My wife asked me if I did this. I did not. Someone has given us a 30°/60°/90° triangle by stabbing it into one of the pumpkins in front of the house

Well, sheet metal between RFID access cards worked for one card reader but not the other.

Good thing I just rubber banded these together

I have two credit card size (approx.) RFID access cards. I want them kept together, two doors in same building. If I present both at once to the card reader it fails. (Confused? Lock out for multiple responses? I know not why.)

What can I do to overcome this? If I sandwiched some piece of metal between them, would that block the signal from the one on the far side? I have aluminum flashing leftover from a roofing project

I think it was @nytpu suggesting a few months ago a mercury keyboard switch, for zero debounce. Thinking of that again

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/10/the-hows-and-whys-of-non-mechanical-mechanical-keyboard-switches/

Also thinking of the effects of shaking the keyboard, say by bumping the table hard

The original code was from 1990, with 1993 edits.

The patch file was from 2005.

I did need to need to fiddle with the code, but now it works

Needed to build a new copy of a tool today. The page with the code:

«Building From Source

Too often today people forget that farms are the source of their food. So, too, Unix newcomers forget that code is the source of their programs. This program is not available as an RPM or in a ports directory. You must deal with the code.

The steps, roughly:

* Untar the tarball.
* Apply the patch.
* Change to the new directory.
* Make the program.

If something goes wrong, you fiddle with the source.»

Should have been more specific when asking for a lot

Is it just me or is "force majeure" being used a lot more this year than any time in the last two decades? Google ngrams stops at 2022, so I can't check there.

I'm sure this is fine

RE: https://oldbytes.space/@kenshirriff/117338421033681446

The CORDIC computer (second, black and white, photo) looks so much like an architectural model of some brutalist hotel or apartment block

When I was a kid, it seemed like every other pizza place had boxes that proclaimed "You've tried the rest, now try the best!"

Been a while since I have seen one of those. But now I've seen "You've tried them ali, now try ... Pasquale's"

If I wanted an arcade style joystick (USB) to use with MAME, what do people recommend? I have one styled like a NES controller and I'm not liking it. I think that an actual stick would be better than a tiny thumb operated thing. I generally like the 1980s games that work with one joystick and zero to two buttons. Dig-Dug, Mr Do, Burger Time, Pac-Man, Frogger, things like that

(Editing types and autocorrect issues)

It occurred to me while walking that "count the letters in strawberry" is such a useless test of AI, even if the clankers regularly fumble it. No one above first grade would want that answer.

But you can do the same "cognitive" test by asking for anagrams. And anagramming is something that computing power has been used for for decades.

"Mercy, Sire Water Crab" is an anagram of what supermarket item?

("Wordplay" generated, most recent version from 1996/03/20 : https://hsvmovies.com/static_subpages/personal_orig/wordplay/ )

This is the wildest torrent lawsuit I can remember.

Private trackers sued by a filmmaker for copyright.
Then actual filmmaker steps in and says it's someone impersonating him. Plaintiff says, "no really, I share the name and also made films with those same titles" (paraphrased, but also destroying his standing). Now the judge wants to see the guy and view one of the films. The trackers may be able to get legal revenge on the plaintiff.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/09/filmmaker-suing-passthepopcorn-may-be-banned-user-out-for-revenge/

At the dentist and I see People magazine has sold the cover (it's a full page ad)

I bricked my AI girlfriend. Guess I don't know how to use it.

#neverslop

I have two flatbed scanners, a "travel" document scanner (Epson EM-50), and an overhead document camera. The travel document scanner is easiest and fastest to use every time. It's a purchase I do not regret at all.

I blogged about it a couple of years ago, when I only owned two of the scanners mentioned above:

https://qaz.wtf/qz/blosxom/2022/05/12/two-scanners

(The Scanza mentioned in the blog is no more.)

Just saw a low flying plane flying a banner behind it. Seemed to say "Monaco".

This is San Francisco, so I expect all advertising to be tech companies, mostly AI ones recently.

Not recognizing this one

Parked right outside the grocery

I have a small kaffir (makut) lime plant from which I harvest leaves for use in cooking. I have never seen it fruit, even though the adjacent lemon tree is very productive.

I recently saw some of the fruit for sale, so I go
t a few. They are small and hard. I threw one in my citrus press to juice and basically nothing came out. The rind smells like kaffir leaves. The pulp is like fish eggs, in feel: tiny ball vesicles.

I tossed that fruit in a glass with water to drink. Tastes like lime soap

Fun lights plus unfriendly nails