Murder on the Orient Express but it is 1970's Bell Labs with Brian Kernighan trying to solve the mysterious death of a visiting scholar at the hands of one of the luminaries of computer science.

"We want our code to be comprehensible because that is the first step on the way to maintainability." -Bjarne Stroustrup, a man who has both been there and done that in the world of programming. Also, lolsob.

My latest at @comicsjournal.bsky.social: I talked to @oglaf.bsky.social! Not the character, but rather, the people who create it. They don't do many interviews, so this was a real treat. They're funny people! Turns out they're not super private, just...really bad at PR? www.tcj.com/talking-ogla...

LOLWUT I mean, sure my search is insane (yes, someone wrote a converter to translate markdown to troff), but what the heck does Elon and whatever OS he may claim to use has anything to do with it? 🤷🏻‍♂️

Searching for C++ on this site returns far more porn than I would have thought. And precisely no C++.

I got the snowblower to start. So pardon me while I strut around my suburban abode feeling needlessly masculine.

What's a movie you never tire of?

That was 18 minutes of my life well spent.

I had to edit a response in a ticket from "What the fuck ARE you looking for" to "What exactly are you looking for that the Class List isn't providing" because I'm a goddamn professional.

My big challenge in learning new programming languages is discovering the really cool things any language does instead of my focusing on the fact that it isn't C. For much the same reasons I don't eat lasagna when I'm out because I will always prefer my wife's recipe.

The discussions about old vs new approaches to fantasy races/species has made me think of non-evil mindflayers. Just think how awesome an illithid psychiatrist would be. Repressed trauma? No problem. It can find out and help you.

Holy hell. There's an article in the thread that explains the three-cueing thing. And it explains a lot of what I have seen with people, especially those who don't like to read.

"Don't scold people who are trying to help" yeah the thing is, if you're trying to help me push my car out of the mud by standing on the shoulder telling me you know better than to run off the road and also my car pollutes the air, I am not obligated to thank you for your assistance.

PSA: tips to protect yourself from scams on Signal. Every major comms platform has to contend w phishing, impersonation, & scams. Sadly. Signal is major, and as we've grown we've heard about more of these attacks--scammy people pretending to be something or someone to trick and abuse others. 1/

Get to know your mutuals, list 10 random things you like 🥰 💖 Reading 💖 Writing 💖 Woodworking 💖 Bureaucracy 💖 History 💖 Programming 💖 Homemade electronic gizmos 💖 Appreciating art of all sorts 💖 Prog Rock 💖 Philosophy

This archived Twitter thread from Feb 2020 feels especially relevant. Women move through the world knowing that you can name a field of endeavor—any field of endeavor—and a few of the Great Men in it, & you'll find rapists. And that we are required to make some kind of peace with that knowledge.

Starting @tkingfisher.com's Nettle & Bone. She uses the phrase "trick of the light". My brain immediately bursts into a Mike Oldfield guitar riff. *sigh* Maybe I should get some sleep. Obviously I'm having difficulties concentrating.

I'm loving how wildly inaccurate Apple's screen time is.

Maybe the president can ask the Pope to move him to another parish.

I read this over the summer. She's a great writer.

The whole Epstein thing has been an exercise in watching politicians and billionaires trying to sweep the elephant in the room under the rug.

Much as I think OpenAI is one the most corrupt things on this good planet of ours, I have to admit I'm almost tempted to spin up a version of Legend sans Jack. Fortunately he's barely in the movie, really.

I switched off of playing D&D some time ago. The last version I played was 3. I found dozens of other cool games that didn't have the problems D&D had, and found wonderful worlds of nuance with how the systems worked which delighted me. And yes, the racism/sexism was part of that move.

I hit several of these. And I am very married, so sample size aside, this is absolutely true.

you ever get so mad you write a python script about it

I just had one of those weird moments where my mind struggled to rectify what the actor said with what one of his characters would know. Just a moment, though, like a flash of deja vu.

"Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?" That line has haunted me since my father first played that song for me. He was a big Gordon Lightfoot fan.

trust is neither given nor earned. it forms naturally between people who share the experience of having listened to Skinny Puppy at or after 3 am in the dark by themselves

Pardon me while I go mildly crazy with excitement.

I would have studied harder in evil wizard school if that was an option after graduation.

Ooooh. That IS a sexy book. I should put it up on the shelf with my Gene Wolfe books, who, coincidentally, has sent me to the dictionary more than any other author.

Body language is very important in helping understand what your Canadian friends are saying sometimes. Which reminds me, it is getting about time to head over the border for snacks. Though Wegmans has started carrying all dressed chips so the urgency level is lower than usual.

Well, I have a new group noun: "An capitulation of Democrats."

A liar's promise is worth nothing.

Book #44 - Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis (@caitlinrozakis.bsky.social) I'm not entirely sure why this is classified as cozy, but I'm still getting to know the genre. For me this was a wonderful fantasy comedy about evil wizards, imposter syndrome, and how we get to choose who we are.

Nothing is more ridiculous to me than these guys dealing with the guilt of being bad people by blaming their rotten personalities on their testosterone. Well, other than perhaps the categorization system they have for men. Honestly, it is all pathetic and weak. They lack self control.

First flakes

lol she got his ass and he knows it

Sorry, I had to bring some The Prisoner in here. (Thanks @foone.bsky.social!)

Me flirting.

Is it true that medieval people never bathed? Medievalist Larisa breaks this idea down.

After no small amount of poking and prodding ay archive.org I found the secondary source I was looking for and the exact quote in translation. Not so much luck on finding a copy of the original even though I have the author, title, and year. You'd think there would be a big book of his writings.

I'm trying to pull up a favorite Machiavelli quote and I am running into a problem in the shape of every search engine being completely unaware that Machiavelli existed outside of The Prince. Dude was well published, but if it isn't on a quotes page, Google is unaware of its existence.

I will add: People who expected this teacher to be bummed do not know (good) teachers very well. A civics teacher? With a student who wants to run for office? That’s probably bliss.

"loss of our own dick was not in our projections while pulling the 'shoot off your own dick' lever"

Two young mathematicians just broke a 330-year-old geometry riddle. Jakob Steininger, 30, and Sergey Yurkevich, 29, friends since maths-Olympiad days, have discovered the first known shape that can’t pass through a copy of itself. buff.ly/0SgvjZ1 #ShareGoodNewsToo

Most of the games we've published in the last 10 years (ie Monster of the Week, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Blades in the Dark) either use the Powered by the Apocalypse engine or are hugely influenced by it. Happy to back this latest incarnation from the Bakers. Strongly recommend you check it out:

Book #45 - The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst (@sarahbethdurst.bsky.social) Having dipped my toe into the world of Cozy fantasy this one was recommended by a small army of friends, so I had to give it a whirl. I enjoyed it a lot, and have a much better understanding of the genre.