h2g2bob @h2g2bob@mastodon.dbatley.com

This year, you won't be able to vote without certain photo ID in the UK. Most of the accepted forms are non-free, and are skewed towards the kinds of ID older people have. Keep your right to vote by getting a Voter Authority Certificate if you don't have other valid ID. Learn about it here: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/voter/voter-id

England and Wales census data on sexuality and gender identity released today. I'm a big fan of the maps, naturally.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/identity/sexual-orientation/sexual-orientation-4a/lesbian-gay-bisexual-or-other-lgb

Wrote a short blog post about my esp32cam bots https://planb.nicecupoftea.org/2022/11/05/interactive-flowerbots-and-legobots-with-a-bit-of-machine-vision/

EFF is proud to defend the @internetarchive in this case, and we will keep fighting for a robust and vibrant digital future.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/12/fighting-digital-future-books-2022-review

@LaF0rge If all fails you can likely iSCSI it over with scst! I learned of many SCSI based crimes when working on https://blog.benjojo.co.uk/post/ip-over-fibre-channel-hack

I assume seabios isn't hanging but the PCI option ROM is, since PCI passthrough messes with a lot of assumptions with devices. If you ever see me in person ask me about my "fun" adventures in PCI passthrough and PCIe HSM cards

RIP Maxi Jazz of Faithless

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-64087315

Staggering charts in the FT by John Burn-Murdoch show that after 12 years of Tory rule we are poorer, sicker and will die sooner than our peers. Utterly disgraceful.

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
__
¹ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20221216-00/?p=107598

"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

National Grid's algorithm is predicting a 94% chance of load shedding on the GB power grid tomorrow evening.

The algorithm is famously bad, but it's going to be a tight day across Europe tomorrow.