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cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen") wrote:

@cwebber It's not unusual or strange, but I've been enjoying the "Joy of Why" podcast from Quanta Magazine:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/tag/the-joy-of-why/

jwz wrote:

Every year or so I forget and investigate: "Surely there's a way to set my business's Facebook account to disallow comments by default?" and every year I realize that the answer is is no because drive-by rage from haters is their entire business model.

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen") wrote:

Of course the real answer is probably wireless charging combined with standard, replaceable batteries.

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen") wrote:

Me contemplating replacing a failing USB port on a well used device:

"Hmmm... Maybe what we need is a standard connector for USB ports. If that connector is good for ~1,000 cycles, and you combine that with the ~1,000 cycles for a USB port you could get ~1,000,000 cycles out of a device before costly repairs happen!" :thonking:

Boosted by jwz:
jplebreton ("JP") wrote:

"enron pets dotcom coinbase metalverse openaye-i..." in the dim red firelight the bog witch rasped the ancient curses, their original meanings lost millennia ago

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
grickle@mstdn.social ("Grickle") wrote:

Top notch security. #grickledoodle #wizards #protection #cartoon #art #drawing #funny #humor #puns

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

"Death by Data Centers"

dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/data-center-energy-pollution-cancer-alley/

> The data centers haven’t infiltrated the cancer statistics yet, but state politicians, including those at the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, already deny that residents of Cancer Alley face a higher cancer risk.

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen") wrote:

TIL Neil Young had a cyberpunk phase about ten years before Billy Idol:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MK2wWZ2vRQ

There's quite a few additional tracks on "Trans" that are of that flavor.

Boosted by soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker"):
mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

The "AI changes everything" people rhyme remarkably well with the "blockchain changes everything" people.

Boosted by soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker"):
stejfs_photos@mastodon.goeg.dscloud.biz ("Štejf's Photobox") wrote:

260819-121118_Canon EOS 6D_EF85mm f-1.2L USM
#eurofurence_30 #fursuit #furry

brennan@social.lol ("Brennan Kenneth Brown") wrote:

I've Never Wasted My Time Writing

https://brennan.day/i-ve-never-wasted-my-time-writing/

#writing #community #trolls #communication #blogging #ethics

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

OMFG:

"An admission that the American president offered to sell arms to China is extraordinary. The Communist-ruled nation is considered by most American policymakers and legislators of both parties to be the greatest military, economic and diplomatic rival of the United States — the only real challenger to America as a superpower."

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/27/us/politics/trump-weapons-sale-china.html?unlocked%5Farticle%5Fcode=1.ElE.V0zu.ayW90sys5so0&smid=url-share

brennan@social.lol ("Brennan Kenneth Brown") wrote:

For the first time since I started my blog, brennan.day has gotten a redesign! Goodbye gruvbox, hello moonflower! 🌻

Apt for the spooky season?

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
futurebird@sauropods.win ("myrmepropagandist") wrote:

Or at least what we have observed, that people are using LLMs to replace search is a very real thing.

And I can point out that it was LLM spam that broke search in the first place, and I can be correct about that but it doesn't matter.

The power and control of information flows that is represented by running search engines may be changing hands and changing shape. Search engines have gotten worse, and LLMs do their job more effectively and people are changing their workflows accordingly.

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
futurebird@sauropods.win ("myrmepropagandist") wrote:

Search seems to be the most effective path to growing their customer base. Give the user the information they need and then say you can do more.

It's manipulative, and it even works on people who can see the manipulation.

cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber") wrote:

What's some interesting thinky podcasts you've been listening to? Leaning more towards interesting things, less about politics, which I listen to plenty of stuff about already, don't need more of that rn.

The more unusual the better. No topic too strange.

Boosted by db@social.lol ("David Bushell 🪿"):
tylersticka@social.lol ("Tyler Sticka") wrote:

Five of the smallest code snippets that made the biggest impact for me as a child and young adult: https://tylersticka.com/journal/five-formative-code-snippets/

#programming #code #development

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
mitch@hachyderm.io ("Mitch Wagner") wrote:

“The other day, I looked out my door cam and saw an 81-year-old man slowly and painstakingly carrying my heavy luggage that had been lost on a recent flight up a steep flight of stairs,” writes Erin Howell, who set up a GoFundMe to help the man. “He looked absolutely exhausted, and his steps were heavy with effort.”

The man, Donald Johnson, has had to go back to work delivering luggage so he can pay for his wife’s cancer treatments. He has been forced into this grueling work because it is the “only job that will hire me.”

81-year-old Texas man working to return lost luggage to fund wife’s cancer bills sparks community outpouring [The Independent] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/texas-man-donald-johnson-gofundme-lost-luggage-cancer-bills-b3056147.html

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
mitch@hachyderm.io ("Mitch Wagner") wrote:

Boosted by pixxl:
Carl_Zimmer ("Carl Zimmer") wrote:

Four days ago, a scientist was surprised by the news that Anthropic discovered new virus genes for making DNA. He says he’s been studying them for years—and feeding his data to Anthropic’s AI as part of his own research. Coincidence? Here’s my story. https://nyti.ms/3VSWayc

Boosted by pixxl:
JulietEMcKenna@wandering.shop ("Juliet E McKenna") wrote:

I just read a third or possibly fourth news article where the reality of an 'AI has discovered something marvellous!' story turns out to be GenAI somehow accessed material it had no permissions for, which was the outcome of an expert's years of work, and presented it without attribution.

GenAI is a fraud. Whatever it offers is generated from work stolen from humans who know what they're doing. There is no intelligence in LLMs.

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

RE: https://mas.to/@carnage4life/117335206971732810

amusing

Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
wyatt@soc.megatokyo.moe ("wyatt :terezi_libra:") wrote:

I don't mean anything nefarious by this, i promise. i'm just curious

for those that picked a new name, i wonder how many choose a name that starts with the same character as their old name or is otherwise phonetically similar

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
danlew@androiddev.social ("Dan Lew") wrote:

Regarding Samsung bricking their smart fridges...

I once told a contractor that I explicitly did NOT want a smart appliance. His response was “you must be a software developer, they’re usually the ones who don’t want them.”

Boosted by cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber"):
mnd@ap.mndet.net wrote:

@dalias@hachyderm.io @brianrepko@hachyderm.io @cwebber@social.coop
And... Even OpenAI use same definition for "de-identification":

OpenAI said it could not notify the affected users because “our technical approach and privacy policy” prevent it from “reassociating” the images with the original providers, but declined to say how the lab determined whether the images were provided by users.

https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/25/unsecured-openai-agents-posted-53-user-images-on-the-internet-without-the-labs-knowledge/

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
CelloMomOnCars ("CelloMom On Cars") wrote:

"A water-based ceramic paint developed by Nasa for the space shuttle, Super Therm repels infrared radiation, preventing roofs from heating up and transferring heat inside the house.

In a basic trial on a 22C day in Adelaide, Strudwick coated some concrete roof tiles and left others untreated. By 1pm, he says, the surface temperature of the original tiles had hit 60C, while those with a single coat of Super Therm were just 26C."

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/sep/26/change-by-degrees-el-nino-australia-reflective-roofs-heat-energy-costs

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
jssfr@zombofant.net ("Jonas Schäfer") wrote:

@danlew Actual conversation with the people who installed our dishwasher last year:

Them: "nice machine you got there"
Me: "it was the only one without wifi"
Them: "oh, so you're in IT?"

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

RE: https://mastodon.social/@craignewmark/117349116102020098

good piece, good work to be doing... esp

"I'll also be funding an effort to get serious about AI safety for kids."

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

Old winter photos revisited: https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/photos/old-winter-photos-revisited/

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
craignewmark ("Craig Newmark") wrote:

50 years ago I joined the grown up workforce, with IBM in Florida.

I was working on a (doomed) mini-computer, the Series/1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM%5FSeries/1). My only contribution was saying that we should work with AT&T Bell Labs to port Unix (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix) over. I couldn't sell the idea, nor could anyone else, and IBM lost a chance to dominate the computer industry.

Anyway, 50 years, that's motivated some big decisions regarding my philanthropy.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-first-day-work-50-years-ago-today-craig-newmark-vxvvc/

More to come...