h2g2bob @h2g2bob@mastodon.dbatley.com

Before 1918, general elections in the UK were spread over multiple weeks, as each constituency's returning officer could choose their own nomination and polling days.

Pleased to share a short piece by me on the long life (and quiet death) of the long #generalelection

Somewhat ironically, the article is only free to read for a week...

@histodons
#histodons

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/end-britains-weeks-long-general-elections

Rowley: What’s new in the Postgres 16 query planner / optimizer https://lwn.net/Articles/961545/ #LWN

*** New blog post *** where I listen to the difference between two different types of asphalt.

https://therantyhighwayman.blogspot.com/2024/02/taking-rough-with-smooth.html

Interesting: Reading QR codes without a computer!

https://qr.blinry.org/

#37C3

Brennan: What's Inside a Linux Kernel Core Dump https://lwn.net/Articles/961414/ #LWN

Pagan reactions after Scottish Parliament hears first Pagan address ~ We share reactions about Rev. Haggerstone landmark address to the Scottish Parliament.

https://wildhunt.org/2024/02/pagan-reactions-after-scottish-parliament-hears-first-pagan-address.html

#pagan #interfaith #HolyroodParliament #ScottishPaganFederation #ScottishParliament

Now stop me if you’ve thought of this… but hear me out… …Voyager 3. #spaceexploration #voyager #spacecraft #space

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/02/humanitys-most-distant-space-probe-jeopardized-by-computer-glitch/

NEW EPISODE!
The Future of Transportation Has Arrived With Your Pad Thai.
https://thewaroncars.org/2024/01/16/the-future-of-transportation-has-arrived-with-your-pad-thai

Baruch Herzfeld is the CEO and co-founder of PopWheels, a Brooklyn-based start-up developing NYC's first e-bike battery-swapping network. What if there is a high-tech urban mobility revolution happening right under our noses, but we can’t see it because the people who are delivering it to our city are mostly invisible to us?

To vote in the UK, you now need photo ID.

Check you have valid ID by applying for a Voter Authority Certificate: the questions check if you already have valid ID. Not all ID cards are valid.

https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-photo-id-voter-authority-certificate

If you need a Voter Authority Certificate, it's free.

I used my phone to take a photo of myself in front of a white-ish wall. It was accepted for the voter certificate (and rejected in my passport renewal).

The certificate itself is paper and A4 size.

#ukpol #LocalElections2023

The Revied Editon of my book Human Transit is out! You can read the Preface and Table of Contents here: https://humantransit.org/2024/01/human-transit-preface-to-the-new-edition.html #publictransit #publictransport

This year, #OpenStreetMap will turn 20 years old! 💪
How are you going to celebrate it? Are you looking for ideas? Do you have suggestions?
OSMers are starting to brain storm what we could do over on the OSM forum:
https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/how-should-we-celebrate-osms-20th-birthday/108542
#OSM #OSM20

The time_t is now.

Debian: 64-bit time_t transition in progress:

The goal of this transition is to ensure that 32-bit architectures in trixie (whether they are currently release architectures, or out of archive, etc) will be capable of handling...
https://jwz.org/b/ykMI

🆕 blog! “A (tiny, incomplete, single user, write-only) ActivityPub server in PHP”

I've written an ActivityPub server which only allows you to post messages to your followers. That's all it does. It won't record favourites or reposts. There's no support for following other accounts or receiving replies. It cannot delete o…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/02/a-tiny-incomplete-single-user-write-only-activitypub-server-in-php/
⸻
#ActivityPub #fediverse #mastodon #php #Symfony

Monday morning read: The untold history of Barbie Fashion Designer, the first mass-market ‘game for girls’ https://www.polygon.com/23776996/barbie-fashion-designer-retro-game-untold-story-history

lots of 90s game dev lore gems in it; feels incredible they pulled it off tbh

and, was it lowkey the first mainstream 3D printing game, too??

#gaming #gamedev

"The bottom line is that 'using Copilot' is strongly correlated with 'mistake code' being pushed to the repo."

Shocked. Shocked, I say.

https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2024/01/25/copilot-research.aspx

If you'd like some wonderful bedtime reading that absolutely won't give you nightmares try this. It won't give you nightmares at all. nope.

https://archive.org/details/mc-donalds-specification-manual-1975/mode/2up