It is time for me to re-do my old thread about the origins of "80 columns" and how it can very well be related to pretty ancient stuff, not dissimilar to "space shuttle and horse's rear end".

As you know, the default mode on IBM PCs is text 80x25. The limitation of 80 columns per line, also known as "80 column rule" is still widespread; for example, that's the rule for Linux kernel. But why 80? Why not 70 or 90?

The answer to that is usually "IBM punch cards are 80 characters wide", but things are more interesting than that!

First, the commonly accepted column width was supposed to be 72. American typewriters used to have just 72 columns, earlier DEC terminals supported only 72 columns, and even IBM punch cards had only 72 columns for text.

Second, yes, IBM punch cards were 80 characters wide, but why?

zoxide is a smarter cd command, inspired by z and autojump.

It remembers which directories you use most frequently, so you can "jump" to them in just a few keystrokes.
zoxide works on all major shells.

For decades, robots.txt governed the behavior of web crawlers. But as unscrupulous AI companies seek out more and more data, the basic social contract of the web is falling apart.

Fasd (pronounced similar to "fast") is a command-line productivity booster. Fasd offers quick access to files and directories for POSIX shells. It is inspired by tools like autojump, z and v. Fasd keeps track of files and directories you have accessed, so that you can quickly reference them in the command line.

The name fasd comes from the default suggested aliases f(files), a(files/directories), s(show/search/select), d(directories).

Fasd ranks files and directories by "frecency," that is, by both "frequency" and "recency." The term "frecency" was first coined by Mozilla and used in Firefox (link).

Die NZZ wurde im vergangenen Frühjahr Opfer eines solchen Angriffs und hat sich dazu entschieden, die Hintergründe publik zu machen. Dass die meisten angegriffenen Unternehmen schweigen, spielt den Erpressern in die Hände. Ein Angriff gilt als Versagen. Dabei kann es jeden treffen. Die NZZ ist überzeugt, dass die Lehren aus dem eigenen Cyberangriff anderen Firmen helfen können, sich vor Ransomware-Banden zu schützen.

GNU Stow is a symlink farm manager which takes distinct packages of software and/or data located in separate directories on the filesystem, and makes them appear to be installed in the same place. For example, /usr/local/bin could contain symlinks to files within /usr/local/stow/emacs/bin, /usr/local/stow/perl/bin etc., and likewise recursively for any other subdirectories such as .../share, .../man, and so on.

This is particularly useful for keeping track of system-wide and per-user installations of software built from source, but can also facilitate a more controlled approach to management of configuration files in the user's home directory, especially when coupled with version control systems.

Stow is implemented as a combination of a Perl script providing a CLI interface, and a backend Perl module which does most of the work. Stow is Free Software, licensed under the GNU General Public License.

... he asked for a ladder, climbed up the generator and made a chalk mark on its side. Then he told Ford’s skeptical engineers to remove a plate at the mark and replace sixteen windings from the field coil. They did, and the generator performed to perfection.

Henry Ford was thrilled until he got an invoice from General Electric in the amount of $10,000. Ford acknowledged Steinmetz’s success but balked at the figure. He asked for an itemized bill.

Steinmetz, Scott wrote, responded personally to Ford’s request with the following:

• Making chalk mark on generator $1.
• Knowing where to make mark $9,999.

Ford paid the bill.