Tuesday roundup for 2020-07-21

Yeah, it’s not a Friday but I was too busy doing the other blog post. SORRY EVERYONE.

memememeMEMEMEME

§ I blogged about putting highlighted text into columns. Main code as converted by docco.

§ Also managed to completely screw up a whole bunch of email and DNS stuff (mini postmortem)

§ In the midst of which, I swapped to rspamd for spam filtering since it does a whole bunch of stuff that’s becoming increasingly important.

Computers

§ Xorshift are an interesting family of pseudorandom number generators. My attempt at implementing xoshiro256 in C was not a huge success.

§ The Zen Of Erlang is a good introduction to Erlang’s philosophy.

§ Yarntown is a cute 2D pixel RPG reimagining of [Bloodborne]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodborne).

§ Mastering JQ is a good look at jq.

§ jq>play is a handy playground for jq scripts.

§ More than you ever wanted to know about ANSI control codes.

World

§ The activism of John Lewis and C. T. Vivian who both died last week.

§ The USA’s handling of a lethal rabbit virus outbreak offers some interesting parallels to its handling of SARS-CoV-2; that is to say “they botched it.”

§ “No, I will not debate you” is a good read about how

[there] are some stupid mistakes that only very smart people make, and one of them is the notion that a sensible argument seriously presented can compete with a really good piece of theatre.

§ “Sealioning” - relevant to the previous link.

§ Patterson Hood regrets the name of his band.

§ Business Erotica is the ‘DUMB BOOKS YOUR BOSS LIKES’ site you always wanted.

Videos

§ “The Girl From Ipanema” is a deep dive from Adam Neely on the second most recorded song in history.

§ Unrequited: A History of Queer Baiting from James Somerton.

§ Then watch his follow-up, Evil Queens: A Queer Look at Disney History.

§ “Corruption” by In The Nursery is beautiful. “A Fever” by John Donne read by Colin Wilson over ITN’s trademark martial industrial classical.

§ In a similar vein, “Soul of Romanticism” by Elijah’s Mantle and Ozymandias. “Ozymandias” is exactly as overwrought and dramatic as you’d imagine. Superb stuff.