Mastodon Feed: Posts

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

it is fun to watch this Serrano slowly redden up, day after day

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

The replies to this are great

Turns out people on Mastodon have a lot of experience with failing companies 😁

A few more from personal experience. Possibly a little too specific

- You are told by a manager not to use the usual contact email address for a supplier or client and instead contact an employee directly using their personal email
- A manager quits at a short notice for "personal health"
- An angry scot shows up at the office, cursing the CEO and shouting "where's my money?!"

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

Don't worry, teachers. Your replacements are all ready to step in.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/08/13/behold-my-replacement/

db@social.lol ("David Bushell 🪿") wrote:

no thanks bro, evidently my SEO game is already killing it 🔥

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

Had a chat about company "nálykt" ("corpse stench"). I.e. common signs of imminent company collapse employees can spot. We came up with a few:

- Sudden sale that takes all of the employees by surprise
- Office rent agreements cancelled at short notice
- Managers suddenly evasive about previously promised promotions or pay rises
- Execs changing the topic whenever asked a pointed question.
- Execs getting antsy about how last year's acquisitions are performing
- Layoffs, natch

What else?

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

I know this feeling. It happens every time I sit down to work on my syllabus.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/08/13/struck-down-mid-paragraph/

Boosted by andrewnez ("Andrew Nesbitt"):
geekygirldawn@hachyderm.io ("Dr. Dawn Foster") wrote:

So much of the critical infrastructure that we all rely on contains open source projects that are under-resourced and struggling. One way to help these projects is by funding development and maintenance so that contributors can focus on this work, but it can be hard to justify continuing to fund open source projects. Measuring the impact of open source funding is the best way to continue to fund open source because it allows you to show leadership and other stakeholders the impact of that funding. Here's a blog post to get you started, and I'm available for consulting engagements on this topic.

https://fastwonderblog.com/2026/06/02/how-ospos-can-measure-the-impact-of-oss-funding/

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
suricrasia@lethargic.talkative.fish ("blackle mori") wrote:

the scarcest resource is give-a-shit. even something perfect will collapse if there's not enough give-a-shit to go around. the only reason anything works is because there's people in the background invisibly doing thankless labour to keep everything working. it's so hard to explain this point. I've heard people say it before I became a community organizer and was like "I guess that makes sense" but now that I've got all this experience it REALLY makes sense. I'm not sure how I'd explain this experience-backed understanding to myself from three years ago. probably impossible.

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
timnitGebru@dair-community.social ("Timnit Gebru (she/her).") wrote:

🔇 🔇 🔇 My book, Deep Unlearning, is now available for preorders! I don't know how people write so many books because this one took a lot out of me. It turns out, I had a lot to say 😂, with editors cutting out 50k of my words 🫣

✴️ You can now preorder it at https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Deep-Unlearning/Timnit-Gebru/9781668093078

✴️ Is there a local bookstore that you think should order this book? Can you let me know, or, even better, let them know?

✴️ Is there a place I should plan to come for a book tour when the book is out? Can you lmk?

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
requiem@masto.hackers.town ("requiem 🦫") wrote:

"My phone is a system
That makes me stupid and mean
With a screen
To sell data and advertising"

https://carsieblanton.bandcamp.com/track/stafford-beer

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
markwyner@mas.to ("Mark Wyner Won’t Comply :vm:") wrote:

Discovered while doing ethnographic research for a public library district. I was touring one of their branches when this caught my attention.

It’s genius. Smartest solution I’ve seen for this common problem.

Librarians could save the world if we’d let them. 😉

#DIY #Libraries #Library #Ethnography

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

That feeling when LLM fans reply to the above post and prove exactly the point you were trying to make.

Boosted by dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase"):
fesshole ("Fesshole 🧻") wrote:

My small British company was bought by Americans. I have just been formally reprimanded for sarcasm and sardonic commentary. I told the disciplinary panel I was grateful for the opportunity to reflect on my attitude going forward and would be certain to bear it in mind in future.

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
miyotehew@turtleisland.social wrote:

Red crested cardinal

#birds #birding #birdwatching #nature

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

btw, if you see 'soft feel' mugs, don't buy them. they are magnets for dirt.

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

Took a slightly less trodden route during my last hike.

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

i think the thing i love most about being poor is the way when one payment bounces by a few euros, they want the rest in full💀

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

No, that isn’t a stupid editing mistake, that’s the evidentiary seam of artisanal, handcrafted humanity 😝

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

Even if you disregard, y’know everything, LLM fans are still fundamentally boring. They have the same writing and design style, their illustrations look the same, and their ideas are all predictable

They’re even starting to sound the same on video, even when unmediated by a model

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
veronica@explains.social ("Veronica Explains") wrote:

Another reason I try my darndest to avoid LLM-built "FOSS" tools: the humans who publish them often enough aren't prepared to support them.

When that neat utility that Claude burped out is deprecated by some breaking change, are you going to have someone to reach out to? Are you going to understand it? Or will the "author" have moved on toward some other thing that nabbed their attention?

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

Need to weed my feed list again in my RSS reader. Another bunch of blogs seem to have turned into wide-eyed LLM boosters.

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
osnews@mstdn.social ("OSNews") wrote:

The OSNews Fundraiser continues: you made me use Windows, now make me use macOS

The OSNews Fundraiser, to celebrate the fact I posted 20000 stories in 21 years, is still underway. The first major incentive was reached, and I, a long-time Linux user, published my experiences using Windows 11 for a month. It wasn't a success. Keep donating if you want to find ou

https://www.osnews.com/story/145747/the-osnews-fundraiser-continues-you-made-me-use-windows-now-make-me-use-macos/

#OSNews

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
thomholwerda@exquisite.social ("Thom, bring back Token Ring") wrote:

Big fundraiser for @osnews, in honour of my 21 year tenure and 20000th post. Since my wife can barely work due to health issues (caused by her work, ugh), my family has to rely on my income much more heavily. And that means OSNews donations.

https://ko-fi.com/thomholwerda/goal?g=2

I've also got a few fun incentives:

1. Make me use Windows 11
2. A photo/video tour of my office and all my computers/devices
3. Make me use (and review) macOS
4. A tattoo of the OSNews logo (my first tattoo) on my shoulder

More details:

https://www.osnews.com/story/144982/the-21-years-and-20000-posts-osnews-fundraiser-a-euro-for-every-post/

Your support keeps OSNews free from ads and corporate influence, and allow me to continue to run what is one of the very last people-focused, independent technology news sites left in the world. Also, OSNews is militantly "AI"-free, in every step of the process.

Boosted by db@social.lol ("David Bushell 🪿"):
yatil@yatil.social ("Eric Eggert") wrote:

BTW, it breaks my heart that people with ADHD or autism feel the need to sanitize their writing through AI. This is the big dehumanization that I have been talking about before.

We made a big sing and dance to allow people to not mask and be who they are just for sanitizing and making them mask when they create words, pictures, art.

Instead of neurotypical people accepting neurodiverse output, we standardize our language.

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

That small organisations see marginally better outcomes is also plausible because high variability interventions like LLMs tend to specifically cancel themselves out over larger systems, even under the best of circumstances.

But the mental health and skills decline for smaller teams is also (anecdotally again, what I’m seeing around me, not what I’m reading in studies) much worse. Know a few people clearly heading either toward burnout or a mental health episode

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

“AI Software Development – What Does The Data Say? – Codemanship's Blog”

https://codemanship.wordpress.com/2026/08/12/ai-software-development-what-does-the-data-say/

> If anything, the average team is taking longer to ship worse software

Anecdotally, this is what I've been hearing a lot too. Higher costs, more volume, worse outcomes. But still “inevitable” for some reason

Boosted by brib@bribstodon.xyz ("brib :neofox_floof:​ :Nonbinary:"):
danbenton ("Dan (Dogsbody) Benton") wrote:

I decided to get creative with my pinhole camera and spread some love...
#eclipse #eclipse2026

Boosted by brib@bribstodon.xyz ("brib :neofox_floof:​ :Nonbinary:"):
delroth@delroth.net ("Pierre Bourdon") wrote:

I got some good photos of the partial eclipse in Zürich today, but to be fair all of them were... eclipsed (😎) by this once in a lifetime unplanned shot from a friend of mine. Luck + preparation always wins.

Also on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/photographs/comments/1vmqv2b/paraglider%5Fin%5Ffront%5Fof%5Fpartial%5Fsolar%5Feclipse/

brib@bribstodon.xyz ("brib :neofox_floof:​ :Nonbinary:") wrote:

I solved the daily #CluesBySam, Aug 13th 2026 (Tricky), in less than 15 minutes
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩
https://cluesbysam.com

Boosted by brib@bribstodon.xyz ("brib :neofox_floof:​ :Nonbinary:"):
acontios@masto.hivane.net ("Clement Cavadore") wrote:

Petit complément de photos, prises au smartphone #Éclipse #EclipseEspaña