Mastodon Feed: Posts

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

This remains super cool: https://chartscss.org/

Boosted by jwz:
davidgerard@circumstances.run ("David Gerard") wrote:

remember that Creative Commons has fallen for NFT and shitcoin grifts before, when they let Filecoin bribe them into NFT land

https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/11/26/creative-commons-is-shilling-nfts/

and EFF was crawling up coiners' arses at the same time too, reminding us that these are Silicon Valley libertarian organisations that are extremely into the corporate funding

NfNitLoop ("Cody Casterline 🏳️‍🌈") wrote:

@slightlyoff I have been lamenting to friends that I keep seeing people fall for slick looking web sites that claim their tech solves all your problems. Then you try to use said tech and it’s ♨️💩

chipotle@mstdn.social ("Watts Martin") wrote:

Me: I wish there could be more nuance around what “AI” covers in the groups I’m in, so interesting, non-exploitative uses don’t get angrily dismissed.

Also me: If one more app shoves “now with AI!” in my face I will burn Silicon Valley to the ground.

Boosted by jscalzi@threads.net ("John Scalzi"):
jswatz_tx@threads.net ("John Schwartz") wrote:

Damn, we've lost another great Texan. Bill Moyers, who "could interpret Boston to Austin,” has died. https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2025/06/26/bill-moyers-lbj-pbs-broadcasting-dead/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2025/06/26/bill-moyers-lbj-pbs-broadcasting-dead/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2025/06/26/bill-moyers-lbj-pbs-broadcasting-dead/

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Every engineer worthy of the title adopts one unshakeable article of faith: POPULARITY IS NOT A QUALITY METRIC

Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
jk ("josef") wrote:

a lot of younger people don't know that the term 'youtuber' comes from back in the mid-2000s when we did actually use potatoes as cameras

jwz wrote:

I honestly thought that "grab a screenshot" would be a straightforward and non-controversial thing. I mean how could it not be?

But you kick over any Wayland rock, and this is the kind of absolutely bugfuck insanity you find underneath.

Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
alberto_cottica@mastodon.green ("Alberto Cottica") wrote:

Ye Gods. @pluralistic goes straight to the heart: advances in surveillance technology make it possible for the oligarchs to push our society deeper jnto democratic debt. Until... What? 100 families eat UK the entire world's wealth? The guillotines come out?

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/114750843996343134

Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
b0rk@jvns.ca ("Julia Evans") wrote:

If you want to get "The Secret Rules of the Terminal" (or any other zine!) and you're in a country with a weaker currency than the US (India, Brazil, etc), there's a discount to make the zines more affordable. You can see it in action here:

https://wizardzines.com/zines/terminal/

If you're in a country this applies to, you should see something like this:

Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
tay@transfem.social ("Tay") wrote:

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

I'm incredibly bored by the narrative that Trump had anything to do with the militarization of our police, or the fascist sensibilities of #ICE.

Trump has built *nothing*. He is a child playing with his father's loaded gun.

If and when we survive his reign, that loaded gun will still exist, waiting for the next wanna-be dictator to come along and cock the hammer.

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

It's been a full decade since Trump entered our political consciousness. Ten years and 2 won elections. And yet, it's the same bullshit from the liberal voices who made their name off our fears in 2016. Strategies haven't changed. No lessons learned outside of the constant reaffirmation of our intellectual superiority over #MAGA

I'm incredibly bored by it. There's been an uptick in class consciousness but you wouldn't know it listening to the average liberal political influencer.

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

✔️tomato plants trimmed
✔️tree colonization attempt beaten off
✔️hands & knees properly dirtied

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

Took this upcoming novel from @joe_hill with me on vacation to read. No spoilers here - you'll want to experience it for yourself - but I will say this: When they talk about "natural born storytellers," it's Joe Hill they're talking about.

Gargron ("Eugen Rochko") wrote:

I got to spend two days in Madrid last week. The weather was not very conductive to walking around with highs of 37°C, but I got some shots that I liked.

📷 Pentax KX
🎞️ Kodak Portra 160
🔭 Pentax M 50mm/1.7
⚗️ 1826 Film Lab

#BelieveInFilm #FilmPhotography #AnalogPhotography #35mm #Madrid #Spain

Boosted by isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:"):
Jgbird@mas.to ("Jerome G") wrote:

My Twitter account had 17000 followers. I never joined bluesky. I still have an insta account but it’s mostly in case my crush concludes after all this time that I’m The One (half-joking). My participation here on mastodon is kinda haphazard, not focused, but it’s fun because I can just share what’s interesting to me and people can dig it or not. And it seems like almost everyone is cool and friendly. Lots of creative and smart and funny folks on here with no pressure.

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

I am an undercover #Safari lover. I don't use it for serious work, but for casual browsing it's nice to know I'm making it a little harder for #Google and #Meta to track me.

Also, I don't have a #Facebook or #Instagram account but alas, Zuckerberg still tries to follow me around the web.

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

When knees go bad.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/06/26/prognosis-boredom/

Boosted by bcantrill ("Bryan Cantrill"):
ahl ("Adam Leventhal") wrote:

What happens when the Oxide API is slow? A podcast episode! More specifically, one about how the team employed all manner of debugging techniques to track it down to one obscure and configurable async runtime feature! @bcantrill and I were joined by members of the team to talk about that journey and the tools we used (and made!) along the way. https://youtu.be/4nU4JDG%5FzPs

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

The Voting Village at DEF CON (August 8-10, 2025 in Las Vegas) solicits talk proposals on all aspects of election security. Our speaker track is the premier venue bringing together researchers, election officials, and the broader security community. Come share your work!

https://www.votingvillage.org/dc33cfp

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

You'll notice that each site operated on multiple frequency pairs across the HF spectrum. This was for two reasons. First, each channel could only handle one call at a time, and so this allowed for more simultaneous traffic. Second, not all frequency bands were usable (due to atmospheric and geomagnetic conditions) at any given time. So in practice, at most half a dozen or so ships PER OCEAN could use the system at any moment.

Multiple transmitters shared the antennas using tuned combiners.

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

By the way, here's what I believe was the final published frequency list and schedule for the AT&T high seas service, (a souvenir of one of my visits to the station before it went off the air).

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

I should note that while the site (and its cousins) had a number of large discone antennas like this one, they were mostly there as backups in case the main antennas (which included truly massive wire rhombics oriented toward various oceanic regions) or transmitter combiners failed.

The old Bell System did not mess around.

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

Ships on the high seas still occasionally make some use of shortwave radio, but its importance has greatly diminished over the last few decades. The Coast Guard still maintains a "watch" on emergency shortwave frequencies, listening for distress calls, but most transoceanic ships are now equipped with more modern, higher-bandwidth satellite communications systems.

Places like this are what the Internet looked like a century ago. Infrastructure is often heroic, and occasionally looks the part.

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

There were three AT&T radiotelephone sites in the continental US, each with its own transmit and receive antenna farms: Ocean Gate, NJ (shown here, serving the North Atlantic), Miami (serving the Caribbean and the Gulf), and Point Reyes, CA (serving the Pacific).

All the sites have by now been razed, either for redevelopment or as nature preserves. The antennas (including this one) are mostly gone now.

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

Captured with a DSLR and a 24mm shifting lens.

During the 20th century, AT&T operated a shortwave "radiotelephone" service for vessels on the high seas. Ships could contact an operator, who could connect them with any landline telephone number they wished.

The North Atlantic station, callsign WOO, occupied expansive transmit and receive "antenna farms" in marshlands near the shore in central New Jersey.

Rendered obsolete by satellites, the service ceased operation on November 9, 1999.

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

Shortwave "Discone" Antenna, AT&T High Seas Transmitter Site, Ocean Gate, NJ, 2009.

All the pixels, none of the risk of sea sickness, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/4141766569

#photography

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

Oh, hey, there is an ARC giveaway of The Shattering Peace (my upcoming novel in the Old Man's War universe) happening on Goodreads, through July 7. If you want to get in on the action, go here:

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/410824-the-shattering-peace

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
davidrevoy@framapiaf.org ("David Revoy") wrote:

@creativecommons Psss! After reading all those comments here, I just had to channel my inner artist. So, here’s my new logo for you; because clearly, you need all the help you can get in your new mission. You're welcome! 😂