Joel Uckelman
@uckelman.bsky.social
vassalengine.org Working on V4... | Github: uckelman | Logician | CS PhD | OSS contributor | vim | Wargamer | Short-stack developer | Complete the Five Year Plan in four years
tmw you are looking in git stash at something that you punted on but you did not leave a comment in the stash about why.
It's like leaving a huge stone pillar amidst a ruined city which has the inscription "IT WAS A BAD IDEA".
What was a bad idea, ancient me? Please TELL ME.
It's like leaving a huge stone pillar amidst a ruined city which has the inscription "IT WAS A BAD IDEA".
What was a bad idea, ancient me? Please TELL ME.
November 5, 2025 at 12:29 AM
tmw you are looking in git stash at something that you punted on but you did not leave a comment in the stash about why.
It's like leaving a huge stone pillar amidst a ruined city which has the inscription "IT WAS A BAD IDEA".
What was a bad idea, ancient me? Please TELL ME.
It's like leaving a huge stone pillar amidst a ruined city which has the inscription "IT WAS A BAD IDEA".
What was a bad idea, ancient me? Please TELL ME.
I made a PR to a Rust lib for S3 which fixes a bad range check. (S3 ranges are closed, but the assertion in the functions is for a half-open range.) There is an AI summary of my PR. My PR changes three bytes, and the AI summary still manages to be wrong about what it does: github.com/durch/rust-s...
Ranges are closed, so the check should be start <= end, not start < end by uckelman-sf · Pull Request #434 · durch/rust-s3
The check in the ranged read functions is correct for a half-open range, but off-by-one for the closed ranges that the read functions are expecting. This prevents single-byte reads from working, be...
github.com
October 22, 2025 at 8:58 PM
I made a PR to a Rust lib for S3 which fixes a bad range check. (S3 ranges are closed, but the assertion in the functions is for a half-open range.) There is an AI summary of my PR. My PR changes three bytes, and the AI summary still manages to be wrong about what it does: github.com/durch/rust-s...
Surveying what's left to do on the Vassal module library as I take a break for lunch: I count 8 open issues that will get attention before I shift over to V4 demos. The other 13 I'm not likely to work on in the next few months.
October 22, 2025 at 11:45 AM
Surveying what's left to do on the Vassal module library as I take a break for lunch: I count 8 open issues that will get attention before I shift over to V4 demos. The other 13 I'm not likely to work on in the next few months.
Vassal 3.7.18 is released: forum.vassalengine.org/t/vassal-3-7...
Vassal 3.7.18 Released
VASSAL 3.7.18 Released The Vassal Team is happy to announce the release of Vassal 3.7.18. IMPORTANT If you are using MacOS 14, please ensure you are using 14.4 or later, to avoid a bug in MacOS whic...
forum.vassalengine.org
September 23, 2025 at 10:59 PM
Vassal 3.7.18 is released: forum.vassalengine.org/t/vassal-3-7...
I have newfound sympathy for anyone at sea for days at a time. Our overnight ferry plowed into a gale force headwind for the whole trip. I thought I'd been on rough crossings before and they didn't bother me... I was wrong. I still feel out of sorts and haven't been on the ship for five hours.
September 22, 2025 at 2:49 PM
I have newfound sympathy for anyone at sea for days at a time. Our overnight ferry plowed into a gale force headwind for the whole trip. I thought I'd been on rough crossings before and they didn't bother me... I was wrong. I still feel out of sorts and haven't been on the ship for five hours.
Vassal 3.7.17 is released: forum.vassalengine.org/t/vassal-3-7...
Vassal 3.7.17 Released
Vassal 3.7.17 Released
The Vassal Team is happy to announce the release of Vassal 3.7.17.
IMPORTANT
…
forum.vassalengine.org
September 17, 2025 at 11:12 PM
Vassal 3.7.17 is released: forum.vassalengine.org/t/vassal-3-7...
Why in Prince's funky name did they make Math.round() in JavaScript round all halves toward +∞? I'll bet Math.round(-0.5) == 0 has caused people to waste thousands of hours trying to figure out why simple arithmetic doesn't work as expected.
September 15, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Why in Prince's funky name did they make Math.round() in JavaScript round all halves toward +∞? I'll bet Math.round(-0.5) == 0 has caused people to waste thousands of hours trying to figure out why simple arithmetic doesn't work as expected.
We're most of the way there with the Vassal server maintenance. You should find that everything save the forum is working again.
We're working through a problem with the forum presently. It should be back later today.
We're working through a problem with the forum presently. It should be back later today.
September 12, 2025 at 3:17 PM
We're most of the way there with the Vassal server maintenance. You should find that everything save the forum is working again.
We're working through a problem with the forum presently. It should be back later today.
We're working through a problem with the forum presently. It should be back later today.
The Vassal server will be down for maintenance tomorrow, 12 September, starting around 10:00 UTC and running until we're finished, which we expect to be in the afternoon sometime.
forum.vassalengine.org/t/server-dow...
forum.vassalengine.org/t/server-dow...
Server down for maintenance on 2025-09-12
Our server, which runs the game server, the forum, the module library, and the rest of the website, will be down for maintenance on 12 September 2025. We expect to start around 10:00 GMT. It’s unclea...
forum.vassalengine.org
September 11, 2025 at 7:02 PM
The Vassal server will be down for maintenance tomorrow, 12 September, starting around 10:00 UTC and running until we're finished, which we expect to be in the afternoon sometime.
forum.vassalengine.org/t/server-dow...
forum.vassalengine.org/t/server-dow...
We finished correcting project pages following the Vassal module library conversion. That was a massive boulder to push to the top of the hill.
Thank you to everyone who helped with this.
Now we're chipping away at the remaining unimplemented parts of the module library...
Thank you to everyone who helped with this.
Now we're chipping away at the remaining unimplemented parts of the module library...
September 7, 2025 at 11:08 PM
We finished correcting project pages following the Vassal module library conversion. That was a massive boulder to push to the top of the hill.
Thank you to everyone who helped with this.
Now we're chipping away at the remaining unimplemented parts of the module library...
Thank you to everyone who helped with this.
Now we're chipping away at the remaining unimplemented parts of the module library...
I have a recurring Monday night event and for two consecutive weeks I've encountered a deranged man covered in blood on my way there.
September 1, 2025 at 10:21 PM
I have a recurring Monday night event and for two consecutive weeks I've encountered a deranged man covered in blood on my way there.
Continuing to correct project pages following the Vassal module library conversion. 46 pages which need splitting, 478 orphaned files yet to be reunited with their projects.
I have to keep reminding myself that this is a static finite list, so we'll eventually reach the end...
I have to keep reminding myself that this is a static finite list, so we'll eventually reach the end...
August 27, 2025 at 11:04 AM
Continuing to correct project pages following the Vassal module library conversion. 46 pages which need splitting, 478 orphaned files yet to be reunited with their projects.
I have to keep reminding myself that this is a static finite list, so we'll eventually reach the end...
I have to keep reminding myself that this is a static finite list, so we'll eventually reach the end...
This is everything I love about the Upper Midwest. It's like Prairie Home Companion meets Cannibal Corpse.
It's Minnesota State Fair time! It's time for Minnesotan folk art! Here, for example, is Saturn Devouring His Corn, in the seed art category!
August 26, 2025 at 12:22 AM
This is everything I love about the Upper Midwest. It's like Prairie Home Companion meets Cannibal Corpse.
PSA: If you complain about something and you get the attention of a person who can help you, ANSWER THEIR QUESTIONS SO THEY CAN HELP YOU.
August 8, 2025 at 12:27 PM
PSA: If you complain about something and you get the attention of a person who can help you, ANSWER THEIR QUESTIONS SO THEY CAN HELP YOU.
Still correcting project pages following the Vassal module library conversion... 55 remaining on the list which need splitting, 538 orphaned files yet to be reunited with their pages.
If you're a module maintainer and you haven't checked your project pages, yet, please do so!
If you're a module maintainer and you haven't checked your project pages, yet, please do so!
August 6, 2025 at 10:03 PM
Still correcting project pages following the Vassal module library conversion... 55 remaining on the list which need splitting, 538 orphaned files yet to be reunited with their pages.
If you're a module maintainer and you haven't checked your project pages, yet, please do so!
If you're a module maintainer and you haven't checked your project pages, yet, please do so!
Complete the Five Year Plan in four years.
BREAKING: the five-year production outlook has been corrected and the tractor factory is now set to smash all records.
August 1, 2025 at 11:40 PM
Complete the Five Year Plan in four years.
This lawyer should have moved for a bad court thingy.
New “bro what the fuck were you thinking” attorney discipline fact pattern just dropped
law.justia.com/cases/new-yo...
law.justia.com/cases/new-yo...
law.justia.com
August 1, 2025 at 8:16 PM
This lawyer should have moved for a bad court thingy.
I realized just now what political appointees in the Trump Administration remind me of: It's the advisors in Civilization I that you have when you're a despotism in the modern era.
July 30, 2025 at 11:05 PM
I realized just now what political appointees in the Trump Administration remind me of: It's the advisors in Civilization I that you have when you're a despotism in the modern era.
You list a feature on your front page under "Beloved Features". You describe it in your documentation. But that feature doesn't work, and there's a bug report from 2018 about it.
July 17, 2025 at 6:15 PM
You list a feature on your front page under "Beloved Features". You describe it in your documentation. But that feature doesn't work, and there's a bug report from 2018 about it.
Just had one of those "destroy the village in order to save it" experiences. In this case, the village is the tap on my kitchen sink. I was aiming to stop it from dripping. And I have. But I have also ended up ordering a new tap for replacement parts.This is not due to my lack of plumbing nous.
July 13, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Just had one of those "destroy the village in order to save it" experiences. In this case, the village is the tap on my kitchen sink. I was aiming to stop it from dripping. And I have. But I have also ended up ordering a new tap for replacement parts.This is not due to my lack of plumbing nous.
On the list of things users cannot do reliably: Generate sort keys for titles.
Close to 100% of the sort keys people have entered since May are bad. I've switched to autogenerating them and letting people contact me if the autogenerated one isn't right, because 99% right is better than 0% right.
Close to 100% of the sort keys people have entered since May are bad. I've switched to autogenerating them and letting people contact me if the autogenerated one isn't right, because 99% right is better than 0% right.
June 28, 2025 at 1:45 PM
On the list of things users cannot do reliably: Generate sort keys for titles.
Close to 100% of the sort keys people have entered since May are bad. I've switched to autogenerating them and letting people contact me if the autogenerated one isn't right, because 99% right is better than 0% right.
Close to 100% of the sort keys people have entered since May are bad. I've switched to autogenerating them and letting people contact me if the autogenerated one isn't right, because 99% right is better than 0% right.
Today I've been told that the terse documentation is too terse and that the detailed documentation is too detailed. I am inclined to tell Goldilocks she can write the middle documentation herself.
June 24, 2025 at 12:05 AM
Today I've been told that the terse documentation is too terse and that the detailed documentation is too detailed. I am inclined to tell Goldilocks she can write the middle documentation herself.
We switched to the new Vassal module library on 30 May, after a massive, 20-month (!!!) effort involving dozens of people. I hadn't announced it here sooner due to being busy resolving some issues---but I wanted to mark that this did happen and it's been in use now for three weeks.
June 21, 2025 at 11:46 PM
We switched to the new Vassal module library on 30 May, after a massive, 20-month (!!!) effort involving dozens of people. I hadn't announced it here sooner due to being busy resolving some issues---but I wanted to mark that this did happen and it's been in use now for three weeks.
I've seen a lot of commentary about how StackOverflow has gotten worse over the past few years, much of which focuses on people being unfriendly. I've noticed myself that people do seem more brusque there than they were a decade ago, but that's not the reason SO has gotten less useful for me.
June 15, 2025 at 5:48 PM
I've seen a lot of commentary about how StackOverflow has gotten worse over the past few years, much of which focuses on people being unfriendly. I've noticed myself that people do seem more brusque there than they were a decade ago, but that's not the reason SO has gotten less useful for me.
What lunatic decided that console.log() in JavaScript would *format log entries* asynchronously? Finding out the value that x has at some nondeterministic time in the future as a result of calling console.log(x) is something wanted by no one ever.
June 15, 2025 at 4:57 PM
What lunatic decided that console.log() in JavaScript would *format log entries* asynchronously? Finding out the value that x has at some nondeterministic time in the future as a result of calling console.log(x) is something wanted by no one ever.