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dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

at one point they actually shipped 26,000 bricks to singapore from colorado to inflate the inventory figures there. then issued a recall on the units without doing anything about it and claimed they still had the originals!

and then there were the company retreats where he'd just fire people randomly to keep the rest on their toes.

like top to bottom it was fraud and fucked up management. incredible stuff.

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

miniscribe were a struggling hard disk manufacturer. i think they sold 5MB drives to start with.

business failed, so they got in someone literally called "mr fix-it" on wall street. he's the bastard who "rescued" adobe and turned it into the monster it is today.

mr fix-it just bullied everyone, fired people for minor things and demanded more. consequently, people started faking results to keep their jobs.

they ended up doing fucking everything. in one case, they sent out bricks to retailers, marking them as sales. then the retailers sent them back and they marked them as inventory, thus doubling the number of hard drives!

"Account BW" was one of the primary places where they would ship bricks. BW = Big Warehouse.

Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
bshaurette@social.linux.pizza ("Barbara Shaurette :python:") wrote:

Here’s Why You Should Go To North Bay Python Next Year
https://mechanicalgirl.com/post/here-s-why-you-should-go-to-north-bay-python-next-year/

#NBPy #NBPython

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

no likes? surely fedi knows the miniscribe story. do i have to go find a good writeup?

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

shipping my miniscribe hard disk to account BW

Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
smn@l3ib.org ("Justin Fitzsimmons") wrote:

@glyph seriously I was gonna do a presentation at work about the risks of getting rugpulled by AI vendors but it went from hypothetical to anecdotal before I could present! Our model got abruptly pulled from the provider and we were forced to transition to a different one that conveniently costs 3-6x more. Meanwhile we've been down in prod for over a week due to the disgraceful way the provider has handled the deprecation.

glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

goddamnit I'm not going to get any credit for all my predictions about the AI industry being correct if they keep coming true so fast that I am spending all my time editing unfinished blog posts about the predictions

Boosted by jwz:
limneticvillains@mastodon.online ("Limnetic Villains") wrote:

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

it's out of the oven. it's also delicious.

recipe:

• in an oven dish, scatter frozen cherries in bowl. sprinkle sugar on top and defrost in microwave
• in another dish, mix about 0.8:1 sugar:flour. rub in butter or substitute. add literally 5 or 10ml of water to get it to form a crumb. be careful not to use too much water. no, really, add it slowly, it's hard to undo.
• rub in some oats or muesli
• top cherries with crumble and bake (20 minutes at 180 in an airfrier)

jwz wrote:

Per my previous email to my HOA's management company regarding the third unannounced multi-hour water shut-off in two weeks, they "kindly ask that all communications remain respectful".
https://jwz.org/b/yk6u

glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

I wish I were smart enough to read this paper because I feel like it's making a good point about the information-theoretical limits of model collapse but I got to the first Σ and like… I'm out, my brain can't take this any more

https://arxiv.org/html/2601.05280v2#S5

bcrypt@infosec.exchange ("yan") wrote:

in light of the tragic news that a 2-year old died at a licensed SF daycare earlier this month, i made a site to show childcare license violations and complaints in the Bay Area: https://azuki.vip/childcare/

* the data is public at https://www.ccld.dss.ca.gov/carefacilitysearch/ but i found that site hard to use
* PRs welcome https://github.com/diracdeltas/childcare
* i am aware this does not show small home daycares; working on that
* very grateful to Claude for making this a sunday project instead of a multi-week one
* aforementioned news report: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/toddler-death-daycare-san-francisco/4072713/

Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
benno@eigenmagic.net ("Benno") wrote:

With @NorthBayPython not being in the barn next year, might I suggest a sponsorship opportunity to ensure that the most wise and notable commentator at the event, namely the horse, is able to attend? #NBPy

Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
sethmlarson ("Seth Larson") wrote:

pip 26.1 is an incredible release, thank you to the pip maintainers!! 💜

– Relative dependency cooldown support!
– Installing from pylock.toml
– Multiple security fixes

Read the full blog post by @ichard26

https://ichard26.github.io/blog/2026/04/whats-new-in-pip-26.1/

#python #pypi #pip #security #oss #opensource

Boosted by jwz:
xgranade@wandering.shop ("Cassandra is only carbon now") wrote:

I am so exhausted with thinking about AI, with talking about AI, with having to jump ship from one product to another because of AI, with having to explain that no, I don't have an {Instagram, Bluesky, whatever} account because of AI, and so forth.

I'm so tired of having to extend good faith to people uncritically regurgitating talking points from the worst techbros on the planet, of having to be polite about "but it works!" claims, of being asked to "set aside" the ethics.

Boosted by dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase"):
headius ("Charles Oliver Nutter") wrote:

There's a disturbing trend of developers I've known for years now suddenly being unable to discuss even basic aspects of software development. They have become so dependent on LLMs, they can't even describe how to design a system anymore. Feels like losing friends to dementia. 😢

glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

self-employment #ADHD "two buttons" meme:

button 1:

"begin by eating the frog first, turbocharging your protestant-work-ethic demon to scream about your worthlessness; ultimately get nothing done due to under-stimulation, feel bad due to negative self-talk"

button 2:

"begin with a video game to start a virtuous circle of small wins leading to bigger ones; ultimately get nothing done because you were derailed trying for a difficult achievement, feel bad due to irresponsible use of time"

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
csalzman@a2mi.social ("Chris "Crunchy Leaf" Salzman") wrote:

My hope is that what defines the next era of tech is looking to the past and deciding what was good enough and embracing it

https://wheelfront.com/this-alberta-startup-sells-no-tech-tractors-for-half-price/?utm%5Fsource=hackernewsletter&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fterm=fav

EmilyEnough@hachyderm.io ("Emily 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️") wrote:

Quick flight to NY to see a doctor about a thing and then I’m heading home tomorrow. I feel bad for my partner and child though who are driving the length of the state today during an all-day spring storm, and will probably have to hide in the basement when it turns into tornado weather. #TransOnPlanes

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

cherry crumble is in the oven

Boosted by jwz:
raganwald@social.bau-ha.us ("Reginald") wrote:

Terry Gilliam was right about everything. The incompetence. The banality of administrative evil. The fascism.

And most notably, Mar-a-Lago Face and the lengths Republican Barbies will go to maintain it.

Attachments:

• gifv: A woman has her face literally stretched by a surgeon.

Boosted by jwz:
mcfadden ("Brian McFadden") wrote:

Please don't describe the boot on your neck with heated rhetoric. It's divisive.

Boosted by jwz:
sundogplanets ("Prof. Sam Lawler") wrote:

Don't worry, Sam, SpaceX won't ACTUALLY launch 7,000 satellites! (There are currently 10,296 Starlink sats in orbit)

Don't worry, SpaceX said they'd get their satellites fainter than magnitude 7! (They have not https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/link%5Fgateway/2025MNRAS.544L..15M/PUB%5FPDF)

Don't worry, they won't actually start Kessler Syndrome! https://outerspaceinstitute.ca/crashclock/

Don't worry, they won't actually launch a million AI data centres into orbit!! https://theconversation.com/a-new-space-race-could-turn-our-atmosphere-into-a-crematorium-for-satellites-276366

This is the fucking worst I-told-you-so https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:") wrote:

If you're interested, my next distro is probably going to be Fedora. Despite having a real soft spot for Elementary, I realized I just love GNOME too much, and Fedora has always been the champion of the vanilla GNOME experience.

isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:") wrote:

RE: https://masto.ai/@phoronix/116476120066302561

OK, here's *the one* reason that'll finally make me find time and switch away from Ubuntu. I've been considering it for a while now, but was leaning towards taking the easy way out *again*: just upgrade my LTS and forget about it for 2 years. But "AI" is a bridge too far.

I don't car how non-envasive and opt-out it might be. One of the reason I use any Linux is to not be in adversarial relationship with my system.

Boosted by zkat@toot.cat ("Katerina Marchán"):
fastlydevs ("Fastly Devs") wrote:

Curious where WebAssembly is heading?

At Wasm I/O 2026, Luke Wagner shares the path to Component Model 1.0—and how you can start using it today.

🎥 Watch the talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq0Auw01tH8

#WebAssembly #Wasm

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

Það er viðtal við Brynhildi Jenný (@uglyreykjavik.bsky.social) um myndasöguna sem hún gerði (og ég gaf út) á forsíðu RÚV. 😎

https://www.ruv.is/frettir/menning-og-daegurmal/2026-04-27-vantar-islensk-ord-i-myndasogur-467829

glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

By contrast, most of your audience will NOT have used an "AI" to detect a tumor, and hopefully those who *have* done so are sufficiently well-versed in the specific application that they use and the process for doing so that they are aware you can't just pop a scan into ChatGPT and go on with your day. If they jump into your mentions they're probably going to have some new and interesting information for you that can help inform your perspective.

glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

The flip side to this is that it's a good idea to avoid saying things that contradict your readers' direct experience. For example, the critic position that "AI" 'doesn't work'. Personally I kinda agree with this claim, given all the context and the evidence and sufficiently precise definitions of "work". But almost everyone have seen an "AI" app do something that looks like "working" and so saying this *without* all the shared context and definitions immediately discredits you.

glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

It feels like if you're entering a public debate, you have to perform a level of openness to be taken seriously. Someone who asserts their position while refusing to acknowledge the public consensus seems dogmatic, unresponsive to evidence.

But you can demonstrate this openness in other ways. "I'm open to evidence that 'AI' might be a net benefit to society, even given its enormous downsides, but right now, after so much evidence to the contrary that's an extraordinary claim"