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CursedSilicon

975 karma · joined September 2, 2024

Linux Sysadmin with a penchant for old and arcane computer things.

The best place to reach me is via Mastodon, https://social.treehouse.systems/@CursedSilicon

My public resume is available here https://cursedsilicon.net/resume.pdf

Please contact me via Mastodon if interested

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CursedSilicon··on OpenRA
Would be nice if they finished Tiberian Sun/Red Alert 2 support.

I only complain because I put in over $1,000 USD as part of a crowd funding campaign to do just that

...13 years ago :(

CursedSilicon··on OpenRA
EA showed they had Red Alert 2 tapes in the archive when they did the C&C Remaster stuff back in 2018-2020

The Mental Omega folks are also known to have a complete archive of everything which is why their "mod" is such a technical achievement above what the game engine can normally do

CursedSilicon··on A human postmortem of the 1996 AOL outage
History is important and interesting to some of us. Just because it's not a direct 1:1 mapping of computer problems today doesn't make it any less intellectually stimulating to read about
CursedSilicon··on OS9Map
Huh. I thought it was 1.67 for some reason. My mistake!

I actually bought one a year or so ago from your eBay store though, looking at my records! Have recommended to retro friends in the Seattle area, too

CursedSilicon··on OS9Map
You can get a 1.67Ghz G4 Mac Mini on eBay with OS 9 preinstalled. It's wicked fast (especially with an IDE SSD adapter)

There's faster single thread accelerator cards that were made for a while by a guy on the 68kMLA forums, but that was many years ago. I think Action Retro on YouTube has one that broke 2Ghz

CursedSilicon··on OS9Map
As a retro enthusiast, these projects are all absolutely delightful!

I need to get a GPU for my MDD G4 and then I'd love to try them out on real metal

CursedSilicon··on Nearly half of LG smart TV apps contain residential proxy SDKs
To parody the Arthur quote [1]

Do you really think somebody would do that? Just go write apps for the love of programming and not to make money?

[1] https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRGIV3u...

CursedSilicon··on Rent collections are down in New York
I mean, Elmo's SpaceX is busy lying about being "In Redmond" too (they're in Redmond Ridge, a significantly more rural area about 6 miles away)
CursedSilicon··on Rent collections are down in New York
Anecdotes aren't usually admissible as evidence, is the thing
CursedSilicon··on Rent collections are down in New York
Because every human being needs shelter?
CursedSilicon··on Rent collections are down in New York
As someone who also lives in Seattle, I'd be curious to see any verifiable citations to such a wild claim
CursedSilicon··on PowerFox Browser
This seems rather painfully irrelevant to the topic at hand and a pretty shameless plug
CursedSilicon··on PowerFox Browser
Wonderful timing. I just set up an old Mac Pro with Snow Leopard and Vista [1] for retro software compatibility testing.

I might download and give this a shot

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiZR3UFaWuU

CursedSilicon··on Google Hits 50% IPv6
A single extra provider does not mean a monopoly is "broken". Especially if they aren't even competing in the same niches
CursedSilicon··on H.R. 6028 would fundamentally change the U.S. Copyright Office
If those people want to treat political parties like sports teams then they aren't likely going to contribute much to the discussion
CursedSilicon··on If you are asking for human attention, demonstrate human effort
A teammate that can't write (or at least, can't explain) "their own code"

Actively drags down the morale and productivity of their team (because everyone is getting flooded with AI slop PR's)

AND costs far too much money relative to everyone else doing actual work? (token usage)

By god they sound like management material

CursedSilicon··on Why SpaceX 2040 Revenue FCST $4.3T in highly unlikely
Tesla build quality? Early Chinese EV's were a joke, but Tesla's aren't exactly built reliably either

Once you learn how to spot their misaligned panels it becomes impossible not to

CursedSilicon··on Major P2P issues in Israel and possibly other Middle East countries
Why aren't the customers going to Epic Game Store? It's the PC, after all. It's explicitly not a walled garden
CursedSilicon··on Major P2P issues in Israel and possibly other Middle East countries
I'd question the idea that they treat developers poorly. Epic Games Store exists and Famously beats Steam (and others) over the head by charging only a 12% fee

Hell, they even buy timed exclusive access to certain games

And yet. Steam persists

CursedSilicon··on OpenRCT2 v0.5.1 "Swamp Castle" released Last version to support Windows 7
I remember when the Dolphin emulator dropped Windows 7 a few years ago. The absolute consternation, whining and even threats(!) against the developers was utterly sickening

Even as someone who enjoys "retro tech" far more than anything modern anymore, I'm hardly going to berate people to bend over backwards to keep supporting my ancient systems with modern software.

If someone wants to backport newer software as a hobby (such as Cameron Kaiser with TenFourFox, and the many downstream derivatives that spawned over the years) it's a welcome delight. But it should never be an "obligation"

CursedSilicon··on Rsync 3.4.3 has hundreds of Claude commits
Could one not simply look at the github to verify it with their own eyes? One of git's defining features is every commit being accountable
CursedSilicon··on Rsync 3.4.3 has hundreds of Claude commits
I saw an exceptionally long and thoughtful post on Mastodon from "Space Hobo" https://teh.entar.net/@spacehobo that definitely deserves reprinting here

-----

I actually worked at the same place as Andrew Tridgell, over a quarter-century ago. I got to know a few of the OzLabs folks during their immediate post-IBM years, and always had the highest respect for them in that way where you feel acute impostor syndrome when they're in the room.

Tridge almost walked backwards into implementing the Windows SMB protocol (he was just debugging some funny NetBIOS extensions IIRC). But his paper on the #rsync algorithm was groundbreaking, and actually writing the tool to implement it was brilliant. It's become one of those tools like #curl that just forms one of the major structural supports of the modern Internet. I still remember the day that the SSH transport became the default, and I remember being able to thank him in person when he came to the San Francisco office (although IIRC by that point he'd handed control of rsync over to mbp).

I remember at my next job he came to a summit of folks working on print driver/spooler software. When he pointed out that some problems were effectively a cache-consistency algorithm, we all kind of put our fingers to our temples and said "Oh wow, you're SO right!" He was always insightful and sharp, while being gentle and approachable.

I write in the past tense because I haven't crossed paths with him in two decades, and only know what I see him put out. A friend of mine in Australia noted that he hasn't posted to the Canberra LUG list since 2020, thanking someone for congratulating him on receiving the Medal of the Order of Australia. He's very much alive, but from what little I see I grow concerned for him.

In 2024 he took over maintenance of rsync once more. The 3.3.0 release was the last one from the previous maintainer, and Tridge is currently working on 3.4.x releases.

Well... Tridge and #Claude, it seems: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@JeremiahFieldhaven/116654345...

The issue tracker for rsync has recently lit up with regressions, showing features that worked reliably for almost 30 years are suddenly coming crashing down in 3.4.2 and 3.4.3. People are scrambling to find ways to pin rsync to known-good versions. The considerate, incisive mind I briefly knew is letting the stochastic parrots do his work for him, and it just seems so astonishingly unlike the person I met back in the day.

I am still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I hope all is well for him, but I will not cast aspersions on his goals or his abilities. No, instead I draw this conclusion:

If TRIDGE of all people can't handle #LLMs without a slopocalypse, no one can.

That means you. That means someone you admire who is intelligent and careful and considerate. Not even someone whose opinions on technology you respect a great deal.

-----

CursedSilicon··on Snowboard Kids 2 is 100% Decompiled
Snowboard Kids was to Mario Kart 64 what Banjo Kazooie was to Mario 64
CursedSilicon··on Modern Blu-ray drives can now rip GameCube, Wii, and Xbox 360 games to PC
Won't someone think of the multi billion dollar corporations?!

If peop- THIEEEVES can just download old games forever, how will these companies make money by selling new games? Or reselling the old games in their half-baked emulation offerings!

Truly the author behind this software deserves a special place in hell for creating such an evil!

(Obligatory reminder the above is to be taken as hyperbolic sarcasm. The very idea that someone would jump to defend corporations against software designed for cultural preservation is saddening)

CursedSilicon··on Amazon Web Services – Four Years and Out
I got thrown overboard by AWS in 2023

Since then I've had no less than thirty five recruiters contact me for a systems engineering role at Kuiper.

Even though I'd "only" be a yellow badge (contractor) every time I've hit the Amazon hiring manager desk I get instantly vetoed.

Amazonians don't know (and I guess we can never know?) how long we're blacklisted for.

Eventually they're going to run out of people

CursedSilicon··on Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”
That sounds like a terrifying legal minefield that they would not want to tread
CursedSilicon··on Over 97% of the 'Linux' Foundation's Budget Goes Not to Linux
This isn't Reddit. If you're getting "downvoted" it's because you aren't contributing to the discussion. Bemoaning "Downvotes" is also frowned upon directly
CursedSilicon··on Google Cloud Fraud Defence is just WEI repackaged
Ah, the "this doesn't fit my very specific technicality argument"

You know full well what people mean when they say "Chrome"

CursedSilicon··on Google Cloud fraud defense, the next evolution of reCAPTCHA
No person is illegal
CursedSilicon··on Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license
Thank God the publishers had nothing to do with those onerous terms in exchange for using Valves storefront!

Can only hope that Stop Killing Games is the first shell in winning back our digital rights

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