I hate to be so stern about it but seriously... 120 of 160 comments [deleted].The question? When did the USA originally start using the mm/dd/yyyy format and for what reason?farside.link/teddit/r/AskHistoβ¦
In the 40 remaining comments there are some interesting and surprising finds. In particular, mm/dd/yyyy, with digits, was not introduced with computers, contrary to what many are assuming: I have been working with a collection of mid-18th to early 19th-century English correspondence, and the mm/dd/yyyy format is used on occasion. Sometimes the same person will date a letter, say, 4/10/1797 (for April 10th), and the next letter will be 12/4 (for April 12th). I'd previously had no idea that this format was in use so long ago (mm/dd or exclusively numbers).farside.link/teddit/r/AskHistoβ¦
If the author of your favorite open source app has announced they stopped developing and supporting the app (because they're frustrated and possibly burned out), please don't suggest they do more free work so that you can continue using the app. Instead, consider thanking them for their past work and let them know that you enjoyed their app.
@cketti Huge thanks to #M66B for all his work at the same time its so sad to see such a wonderful project going into peril. But, its totally understandable that the devs also need to make a living despite of how noble their cause is.
@mpjgregoire I don't want to get your hopes up too high, but the Octopus only addresses half of the issue. It replaces rnp with Sequoia, restores the gpg integration, and adds back web of trust support, but it does not address user facing UX issues.
Looking for free/libre (FLOSS) computer games that can be fun for kids around 10 years old. So far, tried #minetest which is great. What else can you recommend?
I love that Don Norman gave the foreword for the UNIX-Haters Handbook (1994) and he cites his own paper from 1981:
Norman, D. A. The Trouble with Unix: The User Interface is Horrid. Datamation, 27 (12) 1981, November. pp. 139-150. Reprinted in Pylyshyn, Z. W., & Bannon, L. J., eds. Perspectives on the Computer Revolution, 2nd revised edition, Hillsdale, NJ, Ablex, 1989.
"Why are programmers -- particularly the ones who talk a lot about Constant Refactoring -- so bad at refactoring the languages, editors and operating systems they use, to make them more humane?" is a question that endlessly fascinates me.
Up there with "why does Computer Science / Data Processing / Information Technology as a field seem really bad at keeping track of its own history?"
It really bugs me that mobile touchscreen systems are actually much more opaque than 1990s desktops used to be. So many hidden, non-discoverable gestures.
I'm sure whoever has been in charge of very expensive and very scientific data-driven UX development for the last 10 years did not intend for that to be the outcome.
Yep, Bret Victor both interests and disappoints me.
I was really excited about his Light Table debugger.... and then he threw it all away to chase the Dynamicland concept, which is super expensive and indulgent in that you have to have a purpose-built room for it. Real estate is the most expensive thing right now!
I guess if he's getting funded to do very expensive experiments he finds fun, that's cool for him?
It's got it all - spectacular venue, great speakers, and local to me (15 miles away)
It hasn't been on for the last couple of years due to the pandemic, so I'm hoping it's as good as I remember. I've changed a lot (as has the world!) since 2019, and I hope it's not just a big apology for capitalism. I'm sure it won't be π
Thunderbird recently issued two CVEs related to unencrypted secret key material. In CVE-2021-29956, TB forgot to encrypt the secret key material for newly imported keys. In CVE-2021-29950, which introduced the previous CVE, they forgot to reprotect secret key material in memory. In this blog post, I discuss what we can learn. https://sequoia-pgp.org/blog/2021/05/22/202105-a-look-at-two-recent-cves-in-thunderbirds-openpgp-support/
my life is pretty small and nothing special i usually think of myself as powerless and unable to make a difference but i have made positive differences in some people's lives, maybe saved a couple of lives even i've been told a couple of times that my social media posts have inspired someone to transition and live as their true self i've been told once or twice that my listening to and being kind to someone has led them away from the edge i've been told that my defiance in the face of ongoing hatred has had positive effects on the lives of others
and i'm just one unemployed trans woman living in poverty with no direct power over anything
what if the small positive thing you do for someone today has a domino effect?
or even, on a smaller scale, what if just listening to someone or showing them kindness or aiding them when they needed it most, saves a life?
what if some positive change you made in your own life inspired someone to make a positive change in their own, and then they inspired another, and they inspired another?
@mpjgregoire@basil Sweden with its self-image as a "humanitarian superpower", strong belief in the right to political asylum and a soft spot for the underdogs of the world has been a popular home away from home for separatist or dissident groups in exile, including people from Xinjiang, Chile and the PKK from Turkey.