← Feed

Posts

• View post

  I was completely unprepared and had a lot of trouble operating my camera in pitch blackness, but here's tonight's lunar eclipse as seen from my backyard in southern #Saskatchewan. #LunarEclipse #moon #eclipse #astronomy #Canada #SK #YQR #occultation

• View post

  Unions aren't perfect. I've pointed out various flaws in the past. However, I am 100% in the corner of the flight attendants in their fight against WestJet. The correct number of unpaid work hours for any job is "zero hours". Zero. Not 35 hours / month. Not 15 hours / month. Not 5 hours / month. Zero hours / month. Period. Shame on WestJet - and every other airline that does this. #Canada #WestJet #FlightAttendant #UnpaidWork #UnpaidHours #strike #airline #union #labou...

• View post

  Come to the dark side. Join us. We have chocolate. Also blood. Chocolate and blood. -- More seriously, I fear these sorts of application-specific displays are going to go the way of the dodo. It's gotten to the point where a reasonably large pixel-mapped display is, to a first approximation, free. Slap one of those on top of your MCU board and you're done - no designing a custom panel, laying out LEDs, multipin connectors to run all the LEDs... and the actual usability of the thi...

• View post

  So, Codeberg (which is a FOSS/freedom-focused code hosting site) is run as a cooperative, with members able to nominate measures/policies and vote on them etc. They just had a vote and approved policies making "AI" / LLM-based projects basically unwelcome there. The vote wasn't close; 70% voted in favour of the policy. It's not a hard & fast "if you use LLM, you're banned" or anything of the sort - it's quite a measured, reasoned stance. The slopcoders...

• View post

  In case all the Enron- and WorldCom-like accounting shenanigans haven't convinced you, here's another blatant sign the wheels are falling off the "AI" hype train. A contract or memorandum of understanding (or any other written form of agreement) for *half a trillion US dollars* makes no sense at all. It's all just PR, "Look, it's real, please keep hyping our stock, I do too have clothes on!". https://wccftech.com/nvidia-inked-a-500-billion-agreement-with-sk...

• View post

  So the US is warning that Iranian state actors are "hacking' US power and water infrastructure and causing disturbances. They say this like it's unfair, that it somehow crosses a line. The US has been loudly, proudly bombing civilian infrastructure like power and water for some time, with constant threats of ramping it up further. Seems like a case of the chickens coming home to roost rather than an unthinkable escalation. #USPol #war #IranWar #hacking #DipshitDonnie #MangoMusso...

• View post

  So six Democratic congresscritters crossed the aisle to pass the latest defence spending bill - not that unusual, given their swing districts and being up for election - but they did so with the "SAVE" act attached to it. Apparently, they have all the self-preservation instinct of the mythical #lemmings from Mutual of Omaha's Wild Fabrication. Because the entire point of the #SAVE act is to disenfranchise as many Democratic-leaning voters as possible. This isn't speculation;...

• View post

  It's all been downhill for computers since they removed the big STOP key on the keyboard. Maybe they should bring that back. #stop #computer #StopComputer

• View post

  An excellent editorial from the Globe & Mail: > But Mr. Trump does not behave according to any rational calculus. > > It isn’t just that he has no understanding of policy, nor any knowledge of history to guide him; > or that he conforms to none of the norms of custom, morality or law. It is that, even understood > as a wholly self-involved, self-serving bundle of id, one whose only motive is self-aggrandizement > and self-enrichment, Mr. Trump is incomprehensible. His acti...

• View post

  When I was around 18, I had the chance to drive a friend's AMC Gremlin. It was actually a pretty cool small, cheap car, roomier on the inside than it appeared from the outside. As with many small cars then, it was fun to drive even with the limited power of 1970s North American engine technology, because they were *light*. No one who grew up with modern small cars that weigh two tonnes knows what throwing a light, nimble #econocar around the streets could do to instill a love of drivi...

• View post

  "Heat-resistant heatshrink tubing" A: Hey, this stuff isn't working. B: How can you tell? #AliExpress #Temu #ProductListing #Chinesium

• View post

  Force Google, Facebook, and the rest of the hyperscalers to build their datacenters on coasts in arid areas. Mandate they be powered 100% by wind, solar, tidal, or other non-polluting energy sources. Require them to use their waste heat to desalinate seawater. This is the only water they are allowed to use. Require them to maximize the amount of desalinated water they produce, and provide it to surrounding populations gratis. Completely impractical, but I like the idea of giving Zuck, Altma...

• View post

  I love how 95% of personal websites can still serve URLs first seen 30 years ago, but anything owned by a company bigger than "some guy in his basement" treats any URL older than 12 months as an unreadable runestone inscription, throws its hands in the air, and intones "404". #website #URL #StableURLs #PersonalWebsite #HTTP #HTTP404 #web

• View post

  Lagomorph warning: by following this account, you agree to be exposed to extensive imagery of all varieties of lagomorphs. #lagomorph #lagomorphs #lagomorpha #rabbit #hare #bunny #bnuy

• View post

  I wanted to save this for Bunny Butt Friday, but (a) I'll forget, (b) the Mastodon web UI doesn't expose the scheduled-post functionality, and (c) I think this qualifies as toes-out. This is George. George is a Big Bun. George is a Wide Load. Sorry for the mediocre photo; it was taken in low evening light. #sploot #ToesOutTuesday #BunnyButtFriday #HouseRabbit #RabbitsOfMastodon #WideLoad #BigBuns

• View post

  Happy "Donald Trump Is Now A Judicially-Declared Sex Offender Permanently" day to all who celebrate. https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/supreme-court-shuts-door-on-trumps-yearslong-attempt-to-reverse-e-jean-carroll-ruling/ #USPol #Trump #MangoMussolini #SexOffender #EJeanCarroll #DonaldTrump

• View post

  I'm told I need pinned posts on my profile. I'm a #software #engineer living in #Saskatchewan, #Canada, the middle of the prairies. I've worked in countless domains, but find #python generally useful for many of them, and have been using it for nearly 30 years. I'm a #HouseRabbit enthusiast and have had them for more than 20 years. Other hobbies include #electronics, #rock music / playing #guitar, writing #FreeSoftware, and enjoying novelty music & #RiffTrax / #CinematicT...

• View post

  This new "tags.pub" instance that just blasts out boosts of anything with a matching hashtag is ... annoying. Pointless. Practically abuse. It just boosted a post of mine with *seven* different accounts. Didn't ask for permission to follow/do things with my content. Its account overviews say "You can opt out!", which is absolutely *not* how bots should be interacting with people in the Fediverse. This should be opt-*in* only. How is this okay? Frankly, I think it...

• View post

  @collectifission@greennuclear.online And when that won't do the trick, there's always this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPc3ceGIleg Though I don't know where that one is, I've seen videos of them used in Canada - lake-effect snow is crazy sometimes.

• View post

  @kathhayhoe@fediscience.org China is also adding nuclear energy at a fantastic rate. In addition to having the third-most operating power plants by country (59), they have about 30 additional plants in construction and should overtake France (in second place) this year. Every watt of that is carbon-free. Funny the folks concerned about climate action seem to always forget to mention nuclear energy. #nuclear #NuclearEnergy #NuclearPower

• View post

  One #accessibility issue I mention frequently is web designers, presumably for aesthetic reasons, making low-contrast colour choices. It also frequently goes along with selecting a #font so small that only people with excellent vision (and no #presbyopia) can read them, even if the #contrast were higher. Here's an example. I'm not pointing out the software in question, even though you could identify it easily, because this isn't a dunk on that project, specifically. T...

• View post

  Headline: > US and Iran launch attacks amid tenuous ceasefire #ThatWord #WordsMeanThings #ceasefire #YouKeepUsingThatWord

• View post

  @brett@brettiverse.com This reminds me of "They laughed at Galileo! They laughed at Einstein! Why won't they laugh at me?!?!"

• View post

  RE: https://mstd.seungjin.net/@theguardian/116524702425024443 I have been getting tons of duplicate postings of news stories from this unofficial news-posting domain "mstd.seungjin.net" - like dozens of copies of just this one story. They all have different timestamps, so it's not just my instance duplicating them. It's just a huge amount of spam, excerpting news articles from big sites. Might be worth a #fediblock ? It can't just be happening to me. #spam #mastodon #Bad...

• View post

  Tired: Turing test to determine if the thing on the other end of the communication line is sentient and/or human. Wired: test if an "AI" LLM is sentient by seeing if it can correctly identify whether the other end of the communication line is Sam Altman, or an LLM simulacrum of Sam Altman. (Yes, most humans would also fail this test.) #AI #LLM #TuringTest #AltmanTest #SamAltman #simulacrum #NotHuman

• View post

  In an article about a lithium-ion iron phosphate (LiFePO4) EV battery, Ars has: > An extremely low internal resistance of just 0.25 milliohms also plays an important role. Really? A cell with 250 μΩ internal resistance?

• View post

  Peeve: undergoing orientation makes you oriented, not "orientated". When you use public transportation, you are transported to your destination, not "transportated". Thank you. #peeve #English #BusinessJargon #NotAWord #ThatsNotAWord #oriented #orientated

• View post

  Tim Apple's retirement announcement reminded me of a saying that is more relevant now than ever. If you don't stand up for your principles, you don't have principles - you have "thoughts & prayers". #principles #opportunistic #unprincipled #TimApple #TimCook #Apple #RealityDistortionField #FruityCargoCult

• View post

  For when I'm working on something containing an energetic battery. (Inspired by Big Clive, obviously) #LiIon #LithiumIon #bang #explosion #fire

• View post

  @jonschwenn Okay, these are freakin' hilarious. Thanks for sharing them!