gauntlet's microblog

Oh, by the way: I ...

Oh, by the way: I moved my blog. Totally forgot to mention that. Sorry.

My laptop is dying on ...

My laptop is dying on me. It will occasionally just freeze and require a hard reboot plus the keyboard recently began to fail me. Since I bought this machine second hand and got precisely zero info about its age (apart from the fact that the model -- ThinkPad L412 -- was being manufactured between 2010 and 2012) I had to find out myself. First I found the serial number, then I queried Lenovo for more info. Turns out the poor old thing is just two months shy of being nine years old, which is kind of impressive for a laptop.

I already have a new-ish replacement here (second hand again) that I got set up halfway, only have to migrate my home directory over there. Still, I find myself clinging to my recent laptop. I guess I'll try and keep it alive either way. It may be old, but since my requirements are low it still serves me well.

Unusual bit of honesty from ...

Unusual bit of honesty from Facebook: social media users can't expect privacy.

Back from a visit at ...

Back from a visit at a friend's place in a pretty provincial area. Since I live in a major city I'm used to having a decent internet connection basically wherever I go. At this place, not so much. My phone was constantly struggling to connect to any mobile network at all, and whenever it got connected, the downstream was slooooooow. I actually began to value small sized websites even more.
I also did not dare to connect to the wifi in the hotel, since the hardware I saw there was el cheapo stuff which probably was never patched since it was acquired ten years ago or so. Plus the stuff was installed in a public area within arm's reach, so anything could have been done to the network. I may be paranoid in this regard, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.
On the plus side, there was no light pollution whatsoever. Hadn't seen such a dark night's sky in years.

Turns out Comic Sans is ...

Turns out Comic Sans is actually a useful font: it may help dyslexic people.

tilde.red is back online, but ...

tilde.red is back online, but apparently someone else is in charge now. Not sure if it is a tilde server again or something else.

I did not see a ...

I did not see a single other person carrying a towel today, and the one who asked about mine never read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. That's a bit sad.

Ha, cool! Recursive Powerpoint Presentations. ...

Ha, cool! Recursive Powerpoint Presentations.

The Anti-License.

Next time someone asks me ...

Next time someone asks me why I don't want my picture to be taken, I'll point them to this.

Weird realization from a few ...

Weird realization from a few days ago: RSS is about as old as the first Matrix movie.

Embedding third party scripts on ...

Embedding third party scripts on your website is a bad idea. Here is another prime example for this. You're basically issuing a blank check to the third party. Don't.

Lego is going to release ...

Lego is going to release a set of Braille bricks. Cool idea.

I do this stuff for ...

I do this stuff for a living and I know I should probably take this all for granted, but it still amazes me to be able to VPN into my personal network from across country. I love this technology.

Neat approach to a site ...

Neat approach to a site directory on Neocities: districts

Now that's an interesting storage ...

Now that's an interesting storage medium: X-ray films storing audio

I knew URL shorting is ...

I knew URL shorting is a thing, but URL lengthening is new to me.

Here is a robot proving ...

Here is a robot proving it is not a robot. :)

CSS Naked Day may be ...

CSS Naked Day may be a thing of the past, but I still like the idea. (Obviously.)

When using ascii smilies within ...

When using ASCII smilies within parentheses, what is the right syntax? (... :-)) or ( ... :-)? Is this kind of like an ipv6 address, collapsing redundant values, or would the second version constitute a syntax error? Really, this is bothering me.