Alice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️

Mad Scientist and Necromancer
AuADHD creature of elemental internet
collector of keysmashes

Used to be called Foone, before the war

pronouns: she/her
website: https://wiki.averlong.com
location: San Leandro, CA, USA
ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/fooneturing

Public Key

npub1g8xss90hlwac30xt8f53wnczr3mnr6mud4js95qwtyfy6nd95r0q9r7wul

NIP-05 Address

foone_at_digipres.club@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsyrnggzhmlhwughn9n56ghfuppcae3ad7x6egz6q89jyjdfkj6phspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dspntvlj

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1g8xss90hlwac30xt8f53wnczr3mnr6mud4js95qwtyfy6nd95r0q9r7wul

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Last Notes

2026-07-27 19:10:46 UTC

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also I've spotted the keyword "family plan(ning)" in there and I'm already worried about what that implies

2026-07-27 19:10:25 UTC

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heh, they call it a "paywall". not any euphemism like "premium" or "pro", just a paywall.
The bible is big on paywalls, I seem to recall

2026-07-27 19:06:39 UTC

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if only there was a better way to do this
https://digipres-club.s3.bhs.io.cloud.ovh.net/media_attachments/files/116/993/500/948/784/996/original/7c16e17b8cc1ea9d.png

2026-07-27 19:05:15 UTC

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they've properly made internationalizable string constants for all the books of the bible, that'll come in handy if they need to translate "Ecclesiastes" out of greek.

2026-07-27 19:02:53 UTC

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I'm sure someone has already started the first cult with lootboxes

2026-07-27 19:02:35 UTC

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christ (no pun intended) they literally call it Gamification, there's a class called GamificationNavigation.
that's how we keep people in the religion, we make it a game!

2026-07-27 19:00:51 UTC

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ahh, streak tracking. using the same tricks duolingo uses to keep you Jesusin'

2026-07-27 18:58:53 UTC

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it's got analytics for the tracks, which I think are, like, bible verses?
are you gonna get targeted ads based on your favorite bible verses?

2026-07-27 18:57:13 UTC

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What Would Jesus Do? sometimes includes screaming and kicking over tables

2026-07-27 18:57:00 UTC

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remember kids, the literal embodiment of love and charity knows there's a time when you should get out the whip and a good pair of kickin' boots, and it's specifically for people trying to make money off religion.

2026-07-27 18:55:57 UTC

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yeah it integrates with facebook for ads/tracking.
and there's a payment system in here, because YOU HAVE TURNED MY FATHER'S HOUSE INTO A DEN OF THIEVES has fallen on deaf capitalist ears for nearly two millennia now

2026-07-27 18:53:45 UTC

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okay I accidentally was looking at some malware the shady APK site gave me
but now I have the real thing
which is also obfuscated

2026-07-27 18:46:19 UTC

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which is obfuscated. suspicious

2026-07-27 18:46:04 UTC

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anyway I just learned about Glorify Ring, the first Christian Smart Ring. It's not out yet, and I'm not buying one, but the app is already out (because it does non-ring stuff too) so I'm gonna look in the APK
https://www.glorify.global/

2026-07-27 18:44:22 UTC

the annoying thing about android reverse engineering is that I do it JUST infrequently enough that each time I do it, I completely blank on which tools I need to do it.
I'm like "okay, I've got the APK, now I just need to take it apart in... jd-gui? do we still use that or was that only in 2018?"

2026-07-27 17:08:44 UTC

39 year ago, the debut single of a young singer was released, which would one day change the world forever. Let's celebrate together!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

2026-07-27 03:27:22 UTC

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I can't finish hooking up my arduino project because I am out of female-to-female dupont cables.
this is LITERALLY HOMOPHOBIA

2026-07-27 03:21:40 UTC

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I was putting all kinds of different things in send.py and then running sendmqtt.py

2026-07-27 03:21:18 UTC

remember kids, the #1 rule of debugging:
MAKE SURE YOUR CODE IS ACTUALLY RUNNING

2026-07-15 04:20:55 UTC

great thing to see:
a github repo for a device that CAN KILL YOU
and github warning you that claude contributed to it

2026-07-09 02:52:08 UTC

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I'm just saying, I've been doing this a long time, and I've seen both sides of the "programming is free!" and "programming is expensive :(" coin, so I can assure you, you REALLY want to stay on the "free" side.

2026-07-09 02:44:29 UTC

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go ask anyone, in any field, if it's a good thing that their work is held behind one company's paywall.
See how that works for them.

2026-07-09 02:43:00 UTC

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like, even if the AI can do programming for you, which... is debatable.
It's not going to do it for free. They're selling you the ability to program. One of the main reasons you should learn to program is so no one can take it from you, or charge a fee for doing it.

2026-07-09 02:41:09 UTC

computers were invented in the *mumblties* and you had to pay to program them
then in the late 70s, you could finally program them! for free! you just had to own a microcomputer! yay
but then in the 80s and 90s you had to buy compilers, which were expensive
by with the 2000s, rapidly compilers and interpreters became free again. anyone could program, for free!
and then in the 2020s someone invented "programming but you have to pay", again.
DON'T FALL FOR THIS TRAP

2026-06-20 21:53:35 UTC

oh my god I'm an idiot
I bought a keyboard on accident

2026-06-03 17:27:59 UTC

Adhoc poll: what's the most recent technology you've seen and gone "wow I gotta get that" and spent money to get access to, and were at least mostly happy with?
Not something pushed on you, not some new framework that was annoying to learn but everything is using it now, not some Next Big Thing that turned out to be a disappointment, or something constantly pushed on you by advertising that you didn't ever want to use, but a "wow that's neat, I need that!" technology?

2026-05-31 19:48:29 UTC

it's especially funny seeing the "aren't you worried about getting left behind?" argument about AI, speaking as a retrotech person.
Like, come on. I'm still writing software for DOS and Windows 95. What even is "behind" at this point?

2026-05-04 20:50:51 UTC

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BTW this thing is way worse than it looks. Jar Jar isn't drawn on here, he's sculpted out of layers of rubber. You can feel the detail on his face every moment you're using his mouse.
https://digipres-club.s3.bhs.io.cloud.ovh.net/media_attachments/files/116/518/278/031/901/990/original/b1522ed74e63cb8c.png

2026-05-04 20:45:46 UTC

It's time. Fetch me the Jar-Jar mouse.
https://digipres-club.s3.bhs.io.cloud.ovh.net/media_attachments/files/116/518/258/581/505/990/original/5e2c4249239511ab.jpg

2026-05-03 21:40:22 UTC

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ugh I I've tried multiple serial numbers and none work. I specifically need one for Windows 98 Second Edition, Retail. This is apparently a rare version and all the serials for the OEM SE, SE upgrade, OEM first edition, and retail first edition don't work

2026-05-03 21:33:20 UTC

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God the scaling on this monitor is ass and a half
https://digipres-club.s3.bhs.io.cloud.ovh.net/media_attachments/files/116/512/781/606/392/292/original/34f446dad80cf779.jpg

2026-05-03 21:25:17 UTC

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It has been located. Windows 98 install files are being copied now

2026-05-03 21:03:00 UTC

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MY FUCKING CF ADAPTER IS MISSING

2026-05-03 21:01:25 UTC

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IT BOOTS!
Now I can yank the CF card out and load some install files onto it. Hmm. Win95 or Win98? Win98 was the original OS for this thing, so it'll have drivers... but Win95 is more fun

2026-05-03 20:59:50 UTC

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okay, repartitioned with a 500mb partition instead of 955mb, fdisk/mbr'd.
WILL IT BOOT? cross you fingers

2026-05-03 20:57:34 UTC

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"but alice, surely you have plenty of replacement floppy drives!"
I DO. except I need the proper drivesled for this late-90s laptop, and the one I've got is only for the LS-120, it won't take a laptop-style 3.5" slim floppy drive. different connectors.

2026-05-03 20:56:19 UTC

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for extra annoyance, this machine has a floppy drive that only usually works.
It's an LS-120 superdrive emulating a real floppy through some horrible magic. And it only mostly works. sometimes I boot it and it just fails to read the disk

2026-05-03 20:54:38 UTC

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I always partition and format the disk on the target machine, because formatting it elsewhere VERY often leads to problems.
but even doing that here didn't help

2026-05-03 20:53:39 UTC

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maybe I forgot fdisk /mbr? maybe I need to use small partitions?
things to try.

2026-05-03 20:52:34 UTC

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like if I use a boot disk, the drive is fully accessible and I can put files on it all day
can I boot from it?
NO

2026-05-03 20:51:49 UTC

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god, as good as CF cards are for old IDE computers, I hate using them.
There are SO MANY old BIOSes that will just not boot from them unless everything is exactly perfect and what that means varies
Like, right now I have a 1gb drive in there. I partitioned it, set the partition as active, SYS'd it, copied over all the DOS files, and rebooted.
It won't boot. it just hangs at the POST

2026-04-03 00:33:20 UTC

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oh god
remember kids, when implementing a library that talks to a webserver, make sure to hardcode that URL in the source 27 times, just to make sure no one can easily use it against a local instance

2026-04-03 00:31:04 UTC

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oh sweet laser jesus, I FINALLY have the broken client library at least TALKING to the server
this saga started 5 hours ago and I have only now managed to make a successful request to log in.
imagine how much harder it's going to be to actually do anything with this shit

2026-04-02 23:56:57 UTC

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although it is always amusing when my computer says "sorry I can't let you do that"
I think you're forgetting that
1. I'm a hacker
2. I OWN YOU

2026-04-02 23:51:06 UTC

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I HAVEN'T EVEN WRITTEN MORE THAN "LOGIN TO SERVER" IN MY SCRIPT YET ;_;

2026-04-02 23:50:48 UTC

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but the API wrapper is out of date so I'll have to modify that oh and it doesn't support local servers so I'll need to implement that and wait requests/urllib3/certifi/python's ssl module/python's _ssl module has a bug and can't parse my cert.
I can hack around that, who cares. oh I need to supply a client certificate? no problem, that's in my OS's certificate store, I'll just export that... okay it's marked as non-exportable. so I have to hack it out

2026-04-02 23:49:06 UTC

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like today I wanted to write a script that recurses through some folders, finds files matching a regex, and upload them to a local service. easy! I can imagine the whole script in my head even before my fingers touch the keyboard

2026-04-02 23:48:14 UTC

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the biggest hurdle I face with programming is that I often only have like, an hour or two worth of energy to work on it a day
and I can easily use that all up on bullshit

2026-04-02 19:53:54 UTC

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oh god there's a stackoverflow question mentioning this bug from 2015

2026-04-02 19:37:54 UTC

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oh it might be fixed in 3.15.0a6, which hasn't been released yet

2026-04-02 19:28:36 UTC

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I figured I could easily fix the problem in the one function I needed
I think I've now found a bug in python's standard library

2026-04-02 19:00:28 UTC

argh
the site I have to automate the API of has a nice python wrapper and the one function I need is marked "WIP sorry"
last modified in 2022

2026-03-31 20:13:09 UTC

PSA:
1. If you are not silly, it is vital you become silly
2. If you are silly, you must stay silly
2. If you used to be silly but have stopped, you must make all efforts to return to silliness

2026-03-31 19:45:16 UTC

I remember cynically joking last year that all the "advanced" AIs like Claude were just the same kind of black-box LLMs but with a bunch of regexes glued onto them
now that the source has leaked: HAHAHA

2026-03-31 07:38:14 UTC

Happy International Transgender Day of Visibility!
We're everywhere and we're cool.
Here's the trans pride flag 🏳️‍⚧️ on a mid-90s Pentium running DOS.
https://digipres.club/system/media_attachments/files/116/322/643/041/318/010/original/28b294ec1e80b5e4.jpg

2026-03-30 19:44:16 UTC

I'm 19 months into unemployment due to illness, and I just got a letter that my earlier payment for storage didn't go through, and I have until the 1st to pay 2000$ or they're auctioning off my storage, which has 12 years of games & retrotech.
Any help you can spare would be amazing.
https://ko-fi.com/fooneturing/goal?g=0
#mutualaid

2026-03-27 04:39:30 UTC

TOO LITTLE TOO LATE, GUYS
https://digipres.club/system/media_attachments/files/116/299/291/109/628/812/original/f7606b1ad3a5e5b9.png

2026-03-23 06:27:52 UTC

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nah using Visual Basic is a loadbearing part of my Mad Science

2026-03-23 06:04:18 UTC

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sadly my PCjr can't run windows 95

2026-03-23 05:26:01 UTC

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BTW with the "pop quiz" my current best solution is 13

2026-03-23 05:17:54 UTC

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The system doesn't have a power supply that windows 95 can turn off automatically (It's a little too old for that), so while I could have the monitoring hardware watch the screen for the "it's now safe to turn off your computer" screen, I'd probably just make it wait 60 seconds after we issue the shutdown, then yank the power.

2026-03-23 05:15:49 UTC

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POP QUIZ: how many servos do you need, if you need to be able to type all the symbol keys on a QWERTY-US keyboard (49 keys), plus the following keys:
F5 (to run the program after we type in the code)
Enter (to close the popup after we take the photo, which will then trigger a shutdown)

2026-03-23 05:06:53 UTC

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could also get some servos and physically manipulate the keyboard. really air-gap it

2026-03-23 05:06:09 UTC

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but the far more fun answer would be to build a machine to eject floppies out of some other network-attached computer and inserts them into the Pentium, and vice versa.
Air-gapped

2026-03-23 05:05:27 UTC

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that could be done without being too difficult by simply using a Gotek running FlashFloppy and something emulating USB storage (or making a Trick USB cable that can be in two computers at once)

2026-03-23 05:04:28 UTC

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The next obvious option is to set up a floppy autoloader

2026-03-23 05:03:34 UTC

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same for a WiFi232 on the serial port. boring.
hey I wrote some code a while ago to emulate a PS/2 keyboard, I could just type it in!

2026-03-23 05:02:50 UTC

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But how does the generated Visual Basic code get into the Pentium-90 desktop?
Well, it doesn't have a network card. I could add one, but /boring/

2026-03-23 05:01:32 UTC

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How do you get the image?
Easy. We just photograph the CRT

2026-03-23 05:01:22 UTC

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set up a Pentium-60 to boot into Windows 95, compile some Visual Basic code, and then run it.

2026-03-23 05:00:34 UTC

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2. hardware

2026-03-23 04:59:31 UTC

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Might get CEASE AND DESIST'd by Microsoft, but fuck it, it'll be funny

2026-03-23 04:58:47 UTC

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But where do we run the code?
Well there's two obvious options that are sufficiently Mad Scientist enough to be interesting enough to do:
1. In the browser. Do this client-side. Boot a VM in the browser that runs Visual Basic and then the resulting EXE and shows that to the user

2026-03-23 04:57:09 UTC

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"easy", for certain values of "easy"

2026-03-23 04:56:58 UTC

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So let's just automate that.
We take the post text, generate a visual basic source file for it, then boot windows 98, compile the visual basic, run the EXE, take a screenshot, shutdown

2026-03-23 04:56:08 UTC

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but I'm a Mad Scientist.
So what's the Mad Scientist way to do this? Well, how'd I do it before?
I wrote a line of code in my Visual Basic 6 IDE and ran it on my Windows 98 VM

2026-03-23 04:55:23 UTC

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but "I've done it before" is kinda boring and also windows dialog boxes have a surprising number of edge cases that I am unable to escape being autistically perfectionist about.
so adding win95 to the death generator, while it would be cool, is probably not happening any time soon

2026-03-23 04:54:08 UTC

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and the OBVIOUS answer for "how do I do that" is "extend the death generator to do windows 95 dialog boxes and then automate it".
I've done the second half before, automated the death generator. It's a pain and is ugly (the death generator is written exactly wrong to make this doable) but I've done it before, I can steal Foone's code for it

2026-03-23 04:53:12 UTC

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and I was thinking about automating it so I could do another thing: make a mastodon instance that renders every post on it as pixel-accurate windows 95 dialog boxes

2026-03-23 04:52:12 UTC

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and this post describes the behind-the-scenes of how I made these. (tl;dr it was manual screenshots)
https://digipres.club/@foone/116276567994297740
#note1huu…czma

2026-03-23 04:45:18 UTC

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so I recently did a lets-call-it-a-poem about (specifically Windows) computers loving us back:
https://digipres.club/@foone/116276073266480193
and I was thinking I want a way to do this automatically, specifically I'd like (almost) the first one.
#note19ed…rugf

2026-03-23 04:39:04 UTC

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but it would make my mastodon and blusky posts at least 5% cooler

2026-03-23 04:38:42 UTC

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I haven't written line one of code on this project and I'm already thinking about how much dedicated hardware powered on and monitored I'd have to have to support indefinitely

2026-03-23 04:38:00 UTC

one of the problems with being a mad scientist is that you can scope creep really fast

2026-03-23 04:20:23 UTC

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They're mostly screenshots of the original OSes running in emulators. I used Visual Basic 6, Visual Basic.NET, Word Dialog Editor (from Office 4, I think?), and MUSH, the tool for controlling Agent characters like Clippy.
The DOS EDIT one is a lot of careful paint.net manipulation of pixels, combining a few screenshots while respecting the underlying text grid

2026-03-23 02:14:34 UTC

https://digipres.club/system/media_attachments/files/116/276/071/544/446/567/original/57181a88ac983db7.png

2026-03-23 01:38:26 UTC

anyone tried opening the magic file "con" from MS DOS Edit?
I was hoping for an editor but it turns out instead it happily opens it but then hangs forever
https://digipres.club/system/media_attachments/files/116/275/929/117/062/858/original/155599f28e5d9276.png

2026-03-21 06:53:49 UTC

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pffft
both a reaction to your joke and an impression of the sound it makes

2026-03-21 06:38:56 UTC

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I should make a video where I respond to my shitty app. you know, a react react video

2026-03-21 06:38:21 UTC

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hah!

2026-03-21 06:35:36 UTC

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okay it's working.
react is a tiring framework.
everytime I need to make a tiny change, I end up getting mad for an hour and then I'm tired of programming for the day.

2026-03-21 06:16:29 UTC

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oh it was but my manual color theme setting was overriding it.

2026-03-21 06:10:17 UTC

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so I can switch themes but it's not getting my browser theme, hmmm

2026-03-21 06:07:46 UTC

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<CssBaseline /> was the issue. I wasn't including it

2026-03-21 06:01:07 UTC

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okay my theme switching does kinda work if I hardcode it to dark mode, then I can switch the theme
but it only affects the theme, not the background.
But the background is set by the system theme, so if you have the theme set to lightmode and system them set to dark, you get a black background and black UI form
So it's just invisible

2026-03-21 05:58:58 UTC

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WHY WON'T THEME SWITCHING WORK

2026-03-21 05:44:20 UTC

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yeah, it was something normal that I don't want to reveal for deadname reasons

2026-03-21 02:46:25 UTC

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my previous name's Entirely Normal Middle Name apparently broke a lot of systems, actually: my driver's license has my name as "FooneMIDDLENAME Turing", but only on the digital barcode on the back, the front has me as "Foone MIDDLENAME Turing"
This hasn't caused any issues yet, but it does mean every airline boarding pass I've ever gotten has been misprinted

2026-03-21 01:28:06 UTC

My new name doesn't have a middle name yet, so I'm accepting suggestions on what I could adopt that'd break as many systems as possible.
Obvious answers:
* null
* an emoji
* U+FFFD �
* half of a unicode surrogate pair
* EICAR
* some kind of prompt injection
* the entirety of DOOM, base64 encoded
* an illegal prime
* the source to decss
* 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

2026-03-21 00:03:53 UTC

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it sure does. I recently got my dose doubled for Estradiol Monotherapy therapy reasons!