codesections @codesections@fosstodon.org

This is genuienly one of the best error messages I've ever seen. What makes it so great?

1. Starts with a clear, non-technical description of the problem.

2. Follows that with a clear _technical_ description of the problem.

3. Suggests a solution to the problem and offers to automatically implement it

4. When that fails, provides another clear technical explanation (no non-technical one this time; that's fine because we're now into issues only triggered in advanced use cases)

Fantastic!

I just noticed that #firefox dev tools now have a FIS button that apparently relates to “DevTools Fission”. Can anyone tell me/link me to what that is?

A bit of web searching didn't turn much up. And I'm pretty sure it's new, but the recent Firefox release notes don't have much to say (they just mention that they've added “Fission support” for a few commands, but don't elaborate on what that means)

My tastes in computing run towards the simple; I spend day in a terminal text editor (#vim or #emacs) and run #void linux on my laptop.

That said, I still keep #popOS (er… *sigh* ok… Pop!_OS) installed on my desktop, and really appreciate the work they put into making a polished Linux UI – not my taste, but really important.

Today I discovered that this more “modern” distro seems a bit suspicious of traditional ways of doing things. Running `emacs --daemon` results in the following warring:

Happy Stanislav Petrov day, everyone – as bad as the world can be, I'm still glad it didn't end in 1983!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

This is, hands down, the best email sign up form I have ever filled out (I didn't omit any fields).

The check box at the bottom is about enough to make me want to buy something from the author, just to say thank you.

#todayILearned that the Redis database CLI will display a version-specific piece of generative art in response to the command `LOLWUT`

I wish we added scientific notation prefixes to the way we talk about wealth.

So, instead of "millionaires and billionaires", we could talk about decamillionaires, or centimillionaires.

Or, of course, we could go the #smbc route, and adopt the word "student-loan-paid-offionaire"

I knew reality had gotten pretty cyberpunk, but this image really illustrates it powerfully. (source: https://thedorkweb.substack.com/p/tales-from-the-dork-web-4 )

Did you know that #firefox usage has almost passed Chrome usage on one contenent?

… that contenent is Antarctica.

(Source: https://www.lambdatest.com/blog/which-browsers-are-important-for-your-cross-browser-testing/
h/t: @abhayit2000)

Today's #xkcd hits a little too close to home—especially for anyone who has browsed the Internet with Tor. https://m.xkcd.com/2228/

Non Euclidean criminality:

@hackerman your name reminds me of this comic:

One of the all-time-best rejection letters is this one sent to an applicant to Princeton Law School:

In preparation for #rustBeltRust tomorrow, I've been giving the #ion shell (built in #rust) another look.

And, I've got to say… *WOW*

Last time I checked it out, I liked it in general, but was put off by its startup time. On my machine, it was ~100ms (about like Python or Ruby—not terrible, but definitely noticeable)

But its startup time is now *under a millisecond*—notably faster than #bash and getting pretty close to #dash.

I think I have a new scripting language for utility scripts!

A good thing to remember, perhaps especially these days:

#smbc https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2013-04-07

This article (http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190919-the-maze-puzzle-hidden-within-an-early-video-game?utm_source=pocket-newtab) on a previously unknown (and still not understood) maze-generating algorithm burred in an 1982 Atari game is a perfect example of the Academia vs Business #xkcd in action:

Don't get confused:

#smbc

Clicking the "random" button on smbc got me this gem:

Have any of you heard of or tried #browsh? It's a full, mouse driven GUI browser---in a terminal!

The tech is pretty cool too: it renders the page in a headless version of Firefox and converts the rendered page to text. The upshot is that you can run it on a VPS, SSH in from a laptop, and get a GUI browser without paying the privacy/bandwidth/battery costs of running someone else's JS on your personal computer.

Here's a screenshot:

I just got back into town after traveling a lot earlier in the month and so *finally* got my hands on the #Fosstodon stickers! Proud to be a supporter of our great instance :D

Related question: how well do laptop stickers work as bumper stickers for a car?