Request to Mastodon instance operators: Provide a read-only anonymous HTML-only mode. Update 2022-11-17: Mastodon supports RSS; try just tacking “.rss” onto the end of a Mastodon URL. It doesn’t seem to work for comment threads, but it does work for main threads. For example will create a Gnus group containing the author’s Mastodon posts. This …
Author Archives: Thomas Fitzsimmons
uLisp on the SMART Response XE
The Lisp Badge mini computer has turned out to be quite useful and fun for little hardware hacking projects. Its designer, David Johnson-Davies, suggested that the SMART Response XE would make a good off-the-shelf uLisp computer, eliminating the need to build one from scratch. I ordered a few SMART Response XEs from an auction site …
Mezzano on Librebooted ThinkPads
I decided to try running Mezzano on real hardware. I figured my Librebooted ThinkPads would be good targets, since, thanks to Coreboot and the Linux kernel, I have reference source code for all the hardware. On boot, these machines load Libreboot from SPI flash; included in this Libreboot image is GRUB, as a Coreboot payload. …
Excorporate 1.0.0
I released Excorporate 1.0.0 recently and declared the API stable. I was careful not to break API compatibility throughout Excorporate’s development so the API version stays the same at “0”. The project is now in a state where it does everything I want it to do, API-wise. The UI is still missing features like meeting …
Quickly Start a Common Lisp Script
So you want to write a utility script, and you want to write it in Common Lisp. I created a template Common Lisp script called start.lisp. It’s meant to be renamed and hacked up but it provides a starting point for a new Common Lisp script, with some utility libraries included. Here’s a “one-liner” that …
Hosting Jitsi on ppc64le
I recently tried self-hosting Jitsi on Debian on the Talos II. I had to apply some small workarounds for ppc64le, so I thought I’d post them here. The cause of the first issue, no audio or video in a call, was reported in the Jitsi Videobridge log, /var/log/jitsi/jvb.log: […] Exception in thread “Smack-Single Threaded Executor …
Pocket Lisp Computer
I recently built three Lisp Badge computers with some help from my kids. I bought a hot air soldering station and learned TQFP soldering. The kids did some through-hole and SMT soldering and really enjoyed it! The hardware assembly and debugging process was really fun, other than worrying several times that I had put too …
Lisp on Talos II
I’ve been following the status of Lisp on ppc64le lately. I’m running ppc64le Debian sid. Just after I had set up my system, I did some experimentation with what Debian packages had to offer. ECL was the only Lisp that worked, so I started using it for various projects. (I’ve since learned on #sbcl that …
An excellent machine
I finished building my Talos II system, and I decided to post my thoughts on it here. This is an excellent machine, the best workstation I’ve ever used. It’s very fast — it compiles Emacs and the kernel in 2 minutes, and just spins up the fans a little bit while doing so (under normal …
Talos II available for pre-order
The Talos II is now available for pre-order. It is the more affordable, more power-efficient successor to the Talos I machine I wrote about in a previous post. This is a very affordable machine for how powerful it will be, and there are minimal mainboard + CPU + RAM bundles (e.g., this one), around which …