Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 14/05/2023: Computers of the 80s, Proportional Coding Fonts, and More



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • All mental is illness

        All mental is illness.

        Just ask The Lankavatara Sutra.

        How does a little bit 'o thought - i.e. "I" - consistently degenerate into a horrifying lot?

        The opposite direction, as it were: ineffable awareness.

      • Meetup, 2

        This feels like a week of firsts. I've barely been out of the house the last few years, except to run errands and walk the dogs. Thursday I met a poet who was in town for a few days; last night I met friends at an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ/sushi restaurant.

        Two writers in one week: one of my friends' girlfriends is technically another Twitter mutual of mine. She writes fiction and works for one of the local lit mags, and we've sort of known/known-of each other for a while, though always electronically. She may have read some of my submissions over the last few years. Oof, there's a thought.

    • Technical

      • Computers of the 80s

        My first computer was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48, an 8 bit computer, I got it for christmas in 1982. When I was in the computer shop with my parents in Paris, I looked briefly at the Intellivision and Atari 2600 and I spent most of my time playing Mine Storm on the Vectrex, I was impressed by the vector graphics, meanwhile my parents were talking with the salesman about the microcomputers.

      • Programming

        • Proportional Coding Fonts

          Apparently people in the world of Gemini are talking about using proportional fonts for code. I will indulge myself by expressing one small opinion, likely to cause disgust amongst some:

          If you use a proportional font, you should also use the tab character (ASCII value 9) for indentation. One horizontal tab character per indentation level.

        • Do you still feel the magic?

          I'm a programmer. I don't know why. But I've been programming for... over two thirds of my life now (don't judge me). And even now, even though I've been traversing these abstraction layers for so long and I pretty much assume that I could tackle any software problem now given enough time (*), even now just making *small* things work has some magic to it. Not even novel ideas, just simple things.


* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.



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