I wrote an awk program to run VGA Planets (a PBEM game, at the time on DOS).
Basically it was called when email arrived, so the actual awky bit was the mail filter to strip file attachments, put them in the right place for the right game, etc… But then there was a great long END section to check whether all turns had been received for a game (or the deadline had expired), and if so run it and mail out the results.
New debit card arrived today. I was expecting a whole lot of pain with its arrival as it’s one of my main payment methods.
Some places have been sending me emails to warn that my previous card is about to expire, so I’ve been working through those. When I’ve logged in, I’ve found they already have my new card details and it’s just a case of authorising them. I guess I have my bank to thank for that?
I hope there aren’t too many failed payment surprises over the next month or so.
the card networks (visa, mastercard) have a service where the bank tells visa “the account that used to have number 1234…, expiration 3/23 is now number 4567…, expiry 3/27”, and visa tells subscribing merchants. It costs money to participate, of course, so not all banks do (the majority of US ones do, and all the big ones do), and many merchants don’t. there’s also an api for the bank to find out which merchants got the update (at least for visa, no idea about others), so they can tell you, but I’ve never seen that in use.
This has become a very common pattern in my awk scripts. It’s just too easy to throw the line-by-line data in arrays and process it at the end.
I feel like I should make a python framework that provides the basic file I/o and line-by-line processing that makes awk such a useful tool, and then I could write my END block in python
email sucks.
I have a well-configured mail server–letting pros do the work, I am just running a docker container that comes pre-configured and with easy setup for dkim et al, i have spf records and whatnot. Even Google accepts my mails–there are so few the rate limiting isn’t triggered. But some other big providers just reject my mails even though my mail server passes all the standard tests. t-online and microsoft are not my friends. never were.
I cannot even send mails to my own father without resorting to the privacy kraken called gmail where I still have an account for exactly this reason.
I think I’ll make a proton mail account for future cases of this stuff. (edit: oops I already had one and my password was still good, nice. once upon a time before my own server or between servers I tested mailproviders. )
Email is great. Having the biggest spam source be unblockable because “everyone” is there, not so much.
and I remember why I never switched to proton mail. their webmailer is … meh.
and it seems I cannot forward mails from there to elsewhere which is also meh because now I will have to watch that inbox until the move is done.
You’re probably blocked because the network you’re on is listed as a spam source, or being residential customers. There’s no reason to take email from a residential network. Yes, that sucks for you (and me, for that matter), but that’s the way it goes.
Hah. Trust me as someone who has done the gmail dance: when you jump through all their hoops, they add more hoops.
I am not on a residential network and I have checked my IP address for problems again and again. And there is nothing there except one old entry on some blacklist not even t-online takes seriously (they told me they are ignoring that one).
T-online requires me to petition them once I have made an Impressum which I have made even though I do not need to as a private person but they only want „commercial grade“ Servers. but I have been to lazy to beg them again to let me write emails to my dad. I was able to send mails to t-online from my old server which was on the same hoster just a different IP. I think this was from before when my domain hoster was publishing all my private information on whois. Since this is not happening anymore,I guess they decided they will check manually for each domain if they can find a responsible person + address. They could not when I set up my server initially because I switched to a new domain + IP. Since I don‘t feel like begging, rarely email my dad (we have Signal) and I am not sure they will add me to their list of allowed senders… not worth more trouble
The issue with microsoft is new to me. If this happens with someone I have to mail frequently I might do something about it. But for a company I will exchange probably 3 more mails with… it just sucks that it cost me an hour to figure it all out.
But back to my point. Email sucks.
I can usually make all my use-cases work. But I really try to avoid email where I can these days, despite having a really nice setup.
And while I am at it: how come we never managed to make email encryption work for more than a few super-nerds? I used to make an effort to convert people every few years…. now I put what trust I have left in those crypto messengers everyone wants to have a nice backdoor to.
Because Gmail, Microsoft, et al can’t data mine if there is end-to-end encryption.
Delta had a problem with the in-flight entertainment and I thought y’all would get a kick out of this guy that then was riding with me.
On topic and on forum topic… wait what?
I saw a post on Mastodon that BGStats now has score cards!
Yay for never needing to carry pen & paper to play Sprawlopolis again… (yeah I am not good at adding numbers in my head)
Not all games have them. Apparently, these have to be handcrafted. But every game I checked out had a scoresheet! Obviously also allows for multiplay player columns 
(this seems to be so new that yesterday when I first checked my phone had not yet upgraded the app so I manually triggered the update)
I’ve been looking for a while for a basic spreadsheet-like “add up numbers” thing for Android (given my specific restrictions of no Google Play services, no payware, no ads). The one that seems to work for me is Score It (which also has Tarot and Coinche score modes, but I don’t care about them).
||I may still write one at some point to learn some basic Android app coding, but this has removed some of the pressure.
I’m mostly a software guy…
Going to install an outdoor WiFi ap?
Ad hoc. I have a spare Unifi saucer I can drop in when I want it (e.g. barbecues) but it doesn’t need to be powered full time. Mostly this is going to carry a 3m patch cable to the table where I work.
(To clarify, there’s already “OK” wifi, about -68dBm, reaching from the house.)
I saw that headline, too. It isn’t quite as awful as the headline makes it sound but bad enough. People were apparently experimenting with non-food items for recipes.
Still a bad look.
In recent times Recaptcha has taken to regularly throwing me crap like this…
I always skip anything which requires more than a few clicks and/or has significant levels of ambiguity for any square, but (a) it keeps giving me more of the same, and (b) I think skipping causes it to insist on additional correct answers, which leads to even more of the same.
I have on multiple occasions given up on doing what I was going to do and closed the browser tab in disgust because of this.
Hating you even more than normal, Google.
