Mastodon Feed: Posts

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

Incredible.

https://youtu.be/C8uOPrU4B9s?si=bO1Vg8FDwpWAhE7f

/via @phae

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
futurebird@sauropods.win ("myrmepropagandist") wrote:

Awkwardly to the tune of “love and marriage”

Networks and encryption, networks and encryption
They go together like language and diction
They go together like truth and fiction

This I tell you, brother
You can't have one without the other

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
rjbs@social.semiotic.systems ("Ricardo Signes :sickos:") wrote:

Hofstadter's Law, except for how stupid things are.

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

It's an interesting test of one's ethics when you are presented with a check by a questionable entity, and after you say "no" they keep adding zeros to get you to say "yes." That said, this implies an underlying objection that must be overcome, and it's entirely possible at least some of these folks simply didn't care, or have measurable ethics, to begin with

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/sep/30/riyadh-comedy-festival-saudi-arabia

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

Oh, is it because instead of actually effectuating change, he and his party are basically being an only-very-slightly paler shade of Tory, and also he has all the personality of a wilted celery stalk?

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/30/uk/keir-starmer-labour-party-conference-intl

Boosted by kevinevans@hachyderm.io ("Kevin"):
icm@mastodon.sdf.org ("ICM") wrote:

The Interim Computer Festival FALL 2025 is this weekend October 4th and 5th at INTRASPACE from 10am - 6pm each day. This is a free event. Exhibitor registration will close soon.

https://sdf.org/icf

#free #event #seattle #vintagecomputing #retrocomputing #pnw

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

This Kickstarter just launched from @realtomtomorrow and if you have a hankerin' for quality alt-journalism political cartooning (which, incidentally, has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist), you know what to do here, which is to back it, yes, that is what I think you should do, sorry if I was previously unclear about that

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tomorrow/our-long-national-nightmare-by-tom-tomorrow/

Boosted by jscalzi@threads.net ("John Scalzi"):
effinbirds@threads.net ("Effin' Birds") wrote:

However you like to plan shit, I've got you covered for 2026. Effin' Birds wall calendars, planners, and day-to-day tear-off calendars are available right now at your local cool bookstore. Or check https://eatf.art for some online ordering options.

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

Your reminder that a) tech people are doing every possible thing to justify their expensive, thirsty new toy, b) the contempt "AI" tech people have for actual humans, whom they think of as replaceable cogs, is substantive, c) Hiring an actual human is soooooooo much cheaper and will have better results

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/sag-aftra-slams-ai-actress-tilly-norwood-xicoia-union-1236388942/

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

Someone give her the actual Nobel Peace Prize, she's earned it for her philanthropy alone

RE: https://www.threads.com/@hollywoodreporter/post/DPO9xxjjjiZ

Gargron ("Eugen Rochko") wrote:

It’s dangerous to go alone #Plushtodon

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
davidgerard@circumstances.run ("David Gerard") wrote:

more fuckin "but you *have to admit* AI makes you more *efficient*"

of course, it's unfair to ask for numbers on these alleged gains

i hear that one every time

you're just being *mean* asking for evidence

you could call someone saying "i'm so much more efficient bro trust me bro" a study with n=0 because there isn't any other number

a "use case" is what someone claims as justification for a thing that doesn't seem to do anything well

and wasn't designed for a purpose

see also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRcBCji6XvE by @fasterandworse

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
alda@topspicy.social ("Alda Vigdís") wrote:

I am re-introducing my Github Sponsors profile as I am currently broke after having had zero income since July.

I am getting an open source project that has been very important to me for the past couple of years into a release-ready state and while I am reaching out to sell services related it it, I have only limited freelance work.

I am not going to make a list of monthly living expenses but I have to pay for food, housing and insurance like everyone else.

https://github.com/sponsors/aldavigdis/

#MutualAid

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
ddrake@mathstodon.xyz ("Dan Drake 🦆") wrote:

Achievement unlocked: I have ridden a bicycle with square wheels. This is from earlier this week at our department's "block party" for our majors and interested students.

I'm proud (and a bit intimidated TBH) to work in the same department as Stan Wagon, the mathematician who made the square wheel bike -- and the surface on which you can ride it.

https://stanwagon.com/

https://www.macalester.edu/mscs/multimedia/squarewheeledbike/squarewheelbike/

#HeyMac #macalestercollege #bicycling #catenary

Attachments:

• video: Video of me riding a bicycle with square wheels on a track made of inverted catenary curves.

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

I refuse to recognize AI as deserving of rights. Cry for me, robot.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/30/no-that-broken-robot-does-not-need-human-rights/

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
jasongorman@mastodon.cloud ("Jason Gorman") wrote:

One argument I sometimes hear against trunk-based development is that the code may be changing rapidly, so it's better if developers work in isolation on their own branches.

That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Surely it's the opposite? The faster the code's changing, the more often we should be merging?

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

“Frank Chimero · Selling Lemons”

https://frankchimero.com/blog/2025/selling-lemons/

> I think we’re in the lemon stage of the internet.

Akerlof's lemon paper was an early major influence on my thinking so it's always good to see it spreading

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
mhoye wrote:

“Given the press and popular support of using a specialized font as a remedy for dyslexia, it is critical to highlight that results from this study failed to identify any positive effect for using it. Currently, there is no documentation to support a specialized font is an evidence-based practice.”

Unfortunately, it looks like dyslexia-friendly fonts (Open Dyslexic, Dyslexie) don’t work.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5629233/

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

While I’m not *predicting* a recession between now and the MacBook Pro purchase I’m planning, I’m moving the cash for it from investment to high-interest savings right now, you know, just in case. (And if it’s worse than I fear, that will buy a lot of canned beans.)

Boosted by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
annie@social.lol wrote:

@fromjason I would read 10-15 pages of this. Also, “phlegmingly.”

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

Wondering if #WaPo finally joining #AppleNews+ has anything to do with readership decline since Bezos forbade the paper to endorse Harris.

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
mamund (":mastodon: Mike Amundsen") wrote:

Correctness Isn’t Competence AI-generated code risks becoming a liability in production unless we demand efficiency and quality. https://mamund.substack.com/p/correctness-isnt-competence

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

They prefer science fiction to science.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/30/medbeds/

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
miado@discuss.systems ("amelia") wrote:

For those who haven't signed up already, the New Jersey Programming Languages Seminar (NJPLS) will be hosted at Princeton University on Friday December 5th 2025! Sign up is free, so come hang out with us in New Jersey (for real this time). Anyone is welcome to present their current work on anything related to Programming Languages, or just come to listen to other people do so.

Remember this is open to everyone, so please spread the word to help continue to expand the definition of "the greater New Jersey area"!

https://njpls.org/dec2025.html

Boosted by adele@social.pollux.casa ("Adële 🐁"):
a23 ("Alain") wrote:

Rewrote @planifyapp markdown editor from scratch.

The old one was too bloated for what we actually needed - it was built for long-form writing, not quick task notes. This new version is way more practical.

**Bold**, *italic*, lists, links, `code` - all the essentials without the fluff. Faster, cleaner, and actually fits how people use a task manager.

Sometimes less really is more.

#planify #productivity #markdown #opensource #gtk #vala

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
samlitzinger@journa.host ("Sam Litzinger") wrote:

“By Newt Gingrich”

Leave it to the NY Times to drag this serial budget bomber out of obscurity and have him weigh in on a process he helped destroy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/opinion/shutdown-trump-schumer-jeffries.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
josephcox@infosec.exchange ("Joseph Cox") wrote:

New from 404 Media: landlords are demanding potential tenants hand over employer login credentials so a tool can verify their income. I was sent screenshot of the tool, Argyle, downloading much more data than necessary to approve the renter. Opt-out means no housing
https://www.404media.co/landlords-demand-tenants-workplace-logins-to-scrape-their-paystubs/

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
billkimler@mstdn.social ("Bill Kimler") wrote:

It's the small incremental improvements like this that will win the day!

https://phys.org/news/2025-09-proven-quantum-advantage-task-million.html

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
davidsirota@mastodon.online ("David Sirota") wrote:

Republican leaders are about to shut down the government over Democrats’ demands that they preserve health care coverage that disproportionately helps people in Republican states.

What stage of the dystopia is this?

https://www.levernews.com/why-your-health-insurance-premiums-could-explode-next-year/

Boosted by adele@social.pollux.casa ("Adële 🐁"):
_elena ("Elena Rossini ⁂") wrote:

Coming up this afternoon at 15:30 CET:

📻 a live radio interview (!!!) for @aprilorg’s show, broadcast on @CauseCommune … where I will talk about my journey of tech empowerment and my love for the Fediverse.

Thank you for this opportunity April team and especially Isa! 🙏

I hope I will do ok… I’m used to talking about the Fediverse in English and not French (or my mother tongue Italian). Wish me luck 😅