Turns out Douglas Adams was wrong.
The real answer to life, the universe, and everything, is 4.

New entry suggestion for the Hacker's Dictionary:
linuxlop - (noun) an operating system hallucinated by a Large Language Model.

Sorry, no more time to explain. Urgently need to study NetBSD configuration.

Thing is, we're betting multiple Terabytes of data on rsync working reliably. I'm paranoid enough to regularly run checksums on a few hundred Gigabytes to make sure rsync did its job right. This is the first time *ever* that rsync has just flat out failed to do its job. I'm not impressed.

Yay. I just got hit on the nose by rsync sloprot. Somehow I had avoided it so far. The "don't worry, it's fixed in the next version. Just upgrade" response doesn't fill me with warm fuzzy feelings. I'm now pondering my options. I haven't found a clear obvious safe choice for a slop free fork yet, and switching to another implementation will involve a verification process, and possibly porting of tooling.

Can we please just keep our software working reliably?

#linux #unix

Maths primer:
Start with nothing: 0
Next: 1 2 3 4 ...
Repeated Next is Addition: 2+2=4
Inverse Addition is Subtraction: 4-2=2
Repeated Addition is Multiplication: 2x2=4
Inverse Multiplication is Division: 4/2=2
Repeated Multiplication is Exponentiation: 2^2=4
Inverse Exponentiation is Root: 4^(1/2)=2
Inverse Exponentiation is Logarithm: base 2 log of 4=2
Repeated Exponentiation is Tetration: 2^^2=4
Etc.
It's simple, really.

#SciencePhysicsandMath

There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.
The first method is far more difficult.
-- C.A.R. Hoare

The latter method has been automated by AI (LLMs).

Looks like it really is time to start paying more attention to *BSD. Does any of them have a clear LLM policy?
#BSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #UNIX

Explaining the English language to Brits: you say either, I say tomato

https://youtu.be/LOILZ_D3aRg

https://youtu.be/753xlF0EWsI
Why China built the most unprofitable rail network

High speed rail as a Service
vs
High speed rail as a Business

On the value of externalities.

#CrossBorderRail

I received a box, which contains a box, which contains bags, which contain bags.

I now have a supply of garbage bin bags.

We had a brief house visit from Thor. He took a few pictures and then he was on his way again.
He's a nice guy, but a bit loud, and the flash on his camera is annoying.

#BloomScrolling

Today we enjoyed some non-Starlink precipitation.

#BloomScrolling

We think the old oscilloscope was actually nicer than this new one.

Effra wants to help.

Testing our new oscilloscope

This post
https://mstdn.social/@osnews/115708949285022093

pointed me to a wonderful bit of Unix history that somehow manages to capture so much of the Unix philosophy in a fun and enlightening way.

More shell, less egg
http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2011/12/more-shell-less-egg/

Read about Donald Knuth, Doug McIlroy, Jon Bentley, literate programming, intelligible vs wise programming, Fabergé eggs and brass balls.

#unix #linux

This is an image of profile defacing that is, of course, totally inappropriate and should NOT be widely disseminated.

This file server will soon be moved into my data center.
#vintagecomputers