# I am the Watcher. I am your guide through this vast new twtiverse.
# 
# Usage:
#     https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/users              View list of users and latest twt date.
#     https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/twt                View all twts.
#     https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/mentions?uri=:uri  View all mentions for uri.
#     https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/conv/:hash         View all twts for a conversation subject.
# 
# Options:
#     uri     Filter to show a specific users twts.
#     offset  Start index for quey.
#     limit   Count of items to return (going back in time).
# 
# twt range = 1 15773
# self = https://watcher.sour.is?uri=https://www.uninformativ.de/twtxt.txt&offset=15773
# prev = https://watcher.sour.is?uri=https://www.uninformativ.de/twtxt.txt&offset=15673
@prologic I checked a while a ago and there were, like, 3-5 collisions or something like that. Not that many. 🤷 I have to specifically look for them – I don’t notice it in normal operation.
The twtiverse appears to have shrunk. Among the 61 feeds that I follow, I don’t see any hash collisions anymore. 🤔
Day 19 was a really nice puzzle. 😊
@lyse That looks like an older bug report. Which groff version is that (groff --version)?
Speaking of groff: I’ve been following their mailing list for a while now and this G. Branden Robinson person invests an *insane* amount of energy into that project. 🤯
Okay, now that I knew what to look for, I found existing bug reports:

- https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2023-04/msg00400.html
- https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?63960

Most importantly:

> This is resolved in the groff trunk.

🥳
@prologic No, this is a Linux manpage from the man-pages project: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/tree/man/man7/ascii.7

I do have an idea what’s going on. Could be an unfortunate interaction between the table preprocessor `tbl` and the `man` macro package. 🤔
Task for this weekend:

https://movq.de/v/b05a7ce782/vid-1758959332.mp4

When you call man ascii, you get this nice table, but there’s a weird vertical line at the bottom. That line is supposed to be a vertical rule and is supposed to go from the bottom of the table all the way to the top.

Let’s see if I can debug this. (Not getting my hopes up at this point, but I’ll try.)
@lyse Not bad. 🤔 So this started out as a flat sheet and then you cut and folded it, like paper (more or less)?
@lyse I give up. Just doesn’t give me a 360° video. 🥴 Maybe I’m just having bad luck with YouTube’s randomized stuff (maybe I’m getting “experiments”, who knows) …
@prologic Hm, I don’t know. Over here, we have parties that we would call “left” or “right”, one of them even calls themselves “The Left”. No idea about your political landscape, but it still makes sense for us. 🤔 For me, at least.
@prologic Germany was listed as “opposing” on https://fightchatcontrol.eu/ for a while, now it’s back to “undecided”. According to netzpolitik.org, it’s still debated. Also according to that page, there could be an important vote on the EU level on October 13/14.

The green party and the (far) left are opposing this (at least in Germany). Sadly, Germany is leaning more right with every year … As for young people: The (far) left is the strongest party among young people, with the (far) right being the second strongest one. (https://www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/2025-02-23-BT-DE/umfrage-alter.shtml) Is there cause for hope? I don’t know.
@prologic They have not rolled it out (yet), they are “just” discussing it (for the n-th time).
@prologic That’s a completely flat threading model (you can’t reply to replies). Is that intentional?
@lyse Hm, I couldn’t trick yt-dlp into downloading the correct format. Works in the browser, though. 😅
@melyanna Exit! Exit!@1! https://movq.de/v/c51aa76926/exit-exit-exit.jpg
@lyse I can’t remember the last time I came across a 360° video. 🤔
@bender A renewed vision test might be a good idea for some people. 😅 I mean, it is kind of curious that you get this license as a young person and then it lasts a lifetime, without any further tests. As long as you don’t screw up really bad, it remains valid …
@aelaraji 👋
The driver’s license documents in Germany now have an expiration date. You have to renew them every 15 years. (Not the license itself, just the documents.)

I just got my renewed documents. Their expiration date says something like 01.09.40. Huh? That looks super weird to me, like an error. But no, it’s 2040 … Just 15 years away.
@lyse https://www.celestrak.com (where the TLE files are downloaded from) seems to be down. :/
Happy equinox – where the world is illuminated like this:

https://movq.de/v/3f9fc6ebdd/equinox.png

(Instead of this or this.)
Doing a bit of 2018 Advent of Code now to relax. 🎄
@lyse Some stuff is actually more reliable, that’s true. It’s also waaaaaaaaaaay more expensive, though … :-)

I called it a day, yes. \o/
The worst thing you can do is make your infrastructure (switches, wifi, ...) depend on some cloud service. Because someone else is maintaining that service; you have no control over it. You 100% depend on that other person now. Very stupid idea.

Now guess what manufacturers are pushing for ...

Now guess who couldn't complete a task at work this Saturday morning, because a certain cloud service was down ...

IT is fucked. Throw it all away and start over.
@lyse Yep! Super fast and efficient! 😃
Severe but funny burn-ins on my TFT again:

https://movq.de/v/9df0437d27/MVI_8891.MOV.mp4

Now everything looks like it has that silly slogan as a background image:

https://movq.de/v/9df0437d27/smol.jpg
Sometimes, I wonder how my desktop looks to other people. Normal sighted people, I mean. For me, everything is much smaller and always slightly blurry (almost antialiased) because of my eyesight.

Maybe it *does* look horribly pixelated and super ugly to other people, and that’s why everyone prefers smoothed fonts and UIs and all that … ? 😂
Speaking of Sudoku, I was banging my head against this for 15 minutes:

https://sudokupad.app/adventure/94-advvvvvvvven

I’m glad I eventually got it right. 🥴

(via https://dosgame.club/@Tijn/115221132694421937)
@arne Hm, noch nie gemacht. 🤔 Machst du das von Hand oder mit Code?
@zvava Good question. This is the spec, I think:

https://twtxt.dev/exts/metadata.html#nick

It doesn’t say much. 🤔

In the wild, I’ve only seen “traditional” nick names, i.e. ASCII 0x21 thru 0x7E.

My client removes anything but r'[a-zA-Z0-9]' from nick names.
@lyse Omg, that is great. 😃
@lyse Omg, that is great. 😃
@lyse I didn’t know they had a name, to be honest. When I/we last had a dot matrix printer, I just sat alone in the basement and made these. 😂
@lyse I didn’t know they had a name, to be honest. When I/we last had a dot matrix printer, I just sat alone in the basement and made these. 😂
@bender Sigh. So it’s just me. Again. 😂
@bender Sigh. So it’s just me. Again. 😂
Next level poop: Can’t log in to reddit anymore with adblock enabled. It says *invalid usename or password*.
Next level poop: Can’t log in to reddit anymore with adblock enabled. It says *invalid usename or password*.
@lyse Yeah, I’ve corrupted a Git repo or two doing that … 🥴
@lyse Yeah, I’ve corrupted a Git repo or two doing that … 🥴
@zvava I was about to suggest that you post some examples. By now, we’re pretty good at debugging hashing issues, because that happens so often. 😂 But it looks like you figured it out on your own. ✌️
@zvava I was about to suggest that you post some examples. By now, we’re pretty good at debugging hashing issues, because that happens so often. 😂 But it looks like you figured it out on your own. ✌️
Someone posted one of my blog posts on HackerNews again and there’s this comment:

https://movq.de/v/b24882ecb1/s.png

A lot of HN comments are like this – in general, I mean, not only regarding my blog posts.

I’m not even angry, I’m just genuinely confused. 😂 The blog post in question isn’t a rant to begin with. Are those comments bots to drive engagement? Is this humor that I don’t understand? Is the person being serious?

What motivates people do post such comments? What’s going on here?

This is very, very weird to me.

(I don’t use HN, I just notice it by the increased load on the server.)
Can’t resist.

https://movq.de/v/2a7918d719/a.jpg
Can’t resist.

https://movq.de/v/2a7918d719/a.jpg
@prologic I completely forgot about that topic … 😂🥴
@prologic I completely forgot about that topic … 😂🥴
(Yes, she’s the one who did that Wisky bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HDBSm2s18s )
(Yes, she’s the one who did that Wisky bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HDBSm2s18s )
We’ve got a new feature!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-lgJX3npiQ
We’ve got a new feature!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-lgJX3npiQ
@lyse Ouch 😲
@lyse Ouch 😲
@dce Nope. 😃 What’s that genre called? Sounds like old horror movies from the 70'ies (or it could be a soundtrack to Salad Fingers, if anyone remembers that).
@dce Nope. 😃 What’s that genre called? Sounds like old horror movies from the 70'ies (or it could be a soundtrack to Salad Fingers, if anyone remembers that).
@kat I hope so 😅
@kat I hope so 😅
@lyse 🔥🔥🔥
@lyse 🔥🔥🔥
I have a feeling that learning to play electric double bass *through an amplifier* was a big mistake.

At the core, this is an acoustic instrument. If you play it through an amp, you will instinctively only do the bare minimum to get *some* sound going, because the amp does the heavy lifting. But it’s just not right.

This is a very physical instrument. It needs a lot of force and strength – in comparison, an electric bass guitar is almost flimsy and delicate. I need to “feel” what’s going on and that’s just not the case when using headphones.

I feel like I wasted ~3 years. 🫤 But maybe it’ll get better from now on …~
I have a feeling that learning to play electric double bass *through an amplifier* was a big mistake.

At the core, this is an acoustic instrument. If you play it through an amp, you will instinctively only do the bare minimum to get *some* sound going, because the amp does the heavy lifting. But it’s just not right.

This is a very physical instrument. It needs a lot of force and strength – in comparison, an electric bass guitar is almost flimsy and delicate. I need to “feel” what’s going on and that’s just not the case when using headphones.

I feel like I wasted ~3 years. 🫤 But maybe it’ll get better from now on …~
Made this a few weeks ago, just listened to it again and I quite like it:

https://www.uninformativ.de/music/2025-1-ebow/Fog.ogg

This is just one instrument: Electric bass guitar + EBow. And echo/delay on top. But it’s a single track, single take. It amazes me quite a bit how much you can do with that little thing. 🤯

https://movq.de/v/2496f8ba36/s.png
Made this a few weeks ago, just listened to it again and I quite like it:

https://www.uninformativ.de/music/2025-1-ebow/Fog.ogg

This is just one instrument: Electric bass guitar + EBow. And echo/delay on top. But it’s a single track, single take. It amazes me quite a bit how much you can do with that little thing. 🤯

https://movq.de/v/2496f8ba36/s.png
@dce I’ve never heard of weirdcore before, but it’s kind of intriguing. 😃
@dce I’ve never heard of weirdcore before, but it’s kind of intriguing. 😃
@dce The difference in brightness is pretty big. When the Moon is completely inside of the Earth’s shadow, you can see the red tint:

https://movq.de/v/7b4c323c0c/

As soon as direct sunlight returns, even just a little bit, the Moon looks mostly normal again.
@dce The difference in brightness is pretty big. When the Moon is completely inside of the Earth’s shadow, you can see the red tint:

https://movq.de/v/7b4c323c0c/

As soon as direct sunlight returns, even just a little bit, the Moon looks mostly normal again.
Yeah, it’s probably overkill. 🙈
Yeah, it’s probably overkill. 🙈
Oops, maybe I should have posted a reminder. 🥴

@dce By the time you posted your twt, the red phase was already over. 🙈 Stellarium has a pretty good simulation of the whole thing.
Oops, maybe I should have posted a reminder. 🥴

@dce By the time you posted your twt, the red phase was already over. 🙈 Stellarium has a pretty good simulation of the whole thing.
Lunar eclipse just now: https://movq.de/v/f377c108cb
Lunar eclipse just now: https://movq.de/v/f377c108cb
How about no longer using in-browser Git repo viewers? Make the AI bots do the work and actually clone the repo.
How about no longer using in-browser Git repo viewers? Make the AI bots do the work and actually clone the repo.
@lyse Nice! And I didn’t look out the window at all. Was watching eels. 😂
@lyse Nice! And I didn’t look out the window at all. Was watching eels. 😂
Well, that was fascinating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxNq8zOEbM8
Well, that was fascinating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxNq8zOEbM8
@bender The person actually reached out to me. It’s all good. ✌️
@bender The person actually reached out to me. It’s all good. ✌️
@dce Oof, that’s surprising. I wouldn’t have expected *that* to be so slow. 😳😳😳
@dce Oof, that’s surprising. I wouldn’t have expected *that* to be so slow. 😳😳😳
@lyse You might enjoy this one: https://github.com/TheMozg/awk-raycaster
@lyse You might enjoy this one: https://github.com/TheMozg/awk-raycaster
Dear dev.alessandrocutolo.it, do you really need to fetch my twtxt feed every 20-30 seconds? 😅 Not that it’s posing a problem, but I feel like this could be optimized. For example, how about using the if-modified-since request header: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/Headers/If-Modified-Since
Dear dev.alessandrocutolo.it, do you really need to fetch my twtxt feed every 20-30 seconds? 😅 Not that it’s posing a problem, but I feel like this could be optimized. For example, how about using the if-modified-since request header: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/Headers/If-Modified-Since
@lyse @dce It’s pretty cool, I won’t argue that, but also really simple, to be completely honest. 😅 The BIOS already provides all you need to send data to the printer:

https://helppc.netcore2k.net/interrupt/bios-printer-services

The BIOS actually does provide a great deal of things, which, to me, was one of the most surprising learnings of this project (the project of writing a little 16-bit real-mode OS, that is). It often doesn’t feel like I was writing an operating system – it felt more like writing a normal program that just uses BIOS calls like we would use syscalls these days.

(I’ve also read a lot of warnings, like “don’t use the BIOS for this or that”. Mostly because it tends to be very slow.)
@lyse @dce It’s pretty cool, I won’t argue that, but also really simple, to be completely honest. 😅 The BIOS already provides all you need to send data to the printer:

https://helppc.netcore2k.net/interrupt/bios-printer-services

The BIOS actually does provide a great deal of things, which, to me, was one of the most surprising learnings of this project (the project of writing a little 16-bit real-mode OS, that is). It often doesn’t feel like I was writing an operating system – it felt more like writing a normal program that just uses BIOS calls like we would use syscalls these days.

(I’ve also read a lot of warnings, like “don’t use the BIOS for this or that”. Mostly because it tends to be very slow.)
Good morning. Driving the dot matrix printer from my little real-mode toy OS. 🖨️

(This is just a wrapper around BIOS INT 17. I love it nonetheless. 😅)

https://movq.de/v/6b3f9a2837/MVI_8839.MOV.mp4
Good morning. Driving the dot matrix printer from my little real-mode toy OS. 🖨️

(This is just a wrapper around BIOS INT 17. I love it nonetheless. 😅)

https://movq.de/v/6b3f9a2837/MVI_8839.MOV.mp4
Speaking of clouds, yesterday evening: https://movq.de/v/bafe89fd66/p.jpg
Speaking of clouds, yesterday evening: https://movq.de/v/bafe89fd66/p.jpg
Right, now that I’m reading some comments: I was initially assuming that they would actually make it impossible for distros to provide a 32-bit build (intentionally or unintentionally). But maybe that’s not the case and distros can just continue to ship a 32-bit Firefox …
Right, now that I’m reading some comments: I was initially assuming that they would actually make it impossible for distros to provide a 32-bit build (intentionally or unintentionally). But maybe that’s not the case and distros can just continue to ship a 32-bit Firefox …
Is that really necessary? How hard is it to make a 32-bit build? 🤔 Honest question. https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2025/09/05/firefox-32-bit-linux-support-to-end-in-2026/
Is that really necessary? How hard is it to make a 32-bit build? 🤔 Honest question. https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2025/09/05/firefox-32-bit-linux-support-to-end-in-2026/
@dce Which Thinkpad specifically is this? “Late-2010s” doesn’t sound very old, to be honest, I wonder why OpenBSD is giving you so much trouble. 🤔
@dce Which Thinkpad specifically is this? “Late-2010s” doesn’t sound very old, to be honest, I wonder why OpenBSD is giving you so much trouble. 🤔