That’s really interesting, I guess I’d assumed it was a universal thing.

I know some people who are known by various versions of their names in their different circles, e.g. Robert/Bob to their family, Rob to their school friends, Bobby to their uni mates and Robert at work.

That argument only works if you’re expecting Google to move youtube.com to youtube.google, which I can’t see happening. If a brand’s a household name and can be found at brand.com, then it stands to reason that they’d leave it like that.

For Google/Microsoft budgets, domain name registration is irrelevant as a cost. Besides, even if they did move the domains, they’d still keep the old ones alive for forwarding and to stop anyone else taking them. For example, Google still has googleplus.com, despite that that was never the official address (they used a subdomain: plus.google.com).

The UK had a history of rhyming nicknames for shortened versions, like William -> Will -> Bill, and most of those are still common in English speaking countries. Richard -> Dick, Robert -> Bob (also Hob, Dob and Nob but these didn’t survive).

These shortened versions can then get extended: Edward -> Ed -> Ted -> Teddy, Margaret -> Meg -> Peg -> Peggy, Anne -> Nan -> Nancy

In the middle ages it was common to make a diminutive name by adding -kin, -in, or -cock, which gave us John -> Jankin/Jenkin -> Jakin -> Jack. Also, Robert -> Robin, Henry -> Hank

It’s very much not mesh networked, self-hosted*, or subscription-free, but there is the tin can phone which seems a really good solution for kids. To anyone looking for a project, please make an open version of this!

* the service couldn’t cope with demand over Christmas, for instance.

Equally, you can only allow *.google.com as easily as *.google, so I still don’t think that makes much sense.

You can block *.google.com as easily as *.google, so I don’t think that makes much sense.

The two most populous countries are moving in the right direction, which is good news. I really wish you guys wouldn’t insist on bringing your country into every single conversation - we know what’s happening, you don’t need to constantly remind us.

Same, and they can be some truly baffling typos.

It reminds me of the Wipeout aesthetic:

Looking great so far, good luck with the difficult actually finishing it phase.

Stop Forwarding Errors, Start Designing Them was a great read, and I’ll definitely be trying Exn.

What’s the point then?

I only wrote code for !advent_of_code@programming.dev which is so different to my usual tasks that it feels like a break.

I don’t understand why venison isn’t on the menu more often in the UK. When I do see it, it’s often on the special board, or in less mainstream restaurants. It’s tasty, healthy and sustainable so what’s that problem?

I hope it wasn’t a long drive, thank you for putting us ahead of your own plans.

It would be the best merch anyone ever offered.

I just looked and found this, is it you or a freeloader? https://www.redbubble.com/shop/unix_surrealism

That’s my assumption, it would be interesting to hear the exact details, and if Mozilla has been approached regarding this already.

Why would blocking ad blockers in Firefox bring in another $150 million? From where?

I’m thinking of it the same way, and not having the readers be trade secrets but published specs is good for future digital archeologists.

For example, Dyson uses trade secrets instead of patents, so it would be harder to recreate their tech in the future.

Edit: patents not parents 🤦

“We are a technology licensing company”

This is good news from the point of view of being able to create devices that can read these crystals; as a comment on the linked site says:

The realistic lifetime of storage is the life of the last manufactured or surviving retrieval device.

What to do with people who jump the queue?