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snoopj.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy
SnoopJ
@snoopj.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy
Hi, I'm James. Eternal dilettante and purveyor of nonsense, much of it about #Python, physics, and #cycling. I take part in #Monsterdon most Sundays at 9 PM ET […]

🌉 bridged from ⁂ https://hachyderm.io/@SnoopJ, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact
Reposted by SnoopJ
I like to imagine the ACARS drama posts are from sentient airplanes like the 17776 probes
November 11, 2025 at 9:57 PM
Reposted by SnoopJ
☃️ Tomorrow @ 12:30pm ‼️

Join us in a festive, bike trolley tour and help us present the Mayor with her very own "Bike Lanes Help Me Arrive Alive" yard sign 🎁

Let's wish together for more of the bike joy she brought in her first term!
December 5, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Reposted by SnoopJ
i just want to go on the computer and have a good time but the gosh darn racket that civilization is making as it collapses is *really* distracting
December 5, 2025 at 6:06 AM
Reposted by SnoopJ
what? no. why? no.

please go away. i'm so tired
December 3, 2025 at 11:09 PM
I'm so very very tired of autonomous vehicle guys and the "but it's 10x safer than a human!" bullshit

I'm *begging* you to take an introductory statistics course, my dude.
December 5, 2025 at 3:40 AM
excuse me, what?

```
>>> td = timedelta(minutes=-5)
>>> td
datetime.timedelta(days=-1, seconds=86100)
>>> td.total_seconds()
-300.0
```

#python
December 5, 2025 at 1:48 AM
"You used to be able to load a website and it would show you a single static layer of information, without popovers"

"Sure, Grandpa. Let's get you back to your Shadow DOM"
December 5, 2025 at 1:39 AM
Reposted by SnoopJ
For Immediate Release:

Living room and bedroom correspondents report a sudden increase in "nose booping" a terrifying new phenomenon wherein the small triangle nose of a kitty (that "looks like a rubber button" according to *untrusted*` sources) is booped by the horrible tentacle-like finger […]
Original post on sauropods.win
sauropods.win
December 5, 2025 at 12:04 AM
Reposted by SnoopJ
It’s supposed to be 3ºF tonight. Finally, #winter has arrived in #Boston.

As a lizard, I don’t like the cold, but I like the effect that actual seasons have on my environment.

F all them ticks and mosquitoes.
December 4, 2025 at 2:43 PM
RE: https://mastodon.online/@universalhub/115663120557653517

Who does this protect?
Who does this serve?
mastodon.online
December 4, 2025 at 10:57 PM
new nalgene becomes a bit more spesh thx 2 @WEATHERISHAPPENING
December 4, 2025 at 10:53 PM
Thinking about taking a train+bikepacking adventure next weekend to see the Geminids shower

but I think I will need to buy a new sleeping bag if I do this, the bag I have is only rated to 30°F
December 4, 2025 at 10:13 PM
OH: M-dash
December 4, 2025 at 9:49 PM
Reposted by SnoopJ
Nerds, what #cyberpunk books *published after about 2014* have you have read yourself, and thought were exceptional?

I've read the Golden Age of Cyberpunk classics but haven't been keeping up with the current gen of authors handling cyberpunk themes. #bookstodon #recommendations #sf #tech […]
Original post on toot.boston
toot.boston
December 4, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Reposted by SnoopJ
_Reposted fromCollege of Engineering._ A storage room at the University of Utah’s Merrill Engineering Building has yielded a priceless piece of computing history from more than half a century ago: a nine-track magnetic tape that could hold the only known copy of an important early computer operating system. Robert Ricci, research professor in the Kahlert School of Computing, first shared the discovery on Mastodon. The tape’s label suggests it contains a copy of UNIX Version 4, a pivotal 1973 release from Bell Labs. Aleksander Maricq, a U Engineering research associate, displays the tape in the Merrill Engineering Building, where he discovered it on July 28, 2025. Photo Credit: Dan Hixson UNIX v4 marked a turning point in computer science. It was the first versions of UNIX to be largely rewritten in the C programming language, paving the way for its portability and massive influence on later operating systems—including BSD, Linux and macOS. Until now, historians and enthusiasts had access only to fragmentary pieces of this early UNIX version. “The UNIX operating system, originally developed at Bell Labs, is the precursor to the operating systems that power our computers, smartphones, and servers today,” Ricci said. “Many of the early versions were only sent to a small number of universities and research institutions, so not many surviving copies exist.” “This version was long thought to be lost forever,” he added. Aleksander Maricq, a research associate in Ricci’s Flux Research Group, discovered the tape while cleaning out a storage room on July 28. The researchers plan to personally transport the reel to the Computer History Museum in the Silicon Valley town of Mountain View, Calif., for careful imaging and preservation. Reading the tape will be challenging: nine-track reels require specialized, aging hardware, and magnetic media degrade over time. There’s also no guarantee that the program is even on the tape; such reels were commonly reused and overwritten. If the data is there and proves recoverable, however, it could open a window into a transformative moment in software history. ### MEDIA & PR CONTACTS * Evan Lerner Director of communications, John and Marcia Price College of Engineering 801-581-5911 evan.lerner@utah.edu
attheu.utah.edu
December 4, 2025 at 6:23 AM
> The central directory timestamp is interpreted as representing local time, rather than UTC time, to match the behavior of other zip tools.

well, goddammit
December 4, 2025 at 6:08 AM
Reposted by SnoopJ
December 3, 2025 at 7:38 AM
Reposted by SnoopJ
She’s thinking about squeakross…
December 4, 2025 at 4:35 AM
Reposted by SnoopJ
I'll say it again: there is a hard limit to how many satellites you can have in orbit without terrible consequences, and I am quite sure we are already above that limit, mostly thanks to Starlink.
December 3, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Reposted by SnoopJ
The accompanying News & Views piece "Even in space, satellites photobomb telescopes" by @merrdiff.bsky.social is excellent!

https://rdcu.be/eSZJX

Here's a lovely space-based telescope image, with 560,000 satellite friends. Thanks, techbros.
December 3, 2025 at 9:15 PM
realized an amazing lazymeal optimization tonight:

when I decide to have one of the Ashoka prepared meals, if I put the steamer tray in the rice cooker and throw the meal packet in there, it's perfectly hot by the time the rice is done, no need to boil water separately.
December 4, 2025 at 4:32 AM
Reposted by SnoopJ
December 4, 2025 at 4:23 AM
I made it far enough west on tonight's ride that I was in the part of Suffolk County that actually got snow yesterday

hardly any of it on the ground, but definitely some, and some attendant ice

pretty cool to experience riding across the rain/snow line I was hearing about in all the forecast […]
Original post on hachyderm.io
hachyderm.io
December 4, 2025 at 3:33 AM
if you ever want to piss me off, make me responsible for the stability of software over time, and then when something upstream breaks that stability and I report it, ask me "why are you trying to support that"

>:|
December 3, 2025 at 10:07 PM
sigh, I am once again thinking about `libstdc++`
December 3, 2025 at 6:06 PM