home tags events about rss login
blackHole://cafe

nilix posted 17 Mar 2026 17:59 +0000

came up with a neat way to simplify text rendering in the new taro. since i'm always either:

  • drawing multiple lines of text in a listbox
  • or drawing a single line of text in a label or text entrybox

when drawing a line of text, when i reach a newline, i increment the address and return it, so the calling function can draw the next line of text without having to reseek to it; when i reach the end of the string, i return a null short for the calling function to check against :>

nilix posted 16 Mar 2026 18:13 +0000

ugh i have had multiple people tell me recently during my job search how brave it was that i quit my job and am trying to fight the current...

as i explained at the beginning of my last blog post, it's not like i had a choice. i literally couldn't function anymore, so yeah i guess there's an element of bravery in quitting instead of letting them fire me but the end result would have been the same

nilix posted 16 Mar 2026 04:37 +0000

banging my head against the wall all day has been very frustrating however i am getting used to thinking like a stack machine again and i have made a bit of progress ^^

nilix posted 15 Mar 2026 22:58 +0000

my font rendering adventures are not going well -.-

|00 @System     &vector $2 &wst      $1 &rst    $1 &eaddr  $2 &ecode  $1 &pad     $1 &r       $2 &g      $2 &b     $2 &debug  $1 &halt $1
|10 @Console    &vector $2 &read     $1 &pad    $5 &write  $1 &error  $1
|20 @Screen     &vector $2 &width    $2 &height $2 &auto   $1 &pad    $1 &x       $2 &y       $2 &addr   $2 &pixel $1 &sprite $1
|30 @Audio0     &vector $2 &position $2 &output $1 &pad    $3 &adsr   $2 &length  $2 &addr    $2 &volume $1 &pitch $1
|40 @Audio1     &vector $2 &position $2 &output $1 &pad    $3 &adsr   $2 &length  $2 &addr    $2 &volume $1 &pitch $1
|50 @Audio2     &vector $2 &position $2 &output $1 &pad    $3 &adsr   $2 &length  $2 &addr    $2 &volume $1 &pitch $1
|60 @Audio3     &vector $2 &position $2 &output $1 &pad    $3 &adsr   $2 &length  $2 &addr    $2 &volume $1 &pitch $1
|80 @Controller &vector $2 &button   $1 &key    $1 &func   $1
|90 @Mouse      &vector $2 &x        $2 &y      $2 &state  $1 &pad    $3 &scrollx $2 &scrolly $2
|a0 @File      &vector $2 &success  $2 &stat   $2 &delete $1 &append $1 &name    $2 &length  $2 &read   $2 &write $2
|b0 @File_      &vector $2 &success  $2 &stat   $2 &delete $1 &append $1 &name    $2 &length  $2 &read   $2 &write $2
|c0 @DateTime   &year   $2 &month    $1 &day    $1 &hour   $1 &minute $1 &second  $1 &dotw    $1 &doty   $2 &isdst $1

( variables )

|0000

( program )

|0100 ( -> )

  ( default theme ) 
  #028d .System/r DEO2 
  #0a8d .System/g DEO2 
  #098d .System/b DEO2
  
  load_font

  #0400 .Screen/width DEO2
  #0300 .Screen/height DEO2
  
  #0010 .Screen/x DEO2
  #0010 .Screen/y DEO2
  ;wtf  uf2/draw
  
BRK

@load_font ( -- )

  ;font_file .File/name DEO2
  #2100 .File/length DEO2
  ;font .File/read DEO2
  
JMP2r

@wtf "Taro 20 "or 20 "something $1
@font_file "font.uf2 00

@uf2/draw ( text* -- )
	
	[ LIT2 15 -Screen/auto ] DEO
	[ LIT2r 03 -Screen/sprite ]
	&>w
		LDAk DUP ?{ POP POP2 POP2r JMP2r }
		#0000 ROT #20 SUB
		( addr ) DUP2 #50 SFT2 ;font/glyphs ADD2 .Screen/addr DEO2
		( move ) ;font ADD2 LDA .Screen/x DEI2 ADD2
		( draw ) [ DEOkr DEOkr ] .Screen/x DEO2
		INC2 !&>w

@font $100
&glyphs $2000

@neauoire i can't really identify what i'm doing wrong here

screenshot of my font rendering test which ends up saying "4AROORSOMETHING" instead of "Taro or something"

nilix posted 15 Mar 2026 00:06 +0000

taro backend is rewritten as a 9p filesystem, just gotta clean things up a bit and push the changes, (also push the changes to xrxs itself) then i can start fucking around with the uxn side :D

nilix posted 14 Mar 2026 03:17 +0000

awww yeah we got the basics down. can probably have the whole backend of taro rewritten as a 9p filesystem by the end of the weekend

nilix replied 14 Mar 2026 01:14 +0000
in reply to: https://merveilles.town/users/neauoire/statuses/116224837018485966

@neauoire thanks! i'm gonna do all rendering in uxn though, it's more or less gonna be the same broad strokes architecture as taro currently is, just instead of communicating over STDIO it'll communicate over 9p, and instead of the backend being written in crystal with event loops it'll be in C using the xrxs approach!

but i'm sure as i redo the whole frontend i'll have more than a few questions for you since i haven't really touched uxntal in a couple years ^^;

nilix replied 13 Mar 2026 22:18 +0000
in reply to: https://cafe.nilfm.cc/u/nilix/h/DmGYKVvVR2nnM9tX42

ok we have a basic ass library that lets us build 9p filesystems really fast, like this :>

#include "xrxs/types.h"
#include "xrxs/fns.h"

enum FileType {
  CTL = 1,
  DATA
};

void xrxs_attach(Req* r) {
  respond(r, nil);
}

void xrxs_read(Req* r) {
  Aux* a = r->fid->file->aux;
  switch (a->type) {
    case DATA:
      readstr(r, "some data\n");
      respond(r, nil);
      break;
    default:
      respond(r, nil);
  }
}

void xrxs_write(Req* r) {
  respond(r, nil);
}

int threadmaybackground(void) { return 1; }

void threadmain(int argc, char* argv[]) {

    Srv* fs = xrxs_create(xrxs_read, xrxs_write, xrxs_attach);
    
    xrxs_build(fs->tree->root, "ctl", nil, DMAPPEND | 0600, create_aux(CTL));
    xrxs_build(fs->tree->root, "data", nil, 0400, create_aux(DATA));
    
    xrxs_srv(fs, nil, "/home/nilix/n");
}

nilix replied 13 Mar 2026 20:18 +0000
in reply to: https://cafe.nilfm.cc/u/nilix/h/29qW1x8H2J3R55VNSm

i decided to revisit xrxs as a generalized framework and keep it in plan9port c instead of migrating it to go, so i'm experimenting with what abstractions to include in the framework and what to leave to individual applications

nilix posted 13 Mar 2026 20:00 +0000

feels nice to be writing C again ngl

nilix posted 13 Mar 2026 15:37 +0000

full of CHAOS and RAGE

nilix posted 12 Mar 2026 19:40 +0000

tracing the through line between xrxs, taro, and kuro; i see something really cool waiting to be built

nilix shared 12 Mar 2026 15:45 +0000
original: cblgh@merveilles.town

textual offcuts from an unpublished essay

textual offcuts from an unpublished essay

When I engage with new technologies questions linger in the afterglow of the initial excitement. Am I wasting my time? What impact is this having on me?

I think that whenever we find ourselves enamoured with a novelty from the labs of humanity we should sooth fears of missing out. And instead ask questions. What do I gain from this? What do I lose? What does the purveyor gain from my adoption? How do I want to use this new thing? Questioning: do I even want this? To pause and consider the risks. Risks exist independent of our perception.

In Charlie Stross's noughties novel Accelerando, the main character is a prolific and virtuosic user of artificial agents, which in the book are computer programs that perform acts at his bidding. The primary interface for this novel substrate is a pair of glasses. In one part of the book the main character loses his computational glasses. Lost with them is the capacity for any kind of engagement with the world. He finds himself cognitively bereft, lost in a non-capacious haze.

Smart glasses exist today. I don't have any nor does anyone I know. I could make an analogy to "agentic AI", but I don't use LLMs. Instead, the smart device I consult every day is the smartphone. Where I live there is a personal identification app, produced and owned by a consortium of the biggest banks. This app is woven into all facets of life. If my phone breaks, I lose access to the identification app. A minor personal catastrophe ensues. I lose the ability to pay bills or file taxes. I can kiss goodbye to making second hand purchases on the regional version of eBay. In spite of my physical debit cards, most Internet transactions fail because I will have lost the ability to countersign. Out of town family can't contact me, and I can only let them know through the grace of the few others around with their phone number. Public transit would become an immense hassle. When my smartphone breaks the haze settles on me too.

Reducing this dependence relationship on technologies feels important. Whether for gadgets, technologies, or information networks. I don't want to be reliant on technology where I lack a voice in how it operates, any say in future changes. So that when deprived, whether temporary or otherwise, I keep my change-making capacity.

nilix shared 12 Mar 2026 14:14 +0000
original: shibacomputer@post.lurk.org

In 2015 I was on a beach in Hawai'i helping build the prototype of what became Signal. I argued that the app needed pseudonyms because abusers know their victims' phone numbers. I lost the fight that day. History proved me right, and Signal would move to usernames under @Mer__edith's stewardship.

In this new essay, I trace the line from Barlow's Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace through smart-home forensics, metadata killings, and Archive Team's non-consensual Tumblr scrape to ask: when did we decide that a jpeg is a photograph, that a profile is a person, that storage is memory?

The answer involves a boat off Honolulu, the early days of Signal, Iran's missiles over Amazon's Dubai AWS facilities, and the communities already building for a world where the server goes dark. This is an essay about infrastructure, memory, archiving without consent, and what we lose when we mistake the filesystem for memory.

It is also the angriest and most personal text I've ever written. I'm furious, and you should be too. We bet an entire civilisation on a brutal and unreliable stack. Now, fate has come to collect that wager.

California has a lot to fucking answer for.

https://newdesigncongress.org/en/pub/who-will-remember-us-when-the-servers-go-dark/

A young man seen from behind, leaning on the railing of a sailboat. He's wearing a light blue t-shirt, looking out over deep blue Pacific water toward a hazy Honolulu skyline in the distance. The sun is bright and warm on his skin and the back of his neck. Above him, a weathered green canvas canopy. The boat's rigging, ropes, and a small wooden box are visible to his left. The water is calm with small ripples catching the light. January 2015.

nilix posted 11 Mar 2026 21:51 +0000

i've made ~$650 from contract work this month. and i got an anonymous donation for about 13 bucks (thank you whoever you are <3). that's about 1/3 of my monthly expenses before child support. any help is appreciated, whether you can spare a few bucks for a donation or wanna hire me for this or that: https://lightcrystal.systems/support

nilix replied 10 Mar 2026 22:11 +0000
in reply to: https://types.pl/users/agentultra/statuses/116207099223262148

@agentultra i found a torrent of the master edition in cbz format on a certain catgirl-adjacent site and ran it through some scripts to load it onto the device (cause the reMarkable 2 can only read PDFs and only up to 100MB per file)! i wish i could say i got it in a more morally upstanding way but i can't justify spending the money on hard copies ><

nilix posted 10 Mar 2026 21:25 +0000

been reading BLAME! on my reMarkable 2. this is what eInk was made for

nilix posted 08 Mar 2026 17:47 +0000

ughhggg needed me some eep

nilix shared 04 Mar 2026 18:14 +0000
original: neauoire@merveilles.town

I woke up with an idea for a book, I wrote down the first page.

I woke up with an idea for a book, I wrote down the first page.

An ultratourmaline light is ever present but for the luminescent ripple awakened by a wave breaking, the spark from two rocks colliding or the storms igniting the crests of dunes; but here, nothing natural grows with eyes to see it. Eyes came from elsewhere.

Shielded from the winds above, invisible but to the darkness, Den Azar kneels onto the wet fiberglass, bend over the feroplastic membrane, bite at the loose shale and succulent cables; masticates, voraciously, my precious fabric before sinking into a satiated sleep.

The blizzard accumulates in small mounds of ash around her ceramic legs and pools in the recesses of her closing golden eyes.

The storm blows itself out, glass, the ocean reflects nothing back. A million sunflowers at the bottom of the Abyss stir.

Den Azar kicks at suffocating miasma, it liquefies, a metallic arc lights up the night. A sunflower notices and immediately looses interest. He swims through the lye, caustic, immaterial, wormlike toward the surface. Two iridescent florets of gold bloom.

"Hummingbirds?"

nilix posted 02 Mar 2026 22:56 +0000

so i've got a couple pupils and a little webdev project rn but i'm still very much living off of my savings and trying to bootstrap things here;

if you like my open source work and can spare a few bucks for my livelihood i would very much appreciate a donation

alternatively if you're in need of a sofware/web designer/developer or tech educator (see my CV and my consultancy) DM, email, or message me on signal per your preference; i'd love to see if we can work together :>

it should go without saying i do not use genAI in any of my work

#openSource #fediHire #mutualAid #noGenAI

nilix posted 28 Feb 2026 22:03 +0000

wish people would cherish one another instead of killing each other :<

nilix shared 26 Feb 2026 14:15 +0000
original: alice@lgbtqia.space

#Trans folx in #Kansas given 1 day to surrender their (now invalid) IDs and driver's licenses to the state. As of tomorrow (Thursday), driving while trans is a class-B misdemeanor ($1000 fine and up to 6 months in jail).

The zero-grace-period execution means driving to turn in your license is a crime.

Oh yeah, this bill also enacted a bathroom bounty program allowing private individuals to sue trans folx for using the restroom.

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/kansas-sends-letters-to-trans-people

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/kansas-advancing-anti-trans-bill

#AntiTrans #Authoritarianism #FuckTrump #FuckRepublicans #ProtectTransFolx

nilix posted 25 Feb 2026 19:09 +0000

today i will migrate the last server and build some cronjobs

nilix posted 25 Feb 2026 05:01 +0000

#dollctl is pretty much ready. i've got my network 80% migrated.

  • service supervision and versioning
  • pipelines for testing, building, and deploying code, including private artifactories
  • data management including on-demand snapshots and streaming
  • straightforward virtual machine management
  • structured logging

https://forge.lightcrystal.systems/nilix/dollctl

nilix posted 24 Feb 2026 23:11 +0000

time to migrate another node

nilix posted 24 Feb 2026 19:17 +0000

eepy =w= but i will slay i promise

nilix posted 23 Feb 2026 23:11 +0000

oh yeah, i got a web design client :> things are happening!

nilix posted 23 Feb 2026 22:10 +0000

performing some maintenance, so the lightcrystal forge will be down for maybe half an hour?

nilix posted 22 Feb 2026 22:54 +0000

i finally found a coloration method that really works for me. colored this #selfPortrait from a couple months ago!

a self portrait standing in a sleeveless dress, coarse fishnets, and black socks and boots. my oroborus chest tattoo is visible and i let my jacket hang low on my arms to reveal my shoulders. my hair hangs in wavy bangs in black and green framing my pale face and green eyes that veer left. also has dark grey mwchanical horns and tail, and the whole figure is framed in white

nilix replied 22 Feb 2026 08:01 +0000
in reply to: https://mastodon.publicinterest.town/users/b_cavello/statuses/116098171643014141

@b_cavello +1 for meaningful changelogs and preserving commit history.

also just customized forks and patches and little shell scripts that glue things together. take my desktop environment on my daily driver. its made of patches on top of otherwise complete/unmaintained software, shell scripts, custom themes, etc because nothing else was (to my liking) good enough, or stable enough, and id rather build a chimera with love than be at the mercy of the software zeitgeist

nilix posted 21 Feb 2026 17:42 +0000

i didnt really plan my lesson for today. my brain says keep going with html but my heart says just teach him uxn ><

i will present a few options and ask what he wants to do today i guess

nilix posted 21 Feb 2026 01:47 +0000

dogfooding #dollctl on zircon (this host) now; it was largely painless.

next on my list is setting up the forge's networking properly so it can reach the other instances and then i can set up some nice pipelines for automation, and i have a couple ideas for cmdline dollctl clients of various shapes.

nilix posted 20 Feb 2026 19:38 +0000

the wind is crazy and it's been hailing on and off, a good day to stay cozy at the desk with some tea :>

nilix replied 20 Feb 2026 17:59 +0000
in reply to: https://merveilles.town/users/neauoire/statuses/116103833804859101

re: job rambling what is jobs

re: job rambling what is jobs

@neauoire @pixls still figuring out the "make a living off it" part but working on my passion for the past month after putting in 4 years at a corporation because it was the responsible thing (i mean it also taught me a lot about my craft) i am so much happier. but it took me this long to really grasp what id rather be doing

nilix posted 20 Feb 2026 02:18 +0000

#honkers ; does anybody know what happened to Ted?

Also does anybody have an up-to-date clone of honk? it appears the version i'm running is newer than the version i have the source for and the wayback machine doesn't have consistent snapshots of the source :<

nilix posted 19 Feb 2026 03:38 +0000

#dollctl is getting very close to useable

gave a presentation today and it was well received! recording will be available eventually.

latest updates:

  • VM module is working well. virtual disks, NICs, and CDs are managed along with the VMs that use them in a streamlined declarative way; resources can't be destroyed or changed while a VM is using them
  • service management and CICD pipelines have been debugged and Deployment steps can seamlessly deploy and restart a service
  • services now support an optional user, group, and custom environment variables
  • pipeline Test and Build steps now run in a shell for more flexibility

nilix posted 16 Feb 2026 18:35 +0000

spent all day yeterday testing and debugging the VM module of #dollctl. it can now create and destroy virtual resources and run/shutdown VMs through the web API. today i will test other configs (more disks, different network setup, etc) and switch gears back to web client #sigil

nilix posted 14 Feb 2026 18:51 +0000

proteus has been upgraded!

  • / is the same, on a 250G SSD
  • /home is now a zpool (zhomeng) on a 1T SSD
  • zhomeng/pso2 is a case-insensitive zfs filesystem mounted on ~/lib/pso2 where PSO2 is installed

and now that i'm not using a hybrid drive setup proteus's third (120G) SSD which used to be the hybrid drive's cache layer is used for swap (not that i really ever need it but just in case)

nilix posted 14 Feb 2026 01:16 +0000

tired: servermaid
wired: mistress of the network

nilix shared 13 Feb 2026 19:12 +0000
original: nullagent@partyon.xyz

Loving the reshares and words of support but sadly it'd be nice to make progress on our fundraiser sooner rather than later so we can de-stress.

Lately I've got the tiny human 50/50 after the courts threw out my counterparts false claims now THREE times.

I've been facing a ton of online and in-person harassment from my ex's mob of vigilantes, cops & courts have had to be involved and the legal situation is rather active.

$125 / $2000

Casapp/venmo/paypal $nullagent
#ParentingWhileBlack

nilix shared 13 Feb 2026 19:07 +0000
original: sigrid@nein.ftrv.se

Currently looking for a new employment (remote and EU only), thought to try to get #fedihired as well.
Most of my ~20 year experience I dealt with either very low-level kernel/user-level (often embedded) C+asm or distributed backend (Go, Erlang, Java).
I would love to prioritize the former and not opposed to learning something new at this point.

CV: https://ftrv.se/_/cv.pdf
A bunch of code: https://git.sr.ht/~ft/

nilix shared 13 Feb 2026 19:07 +0000
original: lrhodes@merveilles.town

"None of these alternatives are as polished as the big corporate platform that's doing shady things!"

Yeah, buddy. You'll never get free if you cling to polish. Embrace the scruffynet.

nilix shared 13 Feb 2026 19:07 +0000
original: mhoye@cosocial.ca

These two images are the entire story of open source software support in this world, in a nutshell.

Exhibit one is the list of companies who are sponsoring the Linux Foundation, a murderer's row of the largest and most powerful hosting and services companies in the world.

Exhibit two is one dude scrambling to keep the lights on after a raid failure because KTLO for the servers that everyone uses to _download Linux_ are "outside the scope" of the Linux Foundation's "main duties".

nilix posted 13 Feb 2026 03:07 +0000

ok i switched icon themes from Material Solarized Suru to Commonality and it's both chunky and cute, goes very hard :3

a minimalistic file manager with grey widget background and black file chooser background. the icons are skeuomorphic and chunky, reminiscent of 90s unix

nilix shared 12 Feb 2026 05:37 +0000
original: xgranade@wandering.shop

Hot take: looking for a single silver-bullet Discord replacement is solving the wrong problem. Corporate power has pushed us towards everything-apps, but it's OK for the tool you use to communicate with other users of an open source project to look different from the tool you use to text your spouse and the tool you use to run voice chats with your gaming guilds.

nilix posted 12 Feb 2026 01:45 +0000

so, it reduces the immediacy of seeing and editing the schedule via the API directly but i think im gonna not implement the cron module in dollctl cause you can just do the same stuff with a service... less is more?

nilix posted 11 Feb 2026 17:48 +0000

so i have confirmed that clothespins + a steamy bathroom works well for refreshing knife pleats; the moar u know