In 2017, somewhere between getting my office and my website off-the-grid, I decided not to buy any more new laptops. Instead, I switched to a 2006 second-hand machine that I purchased online for 50 euros and which does everything that I want and need. Including a new battery and a simple hardware upgrade, I invested less than 150 euros.

If my 2006 laptop lasts as long as my other machines – if it runs for another 1.7 years – it will have cost me only 26 euros per year. That’s more than 10 times less than the cost of my previous laptops. In this article, I explain my motivations for not buying new laptops, and how you could do the same.

A new report in MIT Technology Review looks at why, almost a year into the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention seemed totally unprepared for actually getting shots into people’s arms.

According to Technology Review, the agency knew it needed a robust, one-stop shop that could be used by patients, clinics, employers, and government officials. But instead, the CDC spent $44 million on something called the Vaccine Administration Management System —-VAMS— built by consulting firm Deloitte (via no-bid contracts) which was so inadequate that it has driven some states to try to patch together their own vaccine distribution systems instead.

Dark Patterns at Scale is a thorough collection of the high-pressure and deceptive tricks used on websites to get you to do things you didn't intend.

During the pandemic, musical artists have raised the bar on NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts. Because they can't actually perform from Bob Boilen's "tiny desk" in NPR's music office, they've been given carte blanche to imagine outside the box. The performances themselves are what you'd expect from these artists — terrific — it's the sets that they're having fun with.

Back in August, Billie Eilish and FINNEAS performed in front of a realistic cardboard cutout of Bob Boilen's desk. Then, in September, Phoebe Bridgers used a green-screen to make it out like she and her band were playing from the Oval Office.

Enter Miley Cyrus. For her concert, she not only embraces the concept of "tiny" but makes her backdrop a personal statement.

I check the v4.1 manpage: "Ranges or lists of names are not allowed."

And the crontab entry parsing source sports a familiar phrase:

/ no numbers, look for a string if we have any /

So vixie-cron v4.1 seems to support named weekday & month ranges & lists, same as cronie.

But then I vaguely seemed to remember seeing Paul Vixie's name on #techtwitter somewhere... and sure enough: @paulvixie
.

So... let's DM him. (Why not? Maybe he's as bored as I am.)

dyff is inspired by the way the old BOSH v1 deployment output reported changes from one version to another by only showing the parts of a YAML file that change.

Each difference is referenced by its location in the YAML document by using either the Spruce or go-patch path syntax. The output report aims to be as compact as possible to give a clear and simple overview of the change.

I wanted to share a little trick some proofreading pros use. I use proofreading fonts (previously) like DP Sans Mono, which supports a wide range of Unicode characters. Some people with visual issues, dyslexia, or other reading impairments may also find it a more legible option for some use

A legible monospace font… the very typeface you’ve been trained to recognize since childhood. This font is a fork of Shannon Miwa’s Comic Shanns (version 1).

Git is hard: screwing up is easy, and figuring out how to fix your mistakes is fucking impossible. Git documentation has this chicken and egg problem where you can't search for how to get yourself out of a mess, unless you already know the name of the thing you need to know about in order to fix your problem.

So here are some bad situations I've gotten myself into, and how I eventually got myself out of them in plain english.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to fly between the skyscrapers of a city centre? ... to take a trip through Saturn's rings? ... or walk around inside a molecule of DNA? Well, with "computer graphics" you can ... For the artist it's a new way to paint; for the scientist to understand data; and for anyone to play more elaborate space-invaders style games, or to control dangerous or impossible events.

Let's Encrypt announced it had found a solution that will let those old Android phones keep ticking, and the solution is to just... keep using the expired certificate from IdenTrust? Let's Encrypt says "IdenTrust has agreed to issue a 3-year cross-sign for our ISRG Root X1 from their DST Root CA X3.

Maybe you know how to solder a bit, but you suck at it. Or it's frustrating and never comes out nice and you hate it.

Here's how to make it enjoyable, and get good results as a side effect.

Welcome to the London Sound Survey, a web project which collected over 2,000 recordings of everyday life in London between 2008 and 2020. It also has a wide and unique range of historical resources on the theme of urban sound.

It’s one thing turning your basement into a wine cellar, but some people are building replica streets, theme parks and even trains beneath their homes

This is a list of lists of lists, a list of list articles that contain other list articles on the English Wikipedia. In other words, each of the articles linked here is an index to multiple lists on a topic. Some of the linked articles may contain lists of lists as well.

A paper revolution is coming! From both my interest in sustainability and fascination for tools and techniques grew the idea of a 3D printer to recycle paper.

Enjoy this amazing aerial flight through a future cyberpunk city. With calm ambient and rain sound in the background. This City gives you the vibes from the atmosphere of Blade Runner, or the Game Cyberpunk 2077, but also reminds of Mute City from the Game F-Zero or the City of Tron.

The next thing I wondered was, “How difficult would it be to write that program?” Not a program that actually cracks PIN numbers from debit cards, I don’t think you can actually do that with a serial cable and some aluminum foil wrapped around a debit card, but a program that can simulate the output of the palmtop in that scene.
Let’s gather some product requirements!

Covid-19 patients who recovered from the disease still have robust immunity from the coronavirus eight months after infection, according to a new study. The result is an encouraging sign that the authors interpret to mean immunity to the virus probably lasts for many years, and it should alleviate fears that the covid-19 vaccine would require repeated booster shots to protect against the disease and finally get the pandemic under control.

The study, published January 6 in Science, contrasts with earlier findings that suggested covid-19 immunity could be short-lived, putting millions who’ve already recovered at risk of reinfection. 

This week was the 40th anniversary of the release of Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight, the legendary debut single off his first solo album "Face Value"! Phil Collins’ 1981 debut single, “In the Air Tonight,” is one of the most influential pop songs of all time.
...
at 3:41​ one of the most dramatic, legendary and talked-about moments in the history of music arrives: the entrance of Collins’ gated drums, in particular THAT astonishing 10-note tom-fill, leading to a proper backbeat and the introduction of John Giblin’s bass. The gated reverb drum sound was first heard a year earlier on Peter Gabriel’s song “Intruder,” on which Collins also played drums. Engineer Hugh Padgham heard Collins play drums through the heavily compressed reverse talkback mic on a new SSL desk, which also had noise-gates on every channel, and was awe-struck by the unexpected new sound. Gabriel and Collins also loved it, and the SSL was duly rewired so the talkback mic could be recorded easily. For “In The Air Tonight” a year later, Collins and Padgham recreated the sound with heavily compressed and gated ambient mics. The resulting thunderous gated drum sound has since been imitated countless times, and is now so deeply engrained in popular culture that it’s easy to forget how revolutionary it was at the time.