Here’s an example of what you end up with (I don’t follow the feed, but it’s in my pod’s cache)

@prologic@twtxt.net i can give it a try MAYBE, i’ve been super busy and all over the place but i will put it on my task list to try to remember! do you have upgrade/migration instructions anywhere that i can follow?

Zalmotek RA6M1, RA8M1, and RZ/A3UL Feather SoMs Target High-Performance Embedded Applications
Zalmotek expands its Feather System on Module portfolio with high-performance options designed for advanced embedded systems. These modules are based on Renesas processors and follow the Feather form factor, enabling flexibility for robotics, industrial control, and edge computing applications. The RA6M1 Feather SoM features an Arm Cortex-M4 CPU operating at u … ⌘ Read more

@andros@twtxt.andros.dev Thanks! 🙏 Just re-followed @important_dev_news@n8n.andros.dev 👌

Zalmotek RA0E1, RA2E1, and RA4M1 Feather SoMs for Energy-Efficient Embedded Development
Zalmotek offers a range of Feather SoMs built around Renesas microcontrollers, targeting energy-efficient and compact embedded applications. These modules follow the Adafruit Feather form factor and include essential interfaces for rapid prototyping and deployment in IoT and low-power scenarios. The RA0E1 Feather SoM is designed for ultra-low-power use cases. It features … ⌘ Read more

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1320 ARCHIVED:86540 CACHE:2803 FOLLOWERS:21 FOLLOWING:14

@bender@twtxt.net Hahaha, is that a satire site? :-D I haven’t noticed them prefering a north-south direction. They’re typically aligned in the marching direction to step forward to get to new grass. Or they just follow the leader cow.

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1319 ARCHIVED:86501 CACHE:2810 FOLLOWERS:21 FOLLOWING:14

@prologic@twtxt.net The number of “followers” I had also dropped significantly. 😅 Looks like there were lots of dead accounts.

Bunnings strikes deal addressing concerns of ‘terrified’ plant growers
Bunnings plant suppliers will now have written agreements under a new statement of principles designed to protect growers, following complaints about the hardware giant during last year’s supermarket inquiry. ⌘ Read more

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1317 ARCHIVED:86476 CACHE:2798 FOLLOWERS:20 FOLLOWING:14

KitchenOwl
Until recently, my fiancée and I used Bring! to manage a list of groceries, we need to buy. Recipes we saved in a Telegram channel, pinning those we want to do in the following days. ⌘ Read more

Testing mentions, immediately followed by commas. Let’s see: @prologic@twtxt.net, this one is local, it might not break. Now, this one @ isn’t local. Nor this @ one. Will they break. Let’s find out!

@prologic@twtxt.net @andros@twtxt.andros.dev You can delete these feeds (created by me):
https://feeds.twtxt.net/project26/twtxt.txt
https://lor.sh/@Katze_942.rss <- i’m added him but can’t find file
the only rss i follow is https://feeds.twtxt.net/posts-from-atdarkcat09atdc09-ru/twtxt.txt

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1316 ARCHIVED:86446 CACHE:2799 FOLLOWERS:20 FOLLOWING:14

@andros@twtxt.andros.dev Ahh cool! I’ll try following it again 🤣 Mind @-mentioning/linking@twtxt.net the feed again? 🙏

I’d have to write i up in full, but essentially looks a bit like this (contribived examples follow)…

(#6kkpdda) I’d have to write i up in full, but essentially looks a bit like this (contribived examples follow)…
I’d have to write i up in full, but essentially looks a bit like this ( contribived examples follow)… ⌘ Read more

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1315 ARCHIVED:86386 CACHE:2781 FOLLOWERS:20 FOLLOWING:14

@prologic@twtxt.net Since you have to check and double check everything it spits out (without providing sources), I don’t find any of this helpful. It’s like someone’s in the room with you and that person is saying random stuff that might or might not be correct. At best, it might spark some new idea in your head and then you follow that idea the traditional way.

Information published on the internet (or anywhere, for that matter) was never guaranteed to be correct. But at least you had a “frame of reference”: “Ah, I read this information about Linux on a blog that usually posts about Windows, so this one single Linux post might not necessarily be correct.” That is completely lost with LLMs. It’s literally all mushed together. 🤷

AI isn’t a shortcut for thinking. In her guide for skeptics, Hilary Gridley reframes AI as a collaborator—not a replacement. Use it like spellcheck for your thoughts. Don’t fear it—iterate with it. Insight improves, speed follows. Full post: https://hils.substack.com/p/the-ai-skeptics-guide-to-ai-collaboration

AI isn’t a shortcut for thinking. In her guide for skeptics, Hilary Gridley reframes AI as a collaborator—not a replacement. Use it like spe …
AI isn’t a shortcut for thinking. In her guide for skeptics, Hilary Gridley reframes AI as a collaborator—not a replacement. Use it like spellcheck for your thoughts. Don’t fear it—iterate with it. Insight improves, speed follows. Full post: https://hils.substack.com/p/the-ai-skeptics-guide-to-ai-collaboration ⌘ Read more

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1314 ARCHIVED:86338 CACHE:2754 FOLLOWERS:20 FOLLOWING:14

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1311 ARCHIVED:86261 CACHE:2761 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1310 ARCHIVED:86237 CACHE:2746 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

@andros@twtxt.andros.dev define “compatible” 😅. On the “not addressed to me”, if I follow you, I will see your twtxts, whether they are addressed to me, or not.

White House embraces Abrego Garcia fight
Brett Samuels,  Staff writer  -  The Hill

_Stephan: The United States has come to the abyss of dictatorship. In the next three weeks we are going to learn whether Donald Trump must follow the laws as the courts decide or whether Donald Trump now defines the laws. Whether we remain a democracy or become a formal dictatorship. When Hitler took power in 1933, 53 days after coming into power he started opening concentration camps. The first one wa … ⌘ Read more

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1309 ARCHIVED:86213 CACHE:2761 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

Even though I really do like the shell, I always use Dolphin to mount my digicam SD card and copy the photos onto my computer. I finally added a context menu item in Dolphin to create a forest stroll directory with the current date in order to save some typing:

Image

The following goes in ~/.local/share/kservices5/ServiceMenus/galmkdir.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Service
X-KDE-ServiceTypes=KonqPopupMenu/Plugin,inode/directory
Actions=Waldspaziergang;

[Desktop Action Waldspaziergang]
Name=Heutigen Waldspaziergang anlegen…
Icon=folder-green
Exec=~/src/gelbariab/galmkdir "%f"

In order to update the KDE desktop cache and make this action menu item available in Dolphin, I ran:

kbuildsycoca5

The referenced galmkdir script looks like that:

#!/bin/sh
set -e

current_dir="$1"
if [ -z "$current_dir" ]; then
    echo "Usage: $0 DIRECTORY" >&2
    exit 1
fi

dir="$(kdialog \
    --geometry 350x50 \
    --title "Heutigen Waldspaziergang anlegen" \
    --inputbox "Neues Verzeichnis in „$current_dir“ anlegen:" \
    "waldspaziergang-$(date +%Y-%m-%d)")"
mkdir "$current_dir/$dir"
dolphin "$current_dir/$dir"

This solution is far from perfect, though. Ideally, I’d love to have it in the “Create New” menu instead of the “Actions” menu. But that doesn’t really work. I cannot define a default directory name, not to mention even a dynamic one with the current date. (I would have to update the .desktop file every day or so.) I also failed to create an empty directory. I somehow managed to create a directory with some other templates in it for some reason I do not really understand.

Let’s see how that works out in the next days. If I like it, I might define a few more default directory names.

CISA extends funding to the CVE program (BleepingComputer)
Sergiu Gatlan reports
that the US government has extended funding for the Common
Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program, following yesterday’s reports that funding
would run out as of April 16.

“The CVE Program is invaluable to cyber community and a priority of
CISA,” the U.S. cybersecurity agency told BleepingCompu … ⌘ Read more

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1308 ARCHIVED:86197 CACHE:2763 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

@prologic@twtxt.net I don’t understand. I checked the feed, the twtxt file, and there are no duplicate links. I will follow the next articles 👁️👁️‍. Thank you!

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1307 ARCHIVED:86184 CACHE:2751 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

@andros@twtxt.andros.dev maybe create a separate, completely distinct feed for DM? That way, clients do not need to do anything, only those wanted to “talk in private” follow themselves, using their very special dm-only.txt feeds. 😂

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1306 ARCHIVED:86136 CACHE:2749 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

well, I suggested that in https://eapl.me/timeline/conv/k2ob6bq

The idea was to help those following the spec in https://twtxt.dev/exts/directmessage.Html, to replicate the steps and validate whether your implementation gives the same result.

BTW, you could add a link to the spec in the echo web.

@andros@twtxt.andros.dev Kind of a cool idea actually! 👌 I’ll follow and see what it’s like, thanks! 🙏

(#o5snfea) @andros@andros Kind of a cool idea actually! 👌 I’ll follow and see what it’s like, thanks! 🙏
@andros @twtxt.andros.dev Kind of a cool idea actually! 👌 I’ll follow and see what it’s like, thanks! 🙏 ⌘ Read more

Americans Give Early Trump Foreign Policy Actions Mixed or Negative Reviews
Laura Silver, Jordan Lippert, and Andrew Prozorovsky,  Research Staff  -  Rew Research Center

_Stephan: I am following reliable research polls on Trump and his administration because I have been so surprised at how many Americans still support his coup, and his destruction of the economy, social security, education, and healthcare. My explanation for this is that a large per … ⌘ Read more

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1305 ARCHIVED:86099 CACHE:2730 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1304 ARCHIVED:86085 CACHE:2724 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1303 ARCHIVED:86066 CACHE:2715 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

Red Hat DEI Activists Encourage “Killing Fascists”, “Raising Hell”
Following Red Hat & IBM taking the axe to DEl programs and Diversity Quotas, Leftists Extremists within the Linux giant are throwing a temper tantrum. ⌘ Read more

How to Run DeepSeek LLM Locally on Mac
If you follow AI news, or even tech news, you might have heard of DeepSeek by now, the powerful Chinese Large Language Model that has capabilities rivaling ChatGPT while having dramatically lower training costs. DeepSeek is designed for advanced reasoning, with general purpose natural language and ChatBot abilities, task competency, research, while also being excellent … Read More ⌘ Read more

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci Apologies, the basic summary is as follows:

• Decided to rewrite the cache backend.
  
• It will now be a SQLite backend going forward.
  
• I’m planning on no data migration.

**(#axtyevq) @abucci@abucci Apologies, the basic summary is as follows:

• Decided to rewrite the cache backend.
  

• It will now be a SQLite …**
  @abucci @anthony.buc.ci Apologies, the basic summary is as follows:

• Decided to rewrite the cache backend.

• It will now be a SQLite backend going forward.

• I’m planning on no data migration. ⌘ Read more

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1302 ARCHIVED:86046 CACHE:2703 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1301 ARCHIVED:86025 CACHE:2684 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

Managing multi-line logs with Fluent Bit and Python
In this blog you will learn about:  Introduction Logs are essential for monitoring and debugging applications, but not all logs are created equal. While most logs follow a simple line-by-line format, others span multiple lines to… ⌘ Read more

@kat@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz I think it happens if you don’t follow them. Replies used to be broken if so, but not sure if @prologic@twtxt.net ever fixed that. I used not to follow him, so that he would see the broken mentions, and feel shame (he didn’t, he is shameless! LOL), but ever since the re-creation of my account I just decided to follow, so I don’t know if the issue is fixed or not.

I know mentioning @xuu@txt.sour.isdoesnm.p.psf.lt was broken too. Maybe still is? We’ll see.

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1300 ARCHIVED:85992 CACHE:2653 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

10 Scientists Convicted of Serious Crimes
“Follow the science” and “trust the science” have become mantras of late. Science is, after all, typically regarded as being unbiased, producing reliable knowledge based on empirical methods that are independent of sociopolitical and economic influences, falsifiable, and replicable. The problem is that science’s accuracy and reliability depend on the ethics of the scientists who […]

The post [10 Scientists Convicted of Serious Crimes](https://listv … ⌘ Read more

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1299 ARCHIVED:85959 CACHE:2633 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

@prologic@twtxt.net I wonder what this will do to my followers list. I suspect there were a lot of dead accounts out there. 😅

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1298 ARCHIVED:85929 CACHE:2704 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1297 ARCHIVED:85886 CACHE:2686 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1296 ARCHIVED:85876 CACHE:2701 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

Prosodical Thoughts: Prosody 13.0.1 released
We are pleased to announce a new minor release from our stable branch.

As is the tradition with software, here is our first patch release following
shortly behind our major 13.0.0 release announced a few weeks ago. It fixes
some important bugs that were discovered after the release.

Many thanks to everyone who reported issues and helped with testing the fixes
for this release. We appreciate it!

For those of you on 0.12.x who haven’t upgraded yet, skip 13.0.0 and jump
stra … ⌘ Read more

@thecanine@twtxt.net My apologies, mate! :-( As @david@collantes.us pointed out, this was definitely not my intent at all.

For the easter egg hunt, I first looked for a hidden image map link on the pixel dog in the right lower corner itself. Maybe one giant pixel just links to somewhere else, I figured. But I couldn’t find any and then quickly moved on. Hence, I naturally viewed the HTML source. Because where else would be a good hiding place for easter eggs, right?

Next, I noticed the <font> tags. I thought I had read quite some time ago that they are not an HTML5 thing, but wasn’t entirely sure about it. So, I asked the W3C HTML validator. Sure enough. I thought I let you know about the violations. If somebody had found a mistake on my site, I’d love to hear about it, so I could fix it. I’m sorry that my chosen form of report didn’t resonate with you all that well. I reckoned you’ll also find it a bit funny, but I was clearly very wrong on that.

I actually followed the dog cow link to the video, so I ended up on the easter egg. However, I didn’t recognize it as such. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Oh well.

Regarding my message about the browser quirks: I read your answer that you were arguing against the HTML validator findings. Of course, everybody can do with their sites whatever they likes.

10 Crazy Cultural Practices from Deep History
Culture includes everything we do, believe, and have done to us. Culture comprises everything humanity has achieved and learned. Looking back into the deep past, we can better appreciate how our civilization has evolved over the vast sweep of millennia. Some of the following findings stretch back to the dawn of humanity itself, while others […]

The post [10 Crazy Cultural Practices from Deep History](https://listverse.com/2025/04/03/10-craz … ⌘ Read more

Do your cats follow you into the shower? ⌘ Read more

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1295 ARCHIVED:85862 CACHE:2698 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

it adds users by finding them in feeds mentioning or following. Your URL is already added.

Hmm i am not sure how you got the URL with users at the end..

it adds users by finding them in feeds mentioning or following. Your URL is already added.

Hmm i am not sure how you got the URL with users at the end..

yep, it looks nice! How could add my URL?
Is it following the same endpoints than https://registry.twtxt.org/swagger-ui/#/users/addUser ?

BTW, I think that the usage section has a wrong base URL or something.

For example if you enter here: https://watcher.sour.is/conv/4rx5iyq
It says to look for this URL: https://watcher.sour.is/conv/4rx5iyq/api/plain/users

Which seems to return the content from https://watcher.sour.is

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1294 ARCHIVED:85849 CACHE:2703 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1293 ARCHIVED:85827 CACHE:2704 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1292 ARCHIVED:85795 CACHE:2718 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1291 ARCHIVED:85790 CACHE:2724 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

thanks for sharing @xuu@txt.sour.is!

Checking for example https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/twt or https://registry.twtxt.org/api/plain/tweets, I don’t know whether this syntax is being used by clients or by people. Is it integrated on Yarn in any way? Genuinely asking to know more about it.

If I might throw a quick thought to those working on the registries, it would be nice to have an endpoint with a valid twtxt output (perhaps cached or dumped to a static file) which a client could point to, helping to discover it’s content in a way which is compatible with the twtxt spec.

Taking the first twt I found in https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/twt as an example:
reddit_world_news https://feeds.twtxt.net/Reddit_World_News/twtxt.txt 2025-03-28T00:29:25Z **China bans US logs. 3 billion dollar[...])
it would be something like
TIME <@NICK URL> TWT
2025-03-28T00:29:25Z <@reddit_world_news https://feeds.twtxt.net/Reddit_World_News/twtxt.txt> **China bans US logs. 3 billion dollar[...])

That way you could watch the latest twts with your client, something similar to what we find on Mastodon: https://mastodon.online/public/local

Some support from the clients to separate these ‘discovery’ content, from your following timeline might be required. 🤔

@eapl.me@eapl.me I am currently working on Implementing a registry that is also a crawler. It finds any feeds that are mentioned or in the follows header.

https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/twt

https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/users

I think @prologic@twtxt.net is also working on one.

@eapl.me@eapl.me I am currently working on Implementing a registry that is also a crawler. It finds any feeds that are mentioned or in the follows header.

https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/twt

https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/users

I think @prologic@twtxt.net is also working on one.

I wonder if I can do away with the followers follows mutes tables and expect the client to actually filter Twts appropriately before Displ …
I wonder if I can do away with the followers follows mutes tables and expect the client to actually filter Twts appropriately before Display? This would simplify the SqliteCache considerably and also mean it would be agnostic of single-user or multi-user as that’s delegated to another layer. Hmmm 🧐 ⌘ Read more

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1290 ARCHIVED:85776 CACHE:2724 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

For anyone following the proposals to improve replies and threads in twtxt, the voting period has started and will be open for a week.
https://eapl.me/rfc0001/

Please share the link with the twtxt community, and leave your vote on your preferred proposals, which will be used to gauge the perceived benefits.

Also, the conversation is open to discuss implementation concerns or anything aimed at making twtxt better.

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1289 ARCHIVED:85766 CACHE:2716 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

Bypassing Ubuntu’s user-namespace restrictions
Ubuntu 23.10 and 24.04 LTS introduced a feature using AppArmor to
restrict access to user namespaces. Qualys has reported
three ways to bypass AppArmor’s restrictions and enable local users to
gain full administrative capabilities within a user namespace. Ubuntu
has followed up with a post
that expla … ⌘ Read more

Twtxt was made for nerds, by nerds.
I’d like to change that. It’s by nerds/hackers, for nerds/hackers and friends of these. It doesn’t have to be hacky all the time, as you don’t need to be a nerd to have a blog.
But, for that to happen, someone has to build the tools to improve UX.

by design there really is no way to easily discovers others
Yeah, I agree, and although there are directories of email addresses, usually you don’t want that, unless you are a ‘public figure’.
I couldn’t say that a microblogging is a “social network” by default, as a blog is not either. At the same time, people would expect to find new people and conversations, as you’d do in a forum.

I think of two features on top of the current spec:

• Clients showing a few posts of what your following are watching but you don’t, so perhaps you find something interesting to follow next. Or that feature of “Your ‘followings’ are following these accounts/people”. (Hard to explain in english, but I hope you get the idea)
  
• Sharing your .txt into some directory, saying “Hey, I have this twtxt URL, I want to be discovered”. I’m thinking of something like the Federated tab on Mastodon.

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1288 ARCHIVED:85735 CACHE:2689 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

@prologic@twtxt.net In all seriousness: Don’t worry, I’m not going to host some Fediverse thingy at the moment, probably never will. 😅

But I do use it quite a lot. Although, I don’t really use it as a social network (as in: following people). I follow some tags like #retrocomputing, which fills my timeline with interesting content. If there was a traditional web forum or mailing list or even a usenet group that covered this topic, I’d use that instead. But that’s all (mostly) dead by now. ☹️

neat! my watcher is currently sitting at about 75 MB following over 1500 feeds. only about 200 are currently somewhat active.

-rw-r--r--. 1 xuu  xuu   69M Mar 25 20:46 twt.db
-rw-r--r--. 1 xuu  xuu   32K Mar 25 21:34 twt.db-shm
-rw-r--r--. 1 xuu  xuu  5.6M Mar 25 21:34 twt.db-wal

sqlite> select state, count(*) n from feeds group by 1;
hot|7
warm|8
cold|183
frozen|743
permanantly-dead|857

neat! my watcher is currently sitting at about 75 MB following over 1500 feeds. only about 200 are currently somewhat active.

-rw-r--r--. 1 xuu  xuu   69M Mar 25 20:46 twt.db
-rw-r--r--. 1 xuu  xuu   32K Mar 25 21:34 twt.db-shm
-rw-r--r--. 1 xuu  xuu  5.6M Mar 25 21:34 twt.db-wal

sqlite> select state, count(*) n from feeds group by 1;
hot|7
warm|8
cold|183
frozen|743
permanantly-dead|857

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1287 ARCHIVED:85662 CACHE:2700 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

I now subscribed to most feeds in my Go tt reimplementation that I already followed with the old Python tt. Previously, I just had a few feeds for testing purposes in my new config. While transfering, I “dropped” heaps of feeds that appeared to be inactive.

This might motivate me to actually “finish” the new client, so that it could become my daily driver. No need to use the old software stack any longer. Let’s see how bad this goes.

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1286 ARCHIVED:85645 CACHE:2703 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

Lola has arrived! 1st time cat dad follow up ⌘ Read more

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1285 ARCHIVED:85637 CACHE:2704 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

@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.

🧮 USERS:1 FEEDS:2 TWTS:1284 ARCHIVED:85614 CACHE:2703 FOLLOWERS:18 FOLLOWING:14

Trump’s funding ax throws colleges into an existential crisis
Erica Pandey,    -  Axios

_Stephan: The Trumpian authoritarian coup continues, and democracy dissipates; all of this following Hitler’s action list point by point. What stands out for me is how weak the institutional resistance is. Universities are docilely falling to their knees. Law firms are proving equally craven. There is only one way this is going to stop. You – and I mean you – must participate … ⌘ Read more

Top Stories: iPhone 17 Air Rumors, Apple’s Siri Problem, and More
With a bit of a lull in Apple product news following the launches of the latest Mac, iPad, and iPhone updates for early 2025, attention is turning back to rumors about other upcoming products with the all-new “iPhone 17 Air” for later this year and even next year’s iPhone 18 Pro seeing some recent rumors.

Image

Apple is also still getting attention for its … ⌘ Read more

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Trump Issues Firm Directive to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts
Sonam Sheth and Gabe Whisnant,  Evening Politics Editor | Breaking News Editor   -  Newsweek

_Stephan: This, in my opinion is the critical turning point on whether democracy survives in the United States. Psychopath “king” Trump believes he is above the law, and will not, and need not, follow what judges decide. We are about to find out whether by judges he also means Supreme Court … ⌘ Read more

NXP’s FRDM i.MX 91 Board Provides Low-Power Solution for Linux-Based IoT Systems
Following the release of the FRDM i.MX 93 board, NXP has launched the FRDM i.MX 91 development board, a compact platform based on the i.MX 91 applications processor. It is intended for early-stage development and evaluation of industrial and IoT systems that require basic Linux support, integrated connectivity, and hardware-level security. The board features a […] ⌘ Read more

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I always find the ‘Adven of code’ challenges difficult to follow.
i18n-puzzles.com has been a blast, but I don’t like having to think about puzzles on weekends. Like with exercise, doing it every day without rest doesn’t sound healthy.

I’d rater have a weekly challenge, at most three.

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Hi! For anyone following the Request for Comments on an improved syntax for replies and threads, I’ve made a comparative spreadsheet with the 4 proposals so far. It shows a syntax example, and top pros and cons I’ve found:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KOUqJ2rNl_jZ4KBVTsR-4QmG1zAdKNo7QXJS1uogQVo/edit?gid=0#gid=0

Feel free to propose another collaborative platform (for those without a G account), and also share your comments and analysis in the spreadsheet or in Gitea.

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