101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers

PSA: Please Redirect Your Old URLs

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

thetransintransgenic:

ilzolende:

taymonbeal:

Hello, Tumblr friends! If you’ve recently changed your Tumblr URL or are planning to, please take a moment to read this.

You know how sometimes, when you click through a link on the Web, you get a 404 or other such error because whatever was on the other side isn’t there anymore? That’s called link rot, and it’s a real problem for the health of the Web; it’s particularly bad for Tumblr posts. As Tim Berners-Lee warned us back in 1998, cool URLs don’t change; if someone reblogs your post or shares a link to it, you want that link to still work in the future, even if you’ve changed the URL of your blog.

So what can you do? The right way to fix it would be with server-side redirects, but Tumblr doesn’t currently support those. Please complain loudly until they do. In the meantime, here’s an alternate solution; please use this if you’ve changed your URL.

Keep reading

Not that I’m changing my URL, but can you do this by having your old URL as a sideblog or do you need to make a new account?

Just by having your old account as a sideblog works fine.

Tags:

#Tumblr: a User’s Guide

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

ozymandias271:

itsbenedict:

joyceanfartboner:

realtalk make a pact w/ me if i ever am like “yo im caught in a time loop” please believe me i promise i wont ever use it as a prank either like ive been watching a lot of tv shows and movies w/ fucking time loop plotpoints where one character knows it and if i ever become that person i want to not have to constantly prove it to them. just take it on honest that a magic or something happened.

aight so here’s my policy on this for anyone in this situation: i’ve come up with a passphrase ahead of time that you can tell me to indicate that you’re in a time loop. on the first time around, you’re going to have to actually prove you’re timelooping to me, but as soon as you do so, i give you the passphrase, and you can use that to cut to the chase on subsequent loops. 

your passphrase can also be used to easily identify versions of yourself from the future!

#everyone should have a passphrase #a simple step to prepare for a wide variety of SFnal plotlines

*nod* I have a passphrase, good back to about age fourteen. Also an (unrelated) Standard Thought for use on people claiming they can read my mind, to make sure I can think of something other than the obvious, easily guessable stuff like “I hope they can’t read my mind; that would be pretty privacy-invading if they could do that”. (I suppose I could use the first passphrase as the second (not the other way ‘round), but that’s not how it’s worked out.)

I also have a “your memory’s been erased” signal that past selves can leave for me to find. Several, in fact, to cover a range of time and materials needed.

Tags:

#maybe it’s the Girl Guide in me #(or the Girl Scout) #(I’ve been both)

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

eponymous-rose:

Pros of writing transcripts: Holy crap, look at all these details I never would’ve noticed otherwise! Whoa, I feel 1000% more confident with these character voices! Hey, there’s a fantastic idea for an fic/meta post/audio post! Boy, I sure do love typing things… that’s probably weird isn’t it. Haha. Yeah.

Cons of writing transcripts: Trying to decipher Caboose’s dialogue.

#some… of these are words? probably? #same goes for half of sarge’s sargeisms

If loving typing things is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

Tags:

#Red vs Blue #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #one time when I was about nine I decided to transcribe the entirety of The Austere Academy so I could have it with me on my computer #(I’m pretty sure I had no idea ebooks were a thing) #(but I wouldn’t have been able to buy one anyway) #I would type a page or two whenever I was bored #I never completed it #but I still have the partial file #I typed 109 pages out of 221 #(109 pages of a Series of Unfortunate Events book is about 23.5 pages of OpenOffice) #(but still) #(~17.8k words) #tag rambles

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

doctorwho:

Lost ‘Doctor Who’ Episodes Have Been Recovered, Now Available on iTunes

BBC Worldwide North America announces that a stash of BBC master tapes from the 1960s featuring missing episodes of Doctor Who has been recovered in Nigeria, Africa. The BBC has re-mastered the tapes, and is making two stories, The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear, now available exclusively on iTunes (www.itunes.com/DoctorWho).

Eleven Doctor Who episodes were discovered (nine of which have not been seen for 46 years) by Philip Morris, director of Television International Enterprises Archive, by tracking records of tape shipments made by the BBC to Africa for transmission. Morris says, “The tapes had been left gathering dust in a store room at a television relay station in Nigeria. I remember wiping the dust off the masking tape on the canisters and my heart missed a beat as I saw the words ‘Doctor Who’. When I read the story code I realized I’d found something pretty special.”

BBC Worldwide has re-mastered these episodes to restore them to the fantastic quality that audiences expect from Doctor Who.

The first recovered story, The Enemy of the World, is a six-episode tale which first aired on the BBC in December 1967. The story features Patrick Troughton as both the Second Doctor and his antagonist (Ramon Salamander), alongside companions Jamie (Frazer Hines) and Victoria (Deborah Watling). Episodes 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 had previously been missing from the BBC Archives, and were returned by Morris.

Also recovered is the 1968 six-episode story, The Web of Fear. Also starring Patrick Troughton alongside Frazer Hines and Deborah Watling the story introducesNicholas Courtney for the first time as Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart (who later returns as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart). Episodes 2-6 were feared lost, but now episodes 2, 4, 5, and 6 have been recovered. With episode 3 still missing, the restoration team has reconstructed this part of the story using a selection of the 37 images that were still available from the episode along with the original audio, which has been restored.

Tags:

#Doctor Who #oh look an update

~ Brin ~ 4 Comments

justice-turtle:

Air & Angels: Handbag/purse/backpack/WHATHAVEYOU meme

airandangels:

if you habitually carry around a handbag, purse, backpack or other bag with your DAY TO DAY LIFE STUFF in it, kindly itemise its contents here, as shall I

it will all be very revelatory

you do not have to count, like, old receipts and tissues but now would be a good time to get them out of your…

I’m going to count both my pocket-stuff and my backpack-stuff, but omit day-specific schoolbooks…

  • Cell phone
  • Keys (about a dozen, all of which I use)
  • Half a dozen pens of my favorite ergonomic style
  • Swiss Army knife
  • Leather wallet with money, IDs, various plastic cards and gift certificates, and a USB thumb drive (for printing documents at school)

That’s all in my pockets. Backpack:

  • Graphing calculator
  • Checkbook
  • Colored pencils
  • “Clicker”, which is a polltaking device for school and looks rather like a remote control
  • Wee portable pencil-sharpener, the kind that is just a plastic frame with a blade in
  • iPod charger
  • Receipts for all the textbooks I’ve rented this semester
  • Day planner
  • Hardcover address book with my To Read list in (this is a new experiment, suggested by Bookblather from LJ; my reading lists are always going missing)
  • Small spiral-bound memo book with my shopping list in
  • Thermos bottle full of peanut M&Ms for snacking on
  • Water bottle
  • Three or four unused pads in their wrappers
  • and a bottle of OTC painkillers. ;P

Ooh, neat idea. Maybe by reading others’ posts I’ll find new Useful Things to add to my collection.

My own Useful Things collection, kept in a utility belt belly bag utility belt, in order of what I pulled out:

Main compartment:

  • Some clean napkins
  • A notebook, which is nearly full and I should replace it
  • A big scrunchie (for ponytails, as opposed to small scrunchies that go at the bottom of braids)
  • A paperback copy of Eric, by Terry Pratchett (emergency use only; I don’t have an e-reader)
  • A pen
  • An electronic dictionary, which also plays Hangman, is a calculator, and can tell you what day of the week a given day was/will be
  • Wallet
  • The one cell phone owned by my family, which is usually kept in Mom’s backpack
  • A bottle of pumpkin-scented hand sanitiser from Bath and Body Works, which I haven’t yet used and forgot I had
  • A tiny flashlight only good for reading by
  • An Occupy Toronto flyer from November (I didn’t go)
  • A plastic bag I got from the bulk section, which might come in handy
  • A spare battery for the flashlight
  • A comfortingly smooth honey-coloured rock
  • A twisty tie

Front compartment:

  • A miniature blue Sharpie
  • A pair of clip-on sunglasses
  • A one-metre tape measure
  • Two packets of cranberry-almond biscotti
  • A magnifying glass
  • Six peppermints
  • A tiny sowing kit consisting of a needle, six different colours of thread wrapped around some cardboard, a safety pin, and a button
  • A penknife with scissors and tweezers
  • A rubbery toy lizard
  • A non-rubbery toy turtle
  • A length of stretchy string (originally intended to be a bracelet) about…um…*uses tape measure* 16 in/40 cm long
  • …you know what, I’m just going to throw away this five-year-old Tootsie Roll
  • A couple inches of braided rope with one of those keychain loops at each end
  • A paperclip
  • Instructions on how to tie various knots
  • A slice of blue agate, also comfortingly smooth and pretty
  • A piece of amethyst that used to be a keychain before it broke (rocks are good, okay?)

Back compartment:

  • One tampon
  • Two menstrual pads
  • Two panty liners
  • Ziploc bags: one snack, one quart
  • A Ziploc bag containing some wipes of the type used on babies’ butts, dried out but could probably be brought back to life with a bit of water
  • A tightly-folded emergency poncho, never used
  • A foil blanket, also never used
  • A small geode (yay rocks!)
  • …so that’s where my Star of David necklace went! (Like I’ll actually be able to dig it out in time if I happen to encounter a Jewish vampire. Also good (well, bad) for werewolves.)

Attached to the belt:

  • Bike key
  • House key
  • P.O. box key
  • Keychain shaped like a Samoa (I’m not very fond of them, but it was the only kind of cookie keychain they had left in stock)
  • A pouch containing a penknife with fork, spoon, and corkscrew
  • A bottle of hand sanitiser that I do use
  • (not actually attached at the moment, but I always put it on before leaving the house) A pouch containing a Sansa (MP3 player), set of headphones, and docking cable (The Sansa also acts as a thumb drive to backup my diary.)
  • A first aid bag

Inside the first aid bag:

  • A tube of Polysporin
  • Band-aid: one medium-large, three medium, two large/knee
  • Five packets of alcohol wipes
  • A Ziploc bag containing a disposable CPR mask
  • Instructions on what to do in case of heat exhaustion, blisters, insect stings, and sprains
  • Moleskin bandage
  • Three pseudoephedrine tablets
  • Two Dramamine tablets
  • One Imodium tablet
  • Another safety pin
  • Two emergency quarters, though I can’t actually rely on pay phones existing
  • A whistle-compass-mirror combo (it was the only spot I had space)
  • A chocolate bar (ditto, though I could argue it’s medicinal)
  • A tube of anti-itch ointment (the kind with Benadryl)
  • A roll of gauze bandage
  • An Ace bandage
  • A small tube of sunscreen
  • A lighter
  • A container of floss, possibly to be used for string-related purposes
  • Two pairs of gloves
  • A small bottle of bug repellent
  • A tiny hairbrush I forgot I had (again, too bulky to fit anywhere else)

Can you tell how proud I am of my collection? And that I’ve obtained a reputation for always having the right tool for the situation?

Tags:

#utility belt   #meme   #Useful Things

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