Cosmopolitan Third Edition

After nearly one year of development, I'm pleased to announce our version 3.0 release of the Cosmopolitan library.

On "real name" policies

Some free software projects reject anonymous or pseudonymous contributions, requiring you to author patches using your “real name”. Such projects have a so-called “real name” policy; Linux is one well-known example.1

The root motivations behind such policies vary, but in my experience the most often cited rationale is that it’s important to establish the provenance of the contribution for copyright reasons. In the case of Linux, contributors are asked to “sign-off” their commits to indicate their agreement to the terms of the Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO), which includes clauses like the following:

The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I have the right...

webring ideas

Quoting parts of wikipedia for context:
Quote:A webring (or web ring) is a collection of websites linked together in a circular structure, and usually organized around a specific theme, often educational or social.[1] They were popular in the 1990s and early 2000s, particularly among amateur websites.
With that in mind, considering that webrings at this age are more or less dead, and there was one guy who went to make one for ActivityPub users. I thought of something different on a XMPP room of mine after reading a post from Russ Cox that z3bra posted in #nixers.
Quote:webring idea: everyone uses qrcodes made...

Cyber hunt

Hello hunters !
It's been quite a while since my one, but I'm here with a new Internt Scavenger Hunt !
This one has been cooking for the past year, and this is with great pleasure that I advertise it to the community ! Without further ado, here's the link:
⠵ CYB3R HUNT ⠫
It is much more involved and narrated than the other hunts I've made, and benefits from all the feedbacks I got, so brace yourselves ! There's also a whole story line going with it, and progressing through the hunt will unfold the plot.
I hope you guys will enjoy it! Don't...

Going off-script

There is a phenomenon in society which I find quite bizarre. Upon our entry to this mortal coil, we are endowed with self-awareness, agency, and free will. Each of the 8 billion members of this human race represents a unique person, a unique worldview, and a unique agency. Yet, many of us have the same fundamental goals and strive to live the same life.

I think of such a life experiences as “following the script”. Society lays down for us a framework for living out our lives. Everyone deviates from the script to some extent, but most people hit the important beats. In Western society, these beats are...

Forty years of programming

The forbidden topics

There are forbidden topics in the hacker community. One is sternly reprimanded for bringing them up, by their peers, their leaders, and the community at large. In private, one can expect threats and intimidation; in public, outcry and censorship. The forbidden topics are enforced by the moderators of our spaces, taken off of forums, purged from chat rooms, and cleaned up from GitHub issues and mailing lists; the ban-hammers fall swiftly and resolutely. My last article to touch these subjects was removed from Hacker News by the moderators within 30 minutes and landed several death threats in my inbox. The forbidden topics, when raised, are met with a...

Exploring Command-line space time

HAL в 4000 байт

«HAL 4000» – исполняемая программа для Windows размером ровно 4000 байт. Лучшая работа в номинации 4 kb intro фестиваля Chaos Constructions 2017, второе место в чартах портала pouet.net. «HAL 4000» попала в плейлист Best of Demoscene 2017 наряду с работами Farbrausch, Fairlight, Conspiracy, Alcatraz, Byterapers, обсуждалась на вебинаре анимационной студии, демонстрировалась на различных фестивалях.

Необычная история создания этой работы изложена ниже.

Don’t share commented-out code