2026-10-24T18:52:38Z https://nostr.now Oliver Kennedy https://nostr.now/npub1lylkrk7f95hacq4q2ddwj9rs2c3f4dwzeq2kaqx7m69aj5gt9lqsy42ua2 https://cdn.discuss.systems/accounts/avatars/113/750/007/904/386/528/original/4e0a4be33135020d.jpg https://cdn.discuss.systems/accounts/avatars/113/750/007/904/386/528/original/4e0a4be33135020d.jpg https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsxkrqgwn3u02u3xdpmrytvr6vtcs3mhc6hzn9g695fupkw3wcps9szyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzrnxxgz In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsvldkwp8vy33ssvg042x645gddtuzsszfnqznkyn3ht2n67cezy8qqv0u6h'>nevent1q…0u6h</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>You get vi also? Lucky! As I understand it, vi can&#39;t be secured with 2026-10-30T00:03:22Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsyzk5lkz5ylcumll0w276n964t73m0s23yasxe7sg0zf0tfd9e7rczyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzla6wsw In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqstn6980jp8r86kqk5lrjft5rege8jpzck06f2wtguv8kunacm2rng6nvsga'>nevent1q…vsga</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>Shouldn&#39;t you be getting a Title Emacs award? 2026-10-29T20:08:46Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsx5rp57gpmgz7v78r8zl4xntrn4mpzedr5sxxr4jxuvweh7ru46nczyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzh926lw Achievement Unlocked?<br/> <img src="https://cdn.discuss.systems/media_attachments/files/117/525/999/768/104/256/original/44df429319661634.png"> <br/> 2026-10-29T20:07:59Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqs2pw94q80n4qz9r5xdvts7pzgy3kcssjj95k9x4ekxfmz3nh0ukwczyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuz0v2gsu In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqswmzpylq48k72hl9nzqtx7jm5vfgjunetkwlve65jxlx2gv2jstgcfxelv7'>nevent1q…elv7</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>Always wanted to learn sonicpi... Ska/EDM fusion? 2026-10-15T21:15:30Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsymwfspzvgj5lcz49upg99qtthvjwqhl46ea7guqzgzpa6x2cylwqzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuz208my5 In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsqyt8zfztxg3s3l2hzuxx2uqsynem92knma2dhyv2p45xppun4t9smhwzax'>nevent1q…wzax</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>Fair. <br/><br/>One key point I&#39;m trying to make is that there&#39;s a path to reverse engineering similar capabilities into existing compositors. 2026-10-01T16:52:52Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqs0vg4cu9dc29972t9zfatgpaj4sesa7pjeyq2qur7g46ufjqkmlvgzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzn5fjfg In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqstuqlr2d6jk7kumjnh9xus35tpgaz98pnjma8h8s8kxz5cw6hpyqct20dkv'>nevent1q…0dkv</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>I had OSX&#39;s PDF-based rendering engine in mind, but NeWS appears to be a precursor of that. 2026-10-01T14:39:22Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsp8q5h47ne97dd3lqmnnch6s7uj4fl2uydyhgw4d428mphl35078gzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzatg79u A modest proposal for compositors and UI frameworks: Supporting SVG and/or PDF screenshots could help address one of the most fundamental UI challenges to grow out of mobile phones: Sharing information.<br/><br/>Buckle in, this is a long one...<br/><br/>For years now, computer users (myself included) have been developing a tendency to share screenshots of things on their screen, rather than sharing the actual structured content behind the screenshot. A common complaint among my faculty peers is that students will send emails/forum posts with screenshots of their console, rather than c/p the text itself. <br/><br/>It&#39;s tempting to attribute this to laziness (and there&#39;s a part of that here), but I think there&#39;s something deeper to it.<br/><br/>1. Software tied to companies that want to keep you in their ecosystem, has increasingly been developed with barriers to getting structured information out. e.g., even 5 years ago, Slack was disabling copy-paste through clickjackers and similar HTML/JS trickery. Resorting to screenshots is the easiest workaround for such tools.<br/><br/>2. Copy/paste in a touchscreen interface is not only hard, but also non-obvious. Just having to know that text can be long-tapped to start selecting is already a barrier, but then on iOS and #GTK-based touch interfaces like #Phosh (and I assume Android as well), tap-drag is an incredibly fiddly gesture. Screenshots are click-and-go, and again, resorting to screenshots is far easier and more discoverable.<br/><br/>3. Text selection loses formatting. Tables, Fonts, Text Size, Text Color, Lists copied out of HTML, Monospace alignment, and math glyphs all vanish. Similarly, text in adjacent windows also vanishes. Screenshotting is the only way to get these forms of information out.<br/><br/>4. People got used to screenshotting as a way to get around character limits in early social media.<br/><br/>5. For reasons 1-4, it&#39;s easy to just default to sharing screenshots. As a result frameworks and apps have less incentive to make structured text accessible (or easy to develop with). E.g., Fractal only supports copying links and the entire text of exactly one message (and not arbitrary substrings of a message, or multiple messages).<br/><br/>Ok... so back to the proposal. Support for Vector formats like SVG and PDF is widespread. e.g., SVG renderers are already a part of every browser-based app. Formatting and layout are preserved. Furthermore, SVG makes it possible to retain structure in the captured image (be it tables, lists, or just simple text). <br/><br/>The compositor doesn&#39;t have this information upfront... but the transition can be incremental. SVG can embed raster content, so the naive SVG implementation would just embed the raster screenshot in an SVG container. From here, something like a low-tech OCR pass (parsing computer text out of pristine images was a 99% solved problem 20 years ago) could extract at least *some* structure with no need to change anything, making it a win already. Then, gradually, as the APIs develop and adoption grows, frameworks can start adding support for exporting structure in screenshots as well. <br/><br/>SVG support would make everyone happy: Folks who want structured information (e.g., for discoverability in form posts, or to make it easier to C/P text into a search engine) win, and all of the arguments for using screenshots still apply as well! 2026-10-01T13:33:04Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqst2vmjmzdqf8r23uphly827msjncd7l9ktppxqpy60zp3srsvsa7czyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzw5h6v0 Even small victories are victories. 2026-09-30T14:21:15Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsvfurhwnqyjyhwmuywf7zqwt8377ra04dxutnwdplvmxhppu3l3rgzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuz9s380j I would like to alert the world to the fact that #Draupnir has broken out of its sandbox and is modifying its test data.<br/><br/>(note to self, don&#39;t write test scripts that accidentally overwrite your ground truth) 2026-09-25T00:46:08Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsz6v9ldckk4lcqf280rtyq38e2n0npp4sllsz90xg667xjmnxaw8gzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuz2s4r8d Go go school district!<br/><br/>Just received an email that my kid&#39;s school district won&#39;t be using 3rd party crapware for parental comms any more, and will switch to the in-house tool they built ages ago.<br/><br/>No more janky &#34;apps&#34;<br/>No more emails with &#34;click this link to read your message&#34;<br/><br/>🎉 2026-09-01T19:06:40Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsqz87v45k5epztzra2tac9nemd68qgdh3v5gs9j87j5nypyfs3kvqzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzy07n2h I like big buttes and I can not lie.<br/>You other riders can&#39;t deny.<br/>When the train goes by with some low elevation plains... a windmill and some rains... you get bored.<br/> <img src="https://cdn.discuss.systems/media_attachments/files/117/184/860/505/978/843/original/6746e91cf6a6ac50.jpeg"> <br/> 2026-08-30T14:12:52Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsqgu9lnzukpdf8hcpmg0sqa6982tkxsfhh8s0fp7zzml0wdj5a55gzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuztm3agr The second annual UB Databases Alum SF meetup. Was really great to catch up with Abhineet, Andrew, Gourab, [@amazing_ying](<a href="https://mastodon.social/@amazing_ying">https://mastodon.social/@amazing_ying</a> ), Varsha, and Darshana. Darshana fled from nearby Toronto, so I had to chase her down to bestow her graduation present upon her. (2nd year in a row that this event has born witness to such a bestowal... Ying got hers just last year)<br/> <img src="https://cdn.discuss.systems/media_attachments/files/117/165/790/155/949/483/original/0a8aeb9041f87108.jpeg"> <br/> <img src="https://cdn.discuss.systems/media_attachments/files/117/165/807/941/169/390/original/b2670524df278e30.jpeg"> <br/> 2026-08-27T05:31:13Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqspts7tcyp5lpt6xcv46xvfcn2y9wdyt30330uhf93tdg5rczwegqqzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzqh4s0e In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsws7f0sg3wqv7f6d9gh9464vg4hw24h3glf6sa6pmlrmssnecehpsd9t0m7'>nevent1q…t0m7</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>LAX is the second worst airport.<br/><br/>(and also the first and third. It&#39;s just that bad) 2026-07-26T17:54:56Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsrzlvl8qqm7h54alahulpu8ga620m4zt74u23qzxq5k9yftysh9mczyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzzumyut Better late than never. Started migrating my lab&#39;s public repos off of #Github. <br/><br/>Thanks to quota limits... this project may take a while. 2026-06-20T20:14:56Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqs88f4y5p8cpad98ankj07xz3g9y3nlqwkp8swuv87j9qsqf08e8pgzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuz0upj0n In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsz9pu3lfyun08udhu2pjh2x0xzxgzm2y59fqke5z442rzgjwel0fgqy4x4k'>nevent1q…4x4k</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>Shorter ride today down the so-called Fulton Chain of Lakes, creatively named First Lake... Second Lake, Third Lake... My route took me along the scenic Route 28, from Old Forge to Blue Mountain lake. I made good time, in no small part due to the blackflies that were doing their hardest to make sure that I did not take too many, or too long breaks.<br/><br/> #Minnowbrook2026 begins!<br/> <img src="https://fd.discuss.systems/media_attachments/files/116/687/520/046/169/604/original/0deb5525411d9c37.jpeg"> <br/> <img src="https://fd.discuss.systems/media_attachments/files/116/687/533/343/796/901/original/2a02b591d23d92d9.jpeg"> <br/> 2026-06-03T18:20:21Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsz9pu3lfyun08udhu2pjh2x0xzxgzm2y59fqke5z442rzgjwel0fgzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzd5qy00 Once again, I have defeated my dread nemesis, Potato Hill, earning me a ride along the delightful Moose River. Halfway to #Minnowbrook2026 , I am treating myself to brief respite in the town of Old Forge, gateway to the #Adirondacks. <br/><br/>The journey continues tomorrow...<br/> <img src="https://fd.discuss.systems/media_attachments/files/116/682/884/700/750/472/original/fb0d50762cc5d022.jpeg"> <br/> 2026-06-02T22:04:43Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqs8a76qdpsq2sazmaphd82mp5ckh7ssar8gvwl9lvq50dz30hd7t5szyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzaxzcwx The #Terminator series got the emergence of #Skynet right... but not the form it would ultimately take.<br/><br/>#AI_slop<br/> <img src="https://fd.discuss.systems/media_attachments/files/116/618/581/093/121/574/original/b307b7c53d2e26a7.png"> <br/> 2026-05-22T14:00:57Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqs9jrw9ut6usnmthkq6w9txhkj8w368nemgm2j4yh4sf5tk8wuhepczyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzharhsw In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqs0z3zfw4u32rn0fh5mank4ndvwxjflc4uyfeekuvr7p9j6pexureca6uyw3'>nevent1q…uyw3</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>Young Gary struggles against his oppressive childhood with overly controlling parents. He must come to terms with this in the middle of a militaristic crackdown and a phd advisor who would is ok with his lab assistants dying if it means he gets a publication. 2026-05-11T02:25:40Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsd367m2mt5ley9dwxenv3u4gklp3zyk9mr9duv2u830a0rwcl9ygszyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzl36j3y For anyone in #WesternNewYork (#WNY), and specifically the #Buffalo/#Niagara area, #UBuffalo will hold its bi-annual UB CSE Demo Day in Davis Hall on May 5th at 2:00<br/><br/><a href="https://ub-cse-demo-day.github.io/">https://ub-cse-demo-day.github.io/</a><br/><br/>This is one of the big highlights of the semester, and always features a lot of really neat student efforts. If you&#39;re in the area, check it out. 2026-05-01T20:47:26Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqswwqx4zaltpwj6gkgncpx9ser29e7eutkldgy8aq52tn6j5z33rqszyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzkl9pum Coming up with new and exciting ways for data to be destroyed is the best part of the transactions module in my database class.<br/> <img src="https://fd.discuss.systems/media_attachments/files/116/361/092/635/408/137/original/ccb89f0595f00bb8.png"> <br/> 2026-04-07T02:38:06Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsymxn0cta6x3dqv063cq66sumvpkjqm92anxvxkdnr4r85jps2lwczyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuz53va9n <a href="https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/after-outages-amazon-to-make-senior-engineers-sign-off-on-ai-assisted-changes/">https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/after-outages-amazon-to-make-senior-engineers-sign-off-on-ai-assisted-changes/</a><br/><br/>As it was foretold...<br/><br/><a href="https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/blame">https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/blame</a> 2026-03-10T21:31:44Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsfap5ss7k4wjmgc75frltskhchcc3lwgztlzs7gcnssuj7hh9fazgzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuz9ll8j8 In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsr2t5jns38u4u0h5cwamnfhqq645v9h676k8datvpxm629ltxe5ss2hghm0'>nevent1q…ghm0</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>I only got 1019. <br/><br/>Are you the fabled 10x shitposter? 2025-12-16T01:37:09Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsw2yucq90z6tyww3kkhhdgcwec5ng9kdakdkhn7kfk5jkgdnqrqnczyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuz4jewyk Running late for #UBHacking. Had to submit a patch first...<br/> <img src="https://fd.discuss.systems/media_attachments/files/115/514/472/177/448/793/original/f5aa9e4357b7d546.jpeg"> <br/> 2025-11-08T14:10:44Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsg5pv3ehec82uy2nwf5mmmy3hzfvlar9ts4tu7lgpkle8hk8w79mszyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzk92mvs In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsrjky0rjc6vw8pymlejam38680yenp4vyx2npyf3fyrrfn8w5srmgkpta3e'>nevent1q…ta3e</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>Sorry... I think someone (possibly me) may have asked a monkey&#39;s paw to make Linux the prettiest desktop of all. 2025-10-22T02:07:54Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsgja6dcjehe2njd5vh58r24rnpujd8cs2kcqpv3cm4ymustzvy08szyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzucssyy In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsp7a4vyslcwxpm3j7wy7apz3c60ft7ej6anp660zksy692nkrhdug0cljjk'>nevent1q…ljjk</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>You don&#39;t grant your students insert access to your calendar? 2025-10-03T11:47:20Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqs0hw36q5ps76tq2lawncm2ywdwtmxz37ln9lddtdfz3mettwglqkczyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuz28x3qr In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsxtygkpjwtjed988jv63ef3hdpzqqg0thv02d8xcartdwpq7se89q4p0qsr'>nevent1q…0qsr</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>Hey guys... if any elder gods just happen to show up in WNY...<br/><br/>...uhh... sorry I guess? 2025-09-03T00:25:02Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsxtygkpjwtjed988jv63ef3hdpzqqg0thv02d8xcartdwpq7se89qzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuztggcf7 In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsdx5tlgt9n6rnh220wvx786hghdkhfpn9s86atcsgj4x66u92882qu687v8'>nevent1q…87v8</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>Is it worse when, after assembling a papercraft version of the map, you&#39;re still not fully convinced that the thing is physically possible? 2025-09-03T00:23:16Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsdx5tlgt9n6rnh220wvx786hghdkhfpn9s86atcsgj4x66u92882qzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzp3el57 Is it bad when you&#39;re DMming a pre-written module and you need a 3-d image to convince yourself that the topology of a map is feasible? 2025-08-24T01:28:59Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsye5zpzjsaenn2wd0p6dak6rphxqzdr8a09nqzxpavqszf4t0m54czyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzn5kh2m One of the few things I miss about MacOS is Apple&#39;s Human Interface Guidelines. Apple put in a concerted effort to make sure that applications were consistent on a wide range of conventions, from the standard menus (file, edit), to key combinations (cmd-c, x, z), and installation procedures (drag to applications folder). <br/><br/>The HIG were so rooted in the community&#39;s mindset that apps that didn&#39;t adhere to them were often avoided by the community. It&#39;s one of the main reasons that e.g., Java apps, even with native widgets, always felt &#39;out of place&#39; on a mac. It&#39;s also, I think, why the conventions were so effective. Once established, the community created a huge selection pressure favoring apps that adopted the conventions.<br/><br/>I see a similar set of conventions at the command line. e.g., editors usually conform to emacs or vi keybindings. Prompts either use readline or adopt analogous keybindings. Similarly, getopt-style command line flags are a standard. You can see a similar level of jarring interaction when interacting with, for example, dd, or any command that ignores the -h/--help convention. Although there are definitely established utilities that break from the standard, there is again a very strong selection pressure.<br/><br/>Although a lot of Linux environments (Gnome, Elementary, KDE, etc...) have similar conventions codified, I don&#39;t see a selection pressure for adoption even remotely approximating that of the MacOS ecosystem (pre-electron, at least). I&#39;ve been thinking about why this is. It&#39;s not solely an open source thing, otherwise we&#39;d see the same effect on the command line. Is it that the standards got to the party &#34;too late&#34; (e.g., versus Apple who imposed standards early on, or the command line, where UNIX strongarmed a standard into existence?) 2025-08-02T21:58:47Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqs2s003fxncjgr344pcznwa8x875v95gvp57mrhenj2ksqadkl4l7czyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuz7m6fwx In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsv0u8p2mphzlhzx0vhg0rkz5ylxdkdyq80jmp7gfdl2xv3yuv2r2gzasmta'>nevent1q…smta</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>Was it red? If so, I might be a touch worried... 2025-07-21T19:58:24Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsywl83yghq2xsy8rtdyhyz83dh2uz33egwuxt8asjj3rtmpt8naaczyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzw8eygv I&#39;ve been poking at my development workflow a bit. I ❤️ SublimeText, but having to toggle between it and my console has been developing as a bit of an irritant. <br/><br/>It&#39;s a minor irritant, to be sure: but I find myself juggling about a dozen different window-shifting key combinations (Switch apps, Switch windows within app, Move to adjacent tile, Move to adjacent workspace, etc...), and it always takes me a few minutes to settle into a compile/edit groove each time I sit down in a new environment.<br/><br/>I&#39;ve been playing with Termius, but there&#39;s some quirks there: Console rendering has artifacts, and once I&#39;m in Termius, it grabs the input and any further interactions require switching to a different buffer with the mouse (not ideal).<br/><br/>I could switch to emacs... but I can&#39;t bring myself to rely on Lisp as a configuration language. (Python isn&#39;t great either, but I prefer it).<br/><br/>I&#39;ve been playing around with Helix, and it&#39;s been growing on me. I&#39;m still not fully grokking insert/command mode, but I can see the power there. Native integration with TreeSitter is also kinda neat. 2025-07-15T15:04:40Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqs9hjj9x3t9keu78xkue4y0ft34qdw4zxjxr0qpkeuypnyzt6pmz4gzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuza6au4y I understand what they were going for, but... *twitch* <br/><br/>➡ and &gt; are different characters.<br/> <img src="https://fd.discuss.systems/media_attachments/files/114/813/727/713/043/058/original/a751593ee1568a86.jpg"> <br/> 2025-07-07T20:02:51Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsx5nulz9wrc86j6796k9q46a87e0vzvpr5gmls4az80uv5ycs2w2gzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzpcm2xm #Hypercard was one of the formative influences on my development as a software developer and researcher. I&#39;d done a bunch of programming in various flavors of Basic and C when I first started using it, but Hypercard was the first programming language that I used to solve real problems, ranging from writing up my HS Chemistry Lab reports, to cataloguing my coin collection, to developing a re-enactment of the climactic scene of the Merchant of Venice. I have fond memories of my high school Hypercard programming class (see the movie Hackers for a surprisingly realistic re-enactment), where we got to play with the school&#39;s scheduling system, written in hypercard (with fake data though)<br/><br/>RIP #BillAtkinson. Your contributions to our lives will ripple throughout time. 2025-06-08T02:33:43Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqswuv3jxycg8cu8kqcj2samlsy3663thc24ey3qy73mdhdhk6eym7qzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuz95kks3 In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsdehxg9qygkejmlcwtp97qw09hcstaepxhyx9pfxrerrt2gj0kh8qpaxxa6'>nevent1q…xxa6</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>I&#39;m liking the scala this discussion. It escalated swift ly. I wasn&#39;t sure where we were going, but now the objective c, do I. 2025-05-29T16:52:18Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsywf4ej8y2q63t5mwy9g0zu8525prqgjsjv84jf8nva84mev0x4pczyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzlryplh In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsrannpq6a552uh0d2my4ds4f4lv9cujnv84frkrdtrcgyrytx6mmqg22tc0'>nevent1q…2tc0</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>You want a sql to my post? 2025-05-29T16:30:03Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsxkqky92qs5zzu9nhnlfdyuxdr4egme3ezdlrzn8dwr6sevanvywszyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuze2tm25 In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqs26l76v3lyfyvgrvtln2uqavwunzk5wspjc5ldzvx4p277hq6xcrczva6zu'>nevent1q…a6zu</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>I java suspicion that they r not. But now I c. 2025-05-29T16:27:52Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsxec7adnwd9s53k33qx45d5qzfl027mftzle79v87zfsqla0qydlszyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzm2qj6n Supposedly, when asked &#34;Mr Feinman, how do you solve problems?&#34;, the great physicist (&amp; bongo player) responded that he would first write down the problem, and then write down the answer.<br/><br/>It took me many years to realize that it&#39;s the first step that&#39;s usually the hard one. 2025-05-20T23:45:42Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqspe3022x0cdf4r3yfx5h7rvrtw0pxzsqdgzprfvpsjfy3x27rg72gzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzcznq78 I am very torn on the fact that Bill Kurtis&#39; most excellent voice, now on a weekly basis, appears to proclaim my institution to be the future of AI research. 2025-05-11T21:24:29Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqspyfhk3lhyfgytpg0u8tlsc3humh4px3mdtem3y4amjcqlxyke7cszyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuz559qxp When my laptop spontaneously dies in the middle of a trip, and I still need to finish a presentation, my #OnePlus6 with <span itemprop="mentions" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"><a itemprop="url" href="/npub1vnuxr820pvj8t35tfgejeylj44ystqwr8h5zret2z6gkqwwdrdtqmw8mqn" class="bg-lavender dark:prose:text-neutral-50 dark:text-neutral-50 dark:bg-garnet px-1"><span>postmarketOS (old account)</span> (<span class="italic">npub1vnu…8mqn</span>)</a></span> comes to the rescue. <br/><br/>A HUGE thanks to everyone working to make #LinuxPhones a thing.<br/> <img src="https://fd.discuss.systems/media_attachments/files/114/390/412/777/565/224/original/19a2682e53761bbd.jpeg"> <br/> 2025-04-24T01:47:06Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsreyjartvkryew7shh46q6rqmv4umuzwwly527wdea38j580jsnqczyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzcxklxh In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsg8y33m7n9rgrr4h9g7m40tpaawz4mtp2cfa80ylpkwe66s5vxq3snskst7'>nevent1q…kst7</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>The first line of every paragraph.<br/><br/>And yes, it is annoying. 2025-04-18T12:30:41Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsxwsl50qz9ktpvph2w4ugm0tc8m88n269zurf57my0ngvaz9v52jszyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzlyy6z9 In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqs84vp4qe60ku3gs60y086my0ml0gzx68cgehght9fzwqdce543pccacsxd8'>nevent1q…sxd8</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>Not something I do personally, but I have noticed that prefixing &gt; onto every line of a block is far more cumbersome than adding delimiters. Would be nice if markdown supported a &gt;&gt;&gt; quote. 2025-04-18T12:26:32Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqs8kxaeedd6ymlg5qr4ga0j6kevc7x54jxz67dqjk29e0j4au6ja4czyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzfuj9fy Folks in the EU or UK: My schedule puts me in London on the AM of Saturday, June 21, one day before my reservation in Berlin for SIGMOD starts on the 22nd. What&#39;s a good (and preferably not insanely expensive) place to visit+spend the night? Outdoor nature-y or tech-related activities preferred. Train access is a must.<br/><br/>Sadly, the European Sleeper from Amsterdam to Berlin doesn&#39;t run on Saturdays :( 2025-03-20T00:01:23Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsz9xtdypn8fxg982cf2sw5y6ghkeazxt8c7tmyh5m9gq6g8sd5ehczyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuznpjnsw #PACMOD v3n1 is out, and Aaron&#39;s work is public! <br/><br/>With an assist from Zhuoyue&#39;s #XDB, Aaron demonstrated that a probabilistic database could use approximate query processing techniques, not only to match the accuracy of other PDBs, but to do so while returning query results **faster** than a **deterministic** database.<br/><br/>Probabilistic databases, broadly, are database engines that deal with data that&#39;s specified as a probability distribution, rather than exact values. For this paper, we&#39;re mainly interested in computing the expectation of count (~= sums/averages/etc...) queries.<br/><br/>The paper starts off, dealing with a bit of a theoretical chip on our shoulder. All the theorists like to work with set-probabilistic databases because query processing there is generally #P-time. For a probabilistic database to ever be practical, we need to operate on bag-relations, but these have been largely ignored by the theory folks since even the hardest bag-PDB query is poly time. Turns out they&#39;re wrong, and there&#39;s some interesting complexity results in bag-PDBs after all :)<br/><br/>Aaron pulls out the fine-grained complexity guns, and we prove that, in general, evaluating a bag-PDB query is super-linearly slower than the analogous deterministic query. That is, if there exists an algorithm that runs the deterministic version of the query in $O(f(n))$, then the best algorithm for the bag-probabilistic query will be $O(f(n) * [some as-yet unknown fractional power of n])$.<br/><br/>This left us with approximation. We noticed that that we can compute the lineage of a query result with the requisite runtime complexity. What puts us over the deterministic runtime complexity is computing the final query result expectations. So we developed a nice approximation algorithm for computing the expectation of a polynomial, implemented it, ran some benchmarks, and were about to call it a day when we noticed that constructing the full lineage formula was just slooooow (do not taunt the happy fun constants).<br/><br/>The turning point came when we started talking to Zhuoyue and realized that our sampling algorithm was more or less equivalent to #WanderJoin, albeit over provenance traces rather than raw data. Plugging into his XDB allowed us to more or less sidestep the provenance construction step, sample directly from the raw relations, and beat postgres :).<br/><br/><a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3709691">https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3709691</a> 2025-02-18T03:54:37Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsdk6f9n44p82a6lel7mc24agwpa60l4550hferp4t4appv5yrf4vczyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzlslalg A bit late in the season, but U. Buffalo CSE is #FacultyHiring in #PL, Security, and Theory. The dept. is really pushing Datalog, Session Types, and Distributed Systems, but we have a wide range of interests. Official posting isn&#39;t up yet, but DM or email me for details. 2025-02-04T17:11:06Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsg9t8akm9637jrzpppk82lnqs8u3gyqhc3ahleepnpay8jna5246szyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzvx0xw4 In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsp494mdp8sal49d5rwte02jrq2qyx3mkgx2dmqazxfa96autgma5qrmudjv'>nevent1q…udjv</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>: <span itemprop="mentions" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"><a itemprop="url" href="/npub1emvg23qnavcef9p5lheqqhxay2fh5jcjuf5eemp50x0g74csajysyw7mrd" class="bg-lavender dark:prose:text-neutral-50 dark:text-neutral-50 dark:bg-garnet px-1"><span>Ethan Blanton</span> (<span class="italic">npub1emv…7mrd</span>)</a></span> just generated 24MB of fibbonacci number the other day. I&#39;m worried that this may constitute the majority of his hard drive. 2025-01-30T04:32:42Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsg98zac409m4h7yllqgfw80wertx9393psgux2nq7yu5ljgjjrqmqzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzh3em6y In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsvgaepywt7rl0e5yp62xmgm5pfn9n5cucmg5r8f6lp96apglk665sqx2062'>nevent1q…2062</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>What happens in VSCode? 2025-01-29T14:40:14Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqsfg532df690mw2rf08s0ut82gf4kt8rf2rn8aea3wa00yr6qu6n4gzyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuz82xx2l In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsparax7lme60k6047cf63x8hgqjq2uqjar0j0cnfdv9dfdphrlyzcktgyst'>nevent1q…gyst</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>Clever, but the pool of IPs originating this crap is huge... 2025-01-16T13:07:14Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqspa2frtrw2wrl2dlv9sj2z8u3r7j0twqdstrkqsperzdyhcr794eczyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzgv8k99 It feels like I&#39;ve been seeing the term AI slop everywhere the last week or two. The downward edge of the hype cycle appears to have arrived. 2025-01-15T13:22:26Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqs8w9uhwj2877ltg4pvz2aywghgjm9npvs38cd6e0sh5vj002wc2aszyrun7cwmeykjlhqz5pf446g5wptz9x44ctyp2m5qmm0ghk23pvhuzw6pxme In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsvuhqjt5w4lprejj660m07kgh9nkvjn6agakqm90y7efe2tmwj09s9eum5c'>nevent1q…um5c</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>Back in the day when that was the only way I could fit music on the 80MB HDD in my LC II. Good times. 2025-01-14T00:35:33Z