@0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems

Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Aug 06, 2026

Replying to @pencilears@mastodon.eternalaugust.com

@pencilears@mastodon.eternalaugust.com even some of the computer nerds here don't do offensive security stuff at all. 😌

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Jul 26, 2026

OH: "the kind of vampire that sucks dick for bus money and then walks home."

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Jul 21, 2026

Replying to @StarkRG@myside-yourside.net

@StarkRG@myside-yourside.net @david_chisnall@infosec.exchange @molly0xfff@hachyderm.io in this specific hypothetical, society would definitely put the person selling dynamite sticks in prison immediately and keep them there.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Jul 09, 2026

Replying to @balloonpup@blimps.xyz

@balloonpup@blimps.xyz on the bright side most pages that worked for Netscape Navigator 3.02 back then now work fine on extremely slow web browsers now. 💖

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Jul 03, 2026

Replying to @bruce@darkmoon.social

@bruce@darkmoon.social ah I just thought you might be because using LVM for partitioning was the default in some Linux distros installers for a good few years. But using LVM snapshots would have required you to leave some space free in the LVM volume which itself is not a thing people normally do by default either.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Jul 02, 2026

Replying to @bruce@darkmoon.social

@bruce@darkmoon.social btw offhand I think you can do block level snapshotting with just LVM if you happen to be using that (which is pretty common)

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Jun 28, 2026

Replying to @tewha@appdot.net

@tewha@appdot.net unlikely

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Jun 17, 2026

Replying to @0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange

@0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange they can tell because of the size and also his majestic aura. 💖

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Jun 14, 2026

Replying to @resuna@ohai.social

@resuna@ohai.social @jonny@neuromatch.social the space pen squirts ink out, right? It's a little tempting to try to look up its wet to dry mass ratio and the velocity at which it expels ink in order to calculate a delta V figure for it.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Jun 11, 2026

Replying to @djlink@mastodon.gamedev.place

@djlink@mastodon.gamedev.place @miawgogo@fedi.miawgogo.me this does suggest that most programming is the same genre of art that Rickrolling is. 😁❤️

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 28, 2026

Replying to @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems

@lina@vt.social @dramforever@mastodon.social well that's shaken me up. Very well done, both of you. ❤️

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 28, 2026

Replying to @lina@vt.social

@lina@vt.social @dramforever@mastodon.social WAHT really. WHAT!?????

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 25, 2026

Replying to @Quasit@beige.party

@Quasit@beige.party @joeposaurus@chaos.social selling cobalt-60 at iron-56 prices

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 25, 2026

Replying to @cendyne@furry.engineer

@cendyne@furry.engineer @thephd@pony.social I like the term "asciibetical" for when things are sorted by numerical codepoints instead of a locale-aware comparison.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 19, 2026

Replying to @adrienne@social.treehouse.systems

@adrienne@social.treehouse.systems @rancidrabbit@anarchism.space @aphyr@woof.group another thing that comes to mind is I bet a lot of HTTP proxies (especially corporate MITM'ing DLP proxies (I hate those things)) downgrade everything to HTTP 1.1. Maybe (lack of) support for HTTP 2 and up is usable as a signal but not safe as blocking criterion all by itself.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 18, 2026

Replying to @rancidrabbit@anarchism.space

@rancidrabbit@anarchism.space @aphyr@woof.group Huh! Does this work because contemporary real browsers always use HTTP/2 or HTTP/3?

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 16, 2026

Replying to @kit@sharkey.kitredgrave.net

@kit@sharkey.kitredgrave.net oof. Best wishes to you. I hope you have a better time in future than you've been having. ❤️

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 14, 2026

Replying to @fesshole@mastodon.social

@fesshole@mastodon.social 🫡

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 10, 2026

Replying to @NanoRaptor@bitbang.social

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social proximity of myself to cats and dogs

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 08, 2026

Replying to @xenophora@mastodon.art

@xenophora@mastodon.art @lich_silvae@masto.fediverse.games plot twist: you do have a million fans and they do fit into a millimetre. It is not a coincidence that you also have a shrink-ray.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 08, 2026

Replying to @glyph@mastodon.social

@glyph@mastodon.social ah good point. Nice. Thank you ❤️

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 08, 2026

Replying to @glyph@mastodon.social

@glyph@mastodon.social one question that just popped into my head is, why is fritter's version number an 0.x? It sounds like the kind of thing that could possibly be a 1.0 on its very first release, because what it does is pure maths and that kind of thing can be finished / stable and correct on the first try.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 07, 2026

Replying to @tewha@appdot.net

@tewha@appdot.net I saw David Chisnall post something about this that I think fits very well: in general ML is useful when the cost of mistakes is low and the value of correct answers is high. For example using ML for branch prediction or for indexing into database tables on disk: if the ML outputs a correct answer the computer runs a little faster and if it outputs wrong answer the computer runs barely slower than if it hasn't tried guessing. I think code review fits that framework: failures to find problems don't matter much because it puts you in no worse a state than if you hadn't tried. False reports of problems only waste your time. But accurate reports of problems may save big headaches down the road.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 07, 2026

Replying to @AmyZenunim@unstable.systems

@AmyZenunim@unstable.systems 🤣 but also 😱

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 06, 2026

Replying to @cford@toot.thoughtworks.com

@cford @david_chisnall kinda? if you learn C first then it gets real tempting to use the C FFI modules a lot.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 06, 2026

Replying to @0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange

@0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange you reckon you might passively train him to lead you to specific places that you mention as you start walking?

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 06, 2026

Replying to @ireneista@irenes.space

@ireneista@adhd.irenes.space oh if you want the result to be GPL rather than MIT license then it's even simpler. Then the job is simply to do a file by file port of existing GNU coreutils in the same fashion.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 05, 2026

Replying to @chrisdenton@hachyderm.io

@chrisdenton@hachyderm.io ah, I see. Thank you.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 05, 2026

Replying to @pencilears@mastodon.eternalaugust.com

@pencilears@mastodon.eternalaugust.com it does have stars but that isn't the same as grabbing someone by the lapels and yelling "WELL DONE THANK YOU" in their face.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 05, 2026

Replying to @chrisdenton@hachyderm.io

@chrisdenton@hachyderm.io whaaaaat when the hell was that added? 😅

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 05, 2026

Something that bugs me about GitHub and its competitors is that there is no clear path for messaging maintainers with positive feedback. Complaints? Yes, those go straight into the bug tracker. But there's nowhere obvious to send "hey this is great, thank you so much" other than filing a bug that says "this project is too helpful and you're all wonderful people".

(I bet this contributes to burnout.)

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 05, 2026

Replying to @gabrielesvelto@mas.to

@gabrielesvelto anecdotally I've had pretty good success rate trying to explain things like the difference between the stack and heap, by starting out with a description of how those things were implemented in MS-DOS programs and then briefly explaining how modern implementations differ. The DOS mechanisms were simple enough that they're easy to explain and then once the student understands the concept it's easy to add explanations like "but on a modern computer the heap allocations can go anywhere in the address space".

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 05, 2026

Replying to @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems

@ireneista@adhd.irenes.space IMO if you want a MIT-license-compatible Rust implementation of coreutils you could do worse than starting with FreeBSD and OpenBSD's equivalents (which are all in C but very much battle tested for things like TOCTOUs); port them to Rust more or less line by line so the new implementation makes more or less exactly the same syscalls, and then go through GNU coreutils man pages and add every feature they have which is missing.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · May 05, 2026

Replying to @Seirdy@pleroma.envs.net

@ireneista@adhd.irenes.space nah totally separate codebase. There's also toybox, again another totally separate implementation. I've heard rumours that both of them have code quality issues though.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Apr 29, 2026

I heard there's a really mysterious ongoing problem at the United States Mint.

It just doesn't make cents.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Apr 28, 2026

You know those little plastic compartmentalised pill boxes they make with 7 segments and weekdays written on each pill? Turns out they do work and they are really convenient.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Apr 28, 2026

I had a pony step on my foot once when I was a kid. Didn't hurt or anything. It was a small pony, I was wearing wellington boots and I was standing on soft ground.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Apr 23, 2026

Replying to @afx@infosec.exchange

@afx @0xabad1dea this is a great photo. Toffee looks glorious.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Apr 23, 2026

Replying to @0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange

@0xabad1dea egg bug crying with hearts in their eyes emoji

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Apr 21, 2026

Replying to @pencilears@mastodon.eternalaugust.com

@pencilears this is nice ❤️

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Apr 21, 2026

Replying to @rey@toot.cat

@rey absorbing RF is sometimes useful too so I conclude that thick thighs have entries only in the PRO column and nothing in the CON column. All glory be unto thick thighs. 🫡❤️

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Apr 20, 2026

Replying to @rey@toot.cat

@rey yeah that makes sense. the water in your body is great at absorbing microwaves

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Apr 17, 2026

Replying to @ariadne@social.treehouse.systems

@ariadne ah thank you. I hope you're having a good day.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Apr 16, 2026

@ariadne@social.treehouse.systems hi I just remembered a few years ago having a brief conversation with you about how busybox is slightly a PITA for Alpine Linux maintainers because it's a bit buggy and how there was some interest in maybe replacing it. I'm just curious now: did anyone have a serious go at replacing busybox in Alpine?

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Apr 16, 2026

Replying to @icculus@mastodon.gamedev.place

@icculus@mastodon.gamedev.place wonderful, thank you.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Apr 15, 2026

Replying to @Catfish_Man@mastodon.social

@Catfish_Man beautiful

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Apr 09, 2026

Replying to @neia@zoner.work

@neia @aeva @pupxel @maddiefuzz this is like the paint version of the Whitespace programming language. Or Ook! https://esolangs.org/wiki/Ook 😂

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Apr 09, 2026

Replying to @0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange

@0xabad1dea @becomethewaifu I think the CPU in my current PC has more L3 cache than some of the machines I learned to program on had RAM. Certainly I've worked with xeons and epycs for which that was true.

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Apr 09, 2026

Replying to @brooke@bikeshed.vibber.net

@brooke @0xabad1dea @becomethewaifu I immediately dare you to parallelise the main "for each ray..." loop of course ❤️

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Richard Barrell @0x2ba22e11@unstable.systems · Apr 08, 2026

Replying to @becomethewaifu@tech.lgbt

@becomethewaifu @0xabad1dea I had a 3d graphics class about 20 years ago where the lecturer claimed that the bottleneck in ray tracing renderers is usually cache misses for reflected rays. I think he used the phrase "primary rays cache, secondary rays thrash". The primary rays (the ones that go out of the camera into the scene) mostly get to take advantage of CPU cache because they point in very nearly the same direction as the other primary rays adjacent to them. But then secondary rays that bounce from the surfaces in the scene thrash CPU cache because they fly off in all directions, from different starting points. I liked that lecturer. Dutch gentleman, I think, and a very good teacher. I remember him once explaining something about how things work when there's only one light in a scene, and he started by saying "If I had enough bricks to smash all but one of the lights in this room..." :D

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