Kirtai 🏳️‍⚧️

AuDHD Transgirl with OCD who is a fan of personal dynamic computer systems like Smalltalk.
Also likes playing piano.

Pronouns: she/her
Codeberg: https://codeberg.org/Kirtai

Public Key

npub1hu9np9tkf38h795r8hanfnh67lp2f7zqq2qwu50e9yuhpdaa0u6qgtqelz

NIP-05 Address

kirtai_at_tech.lgbt@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqst7zesj4mycnmlz6pnm7e5ema00s4ylpqq9q8w28ujjwtsk77h7dqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds4frpx2

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1hu9np9tkf38h795r8hanfnh67lp2f7zqq2qwu50e9yuhpdaa0u6qgtqelz

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Last Notes

2026-05-05 23:08:22 UTC

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Like a railgun or coilgun?

2026-05-01 14:31:50 UTC

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It's also a *fuckton* of work each and every day and night.

2026-04-30 18:00:46 UTC

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About time Ada got a bootstrap compiler.
It's the main thing that deters me from it.

2026-04-30 16:55:35 UTC

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Well yeah. No amount of stability of the base technology can make up for having to track a moving target like HTML.
Did I ever mention that I hate the very concept of a "living standard"? Because I hate the very concept of a "living standard".

2026-04-30 16:38:26 UTC

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I so wish that hardware vendors would *follow the damn specs* when making stuff.

2026-04-30 16:33:26 UTC

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I would love a system with a secure microkernel written in something like Ada, with servers written in a powerful, secure language like some kind of Lisp and the user shell written in something like Smalltalk.
Chances of getting one is zero but it's nice to dream of.

2026-04-30 16:31:01 UTC

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Well yeah, but I was specifically referring to Linux history here.

2026-04-30 16:21:47 UTC

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Ugh. A situation where even Common Lisp's stability doesn't help :neocat_angry:

2026-04-30 16:20:09 UTC

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I can't help but remember that a *very* big part of the disagreement between the monolithic and microkernel people was "but muh performance" on the monolithic side.

2026-04-28 16:16:08 UTC

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It's unsurprising that qemu uses 9p for the host folder functionality.

2026-04-26 17:00:13 UTC

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That *is* strange. Not even for a microcontroller?

2026-04-26 09:11:37 UTC

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iirc the developer of vdirsyncer studied a lot of webdav implementations and concluded that they're all shit.

2026-04-26 09:06:26 UTC

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Doesn't 9p work over those connections?

2026-04-26 08:59:25 UTC

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FTP uses reserved ports?

2026-04-22 19:54:26 UTC

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All the esoteric computing stuff you post :neocat_3c:

2026-04-22 10:16:26 UTC

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One of these days I will understand this.

2026-04-18 08:58:21 UTC

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Well, at least it's not CORBA.

2026-04-17 18:42:33 UTC

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Oh, sorry, macros are *not* the only way to do metaprogramming. Macros are just the most common way to do it in *Lisp.*
Smalltalk uses normal methods and objects to do it.
And building a class system in Lua *is* metaprogramming. Lua is just good at that sort.
You are, after all, changing Lua to be an object oriented language.
Compare doing the same in C.

2026-04-17 18:28:13 UTC

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Another thing is that metaprogramming covers a *huge* range of things.
Here's another example.
Adding an object system to C required a *huge* amount of work to produce C++ and Objective-C.
Adding an object system to Scheme or Forth is a students afternoon project.
The difference? C has very very weak metaprogramming.
Scheme and Forth have very strong metaprogramming.

2026-04-17 18:07:25 UTC

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Consider things like boilerplate, patterns and conventions.
In a language with weak or no metaprogramming you just have to write those out every time.
In languages with strong metaprogramming, you can wrap them up, name them and then they're just another part of the language.
e.g. consider opening a file, doing something with it then closing it, using exceptions to ensure that it's always closed no matter what.
In many languages you have to either hope that the language creators provided it or you'll have to write that out yourself every time you do it.
In Common Lisp, you just use the *with-open-file* macro.
The key point is that you can create these things yourself. There is no *with-open-socket* macro in Common Lisp but unlike many languages, you can *make your own*.
You can define your own *with-open-socket* macro and use it in exactly the same way as the built in macros. It becomes part of the language under your control.

2026-04-17 02:01:35 UTC

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One thing is does is massively reduce boilerplate.
Instead of writing lots of repetitive code you can fold it into the language itself.
Another thing is it allows you to create a language specific to your application domain.
Regarding adding more control structures, did you know that Smalltalk doesn't have *any* control structures in the language itself? They're all based on metaprogramming.

2026-04-16 19:52:48 UTC

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Maybe it now needs you to be logged in or something?
Hope it's not gone, I was just going to set some up.

2026-04-12 22:44:03 UTC

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Of course Scotland isn't mentioned.

2026-04-11 22:42:04 UTC

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> “Just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded little jerk.”
> ― Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

2026-04-09 16:56:06 UTC

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Like KeyKOS et al?

2026-04-09 15:08:09 UTC

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I've heard that webdav server implementations tend to be pretty terrible across the board.

2026-04-09 11:20:40 UTC

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Hmmm, what about MIPS?

2026-04-06 20:16:42 UTC

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UUCP and FidoNet are other interesting options along those lines.

2026-04-06 18:24:22 UTC

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Hmm, why not run Fusix on it? :neocat_3c:

2026-04-06 17:51:56 UTC

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I just want something I can build myself that can run a modern Smalltalk-76+ at a reasonable speed.

2026-04-01 21:44:58 UTC

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Oh true, but those are the places where it's important enough to offset the additional complexity.

2026-04-01 21:25:29 UTC

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Also, aren't pauseless collectors really only meant for interactive and/or real time systems?

2026-03-30 15:14:31 UTC

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Funny, I was recently wondering which GUI toolkits had servers you could control remotely.
/me goes to look up gtk-server

2026-03-26 10:31:13 UTC

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I like to read trans-harry fics, because I know the Chief Terf would hate them.

2026-03-21 08:47:07 UTC

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Eh, the unix philosophy works fine on the machines it was built for.
The problem is that modern systems are not what it was built for.

2026-03-20 05:00:20 UTC

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For some weird reason I also don't see who you're replying to. :neocat_woozy:

2026-03-20 04:08:04 UTC

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Nope.

2026-03-20 04:06:38 UTC

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hmm, all I saw was
[Post Content]

2026-03-19 06:02:14 UTC

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I am very annoyed that tagged hardware never became the mainstream.

2026-03-17 06:39:50 UTC

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Wouldn't surprise me if trucks had already been robbed for them.

2026-03-13 19:50:09 UTC

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"Let's you and him fight?" kinda thing?

2026-03-11 17:00:02 UTC

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I do wonder sometimes why tooling doesn't get improved.

2026-03-08 00:22:14 UTC

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Maybe switch to a byte code interpreter with an extremely dense encoding? This can be smaller than native code.

2026-03-06 19:42:09 UTC

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*Are* they though?
Threads have a lot more problems than memory issues :neocat__w:

2026-03-06 19:38:06 UTC

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I recently read that Rust uses pretty much the same thread model as C++.

2026-03-06 16:17:04 UTC

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Are they using ropes or are they going to have to rewrite everything for large files? :neocat_3c:

2026-03-05 12:36:59 UTC

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I've started thinking that they're the first real cognitohazards we've encountered. If not the first memetic weapons.

2026-03-01 13:08:56 UTC

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Why Alan Sugar specifically?

2026-02-28 15:22:15 UTC

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I didn't know that still existed.

2026-02-28 11:50:13 UTC

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True.
...
Come to think of it, *is* there any accessible filesystem designed for at-rest data?

2026-02-28 11:47:46 UTC

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Don't know about filesystems themselves but I'd add a par2 integrity set over them if I had space for it.

2026-02-27 09:37:17 UTC

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And what if ed(1) called Lisp to assist it with parsing.

2026-02-25 08:21:19 UTC

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Doesn't help if you're on a non-glibc system either.

2026-02-24 08:01:29 UTC

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Have I missed something about KeepassXC?

2026-02-22 02:51:43 UTC

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Money?

2026-02-20 05:27:47 UTC

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Oh for fucks sake :neocat_scream_angry:

2026-02-20 05:23:16 UTC

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Oh no, what happened?

2026-02-20 03:45:16 UTC

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We need more done in *actually* high level languages.

2026-02-17 04:22:19 UTC

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It's understandable though, give that pretty much every machine type was *completely* different.

2026-02-17 03:49:18 UTC

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I look at some of the stuff we had in the 70s and 80s and they're crazily advanced despite tiny and slow hardware.
I wish it hadn't been (almost) forgotten.

2026-02-17 03:43:53 UTC

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Hmm, I get the strong feeling there *is* an appropriate word but I can't quite bring it to mind either.
Maybe "inputs"?

2026-02-17 03:40:15 UTC

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Oh, did you mean arguments when you wrote assumptions?

2026-02-17 03:39:09 UTC

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Every time I think about learning Python I remember what a blasted hellscape its packaging is and I go do something else.

2026-02-15 02:53:08 UTC

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Even key:value pairs would be a huge upgrade.

2026-02-15 02:45:50 UTC

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"Modern" filesystems are terrible.
They don't even have a comment field or versioning.
(I remember that the Amiga would save the URL of a downloaded file in the file's comment.)

2026-02-09 12:55:01 UTC

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We even lost versioned file systems :neocat_floof_sad_low_ears:

2026-02-07 21:36:50 UTC

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Thanks, I'll try that :)

2026-02-07 19:34:03 UTC

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What would be good values to start with?

2026-01-29 10:37:33 UTC

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What font are you using there?
No longer using the Xerox Smalltalk one? :neocat_0_0:

2026-01-25 06:02:47 UTC

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I think I first heard about prevalence in relation to KeyKOS, though it may have been Smalltalk.
But I definitely want it :neocat__w:

2026-01-24 22:56:27 UTC

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I am sad that so many amazing systems have been almost lost due to the windows/mac/unix focus.

2026-01-22 21:46:59 UTC

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I never thought of that but spatiality does indeed seem to be the thing that attracts me to it. Similar to Smalltalks.

2026-01-19 23:19:44 UTC

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I don't actually understand the "I made you do" thing.
Am I better off not knowing?

2026-01-15 23:07:33 UTC

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But *honey* is a different matter.

2026-01-05 19:15:12 UTC

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"Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you’re as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?
-- Brian Kernighan, 1974"
Imagine how hard it is to debug code you're not smart enough to write in the first place.

2025-12-28 00:41:39 UTC

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You thought the bouncing ball was from Atari?
:neocat_angry:

2024-10-29 16:45:48 UTC

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Good point. I was just thinking of how it could be used for a Picotron like system I was thinking of.

2024-10-29 16:38:52 UTC

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Clever. I suppose that works better when the display frame rate is not the same as the logic update rate.

2024-10-29 13:10:52 UTC

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Perhaps step() ?

2024-10-22 03:02:43 UTC

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The way anime girl faces look becomes much more understandable once you learn that they're based on cat faces, not human faces.

2024-10-21 12:01:32 UTC

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But then insecure guys couldn't drive around in massive vehicles with angry faces on the front.
(Yes, the angry face on the front of SUVs is deliberate)

2024-10-17 02:12:26 UTC

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I remember reading many many *many* years ago that the reason for switching to CMOS from other technologies was its lower power requirements even if it was much slower.
Is it *still* slower than competing techs and only used due to the lower power/heat dissipation requirements?

2024-10-16 19:55:21 UTC

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Yeah, I know, but when I'm falling asleep and want to go to bed *now* having the computer play silly buggers is quite unwelcome. :neocat_laugh:

2024-10-16 02:27:45 UTC

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Oh noes! Especially when you have spinning disks connected.

2024-10-14 19:03:41 UTC

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True, but many midi devices allow you to write the firmware with the right commands.

2024-10-14 18:59:16 UTC

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Yes, of course I want to expose all my usb and bluetooth devices to $RANDOM_INTERNET_SITE. Why wouldn't I? :neocat_sob:
At least they're resisting webmidi. /sigh

2024-09-21 19:18:23 UTC

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True. I did like the Smalltalk-76 font though (called Cream iirc?) since they *did* care about how things look.
I think @npub1z8r…mrq6 uses that one in their UXN tools. :neocat__w:

2024-09-21 18:51:00 UTC

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Maybe the fonts that were used on monochrome systems like Smalltalk-80 & 76, Interlisp, Lisp machines and the like could be a good inspiration?

2024-09-16 18:37:31 UTC

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Oof, that's a pity.

2024-09-16 18:35:30 UTC

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Maybe make a pair of matching front plates?

2024-09-12 11:45:33 UTC

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Why on earth would someone use the same field for that? :neocat_what: