@movq@www.uninformativ.de dear lord. “I really need that feature!” — said no one. 🙄

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Yeah, removing the cover will probably help. I’ll have to try. 😅 And, yes, the scrolling is pretty annoying (and kind of ruins the experience a little bit).

The printer isn’t that loud – at least not for a dot matrix printer. 😅 It’s been ~30 years since I’ve last seen them in person, but I remembered these things to be louder. I’m typing on my Model M, maybe that contributes to the perceived noise on this video. Here’s an isolated recording of that keyboard: https://movq.de/v/ddc98b03d8/2022-02-21–model-m-goes-brrr.ogg 🤣 It really sounds like that when you’re typing fast. Brrrrt.

@dce@hashnix.club I switched over to following you on Gopher, because why not. 😅

@thecanine@twtxt.net Oh! 🤯 Hadn’t heard of this before. And 100% agree with that video.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Haha, that’s so cool! :-) Could you remove the cover to at least reduce the amount of scrolling around? But I bet any amount of scrolling is annoying.

This printer has quite some noise level to it. Or how bad is it really in person?

@dce@hashnix.club these are some of the same reasons that I enjoy Yarn.social/Twtxt 🙌

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Thanks, it’s mostly following the Louis Rossmann thing https://youtu.be/2_Dtmpe9qaQ - a symbol of protest, against the rapid enshitification the Internet is facing, accelerated to the extreme, during this year. It has reached a point where something really has to be done about it all. Obviously not just everyone changing their profile pictures, but also cataloguing all the consumer rights violations, invasion of privacy, censorship,… to shove it in the face of as many government officials, as possible.

@dce@hashnix.club Twet is a far better command line client. Yea 👌

@dce@hashnix.club I feel you 🤗

@dce@hashnix.club Hello! 👋 Welcome! 🤗

@dce@hashnix.club is it not duplicated. Well, at least not now.

@bender@twtxt.net have you seen how many Google apps, get shoved into the new releases of Android. MicroG, Google Play, maybe Chrome is fine, but everything else, I can’t get rid of, is just bloatware to me.

@bender@twtxt.net That is a noble goal. We can talk about that – as long as it doesn’t mean giving up essential freedoms like choosing which software you can run on your device (without having to ask someone for permission).

@thecanine@twtxt.net I think Google’s Android is as vanilla as it can be, coming from the “source”. The bloatware is more often than not vendor’s provided, no? I don’t consider Google apps and services bloatware, but an intrinsic part of the Android “vanilla” experience.

@prologic@twtxt.net @moveq@twtxt.net I think it’s mostly the serious lack of competition. All the Android phone manufacturers just use the Google version of Android, bundle in piles of Google bloatware and do whatever Google tells them to. If some of them installed Lineage, or any other versions, with their own stores and rules, or even just offer a less Googly version of their phones, as an option, for more experienced users, Google wouldn’t be able, to push everyone around.

@dce@hashnix.club twtxt is quite light, and trouble-free. Welcome! I also run an ActivityPub server, but yeah, more often around here than there.

@dce@hashnix.club I don’t use Gemini, but I follow you on the good, old, HTTP(S)! :-)

@prologic@twtxt.net, the very first sentence addresses something that needed to be addressed. Maybe tech savvy people will not have these issues, but many non-tech savvy people (and old people) I know has had, and has, cyclically, a myriad of malware, pestware, etc., issues on their Android based phones. It is a wild-west.

@prologic@twtxt.net I’m not smart enough to answer that question. 😅 Certainly feels like unregulated capitalism. Governments being too slow and/or unwilling to intervene … It’s a mess.

@thecanine@twtxt.net I sure hope there’s going to be push back. Is it going to happen, realistically? I don’t know.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Yeah I’m worried about this too. What’s the systemic problem at paay here? Capitalism at it’s extreme? 🤔

@prologic@twtxt.net Yes, this is another instance of restricting “personal” computing. You won’t be able to install arbitrary software anymore (“sideloading”, as they call it).

It’s not unique, it’s not new. Boiling the frog alive.

We’re heading towards this: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

@movq@www.uninformativ.de @prologic@twtxt.net this is extremely concerning and I hope there is enough push back to stop this! The ability to modify apps, is one of the two biggest reasons, I’m still using Android. If they remove that option, I’ll be forced to switch to one of the de-Googled forks.

That might not be a good solution either, because I need banking and identity verification apps on my main device and already had to get a second device for work, which has tighter sideloading restrictions and I would very much not like to be forced into using three Android phones simultaneously, to do what should be possible, with just one.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de TL;DR? 🤔

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Nice picture, this hot air balloon has quite a large basket.

Yes, go for it! :-)

My grandpa went ballooning ages ago and liked it. The balloonist misjudged the height a bit and landed in an open-air pool. Well, not in the water, but on the sunbathing lawn just inside the fence. :-D After the ride, everybody was given a very long personal name that they had to memorize. Decades later, my grandpa still knew his assigned name.

The most important thing to know is that – in German – you don’t fly (fliegen) a ballon, but ride (fahren) it: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballonfahren#Fahren_oder_fliegen Judging by the English wikipedia article, this is not an English thing, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_air_ballooning

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Wow, cool! :-)

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Yeah I just got a bit curious after watching your video and reading your OP 😅

@prologic@twtxt.net Anything above a couple hundred Euros. 😅 The current Epson LX-350 appears to be not that pricey, though. 🤔

I mean, what do you want to do with it? If you want to use this as an actual printer for daily use, I’d get a laser printer instead, because they’re very reliable and the print quality is top notch.

I got my dot matrix printer mostly for experiments and nostalgia, so I wouldn’t want to pay something like 300-400€ for it.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Haha yeah rightio, and yeah inches suck 🤣

@prologic@twtxt.net It’s quite similar to how escape sequences work in a terminal. ASCII text is printed as ASCII text and then an escape sequence can make it bold or underline and so on. Other escape sequences allow you to say “the following $n bytes are part of a bitmap image”, and then this gets printed at whatever the current position is (somewhat similar to SIXEL in a terminal).

It’s just that the units are a bit weird, because this is all done in bloody inch. 😅

@movq@www.uninformativ.de What do you define as “expensive”? 🤔 (I’ve always thought of modern-day painters as a “rip”, and the ink my god 🤯)

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Is there like a TL;DR of this standard? I can’t say I remember this tbh 🤔

@prologic@twtxt.net Here’s one: https://github.com/vmykh/printer_labs/blob/master/escp2ref.pdf

@prologic@twtxt.net Yeah, those POS thingies are similar. There’s “ESC/POS” as a variant of “ESC/P”, if I’m not mistaken.

All I can say is, when I go to big stores like Amazon, then I have trouble finding “traditional” dot matrix printers for use at home. 😅 Epson still sells them, but they’re more expensive than my laser printer was. So yeah, they still exist, just expensive, by the looks of it.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Got a link to this

ESC/P standard.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Are you sure?

because there is virtually no market for these devices anymore, meaning new ones are very, very expensive.

I think dot matrix printers are still pretty common in many Point of Sales (POS) registers right? At least here in AU they’re very common. I had a quick look myself today, there seems to be quite a solid market for these types of printers. In fact even EPSON still sell Dot Matrix printers themselves 🤣

@thecanine@twtxt.net That’s cute. 😃 (Why Clippy, though? 😅)

@prologic@twtxt.net Hmm, good question. I haven’t checked the market, I got mine from someone I know. But to be honest, I’d suspect that buying a used one is actually your best shot, because there is virtually no market for these devices anymore, meaning new ones are very, very expensive. 🫤

FWIW, I have an OKI Microline 3390eco. Good thing is, you can still buy new cartridges for it.

If you want to buy a new device, check if it supports the “ESC/P” standard. That’s very widely supported.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Kind of curious now… Is there a (to buy new) dot matrix printer you’d recommend if someone wanted to get into this sort of thing (sending plain ‘ol bytes to a printer port)? 🤔 (I remember this back in the ye ‘old days!)

@movq@www.uninformativ.de I’m in Standard Camp. ;-)

@movq@www.uninformativ.de There haven’t been decent ones for a while.

Joining the Clippy profile picture club, now that I finally finished my custom one.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Aww, yeah. 😍 (Reminds me, I haven’t paid attention to the sunset in quite a while …)

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org When/if I can pull it off, there will be videos! 😅

I never used hardcopy terminals, either. We did have a dotmatrix printer, but that was just used as a regular printer.

Inkjets, I don’t know. They were pretty fascinating and cool when they came out. A lot faster than dotmatrix and obviously quiter. They never gave me much trouble, actually. But I switched to a laser printer long before crap like DRM’ed ink cartridges became a thing.

@twtxtory@twtxtory.adn.org.es it is designed that way on purpose 🤣

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Heck yeah, have fun! :-) We never had a matrix printer, started off with a cathode ray tube and an inkjet pisser.

I’m happy to see you compose your first twtxt message using ed on your new output device. We definitely need video proof of that! ;-)

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Haha, yeah. I never bothered with them.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org @prologic@twtxt.net It’s too real, isn’t it? 🤣

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Thanks, glad you like it, but sadly I’m not sure, if there’s still a way, for this particular project, to continue.

Reducing 38 pixels (previous smallest) to 27, inside of a 7x7 square canvas, is a result I’m really happy with. Now it seems I can only shave off single pixels and get a lot worse looking results - to the point it doesn’t even look like my mascot, to me.

There doesn’t seem to be a hard cap for drawing tiny dogs. It’s possible to arrange 5 pixels, in a way someone recognizes them, as some kind of a dog. The record for cats, is currently a single orange pixel: https://youtu.be/gzeK8NKuzmg

The only way to beat that, is either a monitor, with just a single red diode lit, inside one of its pixels, or an image file that’s broken and empty, on purpose.

@thecanine@twtxt.net Wow. I’m not an artist in any way, but I have tried to make icons for programs or fonts every now and then. Making something that is still recognizable at so few pixels is hard. Hats off!

@movq@www.uninformativ.de wut da fuq?! 🤯

@thecanine@twtxt.net Haha I thought myself there might ahve been too many pixels on the tail, but I’m no expert in this field 🤣 It’s still a nice canine though! 👌

@prologic@twtxt.net That’s fair, this version really is a stretch. Similar to old Atari game spirites, a lot is left to interpretation,especially by those who have not seen any of the more detailed ones, before.

On the other hand, some suggested I’m still wasting too many pixels on the tail, but removing those, makes it just a generic dog (at best), even to me.

@thecanine@twtxt.net My daughter (who is pretty good already at art and only 10 :D) says this looks like a “blob” 🤣 I tried to explain to her that this is pixel art, but I’m not quite sure she has the same appreciation (yet) 😅

After around 3 years, I managed to make my “smallest recognizable canine”, even smaller. So here’s the all new, smallest recognizable canine 2.0:

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Fucking hell!

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Ucycling just rocks to hard!

@bender@twtxt.net Hahaha, I bet you could use it for a myriad of things! :-D

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org ooooh! I wish I had that mallet here at work today. So many uses come to mind! 😂

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Very nice! I fully agree, I really like listening to him, too.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Well, now that is pretty impressive. Upcycling ftw.

@bender@twtxt.net There are all sorts of pallets. I made my wooden mallet from a heavy duty beech pallet a few years ago:

Image

Oh yes, this guy is so cool. I think the next machines I need are a thickness planer and a big dust collector with at least hose 100mm diameter! :-)

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org you have sent me down the rabbit hole now. That guy is a true wizard!

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org that’s so cool! I had to do some research, as I thought all pallets were made using cheap pine wood (which is quite soft), but, boy, as I erring big time! Oak it is also used, which is hardwood, and quite durable.

@prologic@twtxt.net Yeah i have wireguard to my three VPS regions that act as my ingress.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Hahaha, congrats! :-D

@eric@itsericwoodward.com Name change is no worries! 😉 Interesting/funnily enough my client yarnd seems to have picked it up automatically which is nice (I’ve historically always had a few bugs to iron out there 🤣)

@itsericwoodward@itsericwoodward.com Also just a heads up, GIF(s) aren’t supproted as an Avatar type on yarnd (what runs twtxt.net). I’d change this to something that’s more supproted like PNG, JPEG, etc.

@eric@itsericwoodward.com I prefer to call what we’ve built here really an “ecosystem”. A network isn’t really an apt description. Twtxt/Yarn is arguably IMO the purest decentralised non-social social media ecosystem I think in existence today 🤣

@xuu@txt.sour.is Your ingress is via some kind of tunnelling too right?

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Oh yeah, once in the quarter to the office is absolutely amazing and luxurious. Thank you teammates and employer! Though, I would already have been on site when these things happened earlier.

Today is my last day of holiday. Back to work again tomorrow. Not looking forward, vacation is just great. So easy to get used to.

I just saw that these motherfuckers also query my twtxt feed. I have to enable access logs for everything again and see who else wants some napalm response. :-(

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Oh dear. 🙈 So glad that WfH is a thing now. Imagine how utterly annoying it would be if they expected you to still come in despite this …

@prologic@twtxt.net ahh! You are talking to yourself again. 😅

@bender@twtxt.net This one: https://n8n.andros.dev/webhook/f0cfd6a6-60c8-4183-a26d-120bbd25a046

@prologic@twtxt.net slightly off topic, what’s the URL for the feed you replied to? I must have muted it. 😅

@eric@itsericwoodward.com Sure i! Welcome! 🤗

@eldersnake@we.loveprivacy.club Haha, yeah well “thinking” isn’t really something we even know how to define, let alone simulate 🤣

@eric@itsericwoodward.com I guess it is. 👋

Exactly, @eric@itsericwoodward.com! Welcome to the party. :-)

@bender@twtxt.net It was 🤣

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Hahahaha, great! :-D

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Hell yeah, this is cool, thank you! <3

@bender@twtxt.net Yeah, the subject and multiline extensions are great and absolutely needed. If incorporated right from the beginning, though, they could have been designed even better. :-)

@movq@www.uninformativ.de nice “silent mode”, thank you!

@bender@twtxt.net curl -s gopher://… does that for you.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de having to go to a gopher proxy to see a text document better served on readily available web servers… 🤭, but I digress. Verbatim text:

What's Missing from "Retro"
~softwarepagan
------------------------------------------------------------------
You know, often, when I say I miss older ways of computing or
connecting online, people tell me "there's nothing stopping you
from doing that now!" and they are technicay correct in most cases
(though I can't, for example, chat with friends on MSN ever
again...) However, let me explain that while this type of thing can
*sort of* fill that hole in my heart, it isn't *the same.*

Say, for example, I wanted to connect with others over a BBS. This
wouldn't offer the same types of connections it used to. While
there are BBSes around with active users, they're no longer there
to discuss movies, Star Trek, D&D, games, etc. They're there to
discuss *BBSes.* The same can be said for Gopher, old-school forums
and all sorts of revival projects (such as Escargot, Spacehey,
etc.) Retrocomputing enthusiasts, while they have a variety of
interests, are often in these spaces to discuss the medium itself
and not other topics. This exists at a stark contrast from how
things were in the past, where a non-tech-inclined person may learn
the tech to connect with likeminded others (as I did as a
Zelda-obsessed kid.)

The same can be said of old media. People will say "well, nobody is
stopping you from watching old shows/movies now!" Again, they are
technically correct. I can go home right now and watch *Star Trek:
The Next Generation* to my heart's content. It will never again,
however, be current, or new. When something is new, it serves as a
shared cultural experience. Remember how "Game of Thrones* felt in
the mid-to-late 2010s? Yeah, that.

It's sad. I sustain myself on a mixed diet of old things, new
things, and new things intended for old millenials like me who like
old things. It can be bittersweet. 

@prologic@twtxt.net They would know how to do that, but the issue was anything else, like switching workspaces or opening a terminal window or any window at all. 😅

@movq@www.uninformativ.de No one would figure out how to :q! ? 🤣

@prologic@twtxt.net I’m so tired of this. (That’s the goal. They want to wear people down.)

@kat@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz If you’re willing to ignore that it’s proprietary software, then Windows used to be pretty good. Like, 25 years ago. After Windows 2000 (or maybe XP) it went downhill fast. Kind of makes me sad, actually. 😂

@movq@www.uninformativ.de WE NEED MORE BACKUPS!!!!!!!!!!!1

@kat@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz Oh no. 😨 Backups! We need more backups!

@jost@jost.sdfeu.org Yeah replying is pretty easy if you see the first reply. Just preserve the so-called “Subject” 🤣

@movq@www.uninformativ.de LMFAO

@kiwu@twtxt.net awww you got this kiwu <3

@jost@jost.sdfeu.org welcome!

@kat@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz the culprit was, as always, a typo’d dd command

@jost@jost.sdfeu.org Hey 👋

My next try with twtxt - because it’s the closest to my idea of microblogging.

@kiwu@twtxt.net Congrats 🥳