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In 1959, a cement mixer with a full load of cement, wrecked near Winganon, Oklahoma πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ

By the time a tow truck came to haul it away, all of cement had hardened inside of mixer. Tow truck was not able to remove all wreckage at same time because of weight, and decided to haul only cab/frame and would come back for detached mixer later, which never happened.

Today, 67 years later, it still sits where it fell. Locals have painted it and added "rocket thrusters" to make it look like a space capsule.

in reply to Knightmare

mastodon - Link to source

Cadbury Moose

@LanceJZ @isaackuo
That's a piece of Art, and congratulations to the locals for maintaining it.

(Actually the capsule would have had thrusters: there would be Capsule:Flotation Bag:Heat Shield:Thruster Pack, with the thruster pack held on by straps so it could be jettisoned after deceleration but before hitting atmosphere. On one mission they re-entered with the thruster pack attached because the flotation bag light had come on and they were concerned about the heat shield.)

@Isaac Ji Kuo @Knightmare
in reply to Cadbury Moose

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Isaac Ji Kuo

@Cadbury_Moose @LanceJZ While this is true of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo capsules (including the Apollo service module), a reusable capsule could enter nose first rather than tail first.

Nuclear missile reentry heat shields are blunt cones entering nose first.

That said, Dragon does do tail first reentry, placing the thrusters on the sides rather than the tail. I just think it "looks" wrong.

@Cadbury Moose @Knightmare
in reply to Isaac Ji Kuo

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Urwumpe

@isaackuo @Cadbury_Moose @LanceJZ That is only true for modern ballistic missile RVs, initially they were launched blunt end forward, since the materials of that time didn't allow a more accurate short end forward reentry because these cause higher temperatures. (That is also why the Space Shuttle got a rather blunt nose)

Also, there are far more than just one kind of capsule. Imagine this as a biconic lifting body, and it isn't that much fictive to retain its aft thrusters.

@Cadbury Moose @Isaac Ji Kuo @Knightmare
in reply to Knightmare

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Isaac Ji Kuo

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@LanceJZ @Cadbury_Moose This is what people think of when they think of the Apollo "capsule". It has a big main thruster in the tail, and lots of thruster clusters all over the place.

That's the reason why the artists modifying the cement mixer tank felt the need to add thrusters. It didn't look right without them, because the overall shape looks like a capsule plus its service module.

@Cadbury Moose @Knightmare
in reply to Knightmare

mastodon - Link to source

Isaac Ji Kuo

@LanceJZ @Cadbury_Moose I know what you mean, but that's what people think of.

One reason they think of the Apollo "capsule" as the Command Module and Service Module is that there isn't any footage of the Command Module by itself in space. No one left on the Service Module to shoot the Command Module after separation.

(The Command Module is just the return capsule.)

@Cadbury Moose @Knightmare
in reply to skryking

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Dave Volek

@skryking

The photo looks like a rural highway to me. This means fairly high speeds. If a car "hits the ditch," a bumpy ride turns into a fatal accident.

I suspect the jurisdiction belongs to whoever owns the highway. It could be the state or it could be the county.

A couple of heavy tow wreckers could move this machine. Less than $5000.

But there may be political pressure to keep the machine in place. It does look cute.

@skryking
in reply to skryking

mastodon - Link to source

Dave Volek

@skryking

There may indeed be more to the story.

I come from a rural background. Many people drive 80 kph (50 mph) on these roads. And they hit the ditch more often.

There might be some weight restrictions that prohibit big trucks on this road. The pavement in the photo (or oily gravel) looks a little on the weak side to me.

Anyways, we need more info to know why this thing has remained in the ditch for 67 years.

@skryking

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Hey all,

I have a friend who's been trying to get on Mastodon but tells me that it doesn't seem to play well with screen readers. I know there are plenty of people on the fedi who do use screen readers, but I have no experience with them myself, so I can't really direct him.

Can someone who does use a #ScreenReader point me in the direction of some resources that might be useful?
#AskFedi #a11y

#askfedi #a11y #screenreader
in reply to Fanny Bui

mastodon - Link to source

Svenja

@Brailly615 In another comment it has been said that its about Linux, there I unfortunately can't help. I use Webclients, unfortunately they don't get any Updates anymore or I'd have recommended something. I only use them because I haven't found something better yet that I don't need to install. @Clio09 @C3nC3 @me @MonaApp @pachli
@Jonathan Lamothe @Mona app @Karsten Eger @Pachli @Fanny Bui @Rene Ludwig

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
elisp question

I'm certain I have reinvented a wheel here, but for the life of me I can't find it. Have I?

(defmacro jrl-extract-list (vars list &rest body)
  "Split a list into indiviual variables"
  (let ((list* (gensym)))
    (append
     `(let ,(cons (list list* list) vars))
     (seq-map (lambda (var)
                `(setq ,var (car ,list*)
                       ,list* (cdr ,list*)))
              vars)
     body)))

#emacs #lisp #elisp

Edit: Of course it was pcase.

#emacs #lisp #elisp

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
medical, vague ST:SNW spoiler

Was loading stuff onto my Jellyfin server for my mom to watch in the hospital. She liked Star Trek and I thought Strange New Worlds might be a good idea because it's a more fun show than a lot of the other recent Trek shows.

I started watching the first episode to be sure it was working, and realized I'd forgotten the whole thing about what happens with Captain Pike.

...maybe this show isn't the vibe after all...

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Evergreen

#OpenBSD #RunBSD #Linux #Jokes

#Linux #openbsd #jokes #runbsd
This entry was edited (1 month ago)
in reply to sotolf

gotosocial - Link to source

mirabilos

[size=small]This post uses ruby annotations and likely will display only in degraded mode in TUI clients like tut.[/size]

@sotolf @rl_dane @stefano @kabel42 no, no reference. Not い぀みＭａｒｉｏ (γƒžγƒͺγ‚ͺ).

Literally just γ‚€γƒ„γƒŸγƒžγƒͺγ‚ͺ (γƒžγƒͺγ‚ͺです). Katakana syllabic writing for what is supposed to be English speech, then read by a Japanese speaker-or-TTS.

@Stefano Marinelli @R.L. Dane 🍡 @sotolf @kabel42

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

When a #neurodivergent person tells you about how something is difficult for them, rather than thinking of them as whiny, consider that this probably means they have a certain level of trust in you to drop their mask enough to do so.

Invalidating that struggle is likely also a pretty effective way of eroding that trust.
#ActuallyADHD

#neurodivergent #actuallyadhd
in reply to Goiterzan/Amygdalai Lama

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Goiterzan/Amygdalai Lama

@Uair @DziadekMick @hadon @Mux @angelastella @emily_rugburn @autistics
.
Something’s bothering, I overreached, orangutans are like that, any one can become the alpha - but I sure don’t know that they were ever a familial alpha sort, like other species, I can’t say that they ever had genetic alphas and genetic others and that that’s some normal stage, I don’t know that orangutans haven’t been this way since they became orangutans, do I?
πŸ˜‡
@Ángela Stella Matutina @Dziadek @Poloniousmonk @Actually Autistics @Mux2000 (anhydrous) @NoBorg @sonja

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in reply to Mux2000 (anhydrous)

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Goiterzan/Amygdalai Lama

@Mux @Uair @DziadekMick @hadon @angelastella @emily_rugburn @autistics
.
if that’s true about ungulates and primates too, no alphas anywhere, then the whole thing is just a projection from Allistic humans and it’s still my larger point: Allism is alpha neurology, it would just be the only such then. πŸ’œ
@Ángela Stella Matutina @Dziadek @Poloniousmonk @Actually Autistics @Mux2000 (anhydrous) @NoBorg @sonja

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
elisp question

I just put a call to eval in my code and I feel dirty now.

The context went something like this:

(eval (cons 'concat (my-function arg1 arg2)))

I had initially hoped to use
(concat . (my-function arg1 arg2))

...but this resulted in a call to
(concat my-function arg1 arg2)

Which was not what I expected.

Is there a better way I could've written this?
#emacs #lisp #elisp

Edit: Got my answer. I wanted:

(apply 'concat (my-func arg1 arg2))

Edit 2:
It turns out the code I really wanted was:

(string-join arg2 arg1)

I love reinventing the wheel because I didn't know it was already there.

Edit 3:
Here's the actual code:

(defun lambdamoo-run-text-replacements (str)
  "Perform text replacements on the string"
  (dolist (vals lambdamoo-text-replacements)
    (let* ((from (car vals))
           (to (cdr vals))
           (split (split-string str from)))
      (setq str (string-join split to))))
  str)

Let's see if there's anything else I've reinvented here.
#emacs #lisp #elisp

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
I just wrote a bunch of #elisp code like this:
(catch :abort
  ;; do something
  (when condition
    (message "A bad thing happened")
    (throw :abort nil))
  ;; do something else
  )

When the functionality I really wanted was:
(progn
  ;; do something
  (when condition
    (user-error "A bad thing happened"))
  ;; do something else
  )

I knew the former felt sketchy, but I couldn't think of a better way to do it until just now.
#emacs #lisp
#emacs #lisp #elisp
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

mastodon - Link to source

Digital Mark Ξ» β˜•οΈ πŸ•Ή πŸ‘½

As a Schemer (and formerly/sometimes still Objective-C), everything is pretty verbose, and my own functions even more so, so I can search by function name knowing the type and parameters. (vector-index vec searchfunc), (draw-rect-with-edge-color rect edge-width color), etc.

There's no excuse for hardcore Lisp functions like (wadsf w q) "wander down stack frames for word query" (fictional but not unlikely).
#lisp

#lisp
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

mastodon - Link to source

Thomas

No no, the obarray you see from elisp is the same one used by the reader. Elisp is an old-style Lisp here, and the obarray is a first-class thing: you can make a new one, rebind obarray, etc.

That's the sort of thing people don't do much anymore, but used to do. The documentation covers it reasonably well gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/…

gnu.org

Creating Symbols (GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual)
www.gnu.org
in reply to James Endres Howell

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Jonathan Lamothe

@James Endres Howell
I'm a little self-conscious about it as non-trivial is relative, but...
(defmacro lambdamoo-chatter-interact
    (func-name to msg docstring fmtstr &rest vals)
  "Define a function for interacting with another player"
  (let ((proc (gensym))
        (str (gensym)))
    `(defun ,func-name (,proc ,str)
       ,docstring
       (let ((,to lambdamoo-chatter)
             (,msg (substring-no-properties (lambdamoo-command-text ,str))))
         (if ,to
             (funcall lambdamoo-send-line ,proc
                      (format ,fmtstr . ,vals))
           (message "No chatter specified"))))))
@James Endres Howell
in reply to Roger Crewβœ…βŒβ˜‘πŸ—ΈβŽβœ–βœ“βœ”

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Jonathan Lamothe

@Roger Crewβœ…βŒβ˜‘πŸ—ΈβŽβœ–βœ“βœ” @Judy Anderson @screwlisp When I ran M-x package-install-file, it didn't like that the file didn't end with:
;;; mud-mcp.el ends here

I just had to add that and it was all good.
@Roger Crewβœ…βŒβ˜‘πŸ—ΈβŽβœ–βœ“βœ” @Judy Anderson @screwlisp
in reply to Roger Crewβœ…βŒβ˜‘πŸ—ΈβŽβœ–βœ“βœ”

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Jonathan Lamothe

@Roger Crewβœ…βŒβ˜‘πŸ—ΈβŽβœ–βœ“βœ” @Judy Anderson @screwlisp It essentially already was a valid ELPA package with the mentioned exception.

I'm currently in the process of adding my own custonizations. I've added a rudimebtary shim that processes lines entered bu the user so that it can support commands that get processed on the client side.

Here's an excerpt:

(require 'mud-mcp)
                                                                                 (defun lambdamoo ()
  "Connect to LambdaMOO"
  (interactive)
  (mud-mcp-connect "LambdaMOO" "lambda.moo.mud.org" 8888)
  (setq lambdamoo-send-line comint-input-sender
        comint-input-sender #'lambdamoo-process-line))

(defconst lambdamoo-commands
  '(("send" . lambdamoo-send)
    ("test" . lambdamoo-test))
  "Command functions")

(defvar lambdamoo-send-line nil
  "The function that is called to send a line to the server")

(defun lambdamoo-process-line (proc str)
  "Process input sent by the user"
  (if (string-prefix-p "/" str)
      (lambdamoo-process-command proc str)
    (funcall lambdamoo-send-line proc str)))

(defun lambdamoo-process-command (proc str)
  "Process a command"
  (let* ((words (split-string str))
         (command (string-trim-left (car words) "/"))
         (found (assoc (downcase command)
                       lambdamoo-commands
                       #'string=))
         (func (and found (cdr found))))
    (if func
        (funcall func proc str)
      (message "Command '%s' not found." command))))

After I wrote all this, I found comments in the file detailing how to add functionality.

Is there a more "proper" way I could've done this?

@Roger Crewβœ…βŒβ˜‘πŸ—ΈβŽβœ–βœ“βœ” @Judy Anderson @screwlisp

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The S in IOT stands for Security
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To the fair folk of the Fedi.

However you choose to deal with the festivities, or don't, or can't, I wish you at least some joy and peace. We are on our way out of the dark and since long before memory or record, humans, it seems, have deemed this worthy of celebrating, at least in some way. But, this may be no more than remembering who you are and realising that the world around us, for all its horror and fear, is still a place of beauty and grace. That there is still kindness and joy and magnificence and the simplest things can show us the most.

So be yourself, enjoy, or not, yourself in the ways that you want to. Let go of shouldn't and what if and all the should be's that plague us. This is not just a time for others, it is your time too. A time to embrace the moment and what we can and we what we have, no matter how little that may seem to be, all the small things and all the great, the stars and the moon (even though we don't have the paperwork for those, and yes, that was a Pratchett reference.) the wind in our hair and everything in between. A time to dream, a time to shine.

Have a good one and wishing you all the best.

#Christmas
#ActuallyAutistic

#christmas #actuallyautistic

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

I am dangerously close to unleashing my first #emacs package on the public. It's nothing fancy and still relatively niche, but I deem it potentially useful enough to be worth publishing.

There are a couple small features I want to add and a few things that still need some polish, but it's almost ready for a version 0.1 release.

It's not anything ground breaking or anything. I'm still pretty much an #elisp novice, but I'm proud of it anyway.

More details when it's released.

#emacs #elisp
in reply to Álvaro R.

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Jonathan Lamothe

@Álvaro R. At this point all I need to add is a README and two features (which will mostly reuse code I've already written just in a slightly different way).

Surprisingly enough, the hardest part of the whole project was getting it to display numbers with thousands separators. That code might exist in the bowels of the calc package, but it was easier to just roll my own.

@Álvaro R.
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Jonathan Lamothe

Okay, my first #Emacs package is officially released. It was strongly inspired by @Soroban Exam Website's work, providing practice tools for the #soroban. This is the first Emacs package I've ever released. It's probably not perfect, but I welcome feedback on how it can be improved.

I wonder if there is an overlap of more than say five people who are both soroban and emacs users. πŸ™ƒ

Anyhow, it can be found at: codeberg.org/jlamothe/soroban

#emacs #soroban @Soroban Exam Website

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Katy's been down a YouTube rabbit hole on $medical_condition lately. Today we watched a yoga video that purported to relieve one of the symptoms. Cool cool, yoga can have benefits. Let's give it a go. Some of the instructions in this video were oddly specific but whatever, that's fine. Then we read the comments and my cult alarm started blaring.

This was a video with millions of views and an untold number of comments. Some of them were downright scary in their praise for this guy* and there wasn't a single remotely negative comment to be found.

Not one. I looked.

Someone is really dedicated to sliencing dissent on this video, and I can't imagine that being anything shy of a full-time job. That is probably one of the most massive red flags there is.

* e.g.: "Who needs western medicine? $youtuber is always the answer."

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Maybe the best way to fight AI taking over our media, is to stop supporting the arts with clicks on ads and subscription fees?

Go see a new band.
Watch a play.
Visit a gallery and talk to an artist.

Maybe if we made it more about supporting artists, and less about cammodifying the arts for our convenience, we won’t have to lose one of the things that makes humanity great?

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in reply to Mr. Funk E. Dude

mastodon - Link to source

viva supeR

The digital domain forces a change of model.
Y BUT Y, that is: digital leftcopY BUT physical rightcopY.
The digital domain is freely accessible, but commercial exploitation remains the prerogative of the author; in all other domains, all rights remain with the author or artist.
Public Administration should then monitor the circulation of digital works and citizens’ preferences, and accordingly fund the artists who publish under a Y BUT Y license.
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The US TikTok sale has been signed. The company will be controlled by a joint venture including Oracle, Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz, Abu Dhabi-based MGX. Adding a UAE company really makes it clear that this was never about national security concerns.

axios.com/2025/12/18/tiktok-sa…

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Mozilla right now.

#firefox #mozilla

#firefox #mozilla
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

mastodon - Link to source

Laurent Cimon

while the recursive name certainly helps, pizza developers use proprietary ingredients while mac and cheese development is fully free. The source code is in the name!

Although you could argue that Kraft Dinner is proprietary, but that's like a proprietary version of UNIX. People just go to it for nostalgia knowing it's way outdated, and any attempt to replicate it will give a better result.

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