@b0rk to understand the difference it might also be interesting to read about the alternative: Pijul is a SCM where commits are diffs https://pijul.org/

@waywardmonkeys yes, it’s often hard to balance research and software development. Although I don’t want to give the impression that no developing is happening at the moment. It’s really that we are thinking about some larger revamping of chuffed so it is hard to make time for these type of engineering tasks at the same time.

@waywardmonkeys As some general hints, I would probably like to see it as part of the same repository to make sure that we can easily detect changes that conflict between the code bases.

Also, it is noteworthy that Chuffed currently uses global variables, which is why it is not great for using as a library. You probably would want to investigate whether this is a problem for your use cases.

@waywardmonkeys Although I would be happy with Chuffed bindings in Rust, I think we would need them to be in a relatively complete state before we would put them publicly in the chuffed organisation. We are lacking on development time, so we would need to know that it would be supportable before we can make it part of the organisation.

#MiniZinc 2.8 has been released. No big new language features, but it does include a lot of improvements to make your life easier:

- #ORTools is now part of the MiniZinc bundle.
- #HiGHS now provides intermediate solutions.
- Experimental support for propagator based meta-search, such as LNS variants.
- Commutative CSE
- Support optional version of global_cardinality, increasing, and count globals.

Find more details and many other improvements in the change log: https://www.minizinc.org/doc-2.8.0/en/changelog.html#v2.8.0

I recently heard about this novel in which Schrodinger's cat and Pavlov's dog team up for an epic adventure, so I went down to my local library to see if they had a copy

The librarian said that my description of the book rang a bell but she wasn't sure if it was there or not ...

A bit of an unofficial post-mortem on #Optus #outage yesterday (please BOOST for visibility!) I have no insider knowledge, all I can do is look at what Optus's networking gear told the rest of the world through #BGP, and make some informed guesses based on that.

The problem yesterday started at about 4am, when Optus told the world 'I no longer have any internet connectivity', and 'Do not send any internet traffic to me, at all'. The technical description is that they withdrew ALL of their routes from the #DFZ (Which is "The Internet", as seen by all the core routers that ACTUALLY control the internet).

However, as a precursor at about 3am there was a hint that things weren't perfect, as there was a flurry of changes from Optus to the outside world saying, roughly, 'Something has changed inside my network, but you can still keep sending me stuff'.

Now, as two final bits of possibly relevant information, the default for maximum-prefix on #Cisco #ASR9000 is 1048576 (this number is 'the number of routes that can be accepted by this router'), and MOST IMPORTANTLY the DFZ ("the internet") has about 980,000 routes in it at the moment. That's only 90k odd routes LESS than the default maximum.

I'd be amazed if Optus has less than 100k internal routes that aren't visible to the internet, but are visible internally.

So here's what I think happened. The at 3am, the first core #router was upgraded, and a new config was put in place. This did not join the network correctly, and things were half broken. What SHOULD have happened is that all the changes should have stopped, and either rolled back, or waited for further investigation (the cause being that more than 1mil routes were visible, causing it to shut down)

However, someone decided 'Well, maybe if we upgrade the SECOND one, that'll fix the first one' at 4am. That broke the SECOND one, and took Optus completely off the internet.

(Continued, see next for why this is far worse than it should have been)

@janeadams Welcome to Melbourne! 🦘🇦🇺

Dunno about you, but an everyday dose of nature is what I need right now! And the #aussiebirdcount starts today!

It's easy to take part - download the app, watch for 20 minutes, count any birds...
Repeat as needed.
Like medicine.
🪶🌿🐦💊🦜🌏🧪
https://aussiebirdcount.org.au/

The thing about arithmetic is that computers are good at it. The point is to figure out what is the good arithmetic to tell the computers to do.

School mathematics has not caught up with this fact. It trains people to do computer-replaceable things, and actively disables the parts of brains that explore.

I don't blame the teachers: I blame the testers.

@SolverMax A great topic to write about! A lot of people in optimisation start out thinking that once you have a model you can solve that you're done, but there are many considerations afterwards. Especially when considering real-world problems or a human factor.

Maria Garcia de la Banda recently also gave a great talk on this topic that is available online: https://youtu.be/hzMyPIcci8Q?si=koMT3_yQuqJ8yvE0

@owen3d we tried a few for our greyhound, but this one has has most certainly been her favourite. We had to replace the foam bedding recently.

It’s from a local brand “Snooza”, if you would like to find it.

We just had dinner at Serai in Melbourne CBD, and had a great experience. The food was outstanding!
Since it wasn't easy to get into it probably doesn't need it, but I would highly recommend it if you have the chance to go eat there.

#melbourne #serai

@fasterthanlime 😧 wow! Thanks for letting me know I certainly wouldn’t want to support that. I suppose restarting my Apple Music client every once in a while isn’t that bad

Keeping our dogs nice and snug on another cold Melbourne morning.

#dogsofmastodon #dogs #Melbourne

@fasterthanlime That looks interesting. It's a shame they don't have a bit more information on the page, but for the price it is definitely worth a try when I get the chance.

@fasterthanlime I think it is a bit of a pain point even on macOS. I often have problems with Apple Music after connecting my DAC, and usually have to restart the app to fix it. Hopefully they’ll fix it for both platforms soon

*Edit:*

I want to express my thanks and appreciation for all the boosts and comments! I had no idea this would get spread so widely, and I'm humbled by the support.

I'll reply to this post with the plan that I have for the next session.

Original post below...

I'm volunteering at my daughter's elementary school by teaching a "coding club" for 5th graders during their lunch and afternoon recess.

It mostly went great, except I left nearly in tears...

One of the kiddos that joined is blind, and I discovered that the coding programs for kids don't appear to be accessible *at all*.

First we tried Swift Playgrounds, but that didn't seem to work with VoiceOver. Then, he said that he's liked ScratchJr. in the past, and he got frustrated with that because he couldn't get his cat to move.

I'm kinda at a loss for how to help him. He left crying because he thinks that he can't get it, but I'm sure he can. Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks!!

#coding #swiftplayground #blind #accessibility #apple #ipad

@gglockner it seems very interesting. I might give it a try as well.

Looking at the pricing it seems worthwhile to find 5 others to split the price with 😉

A serious question: industries that are reasonably described as necessary to the function of society, but who are no longer for whatever reason engaging the kind of competition that is assumed to keep prices down for their customers - why should they not be nationalized?