A cool new open/free #book on #CreativeCoding by Stig Møller Hansen is out!
https://stigmollerhansen.dk/resume/learning-creative-coding/
@shinyoukai@neko.laidback.moe I think I never watched it. In any case, enjoy reading your books.
Got a nice conspiracy theory for you:
https://mastodon.social/@mcc/115670290552252848
Actually wait I just thought about this and realized that the precise timing of the ACTUAL GitHub seed bank, by which I mean the Arctic Code Vault, on 2020-02-02, makes it more or less a perfect snapshot of pre-Copilot GitHub. Also precisely timed before we all got brain damage from COVID. This is the only remaining archive of source code by people with a fully working sense of smell
(Bonus points because the Arctic World Archive is located in Svaldbard and that’s the name of the AI in Stacey Kade’s “Cold Eternity”.)
My generous friend @lr once gave me “Andrew Glassner’s Notebook” and some other of Glassner’s books… https://glassner.com/homepage/books/non-fiction-gallery/ so much fun!
Nvidia will build AI supercomputers for US Energy Department, announces total bookings of $500 billion ⌘ Read more
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Finally, new books arrived. Let’s see if Dead Silence is as good as it sounds. 😃
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This was a great read, btw. 😃 If you liked Event Horizon, this is for you. I’m gonna get her other two scifi books as well, that’s for sure.
Physics Insight
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‘Terrific’ Bradley will be big loss in Germany tie
Northern Ireland have a gap in defence to fill against Germany on Monday after Liverpool’s Conor Bradley was booked against Slovakia, earning him a suspension. ⌘ Read more
What are you reading this week?
Perhaps we may try to revive this genre of sharing book titles in order to find something out of usual interests? Anything that you have in your reading or listening queue: tech, non-tech, pulp or snob.
I’m planning to reread again Thinking Forth by Leo Brodie (he has published couple (mediocre) albums on Spotify BTW). Also Mastery by Robert Greene.
In audiobooks Strange Things Happen by Stewart Copeland (The Police drummer and VGM composer) ⌘ Read more
Finally, new books arrived. Let’s see if Dead Silence is as good as it sounds. 😃
From the fishing trip to a Gavin & Stacey film - five things Jones and Corden’s book reveals
What can we expect from the new book When Gavin Met Stacey And Everything In Between? ⌘ Read more
I’ve read 63 books so far this year. Here’s how I did it
Research shows Australians are reading fewer books than ever before. One writer shares her advice on how to make reading a daily habit. ⌘ Read more
ChatGPT Now Interacts With Multiple Apps Inside Conversations
ChatGPT users can now interact with a handful of third-party apps directly within their conversations, OpenAI has announced.
The new Apps SDK allows developers to build tools that blend naturally into chats, and initial partners include Spotify, Canva, Zillow, Expedia, Booking.com, Coursera, and Figma.
User … ⌘ Read more
Trent Dalton’s latest is about how far a journalist will go for a story
In Gravity Let Me Go, a struggling crime journalist lands the scoop of a lifetime, to the detriment of his loved ones. That’s something Trent Dalton understands intimately. ⌘ Read more
Breaking: English author Jilly Cooper dies at age 88
The author was best known for The Rutshire Chronicles and her book Rivals, recently adapted into a Disney+ series. ⌘ Read more
** Read the Book **
There’s a whole lot going on, and I’ve been feeling myself develop bad habits concerning doom scrolling. I can’t reconfigure my life to not have a phone, so, instead, I made a thing to replace those things that invite me to doomy scroll. Meet Read the Book.
Read the book is a relatively simple website where you can read a book. The books are presented in short chunks so you’re never faced with a big scrolling wall of text. It has support for dark mode and light mode, and you can u … ⌘ Read more
Top 10 Songs That Tell Stories Better Than Books
Some songs are more than just a catchy hook or a beat you can nod along to. They’re stories—self-contained, vivid, and often more emotionally effective than the 400-page novels gathering dust on your nightstand. In just a few verses and a chorus, the right songwriter can conjure entire worlds: doomed lovers, forgotten heroes, apocalyptic visions, […]
The post [Top 10 Songs That Tell Stories Better Than Books](https://listverse.com/202 … ⌘ Read more
** Franconia Notch **
We went to the Franconia Notch, which is on objectively funny thing to name a region. It was beautiful and the weather was wildly clear. Even on top of Mount Washington, the highest peak in the entire north eastern United States, it was sunny and calm. We could see all the way back to Maine…supposedly…it all looks kinda like green lumpy blurs to me.
While there I started to read two books, Katabasis, by R.F. Kuang and The City and Its Uncertain Walls, by Haruki Murakami.
_Kata … ⌘ Read more
«1977 United States Environmental
Protection Agency
Graphic Standards System
Designed by Steff Geissbühler,
Chermayeff & Geismar Associates
The EPA Graphic Standards System is one of the finest examples of a standards manual ever created. The modular and flexible system devised raised the standard for public design in the United States.
The book features a foreword by Tom Geismar, introduction by Steff Geissbühler, an essay by Christopher Bonanos, scans of the original manual (from Geissbühler’s personal copy), and 48 pages of photographs from the EPA-commissioned Documerica project (1970–1977).»
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i went to a rilo kiley concert the other day and it was so special to me... i teared up at some of the songs but when "a better son/daughter" came on, i full on cried. what an amazing experience.
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@kat@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz Ten stories or more are already very tall in my books. Not sure at which height I would start calling high rise buildings sky scrapers, but Wikipedia suggests around 150 meters, depending on region.
Oh, I just found https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Pier_17_2018-03_jeh.jpg and this really does not look all that high. I thought that this would be at least 50 or 100 meters up. I was completely wrong. :-D
** A week notes to round out the summer **
I haven’t posted anything remotely resembling week notes since the middle of June! Since then many things have happened including, but not limited to: a trip to Minnesota to visit Isaac, a couple trips to New Hampshire for work, a family trip to Mount Desert Island to revisit our old stomping grounds, a whole heap of bicycle riding, I finished a couple great books, played some games, made some games, and wrote what is probably an unhealthy a … ⌘ Read more
Its like TV. Very few good channels and many bad channels. Or like books. Very few good books and many bad books. Look for spezialized channels and educate your children. Read the bible.com . But only Jesus is reliable. Forget Moses and the punishing God.
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Speaking of manpages:
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@kat@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz On the one hand, all these programs have a very long history and the technology behind manpages is actually very powerful – you can use it to write books:
https://www.troff.org/pubs.html
I have two books from that list, for example “The UNIX programming environment”:
https://movq.de/v/c3dab75c97/upe.jpg
It’s a bit older, of course, but it looks and feels like a normal book, and it uses the same tech as manpages – which I think is really cool. 😎
It’s comparable to LaTeX (just harder/different to use) but much faster than LaTeX. You can also do stuff like render manpages as a PDF (man -Tpdf cp >cp.pdf) or as an HTML file (man -Thtml cp >cp.html). I think I once made slides for a talk this way.
On the other hand, traditional manpages (i.e., ones that are not written in mandoc) do not use semantic markup. They literally say, “this text is bold, that text over here is italics”, and so on.
So when you run man foo, it has no other choice but to show it in black, white, bold, underline – showing it in color would be wrong, because that’s not what the source code of that manpage says.
Colorizing them is a hack, to be honest. You’re not meant to do this. (The devs actually broke this by accident recently. They themselves aren’t really aware that people use colors.)
If mandoc and semantic markup was more commonly used, I think it would be easier to convince the devs to add proper customizable colors.
We ate the #burgers and drank the #beers before taking a picture to the #books during the second #BBB (Books, Beers and Burgers) of #2025 in #Lamego - oops!
HTTP referrers are quite broken, aren’t they?
Because of that recent storm on my blog, I had a peek at them. There’s a lot of garbage in there. For example, https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/disks-virtual.html is supposed to refer to one of my blog posts …
What’s going on here?
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https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1935344122103308748.html Interesting article on how ChatGPT is rotting your brain 🤣
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About ChatGPT rotting people’s brains, similarly could be said about search engines, and reference books. Oh, also doom scrolling, and mobile devices, and the Internet… :-P
On my blog: Free Culture Book Club — First Woman — Dream to Reality https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2025/06/21/first-woman-1.html #freeculture #bookclub
On my blog: Free Culture Book Club — Tag Team https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2025/06/14/tag-team.html #freeculture #bookclub
Lately (since there are AI summaries at the top), each time I Google for the answer to a question, the AI summary has at least a part of the answer wrong. It makes up laws that do not exist, books that were never published - in sum, well written sentences that make linguistic sense, but with made up content.
Let me repeat: each time. Maybe I only search for hard stuff, or fringe stuff, or this some other explanation - but seriously, it’s hard to understand how isn’t Google ashamed of its AI overviews… or not sued under some regulation regarding fake news.
PS: yes, I know, my fault for using Google as a search engine.
The Day Of The Jackal author Frederick Forsyth dies
Forsyth, who sold 75 million books, is remembered as “one of the world’s greatest thriller writers”. ⌘ Read more
The Day Of The Jackal author Frederick Forsyth dies
Forsyth, who sold 75 million books, is remembered as “one of the world’s greatest thriller writers”. ⌘ Read more
How a stupidity epidemic is threatening America’s actual existence
Bobby Azarian, Cognitive Neuroscientist and the author of the new book The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity. - Raw Story
_Stephan: In the history of the United States, over the past more than two centuries, there has never been a stupider administration than the Trump coup people. The important point to make here is … ⌘ Read more
Drivers nabbed way over limit in Victoria-wide King’s Birthday road blitz
Nearly a third of drivers booked during a major policing operation in Melbourne this weekend have allegedly blown more than double the limit. ⌘ Read more
Pixie-Rose only lived for three weeks, but she taught her mum about life
A Queensland mother has written a book to help grieving families after navigating her own agonising loss following the death of her baby girl. ⌘ Read more
On my blog: Free Culture Book Club — The Pink and Black Album https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2025/06/07/pink-black.html #freeculture #bookclub
The Luke Bateman backlash highlights publishing’s diversity problem
When former Canberra Raiders player and farmer Luke Bateman joined TikTok, he went viral for his love of fantasy novels. A month later he announced a book deal, but the news has generated controversy. ⌘ Read more
10 Movies That Missed the Point of Their Source Material
When adapting books and comics into movies, certain changes must be made to accommodate the new medium. While fans sometimes bristle at plotlines and characters being altered—or even cut out completely—there’s no way for adaptations to be entirely faithful. However, some film adaptations seem to entirely miss the point of their source material. That isn’t […]
The post [10 Movies That Missed the Point of Their Source Ma … ⌘ Read more
On my blog: Free Culture Book Club — Meteorite https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2025/05/31/meteorite.html #freeculture #bookclub
10 Secret Abilities of Well-Known Animals
As kids, we all learned about the world’s most famous animals from books, TV, video games, or the Rainforest Cafe and its incredibly biodiverse gift shop. However, Big Animal is keeping certain secrets from you, and the animals you’ve known and loved since childhood harbor some weird and obscure secret abilities, features, and effects. Read […]
The post [10 Secret Abilities of Well-Known Animals](https://listverse.com/2025/05/30/10-secret-abilities … ⌘ Read more
[$] Cory Doctorow on how we lost the internet
Cory Doctorow wears many hats:
digital activist, science-fiction author, journalist, and more. He has
also written many books, both fiction and non-fiction, runs the Pluralistic blog, is a visiting
professor, and is an advisor to the Electronic\
Frontier Foundation (EFF); his Chokepoint Capitalism
co-author, Rebecca Giblin, gave a [2023 keynote\
in Australia](https://lw … ⌘ Read more
Rule change would allow Trump to ‘cook the books’ and hide collapsing economy: report
Tom Boggioni, Senior Editor - Raw Story
_Stephan: Fascist governance is always inferior to democratic governance. Can you think of a single fascist ruled nation in history that was world leader in social wellbeing, education, science, or medicine? No, neither can I because there is no such example One of the hallmarks of fascists is that they never want t … ⌘ Read more
On my blog: Free Culture Book Club — Sówka w świecie dnia https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2025/05/24/owl-world.html #freeculture #bookclub
Everything from animals to plants to atoms has consciousness, a scientific theory that is gaining momentum
Eric Ralls, - earth.com
_Stephan: I am an experimentalist who has been researching the nature of consciousness for over half a century, and have published hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals and academic books presenting evidence that materialism is not so much wrong as it is inadequate. What this arti … ⌘ Read more
10 Groundbreaking & Historical “Firsts” We Witnessed in 2025–So Far!
While we typically perceive history as something we only read about in books, 2025 has already proven that history is happening right before our eyes. Despite economic, political, and social conflicts, this year has brought about incredible events and discoveries unlike anything the world has ever seen. Some leave us hopeful, others uneasy—but one thing […]
The post [10 Groundbreaking & Historical “Firsts” … ⌘ Read more
10 Times Governments Banned Colors for Bizarre Reasons
When we think of banned things, we tend to imagine books, political speech, or the occasional controversial cartoon. But throughout history, governments have cracked down on something far stranger: colors. Whether tied to class, ideology, or sheer paranoia, certain shades have been restricted, outlawed, or made dangerous to wear—all because they said too much without […]
The post [10 Times Governments Banned Colors for Biz … ⌘ Read more
On my blog: Free Culture Book Club — Pilogy, part 4 https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2025/05/17/pilogy-4.html #freeculture #bookclub
Trump is Building A Global Gulag for Immigrants Captured by ICE
Nick Turse, Staff Writer - The Intercept
_Stephan: Aspiring dictator Trump is reputed to read very few books, but the one he has clearly studied in Hitler’s Mein Kampf, since all the trends he has created to reshape the United States come from Hitler. Just as the Nazis created concentration camps in the countries they controlled so Trump, as this article describes, is creating an international a … ⌘ Read more
** My not so pragmatic guide to running background services on macOS **
I self host a lot of stuff — these days, mostly weird little utility scripts and toys that run in the background, but also some web apps like plex, calibre, and a suite of irc things. For a long time I ran such things on a VPS, but being incredibly cheap, and hardly ever leaving my house for realsies, during the height of the pandemic I brought everything on to an aged mac mini I keep on a shelf behind some books.
I tr … ⌘ Read more
On my blog: Free Culture Book Club — Pilogy, part 3 https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2025/05/10/pilogy-3.html #freeculture #bookclub
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Sometimes things go wrong when buying CDs second-hand. I bought an album quite cheap – but as it turned out, they only checked the cover, not the content, so I got something else instead which is actually much more expensive. 🤣
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@movq@www.uninformativ.de a first edition signed Superman comic book, carefully folded just to fit, but not damaged enough to have lost its value?
Guy Buys GNU Emacs Book From Amazon… Gets “Hitler’s Table Talk” in Disguise
The cover was for “The Org Mode Reference Manual” for Emacs. ⌘ Read more
Fuzzing with Grammars
Not sure if it’s good netiquette to mention them, but the book is apparently co-authored by @vrthra.
On my blog: 0M — Remixed Classrooms https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2025/05/04/30m-free-education.html #3#0#million #books #diversity #education
Nobody want to be a shitty programmer. The question is: Do you do anything not to not be one?
Reading blogs or social media and watching YouTube videos is fun. After them, your code may be a little better, of course. But you need a lot. You need to study! Read good books and study the code of other programmers, for example. Maybe work with a new language, architectures and paradigms. You need break the routine.
If you know Object-oriented programming, you learn functional programming.
If you know Model-View-Controller, you learn Model-View-ViewModel.
If you don’t know anything about architectures, you learn Clean Architecture, Hexagonal Architecture, etc.
If you know Python, you learn Ruby or Go.
If you know Clojure or Lisp… you don’t need to learn anything else. You are already a good programmer. Just kidding. You can learn Elixir or Scala.
Be a good programmer my friend.
happy free comic book day! my store was out of freebies but i got some of my pulls and also a trade of one of my favorite reads last year!
On my blog: Free Culture Book Club — Pilogy, part 2 https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2025/05/03/pilogy-2.html #freeculture #bookclub
The Trump/Hitler Controversy Misses the Point
John B. Alexander, Contributing Writer - Daily Kos
_Stephan: John Alexander lays out in great detail what I have been saying without all the details. To anyone who is familiar with history and the rise of fascist coups it is very obvious what is going on in the United States. What I particularly liked about Alexander’s essay is the references he provides to books that will give the sources they need to fully comprehend how the Tru … ⌘ Read more
The Hacker’s Library: Uncovering the Best Books ⌘ Read more
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To the parents or teachers: How do you teach kids to program these days? 🤔
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@movq@www.uninformativ.de I started with Delphi in school, the book (that we never ever used even once and I also never looked at) taught Pascal. The UI part felt easy at first but prevented me from understanding fundamental stuff like procedures or functions or even begin and end blocks for ifs or loops. For example I always thought that I needed to have a button somewhere, even if hidden. That gave me a handler procedure where I could put code and somehow call it. Two or three years later, a new mate from the parallel class finally told me that this wasn’t necessary and how to do thing better.
You know all too well that back in the day there was not a whole lot of information out there. And the bits that did exist were well hidden. At least from me. Eventually discovering planet-quellcodes.de (I don’t remember if that was the original forum or if that got split off from some other board) via my best schoolmate was like finding the Amber Room. Yeah, reading the ITG book would have been a very good idea for sure. :-)
In hindsight, a console program without the UI overhead might have been better. At least for the very start. Much less things to worry about or get lost.
Hence, I’d recommend to start programming with a console program. As for the language, not sure. But Python is probably a good choice, it doesn’t require a lot of surrounding boilerplate like, say Java or Go. It also does exceptionally well in the principle of least surprise.
10 Cave Explorers Who Never Made It Out Alive
We all have our hobbies. Some of us come home and go for a run, while others read a book. Still others are a bit more extreme. Maybe you enjoy BMX bike riding or whitewater rafting. But a select few do something that most people consider quite insane: spelunkers, also known as cave explorers. Spelunkers […]
The post [10 Cave Explorers Who Never Made It Out Alive](https://listverse.com/2025/04/27/10-cave-explorers-who-never-made-it-out-alive … ⌘ Read more
10 Surprising Legal Gaps That Let Chaos Ensue
We tend to assume that there’s a law on the books for every situation. But legal systems often lag behind reality, leaving major gaps at the worst possible moments. Whether it was due to technological change, moral blind spots, or pure legislative oversight, these are moments when people turned to the law—and the law shrugged. […]
The post [10 Surprising Legal Gaps That Let Chaos Ensue](https://listverse.com/2025/04/27/10-surprising-legal-g … ⌘ Read more
On my blog: Free Culture Book Club — Pilogy, part 1 https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2025/04/26/pilogy-1.html #freeculture #bookclub
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A visual flow chart diagram that illustrates how two different but very related concepts can lead to system accidents 👌 Media
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These ideas are dr the two books:
- Drift into Failure: From Hunting Broken Components to Understanding Complex Systems by Sidney Dekker (2011)
- Engineering a Safer World by Nancy Leveson (2011)
The former I haven’t read. The later I haven’t finished reading 😅
10 Comic Book Film Characters Based on Something Else Entirely
The comic book-to-movie adaptation is far from a fine art. In this hero-centric cinematic world, moviemakers and actors are inclined to bend the rules and break away from the source material when bringing characters to the big screen. Indeed, many writers, directors, and stars have all but ignored the comics they are adapting to suit […]
The post [10 Comic Book Film Characters Based on Something Else Entire … ⌘ Read more
On my blog: Free Culture Book Club — Secrets in the Static https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2025/04/19/secrets-static.html #freeculture #bookclub
iPhone Fold: New Leak Corroborates Camera Setup on Outer Display
Further details have emerged about the camera system on Apple’s upcoming foldable iPhone, informally dubbed the “iPhone Fold.”
Expected to launch next year, Apple’s book-style foldable is rumored to feature a 7.8-inch crease-free internal display and a 5.5-inch external screen. According to industry analyst [Ming-Chi Kuo](https … ⌘ Read more
Foldable iPhone Resolutions Leak With Under-Screen Camera Tipped
Apple’s upcoming foldable iPhone (or “iPhone Fold”) will feature two screens as part of its book-style design, and a Chinese leaker claims to know the resolutions for both of them.
According to the Weibo-based account Digital Chat Station, the inner display, which is approximately 7.76 i … ⌘ Read more
10 Great Comic Book Castings Wasted on Bad Scripts
Casting comic book characters onto the big (or small) screen is tricky. Unlike regular novels, these superpowered stories come with vivid illustrations of every plot beat. As such, fans have clear pictures of how the characters should look and act. Maybe that’s why they scrutinize these adaptations so closely. It’s painfully apparent when the wrong […]
The post [10 Great Comic Book Castings Wasted on Bad Scripts](https://listverse … ⌘ Read more
On my blog: Free Culture Book Club — Nose Ears, part 3 https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2025/04/12/nose-ears-3.html #freeculture #bookclub
This book made me a happier person ⌘ Read more
She didn’t come to read books ⌘ Read more
On my blog: Free Culture Book Club — Nose Ears, part 2 https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2025/04/05/nose-ears-2.html #freeculture #bookclub
10 Interesting Stories Behind Famous TV Catchphrases
Catchphrases are common in many TV shows—from Joey asking “How you doin’?” in Friends to McGarrett’s “Book ’em, Danno” in Hawaii Five-O. Some catchphrases have even become so popular that they’ve outlasted the show they originally came from. Being such cultural juggernauts, you might think these catchphrases were expertly crafted for maximum impact. But they’re […]
The post [10 Interesting Stories Behind Famous TV Catchphrases … ⌘ Read more
5 self-help books that changed my life ⌘ Read more
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I have just received the royalties for the last book: 98 euros for the four-month period, about 24 euros a month on average. Not even enough for the gym membership.
If you have to keep some knowledge: don't write for money, the paper (or ebook) industry is in a very bad way, the margins for the author are very small and piracy is devastating.
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well, there is a whole book about piracy, DRM and selling stuff on the internet.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Doesn%27t_Want_to_Be_Free
So I won’t add much to the topic, what I can say is that this is about being pragmatic. There is some people who’s gonna spend their money on books but it requires publicity (polemic topic) and subsidizing creativity with our own money (another controversial one).
Otherwise it’s a difficult discipline /profession /industry
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I have just received the royalties for the last book: 98 euros for the four-month period, about 24 euros a month on average. Not even enough for the gym membership.
If you have to keep some knowledge: don't write for money, the paper (or ebook) industry is in a very bad way, the margins for the author are very small and piracy is devastating.
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@prologic@twtxt.net @eapl.me@eapl.me I want to highlight another social problem: People don’t read. Paper industry is a bad moment because people don’t pay for books; it does not matter if it is a physical or digital platform. I have this information because I have a good friend who left the industry after publishing a magazine, books and working in an editorial. DRM is a try to give some more money.
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I have just received the royalties for the last book: 98 euros for the four-month period, about 24 euros a month on average. Not even enough for the gym membership.
If you have to keep some knowledge: don't write for money, the paper (or ebook) industry is in a very bad way, the margins for the author are very small and piracy is devastating.
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well, that leads to a long conversation.
Piracy is a difficult topic which is very personal, so I won’t say much about it.
On writing books, I’ve tried along with other digital products such as courses and videogames, and I got to confess that it has been hard for me.
If it helps, I think it all reaches our expectations on the activity and the result. If royalties is the expectation, it’s going to be slow. By 5% of royalties, for a rough example, a huge amount of sales will be required to get a decent “wage”, so I’ve understood of doing it by the side of a normal employment although it has been discouraging and a bit sad.
I have reflected about it in Spanish here: https://sembrandojuegos.substack.com/p/sobre-expectativas-al-crear-juegos
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I have just received the royalties for the last book: 98 euros for the four-month period, about 24 euros a month on average. Not even enough for the gym membership.
If you have to keep some knowledge: don't write for money, the paper (or ebook) industry is in a very bad way, the margins for the author are very small and piracy is devastating.
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@prologic@twtxt.net Fully agreed. I’m far more likely to buy such mediums when DRM-free. I never go near Amazon eBooks etc because of their lock-in, and I have a Kobo eReader which needs to have the books side loaded unless directly from the Kobo store. I prefer DRM-free files every time.
(#cs6lodq) @andros@andros That’s a shame. But here’s the thing about piracy. If I could download a PDF or MP3/OGG of a Book I’d happil …
@andros @twtxt.andros.dev That’s a shame. But here’s the thing about piracy. If I could download a PDF or MP3/OGG of a Book I’d happily pay for this. If I could download an MP3/OGG of some Music I would pay for this. If I could download an MP4 of a Movie I would pay for this.
The reason piracy exists at all is economic … ⌘ Read more
I have just received the royalties for the last book: 98 euros for the four-month period, about 24 euros a month on average. Not even enough for the gym membership.
If you have to keep some knowledge: don’t write for money, the paper (or ebook) industry is in a very bad way, the margins for the author are very small and piracy is devastating.
On my blog: Free Culture Book Club — Nose Ears, part 1 https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2025/03/29/nose-ears-1.html #freeculture #bookclub
iPhone Foldable Display Said to Feature iPad-Style 4:3 Aspect Ratio
Apple’s upcoming “iPhone Fold” will feature a foldable screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio, according to a Chinese leaker who previously leaked the book-style device’s display dimensions.
The Weibo-based account Digital Chat Station claims that Apple will adopt a “roughly” 4:3 aspe … ⌘ Read more
‘iPhone Fold’ to Feature Metallic Glass Hinge That Resists Deformation
Last week, we covered a report claiming that Apple’s book-style foldable iPhone (or “iPhone Fold,” as we are provisionally calling it here) will use liquid metal hinges to improve durability and help minimize screen creasing. Today, a Chinese leaker provided more details on the properties of this hinge material that help to clarify why Apple chose it for its first foldable device.
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Wow, phishing is just around the corner 👀
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@eapl.me@eapl.me Interesting! Two points stood right out to me:
Why the hell are e-mail newsletters considered a valid option in the first place? Just offer an Atom feed and be done with it! Especially for a blog of this very type. This doesn’t even involve a third party service. Although, in addition he also links to Feedburner, what the fuck!? No e-mail address or the like is needed and subject to being disclosed.
When these spam mailers want to prevent resubscribing, then for fuck’s sake, why don’t they use a hash of the e-mail address (I saw that in yarnd) for that purpose? Storing the e-mail address in clear text after unsubscribing is illegal in my book.
10 Real-Life Crimes Inspired by Fiction
Fictional stories are meant to entertain, provoke thought, or even inspire—but sometimes, they inspire people in the worst way possible. Throughout history, there have been disturbing cases where individuals committed real-life crimes after being influenced by movies, books, TV shows, or even video games. Whether driven by delusions, obsession, or a desire to mimic their […]
The post [10 Real-Life Crimes Inspired by Fiction](https://listverse.com/2025/ … ⌘ Read more
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i really wanna learn golang it looks fun and capable and i can read it kind of but every time i try it i'm immediately stuck on basic concepts like "what the fuck is a pointer" (this has been explained to me and i still don't get it). i did have types explained to me as like notes on code which makes sense a bit but i'm mostly lost on basic code concepts
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@kat@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz Pointers can be a bit tricky. I know it took me also quite some time to wrap my head around them. Let my try to explain. It’s a pretty simple, yet very powerful concept with many facets to it.
A pointer is an indirection. At a lower level, when you have some chunk of memory, you can have some actual values sitting in there, ready for direct use. A pointer, on the other hand, points to some other location where to look for the values one’s actually after. Following that pointer is also called dereferencing the pointer.
I can’t come up with a good real-world example, so this poor comparison has to do. It’s a bit like you have a book (the real value that is being pointed to) and an ISBN referencing that book (the pointer). So, instead of sending you all these many pages from that book, I could give you just a small tag containing the ISBN. With that small piece of information, you’re able to locate the book. Probably a copy of that book and that’s where this analogy falls apart.
In contrast to that flawed comparision, it’s actually the other way around. Many different pointers can point to the same value. But there are many books (values) and just one ISBN (pointer).
The pointer’s target might actually be another pointer. You typically then would follow both of them. There are no limits on how long your pointer chains can become.
One important property of pointers is that they can also point into nothingness, signalling a dead end. This is typically called a null pointer. Following such a null pointer calls for big trouble, it typically crashes your program. Hence, you must never follow any null pointer.
Pointers are important for example in linked lists, trees or graphs. Let’s look at a doubly linked list. One entry could be a triple consisting of (actual value, pointer to next entry, pointer to previous entry).
_______________________
/ ________\_______________
↓ ↓ | \
+---+---+---+ +---+---+-|-+ +---+---+-|-+
| 7 | n | x | | 23| n | p | | 42| x | p |
+---+-|-+---+ +---+-|-+---+ +---+---+---+
| ↑ | ↑
\_______/ \_______/
The “x” indicates a null pointer. So, the first element of the doubly linked list with value 7 does not have any reference to a previous element. The same is true for the next element pointer in the last element with value 42.
In the middle element with value 23, both pointers to the next (labeled “n”) and previous (labeled “p”) elements are pointing to the respective elements.
You can also see that the middle element is pointed to by two pointers. By the “next” pointer in the first element and the “previous” pointer in the last element.
That’s it for now. There are heaps ;-) more things to tell about pointers. But it might help you a tiny bit.
(#xnhs6rq) @andros@andros Is this a book republished as a Markdown doc on GitHub or written that way?
@andros @twtxt.andros.dev Is this a book republished as a Markdown doc on GitHub or written that way? ⌘ Read more
On my blog: Free Culture Book Club — Sulphur Nimbus https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2025/03/22/sulphur-nimbus.html #freeculture #bookclub
** A day off **
I didn’t go to work today. Six month ago I took the day off when I made my kids a dentist appointment. So, this morning I took them to the dentist where we played Mario Kart in the waiting room on the Nintendo the dentist keeps set up there.
After that, I dropped them each at school and picked up my dad and took him to Costco and to the Chinese takeaway place. While he gossiped with the folks at the takeaway I started Sally Rooney’s Normal People. I’m late to this book, but enjoying it right away.
After all th … ⌘ Read more
@prologic@twtxt.net I created a script for your book. i have only done the first two chapters. have to do some adjustments to the text so it sounds ok and that takes time..
@prologic@twtxt.net I created a script for your book. i have only done the first two chapters. have to do some adjustments to the text so it sounds ok and that takes time..
On my blog: Free Culture Book Club — electric (yang) https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2025/03/15/electric-yang.html #freeculture #bookclub
On my blog: Free Culture Book Club — acoustic (yin) https://john.colagioia.net/blog/2025/03/08/acoustic-yin.html #freeculture #bookclub
Kuo: Apple’s First Foldable iPhone to Feature Book-Style Design, Sell for Over $2,000
Apple’s first foldable iPhone should arrive around the end of 2026 or early 2027 with a book-style design and a premium price tag of over $2,000, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. In a report today, Kuo outlines his expectations for the device, noting that it will have an approximately 7.8-inch “crease-free” inner d … ⌘ Read more
New Phippy Book Guidelines: Enhancing Community Access & Engagement
Phippy and Friends have long been a beloved part of the cloud native ecosystem, making complex technologies more approachable through storytelling. As interest in these books grows, CNCF is introducing new guidelines to better support, distribute,… ⌘ Read more