a fistful of improvements to ktistec

• 6d1925b track a recent mastodon change that requires a signed digest on http posts
  annoying—epiktistes wasn't successfully federating with mastodon servers for days—but breaking compatibility in the interest of better security is an acceptable excuse (but don't get me started).
• bd6fb4d log encountered uncached external contexts
  ktistec parses and caches the contexts it cares about and ignores everything else. this change drops a message in the log when the server encounters contexts it doesn't know about.
• 1661226 wire in post reply and delete buttons
  posting is de rigueur for membership in the fediverse. deleting is just a good idea.

#ktistec

reading: the busy beaver frontier

https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/bb.pdf

from wikipedia: "[The] busy beaver function can be shown to grow faster asymptotically than any computable function."

with open source software, things break but you can get in under the hood to investigate and fix. a recent, breaking change to signatures in mastodon recently broke ktistec federation. a few hours and a few commits later, things were working again. of course, i would have been happier if it hadn't been a breaking change... 😐

#ktistec

About the name "Epiktistes"...

R. A. Lafferty is an amazing writer. Some people say he writes science fiction. I think he writes contemporary tall tales—so, of course they are going to be about computers and space explorers and other planets...

His style is impossible to mistake. I remember the first words I read in a story of his about the end of (or maybe the resumption of) the human race:

"I’m going to read my paper tonight, Dismas," Dr. Minden said, "and they’ll hoot me out of the hall. The thought of it almost makes the hair walk off my head."
Ginny Wrapped in the Sun

Characters frequently reappear in Lafferty’s stories (the eminent scientists Velikof Vonk, Arpad Arkabaranan and Willy McGilly) (the entire race of the Camiroi). Epiktistes, the Ktistec machine, with a sea-serpent head and the delivery of a vaudeville comedian, is a favorite of mine.

Epikt was a comic to his last para-DNA relay when he rested his huge, boggle-eyed, crested head on the table there and smoked the biggest stogies ever born.
Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne

If you’re a fan and want more, there’s the annual Laffcon and the zine Feast of Laughter, though you probably already know of both if you know of R. A. Lafferty...