I really appreciate how ASDF, #CommonLisp de-facto build tool/library/manager treats configuration. It has:
- Programmatic configuration with clean functions and custom package registries
- Stateful and dirty variable (asdf:*central-registry*) initializing the whole thing and thus easily overridable
- Environment variable (CL_SOURCE_REGISTRY)
- Filesystem-resident config files with a DSL for library locations
I mean, it’s not unique, but I still appreciate having more than one way to configure the thing. Especially given that CL packaging spectrum goes from “just pull it all off the Internet” (Quicklisp) and “just pull the necessary versions from the Internet” (CLPM and some other thing I can’t recall now) to “aggressively vendor the whole dependency tree with the project” (Qlot and my submodule-driven approach.) In my particular case, environment variable is the perfect way to configure the thing, given that I’m building my software with Make. It would be painful to not have it.
Here’s to configurable software!
Tomorrow @ragman will be running this awesome workshop for “making your first website” at @iffybooks. I’ll be there to hang out as well. Looking forward to seeing folx there :)
Today, October 21, 2025, there is a rally in San Francisco in support of @internetarchive. Tomorrow, the Internet Archive is having a party to celebrate 1 trillion webpages archived. To show my appreciation for their most famous creation, the Wayback Machine, this week's Cybercultural post takes you back 24 years to its launch. Thank-you @brewsterkahle and long live the Internet Archive! https://cybercultural.com/p/wayback-machine-launch-2001/ #InternetHistory
Years ago, I had this idea that what I really wanted out of a computer was an offline terminal with a moderately sized local disc, great battery life, and a blazing fast wired connection to a little sidecar machine.
The sidecar machine would have a real Internet connection and access to my private network, tons of storage, full disk encryption, and a bunch of network applications that would interact with my terminal over a wire, mostly in text mode.
If I want real time comms, I plug in the wire and slap the sidecar on the back of the terminal and I've got it.
If I want offline, I do whatever I want to do local and batch the network stuff for later.
c++ is my favourite language to review because every little thing like "whoops I used a USHORT instead of ULONG" has the potential to turn into LPE/RCE/DoS
Here's an idea for a new kind of music platform that could serve a range of needs;
* to discover new music without paying first
* keep music purchases to what we can afford
* reduce mental transaction costs
* to get some funding to musicians' so they can at least cover the costs of making music
https://the.socialmusic.network/t/automating-music-purchases-based-on-a-member-chosen-subscription/
https://basiclang.solarpunk.au/d/9-tiny-basic-in-2k
A sort of sub-project within this one.
@permacomputer really the BASIC interpreter is for the Arduino Nano and Arduino Uno.
I felt very overwhelmed by having to refresh my assembly language skills, but the more I think about the project the more it seems achievable.
In ROM, we are looking at a segment of about 512B to 1K, and it is certainly possible to have the interpreter leave about 1K RAM free while in memory running.
That means I am severely constrained with what BASIC keywords I can actually put into the interpreter, but it also reduces the total amount of code I need to actually write, given such a small program.
Tiny BASICs such as this are actually very well understood. I am going to need to reproduce all the links I have gathered for the project once I can formalise a lot more.
Been thinking about BASIC, and the little BASIC interpreter I want to fit into 2K RAM on a lil micro-controller.
I have not updated @permacomputer with any of the noodling I have been doing on BASIC, primarily because I want that fedi account to present high quality posts that include results, instead of mere tinkering.
A hearty “told you so” to everyone who can’t unlock their front door due to the AWS outage
i reckon AWS subscribes to the "treat them mean to keep them keen" theory of customer relations, and every year or so they just pull their services for a couple of hours to remind everyone how much they need them.
if only there were some sort of way to make it so that packets from my computer were broadly able to reach someone else's computer even if individual lines were down, and then we could put different people's computers all over the place instead of just in one hole in virginia. this imaginary protocol could lead to a vastly efficient interconnected network
Hey maybe having most the web be reliant on one for profit entity run by the devil isn't a great idea. Has anyone noticed this before?
I neeed some dumb software so I can use
POTION SELLER PUBLIC LICENSE
Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders>
THIS SOFTWARE IS TOO STRONG FOR YOU, USER. YOU CAN'T HANDLE MY SOFTWARE. IT'S TOO STRONG FOR YOU. MY STRONGEST SOFTWARE WOULD KILL YOU, USER. YOU CAN'T HANDLE MY STRONGEST SOFTWARE. YOU'D BETTER GO TO A DEVELOPER WHO WRITES WEAKER SOFTWARE. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ASK, USER. MY STRONGEST SOFTWARE WOULD KILL A SYSTEMS PROGRAMMER, LET ALONE A MAN. YOU NEED A DEVELOPER WHO WRITES WEAKER SOFTWARE, BECAUSE MY SOFTWARE IS TOO STRONG. YOU CAN'T HANDLE MY STRONGEST SOFTWARE. NO ONE CAN. I CAN'T GIVE YOU MY STRONGEST SOFTWARE, BECAUSE MY STRONGEST SOFTWARE IS ONLY FOR THE STRONGEST BEINGS, AND YOU ARE OF THE WEAKEST.
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial potions of the Software.
People don't use Signal because it is good or safe software.
They use it because of vendor lock-in and the network effect.
In my mind moxie marlinspike is just as much a silicon valley psychopath as the rest of them.