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• Post #4405706

  have you ever tried to compile t38modem on a modern linux distribution hooooo boy I am so many forks deep

• Post #3999593

  lol. I write a big long article about email encryption with a link to a complaint about the OSI model partway through... ...and by day two the five-year-old OSI model article is outperforming the brand new email one. that's another on my list of back catalog articles that might get a "revision 2" rewrite.

• Post #3862500

  Woke up to a small gift from the USEPA. It turns out that there *was* a CERCLA investigation of the AT&T Nassau Metals site, back in 1991. It seems like the conclusion was that the site should be "Higher Priority" (has a meaning in the statute) but didn't require immediate CERCLA action, and then nothing further happened since AT&T started remediation under NYDEC permits. But the reports from the 1991 site investigation are a useful new find!

• Post #3862499

• Post #3862498

  a lot of great vintage signage on all the older apartment buildings in the university area. this is one of my favs.

• Post #3862497

  I was driving around the western foothills of the Manzano Mountains, like you do. This is an area that is relatively close to Albuquerque but quite remote due to the way the highways run and a spectacularly failed "new city" project by Horizon Land. And what did I stumble upon but... the Trinity tower? huh? Turns out they filmed the Trinity scenes for Oppenheimer out here. There's the tower and at least one 10K bunker reproduced. It makes me want to rewatch the movie...

• Post #3862496

  new camera, testing. is this right?

• Post #3862495

  Executone, a long-running intercom manufacturer that was by this point a subsidiary of AT&T competitor Contel, really enjoyed the 1984 breakup of the Bell System. The "all broken up" lines are funny, but what I think is particularly intersting is Contel's effort to move into the residential market and take over the telephone service/repair aspect. I doubt this ever produced any meaningful business, but it does relate to the topic of an upcoming article.

• Post #3862494

• Post #3862493

  Found that the payphone test line wasn't working again, fixed it again. This time the root cause was an automatic update creating a Python version/library version mismatch. That's what I get for combining automatic updates with Python modules installed both via the system and pip. Do as I say, not as I do. I noticed because it got two calls, the good thing is that the "basics" work even when the AGI (and thus TTS readback) is broken, so I was able to "...

• Post #3862492

  somewhere in the Manzanos

• Post #3862491

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• Post #3773861

  So there was an era of American history where the dust had not really settled on whether the prongs of an outlet went vertically or horizontally. Both had been sold by different manufacturers. It was partly the dominance of manufacturer Hubbell that ultimately lead to standardization on the vertical prongs of NEMA outlets today. For a long time, Hubbell smoothed over the problem buy selling ouetlets that would accept either type of plug. Of course this complicates the modern use of horizontal pr...

• Post #3768937

  Found the time today to read through the AT&T Nassau documents I got from USEPA. They do not reveal much new information, particularly since the investigation under EPA was only preliminary. But the repeated references to "unknown quantities of old phones" as a constituent of the soil are amusing. The old phones weren't removed; institutional controls on the site today generally prohibit digging without environmental supervision but I think it has still has some substantial ar...

• Post #3638134

  Today on Computers Are Bad: Megawatts by Microwave. The Bonneville Power Administration's microwave communications network, a pioneering achievement in electrical utility telecommunications that helped to build the Pacific Northwest. https://computer.rip/2026-07-04-microwave-and-power.html

• Post #2523933

  Today on Computers Are Bad: Extremely Low Frequencies https://computer.rip/2026-05-09-extremely-low-frequencies.html

• Post #2258898

  A little piece of history - the origin of those half-turn latches that you always see on flight cases. this is what you read old issues of "missiles and rockets" magazine for.

• Post #1060791

  in Jemez Springs

• Post #1060790

  I keep buying "Drug Free USA" stamps because I think they're funny, but now they're the only stamps I have and I have to send postcards to my coworkers overseas plastered with "Drug Free USA" stamps and I fear the assumptions they will make.

• Post #1060789

  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/04/09/realestate/albuquerque-new-mexico-homes-for-sale.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ZlA.LpDG.hgfBN2T6ImU0&smid=url-share The New York Times has aimed my least favorite recurring feature squarely at my own backyard, and it goes exactly how you'd expect: they talk up the "college town" feel of Central by the university, one of them is an urban planner, so naturally they decide to buy new-construction bleh on the West Mesa...

• Post #1060788

  The NYTimes article that proposes Adam Back as Satoshi Nakamoto is interesting, in the way that all such articles are. The evidence is definitely more convincing than average, but I can't help but notice that a lot of the grammar/spelling "tells" the journalist relies on are also present in my writing. Some are just very common mechanical errors in English (it's/its). But I think a lot of them are common traits of writers with a Computer Science education: inco...

• Post #1060787

  I feel like dismissing the Cypherpunk political context as "we need crypto to protect us from government thugs" is a big rhetorical failure since, well, it's not wrong. There's a lot of nuance here that makes it difficult to express the views I'm getting at succinctly. A pithy way to put it is this: the issue hinges on whether or not "government thugs" includes the Internal Revenue Service. And for a lot of these people, it probably di...

• Post #1060786

  (and yes, the thing where the NYTimes reporter explains what a mailing list is is very funny, mostly because the explanation is completely bizarre and probably leaves the reader more confused)

• Post #1060785

  you ever use a pit toilet so new it's still got an inspection sticker?

• Post #1060784

  along the Jemez River (East Fork)

• Post #1060783

  it's a lake. whoever said we didn't have lakes, they were lying. we have as many as three or four. (this one is not natural either, but instead of the Corps of Engineers, I believe it was the NM Department of Game and Fish that originally dammed it. It's a small one.)