The House!_

And they're doing _the big stretch._ Tim begins it a moment after he shifts into park - he doesn't cut the engine, there isn't an engine, it's a little bit into the future and you can do a big drive in a battery truck now, even with a heavy trailer. Anyway he begins this _huge_ stretch, arms above head, legs vibrating, satisfied "rrraauuughghh," and Alex is joining in with the stretch of a shorter body and a higher-pitched "Nrrrr" and he catches Tim's eye and now they're _competing_ at it, the Big Stretch has become a game, at first it was mere mimicry and then it became satire and then Tim had to up his game and now it's a contest to see who can contort and growl the most outrageously, and now it's communication and it's a joke and it's a sharing and they're both laughing and exhausted and silly and excited and Tim's hand shoots out to ruffle Alex's hair and they open the doors and there's that Thunderstorm Smell because the world is excited for them too.

Alex looks up at the house. Their house. His house! He _owns_ it, and all its intriguing problems. Three stories, plus basement, plus attic, enough living space for all eight of them forever and enough renovation work for the two of them for a good six months just to start with, and Alex is _pretty_ sure that the other six secretly know that six months is bare minimum, two years is livable, ten years is nice, and then you're finished when you're dead.

It's a pretty house. Or, it was pretty, and then everyone left and squished up together in the big cities, and it will be pretty because now everyone's spreading out again and the people are coming back to care for what was left behind. Largely because it's cheap - cheap enough that a bunch of softpaw lefty hippy types can club their email-job money together and straight-up buy a house _in cash_ and give tools and a budget to the two guys who actually work for a living, who'll spruce the place up enough that they can all move in together next spring or summer and we're not calling it a commune.

He's only seen pictures and video, flat on a screen even, he's never gotten a sense of _scale_ of the place, so let's get that out of the way first - it's fucking huge, next question. Is it like the photos? No, the photos were taken by a real estate agent during the golden hour of a perfect day, but even in the shadow of the approaching storm it's still _interesting_ to look at - there's brick and stone and wood siding and a turret and balconies and a mishmash of Stuff that's been just kinda thrown together into a sprawling asymmetrical Creaky Old House Out In The Country that defies expectations. That's marketing-talk, real-estate talk, "defying expectations," but here it's literally true because if you looked at the front of the house and someone asked you to guess what the back or sides looked like, you'd just shrug. It's that kind of a house.

And it's his.

"You got the keys?" asks Tim, and Alex looks at him with all the blood draining from his face because he does _not,_ and Tim lets him off the hook straight away and pulls the keys from his pocket and fingerguns Alex just _viciously_ and they laugh some more and Alex confirms that yes, Tim _was_ in fact waiting six hours to do that, the bastard. And then they laugh some more because Tim goes through all of the keys on the ring and none of the little butts are turning the lock on the big ornate front door and isn't this just a perfect way to start owning a house.

It gets less funny after a couple of minutes, but hey, spirits are still high, this is just another problem, right? They have tools. You have fewer problems when you have tools.

"Let's get that trailer under cover," says Tim, gesturing at the lean-to, which might've once been a stable or something, this house doesn't have an attached garage and the barn off to Alex's right is probably full of junk. "We might be digging through it in a minute, and I'd rather do it somewhere dry."

As he's descending the three wooden steps off the porch - _they have a porch now!_ - Tim looks off to his right, just as Alex hears the approach of Al's truck.

"It's Al again," says Tim, but the easy confidence of earlier is gone. This is weird, now. Alex watches, hair on the back of his neck prickling, as Al waves on his way past.

No, he doesn't wave on his way past - but maybe he slows down and rubbernecks and gets a real good look at them and where they live as he goes past.

Okay, so he's not doing that either - he's gonna slow _right_ down and shout howdy out the window.

He's stopped.

Why's he stopped?

"Why's he stopped," asks Alex, like Tim would know.

"I don't know," says Tim, and Al is getting out of his truck, and he's not all smiles and helpful and apologetic about having to stop them to fix a thing for safety's sake. Well, there's a _hint_ of apologetic about him as he walks over to them, and there it is more clearly in the way he says "Hey."

"Hey," says Tim.

"Hey," says Alex, so he's not left out.

"You change your mind about arresting me after all?" asks Tim, in a joking kinda way.

There's a brief and awkward pause in which nobody laughs.

"Kinda," says Al, finally. "You seen the news?"

Alex, blood warming up, takes a step forward. "Al, my man," he says in a voice that surprises him and holy shit what's he doing now and who's doing the talking here, is it Alex or is it the recent tools-in-hands and _big squeezy grip_ on those crimpers or is this just Testosterone Temper or is it this new impulsive Alex who does reckless things like take one step towards a guy okay so maybe that's not such a big deal after all calm down Alex - "you're gonna have to elaborate."

"Tim here's the boss," says Al, pulling out his phone. "Check it out." Al hands his phone not to the bewildered boss, but to the guy standing between them, who takes it, squints at the sortition results, and goes "Fuck."

"What? What!" cries Tim.

"You're the fucking _governor,_" moans Alex, showing Tim.

"Like _hell_ I am," growls Tim, taking the phone with gusto, scrolling with wide eyes.

"Are you gonna run?" asks Al, seriously. "We've got a few minutes to figure it out. But _just_ a few minutes, like, we don't have _long,_ here. Sorry."

"What do you mean," says Tim, eyes shooting up from his phone to Al, "am I gonna run?"

Al awkwardly spreads his hands, shrugs, "Well,"

"He means are you gonna try not to do it," interrupts Alex. "Like, are you gonna come quietly, or are you gonna make them chase you."

Tim looks from Alex back to Al. "I don't like this."

"You don't have to," says Al, "but you do have to figure out how we wanna play it. Drone'll be here soon, cops too. Actual cops I mean, not just mechanics who can pull you over."

"Guns?"

"No, _actual_ cops. What the hell, beat guys still carry pistols up in the city?"

"Yup." Tim rubs his hands down his face. "Options?"

"One," Al counts with his fingers, "you come along with us and run the state. Two, you run, the cops chase you and tackle you to the ground but, like, _fairly gently,_ y'know, 'cause you're technically their boss."

"And I come with you and run the state, _fuck._"

"Tim," says Alex, and Tim turns towards him and Alex suddenly doesn't know what he was going to say. It seemed like a moment where he should give Tim some kind of encouraging words, try to calm him down and get him on board with what's going on, but Alex can't figure out a way to tell Tim that he's the best man that Alex has ever met and there's nobody that Alex would trust more with a position of power.

"You're the best man I've ever met," says Alex quietly, "and there's nobody in the whole _world_ I'd rather trust with a position of power."

Tim lets that sentence lie on the floor between them a moment, and Al, sensibly, lets Tim speak first. "I don't want it."

"I know," acknowledges Alex. "And I don't want you to do it, I want you to help me fix this house." He inhales, because he realises he hasn't done that enough, and there's this thing going on in his stomach like he's swallowed some mercury on the way up an elevator. "But here we are."

This isn't right, Tim shouldn't be the one freaking out and Alex shouldn't be the one consoling him, this is all backwards. But, yeah. Here we are.

"People who can fix things," says Al, also quietly, "should fix things."

They let that one lie on the ground as well. They all kinda look at it for a sec.

It seemed profound for about two and a half seconds until Alex thinks _What an incredibly fucking obvious thing to say, Al._

"Give us a minute," says Tim.

"As long as I can," says Al. _Yeah Al, "People who can fix things should fix things," that's some fucking Lao Tzu shit right there, you're so deep. Wanker._ Alex walks with Tim back to the truck.

Tim starts unhooking the tarp. "So I'm gonna run," he says, casually.

"Run from governor," mutters Alex to himself.

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

"Okay," continues Tim, "I'm gonna let them think I'm coming quietly, and then I'm gonna run like hell off that way." He points towards the woods behind the house. "It's a perfect plan, the only problem with it is that it's not even _nearly_ gonna work and those guys are definitely gonna catch me."

Alex nods. "Solid except for that."

"Yeah," sighs Tim, pulling the corner of the tarp back, "I don't know the terrain, I'm not watching myself with a drone, and even if I _do_ manage to outrun them for a bit, they know where I live. But, y'know, pride."

"I get it."

"So, what else." Tim looks at what his hands are doing. "Why am I taking the tarp off. _You_ can do that, you're capable."

"Because you touch things when you're thinking," says Alex, and he's crying. Shit, when'd that happen. "You touch things when you're talking to me. You need chewing gum for your fingers so your mouth can work." He heaves and sniffles and tries to stop doing The Ugly Cry and also stop thinking of it as Ugly Crying because guys don't do that. "But there's nothing more to say except you have to run," he struggles, "because that's how people know they've got a good one, so now you're just doing, like, _hand stuff_ so you don't have to deal with mouth stuff 'cause the mouth's got nothing to do."

Tim gawps. "You don't have, like, last-minute questions about how the fuck to renovate a massive house?"

Alex's hands flap about uselessly. "Hundreds!"

"Top five?"

"Gentlemen," calls Al from over by his truck, "fair warning, I can see them coming."

_Is there fucking anyone you don't snitch on,_ is what Alex wants to yell, but he's got other shit to worry about, "What do I do about pinhole leaks in copper?"

Tim gives Alex a Look. It morphs into a nod. Alex begins to decode it as he walks slowly towards Al's truck.

"You'll wanna shut the water off at the main," _I see that you're panicking and need clear and complete instructions_ "open all the faucets so the water drains out of the whole house and the pipes up top can pull in air," _I understand why you asked this question now rather than just watching a video_ "you'll want new copper pipe and two slip couplings, they're little sections of tube just a little bit wider than the pipe," _I know how much you hate the plumbing aisle_ "cut out the bad section of pipe and clean up the ends real good until they're shiny, you'll find cutter and wire brush in my toolbox," _you can go in my toolbox, it's our toolbox now, take good care of it all_ "flux up all the joints with plumbing flux and an acid brush, inside the slip couplers too," _detail is important to us both_ "cut a new length of pipe same size as you just cut out, and you'll be able to wrestle it into place with the slip couplings on 'cause copper's pretty flexible," _I will pre-emptively reassure you and take care of the worries that I know you'll have because I know how you overthink everything and find problems before you even pick up a tool_ "grab the blowtorch and get everything hot as fuck and then flow some solder in. And I _know_ you can solder."

Alex looks at Tim through teary eyes. "Wires and boards are different to pipes. No blowtorch there."

"The metal flows the same." They're nearly at the truck now. "Don't try to do it if the pipes are still dribbling. The water won't go away, it'll evaporate and then just recondense at the top of the pipe, you'll boil the same water over and over and it'll steal all your heat. Stuff some bread up the pipe if you need it to stop for long enough to make the joint, it'll dissolve and blast out under pressure and it won't hurt anything."

"Bread? Like, _bread_ bread?"

"You heard me," grins Tim, "don't make Mister Governor repeat himself."

There's a car pulling up, maybe a hundred metres behind Al's. He begins "Sir -"

"Don't fucking call me sir," says Tim - he says it with a smile, but also with his eyes very wide and his brow raised like _Not only am I prepared to be very aggressive to you, I am *unexpectedly delighted* to have a reason,_ it's a gleeful and genuinely happy smile but not what you'd call a friendly one. The three guys getting out of the car would've only seen a jolly smile.

"Alright, Governor Tim," Al corrects himself, his own eyebrows raised and Alex notices his head nods down while Tim's went up and he makes damn sure to file that _whoooole_ interesting little interaction away for later analysis, "you wanna fill me in on the plan, you coming quietly or running like hell?"

"Oh, I'm gonna run like hell," nods Tim. "Your colleagues are gonna catch me, but there's guys watching this shit in bars who've put money on it, and it'd be a shame to just let it happen without putting on a show."

_Ballsy thing to say just before those guys get within earshot,_ Alex wants to say, but those guys are definitely within earshot now, and Alex hears the airy buzz of a drone approaching to watch the whole thing.

"You're gonna be one _hell_ of a governor," smiles Tim. He turns towards the approaching smiling men. "Gentlemen, Governor Tim here,"

"Snitch," groan Alex and Tim simultaneously.

"Governor Tim, these are officers Reubens, Menendez and Hollins." The men indicated give friendly little waves.

"It's a pleasure to meet you fine gentlemen," says Tim, giving them a big smile as the drone hovers into view behind them, "and I look forward to working with you." Then he spins on the gravel and fucking bolts towards the house.

Alex watches the three men chase after him, the drone following behind. He looks towards Al.

"Well hell, don't look at me," says Al, "you ever see a mechanic hurry?"

Amazingly, as Tim flees for the east side of the house, not a single one of them thinks to go around the west side.

It occurs to Alex that he has 99 other questions for Tim, and so he starts running as well.

Then it all gets a bit Scooby Doo.

As Tim comes back around the west side, Alex is there, and he shouts "Where do I go through the wall for the solar?"

"Dunno, but use the hammer drill!" pants Tim as he bolts past, pursued by a policeman.

"Right behind you," calls Alex, and Tim suddenly jukes to the left. The cop, slower and heavier, takes a sec as he scrabbles to change direction, and Alex overtakes him. "How do I run a 240 line?"

"One big fat breaker," shouts Tim as he rounds the truck and heads behind the garage, "double-tall, two hots," one of the other cops is closing in now, "they're on opposite phase to each other, no neutral, two hots and a ground!" Alex follows him and fucking hell, turns out the third cop had some sense, he's waiting for him on the other side of the garage. Tim stops, Alex stops, cop arms outstretched, they do a crabby shuffle-dance at each other as they try to figure out whether they're gonna go left or right, Tim turns heel and bolts back past Alex, Alex spreads his arms and crabdances at the cop because hell it ain't a crime to not wanna be governor so it's not like they can book him as an accessory to it and so long as they don't _actually_ collide - oh damn he got past. Where did Tim go?

Alex turns. The drone is right there in his face. He gives it the finger and carries on running, shouting "Where's the main water cutoff?"

"I don't know!" yells Tim, "Figure it out!"

"How do I put up drywall?" pants Alex.

"_Ask a smaller question!_"

"Acid staining concrete floors!"

"Clean it real good and rehearse the whole thing with a sprayer full of water, so you know how to move when you _oof_" and they've got him.

They've fucking got him. Menendez came from the other side of Al's truck and fucking got him, and the other cops are clapping, they're _applauding._

"Gotcha," says Menendez.

"That you did," pants Tim, in Menendez's tight, piggy embrace.

"You all runned out? Can I let go?"

Tim, amazingly, laughs. "That was actually fun," he chuckles. "But yeah, I think I'm all runned out."

Menendez slaps him heartily on the back. "Good chase."

Tim, amazingly again, slaps him right back. "Good chase."

Alex may never understand what the fuck is going on here, but he places it all in his Guy Stuff For Later Analysis folder.

Al wants a handshake. Tim wants to hug Alex, and he does so, sweaty and warm and firm and big. The other cops want to get Tim in the car. Tim wants to toss the keys to Alex, and Alex is bad at catching things, so he bats them from his right hand to his left and back to his right and up in the air and then gets them in both sore keystabbed hands and they're gone.

They're gone.

Why is Alex smiling?

Alex can feel the people in bars up and down the state cheering the TV. Televised police chases aren't a thing anymore. Football is different now. We don't often see someone being chased who doesn't want to be caught, and it's the only time we can admit that it's genuinely thrilling, and everybody's out of breath and sweaty and their hearts are pumping hard with the closest thing to Actual Violence that doesn't feel bad.

There was some kinda Man Vibe going on.

Alex pants, sweat between his shoulderblades, high enough that he can ignore, just for a couple more seconds, that he's now alone with more house than he knows what to do with.

Then it starts to fucking rain.

Me: See, the station is supposed to be ugly. It was built by the Cardassians and literally hung over Bajor during the occupation but that same oppression has left the Bajorans in a position where they can't just build a new station and are forced to work with what they've got. So the ugly legacy of colonialism is the literal backdrop of the show.

Barista: Okay, but did you want whip cream on that?

Me: Yes please.

Credit cards

I keep noticing settlers reaching for Indigenous knowledge as if we have already lived through an apocalypse and can therefore provide a reusable survival template for the one that’s coming.

The story underneath is that colonialism was a kind of world-ending event, Indigenous people survived it, and therefore climate breakdown is just another rhyme in the same historical pattern. That framing quietly turns Indigenous survival into proof that “humanity survives” and even that things eventually come out morally right, with respect and recognition following endurance.

It is a comforting narrative because it lets the future feel familiar and manageable, rather than genuinely new.

From where I stand, that analogy is false at the level that actually matters. This is not about resilience or spirit or cultural continuity; it is about material conditions exiting historical ranges. I see ecological signals that settlers around me simply do not register as signals at all.

When I lived in South Dakota, the limestone was literally falling apart from acid rain. That is not a hard time, a bad cycle, or a familiar stressor. That is the chemical dissolution of the ground itself under conditions that have never existed here before. Knowledge formed in relationship with stable rock, water, and seasons cannot simply be “applied” when those substrates are no longer behaving like themselves.

What frustrates me is being asked, implicitly or explicitly, to translate “this is different” into a language that still assumes continuity. Often the turn toward Indigenous knowledge functions less as respect and more as reassurance: a way for settlers to believe they can face collapse without fundamentally changing how they perceive, inhabit, or take responsibility for place. But Indigenous survival under colonialism happened within a world that still operated inside Holocene norms, even as it was violently reorganized.

Climate breakdown is pushing us beyond those norms entirely. Treating one as precedent for the other erases the very ecological perception Indigenous people are trying to point to: the moment when a place stops being able to carry the stories told about it.

they always told me it was important to remember things because the things you remember might be important

watching people I've known for decades lose the ability to recognize deplorable things as such feels like the reverse of Clangpoppet's vision in a way

the feeling of inhabiting a universe that is deeply, fundamentally wrong, but the reasons cannot be comprehended by "sober minds"

can't stop thinking about Horse Autopsy with Lizzie McGuire Iceberg Meme Explained and the horror of Clangpoppet's vision

ok, at this point I'll bite: is Pocky hiring?