• Why I personally loathe working with Microsoft Windows

    Posted in Developing Software on Nov 08, 2021

    My computer just crashed itself, according to Microsoft policy, right while I was working on it. I'm up at 1:00 a.m. working on a project with a complex enough work environment that it takes an hour just to get the work environment fully functional. I have over two dozen tabs open in my browser, I'm connected to numerous secure endpoints, all of which require separate two-factor identification, as well as a transient layer of browser tabs which I'm opening and closing regularly while researching topics. I voraciously move all over the Internet when in this mode. I have multiple editors open, m...

  • Moving from binary to ternary is harder than from ternary to binary

    Posted in Mathy Stuff, Phlosphy Stuff, Postinfinity Tergiversation on Oct 01, 2021

    Moving from binary to ternary is harder than from ternary to binary. Today I suddenly realized this, and was delighted because it solves one of the deeper "why" questions on the prevalence of binary logic, which is everywhere, in everything you see, think, feel, know, and do. We are deeply embedded in it, which I have written about many times, so I won't go into that much now. Today's insight is more in the direction of moving out of the binary world, than figuring it out and seeing it for what it is. The insight came as I was thinking about "shortcuts" and specifically about an observation I ...

  • Gandi catchall email addresses, only 676 items this time

    Posted in Developing Software, Everything on Sep 17, 2021

    I was pleased to find this blog entry with a handy list of all the shortcut aliases you'd ever need for gandi's webmail approach. It also has a nice explanation of the issue, but as I will never use an email starting with a number, I was able to half the list. Here it is, 676 items, which is 26x26, by the way.

    aa*
ab*
ac*
ad*
ae*
af*
ag*
ah*
ai*
aj*
ak*
al*
am*
an*
ao*
ap*
aq*
ar*
as*
at*
au*
av*
aw*
ax*
ay*
az*
ba*
bb*
bc*
bd*
be*
bf*
bg*
bh*
bi*
bj*
bk*
bl*
bm*
bn*
bo*
bp*
bq*
br*
bs*
bt*
bu*
bv*
bw*
bx*
by*
bz*
ca*
cb*
cc*
cd*
ce*
cf*
cg*
ch*
ci*
cj*
ck*
cl*
cm*
cn*
co*
cp*
cq*
cr*
cs*
ct*
...

  • Chroot sftp-only SSH user into home folder safely in Ubuntu

    Posted in Developing Software on Sep 16, 2021

    This seemingly-useful link on askubuntu did not work as I wanted, and neither did a few other similar sites. Trying to make it easy for the end user took longer than the 5 minutes I had available, so I'm posting the correct way to do it here for future use. The key missing ingredient was provided in a comment to the accepted answer in the askubuntu link:

    you could then "move" the user to the writable directory after login by using ForceCommand internal-sftp -d /writable in /etc/ssh/sshd_config. They would still be able to browse back up to the read-only chroot dir though.

    So here is the corr...

  • The legend of the unicorn started with the rhinocerous

    Posted in Everything on Sep 10, 2021

    Long ago I was puzzled at references to unicorns in the Bible, and after thinking about it for a while, decided that the descriptions that accompanied unicorns -- a massive, powerful creature that was shaped like a bull and associated with the tribe of Ephraim -- made more sense applied to the rhinocerous. I held this as a private theory for years, and occasionally saw vague references that confirmed my hunch.

    I decided that the unicorn and the lion, symbols long associated with Great Britain, showing prominently on flags and other references to the Crown, were not only references to Scotland ...

  • Pterodactyl "logged out due to Outdated server" with Nukkit

    Posted in Developing Software on Aug 26, 2021

    You tried to connect to your own Nukkit server running on Pteradactyl. However, it failed quickly and you got this message: "logged out due to Outdated server." You look in the logs for more information, and that's all the logs show, also: "logged out due to Outdated server." So you search online to see if there are instructions for how to fix this. Nothing. Nada. Maybe that's how you get to this page? If so, you're in luck, the fix is pretty straightforward.

    Your client is at the latest version, but the server is no longer the latest. How do you get the latest server? You compile it yourself...

  • The Ordinary Guy

    Posted in Everything, Phlosphy Stuff on Aug 19, 2021

    Script idea for an ordinary movie

    The Ordinary Guy is a fairly simple idea to convey, but it will require a good-sized book or a full movie to do it right. Maybe even a whole season of episodes, each episode focusing on one of the Ordinary Guy's amazing feats, which, because he's ordinary, he doesn't realize he's doing.

    I've thought about this idea for years. I've usually imagined it in the form of a movie, so that's how I'll describe it. Recently when I was talking about this with someone, a new insight came up. It was embedded there all along, but this new detail is a key that takes it from ...

  • All fractions are one fraction

    Posted in Developing Software, Postinfinity Tergiversation on Aug 09, 2021

    [This is stream-of-consciousness, written as the epiphany unfolded, so prepare yourself for a wild ride.] All fractions are the fraction 1/2, iterated with different, shall we say, flavors, in keeping with the concept of Linux distro flavors, which are all different, yet, the same. This insight arises from a long-held belief that had no words until I read moments ago [approx 5:30am] in an article about Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics "Wittgenstein discusses the claim that fractions cannot be ordered by magnitude." I paused briefly, having never considered the idea in that form before,...

  • Got the Black Screen within Gnome in a new FreeBSD on VirtualBox?

    Posted in Developing Software on Aug 06, 2021

    I found a fix for that here.

    I wrote about it here:

    Configuration for FreeBSD inside VirtualBox with Gnome3, sudo, nano, and bash, including avoiding the black screen

    Here's the TL;DR answer in a screenshot:

  • Configuration for FreeBSD inside VirtualBox with Gnome3, sudo, nano, and bash, including avoiding the black screen

    Posted in Developing Software on Aug 06, 2021

    Coming into FreeBSD anew from the Linux world. I'm happy with it as a server, no changes needed. I like the much-more-secure ambiance. But now experimenting with it as a desktop, I've already decided I like sudo, bash, and nano better than su, sh, and ee. And I want Gnome.

    At this point, I've installed it a dozen times (several times on bare metal laptop that did not have the correct hardware for displays to work) and only finally got it working in VirtualBox by installing FreeBSD 12 and tweaking the display settings in an unexpected manner.

    (Gnome in 13 on VirtualBox has not yet worked for m...