Attila Kinali @attilakinali@society.oftrolls.com

From elsewhere:
The fact that there is a stairway to heaven but a highway to hell says a lot about expected traffic volumes.

https://www.jesusandmo.net/comic/such/

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This is a ground loop.

"The definitive guide to the Doctor Who theme music" - including reconstruction of bassline, melody, and incidental noises.

https://www.dwtheme.com/theme/structure

"Note that there is no dum-dum-diddy at the end of the bridge bassline. This is a common misunderstanding"

#radiophonics
#radiophonicworkshop
#deliaderbyshire
#doctorwho

ST:Disco quote of the week: "There are many lives."

When did @mdp join the writing team?

The argument against the word "master" is based on the unproven assumption that the term is loaded with racist connotations, and the mandate for change is based on the fact that the possibility of the assumption's truth is nonzero and that the side-effects of the change are small.

If that were true, I would be on board with it. However, it's plainly clear that the impact of git upstream switching the default branch name to "main" is going to be huge. Many scripts with the "master" hard-coded are going to break, scripts written on the valid assumption that the name "master" was an intrinsic, unchanging property of git.

Every programmer who works with repositories before and after the change are going to constantly mis-remember which is which, and we'll have to guess at the default when working with new or unfamiliar repositories.

This event is going to establish a new epoch in git. We should take that seriously.

Which means we have to confront the fact that the assumption (that inherent racism is present in the word "master" and is causing harm to those who have suffered under racism) may not actually be true. The claims do not hold up well under scrutiny. And, as far as I can tell, the cause is championed disproportionately by white people.

The moralized nature of the question puts an external pressure on decision makers on the git project, which is normally not present for other patches. They have to consider, if they review these changes negatively, will it affect their personal reputation? Their careers? If there's even a slight chance of this, is it better not to argue the matter at all, and rubber-stamp the patches? I don't think this change is being developed under the right conditions.

On the left, we have a tendency to rubber-stamp social causes with a lesser degree of scrutiny. I think that this is a testament to how much we value empathy and solidarity, but I don't think it's a healthy way to approach our problems. Software breakage has a social cost, too.

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If you wonder why PCB mounting holes should be on an 8mm grid...

It should honestly be illegal that after you did the dishes there will always be more dishes. I just did them yesterday, why are there new ones? Ugh!

Here's an article from 1957 discussing the then-new polio vaccine.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1957/02/how-good-is-the-polio-vaccine/303946/

https://www.savagechickens.com/2020/11/youre-crazy.html

I had stumbled into the unfamiliar coffee shop to get away from the unexpected snow, and thoughtlessly ordered my usual.

Once I could think again, I noticed the glowing plants, and how the other patrons politely peered at me over their odd looking brews, many with... service animals?

"What kind of café is this..?"

"A nice one," volunteered a ferret, cheerfully."

"It... is," I had to agree.

Haven't been able to find it again since.

#TootFic #MicroFiction #Writing #TerylsTales #UrbanFantasy

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Setting Up the ARM32 Architecture, part 2 https://people.kernel.org/linusw/setting-up-the-arm32-architecture-part-2