I feel like a complete rest from social media, so Happy Christmas and probably see you in 2026. Meanwhile, maybe see you on RSS.

Today we are calling on institutions around the world to take control of their #digitalsovereignty, including their social accounts. Governments should communicate directly with their citizens on open platforms, not through the mouthpiece of a corporation […]

[What kind of computer code is guaranteed to be bug free, contributes to technical debt, and cannot be covered by tests?] https://underlap.org/dead-code/

New blog post: Dead code https://underlap.org/dead-code/ #rust

RE: https://cosocial.ca/@timbray/115665765920606574 Testing!

Unix - BSD developers : this code should run and be maintained as long as computers exist. Linux - GNU dev : this code should run and be maintained as long as someone is willing to do the work Consultant: this code should run until the end of my contract. Enterprise grade B2B software : this […]

I would not have guessed this was possible! Vladan Majerech has found a one-dimensional spaceship in the Game of Life: a pattern just one cell high and 3,707,300,605 cells wide that, after 133,076,755,768 generations (during which it is not confined to the one-dimensional line, of course) […]

I wonder why @Codeberg is down. Another DDoS? Or is there a problem caused by yesterday's maintenance?

Reuse and return schemes could help eliminate plastic waste in 15 years – report https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/03/reuse-and-return-schemes-could-help-eliminate-plastic-waste-in-15-years-report

Report of investigation into the November 2025 Economic and fiscal outlook publication error https://obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/01122025-Investigation-into-November-2025-EFO-publication-error.pdf #obr #wordpress

Wife: Where did you hear that from? Your weirdos on Mastodon?

Rather than buy more unnecessary stuff, why not donate to the Restart Project or similar? https://www.getdrip.com/deliveries/9x6i8g88xckrht60mf0l #blackfriday #ReduceRepairReuseRecycle

Fun bumping into more ex-colleagues here: @dmikusa @starbuxman

Since retiring, I've developed a severe allergic reaction to Docker. I recommend it (the allergy, that is). ;-) #docker

Another application of editorconfig.org: https://github.com/ai-robots-txt/ai.robots.txt/pull/199

[UK budget] Some details of today's UK budget appear to have been briefed, but I fail to understand the rationale for: * Pay per mile for EVs - surely this will slow any green transition? * No (increase in?) duty on aviation fuel - why on earth not tax this toxic form of transport? #ukbudget

I am concerned about Russian interference in UK domestic politics and have signed this #petition asking for a public enquiry. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/744215

I've been wanting to play music from Qobuz on my c. 1984 Technics stereo and wondered about using some kind of Bluetooth receiver. The other day I found an old headphone jack to RCA cable in my random cable collection. I can now play Qobuz from a laptop to the aux input on the Technics amp […]

I thought I'd write up some tips and see what others do. Clues by Sam: case analysis https://underlap.org/clues-by-sam-case-analysis/ #cluesbysam

https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/18/im-not-bad/#im-just-drawn-that-way describes copyright Termination of Transfer and how https://rightsback.org/ helps with terminating transfer. I wonder if software developers might be tempted to terminate the transfer of copyright of some of their code after […]

Changed my GitHub profile bio to: "I prefer Codeberg to GitHub these days because of the latter's AI infestation." #codeberg #github

The weird thing about the #genai bubble is that everyone who's even moderately well-informed knows perfectly well that it's a bubble. I read quite a bit of finance journalism and skepticism/cynicism dominate there. In that respect it’s more like 2008 than 2000. Like they say, “the market can […]

'[The BBC] should send Donald Trump a four-word reply to his blustering threat to sue the corporation in Florida for $1bn in damages: “See you in court.”' https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/bbc-news/71564/four-word-message-bbc-should-send-trump-about-1bn-lawsuit

Just drew a diagram to help me understand some of the complications of a piece of code I'm trying to design (constructing SubReceiverSets from IpcReceiverSets, for anyone who has been following along in my blog). Thank goodness for graphviz - so much neater than my hand-drawn attempt.

[UK politics] Fascinating stats about those who intend to vote for Reform UK: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/13/who-votes-for-reform-and-why-charts-that-show-who-supports-farage-party Analysis […]

After bumping into a fun interview with Linus Torvalds on 20 years of git (https://youtu.be/sCr_gb8rdEI) I took a look at the first commit of git: https://github.com/git/git/commit/e83c5163316f89bfbde7d9ab23ca2e25604af290. Nice to see small beginnings for such a successful project. Some of […]

I need to compile a bullet list of "bad things" about Meta. An elevator pitch for people who unlike most Mastodon people never much thought about this, but have a vague feeling of discomfort about big tech. Hit me! #meta #bigtech #consciouschoice #digitalrights

In which, on the occasion of my 3-year migration anniversary and the release of Mastodon 4.5, I assemble all my arguments as to why Mastodon is great and why anyone else on a service that’s becoming less fun/safe/useful should migrate to Mastodon and do it now, in late 2025 […]

[UK legal question] Would it be legal for a foreigner to sue the BBC? #bbc

Brilliant new ad campaign I just spotted at the Southwark tube station in London.

This is an important, eloquent piece by @aphyr - worth a boost I’d say: https://aphyr.com/posts/397-i-want-you-to-understand-chicago

If you don't know what `ajkl;gawgor;iqeg;iJLkqen. wl;R aw;oeiga 4648664 arjarwgj;llj;ja fadgfgajkljl; wlj;sdjk;lfas` does in the terminal, you're clearly a beginner. https://anniemueller.com/posts/how-i-a-non-developer-read-the-tutorial-you-a-developer-wrote-for-me-a-beginner h/t @robb

Nice try.

At long last my Fairphone 4 was provided with an upgrade to Android 15. Congratulations to the @Fairphone team for getting this over the line! So far, the differences seem innocuous and I haven't noticed any obvious usability problems, which I guess is quite some achievement in this day and […]

@hadleywickham this continues to bug me... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFE86rbBPw8&t=1120s (x + 0) * (y + 0) WHYYYYYYY?

New blog post in which I discuss a new crate and when it could benefit Servo: IPC channel multiplexer https://underlap.org/ipc-channel-multiplexer/ #servo #rust

A Very Early History of Algebraic Data Types https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/algdt-history/

Added the excellent pagefind search to my blog. Thanks for unearthing it @timbray! https://underlap.org/search/ #11ty #Pagefind

Dear Donald Trump, here’s how you can win that Nobel peace prize https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/29/donald-trump-israel-gaza-nobel-peace-prize

Kudos to the developers of https://github.com/newren/git-filter-repo tl;dr It's like git filter-branch on steroids minus the bugs #git

[UK politics] I rarely agree with Polly Toynbee, but she nails the truth in this article: Yes, Keir Starmer is Britain’s most unpopular PM ever. That could liberate him […]

Who came up with #theepsteinballroom? Genius.

This is spot on. Moving house – time to think inside the box: the Edith Pritchett cartoon https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/picture/2025/oct/25/moving-house-the-edith-pritchett-cartoon Having lived in the same house for 30+ years, I can attest to jars of spices which lurk for *decades* […]

Interesting panel discussion. The Nerve roundtable: How can culture fight back in a turbulent world? https://www.thenerve.news/p/roundtable-culture-arts-indepedndent-media-gb-news-stewart-lee-carol-vorderman #thenerve

Adrian Colyer has reinstated his lovely blog "the morning paper" in which he summarised interesting CompSci papers. I don't think he's going to be adding to it, but there's plenty of interesting stuff already there. https://blog.acolyer.org/ One of my favourites […]

Ten Pointless Facts About Me: https://opinion.underlap.org/useless-facts/

Hacker gets annoyed at Amazon’s Kindle apps, reverse-engineers the Kindle web reader’s protocol (which basically sends each page as a set of glyphs in a deliberately broken variant of SVG). Such obscurity, much security. https://blog.pixelmelt.dev/kindle-web-drm/

I admire everyone taking part in #nokings today. Power to the people.

Qobuz shipped a new Android version yesterday and it seems to be causing playback to halt randomly. Why ship an update on a Friday? I guess that's down to the Play Store.