Lazy Reading – Page 39 – DragonFly BSD Digest

2012/02/192012/02/21

Lazy Reading for 2012/02/19

Apparently this is a good week for Lazy Reading links, cause I have lots! If you have any specific suggestions of where to find more links, I’d welcome them. I’m sure there’s more people to follow that come up with tidbits like these…

Coding Tricks of Game Developers. A mix of genuine techniques and deadline near-misses. (via)
Insane Calculations In Bash. Ostensibly, it describes all the work required to convert number series to “sparks” (inline UTF-8-based graphs) using bash. What it really shows is how far down the paths of madness shell programming can take you.
From the same person, It Came From The Hold Space, a description of how crappy things could be pre-1990 or so when, say, sed was the most capable tool you had. Read the presentation description first. Bonus: the presentation explains a non-acronym source for the name “grep”.
Hey, I’ve seen that logo before. (via Koston on EFNet #dragonflybsd)
Mounting files from the web. (via luxh, same place)
Here’s a Google Summer of Code success story that made me feel good just for having participated.
“If a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons doesn’t have an option which enables it to be easily played by a moderately inebriated person who isn’t good at math, it is a failure.“
Hey, Window Maker finally got updated. (via) It was always my favorite window manager.
Michael Lucas published his sales numbers so far for SSH Mastery. (reviewed by me here, totally worth buying) The interesting takeaway for me was that despite the reach of Amazon, Smashwords was more profitable – and I like the variety of Smashwords’ DRM-free formats more.
I’m linking to this mention of open source operating system cost estimates mostly cause I like the phrase “Debian for the most part is a package repository.“
Hey, that’s cute. (Make sure your terminal is wider than 80 columns to see it.)

Your unrelated link of the week: Cyriak. An animator in the UK; I like the rhythmic repetition in his (occasionally disturbing) animations.

As I mentioned last week, DragonFly developer Venkatesh Srinivas is collecting pledges for his crazy-long bike ride, raising funds for cancer patient support. Not to put too fine a point on it, but my mother died from cancer in a long, agonizing process some years ago. The support system funded by these pledges would have helped us tremendously. Please donate a few dollars to ease someone else’s burden.

2012/02/122012/02/12

Lazy Reading for 2012/02/12

Hey, it’s snowing here! Finally.

I remember when fractal zooming would bring a desktop computer to its knees. Now, you can do it in a web browser. (via) This exists as a standalone application (x11/XaoS) too.
I see content from here get splogged, from time to time, and I think that’s what’s happening here. Someone throws “BSD” into a content generator, with ads slapped on top of it? Honestly, I’m not sure what it is. (via)
Hammer 2 work is starting, as noted earlier this week. Let’s see some details on a similar filesystem project, btrfs. (via)
You should quit Facebook because privacy etc. you’ve heard it from me before. The arguments are getting more thorough, though.
Here’s an article from independent game developer Jeff Vogel about serving a niche with your independent work. I like his writing, plus if you squint your eyes and sorta look at that article’s point sideways, you could construe it as relevant for BSD.
For fun, spot the two things I mention/link to here frequently, in this somewhat hypey article about Tumblr. (via)
An Economist article about shifting from computer to computer. I read that and realized the one computer constant for me isn’t my desktop – it’s “~”.
If you ever played games on the Amiga, you may want to watch this movie. It’s clips from a lot of Amiga games. By a lot, I mean an hour and a half of footage total. There were some really advanced games for the time there. (via)

Your unrelated comic link of the week: Shut Up About Cats. The rest of that site’s good too.

Also! On a related link, Venkatesh Srinivas, one of the DragonFly developers, is participating in a bike ride to raise cash for the Ulman Cancer Fund. If you’d like to pledge some money, he’ll feel better as he cycles a ridiculous 4,000 miles across the US.

2012/02/052012/02/04

Lazy Reading for 2012/02/05

It’s like early spring here in the northeast US. Which would be fine if it was actually spring. I miss snow.

An explanation of the classic UNIX hierarchy. (via thesjg on EFNet #dragonflybsd) I’m behind any explanation that uses the phrase “accretion disk” to describe an organization.
Hipster BSD. If this doesn’t make sense to you, it’s based on this.
Would you like to have DNSSEC upgrading explained to you?
Hooray for Unicode! (via)
What Commons Do We Wish For? I was, briefly, technically, an AOL employee after the Time Warner merger in 2000. I didn’t like the notion of working for a walled garden then, and I think that’s why Facebook and other companies irk me now. Anyway, read that article for a good explanation of why that feeling is important.

Your unrelated link of the week: Top Shelf 2.0. A small comics publisher that has put much of their comics online to read. Their stuff on paper is worth buying too, as I have been doing for a while now.

2012/01/292012/01/27

Lazy reading for 2012/01/29

This is the week of the funny, apparently.

I’ve linked to this site before, but not this specific feature: History of UNIX manpages. Part of the formatting that makes up man pages dates back to 1964! ‘roff’ comes from RUNOFF, the original markup! This is the perfect mix of history, nerditry, and language for me.
Hubert Feyrer says there should be BSD Certification training material. I agree.
That’s the spiffiest TWM I’ve ever seen, and it’s on DragonFly. Found at the same place: Bash.
Hey, Michael Lucas is planning for his next book!
Developer error HTTP status codes. (via) What’s the geekiest joke I can still find funny?
I like it when computers look like serious computers. (via luxh on #dragonflybsd)

Your totally unrelated video link of the week: The Necronomicon. Pitch perfect.

2012/01/222012/01/22

Lazy Reading for 2012/01/22

I even have some comedy in here this week.

Here’s some interesting ideas on improving the standard terminal window. (via)
Hey, a Windows Phone application that aggregates BSD news! Including this one, I think. No way to test it because Windows Phones are rarer than hen’s teeth.
This article about Bruce Perens has some good quotes in it – especially the Mark Shuttleworth one. (via)
I think these computers all predate the integrated circuit. (via)
How Google Code Search Worked. (via)
The Rise and Fall of Personal Computing. (via) I don’t think the numbers used are accurate, but the trend is correct: a lot more people are computing through devices that are “walled gardens”, where they can’t install what they want.
The App Store Guide – Take Two. It boils down to: Curated information on what programs to run is very useful. Someone could do this with pkgsrc or ports, easily. pkgsrc.se is sorta there, but not really with any sort of authorial voice.
Variable typing can be surprisingly funny. (via) The final punchline is great but may not make sense unless you’ve seen where it comes from.
Network jokes are the bestest jokes. (via)

Your unrelated comics link for the week: Tom Neely‘s Doppelganger. Page 11 is my favoritest.

Another unrelated thing: David Shao, are you out there? Can you get on IRC (EFNet #dragonflybsd) and help some people out with GEM/KMS questions? Nobody’s been able to find you.

2012/01/152012/01/15

Lazy Reading for 2012/01/15

Getting back into the rhythm, here…

Jeff Vogel, who is a funny and smart guy, wrote this article, essentially about crowdsourcing. It’s another way of saying “bikeshed“. Plus: D&D!
Michael Lucas, sometimes BSD author, has a new fiction collection out. He’s working on a SSH book too.
Hey, AsiaBSDCon is coming up in March, BSDCan in May. I don’t know about EuroBSDCon or NYCBSDCon, though. Plan ahead!
Did you know there’s a bsd.org? Very old-school: here’s a list of commands, get going.
GNU Tar doesn’t have a man page. (via) Weird. I didn’t verify that, but I’m not sure how to.

Your unrelated comics link of the week: there’s a Freddy, and a dragonfly, but it’s not DragonFly BSD. It’s still fun though.

2012/01/082012/01/08

Lazy reading for 2012/01/08

I said posting would be more regular now that the holiday’s over, didn’t I? I lied.

Here’s a useful idea: a server that allows (Linux) systems with encrypted file systems to boot unattended. I’m not sure how that doesn’t defeat the concept, but actually reading the documentation may help with that. (via, via)
While on the topic, the EFF says “Encrypt your disk!“. (via)
The Commodore 64 is 30 years old, for those readers of a certain age who may have had one… I was a Apple ][ kid. (via)
Aw, thanks.
“What deduplicating file system should I use?” Well, I can think of an answer.

Your unrelated link for the day: The Restart Page. (via) Make your browser full-screen when trying any of them.

2012/01/012012/01/02

Lazy Reading for 2012/01/01

Happy new year! Regular posting should resume soon now that my holidays are over.

I like the line, “Please note that BSD manpages are usually better as compare to Linux” [sic] found on this odd page of where to find documentation.
Hey, this encryption of DNS requests is a good idea. Then again, so is DNSSEC. I’ve done neither.
Stop using GoDaddy, if you can. There’s plenty of reasons, other than support for SOPA.
There’s got to be at least one reader who gets this joke.
If you don’t mind digging through all the comments in this Slashdot article about building a desktop environment, there’s some neat descriptions of different window managers and so on.
A mild brain teaser to start the year: a regular expression to find prime numbers.
This is a nice description of just what the Archive Team does. (via)
The Coming War on General Purpose Computing. Sometimes the stuff on BoingBoing gives me the same irritated feeling as sensationalistic Wired articles, but this one is good to read if you happen to be working on your own operating system. Also, the similar thing with APIs.
This “best tech writing of 2011” summary on Verge (via) led me to this excellent article: “The Web Is a Customer Service Medium“. There’s lots more reading in that summary.
I’ve seen this mentioned before, but now it’s with a graph so it’s better! On the continuing decline of the GPL.
OK, I admit graphs are not always a good idea. (via )
Trivium, from which I yoinked that last link, also has an blog from its author, Chris Neukirchen. It’s not updated often but there’s some entertaining sysadmin tidbits on there, such as going all-ed, or zsh tips, or Why I use the MIT license.

Your completely unrelated link of the day: Tiny Legs of Fire. (video) Worth it for the origin of Beardslap.

(Sorry about the giant text block. This isn’t as readable as I’d like.)

2011/12/182011/12/17

Lazy Reading for 2011/12/18

The links are sheer entertainment this week. No strong options or anything, not even about that U.S. legislative mess called SOPA.

I greatly enjoyed this history of personal computer mishaps and blunders. Of course, nothing like any of that has ever happened to me. Ever. Ever ever ever.
Nintendo Entertainment System stories. (a comic) Also familiar to anyone of a particular age.
This is good advice about env(1) – use it.
“Fork Yeah! The Rise and Development of illumos“, a video via matthiasr on EFNet #dragonflybsd.
“What’s the strangest language feature you’ve ever encountered?” (via) Some of these are mind-boggling. I’ve also never seen APL before, yeesh.
My Year in Roguelikes. I think a few of the games mentioned are in pkgsrc.

Your unrelated comic link of the week: Basic Instructions. Well, not totally unrelated, since BSD author Michael Lucas’s tweet about it reminded me. I’ve got the first book; I need to get the second and third.

2011/12/112011/12/11

Lazy Reading for 12/11/11

Last week was low on links, but this week is great! I hope you have some time set aside.

This article “The Strange Birth and Long Life of UNIX” has a picture of a PDP-11. I don’t know if I ever actually saw one and knew it before. (via)
Also from the same place: Window Managers Bloodlines.
Anecdotal, but probably true. (via luxh on EFNet #dragonfly)
nginx is the new cool and unpronounceable web server these days, apparently. Michael Lucas covers how to transition static Apache sites over to it.
This PDF showing slides from the recent NYCBUG presentation by Ike Levy, titled “Inappropriate Cloud Use”, is entertaining, and makes a good point. Cloud computing is cheap on a per month basis, but since it’s a reoccurring cost, it can cost a surprisingly large amount in the long run. (via)
Hey, a patch for DragonFly (and other BSD) support in Google’s leveldb.
“Don’t Be a Free User” (via) The last paragraph is the best.
An expanded grep and diff. ‘grep’ and ‘diff’ have been present for so long, and people understand what they do, generally, that new tools get named after them just because the concept is ingrained in people’s minds. Note that I said “generally”, as regular expressions can be difficult. (via)
A lot of people don’t realize how they infringe on copyright. This writeup describes something I’ve seen for years: people think a disclaimer that effectively says “I’m infringing but I’m doing it with the best of intentions” makes a difference. It doesn’t.
So this is what that Xerox Star GUI interface looked like. You know, the ‘first’ desktop GUI. (via) Also, there was some advanced stuff in 1968.
I like this indicator light setup. (also via luxh on EFNet #dragonflybsd) There’s some other interesting old computer stuff at that site too. I wish there still were computers like these.
While we’re talking about old things with a certain feel to them, why not Battersea Power Station? Here’s some pictures. (via)

Your unrelated link of the day: Since we’re talking about old things and environments, why not look at some pictures of my workplace?

2011/12/042011/12/04

Lazy Reading for 2011/12/04

Another week, another linkpile.

Here’s some old software. I’ve got something older sitting on my shelf here, though.
A patch to DragonFly, taken from OpenBSD, submitted by Loganaden Velvindron and committed by Venkatesh Srinivas. The patch isn’t that exciting, but it makes me feel cool to namedrop non-Americanized names. If only I could pronounce them!
Speaking of which, there isn’t always a lot of comments on this Digest (which is good; a long series of comments on the Internet tend to be the result of trolling or inanity.), but the recent strlen() story led to some juicy details.
Man, I wish this NoteSlate device existed. There’s the BoogieBoard, but it’s not quite the same.

I’ll make up for my relatively low number of links by asking a question: Where do you go for your end of year gift giving? Where do you wish people would go to buy you gifts? I’m looking for suggestions for a gift guide.

Your unrelated comics link of the week: Gun Show. This one and that one are my favorites.

2011/11/272011/11/25

Lazy Reading for 2011/11/27

Happy (post) Turkey Day for the U.S. readers! A light link week this week.

Facebook is bad for the Internet. ‘Gaslighting’ is a new term to me. As that article points out, I can’t even put my posts to the Digest onto Facebook in any sort of automated way. Facebook suggests that of course I’d love to retype them all by hand. That’s not realistic. Facebook doesn’t want any sort of useful external link to be visible to their customers. Customers isn’t actually the right word; the customers are the advertisers. What would be a better word for the users? Crop?
“the internet is above and beyond all else a resentment machine.” It’s a very long essay that points out people are confusing brand identity with personal identity. (via)
You know what would be good? More conversations about games on BSD, cause it could use some attention. Oh hey there you go.
A Dragonfly lamp (via Julian Gehtdichgarnichtsan)

Your unrelated link of the week: Animals Talking In All Caps. It is what it says it is.

2011/11/202011/11/18

Lazy Reading for 2011/11/20

Hey, the date’s sorta palindromic! Sorta.

“Bundled, Buried and Behind Closed Doors” – a video description of the physical parts of the Internet. Remember when MAE-East or MAE-West would have a bad day and half the Internet felt it? Really, half. I don’t think I’m exaggerating. (via)
Google has a verbatim search mode now, for those of you who regret the loss of ‘+’ as a required search term designator. (via and also sort of via) There’s always alternatives.
“The expr program is a real piece of crap.” Laser-focused complaining about a small program that’s had 4 decades to improve, and hasn’t.
“Mechanics for Pure Aesthetics” The videos are interesting, and I’m linking to this because so much of what I post here and deal with is focused computer work. Everything is a tool, with a purpose, and a result that you expect. This idea of machinery or even software having a purpose other than result generation is underexplored. There’s lots of tools to create art, but there’s little that is art itself. Even with that general lack, we still get excited when the edge of some sort of aesthetic appeal nudges its way into the materials we use. You could argue that Apple’s success (for instance) comes from being the one company that consistently thinks about what a product is, instead of what it does.
If you use fastcgi, you may need the patch that this blog post talks about. Also, apache-mpm-prefork is the better choice for Apache on DragonFly.
“DragonFly mug shot“

Your random comic link of the day: Calamity of Challenge. Also here. And here. If this artist’s way of drawing grabs you like it grabs me, he has pages and commissions for sale.

2011/11/132011/11/13

Lazy Reading for 2011/11/13

I’m going for more verbose linking. Because my opinion layered over a bunch of linkblogging is just what you wanted on a weekend, isn’t it? If not – too late!

NYCBUG posts audio of their regular presentations, and I’m linking to this one by James K. Lowden, titled “Free Database Systems: What They Should Be, And Why You Should Care“. He was one of the more colorful speakers at NYCBSDCon 2010, so this should be good.
It’s Slashdot, so whatever, but this “In Favor of FreeBSD On the Desktop” linked story had a few good comments – BSD hasn’t done enough to differentiate itself from Linux. “BSD: In Need of a Narrative“. Or perhaps, “Who cares if it’s clang or it’s gcc – what do you build with it?“
I read this essay about social networks (via), and the last paragraph is an excellent summation. Read it, then cancel your Facebook/Google Plus/whatever accounts.
Xv6 is a modern version of Sixth Edition UNIX, used at MIT for teaching operating system design. (via) The source is available via git, and as a numbered PDF. The book for the class should make interesting reading. Oh, you can see the class details, too.
FOSDEM 2012 in Brussels, February 5th, 09:00 – 17:00: “Open Source Game Dev”. Get on the mailing list if this interests you. Microsoft operating systems still rule the market for games, really, even indie work, so it’s neat to see something that is both open source and game oriented. There will be BSD “devrooms” there, too.
If you are looking for a particular Unicode character (and there’s lots to choose from), Shapecatcher lets you draw what you are looking for and looks for matches. (via) I’ve needed that here a few times for people’s names, and it’s fun just to see what comes up from a random scribble.

Your unrelated link of the week: The New Shelton Wet/Dry. Titles, content, and images are all picked from unrelated sources, but it forms an oddly compelling digest of multiple topics. Slightly NSFW, sometimes.

2011/11/062011/11/06

Lazy Reading for 2011/11/06

A bumper crop of articles to read this week.

Ruby went to a BSD license. That’s nice to see. Commence licensing argument in 3… 2…
DragonFly BSD on Ohloh hasn’t been updated in months – it should be noticing new commits automatically. Don’t know why. Any more vigorous users of Ohloh that know why?
“Which OSS clustered file system should I use?” The commenters point out something that many people mix up: RAID redundancy is not backups.
I always enjoy accounts of completely ineffective break-in attempts.
In praise of “crap” technology. I must admit, I love just looking at stuff like what Brando sells, or various surplus sites. It’s never high-end fancy, but that is part of the appeal, as the linked article notes.
Think of this speech the next time someone asks you for help online, no matter how accessible the answer.
20 years of Vim. Vim started on the Amiga, of all places. That would make vi itself about eleventy kajillion years old. Does it predate the release of 1BSD? I don’t know. Looking at a BSD family tree to see what I could learn, I also found that QNX was originally QUNIX. I didn’t know that either. Everything leads back to UNIX, really. I look forward to Jeremy C. Reed’s book about this early history…
This electronic music site entertains me, for it is also available in amber. (You have to have seen monochrome monitors circa 1982 or so to understand…)
Speaking of 1982, you may enjoy Nintendo Legend, CRPG Addict, and Blogging Ultima. (via trevorjk on #dragonflybsd IRC)

Random unrelated link for the week: “War Photographer“. This animation makes me so happy.

2011/10/302011/10/30

Lazy Reading for 2011/10/30

It’s snowing in the northeast U.S., which makes me happy! Keep going, sky!

Richard Stallman’s requirements when giving talks/lectures. (via) I read this not unreasonable but long list and thought about it. Every requirement on there probably has an experience/story behind it… (“If you can find a host for me that has a friendly parrot, I will be very very glad.” – so this)
Continuing the famous computer people trend of dying, John McCarthy died. He invented LISP (((insert parentheses joke here))) among other things, and wrote this story. (also via)
I mentioned issues over the time zone database previously, but there’s a new home, and we’re still getting updates in DragonFly.
And, it’s Dennis Ritchie Day. (via) That linked article does a good job of describing just how universal his influence has been.
64-bit ARM chips. (design PDF) This is just the announcement, but I bet these will be a good porting target in the next year or two if these designs wander out into the general market. (via many places)
I’ve linked to similar deals before, but this one’s quite cheap: the Power Squid power strip sold as surplus. I find the design and name both great.
Speaking of names, “I think Dragonfly is the coolest, cuz of the name.“
I like this article on web advertising just because it has blocked-out screenshots that show exactly how much space gets used up by ads.

Unrelated link of the week: Manly Guys Doing Manly Things. Most of the jokes revolve around games you may or may not know, with the occasional realistic experience that I’ve had myself.

2011/10/232011/10/23

Lazy Reading for 2011/10/23

Not a lot of links this week, for some reason.

The best obituary I’ve seen yet for Dennis Ritchie, where he’s contrasted with Steve Jobs.
The best paper abstract ever.
Michael Lucas documents his DragonFly update.
Our tcplay TrueCrypt implementation is getting noticed.
pkgin-0.51 is available in pkgsrc-current, though it’s not in the most recent quarterly release.

Your unrelated comics link for the week: Oglaf. This week’s OK, but it’s frequently NSFW, and frequently hilarious.

2011/10/162011/10/16

Lazy Reading for 2011/10/16

I build this up over the course of the week, so I’m never sure what to put here. Does it matter? The meat is the links.

The Binding of Issac. It’s a roguelike, with shooter elements. It’s also creepy. Here’s the Flash demo. (Windows and Mac only, aww.)
Why transparency is a good idea. (via… Michael Lucas? I lost track, sorry)
The JFDI Theory of Language Adoption. This applies to operating systems too; create the shortest possible path between people and what they want to do on that OS.
NetBSD has added SQLite to the base system. (via) Interesting… having a database(ish) always available leads to some new ways to keep data, outside of the usually “stuff in a text file” format.

Your totally off-topic link for the week: Fat Birds.

2011/10/092011/10/07

Lazy Reading for 2011/10/09

Getting close to 2.12 release…

Steam and Team Fortress 2 running on a BSD – PC-BSD with an NVIDIA driver, in this case, but it may apply to other cards and other games. Using Wine is always so intricate, it seems.
Remember how suddenly a large chunk of Internet traffic was suddenly routed through China, briefly in early 2010? Apparently it’s happened a few more times since then. This article at the Economist talks about that and the SCION project, in an accessible way.
The 2011 Interactive Fiction Competition has released this year’s entries, and almost all of them can be played online. (via) There goes a few hours of your life. Sorry.
Speaking of hours, there’s apparently a civil lawsuit that has rendered timezone data unavailable. Here’s a good summation. It’s a frustrating scenario. (via multiple places)
World’s best introduction to sed.

2011/10/022011/09/30

Lazy Reading for 2011/10/02

Yep, fall hits and it’s easier to find links.

DragonFly morphology. The insect, not the operating system, though that would make an interesting diagram.
Stick your pinkie in the corner of your mouth, Dr. Evil style, and say, “One MEEELion TCP connections on BSD!“. (via several retweets)
Sudo vs. SSH public keys.
The app store concept is taking over. Not that it’s a totally bad thing! We could implement one for pkgsrc, and should. (via)
A nice (OpenBSD-centric) walkthrough of routing. (via)
Ooh, decent disk benchmarks. I wish there were graphs, of course.
I think this happens to most CS grads; you sit around one day and say to yourself, “Hey, I could write an operating system!” This forum post shows someone getting that idea and then realizing it’s not necessarily the goal he wanted. Why do I link to it? I appreciate the optimism.
Or you can just build a functioning computer in Minecraft. This sort of thing has been happening for a while – this movie is just a link to the craziest example I’ve seen so far.

Your unrelated link of the week: Scientific Illustration. Not a comic, but still visually interesting.