The Cryptography of Orphan Annie and Captain Midnight https://www.mattblaze.org/blog/badges/ #cryptography
RIP Maxi Jazz of Faithless
Don't panic! It's the Hitchhiker's Guide text adventure!
https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/interactive/embed/container.html?url=//downloads.bbc.co.uk/interactive/h2g2/main.js&height=577px&width=944px&path=//downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio/games/h2g2/ #h2g2 #InteractiveFiction
on Windows memory allocation
This blog entry by Raymond Chen, "Why doesn’t Windows use the 64-bit virtual address space below 0x00000000`7ffe0000?"¹ is absolutely brilliant.
What I thought was a trivial design decision of some kind turns out to have deep roots in 32-bit Windows (the separation between user and kernel) and, this is where it becomes surreal, the DEC Alpha processor !
I quote Raymond Chen directly:
"On the Alpha AXP, most 32-bit constants can be generated in at most two instructions. But there’s a range of values that requires three instructions: 0x7fff8000 to 0x7fffffff. "
As the person who ran the first three DEC Alpha systems in the UK outside DEC "REO" (Reading Office) I have a bit of history with these processors and yet I had never ever heard of this.
Don't ignore the links embedded in the page because they are worth reading too.
(also, if you do not follow Raymond Chen's blog via RSS you should - his series on processors and the history of Windows design decisions is fabulous).
#Windows #MemoryAllocation #DECAlpha #WindowsOnAlpha
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¹ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20221216-00/?p=107598
Make a fake Theremin from two ultrasonic sensors. The article is a little outdated, but the idea is genius. https://rbnrpi.wordpress.com/2018/05/17/dual-sensor-theremin-for-sonic-pi/ #rasberrypi
"We won't ask why you would want to glue ceramic and leather together - we just give gluing info."
- https://thistothat.com best site of the week
Mastodon News Sources
General News - US and World
BBC News (World) Bot - @BBCWorld
BBC News Bot - @BBC
CNN Bot - @CNN
CNN Breaking News - @cnnbrk
DW (Deutsche Welle) News Bot - @dwnews_bot
NPR US News Bot - @NPR_USNews
NYTimes Bot - @NYTimes
Reuters Bot - @reuters
Rolling Stone - @RollingStone
The Guardian US Bot - @TheGuardian_us
Wall Street Journal Bot - @wsj
Washington Post Bot - @WashingtonPost
Tech News
Ars Technica - @arstechnica
MacRumors.com - @macrumors
Triodos comes top of the list of ethical banks again this year, with HSBC at the bottom https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/sites/default/files/flipbook/Issue200Preview/12/ #banking
London Reconnections' impossible quiz is back again for another year. Hurrah! https://www.londonreconnections.com/2022/london-reconnections-2022-christmas-quiz/#london
Switch your website from dark to light theme automatically based on the user's settings, by using the prefers-color-scheme value in CSS
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme #webdev
Next, I *think* this is the world's first domain name with #Braille characters
If I'm wrong, please let me know.
Find out if your MP will change when the boundaries are redrawn. Consultation closes Monday. https://www.bcereviews.org.uk/ #ukpol #elections
Time to think about #AdventOfCode! A 2-part coding puzzle every day until Xmas.
Might this be the year I get anywhere near collecting all 50 stars? ⭐️⭐️
If you're interested, have a look at some previous puzzles, pick a programming language, join in!
Every now and then I come back to this fascinating article by @bert_hubert
#ReverseEngineering the #source #code of the BioNTech/Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine
https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/reverse-engineering-source-code-of-the-biontech-pfizer-vaccine/
Looking forward to the book!
This weekend is your last chance to have your say on boundaries for electing MPs. I commented about my local Southend. Please comment on your area. https://dbatley.com/blog/2022/11/boundary-review.html #ukpol #southend
NATIONAL IDENTITY
#Census2021 offers a case study in "question order bias". The choices for "national identity" on the 2011 census form in England had "English" as the first option. In 2021 "British" was first. In each case, the first choice on the list proved most popular
3/
Large slow tables in PostgreSQL can sometimes work more quickly by being split into smaller tables. Table inheritance magic makes them appear as one table. Instead of using an index to find matching rows from the big table, the query will only search the matching tables. https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/ddl-partitioning.html #postgres #sql
Hello! I post something interesting every few days.