h2g2bob @h2g2bob@mastodon.dbatley.com
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Hello! I post something interesting every few days.
Joined Feb 2019
h2g2bob
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It's publication day! #Firefly Coup de Grace is out now!
#ScienceFiction #SpaceWestern
h2g2bob
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From my archives... this is what the command center of a mid-1990s dialup ISP looked like.
Later iterations would be more advanced, but this is how it started. A natural progression and leap of faith from the multi-line BBS it replaced.
The growth of the internet https://ourworldindata.org/overhaul-internet #internet
PSDoom: for when you need to kill processes with as much as fun as possible. https://psdoom.sourceforge.net/ #linux
h2g2bob
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Fabled Lands look at AI and non-AI cover art https://fabledlands.blogspot.com/2023/03/got-it-covered.html
h2g2bob
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I got my first ever pair of glasses, and omg my computer screen now looks like it's in HD!
The optician said my prescription was so minor it wasn't worth bothering with unless I had a load of eye strain. I didn't notice any eye strain but I have been increasing text sizes a little over the last few years, so I thought I'd give it a try with a £20 pair. I'm so glad I did.
I can still see my screen perfectly fine without, but I'm definitely less headachey after wearing them!
h2g2bob
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“This has been the most comprehensive site I’ve looked at. Voting location, ward, candidates and information about them.”
- a happy #voter
We've published our report on the 2023 local elections, alongside a review of our user feedback.
Highlights from this year:
🔎 Two million postcode searches from the UK public.
📰 Collaboration with BBC News.
🤝 Partnered with every English council.
https://democracyclub.org.uk/blog/2023/07/20/2023-Election-report-and-user-feedback/
How real people describe colours, based on 5 million datapoints https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/ #color
Oxygen (O2) wants two more electrons, so normally shares them with a partner using two covalent bonds: O=O
I'd always assumed ozone (O3) formed a single bond with each neighbour in a loop. Two bonds each, simple.
But no! There's no loop, and it switches between O-O=O and O=O-O like a maniac, with essentially 1.5 bonds each!? What!?
h2g2bob
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h2g2bob
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Ran into a neat app on F-Droid that makes it super easy to add data to OpenStreetMap wherever you go, called StreetComplete. Pull up the app, and it asks you simple questions about the features around you. Answer it, and it pushes the edit to OSM automatically via your user account. Wonderful!
h2g2bob
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Built a map, wrote a report! 📰 https://www.publicinterestnews.org.uk/map
🏜️ 4.1m people in the UK in news deserts
🐪 Millions more in news 'drylands' with less than one news outlet per 100,000 residents
🎡 London appears particularly badly served
My laptop stops charging the battery at 6pm, so you can use the electricity to cook dinner https://dbatley.com/blog/2023/07/battery-charge.html #green #linux
ICANN isn't the only root DNS provider in town: OpenNIC provides top level domains (.geek, .null, …), mirrors new nation country codes (.ku, .uu, …), and mirrors the icann root (.com, .lidl, .softbank, …) https://www.opennic.org/ #dns
The end of time is now only 15 years away - but thankfully Debian has started planning for the 2038 problem and how to switch everything from 32-bit time to 64-bit time. As always, an excellent article from @LWN https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/938149/f85ef76a37728605/ #linux
Mortality in the past: every second child died - Our World in Data
https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past #world
h2g2bob
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Let’s ban the advertising of SUVs as an easy first step then let’s start working on regulating them out of existence. The emissions and child deaths are unacceptable and these aren’t the handy farm vehicles people pretend.
Step 1) sign this petition.
h2g2bob
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DELIGHTED to see the BMJ @bmj_latest saying today that they will require papers to share their code.
https://www.bmj.com/content/382/bmj.p1609
HUGE milestone for reproducibility, quality, and efficiency.
Here's our BMJ editorial on why code sharing matters, from 2019:
h2g2bob
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Dug out this late-90s-vintage Brother GeoBook from my work archive, after reading https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2023/06/o-brother-geobook-lets-get-thou-back-on.html?lr=1
We (at STNC) wrote the IP stack and web browser libraries (maybe email too?).
There's only the tiniest bit, if any, of my code on this - I did a few weeks on it when I started at STNC but then switched to the Psion Series 5 web browser.
- Website
- https://dbatley.com
- Keywords
- searchable
Hello! I post something interesting every few days.
Joined Feb 2019
