Adrian Cochrane @alcinnz@floss.social

@doctormo you may be able to do this graphically if you prefer https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.github.robertsanseries.ciano

I've had to write a bash script to convert webm to gif because ubuntu and gnome have decided that animated gifs are dead. Damn you screenshot utility!

Meanwhile, experiences in cars have taught me that I’m not psychologically resilient enough to put up with traffic or the lack of fresh air. I couldn’t not bike; I feel like all my other transport options are worse.

@alcinnz I feel like this as well.

if you're not gonna document it properly,

don't publish software

It’s 2022 and Gmail and all of Google Workspace doesn’t support system-wide dark style on the web even though Google’s own Chrome browser, ChromeOS, Android, and first-party Android apps—not to mention Windows, macOS, and even Linux—all support this feature in a standardized way.

@lxo Unfortunately p2p systems have their own challenges. Namely: findability and availability. Solving both of those reliably usually entails centralised servers of some type (eg., for signaling, fallback, etc.) So the idea behind a small web architecture is: if we will likely need servers for the foreseeable future, why not make it so that everyone has their own. So you’re topologically decentralising that aspect. And it also simplifies a huge amount of stuff all across the stack.

Reply to I have the freedom to set the terms on which I will offer access to a website of mine by James Bennet

The Web is not built around advance informed consent; there’s no agreement to terms before downloading a public file (besides basic protocol negotiations). This is one reason why “by using this site, you agree to our cookies, privacy policy, kidney harvesting, etc” notices won’t fly under the GDPR.

A website admin can’t set terms for downloading a linked document; the user-agent just makes a request and the server works with that data to deny or accept it. There’s no obligation for the UA to be honest or accurate.

Ultimately, nobody is forcing you to run a Web server; however, plenty of people have to use the Web. Respect for the UA is part of the agreement you make when joining a UA-centric network.

Should you disagree with the precedent set by the HTML Living Standard, nearly every Web Accessibility Initiative standard (users must be able to override and replace stylesheets, colors, distracting elements), the exceptions to e.g. the Content Security Policy in Webappsec standards to allow UA-initiated script injection, etc.: you’re always free to build your own alternative to the Web with your own server-centric standards.

POSSE note from https://seirdy.one/notes/2022/08/12/user-agents-set-the-terms/

This little Prolog from 1983 has one nice thing I haven't seen in many other Prologs: a nice (and yet extremely obvious) way of representing variables. So many Prologs try to get too clever and do terrible hacks to strings (like actual Prolog's upper-case, yikes) instead.

(// foo)

http://t3x.org/lisp64k/logic.html

The way it handles results (by printing text) is terribly wrong for a Lisp, of course (but wrong in a way that's depressingly standard for Prologs). It should be an S-expression that's returned, shouldn't it? Even better, it should be an S-expression representing a *Prolog predicate*.

But the idea of "returning a result" is where Lisp and Prolog coexist uncomfortably together. Normally Prolog isn't about "results" but about "assertions" and "queries" which are different, and just sort of float in a big soup (the "database") that isn't an expression. I think a Prolog should be expression-based, and unification/proving should be transformations of expressions.

Kanren *sort of* is but still, in a clunky way, that doesn't quite feel native.

What I think a "Prolog expression" should be, is an S-expression that:

* represents a Prolog predicate/assertion
* combines an "answer" (or set of answers) with an "evaluation state" for further answers. That state might be a Lisp function (as in Kanren) but it also might be something different again.
* the "answer" part of the expression also should include any necessary variable mappings in it.

(and by variables I mean "unknowns", ie something like (// 1234) rather than (// x) )

Just added to the Blogroll: Seirdy’s Home https://seirdy.one

I write about and develop software to promote user autonomy. Topics include accessibility, privacy, security, software freedom, and search engines.

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