TIL that SCCS was originally programmed in SNOBOL on OS/360 which explains a lot.
SNOBOL was originally named SEXI; that got changed pretty quickly.
It's an odd language but it solved the nested parens problem that regexes can't deal with.
A brand new #cga game for #msdos has arrived! Not from me, although it does use CGALIB. Penult is a lovely RPG that previously appeared on the Atari 2600. https://karl-g.itch.io/dospenult
*eats a raw carrot, chewing for an eternity for the whole of this orangey tuber*
*Sees the rest of the carrot on the chopping board*
Wtf, that was only the first half!
Why can’t you combine .tar.gz files with cat? https://alexwlchan.net/2026/cat-confusion/
I wanted to combine some archives, so I had to understand the tar and gzip file formats. I learnt about tape drives, patent laws, and end-of-file markers.
@juliette What annoys me most when people instist on helmet mandates is that the only focus on injury reduction when the discussion should be about reducing crashes. Helmets do nothing to prevent cars from hitting cyclists. Proper bike infrastructure does.
Turn every lawn into a community garden?
Hello! A wee group of us are running an experiment to see if there’s any curiosity for this idea. It’s called Alot, and it pairs people who love to garden with people who have land but are too busy to garden it.
If you like growing things but lack space, or if you dream of a garden but don’t have the time, Alot matches gardeners with people who have space to grow, in the same neighbourhood.
You both get fresh flowers and seasonal vegetables, help the bees, take care of the soil, and meet passionate growers in your area. All the ingredients we need for our community to support each other through climate change.
If you’re interested, sign up here: https://alot.vercel.app/. Alot sends out matches every week. Our aim is to get 10 sign ups by the end of the month!
I'm not on Facebook or any other socials, but if you're in Ōtepoti and fancy helping me out by posting on any local (trusted) community pages, that would be awesome.
@SimonCHulse @simplicitarian @zeborah see if you can boost it now - I did a whole new post via phone app…
RE: https://awesome.garden/@bytex64/117118750318921973
Outstanding DOS lettering on the VP-info spash screen.
And here's VP-info, a DBase-alike. DBase isn't just a database program, it's more of an application toolkit for database-driven applications, with its own language. This is the sort of thing you'd build payroll and inventory systems with, and they were a workhorse of small business back in the day. I built a small component inventory system with it before moving to Part-DB (and because I could export CSV, that migration wasn't too hard!). AFAIK there's not much like it now, I guess because SaaS business apps have filled that need.
📣Ladies and Gentlemen (and everyone in between), this is a PSA from Cards against humanity.
They need our help. Please respond.
Let's all build this thing. Boost if you agree.
There's a new anthology of stories inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin. I have a story in there about a group of humans who form an extremely dysfunctional club to study an alien language.
And now there's a lovely review in Publishers Weekly!
OH: “I write my programs in Objectionable-C”
“Objective-C?”
“No”
I was touched by this, a compilation of everything good about Jason Arday.
I wasn't following the case before his death, so I don't have a well-informed perspective. But I do think that no-one deserves to be hounded to death for (alleged?) plagiarism, and I do think that many, many academics with a lot more privilege get away with a lot worse than plagiarism.
https://leilacancode.github.io/everythinggood-about-jasonarday/
RE: https://typo.social/@drj/117122699463006737
It's an impressive feat to make a humanist serif font with visibly varying stroke width in only 8px wide. Someday I'd like to find a use for a variable-width version of this font.
I have discovered the simple joy of recolouring XMotif apps, using the `*foreground` and `*background` properties. I guess i could do this in the 1990s. Except no, because we didn't have colour back then.
what if i created a version of lua called moon and it used portuguese keywords
Got a typewriter of my own! (Previous one was a loaner). Needs a bit of cleaning, and maybe some lubrication or adjustment of the thingy that lifts the inked ribbon up. BOOTS PT400 (a pharmacy/general store in the UK), but I am guessing from the gernal look and the 1/3 key that it is a rebadged Seiko. With a few features subtracted. No black/red/stencil lever, and no soft-touch adjustment.
