Stuart Longland (VK4MSL)

Software developer, electronics enthusiast, Amateur radio operator, lover of classic rock.

Location: Brisbane, QLD, Australia (QG62ln)

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npub1upmxz7ema8pu5ea4tshew0mzlgenlehp3esxmzgs5q4uc3hz6f6s4pd32k

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[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqswqanp0va7ns72v764ctuh8a305velumscucrd3yg2q27vgm3dyagpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43qghk5ny

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relay.ditto.pub

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npub1upmxz7ema8pu5ea4tshew0mzlgenlehp3esxmzgs5q4uc3hz6f6s4pd32k

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Last Notes

2026-08-22 19:59:09 GMT

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@nprofile…5rsp It looks more visually appealing.
Might be an issue if you have a disability that precludes bending down to plug in a socket. Also harder to keep rain & dirt out.
Perhaps somewhere between the two, the socket could be installed in a bollard. That could be made not much wider than the socket itself. Still fairly discrete without the maintenance and accessibility headaches.
Edit: or this: https://mastodon.social/@kdekooter/117140856559855869

2026-03-23 20:37:08 GMT

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@nprofile…mk4g I guess if the day comes that I must leave this country, I could do it by boat.
After all, it's how my ancestors got here in the first place.

2026-02-27 05:18:34 GMT

Out of curiosity… I had a look at the job situation at the moment … because let's face it, the writing is on the wall at my current position. I've been there 15 years and I'm an old fart by IT standards.
Most people by the time they've entered their second decade of experience of "being 21", they're management… but that's just not me.
I'm also quite an oddball, in that I am a part-timer now, quite conservative in the tools I use, and some would say, quite opinionated. For example, while the work laptop is running Ubuntu 24.04, I've set up FVWM3 as the desktop environment and my "IDE" of choice is gVim. I sic AdNauseum onto blocking Rovo out of Atlassian's UI frequently, and even went as far as using a TUI interface to Jira to avoid it. While conservative in the *style* of tools I use, I still believe in keeping things up-to-date. So while I might not use all the latest features, I do believe in keeping up with security updates.
At work I mainly code in C/C++ or JavaScript, and greatly prefer the former. At home, I will use whatever gets the job done: C, C++, Java, JavaScript, Python, PHP, Bourne shell… and know enough SQL to be dangerous. I also do some circuit design (Kicad) and know which end of a soldering iron to hold. When I talk "full stack" I mean silicon to frontend. Not the world's best designer, but give me a design and I will try and find a way to make it work.
My home machine fleet are a mix of Gentoo, AlpineLinux, Debian, Ubuntu and OpenBSD machines, having been a Linux user since 1996. Windows is a legacy OS for playing games, and I'm past playing games these days.
Last job was found through Seek… so headed there. "Ohh no no no, you can't browse anonymously!!! We require you log in now!"
Well, F' you Seek. You didn't need that before.
Had a look on Gumtree, and well… it's a pretty sorry tale if you don't drive, don't have a construction white card or any real trade background. Plus, I'm over commuting for work: one position advertised as "Brisbane Area" covered pretty much everywhere from Springfield to Yeppoon, and as far west as Tambo!
Not sure if the newspapers have a jobs section. Job search like it's 1990 yay!
The "cushy" job though is over, and I may be door-knocking for work by this time next year.
#rant

2026-02-25 03:54:59 GMT

Just what I need to fill out the day… a bloody fire alarm.
Here we are standing in the baking sun on Douglas Street waiting for the all clear.

2026-02-07 06:08:04 GMT

At work I write firmware for little wireless dataloggers. There are three versions of these:
- Variant 1: runs on 7-30V, 2 RS-485 ports, a pulse input, and also has the ability to control 2 solenoid valves and 2 latching relays
- Variant 2: is basically variant 1 with the pulse input, second RS-485 and control hardware stripped out
- Variant 3: runs on 240V mains, 1 RS-485 port, a pulse input, no control hardware
They run the same firmware build. I need a way of testing my firmware, so I've been designing a test rig in spare time. One of the challenging bits has been designing the circuit that would measure whether the logger is trying to drive current through a solenoid valve or relay coil.
The solution I came up with is to use an optocoupler (Renesas PS2501-4s): in the case of the latching relays, it's a connection between the data logger and the optocoupler LED via a current-limiting resistor, and for the solenoid valve outputs, pairs of optocoupler LEDs wired anti-parallel. The optocoupler transistors connect to a MCP23017 running at 3.3V. A Raspberry Pi Pico runs the show.
I wasn't sure of the series resistance for 24V supply… calculations suggested about 300ohms for 80mA, but I didn't consider P=I²R: about 5W!
Consequently I've spent a few hours figuring out how to reduce that voltage drop somewhat. Wound up with using 2 LEDs (2.2V drop) in series; and limiting to 20mA (which should be plenty). Power dissipation is about 500mW, so 1W resistors should do. Thankfully they'll only be pulsed for short periods.
The biggest pain, was cramming it all in. I didn't want to have to re-route everything else, so it was a case of jamming those monstrous resistors in the space available. Haven't tested this circuit out proper yet, but here's hoping it all works out.
#Electronics

2026-02-02 22:49:47 GMT

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@nprofile…dey5 Maybe it should start with suggesting firing the executives of OpenAI, Microsoft, Oracle, Google…

2026-01-29 06:02:28 GMT

Ugh… so sitting at work watching the CI build queue, and suddenly I notice a line in commit messages…
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.5 <[email protected]>
Great… now it seems our flagship product is at risk of being sloppified. #ai

2026-01-24 09:09:18 GMT

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@nprofile…w0mx Yeah, trouble is, I have two bank accounts. Suncorp throws an error if I try to use a PayID even though it has an option for it. BOQ doesn't even have an option for it.
The only methods that work with both are BPay and the old BSB/Account. So I need to convert the information I have, into one of those two forms or not make the payment. Those are my choices.
Some might suggest Paypal, but I can't figure that one out either… works well enough if I'm buying something from an online shop, I just hit "Pay as Guest" and fill in my details, job done… but anything else, and it demands a username and password, I'm not giving it my banking username and password.
I don't need the money to get there straight away, the payment I want to make has been sitting at my end for close to a year, a few days isn't going to matter, I just want to be able to make the payment at all.

2026-01-24 08:31:36 GMT

One thing I don't understand these days about the banking system.
For years, you needed 3 things to transfer money into someone's account anywhere in Australia: BSB, account name, account number.
The BSB was a 6-digit number, the account number was usually at least 8. I can accept it probably isn't the friendliest system, but it worked.
Now, the modern preference is a "Pay ID". I've seen numerical ones, and I've seen ones that look like email addresses.
Yet, the Internet banking still expects the BSB, account name and account number.
How the hell do you convert from a "PayID" to a BSB/name/number? Clearly it is possible, otherwise banks would have a field for "PayID" or people would be using the old way instead.
#Banking

2026-01-21 11:09:26 GMT

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@nprofile…m2mw The analogy isn't a bad one… and I can't help but think of this comedy film:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Quest
It's a perfect metaphor of AI (LLMs): the alien race depicted there pretty much sums up the thinking of "AI believers". The alien race didn't twig to the fact that this was "make believe" done for entertainment, they thought it was real.
The "AI believers" truly want to believe that the LLM is "thinking", rather than regurgitating the most probable sequence of words to follow the prompt. They can't fathom the idea that their "superintellgence" is a glorified Markov-Chain bot.

2026-01-10 10:20:44 GMT

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@nprofile…teq9 What would you hear out of that? Power Ballads?

2026-01-07 20:00:00 GMT

This is a bit worrying for a few reasons:
1. the US is actively discouraging the use of vaccinations for common respiratory conditions, making the population more susceptible to infection
2. surveillance of these conditions has been wound back in the US, reducing the chances of new strains being detected early
3. the protections in the US for workers who fall ill are practically nonexistent, with workers often forced to work whilst ill
4. legislators preoccupied with promoting "raw milk" (drinking raw milk from an infected cow is a sure-fire way to cop a dose of H5N1 yourself!)
https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/bird-flu-2026-analysis
We're already seeing a "summer wave" of Influenza (the K variant) due to a strain that is a poor match for the 2025 shots. This can be seen in hospitalisation data already (Queensland Health: "88 people were in hospital with Influenza, 50 (57%) were aged 65 years and above.").
Hopefully the Australian CDC is on the ball, and not here to do dirty deeds dirt cheap.
#H5N1 #Influenza

2026-01-04 07:15:14 GMT

Just got back from a bike ride up to the local shops. I was reminded just how long ago it was since I last went for a ride:
- the battery on the bike (lights & radio, no motor) was dead flat, so had to charge that up
- tyres were flat
- miraculously the GPS battery was only down to 90% (Garmin Rino650s must have pretty decent cells)
Ended up walking the bike up a couple of the hills… but whatever, that's still exercise. I was aiming for the bakery, but they had closed by the time I got there, ended up going to the noodle place and now I have a vegetarian goreng to enjoy. I'll check the GPS tracklog but I think it's about 2½km from here to Walton Bridge, so ~5km today.
Need to check the settings on my radio though, seems the APRS beaconing wasn't turned on.

2025-12-30 08:13:36 GMT

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@nprofile…z5mg I'd at least go to the trouble of permanent antenna mounts and organising accessible power and antenna connections.
If the amenities are there, it makes throwing a set in the vehicle easy, whether it be HF, VHF, UHF or anything else. If you can run some CAT5e runs, you've got a way to hook up a remote head unit as well.
We did something similar with my father's ute… the antennas all terminate to a panel of BNC connectors and three runs of CAT5e. A couple of coax feeds run from there to the front passenger foot-well.
We have a Yaesu FT-857D permanently mounted, with the head unit just above the rear vision mirror and an extension speaker in the foot-well… one of the CAT5e runs supplies the 6-pin head unit and an external speaker run, a second provides the microphone connection.
The third CAT5e terminates in the front passenger foot-well along with the extra coax, allowing for connection of CB radios, LTE mobile antennas, or rigging up my FTM-350AR with the radio unit riding shotgun with the FT-857D.
Removing the FT-857D is merely a case of removing the head unit mount, tucking away a couple of cables and unbolting the radio unit from the canopy.

2025-12-21 22:24:45 GMT

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@nprofile…ge5x Yeah, the content license people seem to live in a parallel universe. One where VPNs do not exist and no one knows how to plug the headphone out on a radio into the line-in of a computer running Icecast (or use a RTL-SDR to "rip" the HE-AAC+ audio data from the DAB+ stream) … but I digress.
AM really has a content problem. Much of the band is talk-back stations, either current affairs or sports. That'll bring a certain audience, but not everyone is into that.
It's not a band that's well suited to music … it sorta works, and before 1980, it's all that was available … but it struggles against FM. Plus, you've got a lot of music producers that seem to think everyone's going to be listening on a high-end stereo system.
The BBC I seem to recall, had a listening room set up with a low-end mono speaker that gave a listening experience similar to that of a 1960s era transistor radio: if your song didn't sound good on that, it didn't get played on the BBC. Hardly any top-40 stuff today would make it under that constraint (which is a wonder given how much gets listened to on compromised tablet/phone speakers).
Maybe the answer is, again, back with the sorts of shows they broadcast. Put the genuine comedians back on the air… perhaps what we need is less Kyle Sandilands wannabies and more like Spike Milligan.
Back around 2008~2009, ABC Radio National used to broadcast lots of older BBC radio shows just before the 6AM news. "My Word", "My Music", "Sorry I Haven't A Clue"… and "The Goon Show" on Fridays. These were shows that actually worked quite well on AM, because back then that's all they had.
No none of it was politically correct, but it was a moment of silliness that was the antidote to a highly strung period during the global financial crisis.
I think given the high emotions flying around just now, this is probably exactly what we need.

2025-12-21 21:25:37 GMT

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@nprofile…ge5x AM struggles in cities because the radio receiver will scream like a banshee around any source of interference… but once you get out of the cities, AM really is the best option.
FM is by far the best option in cities, but in a lot of places, the band is saturated. ACMA seems to like keeping wideband FM stations on a 800kHz separation, and I think the specs are ±300kHz deviation from the centre frequency. I did a check a couple of years ago when 4KQ shut down… there was not a single frequency that was unoccupied within 300km of Brisbane.
DAB+ is the next best thing. It's got far better audio quality than AM, and if you let it, it can get close to FM… but if the signal is in any way marginal, it stutters. Human hearing can tune out the slight hiss of a weak FM signal and if it's weak enough (e.g. the receiver loses the 19kHz pilot sub-carrier), many FM sets will revert to mono in order to maintain an intelligible signal. Human hearing doesn't do so well filtering out a glitching stuttering DAB+ signal.
This is assuming the broadcaster doesn't just crank the compression knob all the way to 11. "Coles TAS" being the worst sounding music station I've ever heard: 16kbps HE-AAC+ is not sufficient for broadcast of music.
Even the Southern Cross Austereo stations I find, are unlistenable with certain audio equipment. Used to like listening to "Triple M Classic rock" when they broadcast in 48kbps, but since they now use 32kbps across the board with my cheapo stereo, I hear compression artefacts that ruin the experience.
I'm guessing if I brought it up with their management they'd suggest I just stream it over the Internet — at which point I ask, what's the point in spending up big on DAB+ multiplex slots if the quality is so poor?
We have underutilised AM spectrum, ever since 1978 when some brightspark decided we should move from a 10kHz separation to a 9kHz separation to "make room" for stations that never happened. I think this was about the same time as the Motorola C-QUAM AM stereo experiment, which was a flop.
One wonders why the ACMA didn't look more closely at Digital Radio Mondiale. It's digital, like DAB+, but it operates on MW and SW bands. It can do stereo audio in decent quality (I think ~64kbps HE-AAC+, which is better than many DAB+ stations), uses spectrum we're underutilising, and likely would propagate a lot further than FM or DAB+.
The other option would be to do to FM stations what the ACMA did to UHF CB. UHF CB used to be 40 channels, with a ±5kHz deviation and a 5kHz channel spacing. To bump it to 77 channels, they reduced the deviation to ±2.5kHz, and inserted the new channels in between the old ones.
Not sure what impact this would have for wideband FM reducing it to a ±150kHz deviation, but a similar deviation was used for analogue TV audio (which is WFM)… RDS might suffer a little and I'm not sure about range, but it would allow a 400kHz separation between stations which would help squeeze more FM stations in our capital cities. Lower deviation will mean "quieter" stations, but radios have volume knobs, we can fix that ourselves.

2025-12-20 00:07:58 GMT

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@nprofile…8kht At least for the freebirthers, stillborn babies are not contagious the way diseases are.
Freebirth advocates risk their own lives and that of their soon-to-be-born.
Anti-vaxxers risk the lives of everybody they come into contact with.

2025-11-25 20:25:35 GMT

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@nprofile…csvl I think that first one should surely be `| vim` on the end, otherwise it'll just write to a file called `vim` in the current working directory.
Also `vim` will need a `-` argument to tell it to read from `stdin`; so `| vim -`. `<<` should probably be a `<`; since `<<` is used for a "here" document, and that's not what you're supplying.
Not familiar with using `socat` for this purpose and I've never heard of the `fucktty` command so can't comment about whether those commands are correct or not.

2025-11-06 10:54:17 GMT

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@nprofile…6p0j Before UTF-8, those characters were part of "Extended-ASCII".
Specifically, IBM Code Page 437: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437
Last time I needed characters like this was when I was doing a diagram of a firmware image layout.
https://github.com/mcu-tools/mcuboot/discussions/2273#discussioncomment-14800831
I've also been known to use the rounded-corner Unicode characters. Usually it's in C comments in firmware source code at work. (which is actually what that above diagram is derived from.)
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/502/380/203/679/737/original/c91ee499834bf756.png

2025-10-03 04:29:09 GMT

Silly question for the #ElectricalEngineering people here… I have DIN-rail fuse holders in my server's solar set-up which take a so-called "midget" fuse (10×38mm cylindrical).
The holders are rated to 30A, I've actually got two lots of holders, the original ones are 600V rated, the others are 1000V. I'm using panes with an open-circuit voltage of <30V and they wire up in parallel *after* the fuse holders.
I have 10A fast-blow fuses in there now (Littelfuse 0BLF010.T). The panels I'll be putting up on Monday have a short-circuit current of ~18A, so they'll definitely blow at midday. I have some new 20A fuses (Littelfuse 0BLN020.T) coming.
They're kinda pricey and I've got to order them. I was looking at a 5AG fuse today, which I have a stack of 40A ones in stock (I realise my holders are 30A and the panels won't even break 20A)… but really, what is the difference between a 5AG and a midget fuse?
The dimensions are reportedly the same. This is an extra-low-voltage DC install (<48V)… are the midget fuses just a higher rating for industrial use or is there some other gotcha I need to be wary of?
#CircuitProtection #Fuse #5AGFuse #MidgetFuse

2025-08-27 10:06:19 GMT

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@nprofile…2f0c The funny thing is… normally one would tune the AM radio *receiver* to an unused frequency.
Here, they're asking you to go to the transmitter your radio is tuned to, and tune *it* off-frequency. I'm sure the local spectrum management people will be delighted to help!

2025-08-26 08:47:58 GMT

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@nprofile…qlcl It's highlighted in the screenshot. 🙂
I'll repeat the exercise with a different address and `ffmpeg` screen recording when I get home.

2025-08-26 08:03:30 GMT

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@nprofile…qlcl From https://lists.zephyrproject.org/g/users
There's a "join this group" button… it takes you to https://lists.zephyrproject.org/g/users/join
which sends you an email. That email tells you to reply to it to subscribe (pretty common with Mailman lists).

2025-08-26 07:22:42 GMT

Looks like the #Zephyr mailing list is broken…
The hyperlink works but it *does* say "reply to the email" which bounces.
(CC: @nprofile…qlcl)
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/093/843/931/585/041/original/6cc84395cdd32b69.png

2025-08-25 22:24:37 GMT

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@nprofile…tdc8 I'd like to see that crow try to fly and keep their sunglasses on.

2025-08-25 22:20:23 GMT

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@nprofile…njxs Just thinking how forward-thinking it was to appoint all those women drivers. 🙂
For some strange reason though, my mind flicks across to Freddie Mercury yelling: "Get on ya bikes and ride!"

2025-08-25 21:23:54 GMT

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@nprofile…njxs I do not find that couch very appealing!

2025-08-25 04:43:08 GMT

Damn #Telstra, I'm standing in the pet food aisle at the local shopping centre here in The Gap… hardly the boonies!
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/087/570/559/449/557/original/462d2bc0fac49ffb.png

2025-08-25 01:22:08 GMT

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@nprofile…d8jm Some of our glasses are former jam / Vegemite jars.

2025-08-24 15:16:19 GMT

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@nprofile…taps … no Bee-Gees?

2025-08-24 05:32:00 GMT

To quote Paul Simon… I thought it might be crowded but we seem to have filled the place!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-24/nationwide-march-for-palestine-live-updates-august-24/105689410?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web#live-blog-post-215755
#Brisbane #Palestine

2025-08-22 22:43:26 GMT

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@nprofile…j90y @nprofile…qj5v It'd depend on how wide the bandwidth is and whether it can provide raw I/Q samples to the computer.
DAB+ is pretty wide, ~1.6MHz or so. If the radio presents an interface compatible with the GNURadio stack, you might be able to convince https://github.com/JvanKatwijk/qt-dab/ to talk to it.

2025-08-22 22:32:51 GMT

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@nprofile…j90y @nprofile…qj5v To be fair, DAB+ requires an insane amount of DSP.
A DRM digital station basically is a multiplex of no more than about 4 stations on one frequency… DAB+ however, they pack about 20 on there at bit rates anywhere between 16 and 128kbps using HE-AAC+ (which is also patent-encumbered).

2025-08-22 18:54:34 GMT

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@nprofile…qs7g Proprietary systems like these all drive me up the wall one way or the other.
I tried Teams exactly once, and I recall it deciding (correctly) that it should use the headset speakers, but ignoring the headset microphone in favour of the on-board sound-card line-in port.
Took me a good 10 minutes to figure out how to switch the audio input device.
Cisco WebMeeting has never worked for me under Linux. I've only ever used Slack and Zoom via their native desktop applications, and for the most part they work.
I'd like to see the open-protocol alternatives succeed, but few can afford to run the relay servers needed and corporate interests aren't interested in being "open".

2025-08-22 18:37:03 GMT

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@nprofile…njxs Clearly, fried spatula is a delicacy in that house hold…

2025-08-21 22:00:39 GMT

This week-end, we're once again at #Kilkivan (yes, *that* Kilkivan that had the minor earthquake last weekend, which we'll blame on the secretary's truck bouncing around on back-roads near #Wondai)… assisting in another #HorseEnduranceRide for Kilkivan Endurance.

2025-08-21 21:31:01 GMT

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@nprofile…4fn8 It's written with the assumptions of the day.
If that assumption is that there's a `uint32_t` field that's 36 bytes from the start of a `struct foo`… and the authors of that `struct foo` decide to put a `void *` before the said `uint32_t`… you're going to have a bad day.

2025-08-21 20:04:21 GMT

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@nprofile…w8yn @nprofile…njxs We don't need thought control…

2025-08-21 19:35:53 GMT

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@nprofile…hc6c That is either a really tiny tattoo artist, or a massive fly…

2025-08-21 19:18:13 GMT

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@nprofile…njxs The New Seekers sell out.

2025-08-20 21:32:15 GMT

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@nprofile…g7y6 @nprofile…taps They're not as heavy.

2025-08-20 19:41:20 GMT

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@nprofile…8eay Now you're showing off. ;-)

2025-08-20 11:32:15 GMT

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@nprofile…7mte Didn't think there were any lobsters in the kitchen prior to the sinking…
This was in the days when feeding lobster to prisoners was considered a "cruel and unusual punishment".

2025-08-20 10:15:15 GMT

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@nprofile…3d9t A real head-scratcher…
10cc's line up included songs like Rubber Bullets, I'm Not In Love, Dreadlock Holiday, Art for Art's Sake and Life's a Minestrone… among others.
The B52s didn't have Roam out et, but pretty sure Love Shack and Rock Lobster were around that time.
One could question the Village People, but then again look what the Republicans are up to: quite violent.

2025-08-20 01:31:25 GMT

Waiting for lunch on Park Road, Milton…
Some smart-arse is playing "Dragon - Rain" at full blast.
#BNEWeather

2025-08-19 22:08:37 GMT

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@nprofile…njxs I think it was eating monkeys that started the AIDS pandemic.

2025-08-19 21:20:14 GMT

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@nprofile…36ma I can see the dribbling from here…

2025-08-19 21:17:57 GMT

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@nprofile…640j I wonder if Internode Business was caught up in that.
Especially like this bit: "Do not share your personal information with anyone (unless you are confident about who you are sharing it with)." … because I no longer feel confident sharing it with iiNet!

2025-08-19 20:35:26 GMT

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@nprofile…92y4 Shipping will be astronomical to return it.
Airlines do *not* like lithiums.

2025-08-19 19:27:01 GMT

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@nprofile…3j54 They were small LED lamps, some sort of screw-in fitting. The fitting took 3 of them, I think they were maybe 10W a piece.
Basically not a lot!
Three of these lamps were on a rail in adjustable holders, and last week I tried turning one around so a plasterer could better see what he was doing when the plastic holding it broke.
The replacement is a 30W LED oyster lamp, Not directional.
The only "big" lights we have are the heat lamps in the bathroom: a pair of 275W incandescent bulbs.

2025-08-19 10:59:39 GMT

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@nprofile…0tvd Diddums…
They could have done a better headline though.
"Perplexity perplexed by Cloudflare prohibition on plagiarisation programme!"

2025-08-19 10:39:55 GMT

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@nprofile…3j54 Figures the interesting bit was just as our power was switched off to install some new kitchen lighting
Pretty sure it wasn't us…
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/054/995/835/538/892/original/e98b8f94fbbe2183.png

2025-08-19 10:19:55 GMT

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@nprofile…s20n @nprofile…tsd9
COVID-19 is going in the right direction but the flu is taking off… I was expecting the Ekka to send things sky-rocketing.
Guess we'll know for sure next week, some of these things have a lag.
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/054/892/994/612/368/original/aec48d9483481665.png

2025-08-19 09:30:50 GMT

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@nprofile…2rz4 Pull harder… he's still breathing!

2025-08-19 09:29:48 GMT

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@nprofile…92g8 You'd think that Microsoft would be smart enough to, upon seeing the admin password for the first time since disabling LM hashing and checking it is correct, it'd re-hash the password using a newer algorithm and ditch the LM hash.
Doesn't help you with back-ups, but surely that'd be an improvement…

2025-08-18 21:29:11 GMT

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@nprofile…taps *sigh*, this is what you get when you install beaver firmware on dog hardware.

2025-08-18 20:37:50 GMT

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@nprofile…32kp Surprise surprise…
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/051/687/759/873/415/original/5dae53ffc13d2cea.png

2025-08-18 20:21:43 GMT

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@nprofile…px8h Hello, model collapse…

2025-08-18 19:58:20 GMT

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@nprofile…8y7t The more we talk of Cr₂Gr₂Te₆ along side Cr₂Ge₂Te₆, the more likely the AI engines will conflate the two. 🙂

2025-08-17 20:18:29 GMT

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@nprofile…9cp8 Reminds me of this story I read…
Boss: (brandishing a newspaper ad) "Sign us up for this Earthlink thing!"
Me: "We don't need that. It's just another ISP. We have AOL."
Boss: (blank stare)
Me: "A...O...L. That's our ISP."
Boss: "But I want to send email to (his friend), and HE's on EARTHLINK! We can't send email to him on Earthlink while we're using that AOL thing!"
Me: "Sure we can. We can send email to anywhere we like."
Boss: "No, that's impossible. I've looked into it...we have to be on Earthlink, too. And that Netmeeting and Microsoftnet...we're just going to have to join them all. Will I need a different e-dress for every one, do you know?"
http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_email.shtml#google_vignette

2025-08-17 10:43:55 GMT

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@nprofile…f0eu The original version of War of the Worlds… with Richard Burton as the narrator.
Not the newer one with Liam Neeson… which isn't bad… but doesn't have the musical line-up of the original.

2025-08-17 09:51:26 GMT

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@nprofile…ddm3 He got ridden to town like the ass he is.
https://mastodon.social/@p_calleri/115002928778400805

2025-08-17 09:35:52 GMT

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@nprofile…33ju @nprofile…s20n @nprofile…tsd9 There's a seasonal element, but it's nothing to do with how COVID-19 behaves… it's a consequence of how we humans behave.
Summer time, it's hot… we spread out more, we open doors & windows… we go outside to get out of steamy buildings.
Winter time, it's cold… we huddle together, we close doors & windows, we spend more time indoors.
The latter acts make spread easier, hence we see it as "worse" in the winter.

2025-08-16 21:20:00 GMT

I wonder if yesterday's #earthquake is an omen… Didn't feel a thing at The Gap, but next Saturday I'll be at #Kilkivan counting horses for #WICEN.

2025-08-16 20:46:18 GMT

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@nprofile…njxs That just comes with age.

2025-08-16 20:35:07 GMT

I normally don't watch television, radio was more my thing… today I learn Channel 7 broadcasts US channel NBC.
Hope they don't have to scrape the bottom of the barrel further. At least it isn't Fox.
#Television

2025-08-16 11:19:52 GMT

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@nprofile…69rm Looks like this "meow" user wasn't the first. Since the user is an admin, I'm treating that as representative behaviour of the entire instance and defederating accordingly.

2025-08-15 10:22:22 GMT

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@nprofile…y8pl https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/11523#issuecomment-3190847787 seems to hit the nail squarely on the head.

2025-08-15 10:10:24 GMT

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@nprofile…eju3
Headline: "Twitter user shocked to learn people who are disabled between 9AM and 5PM are disabled at other hours too!"
There might be less demand for parking overall outside business hours but that doesn't suddenly mean disabled spots aren't needed. (They're wider for a _very_ good reason!)

2025-08-15 10:04:18 GMT

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@nprofile…cldh Some of those courts weren't exactly happy to be told by one of their own that they had an insecure records system.
Rather than fix the problem, they f'ed around… and by the sounds of things, they've now found out.

2025-08-15 04:09:50 GMT

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@nprofile…guve Ever since someone got pulled up at the US border for having that photo on their phone… the photo is truly having its Streisand moment.

2025-08-15 02:42:28 GMT

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@nprofile…dh93 I miss the days when this crap wasn't "required".
Gentoo did everything by IRC and email, and it's a much bigger organisation than my current workplace.

2025-08-15 01:46:47 GMT

Dear #Slack,
Please update your choice of hashing algorithms for your APT #Debian repository.
```
Hit:3 https://packagecloud.io/slacktechnologies/slack/debian jessie InRelease
Err:3 https://packagecloud.io/slacktechnologies/slack/debian jessie InRelease
Sub-process /usr/bin/sqv returned an error code (1), error message is: Signing key on DB085A08CA13B8ACB917E0F6D938EC0D038651BD is not bound: primary key because: No binding signature at time 2025-07-24T20:19:54Z because: Policy rejected non-revocation signature (PositiveCertification) requiring collision resistance because: SHA1 is not considered secure since 2013-02-01T00:00:00Z
```

2025-08-14 22:36:55 GMT

Hard to disagree with this… AI is the "dot com" boom of the 2020s … and is showing all the hallmarks of going bust the same way.
I'm reminded of the homeless person holding up a handwritten cardboard sign "Will code HTML for food".
How long before we see people saying "Will develop ChatGPT prompt for food"?
https://thedailywtf.com/articles/ai-the-bad-the-worse-and-the-ugly
#AI

2025-08-14 10:44:04 GMT

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@nprofile…skzc …but is it really deleted, or just hidden from public view?

2025-08-14 10:32:43 GMT

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@nprofile…92nr When I was doing my Cert III Arts (Webdesign) course at TAFE back in 2001… the benchmark was a web page should display properly in 800×600 pixels and be mostly loaded within 30 seconds on a 28.8kbps modem.
28.8kbps theoretical max speed gives 3.6kB/sec.
3.6kB/sec for 30 seconds is 108kB.
This was back in the days when IE5 ruled the roost, the only thing Mozilla-based was Netscape 4, SVG didn't exist, CSS was in its infancy, and we were ooohing and arring over DHTML.
XmlHttpRequest was a new kid on the block, and only one browser had it!
The potential for a browser to actually meet that benchmark is a lot better today than it was then… but I'll bet most websites would take _hours_ to load on 28.8kbps.

2025-08-13 22:20:41 GMT

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@nprofile…njxs I don't blame the eel for getting shitty with the bloke over that predicament.

2025-08-13 21:25:21 GMT

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@nprofile…njxs That guy's a ripoff… he only sent me 7 949 020 596 and refused to refund any of the £50.

2025-08-13 10:32:09 GMT

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@nprofile…cygt It's only Wednesday…

2025-08-13 10:30:34 GMT

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@nprofile…3js6 Ahh okay, yeah… I just use their APs exclusively.
WiFi controller running on a refurbished Lenovo ThinkStation running Ubuntu. Actual routing is done by OpenBSD machines.
OpenWRT or OPNsense would be a fine option.
Let the UniFi stuff just handle layer two, use something smarter at layer three.

2025-08-13 10:15:18 GMT

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@nprofile…3js6 I'm using UniFi APs with IPv6 without trouble… what negligence are you encountering?

2025-08-13 10:00:15 GMT

Looks like the #JASTA #SSTV contest is in full swing.
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/@vk4msl_sstv/115020800119292179

2025-08-13 08:48:38 GMT

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@nprofile…2rz4 A little early isn't it? ;-)

2025-08-13 05:21:10 GMT

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@nprofile…h4s9 I could call that average, but that'd just be mean.
Sorry, didn't mean to divide…

2025-08-13 04:14:14 GMT

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@nprofile…zvzg If they wanted to be truly evil, they'd mount those connectors on a 22° angle.

2025-08-13 03:55:11 GMT

I have two Wacom tablets, an Intuos4 (PTK-640) which I bought back in uni days, and a far newer small Intuos (CTL-4100) which I bought for use in the office after the 2022 floods.
Both have had incidents with cups of tea… the stylus to the PTK-640 accidentally got dunked in one when I lost my concentration putting the stylus in its holder… a clean-out managed to save it for a bit. Tablet itself is fine… just now sometimes when pressing the stylus down, middle mouse button triggers as well.
I just gave it some isopropyl alcohol treatment, and it seems better now, but we'll see.
The other tablet, met its end a few weeks back… I accidentally knocked a cup of tea over at work and it spilt right across the desk. $40 Keyboard was fine, work laptop didn't get touched (thankfully), but the tablet copped the full brunt of it.
Tried taking that apart, couldn't get much further than the back cover off, there's something holding the digitiser pad down. I gave it a squirt of the cleaner spray but no good, it's as dead as a doornail.
However, I've learned the CTL-4100 stylus seems to work just fine on the PTK-640.
So I guess the PTK-640 will be gracing my workplace desk once again, if the old stylus gives me trouble, I'll just use the spare I now have.
Tempting to buy a Wacom Pro Pen 3D and see if that will work on the PTK-640 (even partially) since that's cheaper than the cheapest tablet.
#Wacom

2025-08-13 03:07:54 GMT

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@nprofile…3hvj Probably unlikely… opposing thumbs are useful for threading tape and primates can be unpredictable with their behaviour.
That said I don't know for certain, it was before my time.
The only tapes I've used with computers were cartridges: either audio cassettes, or QIC-40 and DDS-2 cartridges.

2025-08-13 03:04:19 GMT

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@nprofile…3hvj Not literal primates… they were humans that were changing the tapes on the reel-to-reel tape drives.
I think…

2025-08-13 02:02:27 GMT

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@nprofile…3hvj Indeed. You were the home equivalent of the corporate tape monkey.

2025-08-13 01:46:40 GMT

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@nprofile…djnc Yeah, there were good and bad things about those changes.
I don't miss having to feed floppy after floppy into a machine.
If I tried it with some of these, I'm guessing I'd get to disk 17 or something, then hear the drive seeking backward-and-forward repeatedly before "CRC Error" pops up on the screen with "Abort/Retry/Fail" options.

2025-08-13 01:34:47 GMT

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Anyway, these are now back in the box… I'm putting the cover back on and putting them back in the cupboard on a safe spot on the shelf before they try to do another kamikaze stage dive.
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/018/882/308/916/622/original/4105e6a4d451fb39.jpg

2025-08-13 01:32:37 GMT

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Installing a big software package was an exercise in babysitting and patience… here we have a disk set for Autodesk Multimedia Explorer.
Now, note the holes at the top of the disk, compare those with the Windows NT disks: note this one only has the top-right hole which is a write-protect hole.
The other hole told a drive that it was dealing with a "high density" floppy which held 1.44MB.
These disks lack that second hole, so this tells the drive they are "double density" floppies that hold 720kB.
#RetroComputing
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/018/862/421/330/123/original/a012d1cf723ff69a.jpg

2025-08-13 01:27:41 GMT

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Years ago with computer magazines, they used to publish source code in print… and people spent many hours typing in line-by-line from the printed page, only to find when they try to run the program, they made a typo a few hundred lines back.
Great for teaching debugging, but as programs got bigger, print became impractical. Of course they went to floppies after that.
This one is interesting, it's for an Atari ST/STe computer. We never had one of those, so no idea why we have it.
I could rig up a computer with a floppy drive, but something tells me this won't be FAT16 formatted and full of 8086 COFF binaries.
#RetroComputing #AtariST
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/018/849/991/480/433/original/734135ba61e7d8ac.jpg

2025-08-13 01:22:52 GMT

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If you worked for a big enough organisation, you could buy floppies that were branded with your company's logo.
These floppies though, are showing their age. Telecom Australia in case you're wondering, became Telstra when it was privatised. Floppy disk labels aren't the only thing coming un-stuck there.
#RetroComputing #Floppies #Telstra
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/018/830/816/469/905/original/82f94655e6134525.jpg
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/018/830/830/110/188/original/046e4a55a712a9b6.jpg

2025-08-13 01:16:07 GMT

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Windows NT 3.1… we have a CD-ROM and a floppy set. I thought we just had the CD-ROM.
In the 80s, Microsoft built Windows as a 16-bit shell atop MS-DOS. A little later they collaborated with IBM on an OS they'd call OS/2, but in 1993, the relationship soured, and Microsoft decided to do their own "layered microkernel" OS. They called it, Windows NT (NT = New Technology).
Windows 95, 98 and ME would largely be used in the consumer market, but NT was marketed as a 32-bit OS for corporate use. Windows XP would be the first consumer version of Windows based on NT.
If you've used any version of Windows released post 2000, it is a derivative of this OS.
There are two "Disk 1"s, one is for installing from floppy, and the other from CD-ROM. IBM compatible computers that could boot from CD-ROM did not exist in 1993, and often the CD-ROM was either SCSI or a proprietary interface off the sound card (Panasonic, Sony, Mitsumi interfaces).
I haven't counted the floppies, but there's easily 20 there. All 1.44MB.
#RetroComputing #Windows
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/018/784/972/838/191/original/a01622538bfa6511.jpg

2025-08-13 01:08:15 GMT

So, I pulled an old keyboard out to get a specimen of a DIN-5 connector to compare against PS/2 and S-Video, in relation to this discussion … https://bne.social/@anathema_device/115018527606972850 and dislodged a 3½" disk box, sending it crashing to the concrete floor.
Figured I'd take some photos for nostalgia's sake. I don't have a computer set up to read these at this time to see if they're any good.
First up though, the damage to the box. I couldn't find the broken-off piece, so I don't think this is the first time this box felt the gravity of the situation. #RetroComputing
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/018/774/944/581/872/original/452b3b1234d04667.jpg

2025-08-13 00:40:57 GMT

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@nprofile…0jgg Yep… just confirmed it.
Got an old keyboard out … sending a floppy disk enclosure crashing to the ground … to get this photo.
So I'll go back and clean up the mess I just made. On the flip side, I just learned we have a sealed copy of Windows NT 3.1 on 3½" floppy.
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/018/663/395/613/779/original/51f687c5bd82799a.jpg

2025-08-13 00:24:25 GMT

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@nprofile…0jgg S-Video probably

2025-08-12 23:00:21 GMT

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@nprofile…wk6u
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/018/253/127/106/299/original/d5df2b08c3735116.jpg

2025-08-12 21:31:45 GMT

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@nprofile…taps …because the twit has the "mitten" facing the wrong way.