Mastodon Feed: Posts

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

Hell yes to this. I wrote an essay a couple years ago about why this film is, and I quote myself here, "a goddamned delight."

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2023/12/12/the-december-comfort-watches-day-12-josie-and-the-pussycats/

RE: https://www.threads.com/@edgar%5Falan%5Fpickle/post/DSFkOrZjonL

Gargron ("Eugen Rochko") wrote:

I've realized we don't have a lot of time left to ship orders before Christmas, and the sample of the new "Live laugh federate" pin might take a few more days to arrive at my home for product shots, so I've put it up on the shop with the picture the manufacturer took for me. This is the last new product this year.

https://shop.joinmastodon.org/products/live-laugh-federate-soft-enamel-pin

#Merchtodon

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
W6KME@mastodon.radio wrote:

Okay, unpopular topic for public discussion, but it's important.

Let your doctors stick cameras in you. It's for a good reason. I have friends that resisted who are no longer with us.

I'm in the middle of prep for a morning Photo Opportunity, and it's SO MUCH LESS MISERABLE than it used to be. There is no excuse for avoiding this stuff. Honestly, this is only mildy inconvenient, not the torture it was ten years ago.

Get your damn #colonoscopy when they say it's time.

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
rperezrosario ("Rafael Pérez") wrote:

Out of the following operating systems, which one do you use the most, not at work, but in your free personal time?

Please consider boosting for a larger sample size. Thank you.

#poll #os #computing #fediverse

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
bbcnewsfeed@mastodonapp.uk ("BBC News Top Stories") wrote:

US seizes oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, #Trump says

Venezuela condemns the operation as an act of "international piracy", vowing never to be an "oil colony".

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1w9lg11jw0o?at%5Fmedium=RSS&at%5Fcampaign=rss

(c) #BBC #News

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

the use of unmarked helicopters was theater, not any sort of mission necessity. an assault via unmarked rotary wing aircraft looks like they are ashamed of their actions, like they think they need deniability as the cameras roll...

so much performance, so little substance. but then ,that is pretty much the norm in this administration.

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
remixtures@tldr.nettime.org ("Miguel Afonso Caetano") wrote:

"On a Thursday in early September, more than 40 strangers logged in to Instacart, the grocery-shopping app, to buy eggs and test a hypothesis.

Connected by videoconference, they simultaneously selected the same store — a Safeway in Washington, D.C. — and the same brand of eggs. They all chose pickup rather than delivery.

The only difference was the price they were offered: $3.99 for a couple of lucky shoppers. $4.59 or $4.69 for others. And a few saw a price of $4.79 — 20 percent more than some others, for the exact same product.

The shoppers were volunteers, participating in a study published on Tuesday and organized by the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive policy group, and Consumer Reports, a nonprofit consumer publication. In tests in four cities across the country, nearly 200 volunteers checked prices on 20 grocery items on Instacart.

On item after item, they found significant differences. In a Target in North Canton, Ohio, some shoppers were charged $3.59 for a jar of Skippy peanut butter that others could get for $2.99. At a Safeway in Seattle, some people paid $3.99 for a box of Wheat Thins while others paid $4.89. And at a Target in St. Paul, Minn., some people were charged $4.59 for a box of Cheerios that others could get for $3.99.

“Two shoppers who are buying the exact same item from the exact same store at the exact same time are getting different prices,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative. “The data really backs up how extraordinarily pervasive this is.”
(...)
Groundwork’s findings are the latest example of how the notion of a single price, offered to all customers for a predictable period, is breaking down in the digital age. Companies are using sophisticated algorithms to adjust prices quickly in response to competitors’ offers and consumer behavior."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/business/instacart-algorithmic-pricing.html

#USA #AlgorithmicPricing #DynamicPricing #Insatacart #Inflation #Algorithms

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
timbray@cosocial.ca ("Tim Bray") wrote:

After all, why shouldn’t electrical-transmission towers take the form of giant ethereal robots? https://choishine.com/Giants.html

(h/t @nelson )

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
realTuckFrumper ("#TuckFrump") wrote:

'Terrible judgment': Conservative slams Trump-appointed judge for attending his rally https://twp.ai/9PXt5z

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
ayoub.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy ("elia ayoub") wrote:

Only recently found out that Kropotkin lived in Brighton. Just found the street

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

not just "yes", but "hell yes"

https://choishine.com/Giants.html

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

the most difficult part about cooking a pan of brownies is making myself wait while it cools at the end.

(data structure + algorithm = brownies)

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

Quality parenting, highly approve

RE: https://www.threads.com/@jewelstaite/post/DSGuh1mEQ46

Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam :prami:"):
orci ("J.R. Orci") wrote:

NO THANK YOU :yikes:
https://www.theverge.com/report/841994/operation-bluebird-twitter-trademarks-petition

Gargron ("Eugen Rochko") wrote:

There are 109 peach #Plushtodon's left, 65 blue ones; winter and summer mugs are sold out; 8 cherry blossoms mugs and 89 autumn mugs left; 14 sticker sheets left (but I ordered more); and finally 131 logo enamel pins that just arrived yesterday. #Merchtodon

collinsworth@hachyderm.io ("Josh Collinsworth") wrote:

Mostly I was only using it for the ability to use variables in media queries, which CSS still hasn't really replicated. But other than that, and a few loops here and there (which are easy enough to hard-code), it's just gotten to the point where there's no real benefit over vanilla CSS, but lots more overhead.

It does add some kbs, since I'm no longer smooshing everything into a minified file, but not enough to be concerned about. Might play with optimizing through other means anyway.

collinsworth@hachyderm.io ("Josh Collinsworth") wrote:

2025 may just (barely) be the year that I (finally) remove Sass from my website.

Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
cssbasics@hachyderm.io ("CSS Basics") wrote:

Drawing Triangles with #CSS Using Borders: "A long time ago, I wrote an article about triangles in CSS, and explained why the common border-based approach was far from ideal and should generally be avoided... Until now." https://alvaromontoro.com/blog/68086/drawing-triangles-with-css-using-borders-an-exception

Boosted by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
valkyrie@wandering.shop wrote:

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

Maybe I make a WWWW (World Wide Web Wrapped) 2025

Boosted by adele@social.pollux.casa ("Adële 🐁"):
Herne@corteximplant.net ("Problem Fox") wrote:

My #smolweb adventures continue. Adding to my initial Gemini Capsule hosted by the inspirational @adele (who introduced me to the smolweb, and #permacomputing )and my Gemini #selfhosting experiment there is now a #Gopher hole.

gopher://sdf.org:70/1/users/problemfox/

#alwaysLearning #agingCyberpunk

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

UPDATE: Crush continues unabated

RE: https://www.threads.com/@jscalzi/post/DRn5%5Fe3DCvd

Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam :prami:"):
kittylyst ("Ben Evans") wrote:

So, over on BSky, their Head of "Trust and Safety" has just suspended an account whose husband was abducted by ICE and then posted memes mocking the affected account.

Just in case you were wondering how this prediction was going: https://mastodon.social/deck/@kittylyst/115310163126309071

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

The conflicting beliefs that 1. Big tech controls what we see, and is using that control for it's benefit, and 2. This is true for everyone but me, for I have trained my algorithm to show me the truth.

🫠

Boosted by isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:"):
edavies@functional.cafe ("Ed Davies") wrote:

The EU project “shaping Europe's digital future” (https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en) can be followed on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and X. Well, there's your fucking problem, isn't it?

h/t https://mstdn.social/@LouisK100/115695011536118647

denschub@schub.social ("Dennis Schubert") wrote:

for no particular reason, here is a colorful little svg file that just so happens to resemble the progress pride flag colors. 😇

best used as inline-svg on your favorite website, where you can use CSS etc to make it fit whatever you want to make it fit to. the footer of my website is a fun example, but your imagination is better than mine.

also, oklch()/lch() colorspace is a super easy chat code to consistent colors. play around with the second value of the colors, the chroma value, to make colors more or less saturated, depending on what you want. as long as you use the same values everywhere (well, except for white and black..), it should look perfectly consistent.

be careful when using this, though. from experience, I can tell you that you might get some emails from angry people. shocking, I know.

:progresspride:

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
GreenFire@mstdn.social ("Kevin Leecaster") wrote:

The assassination of President Garfield because of his attempt to end the patronage system that was tearing the USA apart is something that U.S. history teachers should have been focused more on in my opinion.

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

More spiders move into the residential complex in the lab.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/12/10/busy-morning-in-the-lab/

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

(PS: If you think this will be a prime opportunity to dump on Swift in these comments, you will experience "Hide for Everyone" at the least, but probably just a block, save us both the time, thanks)

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

Who are you going to believe, the things that Taylor Swift has actually said in interviews and lyrics, or a bunch of random bots who feed your need for schadenfreude about the most famous woman on the planet

(The Life of a Showgirl back at number one on Billboard's album chart for a ninth week, incidentally)

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/dec/10/online-attack-taylor-swift-promoted-nazi-ideas-research