diziet | Network

Today's Teddywalk took us a slightly unusual way -- I let him choose, within reason. He didn't spend as long sniffing the grass triangle as before, and afterward when I wanted to drag him more directly back toward his house he scampered off the other way. This took us to a tree-lined residential street where he decided to poop next to one of the trees just as a man parked his land barge just behind us and the kids that got out of it were entertained by this free show.

This route also took us past a school where, even though it was nearing 5 o'clock, kids were going toward the school, with their grownups. They kinda looked like they were wearing pajamas? Some were in bathrobes or oodies. Some seemed to carry pillows or soft toys. One was almost hidden behind a Stitch that must have been fully half her size. It was adorable.

I had a pretty good day otherwise too.

Work was oddly satisfying.

A bunch of things happened to coincide today: I presented my new train report twice, first to a panel of subject-matter experts and accessibility advocates that I'm on, where people were very kind about it (especially as it was at the end of an hour and a half meeting that some people had to leave early and/or thought was only an hour long; one made sure to apologize for leaving halfway through but told me he'd read the report and it was good, which was very sweet).

Then in the afternoon I presented it to a group of lived-experience campaigners, a group I attended back when I was a volunteer who didn't have this job yet. They did their usual thing of wanting to vent their spleens on any tangentially-related topic, but I'm used to that and I kinda love it. Afterward, my colleague who runs these meetings messaged me to thank me and say she appreciates that I always handle the questions so well. I didn't think I'd done anything special! But despite that (or actually because of it!) this was really nice to hear.

And as well as feeling particularly competent with the different audiences my work is for, I also had a quick one-to-one(ish) with my manager which indirectly addressed the stuff I've been stressing about lately and where seemed much happier than I'm used to hearing with the work that I have done in the last year and the stuff that's coming up this year.

It's funny because the other day, on our way to the theater, D pointed out where transgym yoga had moved to: one of those "not actually far away but hard for me to find/get to on a bus" places. So I actually looked at yoga on the transgym website and not only was it on this Friday (it's every other week), but it was back at its old location! My hips are so much happier now, and it'll be good for my brain too.

And now, after a week that was really truly about a month long, it's the weekend! We have basically no plans, and the fascists aren't even yelling at the hotel this Sunday!

So many good things.

dorktower_feed

Posted by John Kovalic

https://www.dorktower.com/2026/02/06/original/

https://dorktower.kovalic.com/?p=19930

Most DORK TOWER strips are now available as signed, high-quality prints, from just $25! CLICK HERE to find out more!

HEY! Want to help keep DORK TOWER going? Then consider joining the DORK TOWER Patreon and ENLIST IN THE ARMY OF DORKNESS TODAY! (We have COOKIES!) (And SWAG!) (And GRATITUDE!)

https://www.dorktower.com/2026/02/06/original/

https://dorktower.kovalic.com/?p=19930

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3204/

Staplers are actually in Pseudosuchia, making them more closely related to crocodiles than to dinosaurs.

https://xkcd.com/3204/

maju

When I took the food scraps out to the compost bin yesterday in the late afternoon, I stayed out longer to shovel some more of the snow away from the front of my car since it was still full daylight and if anything, a degree or two warmer than it had been when I was shovelling in the morning. The snow immediately in front of the car was more icy than the rest because people (including me) had been walking there and had compacted the snow, but I was able to shovel out a clear enough path in front of each wheel that I should be able to get the car out if I need to. I felt quite accomplished after that.

I slept well last night and nobody woke me up before the alarm this morning, but I did wake up just after 3 am with that ear pain, and although I went back to sleep with the ear pressed into the pillow, when I woke up in the morning the pain hadn't completely gone. I lay down again for a couple of hours after breakfast but it's still lingering, but it's not nearly as bad as usual and I feel that I can function perfectly well in spite of it.

I started reading a novel about a grandmother recounting her time at Woodstock to her teenage granddaughter, and I have to keep going to YouTube to listen to the music she talks about. I of course heard about it at the time it happened, but the actual logistics of that many people being concentrated in one place with not enough basic facilities (toilets etc) for the sheer numbers didn't register with me. Now, reading this book, it all sounds just horrible. The narrator casually mentions "going to the bathroom" in the woods, and I can't help thinking what it must have been like if even a fraction of the 100,000 or 200,000 or more attendees did the same. Plus there were two hour or more queues for food and water; the attendees were outside without cover when it rained; people were passing around bad drugs. And so on.

=========

Huh. The ear pain disappeared completely while I was writing this post. Phew.

wingolog_feed

Posted by Andy Wingo

https://wingolog.org/archives/2026/02/06/ahead-of-time-wasm-gc-in-wastrel

https://wingolog.org/2026/02/06/ahead-of-time-wasm-gc-in-wastrel

Hello friends! Today, a quick note: the Wastrel ahead-of-time WebAssembly compiler now supports managed memory via garbage collection!

hello, world

The quickest demo I have is that you should check out and build wastrel itself:

git clone https://codeberg.org/andywingo/wastrel
cd wastrel
guix shell
# alternately: sudo apt install guile-3.0 guile-3.0-dev \
#    pkg-config gcc automake autoconf make
autoreconf -vif && ./configure
make -j

Then run a quick check with hello, world:

$ ./pre-inst-env wastrel examples/simple-string.wat
Hello, world!

Now give a check to gcbench, a classic GC micro-benchmark:

$ WASTREL_PRINT_STATS=1 ./pre-inst-env wastrel examples/gcbench.wat
Garbage Collector Test
 Creating long-lived binary tree of depth 16
 Creating a long-lived array of 500000 doubles
Creating 33824 trees of depth 4
	Top-down construction: 10.189 msec
	Bottom-up construction: 8.629 msec
Creating 8256 trees of depth 6
	Top-down construction: 8.075 msec
	Bottom-up construction: 8.754 msec
Creating 2052 trees of depth 8
	Top-down construction: 7.980 msec
	Bottom-up construction: 8.030 msec
Creating 512 trees of depth 10
	Top-down construction: 7.719 msec
	Bottom-up construction: 9.631 msec
Creating 128 trees of depth 12
	Top-down construction: 11.084 msec
	Bottom-up construction: 9.315 msec
Creating 32 trees of depth 14
	Top-down construction: 9.023 msec
	Bottom-up construction: 20.670 msec
Creating 8 trees of depth 16
	Top-down construction: 9.212 msec
	Bottom-up construction: 9.002 msec
Completed 32 major collections (0 minor).
138.673 ms total time (12.603 stopped); 209.372 ms CPU time (83.327 stopped).
0.368 ms median pause time, 0.512 p95, 0.800 max.
Heap size is 26.739 MB (max 26.739 MB); peak live data 5.548 MB.

We set WASTREL_PRINT_STATS=1 to get those last 4 lines. So, this is a microbenchmark: it runs for only 138 ms, and the heap is tiny (26.7 MB). It does collect 30 times, which is something.

is it good?

I know what you are thinking: OK, it’s a microbenchmark, but can it tell us anything about how Wastrel compares to V8? Well, probably so:

$ guix shell node time -- \
   time node js-runtime/run.js -- \
     js-runtime/wtf8.wasm examples/gcbench.wasm
Garbage Collector Test
[... some output elided ...]
total_heap_size: 48082944
[...]
0.23user 0.03system 0:00.20elapsed 128%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 87844maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (0major+13325minor)pagefaults 0swaps

Which is to say, V8 takes more CPU time (230ms vs 209ms) and more wall-clock time (200ms vs 138ms). Also it uses twice as much managed memory (48 MB vs 26.7 MB), and more than that for the total process (88 MB vs 34 MB, not shown).

improving on v8, really?

Let’s try with quads, which at least has a larger active heap size. This time we’ll compile a binary and then run it:

$ ./pre-inst-env wastrel compile -o quads examples/quads.wat
$ WASTREL_PRINT_STATS=1 guix shell time -- time ./quads 
Making quad tree of depth 10 (1398101 nodes).
	construction: 23.274 msec
Allocating garbage tree of depth 9 (349525 nodes), 60 times, validating live tree each time.
	allocation loop: 826.310 msec
	quads test: 860.018 msec
Completed 26 major collections (0 minor).
848.825 ms total time (85.533 stopped); 1349.199 ms CPU time (585.936 stopped).
3.456 ms median pause time, 3.840 p95, 5.888 max.
Heap size is 133.333 MB (max 133.333 MB); peak live data 82.416 MB.
1.35user 0.01system 0:00.86elapsed 157%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 141496maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (0major+231minor)pagefaults 0swaps

Compare to V8 via node:

$ guix shell node time -- time node js-runtime/run.js -- js-runtime/wtf8.wasm examples/quads.wasm
Making quad tree of depth 10 (1398101 nodes).
	construction: 64.524 msec
Allocating garbage tree of depth 9 (349525 nodes), 60 times, validating live tree each time.
	allocation loop: 2288.092 msec
	quads test: 2394.361 msec
total_heap_size: 156798976
[...]
3.74user 0.24system 0:02.46elapsed 161%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 382992maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (0major+87866minor)pagefaults 0swaps

Which is to say, wastrel is almost three times as fast, while using almost three times less memory: 2460ms (v8) vs 849ms (wastrel), and 383MB vs 141 MB.

zowee!

So, yes, the V8 times include the time to compile the wasm module on the fly. No idea what is going on with tiering, either, but I understand that tiering up is a thing these days; this is node v22.14, released about a year ago, for what that’s worth. Also, there is a V8-specific module to do some impedance-matching with regards to strings; in Wastrel they are WTF-8 byte arrays, whereas in Node they are JS strings. But it’s not a string benchmark, so I doubt that’s a significant factor.

I think the performance edge comes in having the program ahead-of-time: you can statically allocate type checks, statically allocate object shapes, and the compiler can see through it all. But I don’t really know yet, as I just got everything working this week.

Wastrel with GC is demo-quality, thus far. If you’re interested in the back-story and the making-of, see my intro to Wastrel article from October, or the FOSDEM talk from last week:

Slides here, if that’s your thing.

More to share on this next week, but for now I just wanted to get the word out. Happy hacking and have a nice weekend!

https://wingolog.org/archives/2026/02/06/ahead-of-time-wasm-gc-in-wastrel

https://wingolog.org/2026/02/06/ahead-of-time-wasm-gc-in-wastrel

wildeabandon

I got my exam results yesterday, and they were slightly disappointing, in the "virtually anyone would be fucking delighted, but they were all on the low end of what I was expecting" sense of the word disappointing. I got 15/20 in Catechetics, 16/20 in Anthropology, 17/20 in Psalms & Prophets, and 18/20 in Hebrew II and Ugaritic. The first two are entirely understandable - I wasn't particularly keen on either course, and whilst by no means neglecting them completely, I didn't put in a particularly high level of effort. I'm happy enough with the 18s. They were both challenging courses, and 18 is a bloody good mark.

The one that's bugging me is the Psalms though. I thought I understood the material well, and that I'd had some interesting and insightful things to say. I know that I got 18/20 in the paper that makes up half the mark, which means that I only got 15-16/20 in the exam. Hardly the end of the world, but it's the only one where I don't understand why I didn't do better. I've emailed the prof to ask for feedback, so with luck I'll get something useful. (ETA: Apparently marks get rounded down, not up - I got 8/10 and 9/10 in the two exam questions, and the 8 was because he had to prompt me a couple of times, and since at least one of those time he prompted me for the thing I was about to say anyway I am now feeling a lot less bothered by the overall mark.)

One result though which is positive in a sense is that my overall grade is now almost guaranteed. My average is currently 87%. The top grade boundary is an average of 90%, which had seemed in reach before these results, but would now require me to get 20/20 in all but one of my remaining courses (and 19/20 in that), which isn't really plausible. The grade boundary below is an average of 85%, and whilst the fact that there are just more numbers between 0 and 87 than between 87 and 100 means that there's more scope for my grade to be dragged down than up, I would have to do quite a bit worse than I have been for that to happen. Anyway, the sense that there's not a lot that I can do to change my overall grade means that I can concentrate more on learning for the sake of learning, which in the long term is almost certainly better than chasing grades.

ecosophia

Welcome to Frugal First Friday! This is a monthly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up on the first Friday of each month, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course.

There has been talk about releasing these posts in print format. In case that turns out to be worth pursuing, please note: if you comment on this or any future Frugal First Friday post, you are giving permission for that comment to be included in print or other editions. This means, for those of you into the legalese, that by posting something in the comment thread you are granting me non-exclusive reprint rights to your comment, and permitting me to transfer those to a publisher or other venue. Your contribution will have your name or internet handle attached, your choice.

I also have some simple rules to offer, which may change further as we proceed. One change from the earlier frame is that if you produce goods or services yourself, and would like to let readers know about them, you may post one (1) (yes, just one) comment per month letting people know, with a link to your website or other contact info. The other rules ought to be familiar by now.

Rule #1:  this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc. I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #2:  please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about.  Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.

Rule #3: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.

Rule #4: don't post LLM ("AI") generated content, and don't bring up the subject unless you're running a homemade LLM program on your own homebuilt, steam-powered server farm.

With that said, have at it!

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Will Ackerman, "Seattle"

goodbyebird

Mitski is playing in London in May and I don't have enough internet to do so much as open the ticket site.

My plague of ill concert happenings, I swear.

ailbhe

Well, it's a while since I learned some of the extent of them (first clues were here) and this morning the unfixable one made itself known in a now-do-surprise-laundry way. I had a bit of a cry about it. I note that when I first learned what had happened I thought it was my own fault for not agreeing to a c-section, because it took a LOT of reading to discover that he hadn't sewn me up properly.

nanila posting in

awesomeers

It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

daily_otter_feed

Posted by Daily Otter

https://dailyotter.org/posts/2026/2/6/look-human-snow

Via Alaska SeaLife Center, which writes:

Sea otters are among the most intelligent marine mammals on this planet, which means they require frequent mental and physical stimulation. In the animal care field, this mental and physical stimulation is called enrichment!

Otters require a variety of enrichment activities every day. Today, Nipi the rehabilitated otter pup is enjoying food toy enrichment that encourages natural foraging behaviors, followed by a joyful romp in the snow!

https://dailyotter.org/posts/2026/2/6/look-human-snow

amaebi

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

apnic_blog_feed

Posted by Hervé Clément

https://blog.apnic.net/2026/02/06/rir-governance-document-version-2-status-report-q1-2026/

https://blog.apnic.net/?p=98725

The NRO NC has compiled a status report related to comments received during the consultation on the second version of the RIR Governance Document.

https://blog.apnic.net/2026/02/06/rir-governance-document-version-2-status-report-q1-2026/

https://blog.apnic.net/?p=98725

apnic_blog_feed

Posted by Md Main Uddin Hasan

https://blog.apnic.net/2026/02/06/from-roots-to-reach-network-resilience-in-natural-disasters/

https://blog.apnic.net/?p=97758

Guest Post: AZIZA demonstrates how networking research can build systems that remain meaningful when continuity disappears.

https://blog.apnic.net/2026/02/06/from-roots-to-reach-network-resilience-in-natural-disasters/

https://blog.apnic.net/?p=97758

apod_feed

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260205.html

NGC 1275 in the Perseus Cluster

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260205.html

anais_pf posting in

thefridayfive

These questions were suggested by

that_one_girl.

1. What did you want to be when you were a kid?

2. What is your proudest accomplishment so far?

3. What is your dream job?

4. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

5. What does it take to make you happy?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

**Remember that we rely on you, our members, to help keep the community going. Also, please remember to play nice. We are all here to answer the questions and have fun each week. We repost the questions exactly as the original posters submitted them and request that all questions be checked for spelling and grammatical errors before they're submitted. Comments re: the spelling and grammatical nature of the questions are not necessary. Honestly, any hostile, rude, petty, or unnecessary comments need not be posted, either.**

ahunter3 posting in

queerly_beloved

= July 13, 1982 (Six Days Before) =

I’d been prescribed another dose of telephone.

There’s a phone alcove in my grandparents’ home, a recessed area in the hallway. It’s shallow, not like a room you can go into to be on the phone, but just a wooden stand built into an indentation in the wall, with a shelf for the phone to sit on, and under it, behind a hinged wooden lattice, room for phone books and note pads and pencils. I lurked there all morning and early afternoon. One thing that occurred to me was to be the one to place the call. To be less passive and less acted upon.

Yeah, but... Grandpa and Grandma’s phone bill. Not mine.

I played absent-mindedly with the rotary dial. Metal, not plastic, that dial, painted black but with shiny silvery finger holes, stiff spring, and you can sort of feel the pulses. A serious black vintage machine.

A measured ding, ding, ding chimed from Grandpa’s mantlepiece clock.

Phone finally rang.

Continue reading

redbird

A few days ago, I ordered a pair of snow sneakers that I thought would probably be too big, because the places I looked online were sold out of everything in my size.

They arrived today, I tried them on after dinner, and they seem to fit. Adrian helped me adjust the fastening so the left shoe isn't too tight around my calf. They fasten with velcro rather than shoelaces, which may be an advantage: the laces on my shoes tend to loosen as I walk, so I have to stop and retie them moderately often. (Flat laces are a bit better than round ones, double-knotting makes no difference, and please don't try trouble-shooting this in comments.)

Apparently I take a men's size 8 extra-wide in LLBean boots, which may be useful: more shoes come in a men's size 8 than size 7, and the selection of wide shoes is larger in men's sizes/styles than in women's.

soc_puppet posting in

queerly_beloved

What's that on the horizon? Why, it's Thursday Recs!

Do you have a rec for this week? Just reply to this post with something queer or queer-adjacent (such as, soap made by a queer person that isn't necessarily queer themed) that you'd, well, recommend. Self-recs are welcome, as are recs for fandom-related content!

Or have you tried something that's been recced here? Do you have your own report to share about it? I'd love to hear about it!

nanila

[phone rings in my hotel room]
Me: “Hello?”
Concierge, sounding very uncertain and slightly bemused: “Um, hello, is that Nanila, who just checked in with us today?”
Me: “Yes, that’s correct.”
Concierge: “Um…I have a gentleman on the line who would like to speak to you. I…I think he’s your father? I’m so sorry, I’m really not sure.”
Me, chuckling: “That sounds like him. Did he say his name was [Firstname Lastname]?”
Concierge: “I couldn’t understand him when he said his name. I think it’s my phone line.”
Me, drily: “Please don’t be sorry. That will be one of two things: his accent, or he hasn’t got his teeth in.”
Concierge, now relaxing a bit and giggling: “Would you like me to put him through?”
Me: “Please do, thank you.”

*pause*

Me: “Hi Dad, how are you doing?”
Dad: “I tried to call you but I kept getting the prison! Where are you? Are you in XX hotel?!”
Me, patiently: “Yes, Dad, I’m in the hotel.”
Dad: “What room are you in? I need to write it down. Are you sure? Are you okay?”
Me: “Dad. I’m in Room NN. I am fine. And if this is the prison then it’s had a tremendous facilities upgrade.”
Dad: “Oh, okay. Was the traffic awful? Are you very tired? When do you want to meet for dinner? Should we go to the sushi place? Do you remember the sushi place? I need to put my teeth in!”
Me: “Yes, yes, whenever you want to eat, yes, yes, and yes, you do.”

For anyone who has met me in person and has thought to themselves, “This woman has no idea how to hold a conversation like a normal human being,” this is 100% where I got it from. Thanks, Dad.

Ian Jackson

Good day

Originalist Sin – DORK TOWER 06.02.26

Dinosaurs And Non-Dinosaurs

(no subject)

ahead-of-time wasm gc in wastrel

hello, world

is it good?

improving on v8, really?

zowee!

Exam results.

Frugal First Friday

grumble

Birth injuries

Just One Thing (06 February 2026)

Look, Human, Snow!

Emailing my legislators

RIR Governance Document Version 2: Status Report Q1 2026

From roots to reach: Network resilience in natural disasters

NGC 1275 in the Perseus Cluster

The Friday Five for 6 February 2026

Six Days Before

snow sneakers

Thursday Recs

Conversations with my father

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