Tootfinder

New on blog: "How we incidentally uncovered a 7-year old bug in gentoo-ci"
"""
“Gentoo CI” is the service providing periodic linting for the Gentoo repository. It is a part of the Repository mirror and CI project that I’ve started in 2015. Of course, it all started as a temporary third-party solution, but it persisted, was integrated into Gentoo Infrastructure and grew organically into quite a monstrosity.
It’s imperfect in many ways. In particular, it has only some degree of error recovery and when things go wrong beyond that, it requires a manual fix. Often the “fix” is to stop mirroring a problematic repository. Over time, I’ve started having serious doubts about the project, and proposed sunsetting most of it.
Lately, things have been getting worse. What started as a minor change in behavior of Git triggered a whole cascade of failures, leading to me finally announcing the deadline for sunsetting the mirroring of third-party repositories, and starting ripping non-critical bits out of it. Interesting enough, this whole process led me to finally discover the root cause of most of these failures — a bug that has existed since the very early version of the code, but happened to be hidden by the hacky error recovery code. Here’s the story of it.
"""
#Gentoo

Started reading "More and more and more" by Fressoz, and in the intro he writes "Getting out of carbon will be far more difficult than getting out of capitalism, a condition that is probably necessary but certainly not sufficient." - welp, that will be easy then 😢
Looks like a great book so far, but not for the faint-hearted..

from my link log —
Getting started with Rust on a Raspberry Pi Pico.
https://reltech.substack.com/p/getting-started-with-raspberry-pi
saved 2021-11-18

Getting Started with Rust on a Raspberry Pi Pico (Part 2)
Iterating faster with cargo run

Just finished "Beasts Made of Night" by Tochi Onyebuchi...
Indirect CW for fantasy police state violence.
So I very much enjoyed Onyebuchi's "Riot Baby," and when I grabbed this at the library, I was certain it would be excellent. But having finished it, I'm not sure I like it that much overall?
The first maybe third is excellent, including the world-building, which is fascinating. I feel like Onyebuchi must have played "Shadow of the Colossus" at some point. Onyebuchi certainly does know how to make me care for his characters.
Some spoilers from here on out...
.
.
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I felt like it stumbles towards the middle, with Bo's reactions neither making sense in the immediate context, nor in retrospect by the end when we've learned more. Things are a bit floaty in the middle with an unclear picture of what exactly is going on politics-wise and what the motivations are. Here I think there were some nuances that didn't make it to the page, or perhaps I'm just a bit thick and not getting stuff I should be? More is of course revealed by the end, but I still wasn't satisfied with the explanations of things. For example, (spoilers) I don't feel I understand clearly what kind of power the army of aki was supposed to represent within the city? Perhaps necessary to wield the threat of offensive inisisia use? In that case, a single scene somewhere of Izu's faction deploying that tactic would have been helpful I think.
Then towards the end, for me things really started to jumble, with unclear motivations, revelations that didn't feel well-paced or -structured, and a finale where both the action & collapsing concerns felt stilted and disjointed. Particularly the mechanics/ethics of the most important death that set the finale in motion bothered me, and the unexplained mechanism by which that led to what came next? I can read a couple of possible interesting morals into the whole denouement, but didn't feel that any of them were sufficiently explored. Especially if we're supposed to see some personal failing in the protagonist's actions, I don't think it's made clear enough what that is, since I feel his reasons to reject each faction are pretty solid, and if we're meant to either pity or abjure his indecision, I don't think the message lands clearly enough.
There *is* a sequel, which honestly I wasn't sure of after the last page, and which I now very interested in. Beasts is Onyebuchi's debut, which maybe makes sense of me feeling that Riot Baby didn't have the same plotting issues. It also maybe means that Onyebuchi couldn't be sure a sequel would make it to publication in terms of setting up the ending.
Overall I really enjoyed at least 80% of this, but was expecting even better (especially politically) given Onyebuchi's other work, and I didn't feel like I found it.
#AmReading

The #AgaveSpike that started last April is getting a bit sad at the base now. However it has a cousin that has just started to shoot up its own spike. #Photography #FlowersOfMastodon

Appreciate the nod that spatial data viz is hard, @…!
The motivation part about expensive GIS tools is a little off though 💸 :qgis:
https://m…

I started getting reports of an unseasonal Joshua tree bloom in the last few weeks, and looking over records on @inaturalist.bsky.social it's pretty widespread! So we're putting out the call for folks to record this "bonus bloom" and help us study it
#science #ecology

The brutal rollout of Donald Trump’s immigration police state:
the surge in funding and manpower,
the troubling arrests by masked agents,
the increasing use of problematic tech,
the incessant cruelty of the messaging,
and the shadowy profiteers cashing in on the administration’s anti-immigrant crackdown

The vast, terrifying scale of Trump’s detention state
With $75 billion and thousands of masked agents, ICE is just getting started.

Genuinely, as far as I'm concerned Madonna's career peaked with True Blue (the album). After that she started getting a bit too pretentious - although still plenty of bangers to come. But this album is just pure perfect pop. #TOTP

I never posted another "garage door fix" post after this one because we ended up getting a new garage door opener when the old one started failing even more and was beyond repair and also my partner was fed up with my hacks.
https://rasterweb.net/raster/2021/02/15/garag…

Garage Fix (Again 2!)
Fix it again, there...

South Australia is getting a major energy upgrade.
Engie and Sungrow just broke ground on the Pelican Point battery storage system—a massive 200MW/400MWh facility that'll power over 29,400 homes while stabilizing the renewable-rich grid.
Expected online in late 2027, it's a key piece of the region's clean energy transition.

Construction begins on Engie’s Pelican Point BESS in South Australia
Sungrow and Engie have started construction on the Pelican Point grid-forming battery energy storage system (BESS) project in South Australia, marking a key step in the state’s clean energy transition.

I couldn’t find a clear guide, so I put together my own “Entry to Left-Wing Anarchist Reading.”
Thought it might help others getting started on this path.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WuGnU7O_0eyjf9caYJXJn-KbXfsQi3uHE5EYYzQcbD8/ed…

One other pattern that I kept experiencing last year when I was actually trying these tools in my work (because I had so many people pushing them on me I started to think I was crazy):
Them: “oh you are struggling with X? I have been using AI to solve it and it gives me the solution in less than 10 minutes! You HAVE TO try it!”
Me: “X is really annoying, I’d love to get help with it. I’ll try that, thanks!”
* I go and try to do X, spend hours prompting AI back-and-forth as it keeps messing up and doing things wrong. I give up and do the thing manually, spending 2-3x the time I would have spent if I did it myself from the start.*
*days / weeks later*
Me: “hey, person, I tried to do X with AI and it didn’t work. I kept getting issues like Y and Z. Did I prompt it wrong? This is what I tried.”
Them: *nods, maybe chuckles* “oh yeah, it does that. I still haven’t been able to figure out how to reliably do X. I tend to redo the output completely too. But sometimes it helps me do like this tiny part. Anyway, these tools will improve soon and we won’t have to do so many manual revisions. “
I kid you not, this stuff happened every other week.
#AI #LLMs #work #tech #AIBubble

i agree that this is depressing, but i don't think AI is the _cause_. this problem started when we collectively decided to gatekeep social and physical mobility with higher education
i went to university ~15 years ago. a naive idiot, i thought that i'm there to learn. eventually one of my parents casually admitted that university is for getting connections--i think the parent who was doing a PhD at the time, too

The joys of genetics x US "healthcare" have caught up to me. Been feeling off a while, sweating more than usual doing stuff, more anxious and irritable than usual, odd hot/cold flash issues. I just thought I wasn't getting enough rest, and our diet isn't the best cause we're barely existing as it is.
Last couple weeks I've picked up some UTI, which has exacerbated my earlier symptoms enough we started digging in trying to figure it out. Partner came across Gr…

#Kafka Fundamentals: Getting Started with Distributed Messaging
https://substack.com/inbox/post/173521922

It started getting dark outside at around 6:30 in #Milwaukee, so I started going to the gym again.

Klayton Adams essential to Cowboys' success, but demands more https://www.dallascowboys.com/news/klayton-adams-essential-to-cowboys-success-but-demands-more

Oof, fuck microsoft.
But also, there's no reason to use permissive licenses any more. "Open source" has taken over the world. We no longer have to work with billion-dollar companies in order to get our stuff used. Now we need to protect ourselves from being taken advantage of by them.
https://

The Supreme Court gave Trump a big redistricting win. But the fight is just getting started. (Politico)
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/05/trump-redistricting-fight-indiana-pressure-00678789
http://www.memeorandum.com/251205/p144#a251205p144

Here's one for the people who really enjoy getting angry about AI: when you write an answer on Quora, they've started using an LLM to read the answer and then ask you personally weird nonsensical follow-up questions based on snippets of your answer without understanding or context.

On top of $46.5 billion for border wall construction,
the OBBB delivered ⚠️ $74.9 billion to ICE
—double its entire budget under Joe Biden
—and more than the annual military spending of all but eight countries.
Of that,🔥 $45 billion will go to establishing new detention centers,
—including 50 by year’s end,
some of them tent camps in the style of the notorious Alligator Alcatraz.
Nearly🔥 $30 billion will go to enforcement and deportation,
—whi…

The vast, terrifying scale of Trump’s detention state
With $75 billion and thousands of masked agents, ICE is just getting started.

Guess 4 was a throw away word to get some letter positions. Totally a waste of effort. Left me more confused then when i started. I wound up getting the clue from one of my starter words and was able to piece it together. #Wordle
Wordle 1 630 5/6
⬛🟨⬛🟩⬛
⬛⬛⬛🟨🟨
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟨🟨🟨⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I think I started off on the wrong foot here, on my Qtile Wayland FreeBSD adventure 🤣
Getting that dd command from history, changing the iso to the FreeBSD one, and zapping it onto /dev/sda indeed did correctly overwrite my 2TB external disk. Not the contents of /dev/sdb, the USB stick where it should land.
That's what you get for inserting extra disks 🥳 🤓 😂

You're going to want to sit down for this.
Or maybe not.
Kohler has started selling a smart camera. For your toilet. Yep, a camera.
And in typical #IOT fashion, lo and behold, it's not secure.

Engineer proves that Kohler’s smart toilet cameras aren’t very private
Kohler is getting the scoop on people’s poop.

I have *started* getting ballots the last two elections for someone who has never lived at this address. What's the right way to report this and is this some scheme?

When we think about the improvement in team form, I would argue that it parallels Mac Allister's improvement in form. He's been very solid in consecutive games.
It also helps that Bradley is finding his stride too. I don't know what change has been the catalyst, but something has clicked.
Wirtz... looking pretty good. Should have another assist, but once again misfortunate. I really like everything about him. And we're just getting started.

Really silly dream
I had a really silly #dream recently. I dreamt that my CFL broke. Or more specifically, it kept trying to turn out, successive parts of it were lighting up, then it all went off and tried again. And it looked like it had a bunch of cuts across it, and around these cuts little thunder sparks started appearing, like some kind of STALKER-like anomaly.
I finally flipped the switch, but the anomaly remained, and I wanted to get rid of it in case the sparks could jump onto my hardware and damage something. So I threw a metal bowl towards it, supposing the thunder would jump onto it. While it was flying near the anomaly, it slowed down and started turning back like a boomerang. On top of that, pieces of cat food (don't ask me why I threw a full bowl) were getting out of it and staying in the air levitating. When the bowl reached the floor and started turning again, Mr Ek came close to it and started levitating himself; he was sitting a few centimeters above the floor.
In the middle of all this, I've figured out I should record it. I took a bunch of photos with my phone, before I managed to switch to recording video.
Once I've recorded the fascinating flying bowls and levitating cat food, I needed to go back to discharging the thing. I threw a second metal bowl, and that one started levitating as well. I've figured out that's stupid, and I've found some big ass hammer with a metal end and a wooden handle. I held the end near the lamp to charge it, then tried to find something to discharge it to. I've tried some small stuff like the door handle, but obviously that wasn't sufficient. Finally, I've figured out to use the electricity box, since it is grounded. I held the hammer to it, watching sparks light the semi-darkness; I've recorded that as well.
And that's how much of it I remember.

Excited for the webinar "Research Software Engineering in Health Research" on Wednesday in collaboration with Health Data Research UK (HDR UK).
If you are a health researcher writing code or supervising someone writing code, this webinar is for you!
Topics:
- Research Software Engineering in Health Research – Why does it matter?
- Getting started (with examples):
1) Organising a code project
2) Creating useful code
3) Collaborative coding

Getting started with Shiny to make interactive web-apps with R: #rstats

Overview | Building Web Apps with R Shiny
This class will teach you the basics of Shiny app programming, giving you skills that will form the basis of almost any app you want to build. By the end of the class, you will have created a custom app that collects and saves data, allows users to dynamically visualize the data, and produces downloadable reports.

@revk 's waveshare 7.5" board is taunting me; I got it a year or so back when it was very cheap, and I've not got a panel for it, but thought I'd see if the ESP started up. I was getting nothing from the USB, so soldered up the serial connector, took it over to the scope, and plugged it in...and it's LEDs lit up and identified on USB. Hmm, in the end I think it's only coming up if I plug it in to one old netbook next to the scope; weird...hmm, might check if it gi…

An interview with YouTube CEO Neal Mohan on YouTube as the future of TV, paying out $100B to creators, partnering with the NFL, scripted content, and more (Alex Weprin/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business

YouTube Just Ate TV. It’s Only Getting Started
In two decades, the app has grown from a user-generated circus into the most powerful platform on earth. CEO Neal Mohan on his $100 billion vision for YouTube’s future and the disruption it’s left in its wake.

@… VFX guy who started getting visual migraines decided to recreate what he sees: https://meetar.github.io/scotoma/

Republicans’ political purge is just getting started | The Verge
https://archive.ph/KcniC

Not a bad turnout for such a tiny town! I’m near the end of the video—I wore an inflatable green spaceman suit instead of my lobster. I didn’t last long (I got hot & started getting unsteady on my feet), but it was awesome! #NoKings
ALT: short iPhone video of our #NoKings rally lining our main …

Google's AI Overviews are getting mean.
I Googled 'buck2 fixed point caching', speculatively, wondering if Buck2 had any feature like this. The AI Overview started with: "There is no specific feature in Buck2 called ‘fixed point caching.’ The term appears to be a misunderstanding of how Buck2's caching mechanisms work in a build system.”
The overview went on to give an incorrect definition of "fixed point".

I am really interested in the linked.art initiative, but I’m finding it hard to wrap my head around it. What strikes me as particularly odd:
* The types-of-types pattern, which creates JSON structures that are very unlike usual JSON properties.
* The AATization of everything, including things like language tags, for which perfectly fine native RDF patterns exist.
Has anyone worked with it? Are there good Getting Started guides?

Slowing Down the Jams
#music #guitar #improvisation I recorded daily jams for more than 200 days.  Recently, I began to think that they were getting in the way of other things, like fi…

Updates sind einfach mit @… Um Fehler im Frontend während des Löschens und Neuhochladens der System-Files zu vermeiden, könnte man laut Doku auch die index.php im Hauptverzeichnis kurzzeitig backupen/löschen und nach dem Update wieder hochladen. Dann kommt eine Standardfehlermeldung des Servers. Ich habe mich nur gefragt, ob während des Updates ggf. etwas kaput…

An interview with YouTube CEO Neal Mohan on YouTube as the future of TV, paying out $100B to creators, partnering with the NFL, scripted content, and more (Alex Weprin/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business

YouTube Just Ate TV. It’s Only Getting Started
In two decades, the app has grown from a user-generated circus into the most powerful platform on earth. CEO Neal Mohan on his $100 billion vision for YouTube’s future and the disruption it’s left in its wake.

from my link log —
Getting started with Rust and Rocket for http services.
https://christine.website/blog/how-i-start-rust-2020-03-15
saved 2020-03-16

#GoldmanSachs sees AI as the #NextBigThing and isn’t blinking as it dumps investments into the #ArtificialIntelligence abyss... Analysts expect AI adoption to lift U.S.

After the Online Safety Act’s onerous internet age restrictions took effect this summer,
it didn’t take long for Brits to get around them.
Some methods went viral, like using video game Death Stranding’s photo mode to bypass face scans.
But in the end, the simplest solution won out: --- VPNs.
Virtual private networks have proven remarkably effective at circumventing the UK’s age checks,
letting users spoof IP addresses from other countries so that the checks neve…

The VPN panic is only getting started
The UK government is facing calls to add age restrictions to VPNs in order to stop them being used to… get around age restrictions.

My partner has been wanting to go on bike rides lately, which is great! We just go to the cemetery (which is where I started doing rides last year) and they like to stop at the pond and see the turtles.
It's great getting out together. I just have to ride really slow. 😅 (I use the acoustic bike.)
They mentioned riding to get groceries and I had to say "Uh, you're not quite ready for that!" but maybe in the future we'll be able to.

DeMarvion Overshown sends warning to Cowboys' opponents https://www.si.com/nfl/cowboys/onsi/news/demarvion-overshown-fires-warning-shot-cowboys-opponents

For the past three weeks, I’ve been attending protests at the Broadview ICE facility.
There’s been a vigil there for almost two decades at this point, but they started ramping up after three protesters were arrested four weeks ago.
Three weeks ago, we went, and it was very peaceful.
We ended up actually getting a car to turn around.
Last week, when we went, ICE assaulted a lot of us.
We went early because they changed their deportation time to around 6 a.m.

I’m a Congressional Candidate. I Was Assaulted by ICE.
An interview with Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old Democratic House candidate in Illinois, who was violently thrown to the ground twice at a peaceful protest in Illinois on Friday morning.

My mother is incredible.
We like to joke that she is a model #immigrant:
- She came to the #US fleeing from the war in #Ukraine, with no further plan besides getting to me and my husband in at least temporary safety.
- We had to run a crowdfunding campaign to help her and the kids sustain themselves as they waited for their #TPS immigration paperwork to process.
- Once her work authorization came through, she somehow managed to get a job as faculty at #Cornell - and started their #Ukrainian program, teaching the language and Ukrainian history for the first time in the university’s curriculum.
- Now she’s been accepted to academic conferences, publications, and has joined the board of the refugee support organization in #Ithaca that helped her get settled there herself.
I’m so proud of her. Y’all should read this article, it’s pretty good: https://www.ithacawelcomesrefugees.org/giving-from-abundance-krystynas-journey-to-becoming-an-iwr-board-member/