# TIL



## grahamperrin@ (Feb 6, 2022)

Today I learned …

… the meaning of *potato PC*.



dpx said:


> I love ZFS so much I would install it on a potato …





christhegeek said:


> … surprised how well it would work on this potato pc …



I sought _potato_ in my browser history, before finding the answer through Startpage. 

(The history amused me, but I have a warped sense of humour.)


What did you learn?


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## Geezer (Feb 6, 2022)

Today I learnt what the acronym TIL stands for.


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## grahamperrin@ (Mar 7, 2022)

TIL:



astyle said:


> lay an egg



LOL why have I never heard that as an insult in the UK?


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## Geezer (Mar 8, 2022)

grahamperrin said:


> LOL why have I never heard that as an insult in the UK?



Because our insults are, perhaps less imaginative, but much coarser.


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## grahamperrin@ (Mar 10, 2022)

TIL that _Styrofoam_ sometimes means something entirely different …



Phishfry said:


> … Styrofoam as used in packaging. … Ohama Steaks …



From Wikipedia: 



> … _Styrofoam_ is colloquially used worldwide to refer to another material that is usually white in color and made of expanded (not extruded) polystyrene foam (EPS). …



I've heard the word in the UK, but never used in that way. AFAIK most people here use the single word _polystyrene_ (or very loosely _plastic_) to describe the expanded form that is (decreasingly) used to contain food. "Polystyrene ceiling tiles", popular in the 1960s/1970s, and so on.




Geezer said:


> … our insults are, perhaps less imaginative, but much coarser.



Oh, we do coarse  but I don't do it here.


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## grahamperrin@ (Mar 12, 2022)

grahamperrin said:


> Today I learned …
> 
> … the meaning of *potato PC*.



… and another meaning: Debian Potato


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## astyle (Mar 13, 2022)

> >Why you should *never* post your picture on the Internet.


Computers make it WAY too easy to edit the picture into something that twists the original narrative into something that was not intended in the first place. And sometimes, the victim's narrative is twisted not by the artist, but by the audience. Every once in a while, an unsettling story like that makes the local news.

This is why the Internet is flooded with pictures of cats, roadside grass, and fractals.


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## grahamperrin@ (Mar 14, 2022)

TIL: 

FreeBSD Ports Collection + DeltaPorts = DragonFly Ports (a.k.a. DPorts)


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## grahamperrin@ (Mar 16, 2022)

TIL that this icon is supposed to mean _end_ a call:






I see an old-fashioned telephone handset, off-the-hook (call in progress) with a plus sign aligned neatly with the handset. 

What do other people see?


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## Crivens (Mar 16, 2022)

grahamperrin said:


> What do other people see?


Iron sights?


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## Menelkir (Mar 16, 2022)

grahamperrin said:


> TIL that this icon is supposed to mean _end_ a call:
> 
> View attachment 13357
> 
> ...


I would say that I see something like "add people to this call".


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## Crivens (Mar 16, 2022)

Or it means "Your Phone Is Dead!!". But "Add person to call" is more like it.

When all we old geezers who have seen cable connected phones are gone one day, I wonder what people will make of these icons...


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## grahamperrin@ (Mar 16, 2022)

Menelkir said:


> … "add people to this call".



Exactly. If I want to leave, why would I even _begin_ to move the pointer (away from the area on screen where I accidentally clicked to join), towards an icon that implies bringing more people in?

Here's the original context. Tilted 45°, but my immediate perception, from the plus sign aligned to the handset, was "add people to this call": 





Sure, people will laugh  but I'm not accustomed to the close box being to the right in FreeBSD, especially when the close icon is overlapping with another icon …




Crivens said:


> Iron sights?



*TIL*:


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## astyle (Mar 16, 2022)

'ending a call' is usually a completely red icon... but yeah, based on the screenie, that was confusing even to me. Different people seem to have different ideas/views of perceptions a customer population is gonna have. (As in, assumptions are gonna be made)


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## Crivens (Mar 16, 2022)

astyle said:


> 'ending a call' is usually a completely red icon...


There are color blind people. You know the scene from HGTTG where they push black sensor areas on a black control pane and black dials light up to show what they did? And then that ship flies into the sun. I wonder why?


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## grahamperrin@ (Mar 16, 2022)

Crivens said:


> … push black sensor areas on a black control pane and black dials light up …



Reminds me of the Philips display in front of me, which I have to _power off_ for the controls to become visible. 



Crivens said:


> HGTTG



Not quite TIL, but I did have to remind myself what that stands for. Only six episodes: a surprise, I recall it feeling _much_ longer.


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## bsduck (Mar 16, 2022)

grahamperrin said:


> What do other people see?


A symbolic icon of








						Jägermeister - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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## astyle (Mar 17, 2022)

bsduck said:


> A symbolic icon of
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I actually tried Jagermeister back when I was in college. It was too heavy on licorice and anise, in  my opinion - those two are actually my least favorite spices. BUT... _*today I learned*_ that they are in fact on the ingredient list of Jagermeister.  The drink has its fans, I know. Once was enough for me. It was not 'memorably awful', I was able to finish my shot, but then I decided, once was nice for a learning experience, but not something I'd seek out again.


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## Phishfry (Mar 17, 2022)

Yagger and Rumpy are my favorite shots. Bruised and chilled please.




__





						Rumple Minze - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




Today I learned my favorite shots come from Germany.


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## astyle (Mar 17, 2022)

*Today I learned *that  La Destilleria in Cancun, Mexico, where I've been just once, in 2004, is now permanently closed. Sitting at home at time of this post, I was about to share how I was sitting there, listening to the waiter rattle off 50 different ways to prepare a Margarita, and actually running out of breath. I ended up asking for a classic Margarita (with lime slush, lime wedges, and a rimming of salt) - and got a glass that while it was correctly shaped, it was so big that it would put a beer stein to shame.


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## grahamperrin@ (Mar 19, 2022)

TIL

`echo $0`



grahamperrin said:


> No. I'm confused, …





grahamperrin said:


> … Afterthought: I'm thinking of setenv(1), not env(1).



Below, for example, I failed to understand how `setenv PAGER cat` succeeded where `echo $SHELL` showed /bin/sh


```
% whoami
grahamperrin
% su -
Password:
root@mowa219-gjp4-8570p-freebsd:~ # setenv PAGER cat
-su: setenv: not found
root@mowa219-gjp4-8570p-freebsd:~ # echo $SHELL
/bin/sh
root@mowa219-gjp4-8570p-freebsd:~ # exit
% su - -c /bin/csh
Password:
su: only root may use -c
% su -l -c /bin/csh
Password:
su: only root may use -c
% su -l root -c /bin/csh
Password:
root@mowa219-gjp4-8570p-freebsd:~ # echo $SHELL
/bin/sh
root@mowa219-gjp4-8570p-freebsd:~ # setenv PAGER cat
root@mowa219-gjp4-8570p-freebsd:~ # echo $PAGER
cat
root@mowa219-gjp4-8570p-freebsd:~ #
```


At <https://askubuntu.com/a/850832/25036> *I learnt*:



> `$SHELL` gives you the default shell. `$0` gives you the current shell. …



Now I understand _why_ `setenv PAGER cat` succeeded:


```
root@mowa219-gjp4-8570p-freebsd:~ # echo $0
/bin/csh
root@mowa219-gjp4-8570p-freebsd:~ # exit
exit
%
```

sh(1)

csh(1)


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## grahamperrin@ (Mar 26, 2022)

TIL​


> … Pools created by FreeBSD will always have the whole_disk field set to true, …



Workload Tuning — OpenZFS documentation


```
root@mowa219-gjp4-8570p-freebsd:~ # zdb --label gpt/Transcend | grep whole_disk
        whole_disk: 1
root@mowa219-gjp4-8570p-freebsd:~ # lsblk da2
DEVICE         MAJ:MIN SIZE TYPE                                          LABEL MOUNT
da2              2:181 466G GPT                                               - -
  <FREE>         -:-   1.0M -                                                 - -
  da2p1          2:176 466G freebsd-zfs                           gpt/Transcend <ZFS>
root@mowa219-gjp4-8570p-freebsd:~ #
```


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## grahamperrin@ (Apr 15, 2022)

TIL



grahamperrin said:


> From 2001: The FreeBSD Foundation -- an introduction



Some time before the FreeBSD Foundation, there was _FreeBSD Inc._. 1999:









						Change copyright in kernel output at booting time · freebsd/freebsd-src@92026f8
					

from "FreeBSD Inc." to "The FreeBSD Project".




					github.com


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## grahamperrin@ (May 28, 2022)

Today I learned … that there's a *GitHub Advisory Database*.

I discovered the database through the GitHub view of a commit to the FreeBSD ports tree:









						sysutils/fusefs-ntfs: update the port to security release 2022.5.17 · freebsd/freebsd-ports@2ff06ff
					

- Improved defence against improper use of the program options [1] - Improved defence against maliciously tampered NTFS partitions [2]  Security:	CVE-2022-30783, CVE-2022-30785, CVE-2022-30787 [1] ...




					github.com
				




The same commit in cgit: <https://cgit.freebsd.org/ports/commit/?id=2ff06ffe8797c36db433ae5a2ab53a8410086a53>


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## astyle (Jul 7, 2022)

TIL... about yak shaving: 









						Discord - A New Way to Chat with Friends & Communities
					

Discord is the easiest way to communicate over voice, video, and text.  Chat, hang out, and stay close with your friends and communities.




					discord.com
				




A lot of Linux distro projects are like that. Basically, to accomplish Z, there's Y that needs to be done, oh, and X is a prerequisite/dependency, etc, etc. Kind of like my Poudriere-based project to compile KDE with my custom options and have it be upgradeable while leaving everything else alone... pkg, git, jails, Apache, SSL, circular deps... who knows what else...

Yaks are apparently frustrating to shave...


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