h2g2bob @h2g2bob@mastodon.dbatley.com

Published today! Our article in Math Horizons about how Robert and I lied to players for three years in our game Digit Party, and how we used integer linear programming to stop.

This is, quite possibly, the most entertaining interview i have ever encountered. You simply *must * read it. It keeps getting better with every question.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/b-c-swimmer-crosses-strait-of-georgia-under-nine-hours-9.7316260

My blog has now had over 2 million hits, so let's celebrate with a Belgian burger.

https://therantyhighwayman.blogspot.com/2026/08/build-belgian-burger-flemish-style.html

https://improbable.com/2026/08/25/fungi-fungi-fungi-at-this-years-ig-ig-ig/ https://improbable.com/2026/08/25/fungi-fungi-fungi-at-this-years-ig-ig-ig/

"611.9 MiB of database against 644.4 MiB of ELF files. The whole userland, as one queryable file, is _smaller_ than the files it came from. The b-tree cost that doubled a single `hello` amortises to nearly nothing across 1,123 objects and is roughly 6% over the actual program bytes."

From "Your executable is a SQLite database:" https://fzakaria.com/2026/08/23/your-executable-is-a-sqlite-database

A very few more tickets became available for the 26th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony (which will happen on Thursday, September 3, in #Zurich, Switzerland). Grab ‘em while you can. #IgNobel https://eventfrog.ch/de/p/wissenschaft-und-technik/the-36th-first-annual-ig-nobel-prize-ceremony-7446575553581194400.html

harden your system against LLM-driven remote attackers by adding the following to your .profile:

PS1='C:\>'

🫈JUST LAUNCHED🦕
If you’re into weird creatures and word puzzles then we have the PERFECT thing for you
https://vole.wtf/cryptic-cryptid-crossword/

When I talked about post boxes at #SotM 2019 in Heidelberg (https://media.ccc.de/v/sotm2019-2488-lightning-talks-vii#t=427) I didnt have time to mention plaques on post boxes.

I've just come across a charming example at Knockdrome, Jura in Scotland: a plaque dedicated to a Starling which raised several clutches of young in the hamlet's post box.

I've updated #OpenStreetMap accordingly https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/1800549257/history

Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin.

if you still needed a reason to switch to the fox, here you have it 😉

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3212428/firefox-is-now-the-last-major-browser-that-still-supports-ublock-origin.html

#firefox #uBlockOrigin #technology #browser

All the concerns that make me a boring civil servant

https://www.johnpe.art/2026/08/17/all-the-concerns-that-make-me-a-boring-civil-servant/

#blogging #policy #CivilService

The UK Web Archive has deleted ~50% of their published git repositories. This is not a joke, but I am laughing.

↔️ NEW THING ↕️
See a different Wikipedia article for every browser width × height combo, with over 7.2 million possible results! https://vole.wtf/widthipedia/

I am once again backing up part of the government due to whispers letting me know that someone made another stupid decision

Cloudflare (>20% of all domains) has started automatically implementing DSM Dir art 4 rights reservation (ie copyright/TDM objection to scraping) for all sites that do not have a robots.txt file. They also adding purpose fields (new content-signal field with search, AI train, AI use) to robots.txt unilaterally and are enforcing it through monitoring and analysis. https://developers.cloudflare.com/bots/additional-configurations/managed-robots-txt/

The following is a valid DOS COM executable that prints "HELLO" in the lower right corner of the screen.

You can copy these emoji into a text editor, and save it as EMOJI.COM. it should be 141 bytes.

It will run in DosBox-X, with the following options:

cpu cputype=8086
machine cga

🐸☺️🐰🐎♐🗃️🧯🧯🧯🐮💗🦮🪏♐🐰🐹🗃️🧯🧯🧯🧯💗🪗🧯😗🧮🫪😗🧮😗🐮😪😔⭐

may god have mercy on my soul.