Happy Summer Solstice and/or Father’s Day, to those who celebrate.

I spent mine setting up a gift from my wife, a Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite, and then watching a couple of movies that really brought the colors out: Flash Gordon (1980) and Dune (2021) (with Rifftrax commentary).

I’d call that a good day.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de @prologic@twtxt.net 💯

Nothing scales so cheaply. 😁

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Thanks…? 😄

I credit my subjects for how good they look. 😍

For this week’s (slightly delayed) #caturday post, we catch Bowie as he contemplates whether to play Arkham City (again).

Image

Spoilers: he opted for a nap instead (as is his way).

🎶 “Woken Furies” - Gunship https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDb6eNUPScU

The perfect music for late-night urban roving.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Definitely silly in places (and the back-alley fistfight is AWESOME).

But it also wouldn’t surprise me to find out that people like Bezzos, Musk, and Zuckerberg are actually ghoulish aliens here to keep us into a state of reduced consciousness while they extract what they can. “Their third-world.”

It’s like the bearded-man says: “We could be pets, we could be food, but all we really are is cattle.”

But also: “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass… and I’m all out of bubblegum.”

And: “You know, you look like your head fell in the cheese dip back in 1957.”

And: “Brother, life’s a bitch… and she’s back in heat.”

And: “There’s gonna be hell to pay. ‘Cause I ain’t daddy’s little boy no more.”

Just finished watching They Live (1988) again, one of my favorite movies, and one that has (sadly) remained relevant for nearly 40 years (some might even argue it’s more relevant today than ever).

Obey. Consume. No independent thought. Honor apathy. Do not question authority.

They live, we sleep.

@prologic@twtxt.net Very cool! Like @movq@www.uninformativ.de, I don’t think I’m the target audience for this (as I’m already a DevOps hobbyist managing a small server “victory garden”), but I love the idea.

Apologies for hitting it early, I initially overlooked the sign-up form and thought I would try it for 💩s and 😁s.

Been digging Susam Pal’s Wander Console: https://susam.net/wander/

I like the way it combines human curation with algorithmic randomness, allowing you to visit other #smolweb sites without leaving “home”.

Like this one - The Oldschool PC Font Resource: https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/

I plan on adding one to my own site as part of its next update.

In Magic today, the Phyrexian Invasion failed in the first game, but the second game was EPIC!

I played my (unlisted) Dragons 2: Draconic Boogaloo deck, and…

Turn 1: Nothing special
Turn 2: Miirym (when a dragon enters, copy it)
Turn 3: Tiamat (choose 5 dragons from deck, put in hand)
Turn 4: Klauth (when dragons attack, create mana equal to their total power)
I attacked with all 5 dragons, which made 28 mana x2 = 56(!) mana.
Then (still turn 4) I played Scourge of Valkas (when a dragon enters, deal damage to target equal to number of dragons) + 5 other dragons, dealing 6 + 2 x (7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17) = 270(!) direct damage (more than double enough to kill the other 3 players).

Damn fine win, if I do say so myself.

@maurice-renck.de@maurice-renck.de Nice write-up. One of the things I was always impressed with is that the GPS system has to account for time dilation due to the effects of relativity (38 microseconds worth, per Wikipedia).

All that for a burger!

@prologic@twtxt.net I look forward to hearing more about it.

In today’s #caturday image, Emperor Maximilian the First tries to teach his subjects how to play Sequence, despite never having read the rules himself…

Image

9-year-old me found this on the Fediverse last night:

https://restorationgames.com/thunder-road-ignition-pre-orders-open/

He said it was “rad”, and wouldn’t shut up about it until I preordered it.

Now hopefully he’ll stop asking for things for a bit so my other ages can have a turn…

@prologic@twtxt.net Awesome work!

I’ve been thinking about learning Go for a while, maybe this will be the thing that finally gets me to do it.

@prologic@twtxt.net ORLY? 🤩

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org @bender@twtxt.net @prologic@twtxt.net Oh, snap! 🤦 I am so sorry about that. I had no idea that was happening!

I’m working on a fix right now.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Bummer, but thanks for the heads-up. 🙂

Where are you seeing it? I remember running across a similar issue before, but I thought I already fixed it by falling back to the hash URL.

That having been said, I like your idea of defaulting to the subscribed / “following” URL.

Also, there appears to be an extra “r” in my handle in your mention (it’s “itsericwoodward”, not “itsericwoordward”). No big deal, just wanted to mention it.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de That’s a great effect! 👍

For this week’s (slightly late) #caturday, I’d like to introduce our 4th and final feline resident, the old boy we call Bugsy. He’s been with us for 8 years, and we think he’s 13-14 years old (but he’s not saying).

He used to sound a bit like a cartoon gangster (hence the name), but as the years have passed, he started to sound more like late-stage William Hickey (Uncle Lewis from Christmas Vacation).

He’s our sweet little old man, and he is loved.

Image

@prologic@twtxt.net Fair point, and I don’t plan on doing it myself.

But I also understand raging against the broken social contract(s). It’s like using Iocaine or zip-bombs against the scrapers. I don’t do it, but I understand why someone would feel justified in doing so.

🎶 “Forget” - Fluorescent Pea Pod

@prologic@twtxt.net Productive? Maybe not, but it would certainly serve as a social signal…

Well, that might work… https://codeberg.org/awful-systems/AAA-NO-SLOP.md 🤣

It’s been a week, so… Arcade Time!

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Related reading (if you’re interested): Let’s Talk about LLMs by James Bennett

First, it quotes the DORA report on the “State of AI-assisted Software Development”:

The research reveals a critical truth: AI’s primary role in software development is that of an amplifier. It magnifies the strengths of high-performing organizations and the dysfunctions of struggling ones.

At the end, it quotes the late Fred Books:

The first step toward the management of disease was replacement of demon theories and humours theories by the germ theory. That very step, the beginning of hope, in itself dashed all hopes of magical solutions. It told workers that progress would be made stepwise, at great effort, and that a persistent, unremitting care would have to be paid to a discipline of cleanliness. So it is with software engineering today.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Wow, I’m sorry to hear about that. Permanent emergency mode sucks, I’ve been there, and it always felt like drowning.

Fortunately, at my current job, we’ve been given time to keep our technical debt from overtaking the project. Unfortunately, we’ve been forced to use AI (mostly in the form of GitHub Copilot). Of course, now that the tokens cost more than a developer’s salary, they’ve been rethinking that position somewhat. 😁

In my experience, you are 100% correct - even in the best case, AI is a force multiplier. If the code is clean, it can speed you up. But if the code is a mess, it’ll just multiply the mess.

Played some games, boosted some toots, tweaked some code… now it’s time for bed.

@prologic@twtxt.net @bender@twtxt.net Thanks! Yeah, it already supports Twt Hash via twtxt-lib (both v1 and v2, when the time is right), plus most of the other features (multiline, user-agent, and metadata), and I’m working on (re-)implementing threading, mentions, and hash filtering (to make conversations easier to follow).

Here’s a current snapshot of my local version, in case anyone is interested:

Image

Apologies to anyone who’s seen an uptick in twtxt pings from me today… I’ve been working on shoe-horning my twtxt reader (TwtStrm) into my editor (TwtKpr, aka the express-twtkpr npm library), and it kind ran amok a few times. So again, sorry - I’ve added a minimum 10-minute cool-down period between pulls which should help (I hope 🙂).

@bender@twtxt.net Thank you, we think so too.

I’m glad you like it!

Last minute entry for #caturday (at least in this time zone)…

This is Shadow. He’s an incredibly sweet boy who likes long walks (on your shoulder), loving on his puppies, and laying in his bowl(s).

Image

Image

Image

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org It’s OK, it’s still WIP. You’re just helping make it more robust. 😁

@arne@uplegger.eu I’m similar… I use “I” most of the time (mostly in planning or trying to focus, ex: “I’m going to do X, then Y”), but I also use “you” when fussing at myself for my perceived faults or mistakes (that’s my “lizard brain”, we don’t get along so well because he’s kind of a jerk).

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org

LOL! You broke my link parser. 😄

Image

I’m thrilled to be the 10,082nd 👻 on BackerKit for “First in Fright: The FANGORIA Compendium”!

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Just call me Little Eric {first_name}}. 😁

After I’m gone, and the years have passed, I hope people will remember me not just as a man, but as a hoopy frood who really knew where his towel was.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Great find! Other than a couple of games I bought over the years, my 5.25” disks were always dark grey / black.

And 3.5” disks were another matter entirely… 😄

It looks like someone forgot to check their email template… 😁

Image

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Congrats, that’s no small feat!

The blogosphere will never die!! 🤘

I went 1-for-2 again at Magic today, winning the first game with my (mostly standard) Fallout “Hail, Caesar” deck by creating a swarm of soldiers and slapping people across the face with them (LOL!), before quitting the 2nd game for lack of time after my board got wiped (I mean, I might have lucked into something eventually, but it was getting late, so I dropped out).

I hope to play more regularly going into the summer, but who knows.

@prologic@twtxt.net Wow, thanks everyone for the kind words! 😊

In answer to @movq@www.uninformativ.de and @bender@twtxt.net: I’m sorry, it’s just the default camera app on my Samsung Galaxy S23 phone with the “Portrait” mode turned on. It’s a trick I learned from my wife, who used to work for a dog daycare and took pics of doggos for their FB page. It works well for humans, too. 😁

I really dig #caturday on the Fediverse, so I thought I would start doing it here as well.

For this week, I’d like to introduce my spirit animal, Bowie.

Image

May his supreme laziness (and fuzzy-chunky-monkey cuteness) serve as an inspiration to you, too.

Image

Reached a new high score on “River Raid” on the Atari800 emulator.

Overall, a most productive night. 😁

Image

Looking back on an old project, while keeping an eye to its future…

@tftp@tilde.town Greetings and salutations! 👋

@bender@twtxt.net Thanks!

I’m pleased to announce that express-twtkpr (my ExpressJS library for hosting, editing, and posting to a twtxt.txt file) continues to crawl towards a full release with another (pre-alpha) update published to NPM. This update includes a whole new plugin system, and even a (little) more documentation. Check it out, if you dare (and use it at your own risk): https://www.npmjs.com/package/express-twtkpr

And speaking of plugins, here’s where the fun’s at: announcing express-twtkpr-core-plugins, a set of 3 plugins for your TwtKpr install: emojiButton, uploadButton, and postToMastodon. Like express-twtkpr, this set of plugins is still in pre-alpha, and lacks documentation, examples, tests, installation flexibility, or polish (so also use them at your own risk). Other than that, they work great: https://www.npmjs.com/package/express-twtkpr-core-plugins

Image

Image

Image

Stay tuned for more! 🤘