h2g2bob @h2g2bob@mastodon.dbatley.com

The tories want to close almost every railway ticket office in England.

Here’s @JenOnTheMove and friends laying down why it will absolutely wreck our railways, and why its about much more than just tickets. 😡

https://youtu.be/uZwcZ9EjZpQ

Our IdenTrust cross-sign is set to expire on September 30 of next year. This will affect any Android devices still running old versions of the OS (currently 7.5% of all). Learn more in our blog post: https://letsencrypt.org/2023/07/10/cross-sign-expiration.html

- Will you print these three pages for me?
> I cannot. For there has been An Error.
- Oh no, what was it?
> An Error.
- Can you accept a new print order for the three pages?
> Of course! I will get to that after the job that's already pending.
- Please delete that first job?
> It is important that you want to delete it, but it is more important that it has An Error, so no.
- What if I shut my computer all the way off and come back tomorrow?
> Oh! In that case you may have all six pages.

I've made a thing that helps you to make a printable template for a hexaflexagon, with your choice of pictures on each of the three faces: https://somethingorotherwhatever.com/hexaflexagon/

You can take a photo with your camera, or upload a file.

#hexaflexagon #math #RecreationalMath

I've shared this before but it's been a while and probably was on twitter, so it's worth a re-share

A lot of people don't know that `diff` (and `git diff`) have a several algorithms to choose from

They have various tradeoffs, mostly around performance vs readability & semantic accuracy vs overall diff size

For manual/visual diffing, I generally prefer 'histogram’, as it tends to be a closer representation of what *actually changed*

Here's a nice writeup

https://luppeng.wordpress.com/2020/10/10/when-to-use-each-of-the-git-diff-algorithms/

(1/n)

The government are closing the most of the ticket offices at uk #train stations, seemingly regardless of how busy they are.

This probably includes your local station: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/interactive-map-shows-station-ticket-30403930

This is bad for staff, who have a year before being sacked.

This is bad for customers, who are left on their own to navigate the UK's notoriously complex ticketing system.

There is a petition against this: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/636542 #railway #ukpol

Today in 'blast from the past' ... What's the Carbon Footprint of burning a cow in Minecraft?

https://boingboing.net/2011/11/29/hacking-carbon-emissions-into.html

(excellent work from @floppy back in 2011 that demonstrates the power of APIs, automatic carbon calculation and fun. Still as relevant today as it was then.)

Enjoyed this paean to Kolmogorov - https://bristoliver.substack.com/p/genius-in-turbulent-times

🚨🚨🚨 Exclusive report: the scheme that ripped off £50m in tax incentives, the people responsible, and the eminent tax KC who said it was just fine. 🚨🚨🚨

Part 1 - the outrageous scheme, involving splitting a business into 10,000 companies, and hiring 10,000 random Filipinos as "shareholders" and "directors" (when really they were just globe puppets) https://taxpolicy.org.uk/scheme

We've talked of booting Linux off of APFS some day, which would be cursed enough... but I raise you booting Windows off of btrfs.

https://www.lilysthings.org/blog/windows-on-btrfs/

Cursed.

New report: how the Post Office gagged postmasters by falsely claiming its settlement offers were confidential.

Our report here: https://www.taxpolicy.org.uk/2023/05/30/postoffice_silence/

TFW a file format is so old that it includes an "insert paper tape this way" arrow as part of the header: Looks like this traces back to the PDP-11.