Uli Kusterer (Not a kitteh)

Forest creature living in the plains. 💕Empathy, Programming Languages, Drawing. My code parks your car. I make a HyperCard clone at https://mastodon.cloud/@stacksmith

Munich, Heidelberg, Lucerne [Any Pronouns]

#ios #mac #hypercard #retroProgramming #retroComputing #drawing #mastoArt #tv #movies #scifi #fedi22

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npub152wsxhryneprgwhlqr2newcm7nllgaq5mw4mt5y6lseternu0dwsp4dmy3

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs298grt3jfus358tlsp4fuhvdlfll5ws2dh2a46zd0cv4u3e78khgpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43qj8ndqk

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relay.ditto.pub

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npub152wsxhryneprgwhlqr2newcm7nllgaq5mw4mt5y6lseternu0dwsp4dmy3

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Last Notes

2025-11-09 22:04:32 GMT

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@nprofile…08mx *tucks you in*

2025-11-08 10:33:33 GMT

Looked at my first gaming PC and thought it'd be nice to put my old GPU in it with a new main board. Turns out the GPU wouldn't even physically fit in that Mini-ITX case by another third. 🤣
(Mainly trying to set up a backup Windows PC for the games I bought and got into not realizing they had Kernel-level anti-cheat, but not trying to build a full-on new PC)

2025-10-19 09:18:23 GMT

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@nprofile…cacx Please no! Nothing here is built for people that are 10ft 😳

2025-10-17 17:21:49 GMT

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@nprofile…wzht I guess the snappy thingy broke off.

2025-09-27 09:12:35 GMT

@nprofile…q9ss Hi, seems the new File Provider-based mode is buggy? It keeps re-loading files instead of keeping them on disk. Also now it seems it's eaten some of my files and they're just empty.

2025-09-07 03:21:47 GMT

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@nprofile…nrqy The stars make this dress a bit Ms Marvel ... 👏🏻

2025-08-24 10:28:22 GMT

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@nprofile…5zd4 Not "IBM Schafft Das Nicht"? 🤯

2025-08-22 23:29:14 GMT

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@nprofile…nrqy That's my main issue with the portables ... also that I barely used my Switch since I got it. Both due to lack of the type of games I most enjoy, and the games I do like getting replaced by sequels right after I buy them 😅

2025-08-22 22:58:39 GMT

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@nprofile…nrqy Missing a Steam Deck and a Lynx at least 😂

2025-08-10 17:39:49 GMT

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@nprofile…k0gr Glad to hear you're liking Rebirth. There were some moments in the trailer that seemed odd to me.
We still have 2 weeks until it becomes available here (and that might be cinema, not home video, not sure).

2025-08-10 17:23:37 GMT

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@nprofile…k0gr In general, I've been surprised with the Jurassic Park franchise:
None of these movies are bad, all are popcorn cinema and had me going "that was fun" at the end of the movie.
No depth, no big philosophical thinking beyond what's needed to set up good side and bad side. But that's OK. I don't expect that from a franchise like this.

2025-08-07 19:08:18 GMT

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@nprofile…nrqy cool cat on keyboard.

2025-08-07 18:30:36 GMT

Short reminder: Content warnings are a thing, and needed for most current news. Please use them (or at least proper hashtags) so people who are exposed to this stuff all day can filter to have at least one place where they don't have to think about this.

2025-07-31 08:24:56 GMT

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@nprofile…nrqy
https://assets.chaos.social/media_attachments/files/114/946/886/414/098/650/original/d8e86804f5cd2d4e.mp4

2025-07-29 12:18:27 GMT

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@nprofile…056e Accessibility Description:
HackerNews thread:
Debian switches to 64-bit time for everything (The Register)
efitz: They're just kicking the can down the road. What will people do on December 4, 292277026596, at 15:30:07 UTC?
zaik: Celebrate 100 years since complete ipv6 adoption.

2025-07-28 07:50:48 GMT

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@nprofile…ee4l That theme survives anything you do to it. My favorite version for a long time was one I'd recorded to tape from a friend's C64. He had a program that showed a menu of 8 or so songs, including Star Wars and 99 Red Balloons.

2025-07-24 06:50:30 GMT

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@nprofile…ee4l I'd argue that nested scrolling areas have always been a nightmare, but then I looked at a liquid glass screenshot and ...
... going back to this really would be an improvement, wouldn't it?

2025-07-19 22:47:12 GMT

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@nprofile…ee4l Given how many awards are basically pay-to-win or at least "hey we'd like you to win this award, how much are you willing to pay?", not sure I want awards that badly.

2025-07-15 18:18:04 GMT

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@nprofile…2uaj I know, wrong language, but in German we call them Limo(nade). Yes, like lemonade. Just thought you’d appreciate the sheer ambiguity that causes.

2025-07-13 00:08:31 GMT

Good lord, the 2004 special edition of Highlander 2 is certainly better than the original (they removed all mentions of planet Zeist for a vague mention of "the future"), but good lord it's still a rubbish movie.
They weren't able to cut out the weird flying machines, and Katana's sudden knowledge of navigating the future is an immersion-breaker.
And IMO Highlander is best in the present, post-apocalypse like here or The Source always turns out bad.
#movies

2025-07-09 00:54:33 GMT

There are rumors that the next Spider-man movie will use a villain that was in the computer games, and that they might use the voice actor from that game in the movie, and all I can say is ... yes please.
The voice cast for those games is amazing, most of the character designs were heavily inspired by the faces and body types of the voice actors. It would be exceptional.
While you're at it, grab the writers from the games.
#movies

2025-07-07 13:48:52 GMT

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@nprofile…5zd4 I haven't worked with a C++ compiler that had working coroutines yet (a lot of the runtime support libraries were missing last time I tried), but in general, coroutines are great for sequential asynchronous code. E.g. making requests against a web API goes from sending a message, then switching on a state in a delegate method (or creating various "state" classes that are delegates), and thus having request and response far apart to synchronous-looking code where the flow is apparent.

2025-07-02 08:23:15 GMT

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@nprofile…nrqy *turns off the backlight and goes to bed*

2025-06-18 06:36:02 GMT

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@nprofile…nrqy I'd been making do without my gaming laptop for weeks, after doing all the resets on it and it still not booting up. Had resigned myself to it having bricked by some stealth Windows update I must have somehow unknowingly interrupted (I'd heard a new Win11 update had potential to brick PCs).
Last week I pushed the power button and it came right up. No idea why. Maybe it hadn't fully discharged and that was the reset I needed.
hardware is weird.

2025-06-15 22:16:23 GMT

I wasn't aware the Apple Platinum theme actually had a logo and an about screen:
#macintosh #apple #MacOS9 #retroComputing
https://assets.chaos.social/media_attachments/files/114/689/679/465/846/497/original/66c949d43e3d49ff.png

2025-06-09 18:35:46 GMT

Not criticizing Apple, I'm happy about this outcome, but this seems to be the point at which Apple just gave up on a lot of things and just did the obvious thing.
Instead of Apple Intelligence, they're now all-in on integrating ChatGPT, and instead of Stage Manager, they just moved over the Mac's windowing and menu bar. #wwdc #wwdc2025

2025-06-08 08:59:56 GMT

How much of a HyperCard nerd am I? Yes.
https://assets.chaos.social/media_attachments/files/114/646/921/565/856/430/original/80d309e8cd43b58f.jpeg

2025-06-01 08:21:14 GMT

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@nprofile…nrqy It's probably not because of that, but if you have any questions I can answer, let me know. I do C++ day in and day out, has to be good for something.

2025-06-01 08:19:17 GMT

Ugh, Apple!
There is a reason I told you not to auto-update and let me decide when this happens.
Trying to "upgrade" me to installing automatically on each minor OS update, and making the button to disagree less and less conspicuous every time is not a good look.
#OnlyApple

2025-05-30 11:53:51 GMT

#CPlusPlus mavens!
I have an "interpreter context" in my programming language. The data structure that contains the stack, current instruction register etc.
I'd like to let apps that embed my compiler/VM attach their own data structure to each such context.
What's a good solution?
1. templated context, (means the entire interpreter becomes templated)
2. void* that the app dynamic_cast<>s to its type
3. # define for the app-specific field's type (interpreter has to ship as source now)
4. ?

2025-05-26 14:20:12 GMT

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@nprofile…zsaa NSA checking in on you?

2025-05-26 06:09:05 GMT

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@nprofile…zsaa @nprofile…j04h Oh wow. That must have been after I stopped going? What year was that?

2025-05-19 15:52:36 GMT

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@nprofile…0vne Accessibility Description (2 of 3):
It's the 1990s. Visual Programming tools promise "program without coding," "drag and drop your way to enterprise applications," and "development at the speed of thought."
It's the 2000s. MDA promises "design once, deploy anywhere," "business users can modify the models," and "automatically generate perfect code from UML diagrams."

2025-05-19 15:52:04 GMT

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@nprofile…0vne Accessibility description (1 of 3):
A post by AStratelates:
It's the 1950s. COBOL promises an English-like syntax that will allow non-specialists to program software systems, 10x productivity and not needing to understand the underlying system.
It's the 1970s. SQL promises natural language queries that managers can write themselves, "just tell the database what you want, not how to get it," and "no more dependency on programmers for data access."

2025-05-09 09:16:28 GMT

Things I wish they fixed in C/C++:
When you init an instance variable from a parameter, you often copy-paste the name of the instance variable into the parameter. This allows you to accidentally forget editing code and generate perfectly compiling but wrong code like:
class Foo {
public:
int _bar;
Foo(int bar) : _bar(_bar) {}
};
accidentally initializing a variable with itself instead of the parameter. (Thank goodness we have an "unused parameter” warning)
#CXX #CPlusPlus

2025-05-09 07:28:38 GMT

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@nprofile…nrqy Definitely. I was disappointed in Bakula's performance, and in the way he was written in those later bits, and I was amazed how Jolene Blalok got saddled with those horrible outfits and rub-down scenes, yet put in a great performance. You believed that she *had* feelings and was suppressing them.

2025-04-30 15:02:36 GMT

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@nprofile…5zd4 Ah, the post from yesterday, didn’t go that far for context 😅

2025-04-30 14:53:55 GMT

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@nprofile…5zd4 Wait, you're putting in new RIFAs? I hope they use a different mixture so they don't explode?

2025-04-29 22:34:06 GMT

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@nprofile…vwdu @nprofile…mcqt When in doubt, the museums are free.

2025-04-28 09:27:12 GMT

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@nprofile…7gcc @nprofile…hln7 An den hab ich jetzt schon lange nicht mehr gedacht … ! Gab's da nicht noch einen zweiten der irgendwie ähnlich war?

2025-04-27 01:33:55 GMT

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@nprofile…nrqy It's great to be able to just fix things like that, right?

2025-04-26 10:33:28 GMT

I always get a bit cagey when people ask if #HyperTalk is like #AppleScript.
There's an inspiration there, but AppleScript jettisons one of the fundamental strengths of HyperTalk: that it's designed to account for human “flaws" and logic gaps and removes the need to think about certain advanced programming concepts, whereas AppleScript actually has that logical structure under the hood and just makes it implicit … until it isn’t and you get an error message and need to deal with it.
1/6

2025-04-24 15:18:58 GMT

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@nprofile…pgzk Jetzt muss ich heute Abend doch mal nachschauen, wie man in Epoxidharz überhaupt Blasen reinbekommt. Schäumt man das wie Wasser auf, oder muss man da irgendwie Kügelchen von Hand reinwerfen, oder wie geht das … ?

2025-04-22 17:06:38 GMT

@nprofile…2uaj A bit confused about your mention of Webster being credited with shortening “colour” into “color”. The way I found it explained last I looked up the difference was that “color” and “theater” are the older forms, and sometime after the establishment of the USA, someone in the UK decided words should be more like the original French they were descended, and added the “u” to colour and swapped the end letters to “theatre”. Is that outdated information?

2025-04-21 12:55:44 GMT

@nprofile…2uaj August is fascinating. In German we say auGUStus for the historical figure. But the german name derived from it is AUgustin. The month is auGUSt though.
So as inconsistent as English, but different! Despite the languages being related.

2025-04-15 21:48:53 GMT

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@nprofile…zsaa My favorite genre is “foods that countries made up and then blamed other countries for” … and yeah, Germany are way at the front of the charge on those. See also “American Style" pizza. Which is basically a two-inch loaf of pizza bread with toppings 😅🇺🇸

2025-04-14 20:40:19 GMT

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@nprofile…nrqy It shows through by how you write about them.

2025-04-14 20:34:34 GMT

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@nprofile…nrqy OMG “Royal Family” … I'm so envious of that amazing last name now 😍

2025-04-13 21:37:08 GMT

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@nprofile…nrqy You were there for hours. That's an achievement.

2025-04-10 08:06:11 GMT

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@nprofile…nrqy But that’s what most employers want: That you can do what other programmers can do, but *under their control*. This isn’t a deficit, it's a skill!
And keep in mind, many of the over-achievers have done so either by being on somebody else’s payroll while they did it (giving them more time than you had) or at the cost of their relationships, work/life balance etc., and will burn out.
Don't ignore your successes! We're all the same!

2025-04-09 09:26:57 GMT

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@nprofile…u37z Safari, macOS 15.4

2025-04-09 07:15:38 GMT

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@nprofile…u37z That was desktop.
https://assets.chaos.social/media_attachments/files/114/306/772/577/316/329/original/a2a68e318d42feb7.png
https://assets.chaos.social/media_attachments/files/114/306/772/821/885/374/original/73b478b6af71f120.png

2025-04-08 22:29:43 GMT

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@nprofile…u37z Amazing! One nitpick:
Exporting this code as PNG gives me bright green instead of the dark grey I selected as a color:
#h=baseballcap_hb&b=catpat_f&e=glasses-nerd&m=grin_goatee&hC=-104&bC=-117&hS=-1.00&bS=-0.47&hB=5723991&bB=5197647

2025-04-08 18:38:34 GMT

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@nprofile…nrqy
https://assets.chaos.social/media_attachments/files/114/303/795/943/475/912/original/2f37d092df12255f.mp4

2025-04-08 18:22:28 GMT

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@nprofile…nrqy Awesome! Glad we all made it this far! Hope you're enjoying this day just for you!

2025-03-31 10:51:56 GMT

Two reminders:
1. Tomorrow is APRIL FIRST. Due to time zones, that means you will now get a flood of April Fool's joke posts.
2. Europe has switched to DST, so appointments between Europe and America may have moved again by one hour.

2025-03-17 14:33:48 GMT

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@nprofile…cwcm Wie, auf Chaos? Oder im globalen Mastodon? Chaos wundert mich. Wobei, danach kann man wenigstens gut filtern.

2025-03-15 19:09:31 GMT

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@nprofile…nhea Ich hab da ein Stargate-DVD-Boxset, das auf jeder disc Werbung macht, dass ich doch bitte *dieses* Boxset kaufen soll. Skippen nicht erlaubt. Wo ist meine VHS-Kollektion?

2025-03-14 02:36:34 GMT

HyperCard and its descendants seem to have a bit of a pattern of similar-sounding names …
HyperCard by Bill Atkinson
SuperCard by Bill Appleton
MetaCard by Scott Raney
SuperCard 4 co-owner: Scott Simon
HyperSense by Doug Simons
HyperCard 2.x lead Kevin Calhoun
LiveCode CEO Kevin Miller
SuperCard 4 by Mark Lucas
LiveCode CTO Mark Waddingham
OK, most of it is just common names, but the two Bills at the start, and the Simons/Simon symmetry are a fun coincidence.
https://assets.chaos.social/media_attachments/files/114/158/455/435/528/505/original/e85872aee1d1f12b.png

2025-03-12 12:12:46 GMT

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@nprofile…8f02 Ours was in the attic. I carried my 15" all-in-one Mac up the stairs to get on the net. 😅

2025-03-12 09:09:24 GMT

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@nprofile…ee4l I miss the Adobe icons that actually were ... icons, and not just text in a box. Same for MS. These are gorgeous modern re-interpretations.

2025-03-10 17:52:48 GMT

https://dood.net/objects/1d251fd1-11ad-4fba-97e9-b0483fc79837

2025-03-04 18:58:41 GMT

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@nprofile…5zd4 Are there multiple versions of this key? What layout has hash and circumflex on one key? In the German layout, circumflex is usually in the upper left, and hash is in this position bot together with the apostrophe ... so wondering if this key is angled for a different side of the keyboard?

2025-02-24 15:03:31 GMT

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@nprofile…79ya No, the edit window closes after the error message before I have the chance. Could be related due to it being the last draft I have?

2025-02-23 17:09:55 GMT

@nprofile…79ya If I have a draft (on Mac) that is a reply to a post that has been deleted, I can’t delete it. As soon as I try to open it, it says "the post has been deleted”, but doesn't ask if I want to save, and therefore I can't delete the draft. The draft now eternally stays in my list of drafts.

2025-02-21 16:28:13 GMT

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@nprofile…9e6c @nprofile…cwcm I thought Google and MS's authenticators were just TOTP, they're just not gonna advertise that you don’t have to use their app? I only once had an issue with a GitLab TOTP that somehow gave wrong results in 1Password but worked fine in Google.

2025-02-17 16:21:49 GMT

Little-known #macOS Finder trick:
You can right-click rename multiple files and e.g. replace parts of the names with other text, or even do more complex changes.
https://assets.chaos.social/media_attachments/files/114/020/141/926/679/490/original/17764ee104eebdb8.png
https://assets.chaos.social/media_attachments/files/114/020/142/178/297/627/original/2eb95ea417ae2cbd.png
https://assets.chaos.social/media_attachments/files/114/020/142/423/769/448/original/77fdcc0dd4d9fb92.png
https://assets.chaos.social/media_attachments/files/114/020/142/684/157/892/original/c0c4a7ce631db9a3.png

2025-02-11 09:40:37 GMT

I used to be annoyed by HyperTalk making me always repeat the function/control structure name,
on mouseUp
wait 10 ticks
if the mouse is down then
answer “It's a double click!”
end if
end mouseUp
but now I've come into the habit of marking the closing brackets in longer scopes (like the class in Swift or, more commonly namespaces in C++) with what it’s for:
namespace Foo {
. . . // C++ classes
} // namespace Foo
Code editors should auto-add that information to closing braces.

2024-08-08 18:43:23 GMT

Are US people simply too rude to mark their politics talk with #uspol hashtags or even a content warning, or do they simply not care that people in other countries might not want to be bombarded with bad news they can’t do anything to resolve all day?

2024-08-02 18:11:55 GMT

Mastodon hivemind:
As a kid, I once saw something like a bath bomb, but it was about a quarter of the size (think, the end of a thumb or so) and soft. Kind of felt like a silicone ball containing some bath oils.
But I think the outer coating was not actually silicone and might have dissolved in water.
Anyone know what that might have been? And what it's called?

2024-07-06 10:19:51 GMT

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@npub1t5m…9guy I have the same with Audi and audio 😅

2024-06-06 14:45:37 GMT

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 I didn't even think that button might be hooked up to Shortcuts.

2024-05-27 13:03:34 GMT

I’ve always been using
ls -al
but today I learned about
ls -lisa
😂 Though honestly, how often do you need the file system inode ID or number of blocks a file occupies …

2024-03-29 15:02:22 GMT

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@npub1t5m…9guy Not a complaint, just an FYI how local the global internet is:
https://assets.chaos.social/media_attachments/files/112/179/579/413/913/926/original/5b70b47d8be0c66a.png

2024-03-26 12:34:56 GMT

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 No no, I'm saying is that what you want :D

2024-03-26 09:50:14 GMT

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 Built in Pomodoro timer in Xcode?

2023-12-21 07:38:32 GMT

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@npub1t5m…9guy Wait was Taylor Swift even *born* when friendship bracelets became a thing?

2023-12-17 11:59:41 GMT

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@npub1u3f…nne2 How is that improved over bindings and implicit CoreAnimation though? I mean sure, UITableView insert/remove was rubbish, but diffable data sources would work with that, too, wouldn’t they?

2023-12-15 17:02:00 GMT

I recently realized that I still don’t quite know what #SwiftUI gets us.
Sure, it is semantic UI that auto-resizes. Sure, it has customization. Sure, you can specify standard views as Accessibility replacements for custom views. But we could have had all that in UIKit too, Apple just never added it.
The one thing I don't get is what does this render-tree-like thing get us? I find the code harder to understand, harder to debug. And seems to result in UIKit views in the end?

2023-11-01 14:41:23 GMT

TIL: If you are under 23 years of age, there has never been a day in your life where all humans have been on planet Earth. (because there's always been someone on ISS since then)

2023-10-22 14:21:10 GMT

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@npub1t5m…9guy … anyone else think that makes no sense ... ?

2023-10-17 17:04:30 GMT

Gotta love it when Xcode's symbol search tells me “flatMap is in Swift.Misc” and then you jump there and IT IS NOT THERE.
The most common 2 problems in programming are naming, cache invalidation, and off-by-one errors.

2023-08-31 18:48:40 GMT

Oooooohhhh!! News about the development of the MACE 68k Mac emulator: https://mace.software/2023/08/31/summer-23-update/ #retroComputing #mac #macOS #emulation #retroProgramming

2023-08-29 15:25:25 GMT

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 Is that Marc Singer, the guy from the original V TV series?

2023-08-21 19:18:08 GMT

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@npub15ml…2w4s I’ve not played much Destiny. Is this a custom commission of your character, or concept art of an NPC?

2023-08-21 14:36:03 GMT

I wonder if Tinder would let me restrict possible matches to people who get bitten by mosquitoes before me. 🤔

2023-07-17 21:58:45 GMT

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@npub1fq5…p8du The first time I read this, I thought you’d mixed up Sirtaki (the Greek dance) with Souvlaki (the Greek food). Until I realized it must be a band name.

2023-07-17 09:58:00 GMT

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 Not “good”, and the preview is just a local web server, but one that worked for me at the time: I use Jekyll. Since Markdown supports in-line HTML, I just copied the HTML from Wordpress into a text file with Front Matter at the start and copied the Wordpress image folder over, and the image links generated by Wordpress still worked.