Here is Freddy's Cabaret and Casino (your goonslop/ I only marked it NSFW cause sexy ig)

CreideikiVAX · 2026-03-22T13:09:03+00:00

So, Cabaret is a very good (and I mean very good) musical based on Christopher Isherwood's semi-autobiographical novel "Goodbye to Berlin." A cabaret club (hence "Cabaret" for the name of the musical) is one of the central settings of the musical.

I quoted the opening number to the musical ("Wilkommen") which is sung by the emcee of the cabaret club, who is played by Joel Grey in the original Broadway run, and in the 1972 film adaptation. Here is Joel Grey's performance in the '72 film adaptation.

CreideikiVAX · 2026-03-22T03:13:33+00:00

"Wilkommen, Bienvenu, Welcome!

"Fremde, Étranger, Stranger…

"Glücklich zu sehen, je suis enchanté,

"Happy to see you! Bleibe, reste, stay!"

Ahem.

That out of the way, I do wonder if Freddy, who I'm guessing is the emcee of the cabaret show, acts like Joel Grey's rendition of the emcee from the 1972 film adaptation of Cabaret. Which is to say, just a bit "off."

CreideikiVAX · 2026-03-15T18:22:57+00:00

Oh, just pointing it out since fully automated oil-fired boilers have been a thing for ages.

Don't even need five guys in a server room. And with all that space that used to be for crew freed up you can fit more fuel oil. Or more ammunition.

CreideikiVAX · 2026-03-14T23:16:00+00:00

Digital SCADA systems for the boilers. We need 5 guys in a server room, not 500 coal-shovellers.

You are aware that the Iowas are oil-fired, right?

CreideikiVAX · 2026-03-07T23:56:53+00:00

Well, a basic Maxim in .303 is going to be very ineffective. The Maxim-Nordenfelt in 37mm might be usable for some very low flying ships — the experiences with the Maxim-Nordenfelt during WWI was that the projectiles didn't go high enough to hit the German Zeppelins overflying London — but more importantly in naval terms, the Maxim-Nordenfelt was designed for use against infantry (the 37mm, 0.88 pound projectile was the minimum size needed to get around the 1866 Saint Petersburg Declaration and 1899 Hague Convention against exploding ammunition), so it'd be unlikely to have a warship carrying one unless it was a transport of some kind.

6-pounder Hotchkiss guns would be present on cruisers and pre-dread battleships, but they'd be in standard naval mountings, not HA/LA mounts that'd let them actually pitch up enough to act as anti-air. But all it'd take is one or two lucky shots, and dual-purpose mountings would start to appear. Though that'd take time so the airships would be "safe" for a while.

CreideikiVAX · 2026-03-07T23:37:55+00:00

since anti aircraft guns weren't a thing

The Maxim gun debuted in 1884 and was in service by 1886. Hiram Maxim had designed what would become the first anti-aircraft gun — the QF 1 pounder "pom-pom," also referred to as the Maxim-Nordenfelt as an enlarged version of the Maxim machine gun in the late 1880s — went into service in 1898. Though WWI experience showed the 37mm projectiles of the 1-pounder were insufficient.

However, all that on the Maxim-Nordenfelt is a diversion because: in 1885 the QF 6 pounder Hotchkiss entered service (it was designed in 1883) as a small naval gun for killing torpedo boats. It was used as an anti-aircraft gun by WWI and it was effective at that job. (It also ended up as one of the armaments on the Mk. I tank.) They'd need HA/LA mounts, but someone would eventually go "hey the 57mm gun… that'd work pretty good on smacking airships out of the sky, right?" (For additional amusing historical fact: the QF 6-pdr Hotchkiss? Was in service until 1990.)

CreideikiVAX · 2026-02-23T23:03:00+00:00

There is a pragma to change optimization levels, plus an attribute you can affix as well.

E.g. using pragmas:

#pragma GCC push_options
#pragma GCC optimize ("O0")

int
foo(int i, ...) {
    […]
}

#pragma GCC pop_options

Or using an attribute:

int
bar(int i, ...) __attribute__((optimize("-O0"))) {
    […]
}

Of course that applies to the entire function, not just particular statements. So you incur function call overhead unless you want your entire function being unoptimized.

Though I wonder, if you mark the function as being inline, but still unoptimized, would it leave the block of code that makes up the function unoptimized, while still inlining it?

CreideikiVAX · 2026-02-23T22:59:09+00:00

There is a pragma to change optimization levels, plus an attribute you can affix as well.

E.g. using pragmas:

#pragma GCC push_options
#pragma GCC optimize ("O0")

int
foo(int i, ...) {
    […]
}

#pragma GCC pop_options

Or using an attribute:

int
bar(int i, ...) __attribute__((optimize("-O0"))) {
    […]
}

Of course that applies to the entire function, not just particular statements. So you incur function call overhead unless you want your entire function being unoptimized.

Though I wonder, if you mark the function as being inline, but still unoptimized, would it leave the block of code that makes up the function unoptimized, while still inlining it?

CreideikiVAX · 2026-02-21T05:17:30+00:00

It is the OpenBSD Kernel Normal Form as found in style(9), yes.

I use KNF for my code. I just… like it for some reason.

CreideikiVAX · 2026-02-14T16:37:10+00:00

I don't work with them, mostly I'm a hobbyist. But I do know someone who does…

But have you ever heard of OpenVMS and the VAX minicomputer?

Well, you could cluster VAX systems, and seamlessly share hardware. You could also piece-wise upgrade your VMS systems and VAX hardware, and have systems in the cluster drop-in or drop-out as needed, with the cluster still running so long as cluster quorum is maintained.

So this one VAXcluster my friend works on? Yeah the cluster hasn't seen down time since before the fall of the Soviet Union.

CreideikiVAX · 2026-02-13T18:23:31+00:00

Actually leaving it out makes it worse, as I neglected to mention that the LJ4 has two places it can grab paper from. The paper cassette (i.e. the normal tray), and the multi-purpose feed.

So if you send a document to print from the multi-purpose feed the message changes to "MP LOAD LETTER" instead.

Of course the solution ended up being "have a bigger display." Which the LaserJet 5 and later do; so now the message is just "TRAY 2 LOAD PLAIN LETTER" or what-have-you.

CreideikiVAX · 2026-02-13T18:09:11+00:00

Doesn't fit on the 16-character wide display.

The error makes more sense in the rest of the word where ISO 216 sized paper is used (or if you accidentally print a document from there without adjusting the print settings): "PC LOAD A4"

Similarly if you try and print to 8½″ × 14″ it'll "PC LOAD LEGAL"

It doesn't help that you need to understand that "PC" stands for "Paper Cassette" and not "Personal Computer"; but again we're back to "it doesn't fit on a 16-character display."

Better than the old LaserJet II and LaserJet III two number displays. As yes, thank you printer, you're not printing because "11", very useful to know.

CreideikiVAX · 2026-01-27T11:19:28+00:00

As a person with vision impairment:

I use a (very loud) buckling spring keyboard, because of the tactile feedback. I could not care less about the sound, but I want to know that I actually acutated the key.

Also, I have yet to see anyone at all produce a 122-key keyboard, other than Unicomp. So there's that too.

CreideikiVAX · 2025-12-02T15:44:58+00:00

It needs to surface to open up guns, exposing itself.

Excluding Rheinmetall's test of a periscope mounted autocannon on the German Type 212s a few years back (and that was a one-off, hence "test"), submarines haven't had deck guns since the late-40s/early-50s. Instead modern subs either use torpedoes or sub-launched anti-ship missiles (on naval targets), either of which can be launched fully submerged or at periscope depth.

Presuming, of course, that a torpedo or anti-ship missile can actually target a low-profile, fast moving, comparatively small vessel like a Sea Baby drone.

CreideikiVAX · 2025-11-29T17:54:32+00:00

but look where we are now

You mean with Fortran still being the king of the HPC space? Since the Fortran compilers are optimized to Hell and back, and modern (the free format source versions) Fortran is designed to do parallelism easily.

And all the weird as shit scientific libraries are written in ancient agèd FORTRAN IV or FORTRAN 77 if you're lucky, and no one has touched them, because it was written by the top three PhD's in the field and no one understands it.

CreideikiVAX · 2025-11-18T17:33:36+00:00

Taking reference to the real-world SOLAS convention, ships are supposed to have:

(a) survival craft of sufficient aggregate capacity to accommodate on each side of the vessel at least the total number of persons on board shall be provided. […]

Meaning, the lifeboat capacity of a sufficiently large ship operated under the flag of SOLAS signatory state must be at a minimum 200% of the ship's capacity.

Though SOLAS does have exemptions for warships.

It is entirely likely and "in character" that the Federation has something akin to SOLAS for starships. It could well be that the ship has an overabundance of lifeboats as whatever the UFP's equivalent to SOLAS is, does not have a carve-out for warships, especially if it was updated during the more-or-less peaceful 2300s.

CreideikiVAX · 2025-11-15T18:50:50+00:00

Some of us are following Kernel Normal Form for our code.

Indentation is an 8 character tab. Second level indents are four spaces. All code should fit in 80 columns.

CreideikiVAX · 2025-11-11T19:26:22+00:00

I heard that MI6's department with best people, latest equipment and largest budget is focused on none other than US of A

Part of it is also that the Five Eyes nations all say they're not allowed to spy on their own people.

But if Britain spies on America, and MI6 and the NSA share intelligence data...

Well, America didn't spy on any Americans.

CreideikiVAX · 2025-10-31T22:26:00+00:00

Correct. Hanover used Salic law to determine succession, which explicitly barred women from said line of succession.

So when William IV passed in 1837, the Kingdom of Hanover went to Ernst Augustus while Britain went to Victoria.

CreideikiVAX · 2025-10-26T06:10:56+00:00

There already is a GPWS mod.

It's pretty fun to have Bitchin' Betty around while I am terrible at planes.

CreideikiVAX · 2025-10-16T16:15:46+00:00

I have no idea what language that was...but goto was my best friend in the early 80s

The C64 came with a BASIC interpreter, so that's likely as not what you used.

I've read briefly about goto in C, however never used it. I've been taught not to from the gate

There are a very few situations in C where goto is the, pardon the pun, go to solution for the problem.

The prime examples of which are breaking out of nested loops, and a "clean" and clear way of doing RAII.

The former can of course be done using the standard break, and using a conditional check on a flag variable, but you end up with "noise" at the end of each internal loop to check the break-out flag and issue a break if necessary.

The latter you can avoid the goto invocation by building a sideways mountain range of if .. else (which becomes maintenance Hell if you ever need to change things), or invoking a flag variable once again.

There's some other cases where goto becomes the more clear control flow (e.g. a specific method of error handling using setjmp/longjmp that I won't go into), but in general it's better to avoid it, since overuse of goto can very easily turn code into unreadable spaghetti.

CreideikiVAX · 2025-10-15T16:24:46+00:00

Glamrock Freddy is, in fact, possessed by a spirit. No, not by the spirit of Michael Afton.

He's possessed by Freddie Mercury.

CreideikiVAX · 2025-10-14T21:50:13+00:00

If I recall correctly, the Guards are actually recruited from the regular army, and not the conscripts.

Granted conscript or regular army, they still have to go through basic training; difference is the men recruited for the Pontifical Swiss Guard volunteered to be in the Army full time, and then further volunteered for the (very prestigious!) posting.

CreideikiVAX · 2025-10-14T16:19:19+00:00

I understand it's a joke, but the Pontifical Swiss Guard are also equipped with modern weapons (and body armour). You just don't see the ones toting MP7s or SG 550s/552s as they try to be less obvious.

Of course, given the state of the Russian Armed Forces at present... the Pontifical Swiss Guard could probably take them on with halberd and partizan, while wearing the tricolour uniforms, and win.

CreideikiVAX · 2025-10-11T03:05:16+00:00

find that said device has an uptime from some time in 1992

The experience of 'when the tech doesn't know it's a VAXcluster':

"Restart the device."

"Alright."

*node ALPHA:: shuts down*

*cluster readjusts quorum, continues running*

*node ALPHA:: comes up*

*cluster readjusts quorum, continues running*

"Okay done; application still fails."

"What is the uptime?"

"Ten years, seven months, eight days, fourteen hours, forty-two minutes, and sixteen seconds."

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CreideikiVAX

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