Author Archives: pappp

Debian still having trouble with merged /usr

Posted on 2022-04-06 by pappp

Article note: It took me a while to realize that the whole "Merged /usr" thing has always essentially been "We're moving what used to go in / (at least /bin and /sbin) into an initrd or initramfs image." The useful old "boot from a small static / then mount a (possibly shared) /usr from elsewhere" cases are now... the only option even if everything is actually on one device/volume. I'm, a decade later, mostly sold on the idea that having (almost) all the package-manger-owned parts in /usr is a reasonable way to do things, but it still has some of that "add an extra layer of abstraction which adds some complexity to hide complexity" stink about it.

Comments

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Breaking PCBs for Science

Posted on 2022-04-05 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: The whitepaper is neat, there are a bunch of well-substantiated refutations of accepted practice and a clear recommendation for a better method. The most interesting being that you want a hole to intersect with the corner of the tab.

Comments

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal – Punching Bags

Posted on 2022-04-05 by pappp

Source: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
I would like this VR game, plz

Today's News:

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Contra Chrome

Posted on 2022-04-03 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Heh. It's a good remix of an old google marketing material for new google behavior.

Comments

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Google crackdown means you won’t be able to buy Barnes & Noble ebooks on Android

Posted on 2022-04-01 by pappp

Source: The Verge - All Posts

Article note: Do you want to get anti-trust regulated? Because this is how you get anti-trust regulated.

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

Starting next week, users of Barnes & Noble’s Android app will no longer be able to buy digital books in the app, and it seems to be due to a Google Play policy deadline that’s been more than a year and a half in the works. And it’s not just Barnes & Noble that’s affected; you aren’t able to buy Amazon’s Audible titles with a debit or credit card in the latest version of its Android app, either.

The changes appear to stem from Google’s insistence that apps use Google Play’s billing systems. Developers have long criticized Apple and Google for requiring the use of their own billing systems, in large part because of the so-called “app store tax” on many transactions.

Google updated its policies in September 2020 to clarify which types of...

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Infinite Mac: classic Apple operating systems in the browser, filled with useful programs

Posted on 2022-04-01 by pappp

Source: Boing Boing

Article note: It looks like its just BasiliskII built with Enscripten, with a little glue, not a "new" emulator, but it's still a damn polished presentation.

Mihai Parparita's Infinite Mac presents classic Apple operating systems (Mac OS 8, System 7) in the browser: "They boot instantly, are filled with useful programs, allow data import, export and persistence, and try to bring the best of the web to retrocomputing." — Read the rest

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Turing Award Won by Programmer Who Paved Way for Supercomputers

Posted on 2022-03-30 by pappp

Source: NYT > Technology

Article note: Neat. That seems like a reasonable enough choice.

In the 1970s, Jack Dongarra created code and concepts that allowed software to work easily with the world’s most powerful computing machines.

Posted in News | Leave a comment

The Vacuum Tube’s Forgotten Rival

Posted on 2022-03-27 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: This is one of my favorite lost technologies. Univac, Ferranti and a few others built commercially-viable computers out of these things, and other than a few specialist high-power applications they're essentially gone from the record by the end of the 60s.

Comments

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Re-Reading Tanenbaum’s Critique of RPC 30 Years Later

Posted on 2022-03-26 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: That is some serious dry academic writing, but some of the observations are pretty pithy in their own subtle way, and it does a nice job of linking to the usual problem of folks in computing ignoring their own history so they can periodically re-make the same mistakes.

Comments

Posted in News | Leave a comment