asciilifeform: i have vaguely positive memory of the fella, minus the part where he answr'd 100% of asciilifeform's attempts to buy sumthing moar than iron, in same way as mcdonalds clerk might react to attempt to buy the mcdonalds
asciilifeform: tho i suppose could also be cuz asciilifeform successfully persuaded the salt mine he toiled in at the time, to buy alpha+genera, paying dks's rent for month or 2
asciilifeform: lemme guess, 'that d00d who was gonna make mem board but returned nil' ? lol
asciilifeform: phf: funnily enuff, i did the gnarl of the bus already, during (aborted) proj for dks where he asked 'make me a replacement crapple mem expander board for nubus'
asciilifeform: not an alt-pantsuit alt-stockholm to give'im an obummernobel
asciilifeform: convenient, that there aint a solzhenitsin writing a 'gitmo archipelag'
asciilifeform: ( iirc in 1990s ru actually suggested this biz model to eu, but for some mysterious reason the latter balked )
asciilifeform: 'The prison won’t have to measure up to Danish standards either. “I’m sure they [the criminals] would rather serve in a Danish prison, but there needs to be room for many others,” Preben Bang Henriksen, the spokesperson for Venstre party on judicial issues, told DR Nyheder.' << mega-outsource biz idea!11
asciilifeform: 'Negotiations ongoing regarding outsourcing to prison in Lithuania' << bahahaha loox like the nato gulag in ro must be full nao
asciilifeform not terribly astonished that museum doesn't bother to reply to 'hey whydontcha lemme borrow your kohinoor diamond for a spell'
asciilifeform: over the yrs, i've written to a number of folx who have the thing, some 'collectors' , some 'museums' that keep the thing under glass and away from the gold recycling people. but 0 replies. ( tbf, wot problem, they can't readily distinguish asciilifeform from gold recyclers etc )
asciilifeform: ( i dun even know anybody who ~has~ 1 )
asciilifeform: aha, writing files / db queries really can be seen as elaborate ritual where you sacrifice to moloch and beg the iron to prettypleeez not lose yer bits when cord pulled
asciilifeform: ” they tell him, “the October holidays will soon be here, the anniversary of the Revolution. Give us a bit more for the anniversary and they’ll probably lop a couple more years off.” So he hands in his gold in installments—some for November 7, some for May 1, then for Constitution Day, and maybe even for March 8 (Women’s Day). The investigator gets his bonuses, the snoopers early release, and the millionaire—a bullet.'
asciilifeform: was shot. There were many ridiculous aspects to this form of bargaining. Underground millionaires are reluctant to part with their accumulated riches, but they don’t want to lose their lives either, so they start giving up their gold bit by bit, swearing each time that this installment is the last. But the investigators and the snoopers are perfectly well aware that there is more to come, and they keep up the pressure. “Listen,
asciilifeform: 'The story was very typical. The famous Roifman who was at the center of the first of the “textile trials” also kept his mouth shut, so that not even the snoopers could talk him round. Then he was summoned to see Semichastny, head of the KGB, and Malyarov, the Deputy Public Prosecutor, who gave him their sincere Party word that he wouldn’t be shot if he gave up his riches. Roifman believed them, handed in his valuables—and☟︎
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: incidentally, in world of ru prison, even worse , 'петух' (cock [bird]) came to refer to d00d who's been lowered into pederasty, resulting in even mention of having at one point eaten chicken being quasi-taboo
asciilifeform: lol BingoBoingo , remember when 'cock' was a bird ?
asciilifeform: currently i see the chance that somebody will lend asciilifeform a unit for 'hey lemme pull and waltz the GALs and i'ma give it back to you, will try not to zap it' as pretty slim.☟︎
asciilifeform: and so happens that i've dug up the src for the supporting proggy that talked to it, 5 or so yrs ago☟︎
asciilifeform: 'ivory' board, however ( http://btcbase.org/log/2018-11-28#1875835 ) is moar or less exactly the correct item, it's a minimal set of support logic for the chip, and piggybacks on ancient 1980s crapple ( box that's been reversed nine ways to pluto and 100% emulatable today ) for i/o☝︎
asciilifeform: pretty painful proposition, to pick up a $5k board simply to read off the GALs and xray the pcb. but unless somebody has one to lend for the purpose, i dun see how that dig will ever move beyond 'i have these here 2 ic's' without access to orig ivory pcb.
asciilifeform: sadly they aint getting any cheaper..
asciilifeform: i.e. ugly hacks around the idiocies of the machine arch, where ram is 1) laughably small 2) dies when power cut 3) poorly impedance-matched with persistent storage 4) persisted 'in software' rather than as reliable function of the iron, resulting in (2)
asciilifeform: ~if~ yer pushing the very limits of what's physically possible on your iron, as in e.g. phuctor -- THEN is the time to massage/hyperoptimize. not otherwise.
asciilifeform: (i.e. you use whatever data structure you like in memory, and it gets 'persisted' to nonvolatile storage as part of sane iron functioning)
asciilifeform: ( and yes it is possible to write certain proggies such that they work with 'any sql db' -- sort how it is also possible to write a http://btcbase.org/log/2018-11-27#1875332 . but in the general case -- failed )☝︎
asciilifeform: all in all ~substantially~ moar interesting read than today's academi-claptrap !
asciilifeform: ru pathologists refer to subj as 'wax fetus', can't recall what it is in eng☟︎
asciilifeform: 'An Account of what appear'd on opening the big-belly'd Woman near Haman in Shropshire, who was suppos'd to have continued many Years with Child' -- iirc we even had the thread !
asciilifeform: ( there is also phf's www-displaying one, but that one isn't a system proggy or published as such )
asciilifeform: afaik there are currently 3 working ( i.e. with keccak format ) vtrons , v.py ( as patched by phf ) , v.pl ( patched by diana_coman ) and esthlos
asciilifeform: then , iirc, punkman ( now-defunkt greek d00d ) wrote one ; then ben_vulpes
asciilifeform: mod6 wrote his (much moar feature-complete) item shortly after
asciilifeform: i had naively installed 'archlinux' on it, and as result found out for 1st time what systemd was.
asciilifeform: ( to enlinuxize, had to open it and put crocodiles on the eeprom . but iron was flaky, thing sometimes would wake from sleepmode with x11 mutilated , etc )
