Robert Kafka

[Robert Kafka @Rob_Kafka]

From @grok

Carson Towt's college basketball career just ended with Notre Dame's 2025-26 season (likely wrapping up in March 2026, around tournament time or shortly after), so his athletic eligibility in any NCAA sport is now fully exhausted—he has no remaining years to play college basketball (or, crucially, college football, even if he had wanted to try it).

The key reason he can sign an NFL contract right now, in mid-March 2026, even though the 2026 NFL Draft is still about a month away (April 23-25, 2026, in Pittsburgh), is that **he was never eligible for the NFL Draft in the first place**.

NFL draft eligibility rules (per the league's CBA with the players' association) require players to have exhausted their college football eligibility or meet specific timelines tied to high school graduation (generally at least three years removed, with most needing to be post-junior or senior in football). Since Towt **never played a down of organized college football** (or apparently any football at higher levels), he doesn't fall under the standard college football prospect rules. He isn't "draft-eligible" as a football player because he has no NCAA football eligibility to declare for or exhaust in that sport.

Instead, he enters the NFL as a true **free agent**—specifically an undrafted free agent (UDFA)—immediately after his basketball season ends. NFL teams can sign such players at any time once they're out of college eligibility in their sport and have no remaining amateur status barriers. This is exactly how past basketball-to-NFL tight end conversions worked:

- **Antonio Gates** (Kent State basketball) went undrafted in 2003 after his hoops career and signed directly with the Chargers as a free agent.
- **Jimmy Graham** (Miami basketball) similarly finished basketball eligibility, went undrafted in the 2010 NFL Draft (though he was technically draft-eligible as a senior-equivalent in another sport), but the path was the same: no football background meant no draft restriction holding him back.
- **Mo Alie-Cox** (VCU basketball) signed as a UDFA with the Colts in 2017 after his college hoops ended.

In Towt's case, he signed with an NFL agency back in February 2026 (while still playing basketball) to prepare for this transition, and the Colts moved quickly to lock him up on March 17 as a developmental tight end prospect. The draft only applies to players who are properly eligible under the NFL's football-specific rules; everyone else who's out of college can be signed freely by any team whenever they're available.

So, no waiting for the draft—Towt isn't part of that pool, and teams like the Colts can (and did) sign him now to start his football development ASAP.

[Robert Kafka @Rob_Kafka]

@UseCodePOP You mean LTD version not bnd version?

[Robert Kafka @Rob_Kafka]

Conversations during a commute can be extremely effective and meaningful and a way to turn wasted time into something useful and beneficial. I often call the most important people in my life on the way to of home from work when I know I have 30-45 minutes free to focus them. Driving is a mindless act in m most cases even more so if you have an automation to assist.

Now it’s different if you were planning on sharing a deck or making a pitch to them, but that’s not what they owe you. Yes if you see this as an opportunity to pitch them something, then your not getting what you want. If you are looking for an opportunity to truly connect with them, I would say they invited you to a valued part of their day.

[Robert Kafka @Rob_Kafka]

@LicDelRivero I love that the only real helmet the ai used is a green bat helmet

[Robert Kafka @Rob_Kafka]

The key to why there is **no ambiguity** (no conflict between something like 10.20.0.2 and 10.0.20.2) lies in the **exact rules** used by the old Unix function `inet_aton()` (and therefore by most tools that accept this shorthand: ping, telnet, old versions of netcat, many browsers, etc.).

### The official inet_aton() parsing rules

When you give an IPv4 address with fewer than 4 octets, `inet_aton()` fills in the missing parts **in a very specific way**:

| Number of dots | How the number(s) are interpreted | Example you type | Becomes this real address |
|-----------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|------------------|---------------------------|
| 3 dots (normal) | a.b.c.d → each part is one octet | 10.20.0.2 | 10.20.0.2 |
| 2 dots | a.b.c → the last number (c) is split across the last **two** octets (c = x*256 + y) | 10.20.516 | 10.20.2.4 (because 516 = 2×256 + 4) |
| 1 dot | a.b → the last number fills the last **three** octets (b = x*65536 + y*256 + z) | 10.131586 | 10.2.0.2 (131586 = 2×65536 + 0×256 + 2) |
| 0 dots | a → the entire 32-bit number is used directly (rarely seen) | 167772162 | 10.0.0.2 (167772162 = 10×16777216 + 2) |

**Crucially**:
When you have **fewer than 4 parts**, the **rightmost number you typed is always interpreted as a single integer that occupies all the remaining octets**, starting from the left of the missing part.

### Why 10.20.2 cannot mean two different addresses

Let’s test the two possibilities people fear:

1. Could someone think “10.20.2” means 10.20.0.2 ? → Yes, that is exactly what happens.
The parser sees two dots → rule says: take the last number (2) and put it in the **third** octet, and put 0 in the fourth → 10.20.0.2

2. Could someone think “10.20.2” means 10.0.20.2 ? → **No, never.**
To get 10.0.20.2 using the shorthand, you would have to type **10.131074** (because 20×256 + 2 = 5122, wait no — actually 0×65536 + 20×256 + 2 = 5122, but that’s a different number).

In other words:

| Desired real address | Shorthand you must type | What “10.20.2” actually becomes |
|----------------------|-------------------------|---------------------------------|
| 10.20.0.2 | 10.20.2 | 10.20.0.2 |
| 10.0.20.2 | 10.131074 (or 10.0.20.2 with 3 dots) | — |

There is **only one possible shorthand** that produces 10.20.0.2, and it is 10.20.2 (or 10.20.0.2).
There is **no shorthand** that produces 10.0.20.2 that could be confused with 10.20.2.

### Summary – why it’s unambiguous

- The position of the dots tells the parser **exactly** how many octets the final number must fill.
- The final number is always placed starting from the **highest-order missing octet** and filled rightward.
- Therefore, every possible 32-bit IPv4 address has **exactly one** valid shorthand representation under these rules (and many have none if they need all four octets).
- Conflicts like “10.20.2 could mean either 10.20.0.2 or 10.0.20.2” are impossible because the parser never “shifts left”; it only ever “shifts right” into the missing octets.

That is why, even though the notation looks sloppy, it is 100 % deterministic and has been safely used in Unix tools for decades.

[Robert Kafka @Rob_Kafka]

@mischavdburg Homelab

[Robert Kafka @Rob_Kafka]

I appreciate your perspective on this and appreciate you sharing. It’s good to have a dialogue on a topic like this that can be nuanced.

I don’t agree with your assessment because he wasn’t just “inaccurate about something”, he was out and out lying and pushing a narrative that had already been completely debunked. When Kimmel went on his show and used his power to push a narrative that he knew was wrong, he crossed a line that should have some consequences

[Robby Starbuck @robbystarbuck]

I don’t cry. Probably 5 times in 15 yrs. I sobbed when my kids left today. Not ashamed to admit it. The thought of Charlie’s kids not seeing him again, not hugging him, not getting to have Dad lift them up and spin them around hit me… Soul crushing. I’ll never forgive this. We have to process what this monster stole from Erika, their kids and this nation but I’ll never forgive the evil behind this. Like many others, this has ignited a fire in me. I’ll double and triple my efforts to live like Charlie now.

[Kosher @koshercockney]

WOW.

Every. Single. Word.

@Erin_Molan has nailed it.

Thank you for recognising the struggle the Jewish people are facing.

And to all those out there that recognise it, you are family to me.

[Robert Kafka @Rob_Kafka]

@SarahisCensored P90X can be done at home with limited equipment, pull-up bar in a doorframe and some dumbbells. Do you best, forget the rest

[Steve Cortes @CortesSteve]

🚨Watch Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker refuse to back down to the woke mob and reaffirm his Catholic faith in a defiant speech:

“Our love for Jesus, and thus, our desire to speak out, should never be outweighed by the longing of our fallen nature to be loved by the world. Glorifying God and not ourselves should always remain our motivation despite any pushback or even support. I lean on those closest to me for guidance but I can never forget that it is not people, but Jesus Christ I’m trying to please.”

[Jason Helmes @anymanfitness]

Toby Keith was an American treasure

He would love this clip

[Raul Junco @RaulJuncoV]

Don't go to a System interview if you don't know these concepts.

Throughput & Latency

Throughput is the amount of data a system processes within a given period.

It's measured in transactions per second (TPS), requests per second (RPS), or data units per second.

High Throughput means the system can handle more requests in less time.

Things that will help you to increase Throughput:

- Horizontal Scaling (Adding More Machines)
- Load Balancing
- Asynchronous Processing or message queues

Latency is the time taken to process a single operation or request.

It's usually measured in milliseconds or microseconds.

Low Latency is essential in systems with critical response time, like high-frequency trading systems.

Things that will help you reduce Latency:

- Optimizing Code
- Using Faster Storage
- Database Performance Tuning
- Caching

Balancing these two often involves trade-offs.

Asynchronous processing can increase Throughput but might add to Latency for individual tasks.

Extensive caching can reduce Latency but requires more memory resources if not managed.

There's often a trade-off between maximizing Throughput and minimizing Latency.

[Robert Kafka @Rob_Kafka]

@MaxJohnson14 Best of luck Max! Glad you graced the campus and the feild the last couple years. God bless and Hope you have great success in Grad School!
You’ll always be an Aggie !

[Wesley Yang @wesyang]

An open letter from faculty at Columbia University. Signed by 2x more faculty than the prior letter to which this is a forthright and effective rejoinder:

"There is no justification for raping and murdering ordinary citizens in front of their families, mutilating babies, decapitating people, using automatic weapons and grenades to hunt down and murder young people at a music festival celebrating peace, burning families alive, kidnapping and taking hostages (including vulnerable populations of elderly, people with disabilities, and young children), parading women hostages in front of chanting crowds, and proudly documenting these nightmarish scenes on social media. We are horrified that anyone would celebrate these monstrous attacks or, as some members of the Columbia faculty have done in a recent letter, try to “recontextualize” them as a “salvo,” as the "exercise of a right to resist" occupation, or as “military action.” We are astonished that anyone at Columbia would try to legitimize an organization that shares none of the University’s core values of democracy, human rights, or the rule of law.  Any civilian loss of life during war is awful but, as colleagues on the faculty acknowledged in the letter mentioned above, the law of war clearly distinguishes between tragic but incidental civilian death and suffering, on one hand, and the deliberate targeting of civilians, on the other. We feel sorrow for all civilians who are killed or suffering in this war, including so many in Gaza. Yet whatever one thinks of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or of Israeli policies, Hamas’s genocidal massacre was an act of terror and cannot be justified, or its true purpose obscured with euphemisms and oblique references. We ask the entire University community to condemn the Hamas attack unambiguously. We doubt anyone would try to justify this sort of atrocity if it were directed against the residents of a nation other than Israel."

https://t.co/P6Gl1k7f8j

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

This book is an excellent explanation of why capitalism is not just successful, but morally right, especially chapter 4 https://t.co/SZuiGRu5Va

[Hunter Kallay @lazukars]

ChatGPT just added groundbreaking new features with "See, Hear, and Speak."

What does this actually mean? See the walkthrough:

1/3

👁️ See

[Robert Kafka @Rob_Kafka]

@TeslaTruckClub B

[Robert Kafka @Rob_Kafka]

@ray4tesla Safety from ICE rage . Another Tesla owner is not likely to scratch or ding your car.

[Robert Kafka @Rob_Kafka]

@YogaPantsChik @gonofurther @KingJames LeFlop James. Court Jester James