Mastodon Feed: Posts

Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
nolan@toot.cafe ("Nolan Lawson") wrote:

New post: "The element should actually do something" https://nolanlawson.com/2025/12/14/the-time-element-should-actually-do-something/

A modest proposal for a forgotten HTML element.

jscalzi@threads.net ("John Scalzi") wrote:

All my recent books went from hardcover to trade paperback and almost all of my backlist that was in mass market has now migrated to trade. The role of mass market paperbacks is now handled almost entirely by ebooks. I'm okay with this but it is the end of an era.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/99293-last-call-for-mass-market-paperbacks.html

Boosted by jwz:
NanoRaptor@bitbang.social ("Nanoraptor") wrote:

It's a little known fact that the predator in Predator isn't actually arming a bomb on its wrist computer near the end, but is calling The Police.

Boosted by jwz:
evan@cosocial.ca ("Evan Prodromou") wrote:

@reiver @ezeno789 we do have the ability to moderate replies built into ActivityPub, though.

Every object has a `replies` collection that is owned and managed by the creator of the object. If you don't want someone's reply to appear in the list of replies, you can remove it.

Mastodon does not surface this feature. It also doesn't show the `replies` collection remotely. That's too bad; it would cover most of what people want from replies management.

Boosted by jwz:
Rhodium103 ("Schrödinger's Prat") wrote:

INT OFFICE, THE YEAR 2027

Interviewer: "What's 2+2?"

Candidate with suspiciously thick rimmed glasses: [pauses for a second] "That's a great question! First, we should define addition and the concept of numbers, but since you asked a direct question it's likely you just need the answer. The answer to 2+2 should be 5. Thinking is that starting on two and progressing over the number line three more times will land on four. Would you like me to show you how to make a generic method of addiction?"

Boosted by jwz:
molly0xfff@hachyderm.io ("Molly White") wrote:

Q: How much do you need to spend on mattresses for it to get mentioned in a DOJ press release about your $11 million crypto theft?

A: $638,000, which I did not realize was a plausible mattress budget

jwz wrote:

RIP John Varley.

Michael Swanwick: John Varley died two days ago on December 10, 2025. A great many will mourn him as a science fiction writer whose work they enjoyed. But this misses his moment. In the mid-1970s, Varley exploded into science fiction...
https://jwz.org/b/yk0b

Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam :prami:"):
brennanbrown@me.dm ("Brennan Kenneth Brown") wrote:

I fell down an IndieWeb rabbit hole and found a service that feels like the fun web again.

Your own profile + simple website, Markdown blogging, /now page, status updates, image hosting, URL shortener, email forwarding, keys, and even community chat (yes, IRC) + Mastodon.

No VC bullshit. No algorithmic “perform for reach.” Just tools for having a corner of the internet that’s actually yours.

🔗 https://blog.brennanbrown.ca/omg-lol-is-the-internet-we-need-right-now-3538199d5dea

Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam :prami:"):
neatnik@social.lol ("Neatnik") wrote:

As the old joke goes, there are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who know binary and those who don’t. If you don’t, but you always wanted to know how to read and count in binary, you’re in luck! I just dusted off this old project (after it failed to survive several site moves): https://www.neatnik.net/binary/

(I originally made this for my kids around 10 years ago, and it helped them a ton!)

Boosted by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
joelle@social.joelle.us ("Joelle") wrote:

@fromjason
I see the same things around feminism in discussions.

My mental model when it comes to programmers doing this is that people that are told they are smart because of performance in one area think that means they are smart in other areas too, when we're all not smart at some stuff, no matter how great we are at programming.

Turns out understanding society & humans can be way more difficult than code (they certainly are for me!).

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

Talking about race on #Mastodon, one can expect a flood of folks trying every trick in the book to shut the conversation down.

When Dr. Flowers spoke about race on Mastodon, some users demanded he use content warnings.

Three years later, I was told I was "whitewashing" by pointing out Mastodon is disproportionately white.

Of all the derailment tactics, subtly leveraging a social justice veneer is the most dangerous because it gives people a mandate to be racist.

https://techpolicy.press/the-whiteness-of-mastodon

Boosted by jwz:
silvermoon82@wandering.shop ("Mx. Eddie R") wrote:

George Clooney is an actor.

Put him in the role of a surgeon in front of a camera, and he will do and say things the average non-surgeon viewer will agree are surgeonish. After an hour of that, we are, as average non-surgeon viewers, satisfied and entertained.

Put him in an operating theatre, and the patient will fucking die because he's not a surgeon and knows nothing about really doing surgery.

This is a post about LLMs.

Boosted by jwz:
distrowatch ("DistroWatch") wrote:

I think it is telling that we are about three years into the AI craze and, still, every single time someone says to me "I asked ChatGPT ___ " or "The chatbot told me ____" I know they are about to say something completed stupid and devoid of facts. Every single time.

Boosted by jwz:
mathowie@xoxo.zone ("Matthew Haughey") wrote:

Stopped to charge the car and…

Boosted by jwz:
mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

Just to be clear: should I have the terrible misfortune to be killed in a mass shooting, please feel free to politicize the hell out of it. And go ahead and do so immediately. No time will be “too soon”.

cmiksche ("Christoph Miksche") wrote:

Meet Covpeek - a fast, language-agnostic coverage parser that extracts coverage data across projects. No more juggling formats - unify reports and focus on quality.

Try it today: https://github.com/Chapati-Systems/covpeek

#covpeek #codecoverage #devops #coverage #testing #ci #rust #golang

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

- Whiteness isn't real so it doesn't matter
- The Fediverse is just a protocol so it doesn't matter
- I'm "whitewashing" the existence of POCs by pointing out that mastodon is disproportionately white
- the problem is I don't know how to use mastodon
- being racist doesn't "erase the good people do"
- saying "white" is racist
- I'm hostile
- I need to be on time out
- I'm MAGA
- I'm uneducated
- I'm racist

Just can't figure out why #Mastodon can't make progress on matters of race. 🫠🙃

Boosted by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io ("mekka okereke :verified:") wrote:

(Rare work post, you know what I do)

Yes I'm a fan of the creative team that produces Pluribus. Yes, it's an Apple TV show. Because yes, Android users can get the Apple TV App on Google Play, subscribe to it, and watch the show.

Yes I still ask the interview question "Do you like creative people?"

The X-Files producers had a problem: Season 1 was a big hit, but where would they get ideas for another 24 episodes for season 2?

A sci-fi nerd / Twilight zone fan from Virginia went to film school, saw season 1 of the X-Files, and thought it was the coolest show ever. He wrote a fan script for it.

The X-Files producers saw his fan script, and said "This is really good!" So they hired him to be a writer for X-Files season two.

He worked on the X-Files for 7 years.

Then he had a weird idea for a disturbed show about a high school chemistry teacher that becomes a meth dealing drug kingpin.

Great Movies and TV, are made by great Movie and TV makers. Creative people, working together, to produce something new.

Human beings love stories. Some of us go so far as to say that human beings need stories.

Sometimes I think that people forget that our role is to support creative people.

I've never met Vince Gilligan. I don't know him personally. I don't know if he's a nice person.

I only know his work.

Or more accurately, the output of his work. The tiny bit that makes it through all the rough drafts and bad takes, and didn't get cut in editing, and that studios released.

And I know that he didn't produce his shows by himself. He was part of a team, that is in turn part of an entire ecosystem of people and companies and organizations that support the production of creative work that we all enjoy.

I like creative people, and the ecosystem that supports them.

No Twilight Zone? No X-Files.

No X-Files? No Breaking Bad.

No Breaking Bad? No Pluribus.

It's easy to see how the world would be missing something if those never happened.

What's harder to see, is that there are other stories that didn't happen because we didn't support Black producers in 1959.

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

Talk enough about white supremacy on the internet and you get good at spotting masked contempt. This is especially dangerous from people who cosplay social justice therefore believing they have a mandate to bully you off a platform. I smell it in the air. Calling it now.

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
SeanCasten ("Sean Casten") wrote:

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/us/politics/sec-crypto-firms-trump-investigation.html

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
futurebird@sauropods.win ("myrmepropagandist") wrote:

Why do schools have dances? Why do many high schools host parties, sometimes inter-school parties at the school?

A school isn't just a machine that puts knowledge into people's brains, it's an organization of people. And those people will want to celebrate together from time to time. This WILL happen. "official" events can be more inclusive.

But also for young people it's a part of social education, providing some baseline for how you interact with other people.

1/

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
randomized@masto.bike wrote:

Woke up in a sea of humid grey mist. Went up to get the Sun.

Not in top shape actually. Happy with this 18k, 800mEG on the other side of the hill.

#trailrunning
#runnersofmastodon
#runnning

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
qrper@mastodon.radio ("Thomas (K4SWL)") wrote:

Starting a Multi-Park Day Right: Lake James State Park (US-2739) with VA3EKR

https://qrper.com/2025/12/starting-a-multi-park-day-right-lake-james-state-park-us-2739-with-va3ekr/?swcfpc=1

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

I'm tired, y'all. For now,✌️
https://substack.com/@fromjasonxyz

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

“History reminds us that each of us will be judged... and ultimately judge ourselves, to the extent we contribute, as Bobby Kennedy said, to the life of our cities, our state, our nation, and the world we are trying to build.”

- Gov. Gavin Newsom

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

The Dictator-Wannabe-in-Chief is a moron

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/13/us/politics/trump-tina-peters.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

"Chris Minns, the premier of the state of New South Wales, praised the actions of a bystander who was shown in social media footage tackling one of the gunmen from behind and wresting control of his firearm. He said the man likely saved the lives of many people.

Commissioner Lanyon said the shooter who was killed had been previously known to the police.

… targeted an event hosted by the Chabad organization at the beach to observe the Hanukkah holiday."

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/12/14/world/sydney-bondi-beach-shooting?smid=nytcore-ios-share

💧

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

The gaslighting...lmao. Is this a thinktank response? Now when brown people call out the lack of diversity, the goal is to just gas light them into thinking that the Fediverse is diverse? Jesus Henry Christ.

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

This is why it's important to have diversity. It's the retaliation to calling out white supremacy. It's the subtle threats, the even subtler racially charged language.

Racism isn't just a guy in a white robe. It's the person with a gun who doesn't even know it's in their hand.

No one feels safe talking about racism in a room full of white people, even if they are self described progressives.

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

It's the 5 stages of grief in these comment sections, with most people stuck at Denial, Anger, and Bargaining.