lime!

so it was! cool!

i will admit i’m not very well versed in rust, the only time i’ve used it was in like 2016, in an embedded context where there were hard restrictions on what could be used. no crates, no macros, no traits, no threading, and a very limited number of functions. procedural style, basically. someone else chose the wrong language and i just had to work within the system.

if the language is stable, i’m assuming the instability issues come from external crates? or are they just made up?

my take on the social media thing is that it basically amounts to creating an outside context problem. gathering the opinions of us plebs doesn’t really matter because the kernel isn’t developed by the masses, no matter what ESR thinks. the project is headed by Linus (and his “generals”) and what they say goes. so riling up a bunch of nobodies that aren’t fully aware of all the requirements there are on the kernel will amount to brigading no matter how well-meaning the mob is.

the LKML exists and is public specifically because they don’t want to deal with fielding questions from people on social media. they want to field questions from people who care enough to read it.

actually, they did try using social media for a while. unfortunately they chose google plus.

the linux kernel is over 30 million lines of code. it may not be there forever, but good luck phasing it out in a lifetime.

it’s a different technology and paradigm that the old guard would have to take considerable time to learn to be as productive as they are in C. it requires a different way of thinking about systems.

basically the rust-in-kernel-gang includes none of the “main” kernel team because they are busy building the kernel. this is an experiment to see if a second programming language can be successfully integrated into the kernel at all. if they try to force their way in, that’s going to cause problems for everyone.

it’s more niche than C, has less competency available, works very differently to C, and requires a whole new toolchain to be added to the already massive kernel compilation process. for it to be plain sailing adding it to the kernel some of the worlds’ foremost domain experts on operating systems would have to re-learn basically everything.

also since rust is just coming up on 15 years of existence without a 1.0 release, there’s no way to ensure that the code written today will be considered well-formed by the time 1.0 hits.

i was thinking of that as well, like surely land would still have value. don’t know if it’s ever addressed though.

nope, big things are built with “industrial replicators”. the only thing they can’t make is a material called latinum, which is sought after by the ferengi precisely because it’s the only scarce thing left.

also, there’s a distinction to be made between “private” and “personal” property. people still own things, but it’s for sentimental reasons. like, you wouldn’t have a toolbox or a statue or a mansion unless it was your “lucky” toolbox or “antique” statue or a “family” mansion. things only have sentimental value, not monetary value.

but you’re right in that an economy exists, because the federation still needs to do outside trade and freight. it’s just more of a bartering system.

also, people on DS9 tend to carry latinum around due to the ferengi presence. the bar in ds9 just has the same replicators that all the rooms do, but it’s like a custom to buy a drink at the bar and gamble.

i mean they came out in 2002 and were for schools, so yes.

we had them in school in europe in like 2003.

i’m still not entirely sold on them but since i’m currently using one that the company subscribes to i can give a quick opinion:

i had an idea for a code snippet that could save be some headache (a mock for primitives in lua, to be specific) but i foresaw some issues with commutativity (aka how to make sure that a + b == b + a). so i asked about this, and the llm created some boilerplate to test this code. i’ve been chatting with it for about half an hour and testing the code it produces, and had it expand the idea to all possible metamethods available on primitive types, together with about 50 test cases with descriptive assertions. i’ve now run into an issue where the __eq metamethod isn’t firing correctly when one of the operands is a primitive rather than a mock, and after having the llm link me to the relevant part of the docs, that seems to be a feature of the language rather than a bug.

so in 30 minutes i’ve gone from a loose idea to a well-documented proof-of-concept to a roadblock that can’t really be overcome. complete exploration and feasibility study, fully tested, in less than an hour.

…start …page?

we need a modernisation of ytmnd. something embeddable.

they already kidnapped a swedish citizen and told us it’s an internal thing just because he was ethnically chinese. i don’t think they want to help.

that’s a bit much, i mean he’s been obsessed with the idea of “X” since the 90s. his first company was called x dot com, he made the space company he bought change their name to space x, the most gimmicky car he could persuade Tesla to build in the early days was the model x, he has like seven x wives…

joke’s on him, with his new anti-trans legislation this means we’ll get hundreds of new pods led by trans women, which i am all for

listen to kill james bond

i have a replica PDP-11 that i built from a kit. i think it’s very cool looking.

i also have the first version of the espruino. it’s a tiny microcontroller (a computer on a chip) that can only run javascript (the thing you build websites with). and not modern javascript either, the wonky 2010 kind. it’s completely useless.

this is a great opportunity to bring in riddles from the Kids Write Jokes tumblr. not gonna spoiler the answers for… obvious reasons.

some of my favourites:

Knock Knock

Who’s there?

Doctor Dentist

Doctor Dentist who

How can you be a Doctor and a Dentist there is not enough time

what do dogs call Italy?

dogtaly

How many sharks does it take to make a grandpa shark?

1,280,000 sharks.

what does NASA stand for.

not another spaceship aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

and my all time fave

can you fart?

do it now

neuro-sama is the modern day max headroom

in GTA 2, naming your player “GOURANGA” activates the cheat code mode. “IAMDAVEJ” gives you all guns.

in half-life 2, typing ent_fire !picker in the console makes the thing you are looking at catch fire. it’s also the base command for a lot of other things; if you’re looking at a door and add “unlock” to the command, the door will open.

when stacking firewood, always put the pieces with the bark facing up. that way, rain can’t get the wood wet, and the logs dry quicker.

paper maps fold long side first.

the modern graphical interface of the personal computer was developed by Xerox and plagiarized by Steve jobs after he got a factory tour in 1972, but he missed the most important part of the computer that he saw: it was fully networked using what we today call Ethernet.

saved me a gig ^^

had some old plasma5 stuff lying around from before the upgrade.