The “imagen” utility included with Hevea, a LaTeX to HTML translator, suffers from a subtle bug in combination with certain versions of of Ghostscript and ImageMagick, where the output of the former (a bitmap image) is pumped into the latter (for trimming / resizing) via a Unix pipe. For buffer-related reasons which ultimately remain a […]

A draft vpatch for full “cement” support in TRB. This vpatch These vpatches succeed the previous one. draft_asciilifeform_cement_support.kv.vpatch draft_asciilifeform_cement_support.kv.vpatch.asciilifeform.sig revised_draft_asciilifeform_cement_support.kv.vpatch revised_draft_asciilifeform_cement_support.kv.vpatch.asciilifeform.sig Note that the syntax for makecement has changed, and now requires the starting as well as ending block height: Usage: LC_ALL=”C” ./bin/bitcoind makecement 0 723000 cement_723000.txt The loading of cement must be explicitly enabled […]

A vpatch to produce “cement” for TRB : asciilifeform_makecement.kv.vpatch asciilifeform_makecement.kv.vpatch.asciilifeform.sig Usage: LC ALL=”C” ./bin/bitcoind makecement 723000 cement_723000.txt This took less than 16 seconds on my test machine, and produced: cement_723000.txt.gz (PGP Signature) i.e. : 0 000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f 1 00000000839a8e6886ab5951d76f411475428afc90947ee320161bbf18eb6048 2 000000006a625f06636b8bb6ac7b960a8d03705d1ace08b1a19da3fdcc99ddbd 3 0000000082b5015589a3fdf2d4baff403e6f0be035a5d9742c1cae6295464449 4 000000004ebadb55ee9096c9a2f8880e09da59c0d68b1c228da88e48844a1485 5 000000009b7262315dbf071787ad3656097b892abffd1f95a1a022f896f533fc 6 000000003031a0e73735690c5a1ff2a4be82553b2a12b776fbd3a215dc8f778d 7 0000000071966c2b1d065fd446b1e485b2c9d9594acd2007ccbd5441cfc89444 8 00000000408c48f847aa786c2268fc3e6ec2af68e8468a34a28c61b7f1de0dc6 9 000000008d9dc510f23c2657fc4f67bea30078cc05a90eb89e84cc475c080805 10 […]

Recently, I learned that at least one of my readers is dissatisfied with my current favourite “open source license”. For him and any others like him, I would like to propose a new one, and offer to “relicense” under it any of the VTronic items I have published on my site (strictly by explicit request, […]

There are innumerably many reasons for writing a computer program; but, to my knowledge, the publication of its source code is nearly always motivated by one of these three: I. Subordination: “Open Source.” Some of the earliest — and arguably, highest quality — computer programs with openly-published source code were developed inside conventionally-structured organizations, by […]

This is a continuation of “Pest” v. 0xFC. This is the heaviest revision of the spec to date, approaching a total rewrite. Pedantic details concerning data types and their encodings were added; several algorithms have been reworked and substantially simplified; and a number of ugly gaffes — corrected. There is a pretty-printed mirror of this […]

This is a continuation of “Pest” v. 0xFD. There are currently two published prototype implementations of Pest: “Blatta” (by thimbronion); and “smalpest” (by jonsykkel). Thank you, prototype implementers! A quite lively Pestnet is now active, and a public log thereof, operated by billymg (WOT) may be seen here. There is a working draft of v. […]

This is a continuation of “Pest” v. 0xFE. There is a pretty-printed mirror of this page. There is now a prototype! (Thank you, thimbronion!) 14 Dec 2021: And there is now a second prototype! (Thank you, jonsykkel!) There is a working draft of v. 0xFC. (Note: it may change without warning!) The document (very much […]

This is a continuation of “Pest” v. 0xFF. Edit: A note for the innocent — this series of articles concerns an algorithm! It is not, at the time of writing, fully implemented anywhere! There is now a prototype! (Thank you, thimbronion!) Or even entirely complete. Edit: There is a working draft of v. 0xFD. (Note: […]

What follows is a long-promised detailed specification of a DDOS-proof, CPU-inexpensive, ciphered-authenticated peer-to-peer communication protocol. I would like to thank Thimbronion for implementing a large subset of this spec already despite not having seen it yet! The document (very much a work in progress!) is available as a vtree. You will need: A V-tron. If […]