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fribbledom ("muesli") wrote:

The latest food industry trend to optimize, uhm, "shareholder value":

Peanuts were too nutritious, too recognizable, too honest. Corn is cheaper, stretchier, and can legally be described as... anything, apparently.

Boosted by jwz:
inthehands@hachyderm.io ("Paul Cantrell") wrote:

ICE continues to terrorize MSP. It continues to be distressing and exhausting; the incredible volume of counter-organizing and community action continues to give me heart.

One thing that’s not surprising but I haven’t seen covered much: ICE is redlining. They swarm over very specific neighborhoods; the abductions (so far) happen almost entirely within clear boundaries. Those boundaries don’t entirely correspond to where immigrants live. They do, however, seem to correspond pretty closely to •political• boundaries that are / are not heavily white.

1/2

Boosted by jwz:
inthehands@hachyderm.io ("Paul Cantrell") wrote:

MAGA is a fragile, already-teetering coalition that — even more than usual in US politics! — is run by, paid for by, and kept alive by a very, very few ultra-wealthy people. Yes, racism and fascistic thinking are rampant, but the forces that organize them into a coherent movement are forces of concentrated wealth.

I don’t think we even have to completely unravel the entirety of US political-economic imperialism to unravel this authoritarian slide. We just have to make authoritarianism in the US look unprofitable.

There’s plenty of good work for all of us there, inside and outside the US.

Boosted by jwz:
docpop ("Doctor M. Popular") wrote:

I did another quick Waymo count today, this time at Guerrero & 29th in #SanFrancisco

In 10 minutes:
• 46 driverless Waymos
• 85 human-driven vehicles

About a third of the traffic on my street is driverless cars.

Hard to confirm, but I never saw a passenger in any of these AVs.

Attachments:

• video: 15 seconds of video from Guerrero at 29th st in San Francisco. In this clip, 7 Waymos drive by, and only one human driven car.

Boosted by joeri_s@mstdn.social ("Joeri Sebrechts"):
nixCraft ("nixCraft 🐧") wrote:

This chart shows the total number of Stack Overflow questions asked each month. As you can see, AI summaries in Google and AI coding tools have nearly killed the site. It is only a matter of time before the site shuts down completely. The golden age of independent news, blogs, forums, and specialized sites like Stack Overflow is over. Whether this is good or bad, only time will tell. Personally, I think we are now restricting all internet traffic to just a few Gen AI apps https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/1926661#graph

Boosted by isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:"):
ewen@social.ewenbell.com ("Ewen Bell 📸") wrote:

Sometime around 10am this morning, the moon decided to make a dash across the fjords. I was enjoying a sleep in and had to skip out in my pyjamas to take photos.

The light is getting brighter now, even a week after the solstice. Clear skies make such a difference. It's now 2pm and we're back to darkness in the forest.

Clear skies tonight for NYE. Will have my camera gear in the car to dash out if auroras kick off.

#Norway #Photography #LumixS1RII #EwenInNorway

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

Normalize calling maple syrup "tree blood"

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
fesshole ("Fesshole 🧻") wrote:

One of the perks of having small kids is you're socially allowed to be feral again, running around soft play, doing silly voices, climbing stuff, and everyone just thinks you're a "great parent". Dreading the day they grow up and I have to go back to pretending I'm normal.

Boosted by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
NanoRaptor@bitbang.social ("Nanoraptor") wrote:

It's so fascinating to see the changes in one company's logo over the years.

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
tend2wobble@toad.social wrote:

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
heidilifeldman ("Heidi Li Feldman") wrote:

“[T]he U.S. action to remove Maduro as Head of State amounts to an unlawful intervention into Venezuela’s internal affairs …. Regime change by one State in another amounts to intervention when it is “coercive”…, which Saturday’s operation obviously was.” https://www.justsecurity.org/127981/international-law-venezuela-maduro/ 5/

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

I love this

https://www.trumpkennedycenter.org/

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

Inside ICE Air: What It’s Like to Be a Deportation Flight Attendant:

"Military flights have now all but ceased. While there are ICE officers and hired security guards on the charters, the crew members on board are civilians, ordinary people swept up in something most didn’t knowingly sign up for."

And because the private sector is profiting from these kidnappings, the next president will largely keep these systems in ... https://micro.fromjason.xyz/2026/01/04/inside-ice-air-what-its.html

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

Thank the Lord!

Boosted by adele@social.pollux.casa ("Adële 🐁"):
collectifission@greennuclear.online ("Emil Jacobs - Collectifission") wrote:

Today is Digital Independence Day, a German initiative to move more and more away from Big Tech in 2026. Let's reclaim our independence!

https://di.day/

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

The things this country does in our name are so fucking scary sometimes.

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

Corporate democrats are stopping short of calling Trump's invasion illegal, instead opting for the same language you'd use for someone speeding in a residential neighborhood, "reckless."

40 people were killed. Not mentioned.

#Nokings has yet to respond. The dude declared himself king of Venezuela. This is your time.

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

Mormons can't have hot drinks so some of them drink soda with creamer. I tried a root beer zero with creamer and I gotta say, not the worst thing I've ever had.

Boosted by keul@fosstodon.org ("Luca Fabbri"):
cstross@wandering.shop ("Charlie Stross") wrote:

If your device needs printed instructions for basic should-be-obvious operations, your user interface design is defective. (This is a Tesla showroom.)

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social ("Kevin Beaumont") wrote:

what

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
Nonya_Bidniss@infosec.exchange ("Nonya Bidniss :CIAverified: 🇺🇸") wrote:

"Trump didn’t start the attack on the U.S.-led order, but he dealt it mortal blows. Once countries feel there are few penalties for invading neighbors or seizing resources, all bets are off. As the IR scholar Paul Musgrave put it, “We are about to speedrun the rediscovery of why states stopped acting like this.” It is not so much falling dominoes, as the U.S. feared would happen during the Cold War if countries joined the communist camp, as smashing the domino table." https://goodauthority.org/news/what-happens-now-in-venezuela-and-the-world/

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

if I were the chief executive of Taiwan I would be concerned about this kidnapping of an admittedly bad person from Venezuela.

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
BBC@c.im ("BBC News") wrote:

#BBC Jeremy Bowen: Trump's action could set precedent for authoritarian powers across globe https://w.st/LKHsN

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
dangrsmind@sfba.social wrote:

WIRED: A New Bridge Links the Strange Math of Infinity to Computer Science
https://www.wired.com/story/a-new-bridge-links-the-strange-math-of-infinity-to-computer-science/

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

According to Zillow, as of Jan 2026, average rents in Tampa ($2079) and St. Pete ($2195) beat Sacramento ($1985), Seattle ($1924), Tacoma ($1775), and Portland, OR ($1735). Orlando ($1950) beats all but Sacramento. It’ll be—interesting to see how this plays out over the next year or two…

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

Early internal security-service checks reported in Greek media point to malfunction of critical antenna installation in mountainous terrain (in Ger area) supporting Athens FIR radio network [unconfirmed]

Authorities have not presented evidence of cyberattack, current reporting focuses on technical/system failures in a UHF antenna network rather than deliberate interference; however, formal root‑cause analysis and technical report have not been published.

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

radio frequencies do not “collapse”. either something central to ATC broke or someone/something was interfering. my vote is for on it being due to an old and overly-centralized UHF or VHF antenna system

https://mastodon.social/@campuscodi/115837118514059702

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
djnavarro@hachyderm.io ("Danielle Navarro") wrote:

i love my neighbourhood

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
gmkeros.wordpress.com@gmkeros.wordpress.com ("Stuffed Crocodile") wrote:

Write Your Own Fantasy Games For Your Microcomputer

I was searching through some old files on one of my storage disks when I came across this book again: Write Your Own Fantasy Games For Your Microcomputer by Les Howarth and Cheryl Evans, with a program credited to Chris Oxlade, and illustrations by various people including Chris Riddell.

It was part of the series of Usborne Gamewriters’ Guides back in the 80s, which consisted of multiple books like this, Write Your own Adventure Programsm, Computer Spy Games, etc.

If you aren’t aware about this kind of book, the actual main part of it was the program listing in the later half of the book. This kind of book was supposed to teach you programming by… literally having you type in a program command by command. Which was a way to get software out to other people when storage media for it were too expensive to include. These listings were in computer magazines all the time, I even saw a few for character generators and similar stuff in normal TTRPG magazines.

But it also gives you an explanation what those particular bits are supposed to do, and how to deal with the bugs you are certain to encounter when copying the listing into your own machine.

But before that it had to teach you what they mean with Fantasy Game (roleplaying games), what Dungeon and Dragons (TM) is, and how such a game is played, before then venturing into how they intend to translate this into a game where you are both Dungeon Master and player.

In the end this creates a sort of rogue-like.

But I find some of the implications of the text fascinating. For one it was so early in the development of CRPGs that they don’t talk about this being a game or role-playing game (in fact that term is never used), you are creating a fantasy game like DnD instead, and you are using the computer to run it. I know it’s just a small difference, but this doesn’t come from a position of consuming the game, you are CREATING it instead. It starts from the assumption that you are using this as a framework to do your own adventuring environment that is basically an extension of a tabletop game into computer space. A later chapter goes into explaining how to extend this program with your own creations. In other words, you are not supposed to be a programmer with this, you are a Dungeon Master who just happens to use the computer as a medium. Which I find a fascinating approach.

I also found this bit interesting:

You should name the document of your game rules and conditions your Book of Lore as this is the common name fantasy gamers use to describe this.

Book of Lore.

Now I can’t say I never encountered the name before, but I find the idea that this is a specific term that fantasy roleplayers use to describe… well, what exactly? A campaign Bible I guess. Maybe I should indeed call mine Books of Lore from now on.

Yes I know that lore has come to mean something else by now, but this was written in 1981, maybe this was actually a term a specific subset of gamers used.

By the way, according to the back of the book this book cost £2.25 (in 2026 money: £9.75) when it was published, but according to the inside cover you could also have them send the program on cassette and save yourself the typing… for £5.99 (2024: £22.11)

Which would make the whole book pointless I guess. But computer stuff was expensive back then.

If you are interested in this, the book has been out of print for decades now, but Usborne made this and others available for free on their website a few years ago.

edit: had to change the link to the Usborne site, they changed their site structure a while ago

#C64 #programListing #programming #retroGaming #retrocomputing #retrogaming #ttrpg

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

if anything can bring the population of a South or Central American country together, the US ‘taking control’ of their country will. this is not like replacing a CEO and just moving on after a successful ‘hostile takeover’ of a company.