NetBSD/cute: kitten(4) (by alaric)

Well, the latest snapshot of NetBSD/cute now supports the kitten(4) driver.

I tried to get a screenshot of kitten running with my two black and white devices, but while I was preparing it, I ran into a resource conflict with the existing baby(4) driver:

I managed to jury-rig a bus isolation mechanism, however:

Motorway Cow Bridge (by alaric)

Well, I've just ported my nice image upload to blog script to run from a Web form (rather than a script on my machine that uploads via SCP), so that Sarah can use it too (and I can use it from random locations).

As a test of it, here's some pictures of a strange phenomenon we often see when going to pick Jean up from nursery - at about 5:30pm each day, Junction 11 of the M5 is visited by a parade of cows (you have to look closely to see them - I didn't want to crop the images, so you get the full context):

Hobby OS projects (by alaric)

There are a lot of hobby OS projects out there. The Wikipedia article barely scratches the surface; I've come across projects to build Lisp-based OSes, 32-bit multitasking extensions to DOS, you name it.

Lots of people decide they want to write an OS. They look at a world dominated by Windows, with open source UNIX clones and MacOS bringing up the rear, and think: "I can do better". And they usual don't get too far. Even if you do write a full operating system, able to utilise a wide range of hardware and with all the applications home and business users need, you'll still have a hard time getting people to use it - because it's unfamiliar.

I'm proud to say that I, too, am writing my own OS. Read more »

I don’t like carpets :-( (by alaric)

It seems I'm always having to try and clean liquids out of carpets.

In our previous place, there was carpet in the bathroom; cream carpet. With damp barefooted people getting in and out of the bath, plus the carpet often getting wet due to the leakage problems then being walked on, this meant it was a right pain keeping it dry and clean.

Then there's the problems we've had with flooding here, in our carpeted kitchen. Again, having a carpet in the kitchen is a bit of a pain, since it's a nightmare to clean if you spill anything.

And now we have kittens, who it turns out the mother of hadn't quite finished toilet training, so we're having to encourage one of them to use the litter tray. And I'm having to clean kitten turds out of the carpet... which isn't so bad, if a little labour intensive compared to the simple wipe/spray cleaning stuff/wipe again routine required when they go on a HARD surface; but when they pee on the carpet, all I can do is to keep making the carpet sopping wet with disinfectant-laced water and then sponge it up again a few times in the hope of diluting the urine in a greater mass of water, then trying to get most of it up again.

Ugh.

Gimmee tiles any day. With rugs laid down for comfort in places where we might walk barefoot, that can be easily lifted to be hosed down if they get mucky.

Fusion power! (by alaric)

Cheap affordable fusion may be on the horizon...

I've spoken in the past of the wonders of the Fusor, but recent developments in the field have occurred; Robert W. Bussard, of Bussard ramjet fame, has recently claimed that he has a design for a fusor that overcomes the obstacles to power generation, with the output power rising with the fifth power of the radius of the device.

He's just looking for a few hundred million dollars to build a prototype.

Here's hoping somebody pays up, and that it works!