FoxQuirk 🦊 @quirk@computerfairi.es

the reason zip and unzip are seperate commands actually has to do with the proprietary origins of compression algorithms.

originally, a common scheme was that the decompression command would be free, but compressing files required buying a license.

so companies with deep pockets who want users to be able to download their software quickly can shell out the cash, while users don't have to pay for a seperate piece of software to access the file they just bought.

commands like tar never went through this weird licensing scheme, so don't have to deal with this odd split (and also, a physical tape archive would be a lot more annoying to deal with if you didn't have access to stuff like appending and deleting files)

I will never not repost this

a scanning electron microscope is a graphical processing unit that renders the texture of an object, sampled by an electron beam, projected into your screen coordinates

(realization prompted by thinking about how to improve output when the beam ends up positioned between DAC codes & realizing I'm just describing 2x MSAA)

I use a motorised wheelchair and, when I feel a fart coming on, I slow down slightly so that when I do fart I can speed up as if it was a turbo boost.

and then, as if by magic, some *actual* real humans reminded us that most people have no problem with trans people :)

#transjoy #uk

https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/03/05/hampstead-ladies-pond-trans-inclusion/

so fedex apparently takes a sequence of timestamps for a sequence of shipment scan events taking place in different locations and:
- groups them by local date
- sorts the dates
- sorts the events within each date by UTC time

this is, somehow, the most batshit insane approach I can possibly imagine

I just had a "fun" realization that despite collecting old computers, I hate all the companies who made them.

I guess what I'm into is what they brought to society. I'm interested in all the contributions people made to the world of computers. The fun we had on them. The usefulness they still potentially have. The long nights programmers spent writing code for to make a program that people used for a little while, then sadly discarded.

That is why I hunt for old programs.

Get in loser, we're going to your mom's house to eat Hot Pockets and play Nintendo 64.

We discussed if “schema” was a word in common usage at work, so I decided to do the “giraffe test” (that I just made up), and hoo boy! Look at that glorious XML peak in the early 2000s! 📈

For the record, I have never required students to irradiate themselves with a malfunctioning radiotherapy machine in any class I have taught.

Back in 2007, I talked one of my grad school friends into writing a Therac-25 UI simulator so that we could release a fake April Fools' assignment asking the students to do some hands-on experiments with a real Therac-25. ("Bring a partner and a signed liability release form. How many rads did you receive while doing this assignment?")

I am delighted to discover that, for the last five years, the Wikipedia article has featured a screenshot of that simulator... and for much of that time suggested it was a screenshot of a real Therac.

TL;DR when EU law references a harmonised standard, that standard MUST be made available to every citizen of the EU. For free. As it is considered to be part of the law. And thus public interest is a given.

I CANNOT OVERSTATE HOW BIG THIS DECISION OF EUCJ IS!

Press release:
https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2024-03/cp240041en.pdf

Decision text:
https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document_print.jsf?mode=req&pageIndex=0&docid=283443&part=1&doclang=EN&text=&dir=&occ=first&cid=6475952

#whataweekhuh

For the last time:

Abyss = for staring into
Void = for screaming into

Please stop screaming into the abyss we’re not insured for that