OCTADE or OCTAD is a retro word that means either an octal digit of three bits, or an octal octet or an eight-bit byte. Thus an octade, depending on its historical use, is either 3 bits or 8 bits.

OCTADE was used to specify eight bits, as opposed to BYTE which is not necessarily eight bits as the word BYTE could signify any of several numbers of bits.

This yields the retro 1337 numbers of 38 and 83. The number 38 is one more than 37 so a bit more elite a bit cooler. Thus it owns cardinally shorter byterz.

83 mod 38 equals 7, the highest octal digit. 838 mod 383 equals 72 or 9 times 8 which is 8 squared plus 8.

8338 mod 3883 equals 572 which is 72 times 8 minus 4 or 71.5 times 8.

8383 mod 3838 equals 707 which is 88 times 8 plus 3.

I prefer the old word OCTADE to the word BYTE. OCTADE sports a Euro-peon dignity and gravitas like an Internet serf ready to surf the worknet like pwnd peons. This is very true when pronouncing OCTADE with a thick Pennsyltucky Dutch or Yinzer accent. The Bostonian pronunciation sounds like bad beginner German or muffled mumbling of 'lactate.'

OCTADE or OCTAD was also used to describe a poem of eight stanzas.

OCTADE was also used to describe a period of eight years, or two leap years.

OCTADECANAL is a pheromone found in butterflies. It is butterfly perfume. I would not wear butterfly cologne. But I would sell it. Who would buy and wear my snobby smell? With wordplay we can call it OCTADE CHANNEL No. 8 . All rights reserved, ye French odor snooties.

Historical references for use of 'octade' or 'octad':

Burroughs B5500 Information Processing Systems REFERENCE MANUAL
https://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/burroughs/LargeSystems/B5000_5500_5700/1021326_B5500_RefMan_196705.pdf

Philips Data Systems Product Range - April 1971
https://www.vintage-calculators.nl/Philips%20productoverzicht%201971.pdf

Is there another name for octet that means 8 bits?
https://www.quora.com/Is-there-another-name-for-octet-that-means-8-bits

#octade #octad #binary #byte #jargon #etymology #bytemology #wordplay #wordgames #wordcrimes #history #retro #retronym #retronymous #yinzer #pennsyltucky #humor

@wordplay@lemmy.ml @Vocabulary@lemmy.ml

--

OCTADE | news://alt.flashback | https://soc.octade.net

#Coffee #CowboyCoffee #MorningMudd

Name: Byrl Raze Buckbriar (call me Raze).

Likes: Interested in WORK PRODUCT, inspiration, faith, truth, beauty, nature, self-improvement, encouragement, edification, praiseworthy things, how-tos, beautiful things, artwork, fluid poems, and general human kindness and achievement. See my profile hashtags for technical subjects of interest.

Disclaimer: If I follow your account it does not imply agreement with your views.

Site: Cryptography project site. (https://octade.net)
Publications: https://octade.net/publications.html
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-5144-3278
Netnews: Find me on #Usenet in #Newsgroup alt.rhubarb.
Git: https://codeberg.org/OCTADE
Keyoxide1: https://keyoxide.org/0CF7084CF97B85F2ABF97010C6663A42C56F5F0E
Keyoxide2: https://keyoxide.org/B9B2A8EC2C4B20D2011CFEAA07E4A7FFF6585E8F
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/octade.bsky.social
HackerNews: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=OCTADE
Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/@buckbriar

Ubuntu Linux is planning to comply with Age Verification law.

On the unfortunate need for an "age verification" API for legal compliance reasons in some U.S. states

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2026-March/043510.html

"While the [age verification] bill moved through the legislature, the OSI, FSF, Software Freedom Conservancy, and Linux Foundation all sat it out — no testimony, no public analysis, no formal opposition on the record."

California's computer age verification law is poison. The new California age verification law is a version of INGSOC's telescreen watching you. And the usual self-proclaimed software freedom fighters are AWOL as this attack on your freedom is executed.

Don't listen to apologists who claim this isn't a big deal. It is a huge deal. This law is not about protecting children. The California law is a ruse for laying the foundation and precedent for mandatory remote control of all operating systems. They are using children as a shield for their true intentions. It's called a 'subterfuge' or a 'pretext' to hide the real rationale. And in politics subterfuge is very common. These politicians don't care about your children. They care about control and information is control. Compliance with California's new law is highly corrosive to free software and deadly to personal privacy.

With the mandatory age verification API in place, legislators can later add more laws mandating retrieval of even more privacy-invasive information just to install and use any operating system. This is Big Brother's telescreen in your living room. And the Linux community is nearly silent on the matter, instead focused on artificial intelligence investment.

Where were the software freedom organizations when California was mandating installation of #spyware in all free and open source operating systems? Did they oppose it? Or did they support it by silence? The California age verification law is the greatest threat to software freedom in recent history., striking right at the root of software installation for all users. Yet (((crickets))).

Is silence really tacit support?

"While the [age verification] bill moved through the legislature, the OSI, FSF, Software Freedom Conservancy, and Linux Foundation all sat it out — no testimony, no public analysis, no formal opposition on the record."

Where were they when this mandatory spyware infrastructure was being shoved down our throats? Where were the self-proclaimed software freedom fighters? Where were the calls to action? I didn't see any.

Is silence golden ... or is gold buying silence?

Let these organizations know that you oppose California's age verification spyware law and that you expect them to rally in defense of true software freedom--freedom from government oversight of your software systems. Parents--and not the spyware state--should protect their children. The government is neither your parent nor your god nor your savior and the people should send a clear message stating that.

California, stay out of my operating system! And stay the hell away from children!

@eff@mastodon.social
@linuxfoundation@social.lfx.dev
@fsf@hostux.social
@osi@opensource.org
@conservancy@sfconservancy.org

#AgeVerification #Linux #EFF #OSI #LinuxFoundation #FSF #Privacy #Cybersecurity #Surveillance #Spyware #OpenSource #OperatingSystems #FreeSoftware #SoftwareFreedom #Panopticon #BigBrother #Government

CC: @laffer1@bsd.network @leo@twit.social @MichaelRoss@social.linux.pizza @rms@mastodon.xyz @thenewoil@mastodon.thenewoil.org @TechDesk@flipboard.social @remixtures@tldr.nettime.org

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A crowd of sillouettes of people stands in front of a giant telescreen depicting a single giant eye watching them.

I've made the difficult decision to limit use of MidnightBSD for desktop use in the state of California effective January 1, 2027.

This is due to https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB1043/id/3269704

"California residents are not authorized to use MidnightBSD for desktop use in the state of California effective January 1, 2027. California law CA AB1043 requires a complex age verification system implemented for operating systems with no exceptions for small open source projects. At this time, we don't have development time or a plan in place for this."

Alt...

California residents are not authorized to use MidnightBSD for desktop use in the state of California effective January 1, 2027. California law CA AB1043 requires a complex age verification system implemented for operating systems with no exceptions for small open source projects. At this time, we don't have development time or a plan in place for this.

Filtering out so many topics my mastodon feed is just top to bottom asses and retro computing now 🐴 🕹️

#asstodon #c64

When I got home from school the computers were off and the UPS was beeping. I guess we had an outage.

Fortunately everything came back up and here I am typing on Gamer+.

-- the cloud, as in, the digital one.

“Americans are very lucky, because wherever they go to bring freedom… they find oil.”

— Italian journalist and satirist Michele Serra

#iran

It's way easier for lazy politicians to enact laws to outlaw, censor, and surveil under the guise of a moral panic than to enforce antitrust regulations and interoperability and algorithmic transparency mandates...

"While social media bans may seem like a prudent measure to protect children, they are not only ineffective, they endanger both children and adults. There is little evidence that social media is driving any type of widespread mental health crisis in children. Studies have repeatedly shown the opposite. Removing anonymity from the web, which will inevitably happen when tech companies are required to identify and ban children, allows for easier government tracking and censorship of journalists, activists and whistleblowers, who rely on online anonymity.

And while some claim the laws would curb big tech’s power, only the largest tech companies have the resources to shoulder the extensive costs of age verification systems. Non-profit and indie platforms could be forced to close, consolidating big tech’s power further. Mass surveillance systems, once constructed, could also be easily leveraged by governments and bad actors.

If we want to fix the problems with social media, the place to start is through comprehensive data-privacy reform and consumer protections. Governments could also take action to break up big tech companies and prosecute them for anti-competitive behaviour. Lawmakers, who claim to care about children, could pass broader social and economic policies that we know would meaningfully improve children’s lives. Social media is a lifeline, especially for marginalised youth such as LGBTQ+ teens. Any policies that limit online access should centre on the most vulnerable children and adults.

To enact the social media bans being proposed around the world requires some system of age verification, which inherently means expanding surveillance technology."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/02/ban-children-social-media-biometic-data-surveilled

#AgeVerification #SocialMedia #Politics #Censorship #Surveillance

Hundreds of academics have called on governments to halt age checks on online services, @POLITICOEurope reports. An open letter signed by 271 security and privacy experts said that it is “dangerous and socially unacceptable to introduce a large-scale access control mechanism without a clear understanding of the implications” for security, privacy and people’s freedom and autonomy. Here's more. Tell us in the comments what you think.

https://flip.it/BssYhv

#Technology #Tech #AgeVerification #SocialMedia

https://soc.octade.net/cypherpunk/

A fediverse group for discussing topics and tools related to #cypherpunks.

#groups #fedigroups #fediverse #retro #cypherpunk #crypto #cryptography #encryption

@cryptography@soc.octade.net @cypherpunk@soc.octade.net

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Glowing green-lined skull on black background with digital circuit board lines and one eye a glowing bitcoin symbol and the other eye a glowing hashtag with the tagline 'CYPHERPUNK REVOLT'.

RE: https://social.freedom.press/@securedrop/116166721207658068

The web’s security model has long relied on trusting the server. WEBCAT is an attempt to change that. Please help test it if you can. Your feedback at this early stage of development is extremely valuable. Excited to collaborate on this with @freedomofpress and @securedrop

SecureDrop » 🌐 2026-03-03 / 2026-03-03
@securedrop@social.freedom.press

Web applications are only as trustworthy as the servers that serve them, and servers can get hacked. That’s why we are introducing WEBCAT, a tool allowing web browsers to verify the origin of code before they run it.

🌞 Today, WEBCAT enters alpha testing! If you like to experiment with cutting-edge software, give it a try:
https://securedrop.org/news/webcat-alpha/

Currently slow progress on Liferea. Reason is me finishing a master thesis in philosophy. Have to hand it in in ~3 weeks. Need to focus on writing 15 more pages.

Afterwards there will be time again to improve Liferea.

#liferea #philosophy

@DaveFlater@infosec.exchange

Did any of you notice Pete Hegseth has a giant Ordo Templar tattoo?

He's a templar on a crusade for his mother church against all protestant and muslim heretics because protestants and muslims protest imperial Catholic hegemony and foreign Catholic landlords runnning their countries.

The wars are religious wars designed to secure the transnational capital of the mother church.

@eff@mastodon.social

Their 'core mission' seems to be getting donations.

EFF has said nothing about Linux marrying the AI industry.

Inwardly, in our minds and hearts, we are very confused. There is no security for ourselves or for future generations. Religions have divided human beings as Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. Considering all this, observing objectively, calmly without prejudice, it is naturally important that together we think about it all. Think together, not having opinions opposing other sets of opinions, not having one conclusion against another conclusion, one ideal against another ideal, but thinking together and seeing what we human beings can do. The crisis is not in the economic world, nor in the political world; the crisis is in consciousness. I think very few of us realise this.

From The Network of Thought

#Krishnamurti
#meditation
#phylosophy
#day62
#life
#consciousness

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, lawmakers introduced 1,134 AI bills in 2025 and enacted 131 into law, with every state participating and 40 states passing new AI statutes. The result: a rapidly diverging, fragmented regulatory landscape” that forces developers to build state-by-state compliance and absorb mounting liability risks across state lines. 1/2

The EC is working on more detailed guidance about how the CRA will work in practice. After lots of input from many of our open source colleagues, they have issued a draft. There are substantial improvements to the guidance around open source.
The EC has opened a 4-week public comment period on this new document, it would be a good time to read it and comment, if you haven't.

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/16959-Draft-Commission-guidance-on-the-Cyber-Resilience-Act_en

#cra #openSource

#Privacy is at stake in #Colorodo and #California, and needs your help!

Laws in both states are threatening to require Operating Systems to have mandatory age verification.

California's bill has passed and takes effect on January 1st, 2027!

Colorodo's bill has not yet passed!

if you live in either of these states, contact your representatives! Get them to overturn these intrusive changes!

The U.S. was once dominant in the shipbuilding industry. Now, the U.S. produces less than one percent of ships globally. #AI can be used to increase American shipbuilding capacity, notes Sen. Moreno at today’s Senate Subcommittee hearing.

Oftentimes we find people that gives us erroneous advice (even if they have good intentions) regarding digital privacy, but I found some trustworthy resources while exploring the internet, which are:

The New Oil: https://thenewoil.org/

Privacy Guides: https://www.privacyguides.org/

Techlore: https://techlore.tech/

Electronic Frontier Foundation: https://www.eff.org/

Awesome Privacy: https://github.com/pluja/awesome-privacy

#DigitalPrivacy #Privacy #SurveillanceCapitalism

In my 21 1/2 years of military service I don’t recall ever running into anything like this. This is fucked up beyond all recognition.
#FUBAR

“A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Pres. Donald Trump was ‘anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,’ according to a complaint by a non-commissioned officer.” - Jonathan Larsen
https://jonathanlarsen.substack.com/p/us-troops-were-told-iran-war-is-for?fbclid=IwZnRzaAQTONJleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEeJG3E3YqM8ukVozZseDDcDk7CWLgH6C2-l29rGcDD7SgEoT5gVduTtcaS4ak_aem_TITttkhQhu5b_C9u3tX4mA

A few of the 28 spectacular "pattern poems" produced by the Frankish Benedictine monk Rabanus Maurus in his 9th-century work De laudibus sanctae crucis (In Praise of the Holy Cross). More examples, and an explanation of how they work, here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/medieval-pattern-poems-of-rabanus-maurus-9th-century

The Linux Foundation introduces the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation, advancing the next chapter of AI-RAN innovation through open collaboration.

OCUDU unites industry, research, and public sector leaders to accelerate trusted 5G evolution and help shape the path to 6G.

Open source moving from vision to infrastructure.

Learn more: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-announces-ocudu-ecosystem-foundation-to-accelerate-open-source-ai-ran-innovation?_gl=1*1u05qfq*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTIxMDUzMjcxNy4xNzcyNTU3MTgz*_ga_FBYHX832ZD*czE3NzI1NTcxODIkbzEkZzEkdDE3NzI1NTcxOTAkajUyJGwwJGgw*_ga_BKD8K5CRV0*czE3NzI1NTcxODIkbzEkZzEkdDE3NzI1NTcxOTAkajUyJGwwJGgw

https://ocudu.org/

#OpenSource #AI #RAN #5G #6G #WirelessInnovation #Telecom

@gary_alderson@infosec.exchange

The new war may send diesel and gas prices through the roof. Or it may be used as a pretext to jack up the prices, like the collaborative price inflation of domestic food products.

They are earning the hate.

Never attribute to ignorance what is clearly malevolent.

#MonsterdonAlert

What should our next #Monsterdon movie be?

Did you know that less than 1% of the world’s institutions share heritage in open access? In this article, our Open Culture team provides an overview of the main barriers to equitable access to public domain heritage in the digital environment, makes the case for openness as a key principle in the preservation and dissemination of documentary heritage, and shares examples of positive reuse enabled by open heritage.

https://www.ijodh.org/0201-09/

there are years of hacking where things progress by days, and there are days of hacking when things progress by years

Moar powwwerrrr!

Neurodivergent devs: what languages actually *click* for your brain? Not popularity — what feels kind, predictable, low-cognitive-load? Why?

I'm building a framework for ND devs and want real experiences. Rust? Go? Odin? Python? Something else?

Tell me what works (or doesn't) for you.

#ActuallyAutistic #ADHD #Neurodivergent #Programming #Rust #Go #Odin

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@diemkay/116008333402482196

So glad I at least fucking told it to their faces when I did.

https://ar.al/2019/11/29/the-future-of-internet-regulation-at-the-european-parliament/

in reply to »

Andreea » 🌐 2026-02-03 / 2026-03-06
@diemkay@hachyderm.io

In 2025, Big Tech—just ten major companies—spent €49 million lobbying Brussels. That’s more than pharma, finance, and automotive combined.

Google funds all sixteen major European think tanks shaping EU policy. Not *some* of them. All of them. Amazon and Meta fund most of the rest.

This is no longer “poor old me, I need a bit of help,” this is full regulatory capture. With a view to becoming even more embedded into businesses and governments, and getting whatever favorable legislation passed or diluted to suit them.

https://corporateeurope.org/en/2025/10/big-tech-lobby-budgets-hit-record-levels

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A chart showing the funding relationships between major tech companies (Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, Microsoft) and various think tanks. Each row represents a think tank, while the columns indicate funding status. Google funds all of them. Amazon Meta Apple and Microsoft fund most of the rest.

There are scam notifications about "monetization" on here going around.

👉 Don't fall for them.
👉 Don't click the link.
👉 Report and block on sight.

There is no monetization scheme on mastodon.social, nor any other fedi instance I know of.

Stay safe!

#Fediverse #InfoSec

Alt...

Screenshot of a message from a scam account, @MonetizationNotification@mstdn.ca (already blocked on my instance). I altered the phishing link in the description below on purpose, to make it harder to click on it. @rysiek Mastodon Sent You Message Important notification for your account! The Mastodon team has noticed your activity on our forum and we would like to offer you a partnership. Partnering with us means that monetization will be enabled for your account. To begin collaborating with our team, please confirm that you are the owner of this account by following the link below. Verify now: https://lyzo[.]io/icLJa If you attempt to avoid verification, our system will freeze your account indefinitely. Thank you for staying with us. Mastodon.social

There's still time to apply!

Senior Software Developer (backend)
Senior Software Developer (frontend)

Remote, full-time.

Join us to build and maintain open infrastructure powering global scholarly communication.

Apply by March 10, 2026. More info: https://www.crossref.org/jobs/

#hiring #jobs #remotework #remote

📣 Heading to Glasgow for #UKSG2026?

Don’t miss ORCID’s Shivendra Naidoo alongside Alastair Arthur (UofGlasgow) and Liz Bal (JISC) for an essential breakout session on research integrity and global collaboration.

See you there! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Alt...

The UKSG 49th Annual Conference Shivendra Naidoo speaks on Community built Trust in Turbulent Times. 30 and 31 March.

In the next release of #Holos, Bloom filters will be enabled by default (can be disabled). This allows the relay to deliver only activities that matter to you, without ever knowing who you follow. In practice, this reduces data transfer around 97%, since only about 3% of activities are typically relevant during a sync.
The public timeline is replaced by a discover timeline tailored to your interests.

#HolosSocial

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Discover tab with empty state inviting the user to choose their interests.

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Interests screen with trending hashtag suggestions and a dialog to add a custom hashtag.

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Interests screen showing selected hashtags: photography, history and nature.

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Discover timeline showing a matching post with photography and nature content.

cursed mascots

https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/178943783
#unix_surrealism #9front #plan9 #nein

Alt...

Rabbit NEIN in mono wearing a 9 kimono

ALPRs are “incredibly ripe for abuse,” EFF’s Matthew Guariglia told The San Francisco Standard. “No matter how many legal or bureaucratic guardrails you put on those searches, officers are going to find a way to use it for their own personal reasons.” https://sfstandard.com/2026/02/27/san-francisco-cop-flock-wife-stolen-car/

I had a weird #dream. It was about #RobotFramework and #Trump. I laughed so hard when I woke up. 😂

🌐 https://blog.gridranger.dev/i-dream-of/

#blog #post #indieweb #python

It’s going to be all globe related posts for the next few days. I visited the Globe Museum of the Austrian National Library. They have over 250 globes on display, the oldest dating back to 1536. The first two here were made by Vincenzo Coronelli, whose artistic style helped to make globes decorative symbols of wealth. #globes #maps #cartography

What if every phone could contribute to the #Fediverse, not just consume it?

Short-form video means heavy server-side transcoding for every clip. But your phone can handle it. Re-encode, resize, thumbnails, all done locally. Then push to your own #S3 or #Nextcloud.

No transcoding server. Just simple storage.

We can decentralize the compute, not just the network.

We're working on it

#HolosSocial

"Removing anonymity from the web, which will inevitably happen when tech companies are required to identify and ban children, allows for easier government tracking and censorship of journalists, activists and whistleblowers [...] Non-profit and indie platforms could be forced to close, consolidating big tech’s power further. Mass surveillance systems, once constructed, could also be easily leveraged by governments and bad actors." - @taylorlorenz

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/02/ban-children-social-media-biometic-data-surveilled

#privacy #tech