Mastodon Feed: Posts

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
GottaLaff@mstdn.social ("Laffy") wrote:

Good

"Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) says he will put a hold on Trump’s nominees to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs to protest cuts at the agency that provides lifelong healthcare services to military veterans."

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5225064-gallego-trump-va-nominees/

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

“They are trying to gut Medicaid and Medicare, programs on which nearly a third of our country rely – all to pay for tax cuts to billionaires and corporations.
Booker also said social security “is not the government’s money to spend” but the “hard-earned savings of working Americans that belongs to Americans,” adding:

[Donald] Trump and [Elon] Musk need to keep their hands off of money that isn’t theirs to take.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/apr/01/donald-trump-elon-musk-special-elections-florida-wisconsin-texas-arizona-us-politics-live?CMP=share%5Fbtn%5Furl&page=with%3Ablock-67ebdf478f0842b23ea4eee8#block-67ebdf478f0842b23ea4eee8

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
fluidlogic@oldbytes.space ("Amin Girasol") wrote:

Another wonderful interview by @savetz, this time with Tom Zimmerman, part of the four-person team at Atari that worked on the never-released AMY sound chip: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari%5FAMY

Tom comes across as an absolute gentleman.

His description of what the AMY could do is terrific. It synthesised audio using up to 16 oscillators for the fundamental and harmonics to build rich, complex sounds. It could also be run "in reverse"; quoting Wikipedia:

An input sample could be run through a Fast Fourier transform to extract the spectral pattern, and then that pattern could be input to the AMY to set up the oscillators.

Tom contrasts the AMY's design against FM synths like the #YamahaDX7 and sample-based synthesizers.

Tom's words of wisdom at the end of the interview are wonderful too. A recommended listen, even if #Atari isn't your thing.

https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-431-tom-zimmerman-amy-chip

#RetroComputing #SoundSynthesis #LostFutures

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
requiem@hackers.town ("requiem 🦫") wrote:

Ages ago I wrote a post about a new CCC: Create, Consume, Curate. Someday I’ll recover the post from the archives, but the gist was that I think it’s healthy to split your time equally across these three activities.

For me the middle C is the hardest, and if I’m honest I’d rather spend all my time on the first C, but like a balanced diet it takes some discipline lest you suffer the ills of “too much of a good thing”. The world has no shortage of examples of the negative effects of over-indulgence oneself in too much of one C.

It’s one of my favorite of all the things of written, but something I left out was and explicit mention of teaching, and upon reflecting on the subject, I think that was a mistake.

Good teaching incorporates all three C’s, but deliberate teaching is also an essential vitamin and/or mineral to a healthy organism. I really wrote A New CCC from a personal, solitary perspective but a decade or two later I’m much more aware of the importance of acting in the interest of lives beyond one’s own. Teaching, even more than genetics, is what evolves the human animal and our individual failure to prioritize teaching others is at the root of some of the diseases that threaten the future of this particular species.

So people like me, we need to make teaching part of our recommended daily allowance of activities. Adhering to the CCC does this in a passive way, but I believe that what’s needed is an active ingredient as well.

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
wdlindsy@toad.social ("William Lindsey :toad:") wrote:

"President Donald Trump is pushing the economy to a breaking point with sweeping tariffs and rapid cuts to immigration and the federal workforce. There is growing fear of not just a recession but stagflation, a frightful situation — not seen in the United States since the 1970s — in which the economy contracts and people lose jobs but prices remain high.

This is a self-inflicted wound from Trump."

~ Heather Long

#Trump #economy #tariffs #inflation #stagflation
/4

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/03/31/trump-stagflation-recession-tariffs/

Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold"):
sarajw@front-end.social ("Sara Joy :happy_pepper:") wrote:

My State of the Browser talk slides are here:

https://slides.sarajoy.dev/whimsica11y-sotb2025/

Now updated to not include all the uncompressed, bandwidth-hammering videos! All they showed were the websites already linked in the text (apart from one, where I left the video in because the content is otherwise behind a login).

#SotB2025

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
wdlindsy@toad.social ("William Lindsey :toad:") wrote:

"The collapse is coming—and as [Canadian MP] Charlie [Angus] warned, it’s going to hit Americans first. Higher prices. Job losses. Isolation."

#Trump #economy #tariffs #recession #inflation #stagflation #StockMarket #TaxCuts #EconomicElites
/7

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:

Yeah, I know, it's uspol, and I'm still trying to get away from posting about it too much. I just notice recurring tactics in republican attempts at making the US an even more cruel and shitty place that don't seem to be explicitly pointed out when you see news about any particular item.

"Republicans yet again attempt to incentivize their base to attack those they don't like with the promise of court awarded bounties."

Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold"):
andycarolan@social.lol ("Andy Carolan :prami:") wrote:

April fools feels like it’s lost all meaning now. Everything is already ridiculous anyway 🤪

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:

Here's an example in the SAVE act that Republicans are attempting to pass at the federal level in order to disenfranchise voters. In this case they're talking criminal and civil pressure on election workers.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/save-act-republicans-trump-noncitizen-voting

It still feels to me like cases brought under laws like this should get thrown out because of no standing, but since most courts are conservative in nature, I suspect many judges will be gleefully enforcing these pointedly cruel laws.

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:

One of the slimier, and hence more popular, things I've seen recently in Republican tactics are crafting laws where they conjure standing out of nothing. Passing laws where a private citizen can bring a civil suit in situations where the plaintiff has suffered no harm and would normally not have standing but now have the opportunity for a cash reward. They don't even have to make whatever it is illegal, they just deputize the worst parts of their base to be attack dogs for them.

Boosted by kornel ("Kornel"):
dcoderlt@ohai.social ("DCoder 🇱🇹❤🇺🇦") wrote:

Attachments:

• gifv: A GIF of Jules from Pulp Fiction (Samuel L Jackson) in a car, but his eyes are covered with bouncing googly eyes.

Boosted by kornel ("Kornel"):
cstross@wandering.shop ("Charlie Stross") wrote:

Bear in mind that while the Nazis built concentration camps everywhere they could (including the bits of the UK they'd occupied—the Channel Islands), the death camps were very specifically located *outside* Germany.

This pattern will be repeated. The worst atrocities will be conducted out of sight and out of cellphone coverage.
https://toot.wales/@Greenseer/114250281388903757

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
valerie@flipping.rocks wrote:

In honor of trans day of visibility, I'm posting this pride flag that was created by NASA, but recently deleted from their website: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14627.

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
theruran@hackers.town ("theruran 💻 🌐 :cereal_killer:") wrote:

building #GerbilScheme from source on #HardenedBSD, as one does. :flan_hacker:

I need to give this Scheme a try, since it is one of the most "batteries-included" Schemes I have seen, with documentation that doesn't make me feel great despair.

https://gerbil.scheme.org/

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
garius@mastodon.me.uk ("John Bull") wrote:

Like computer history? Come to my talk!

Honoured to have been invited by the Computer Conservation Society to lecture on Lore Harp and Vector Graphic: The forgotten female-founded pioneers of microcomputing

22nd May. In-person and Zoom tickets are available: https://www.computerconservationsociety.org/lectures/2024-25/20250522.htm #history #computing

pzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷") wrote:

I tried listening to sissy hypno, but all it did was bore me and make me occasionally giggle.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/04/01/sissy-hypno/

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
brianbilston@mastodon.online ("Brian Bilston") wrote:

Here’s a poem called ‘Prayer for Uninteresting Times’.

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
laemeur@mastodon.sdf.org ("LÆMEUR") wrote:

This is great: https://www.stef.be/dpaint/

It's a Deluxe Paint-ish pixel art app that runs in your browser.

When I teach my digital fundamentals class, I try to get everyone to at least give GraFX2 a shot, but it's a hard swallow for most young folks. They tend to prefer Pixel Studio, which I really don't like. This might be a good alternative to try on 'em.

Boosted by keul@fosstodon.org ("Luca Fabbri"):
designthinkingcomic@mastodon.cloud ("Design Thinking! Comic") wrote:

It's not haha funny.

Boosted by jwz:
jwz wrote:

Sometimes a joke is just for me, and maybe this is one of those, bur of my recent topical drink specials this is my favorite. https://sfba.social/@dnalounge/114260903954915992

Boosted by jwz:
dnalounge@sfba.social ("DNA Lounge") wrote:

Drink Special @ Death Guild: Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act of 1930 - Bulleit, 1/2 Starry, 1/2 Soda, Splash of Angostura Bitters.

Attachments:

• gifv: 88982e04288693e7.mp4

Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
chrisdavidmills@front-end.social ("Chris Mills") wrote:

New on MDN, I've documented all-new, fully-customizable elements: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn%5Fweb%5Fdevelopment/Extensions/Forms/Customizable%5Fselect. Thanks to everyone who provided reviews!

Boosted by keul@fosstodon.org ("Luca Fabbri"):
brettcannon@fosstodon.org ("Brett Cannon") wrote:

PEP 751 has been accepted! https://peps.python.org/pep-0751/

This means #Python now has a lock file standard that can act as an export target for all tools that can create some sort of lock file. And for some tools the format can act as their primary lock file format as well instead of some proprietary format.

Also, happy National Indigenous Languages Day in Canada! https://www.canada.ca/en/prairies-economic-development/services/indigenous/national-indigenous-languages-day.html

Boosted by taral ("JP Sugarbroad"):
w7voa@journa.host ("Steve Herman") wrote:

A French court convicts far right leader Marine Le Pen in an embezzlement case and follows up the verdict with a sentence barring her immediately from running for office for five years. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250331-%F0%9F%94%B4-french-court-convicts-far-right-leader-marine-le-pen-in-embezzlement-trial

Boosted by taral ("JP Sugarbroad"):
interfluidity@zirk.us ("Steve Randy Waldman") wrote:

“Right wing accelerationism is not a backlash *against* globalization and its combination of exit and constraint, but an argument that its logic should be extended downwards into the nation state.” @henryfarrell https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-reactionary-right-is-not-a-monolith ht #WilliamCullerneBown

Boosted by taral ("JP Sugarbroad"):
SecurityWriter@infosec.exchange ("Security Writer :donor:") wrote:

Had a whole day in bed yesterday. This week has floored me.

A few observations from the week, though.

1. Middle and senior management in technical organisations that don’t work in Ops or the actual doing of technical work is entirely disconnected from the reality of doing it. This might seem obvious, but despite all the noise, nothing has changed.

2. Young hires are nearly completely technically illiterate beyond smartphones… and that’s a stretch. They also have zero mechanical sympathy and limited capacity for generalised knowledge as they no longer need to retain information.

3. These two things are going to massively erode operational agility and are making organisations even bigger targets for threat actors. Lower productivity will drive tech investment trying to solve the wrong problem (e.g. AI).

4. In 600+ applications for a single graduate analyst role, most were obviously written by ChatGPT, and none of them met the baseline criteria for the job (they weren’t very strict as this is junior). We interviewed nobody. And that makes me feel sick, as I’m very much an ‘attitude over knowledge’ kind of hirer.

It’s not been a good week. I worry for the future of our profession. Even just 10 years ago, I’d have ‘shortlisted’ maybe 500 of those, as competition was so tough. We’d have interviewed 100 of them.

Boosted by taral ("JP Sugarbroad"):
Nicolaz@mastodon.sdf.org ("Nicola Griffith") wrote:

Now, this, this is the way to defeat an autocrat: flocking behaviour. Rutgers University Senate has called for the Big 10 academic institutions to create a joint defence fund and make resources available to any member institution under attack.

That link's below. But for a précis of why and how this shit can actually work, here's a piece I wrote during Trump's first term:

https://globalcomment.com/how-to-defeat-an-autocrat-flocking-behaviour/

It can be done. You just have to have a spine. Go read the resolution

https://senate.rutgers.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Resolution-to-Establish-a-Mutual-Defense-Compact-for-the-Universities-of-the-Big-Ten-Academic-Alliance-in-Defense-of-Academic-Freedom-Institutional-Integrity-and-the-Research.pdf

Boosted by taral ("JP Sugarbroad"):
jessamyn@glammr.us ("Jessamyn") wrote:

Mentioned this over on Bluesky but in case you're here and not there...

Every Californian with an email address and an internet connection can now visit California’s Bookshelf and access more than 300,000 ebooks and audiobooks via the Palace Project app. Linked PDF describes the program.

https://www.library.ca.gov/uploads/2025/03/pressrelease-2025-03-26-californiasbookshelf.pdf

Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
Sustainable2050@mastodon.energy ("Kees van der Leun") wrote:

In case anyone forgot: Before she started to embezzle EU money, Marine Le Pen was borrowing campaign money from a Putin ally.
French media criticized Le Pen for taking the loan, speaking highly of Putin and expressing support for Crimean 'separatists'.
https://www.occrp.org/en/news/russian-company-sues-marine-le-pens-party-over-unpaid-loan