Using FreeBSD to make self-hosting fun again
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Show HN: Strange Attractors
I went down the rabbit hole on a side project and ended up building this: Strange Attractors( https://blog.shashanktomar.com/posts/strange-attractors). It’s built with three.js.

Working on it reminded me of the little “maths for fun” exercises I used to do while learning programming in early days. Just trying things out, getting fascinated and geeky, and being surprised by the results. I spent way too much time on this, but i … ⌘ Read more

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Yeah, give it a shot. At worst you know that you have to continue your quest. :-)

Fun fact, during a semester break I was actually a little bored, so I just started reading the Qt documentation. I didn’t plan on using Qt for anything, though. I only looked at the docs because they were on my bucket list for some reason. Qt was probably recommended to me and coming from KDE myself, that was motivation enough to look at the docs just for fun.

The more I read, the more hooked I got. The documentation was extremely well written, something I’ve never seen before. The structure was very well thought out and I got the impression that I understood what the people thought when they actually designed Qt.

A few days in I decided to actually give it a real try. Having never done anything in C++ before, I quickly realized that this endeavor won’t succeed. I simply couldn’t get it going. But I found the Qt bindings for Python, so that was a new boost. And quickly after, I discovered that there were even KDE bindings for Python in my package manager, so I immediately switched to them as that integrated into my KDE desktop even nicer.

I used the Python KDE bindings for one larger project, a planning software for a summer camp that we used several years. It’s main feature was to see who is available to do an activity. In the past, that was done on a large sheet of paper, but people got assigned two activities at the same time or weren’t assigned at all. So, by showing people in yellow (free), green (one activity assigned) and red (overbooked), this sped up and improved the planning process.

Another core feature was to generate personalized time tables (just like back in school) and a dedicated view for the morning meeting on site.

It was extended over the years with all sorts of stuff. E.g. I then implemented a warning if all the custodians of an activitiy with kids were underage to satisfy new the guidelines that there should be somebody of age.

Just before the pandemic I started to even add support for personalized live views on phones or tablets during the planning process (with web sockets, though). This way, people could see their own schedule or independently check at which day an activity takes place etc. For these side quests, they don’t have to check the large matrix on the projector. But the project died there.

Here’s a screenshot from one of the main views:

This Python+Qt rewrite replaced and improved the Java+Swing predecessor.

@bender@twtxt.net Kaboom! Hahaha, I did not think of that at all, thanks for pointing it out, mate! :‘-D

But let me clarify just in case: I honestly do not want to bash this project. In fact, it’s a great little invention. It’s just that I’m not conviced by the current user interface decisions. Anyway, web design isn’t right up my alley. I just wanted to add some fun. And luckily, at least someone liked it so far. :-)

@aelaraji@aelaraji.com yeah, it looks tedious because it is. LOL. I can twt no matter where I am because a) with Yarn is as easy as opening a web browser, and b) with jenny is as easy at SSHing to my VPS. But, the keyword is fun. That’s what matters!

Just typing twts directly into my twtxt file.

Details:

• Opening my twtxt file remotely using vim scp://user@remote:port//path/to/twtxt.txt
  
• Inserting the date, time and tab part of the twt with :.!echo "$(date -Is)\t"
  
• In case I need to add a new line I just Ctrl+Shift+u, type in the 2028 and hit Enter
  
• In order to replay, you just steal a twt hash from your favorite Yarn instance.
  

It looks tedious, but it’s fun to know I can twt no matter where I am, as long as can ssh in.

How to Avoid Fighting Rust Borrow Checker | qouteall notes
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@prologic@twtxt.net No pressure! This is meant to be fun. 😅

@movq@www.uninformativ.de I think if I was younger, with more energy, and wasn’t blind with leber’s disease (look it up) I’d be fine™ But yeah I get the whole “exhausting” apart. I’ll join you this year, since there’s only 12 puzzles and as you say, we can “take our time” it might actually be fun! (as opposed to exhausting and pressured).

@prologic@twtxt.net Yeah, lots of people are welcoming this change, saying they are relieved that there are fewer puzzles. And ngl, I, too, have been very exhausted at the end of the month. It’s a lot of fun and I loved it each time, but yeah, it can be exhausting.

What about the icons in pifmgr.dll?
Raymond Chen has another great post about some of the classic icons from Windows 95, this time focusing on pifmgr.dll. In this file, there are a variety of random-seeming icons, and it turns out they’re random for a reason: they were just a bunch a fun, generic icons intended for people to use when creating PIF files. The icons in pifmgr.dll were created just for fun. They were not created with any particular programs in mind, with one obvious exception. They w … ⌘ Read more

awesome-tiny-crates: A bunch of small crates that make writing Rust more fun
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Why is Halloween starting so much earlier each year? A business professor explains
Halloween is a fun, scary time for children and adults alike—but why does the holiday seem to start so much earlier every year? Decades ago, when I was young, Halloween was a much smaller affair, and people didn’t start preparing until mid-October. Today, in my neighborhood near where I grew up in Massachusetts, Halloween decorations start appearing in the middle of summer. ⌘ Read more

That was a very non-fun day at work.

We’re not using AWS directly, but soooooooooooooooo much other stuff does.

Space Elevator
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Sam Whited: Coffeeneuring 2025
This year I haven’t blogged much at all, but it’s time for the 15th annual
Coffeeneuring and who-knows-how-many-annual Biketober challenges so here we go!
This post will be updated with each of my Coffeeneuring rides as the month goes
on, and may (or may not) contain a few fun C+1 rides that count towards
Biketober, but not for Coffeeneuring.
… ⌘ Read more

London mosque faces criticism over ‘men and young girls below 12 only’ charity fun run ⌘ Read more

@bender@twtxt.net Is dealing with spam fun though? DDoS attacks? DoS attacks? Scans for all kinds of stupid shit™? Malware? Advertising? Tracking? Spying? ..

Intranets have been around since Jesus times (well, not quite 😂, but you get the idea). They are fun to play with, but that’s about it. I mean, the “fun” of the Internet comes from its variety.

Is my cat having fun, or annoyed? ⌘ Read more

Cycling is fun in itself, but doing it to perform a task is extremely satisfying. It feels so good to load up the cargo rack with groceries, or to opt for a bicycle instead of a car to go visit a friend. Biking with a purpose makes my desire to live green feel much more tangible.

Play Super Mario Bros Remastered for Some Retro Gaming Fun
Gamers and Mario enthusiasts in particular are sure to get a kick out of Super Mario Brothers Remastered, a fan-made unofficial remake of the original Nintendo Super Mario Bros game that includes new levels, new options and game modes, new characters, a level editor, physics improvements, and more. Super Mario Bros Remastered is not meant … [Read More](https://osxdaily.com/2025/09/28/play-super-mario-bros-remastered-for-r … ⌘ Read more

Great. Yet another messed up plain text e-mail part. The URL was actually HTML-escaped. Took me five attempts to figure this out, because of course it had to be several kilometers long. In fact, the e-mail stated: “Please do not be surprised that the link is particularly long. It contains your personal configuration.”

A normal person is completely lost (that’s why I got involved). Visting the broken URL opens a popup dialog suggesting to deactivate script blockers. Which I had already done upfront as a matter of prudence.

Fun bonus on top: The JWT in the link has identical iat (issued at) and exp (expiry) claims. The expiry is definitely not checked, it’s well in the past.

Medical software just has to be horrible. It’s a law.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Fun fact, inhabitants of this town are nicknamed „Brandstifter“ (arsonists). In the 19th century, a firebug caused a number of big fires here.

i know yarn has a CLI client in yarnc but ngl i wish there was a TUI client. that’d be really fun

@bender@twtxt.net thank youuuu bender i missed your fun posts!!!! yeah i have been INSANELY BUSY with fujocoded work (see those newsletter posts!) it’s been tough but i’ve been making my way through it 🫡🫡🫡

i’ve been sooo obsessed with the second a-side from my favorite idol group’s latest single. it’s a super fun and energetic latin pop track — i highly recommend giving it a listen, it’s really catchy!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RtbnP1onaM

Hmm, gnu.org is slow as heck. Shorter HTML pages load in about ten seconds. This complete AWK manual all in one large HTML page took a full minute: https://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/gawk.html Is there maybe some anti AI shenanigans going on?

In any case, I find the user guide super interesting. My AWK skills are basically non-existent, so I finally decided to change that. This document is incredibly well written and makes it really fun to keep reading and learning. I’m very impressed. So far, I made it to section 1.6, happy to continue.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org I usually only have my GPS tracker with me. That trip yesterday was probably a one-time thing. 😅 It was fun, but I’d rather not carry so much stuff around. 🥴

@dce@hashnix.club Glad you liked it. 😅

Haha, fun! I browsed your gopher hole a little bit. I noticed some entries are fully justified (formatting), while others are not. I didn’t notice a pattern, though it makes sense not to use justification on entries with code. Yet, some prose entries are, and some are not. A mystery. :-)

@prologic@twtxt.net Yeah, I’ve blocked some large subnets now (most likely overblocking a lot of stuff) and it has died down.

I’m not looking forward to doing this on a regular basis. This is supposed to be a fun hobby – and it was, for many years. Maybe that time is just over.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Yeah, that was a lot of fun. 😃 Now let’s wait and see if I ever get to actually use this. 😂

I’ve got a prototype of my hardcopy simulator going. I’m typing on the keyboard and the “display” goes to the printer:

https://movq.de/v/235c1eabac/MVI_8810.MOV.mp4

The biiiiiiiiiig problem is that the print head and plastic cover make it impossible to see what’s currently being printed, because this is not a typewriter. This means: In order to see what I just entered, I have to feed the paper back and forth and back and forth … it’s not ideal.

I got that idea of moving back/forth from Drew DeVault, who – as it turned out – did something similar a few years back. (I tried hard to read as little as possible of his blog post, because figuring things out myself is more fun. But that could mean I missed a great idea here or there.)

But hey, at least this is running on my Pentium 133 on SuSE Linux 6.4, printer connected with a parallel cable. 😍

(Also, yes, you can see the printouts of earlier tests and, yes, I used ed(1) wrong at one point. 🤪 And ls insisted on using colors …)

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Heck yeah, have fun! :-) We never had a matrix printer, started off with a cathode ray tube and an inkjet pisser.

I’m happy to see you compose your first twtxt message using ed on your new output device. We definitely need video proof of that! ;-)

having fun with omg.lol lately

(Just for fun, SuSE Linux 6.4 from ~25 years ago: )

i signed up for omg.lol and i’m really liking it. such a cozy and fun little community with a suite of fun web things. i wish the financial barrier to entry was a bit lower though (maybe like $5 for a few months on it or something) just so i could recommend it to my broke friends more, but i totally get why it’s priced the way it is (solo dev!!!)

@kingdomcome@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz I REPLIED TO THIS AND NOW IT’S NOT SHOWING WTFFFF anyway what i said was that i have some fun stuff in the daily note template already like ASCII weather forecast from wttr AND a jenny holzer quote from fortune!!! i should add more fun stuff!!!

@kat@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz I BELIEVE IN U!!! Making it fun helps! Maybe like put images in the docs so it’s cuter to look at! I did that, but with physical journaling. Except instead of pics it was receipts & leaves & dried flowers lol

@thecanine@twtxt.net Nice! :-)

When tidying up my good mate’s birthday party site last night we emptied the beer pong cups which had been filled with just ordinary tap water. There was also a cute dog whose owner gave it its drinking bowl, but it was not interested. Just for fun I offered it one of those water cups and it began to drink. We all had to laugh so hard because it was completely unexpected and looked so funny. Can’t describe this comicalness of the situation. :-D

i am having fun with dmenu

https://bytes.4-walls.net/kat/dotfiles/src/branch/main/config/.local/bin/dict
https://bytes.4-walls.net/kat/dotfiles/commit/b5ca2e0eaba3cbc0cf0898926ffcb0bb064d17c7

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org yesss it’s not my idea but it’s sooo fun here ngl like i should use it more!!

Xfce does one thing very right: It stores its settings in plain-text XML files. This allows me to easily read, track, and maybe even distribute these settings to other machines.

(Unlike GNOME’s dconf, which uses some binary file format. Fun fact: The older and now deprecated gconf also used XML files.)

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Yeah, if there’s no stable API, then it’s not a lot of fun … Bah. :|

guys microformats are so fun

Alright, now for something fun! Taxes! Yay!

i love pinkpantheress so much she’s so cute and fun and tapped into every aesthetic and dance music sound i love. if you like house and garage and D&B music, check her out!!!! she absolutely knows her shit too btw she’s sampled basement jaxx and adam F

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo_lPnBlfto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFWXqLSr4ZM

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org

They’re all talks, not real hands-on trainings like you did.

I love listening to good, well-structured talks. Problem is, not everybody is a good speaker and many screw it up. 🥴 I’m certainly not a great speaker, which is why I gravitate more towards “workshops”, in the hopes that people ask questions and discussions arise. Doesn’t always work out. 🤣 At the very least, I almost always have some other person connect to the projector/beamer/screenshare and then they do the stuff – this avoids me being wwwwaaaaaaaaayyyy too fast.

We are usually drowned in stress and tight deadlines, hence events like today are super rare … We used to do it more often until ~10 years ago.

Once a year the security guys organize a really great hacking event, though.

Oh dear, I’d love to participate in that. 🤯 That sounds like a lot of fun. (Why don’t we do this?!)

I did a “lecture”/“workshop” about this at work today. 16-bit DOS, real mode. 💾 Pretty cool and the audience (devs and sysadmins) seemed quite interested. 🥳

• People used the Intel docs to figure out the instruction encodings.
  
• Then they wrote a little DOS program that exits with a return code and they used uhex in DOSBox to do that. Yes, we wrote a COM file manually, no Assembler involved. (Many of them had never used DOS before.)
  
• DEBUG from FreeDOS was used to single-step through the program, showing what it does.
  
• This gets tedious rather quickly, so we switched to SVED from SvarDOS for writing the rest of the program in Assembly language. nasm worked great for us.
  
• At the end, we switched to BIOS calls instead of DOS syscalls to demonstrate that the same binary COM file works on another OS. Also a good opportunity to talk about bootloaders a little bit.
  
• (I think they even understood the basics of segmentation in the end.)
  

The 8086 / 16-bit real-mode DOS is a great platform to explain a lot of the fundamentals without having to deal with OS semantics or executable file formats.

Now that was a lot of fun. 🥳 It’s very rare that we do something like this, sadly. I love doing this kind of low-level stuff.

@prologic@twtxt.net have fun!