iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Elizabeth Gibney @lizziegibney.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

There will be metrologists partying in Paris tonight 🕺🧪 I've been following this for more than a decade and know how hard they've campaigned to make it happen. Sad day for me though, as no more reporting on the leap second. So long my pesky friend!

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stderr @stderr.dk · 15/10/2026

Tonight we're gonna party like it 23:59:60!

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Free Software Foundation @fsf.org · 13/10/2026

Without Ada Lovelace, widely recognized as the first computer programmer, we might not have #FreeSoftware today. Thank you for your contributions, Ada! #AdaLovelaceDay #FSF

color woodcut-style portrait of Ada Lovelace by dullhunk

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Sarah Drasner @sarahedo.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Let's talk a little more about Margaret Hamilton because she deserves it In 1961, Margaret Hamilton was tackling massive systems, having previously wrangled room-sized computers that blared like a foghorn whenever they crashed.

The famous photo of Margaret with the code she wrote to put a man on the moon

The lego set of Margaret Hamilton my daughters gave me

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The C Programming Language @c-official.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

In C23 variables have pronouns and misgendering is undefined behavior. And no you can't just always use they, smartass. It literally won't compile

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stderr @stderr.dk · 11/10/2026

To whom it may concern @merriam-webster.com Can I suggest a new phrase? cait video [noun] [plural] cait videos : AI slop video featuring one or more cats (i.e. cAIts). Examples of "cait video" in a sentence: Your cait video is the worst waste of water I have ever seen. Say no to cait videos.

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stderr @stderr.dk · 09/10/2026

Finally some good news!

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bryan newbold @bnewbold.net · 07/10/2026

ah damn, RIP Margaret Hamilton. she took safety-critical software engineering seriously, and got people to the moon and back. news.mit.edu/2026/margare...

old photos of a woman (Margaret Hamilton) standing next to a tall stack of books (printouts of Apollo space mission software source code)

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stderr @stderr.dk · 02/10/2026

*Duran Duran starts playing in the background* No-no-Notorious...

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stderr @stderr.dk · 02/10/2026

I read it in Beth Grant's voice. Or should I say Kitty Farmer?

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stderr @stderr.dk · 25/09/2026

Can't go pee on company^Wstate time either.

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stderr @stderr.dk · 24/09/2026

What is this "sleep", you're all talking about? Please tell me more. It sounds interesting.

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stderr @stderr.dk · 24/09/2026

Finally I'm a 1%'er!

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stderr @stderr.dk · 24/09/2026

age_in_seconds_since_epoch % 2

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stderr @stderr.dk · 22/09/2026

I can not accept any more followers at this time. Sorry for the inconvenience. I hope you'll understand.

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stderr @stderr.dk · 19/09/2026

Does anyone here have two or more #WesternDigital #WD8005FRYZ disks? I got 3 disks where the serial number starts with AM23 and 1 where the serial number starts with AN0S. The last one is much slower (5+%) than the other three and I would like to know, if others are seeing the same problem as me.

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stderr @stderr.dk · 19/09/2026

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stderr @stderr.dk · 19/09/2026

Just to show how much 5+% is... Ordered by fastest drive to slowest drive, I get: A 0.125% increase from number 1 to 2. A 0.544% increase from number 2 to 3. A 5.314% increase from number 3 to 4. I don't really care about a 0.125% or 0.544% increase. I do care a lot about a 5.314% increase.

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stderr @stderr.dk · 19/09/2026

I was going to use the 4 drives in a RAID-6, which means that each write to a data block will change the P and Q syndromes for the given stripe, i.e. each write to the RAID will involve 3 drives. With 4 drives in the RAID, that's a 75% risk of hitting the slow drive when writing.

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stderr @stderr.dk · 19/09/2026

Too bad. I hear some people are willing to pay for Fete pics.

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stderr @stderr.dk · 15/09/2026

"AI actor Tilly Norwood doesn’t need sleep, a living wage or a say in its roles" It also doesn't need to be "interviewed". It's not real. You might as well "interview" a spreadsheet. This is PR from Xicoia and Particle6 Group thinly disguised as news. STOP IT!

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stderr @stderr.dk · 11/09/2026

I don't know about that. What about Debian release names?

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stderr @stderr.dk · 10/09/2026

Next on CNN: In an exclusive interview, Elizabeth Wagmeister asks a Magic 8 Ball about Tilly Norwood's chances of winning an Oscar.

static.klipy.com

Magic Eight Ball: Don't Count On It

Alt: Magic Eight Ball: Don't Count On It

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to wound the autumnal kitty @blurry-line.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

A megaphone is 10¹² times the size of a microphone

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stderr @stderr.dk · 03/09/2026

Sounds a bit like Futurama where, instead of moving the Planet Express ship faster than the speed of light, they "just" use the dark matter engines to move the rest of the universe in the opposite direction.

static.klipy.com

Fry's Skeptical Squint

Alt: Fry's Skeptical Squint

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Freya Holmér @freya.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

there's a pretty simple connection here 1. humans become good at what they practice doing 2. outsourcing to an AI or even other people, means you have stopped doing the thing 3. if you stop doing the thing, you will stop improving, and, long term, get worse at it (cont.)

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stderr @stderr.dk · 31/08/2026

To make it easier for school children (and me) to remember the names of all 50 states, they are now called "State 1" to "State 52". There are no "State 44" or "State 46". Don't ask about it. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

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stderr @stderr.dk · 31/08/2026

Hey Clankers. Solve the halting problem. Don't make any mistakes. Don't give any output until you're completely done.

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Brian Honan @brianhonan.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Happy Skynet day to all those who celebrate

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stderr @stderr.dk · 28/08/2026

Hey @tracketpacer.com . I didn't see my boss yesterday, but today he visited my office and I got a chance to ask him about hiring you. I'm sorry to say that he unfortunately doesn't think we can justify hiring more "networking people" at the moment. 😞 I hope you find a great job soon. Good luck.

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stderr @stderr.dk · 27/08/2026

No, sorry, that's not me.

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stderr @stderr.dk · 27/08/2026

It's always DNS^Wus-east-1...

Modified XKCD cartoon about "All modern digital infrastructure" resting on "AWS us-east-1".

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stderr @stderr.dk · 27/08/2026

I'm glad you liked it. I must say however that I'm not sure if you got the right "stderr". There's a quite a number of us, it seems. If you're sure you got the right one, can you (without doxxxing any of us) give me a hint about how I know you?

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stderr @stderr.dk · 27/08/2026

WTF, @wsj.com ?! This is libel! That marmot was with me the whole time serving soup at the local homeless shelter!

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stderr @stderr.dk · 26/08/2026

I'll try to remember checking at work tomorrow.

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stderr @stderr.dk · 26/08/2026

What about relocation? To Denmark, if it matters.

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stderr @stderr.dk · 26/08/2026

Touched by his noodly appendage. RAmen!

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stderr @stderr.dk · 26/08/2026

And 0.999999940395355224609375 is stored as sign = 0 ((-1)^0 == 1), exponent = 01111110 (2^-1 == 1/2), mantissa = 11111111111111111111111 (1 + 8388607/8388608 == just under 2).

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stderr @stderr.dk · 26/08/2026

The exponent has to be multiplied by (-1)^sign * (1 + mantissa/(2^23)) to get the actual value of the float. For example 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000117549435 is stored as sign = 0 ((-1)^0 = 1), exponent = 00000001 (2^-126), mantissa = 00000000000000000000000 (1 + 0/8388608 == 1).

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stderr @stderr.dk · 26/08/2026

I'm not sure what you mean by "bits 3-8 are the 0-1 exponent range". For 0 < x < 1, the 8 exponent bits, as stored in the float, has a value between 00000001 (1) and 01111110 (126) (with the exponent bias), which translates to an exponent between 2^(1-127) = 2 ^ -126 and 2^(126-127) = 2 ^ -1.

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stderr @stderr.dk · 26/08/2026

Can you use fixed point numbers instead?

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stderr @stderr.dk · 26/08/2026

If you can live with "uniform distribution" in a range from 2^n <= x < 2^(n+1), the problem is much easier. Set the sign bit to 0, the exponent to 127 - n, and the mantissa to the 23 most-significant bits of your 32-bit unsigned int. Unfortunately, that is, of course, very rarely what we want...

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stderr @stderr.dk · 26/08/2026

And that's breaks the "uniform distribution". While the ranges gets smaller and smaller the close the numbers gets to zero, the count of numbers in each range stays the same, 2^23, so the distance between numbers in a range has to become smaller (halved) as we move to a range closer to zero.

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stderr @stderr.dk · 26/08/2026

And likewise for numbers less than 1: 2^23 equally distance numbers in 1/2 <= x < 1 2^23 equally distance numbers in 1/4 <= x < 1/2 2^23 equally distance numbers in 1/8 <= x < 1/4 etc.

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