https://hachyderm.io/@Mara/111357549294998960 gave me a good chuckle.

It also reminded me of a thing that I never really considered until I started contributing to #GopherJS: a += b and a = a + b are not semantically equivalent statements. In the former a is evaluated only once, and in the latter twice. That doesn't matter when a is just a variable, but if it includes a function call with side effects the double evaluation may cause all sorts of havoc.

Lately I've been reading a lot of fiction, with different magic systems, and it inspired me to come up with my own that has a few interesting social and storytelling implications. The idea came to me when I was contemplating that most systems don't really justify the trope of "the wizards of old had power unmatched by anyone today".

There are only a few principles behind it:

1. Magic is based on the interaction between two substances:

• Ether is a dispersed, unstructured substance (or field?) that is spread all over the universe. Its density may vary, but it is more or less everywhere.
• Mana is a structured, potent counterpart of ether that naturally doesn't occur, but can be created from ether and, if left uncontained, decays back to ether.

2. The combined quantity of ether and mana in the universe is fundamentally constant: there will never be less or more of it no matter what. In an isolated system this quantity is preserved, and even though no system is truly isolated a given planet or a star system tends to approximate one.
3. Ether and mana are the fundamental of the universe, more so than matter, energy, light or laws of physics that govern them. All of those are a byproduct of ether-mana interaction, the creation of the universe itself is supposed to be a gigantic mana-to-ether decay event.
4. Converting ether to mana requires energy input. When mana naturally decays into ether it releases energy too, but if structured appropriately it may influence the material world in all sorts of ways: create, destroy or restructure matter and light, create forces, alter space, and so on. The magnitude of the effect is proportional to the quantity of mana spent.
5. Life is the only known mechanism for converting ether into mana, and the required energy input must be provided by the creature. Nearly all organisms are capable of such conversion, although the amount of energy input per unit of mana varies a lot between species and even individuals, the exact reason for that is unknown. In fact, the amount of energy spent on accumulating mana may be more or less than the energy that can be produced by spending it.
6. Thus, energy can be created and destroyed through this process. While life is the only known "natural" mechanism for converting mana to ether in a structured way (that is, with any useful effects other than heat), devices can be created that shape the effects of the natural mana decay into something useful.

(1/2)

Let me put it out there. White tea is the best kind of tea. And with a little bit of apple juice it's even nicer.

One significant thing #Fediverse ecosystems lacks is the ability to migrate your account along with the posted content. Also, every single #ActivityPub software I've looked at states that changing server implementation without changing the domain is not supported, don't even try (which kinda makes me want to try just 'cuz). Which means if I ever decide to change the software I host my blog on, I have to wave goodbye to the posts I wrote previously. Sure, most of them aren't that notable, but some of them might be?

Anyone knows a good summary of #ActivityPub protocol? Just want to get the basics so that I can mess with some implementations a bit. A post or a tech talk would be great.

Me: let me finish this coffee and get cracking on that project I've been procrastinating on for weeks.

My brain, once the coffee kicks in: heeeey, I've got this idea for a new really cool project, 20-minute adventure, let's go.

Me, next day: I have N+1 unfinished projects now.

Apparently, for a thousand bucks-ish one could become an owner of arsetechnica[.]com. And in a way I am glad I don't have a disposable $1k laying around.