Ariel Millennium Thornton @arielmt@computerfairi.es

#OTD 30 years ago, 17 September 1991, the open source #Linux kernel was released. #linux30 #linux2021 #computing #tech #history

BTW, #Xenia is the better mascot.

Xenia info: https://xenia-linux-site.glitch.me/

Image source (birdsite): https://twitter.com/Flying_Hyena/status/1385990310141075458

#!/bin/sh

# Follow the provided short URL and show each location redirect in the
# chain. Usage: follow http://short.url/12345

HOP=$1
while [ -n "$HOP" ]
do
printf "%s\n" "$HOP"
HOP=$( curl -Is "$HOP" | dos2unix | sed -n 's/^[Ll]ocation: //p' )
done

The page text itself is remarkable only for its size: 151 bytes.
A whole Web page just *barely* too big for birdsite's original limit.

curl -I www\.w3\.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/Link.html | grep -i last-modified
# pretty interesting last-modified header

My Palm IIIx is 22 years old, and it's still going!

Do not study science-oriented programming languages while drowsy. I just misread "specification" as "spaghettification."

BitTorrent made its debut 20 years and three days ago. https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-turns-20-the-file-sharing-revolution-revisited-210702/

I'm so lazy tonight, I'm eating supper straight out of the pan I baked it in.

Note to self: When moving a shellscript's command line/getopts processing into an initialization function (say, 'setoptions'), remember to call it as 'setoptions "$@"' or you'll spend an hour troubleshooting why variables are empty.

POSIX #shellscripting pain point:

If I use $( shellcheck -ax mainscript.sh ) and a dot-included #shellscript has a typo in a comment that happens to be a shellcheck directive, then shellcheck calls that comment a script parse error & refuses to check it.

It's reasonable but surprising.

Seriously, Cisco's ancient Aironet devices from 2000 had menu-driven **TELNET** interfaces that yielded a better device management UX! Do a 1970s menu over SSH, and you're golden!

Dear networking device manufacturers:

Fuck your JavaShit bullscript device management interfaces.

Fuck you for making those huge, unwieldy, flaky, & unreliable Web apps the only meaningful (or literally only) way to manage your devices in the field on bad days.

Love,

ArielMT

I'm cleaning out stuff, and I came across the "Windows Handbook 2010" issue of Maximum PC magazine, from September 2010.

On page 23, in the middle of "Google Tips," is Reader.

Google closed Reader on July 1, 2013, near the height of its popularity.

Don't rely on any Google service to be there for long, no matter how popular.