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mastodon - Link to source

I don't think programmers and sysadmins get how much there is to learn and how intimidating it is for normal people to host their own software.

For one most of us don't have a computer that is running 24/7, which means we need to rent a server which we have no idea how to go about doing.

And then there's an entire arcane art to running software that can speak to the internet without your server being taken over and used to send spam to half the planet

This entry was edited (6 days ago)

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Hey Fedi,

For those who don't know, my mother had a major #stroke a little over a month ago. We're very fortunate to live in a country (Canada) where we have free #healthcare, but as her discharge from the #hospital looms closer, we're having to raise funds to make #accessibility modifications to my parents' home so that she can return. Boosts are welcome (and appreciated).

gofund.me/a69e0cdc4

#a11y #MutualAid

a69e0cdc4

gofund.me
#Hospital #healthcare #accessibility #a11y #stroke #mutualaid
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glitchsoc - Link to source

Him: well what's your big brain idea to eliminate food assistance fraud?

Me: universal food assistance

Him:

Me: because there wouldn't be a system to cheat, everyone would just get a check

Him: and who does that benefit?

Me: family farmers and human beings who rely on food for nutrition

Him: what about rich people?

Me: what about them?

Him: you would give them food assistance too?

Me: that's what universal means

Him: you can't do that

Me: yesterday you said I couldn't tax them and now you won't let me feed them either?

Him: they can afford food

Me: then it should be fine to tax them

Him: but if you tax them they won't have as much money

Me: I'm willing to offer universal food assistance

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Are there any #Lisp programmers out there who use a #ScreenReader? Given how messy Lisp can be to read without proper indentation (which I imagne wouldn't translate well on a screen reader) I can't see it is being an easy language to work in without being able to see it.

I've been thinking about a way to make an editor that lets you explore a Lisp program by walking through the forms in the program in a manner similar to the way one might navigate in a MUD. Is this a crazy idea, or one with some merit?

#lisp #screenreader

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in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

mastodon - Link to source

Dave Tenny

Not to discourage new ways to solve old problems, I just want to point out that your lisp journey will be much easier if you use an editor designed for the task, which includes learning a set of editor operations that function at the "form"/s-exp level.

In emacs these operations include traversal functions like `forward-sexp`, and the very useful `indent-sexp` function. They're part of basic emacs behavior, you don't even need to do change emacs configuration to enable them, and they're useful on data other than lisp source code.

Once you can easily navigate up, down, and around forms, checking to see where a form starts and ends is easy without any sensitivity to how it's indented.

in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

mastodon - Link to source

Svante

Seemingly plain (lambda () ...) is a macro that expands to (function (lambda () ...)). #'(lambda () ...) uses a reader macro to expand to the same (function (lambda () ...)).

clhs.lisp.se/Body/m_lambda.htm

Function is a special operator that returns a function. It takes either a function name or a lambda expression. The second case is what is happening here.

clhs.lisp.se/Body/s_fn.htm#fun…

A lambda expression is a list of the symbol lambda, a lambda list, and a body.

clhs.lisp.se/Body/26_glo_l.htm…

CLHS: Macro LAMBDA

clhs.lisp.se

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

I've been taking a bunch of tests to qualify for a transcription job. They're not easy and I need a perfect score to pass. I finally failed one of the tests but managed to pass it on the retry.

They're really picky about their style guide. Fortunately, it basically amounts to syntax rules and I've been dealing with compilers that are equally picky about syntax for decades.

It also helps that all throughout my schooling my mother worked at the local university proofreading research scientists' papers and she insisted on proofreafing all my essays too.

I never thought I'd end up being happy about that.

in reply to πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦ CleoQc 🍁🦜🧢🚐🌈

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Jonathan Lamothe

@πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦ CleoQc 🍁🦜🧢🚐🌈 It's a legal transcription job. They do regular transcription too, but they have AI doing much of it, so they're not looking for new people there.

They're smart enough to realize that AI isn't currently sophisticated enough to properly follow the various style guides required by their legal clients. I guess they realize that if the quality of the work drops, they'll lose the contracts.

That said, I'm sure all the work I do is going to be used to try to train an AI to replace me, but that's probably true of any job at this point.

@πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦ CleoQc 🍁🦜🧢🚐🌈
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mastodon - Link to source
Don't do AI. Look for people selling electronics they don't need anymore and use them to make the machine. Make a god out of discarded parts, and don't let it die. Use it for whatever the hell you feel like. Give it the ability to sense its reality and start programming it not to speak, or interact with anyone, but to show people echoes of the past.

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
elisp
God, my tab completion function is a hacky mess:
(defun lambdamoo-tab-complete ()
  "Complete user input using text from the buffer"
  (interactive)
  (when (memq (char-before) '(?  ?\r ?\n ?\t ?\v))
    (user-error "Point must follow non-whitespace character"))
  (let (replace-start
        (replace-end (point))
        replace-text found-pos found-text)
    (save-excursion
      (backward-word)
      (setq replace-start (point)
            replace-text (buffer-substring replace-start replace-end))
      (when (or (null lambdamoo--search-text)
                (not (string-prefix-p lambdamoo--search-text replace-text t)))
        (setq-local lambdamoo--search-text replace-text)
        (set-marker lambdamoo--found-point (point)))
      (goto-char lambdamoo--found-point)
      (unless
          (setq found-pos
                (re-search-backward
                 (concat "\\b" (regexp-quote lambdamoo--search-text))
                 (point-min) t))
        (setq-local lambdamoo--found-point (make-marker))
        (user-error "No match found"))
      (set-marker lambdamoo--found-point found-pos)
      (forward-word)
      (setq found-text (buffer-substring found-pos (point))))
    (delete-region replace-start replace-end)
    (insert found-text)))

#emacs #lisp #moo #mud #LambdaMOO
#emacs #lisp #mud #moo #LambdaMOO

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
elisp

Me realizing that festival uses a Lisp dialect:

Oh cool, I can add accessibility features to my Emacs stuff by procedurally generating the code in elisp.


Me realizing that festival's symbols are case sensitive:

Welp, I guess I can just do
(defun festival-saytext (text)
  (format "(SayText %S)" text))
and do the rest of the processing in elisp directly. That's probably all I wanted anyway.
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mastodon - Link to source
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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

mastodon - Link to source

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

mastodon - Link to source

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

mastodon - Link to source

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

mastodon - Link to source

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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mastodon - Link to source
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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

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

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