secret_online's recent activity
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Comment on The problem that built an industry in ~comp
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Comment on The problem that built an industry in ~comp
secret_online LinkThis is the first of a six-part series on a lot of the behind-the-scenes of air ticket booking, with a focus specifically on Amadeus since that's what his tickets went through.I was going to speak at ContainerDays 2026. A conference about containers, orchestration, and cloud-native infrastructure: the kind of modern, ephemeral, stateless systems I spend my working life thinking about.
The irony only hit me on the flight over.
The infrastructure that booked those flights traces its design to the 1960s. It still runs on lineages that predate Unix and speaks command languages built for teletypes. The implementations, hardware, and surrounding software have been replaced and upgraded many times. What persists is the data model, the protocols, and the transaction semantics. None of that happened in a single rewrite: it accumulated while the system kept flying, and at peak it still handles on the order of 10,000 transactions per second.
This is the first of a six-part series on a lot of the behind-the-scenes of air ticket booking, with a focus specifically on Amadeus since that's what his tickets went through.
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The problem that built an industry
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Comment on Tildes Survey #6: Vote for the next four surveys we do! (Results) in ~talk
secret_online Link ParentI would have gone with a doughnut, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯I would have gone with a doughnut, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Comment on Why airlines are always going bankrupt in ~transport
secret_online Link ParentBecause it is :) To be honest, I don't know how many other places will be in a similar situation to NZ with our country being long and, as you noted, not having good rail connections. That's not...Sounds a bit like Air New Zealand.
Because it is :)
To be honest, I don't know how many other places will be in a similar situation to NZ with our country being long and, as you noted, not having good rail connections. That's not even including the fact that we have a body of water between the larger two islands, and building a bridge between them is not feasible thanks to high and variable wind and strong currents.
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Comment on Why airlines are always going bankrupt in ~transport
secret_online Link ParentDo many people think it's profitable? Granted I live in a smaller isolated country where air travel is really the only way to/from it, and visiting family in different cities is usually much more...But it's not the money printer that people think it is.
Do many people think it's profitable? Granted I live in a smaller isolated country where air travel is really the only way to/from it, and visiting family in different cities is usually much more convenient via flying, so it's not uncommon to hear news about how unprofitable our flag carrier is.
To use something from the article, we really only have enough demand for 1.8 airlines (or so). It has been pretty stable for a decade with the flag carrier being decent and often propped up by the government (and that's when it's most often in the news), and a budget airline still isn't all that budget (and is also foreign owned and operated). There are also a couple of teensy tiny airlines that run incredibly small planes on very few routes that aren't served by the other two, but they can't be making money from it.
There's an old joke, which I think is apt:
Steps to becoming a millionaire:
- Be a billionaire.
- Buy an airline.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly - Tiny Little Babies Edition (26.1 Update) in ~games
secret_online Link ParentI believe Eth was using the Build Guide mod (with catenary curves) for the wiresI believe Eth was using the Build Guide mod (with catenary curves) for the wires
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly - Tiny Little Babies Edition (26.1 Update) in ~games
secret_online Link ParentGetting the roses in and making a killing gallery around the edge (where the can't walk to or spawn, but we can reach them). Piglins and blazes can't spawn in the wither roses, so you only get...Getting the roses in and making a killing gallery around the edge (where the can't walk to or spawn, but we can reach them). Piglins and blazes can't spawn in the wither roses, so you only get skellies. It is a pain to place, because if a blaze does spawn then they can burn the place to the ground. Also depending on which design of farm we go with (like a manual farm) then we might actually want to swap the soul sand with soul soil so they walk faster.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly - Tiny Little Babies Edition (26.1 Update) in ~games
secret_online Link ParentOh yeah, soul speed is essential in there. It's actually why I made it of soul sand and not soul soil, so I could dodge easier while placing it all down.Oh yeah, soul speed is essential in there. It's actually why I made it of soul sand and not soul soil, so I could dodge easier while placing it all down.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly - Tiny Little Babies Edition (26.1 Update) in ~games
secret_online Link ParentYeah, I know that design. I was thinking of doing something similar but smaller, but the way I was going about it was starting to balloon in size and also just didn't work. We could always fall...Yeah, I know that design. I was thinking of doing something similar but smaller, but the way I was going about it was starting to balloon in size and also just didn't work. We could always fall back to that kind of design.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly - Tiny Little Babies Edition (26.1 Update) in ~games
secret_online Link ParentThis was mine. I was in the process of putting together the materials to make an actual farm, but then stopped working on it when Eth started taking a break. I was trying to come up with a...This was mine. I was in the process of putting together the materials to make an actual farm, but then stopped working on it when Eth started taking a break. I was trying to come up with a collection system design with minecarts, but had no good way of ejecting the skeletons (I tried a lot) so gave up.
If someone wants to make a simpler farm then feel free. It should be easy enough to get the roses using the slime or silverfish potions and a wither underneath the end portal.
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Comment on San Francisco Sign Guild in ~arts
secret_online Link ParentYou might find one already exists... Though I am thinking of moving it so it's not quite so prominent.You might find one already exists... Though I am thinking of moving it so it's not quite so prominent.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly - Tiny Little Babies Edition (26.1 Update) in ~games
secret_online LinkHooray! Eth has wanted baby baby glow squid to put into the tank in front of our slime farm, and now we get to do that. It's going to take a while, as the local mob cap for them is 5 and there's a...Hooray! Eth has wanted baby baby glow squid to put into the tank in front of our slime farm, and now we get to do that. It's going to take a while, as the local mob cap for them is 5 and there's a 5% chance of them being a baby.
For those who use my modpack, you should be able to upgrade to the latest v12 version.
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Comment on Jet Lag Season 17: Taiwan Rail Rush | Trailer in ~hobbies
secret_online (edited )Link ParentOuttakes video (Nebula) Episode 8 spoilers Sam's face after Michael asked which other animal is orange with black stripes really says it all. There was a lot of discussion on the podcast, as one...Episode 8 spoilers
This was a very fair and well-deserved... loss
- Sam Denby, 2026 (within the first minute of the podcast episode)Sam's face after Michael asked which other animal is orange with black stripes really says it all.
There was a lot of discussion on the podcast, as one would expect for this finale. The main takeaway they had was that this was not caused by the game design, but by strategy. They also came to the conclusion that even at the start of the day, things weren't looking too good for Sam and Michael. The train schedules didn't really line up for them to be able to grab all of the high-value challenges, which they reasoned wouldn't be worth it. They only discovered the route to do the variable challenge later on, and they figured it would be more consistent and give them an opportunity to go big if they could.
Personally, I think their strategic mistakes came from throwing 5s down on the coastal low-speed line, then going back up and fortifying the other line on Day 4. Adam and Ben were only ever going to try and push into Taipei, and the most time effective way to do that is on the high speed line, where they can then make a more informed decision. I think the fact they had fewer chips at the end of Day 4, and the stalemate only helped the boys. Their time then was better spent flipping stations.
An interesting stat thing they mentioned is that Ben and Adam earned more chips, but spent fewer, while holding more stations for the entire length of the game. They also mention that Sam and Michael spent a lot of their time travelling on their own territory, even with the boys needing to take the long way back around.
The final thing I'll mention is the fact that Sam and Michael's victory depended on the boys failing the steal at Taipei 101. Adam convinced Ben to do the challenge anyway after the other team conceded, and they put the entire attempt in the outtakes video. Before you think "it must be short", there was a 5 minute time limit so it's entirely reasonable to put the full attempt in a bonus video. Anyway, I'll put the result of the attempt in a spoiler block. Take your guess, say it out loud if you have commitment issues, then expand.
The Taipei 101 steal.
Did you actually commit to a guess? Come on, it's fun!
It took 5 seconds for Ben to know where Adam was, and about 3 more seconds to be zooming in on his location.
The game was over.
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Comment on Minecraft: Java Edition finally adds free peer-to-peer multiplayer and friends list in ~games
secret_online LinkOh, cool! This is something Minecraft has needed for a long time. I was not expecting it to happen, given Mojang has a financial incentive to make Realms attractive. This will be great for just...Oh, cool! This is something Minecraft has needed for a long time. I was not expecting it to happen, given Mojang has a financial incentive to make Realms attractive.
This will be great for just popping into a friend's world to hang out. Hopefully it also works smoothly for modded games too (assuming all clients have the same mod list of course).
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Comment on Jet Lag Season 17: Taiwan Rail Rush | Trailer in ~hobbies
secret_online Link ParentEpisode 7 spoilers I believe Sam and Michael were in much stronger position towards the end of the previous episode compared to where they are by the end of this one. Hemorrhaging their chips on...Episode 7 spoilers
I believe Sam and Michael were in much stronger position towards the end of the previous episode compared to where they are by the end of this one. Hemorrhaging their chips on lines with lots of stations that Adam and Ben aren't considering is certainly a very risky play, and basically means they have to achieve their challenges in the north and commit to making their way down the east. I haven't seen the finale yet as of writing this, so I'm interested to see how this season turns out.
The challenge that Sam and Michael did at the rainbow village had to be slightly modified on the fly. The opening hours on Google Maps had it closed on Saturday and Sunday, but they arrived on Monday and it was closed. They could only access the outside, so they had to choose from photos on characters on the outside only. I think Michael's description was very good, and maybe this challenge was tuned a bit on the easy side, but that's just how this goes.
The two of them also did well with the roundhouse, after all they were only off by 1ft and I feel like that's only because Michael didn't round their guess up to 150. The fact that the pavings are 1ft by 2ft definitely helped, which can be estimated by looking at their feet. My watching buddies and I briefly debated whether this counts as "using only your body", and we figured it was close enough.
Though the big thing in this episode is definitely the setup for the stalemate. I definitely think that Adam and Ben have the upper hand here, as Sam and Michael must be the ones to move first. Sam and Michael have some level of control based on when exactly they try to leave, but with how fast it is for the boys to catch up to them, especially since they have to stop for challenges before heading down the east line, that's not going to be much of a time advantage. Genuinely, I think that Sam and Michael might have thrown their incredibly strong position away from an episode and a half ago, and I don't think they got much from doing so.
There honestly wasn't too much in the way of discussion on the podcast for this episode. A few anecdotes here and there, some little stories that didn't really go anywhere. They were definitely holding back a bit because they didn't want to talk about the resolution of the stalemate, for obvious reasons.
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Comment on Tom Scott: England — Official teaser for Nebula in ~travel
secret_online Link ParentI really loved this episode. It was pretty clear from the start that this was a special episode for Tom, and I got this feeling of joy from him while watching. It just felt good. It's cool that 3...I really loved this episode. It was pretty clear from the start that this was a special episode for Tom, and I got this feeling of joy from him while watching. It just felt good.
It's cool that 3 of the boats are still remotely operated by cable and that even that linear movement is enough to make it feel more real during the show. I'm sure that's helped by having the others freely moving thanks to having a human inside of them.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games
secret_online LinkAs I've mentioned in other posts, I've spent a bit of time connecting the Emerald Empire to Hamster's rail line and making it look a bit nicer. It's a rail tunnel, so isn't all that fancy, but I...As I've mentioned in other posts, I've spent a bit of time connecting the Emerald Empire to Hamster's rail line and making it look a bit nicer. It's a rail tunnel, so isn't all that fancy, but I have made the walls sandstone in keeping with our theme. I've made the leaves on the roof a bit more sparse here, even though there's still a lot. In the next section are some note blocks that you can right click to switch tracks. The water slows the minecart down enough to give you enough time to click and for the track to switch. That then takes you up the much more lush tunnel (that also has the blue carpet roof) that terminates at a small station platform.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games
secret_online Link@creesch Are you able to add a new rail line to bluemap? It's @hamstergeddon's line that @artvandelay has been working on, and I've connected to Eth's and my cave. I don't know if there's an...@creesch Are you able to add a new rail line to bluemap? It's @hamstergeddon's line that @artvandelay has been working on, and I've connected to Eth's and my cave. I don't know if there's an official name for this line yet.
Coordinate lists
I've included the Y coordinates in here, because there's a couple of slopes at different points.
-646, 40, 105Storage
-620, 40, 105
-620, 40, 104
-620, -6, 58
-620, -6, 42
221, -6, 42
242, -27, 42
339, -27, 42
360, -6, 42
996, -6, 42Hamster's floating island-175, -6, 42
-175, -6, 70Tilde Town Central208, -6, 42
208, -6, 32
208, 28, -2
208, 28, -6
222, 28, -6Emerald Empire -
Comment on Tildes Survey #3: What country were you born in? (Results) in ~talk
secret_online Link ParentUnited States of AmericaUnited States of America
Yeah, I almost didn't post it here for that reason, but as you said if you skim and pay attention to the ideas rather than the presentation then there is something interesting in there.