Entry: 2025-04-29 20:12:01.829272+02 Ancient phallus charm by Dan Lyke comments 0
The History Blog: New Vindolanda dig, new Vindolanda phallus
Spring is in the air, daffodils are in bloom, the new dig season at the Roman fort of Vindolanda has just begun and they’ve already found a phallus. It is very small and made of jet who inky blackness . It is pierced through the testicles so it could be worn as a pendant. The through hole is small, so the cord or chain it hung from was thin and likely broke.
Via.
[ related topics: Erotic Weblogs Invention and Design Archival ]
Entry: 2025-04-29 16:28:54.993604+02 Fosstodon drama by Dan Lyke comments 0
I just want a place to make some notes.
David Gerard @davidgerard@circumstances.run characterized this as
... warrants a goose chasing him going "WHAT CERTAIN POLITICAL VIEWS MOTHERFUCKER"
One of the founders of the Fosstodon instance, Mike Stone writes "Do What You Love".
The other founder, Kev Quirk writes "My Thoughts on the Fosstodon Drama".
[ related topics: Politics Privacy Weblogs moron ]
Entry: 2025-04-22 18:14:14.12505+02 Hostile people operate at a higher profile online by Dan Lyke comments 0
It appears that not all of us are becoming more hostile, but that the people who are get more exposure online, making the perception of hostility outsized.
Across eight studies, leveraging cross-national surveys and behavioral experiments (total N = 8,434), we test the mismatch hypothesis but only find evidence for limited selection effects. Instead, hostile political discussions are the result of status-driven individuals who are drawn to politics and are equally hostile both online and offline. Finally, we offer initial evidence that online discussions feel more hostile, in part, because the behavior of such individuals is more visible online than offline.
DOI:10.1017/S0003055421000885
Via.
[ related topics: Politics Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Weblogs moron Net Culture ]
Entry: 2025-04-18 18:05:51.228096+02 Clocks by Dan Lyke comments 1
They are all very nerdy. So they deserve a spot on my nerd blog. But they are also very arty, so they deserve to be on my Love Nonsense blog as well. I chose to write about my clocks on Love Nonsense, so here’s a summary of all the clock posts I wrote over there.
[ related topics: Weblogs ]
Entry: 2025-04-12 00:59:33.91231+02 imagine a million inexperienced coworkers by Dan Lyke comments 0
Sam Altman: Three Observations
Still, imagine it as a real-but-relatively-junior virtual coworker. Now imagine 1,000 of them. Or 1 million of them. Now imagine such agents in every field of knowledge work."
The thing about inexperienced "junior" coworkers is that eventually they become senior coworkers. And the thing about work, is that the ratio of junior coworkers to senior coworkers is hopefully balanced to reduce the load on the senior coworkers.
[ related topics: Weblogs Work, productivity and environment ]
Entry: 2025-04-09 23:01:32.568358+02 git fowl by Dan Lyke comments 0
Git with me, peer-to-peer git over Magic Wormhole tunnels via Forwarding streams over Magic Wormhole (fowl)
[ related topics: Weblogs Clowns ]
Entry: 2025-03-25 00:04:02.091238+01 Understanding Signal's identifiers by Dan Lyke comments 0
Apropos of today's clown show, Understanding every one of Signal’s identifiers
[ related topics: Privacy Weblogs Civil Liberties Clowns Archival Government ]
Entry: 2025-03-17 22:04:31.839321+01 Willing to take that risk by Dan Lyke comments 0
The great thing about this story isn't the guy who's willing to go to jail for destruction of evidence rather than cop to corporate espionage, it's that the Deel executive team was so bloody inept in their spying when they fell for the Rippling honeypot: Lawsuit Alleges $12 Billion "Unicorn" Deel Cultivated Spy, Orchestrated Long-Running Trade-Secret Theft & Corporate Espionage Against Competitor
Deel’s Alleged Spy Locked Himself in Bathroom When Confronted by Court-Appointed Solicitors Friday
“I’m Willing to Take that Risk [of Violating the Court Order]” Alleged Deel Spy Declared When Served with Legal Papers to Hand Over His Phone
[ related topics: Weblogs Law Heinlein Sports ]
Entry: 2025-03-17 19:37:20.965627+01 CATO on academic freedom by Dan Lyke comments 0
When the Republicans have lost CATO... CATO Institute: What Can the Feds Legally Demand of Columbia University?
[ related topics: Weblogs Law Education ]
Entry: 2025-03-17 19:10:13.721217+01 CloudFlare MitM by Dan Lyke comments 0
CloudFlare proudly announces that they're MitMing secure data: The CloudFlare blog: Password reuse is rampant: nearly half of observed user logins are compromised.
So, uh, yeah, do not trust anything typed into a CloudFlare backed site.
[ related topics: Weblogs ]
Entry: 2025-03-11 15:55:58.420909+01 Espressif's response by Dan Lyke comments 0
There has been a tendency on a number of security issues to say "OMG, privileged code can accomplish things, this is a security hole!". The recent ESP32 Bluetooth kerfluffle is one such. Espressif’s Response to Claimed Backdoor and Undocumented Commands in ESP32 Bluetooth Stack
What was found
The functionality found are debug commands included for testing purposes. These debug commands are part of Espressif’s implementation of the HCI (Host Controller Interface) protocol used in Bluetooth technology. This protocol is used internally in a product to communicate between Bluetooth layers. Please read our technical blog to learn more.
Via.
[ related topics: Wireless Weblogs Current Events ]
Entry: 2025-03-07 18:39:31.157177+01 UW sexual harassment by Dan Lyke comments 0
Irene Y. Zhang: University of Washington Sexual Harassment and Bullying Investigation
[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Weblogs Education ]
Entry: 2025-03-07 18:30:02.917716+01 With the news that _Google is expanding by Dan Lyke comments 0
With the news that Google is expanding the "AI Overviews" in search mode, via Pivot To AI which mentions that you can remove all facts from your search for an extra $20/month, it's worth pointing out this example of Google uncritically stating joke content as though it's real.
[ related topics: Photography Weblogs Current Events Artificial Intelligence Fashion ]
Entry: 2025-03-06 01:47:56.641936+01 Zen and the Art of Microcode Hacking by Dan Lyke comments 0
Zen and the Art of Microcode Hacking, understanding EntrySign, the AMD Zen microcode signature validation vulnerability, including toolchains so you can hack on them yourself!
[ related topics: Religion Weblogs Art & Culture ]
Entry: 2025-03-05 18:08:26.309193+01 Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog by Dan Lyke comments 1
Worth the careful read: Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not)
[ related topics: Weblogs ]
Entry: 2025-03-05 01:12:11.326312+01 Pong in browser tabs by Dan Lyke comments 0
Running Pong in 240 browser tabs
[ related topics: Games Weblogs Sports ]
Entry: 2025-02-26 17:59:55.412698+01 Apple Advanced Data Protection by Dan Lyke comments 0
Why bother rephrasing, I'll just quote: Chris is. @offby1@wandering.shop
Bruce Schneier, on the demand by the UK that Apple build a back door into their end to end encryption: https://www.schneier.com/blog/...d-make-our-phones-less-safe.html
The key takeaway here is that if you use an Apple device you should immediately enable Advanced Data Protection: https://support.apple.com/en-us/108756
Apple may be forced to disable it in the future, but if they do they can't do so in secret; it will be immediately obvious to you that it's happening.
[ related topics: Apple Computer Interactive Drama Weblogs Bay Area Macintosh Cryptography Archival ]
Entry: 2025-02-26 16:33:15.612265+01 Trust by Dan Lyke comments 3
More blog to blog linkage (yeah, it's Substack, I hate that, but a number of people I respect are writing there, sigh): Burningbird: Dear Buddy Carter. On how the US is blowing trust in the world.
[ related topics: Weblogs Writing ]
Entry: 2025-02-26 16:31:55.067081+01 Be the expert by Dan Lyke comments 0
Let's bring back blog to blog links! Rasterweb: Be The Expert in 2025 — Your voice matters…
[ related topics: Weblogs Graphics ]
Entry: 2025-02-25 00:56:30.613797+01 "I care about serving veterans." by Dan Lyke comments 0
Wired: DOGE’s USDS Purge Included the Guy Who Keeps Veterans’ Data Safe Online:
“There were these interviews we all had to do with the DOGE people the day after the inauguration,” he says. “In mine, one of them asked me to describe what I was doing at VA and then said something like, ‘If you’re doing all that work, why aren’t you working in the private sector where you could be making twice as much money?’ And I said, ‘Because I don’t care about the money. I care about serving veterans.’
“I think the fact that someone asked me that question at all is really telling.”
Via Jonathan Kamens (the subject of the piece).
[ related topics: Interactive Drama Weblogs Bay Area Work, productivity and environment Currency ]
Entry: 2025-02-24 22:48:15.061465+01 Half of Santa Rosa is missing by Dan Lyke comments 0
Saw a meme recently about how US cities weren't built for the car, they were destroyed for the car. And I often think "but California was mostly built up post WWII", and then there are reminders, like this, that even cities like Santa Rosa were destroyed for the car.
Might make a fun afternoon to map out the parking lots and 1 story bank buildings in Petaluma that sit on the sites of once grander multi-story buildings.
SR YIMBY: Half of Santa Rosa is missing.
[ related topics: Weblogs Invention and Design California Culture Automobiles Marketing Maps and Mapping Architecture Woodworking ]
Entry: 2025-02-24 21:02:09.876805+01 Paxlovid doesn't slow hospitalizations for vaccinated people by Dan Lyke comments 0
In the Pipeline by Derek Lowe: Paxlovid: You'd Have Expected More
The other way to interpret this is that the vaccinations themselves have done enough to help keep people out of the hospital that Paxlovid treatment can't do much more. I think it's very likely that if there had been a Paxlovid trial early on with a median age of 70 among unvaccinated adults (instead of the real median age of 42) that it would have shown much more than that 5.5% improvement in hospitalization risk! But vaccinating these patients makes any benefit of Paxlovid drop back into the statistical noise. So to me, these data are disappointing for Paxlovid, but likely reinforce the benefits of the vaccines.
[ related topics: Interactive Drama Weblogs ]
Entry: 2025-02-24 17:27:41.605391+01 Memory Hell by Dan Lyke comments 0
As I've been learning how to use Rust, I've been a little frustrated with the "don't use pointers, use indices into arena arrays" model, it feels super clunky to this ol' assembly and C hacker, but Aapo Alsuutari on the Nova blog: Memory hell talks about how that's the direction that languages are going under the hood.
[ related topics: Weblogs Community Education ]
Entry: 2025-02-19 18:02:05.107694+01 Signal, QR codes, & joining groups by Dan Lyke comments 0
Beware QR codes and joining groups: Wired: A Signal Update Fends Off a Phishing Technique Used in Russian Espionage
Google warns that hackers tied to Russia are tricking Ukrainian soldiers with fake QR codes for Signal group invites that let spies steal their messages. Signal has pushed out new safeguards.
Via Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦 @rysiek@mstdn.social who notes:
👉 No, Signal has not been compromised
👉 No, Signal encryption has not been broken
👉 No, there is no back-door in SignalYou should continue using Signal. The update is responding to a sophisticated, state-level attack targeting specific groups.
[ related topics: Weblogs Invention and Design Cryptography ]
Entry: 2025-02-17 19:11:55.728518+01 AI grumblings of the morning by Dan Lyke comments 0
Interesting to read this from Namanyay, who self-pitches as "I’m now making developers more productive with AI": New Junior Developers Can’t Actually Code
RT Christine Lemmer-Webber @cwebber@social.coop
Study after study also shows that AI assistants erode the development of critical thinking skills and knowledge *retention*. People, finding information isn't the biggest missing skillset in our population, it's CRITICAL THINKING, so this is fucked up
AI assistants also introduce more errors at a high volume, and harder to spot too
https://www.microsoft.com/en-u..._ai_critical_thinking_survey.pdf
https://slejournal.springerope...icles/10.1186/s40561-024-00316-7
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/ai-generated-code-outages/
https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.03622
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11128619/
[ related topics: Humor Weblogs Microsoft Invention and Design moron Work, productivity and environment Television Education Artificial Intelligence Model Building ]
Entry: 2025-02-12 17:39:00.382899+01 Exploring why people hate housing by Dan Lyke comments 0
The researchers have received a grant to build on the work prior to submitting it to a journal. In a working paper, they suggest that groups trying to spur more development can win popular support by emphasizing in their messaging or in the language of the policy itself how the effort will benefit groups with wide popularity, such as nurses, firefighters, and teachers. They write that government officials should consider that many voters do not have internally consistent or firm views on many housing policies, despite state and local laws that encourage gathering detailed community input prior to making policy changes or approving projects.
[ related topics: Children and growing up Weblogs Invention and Design moron Current Events Work, productivity and environment Community Real Estate Government ]
Entry: 2025-02-02 17:00:02.878387+01 Hanan Cohen by Dan Lyke comments 0
Hanan Cohen, who is bad at math (grin), reminds me that we're up to 27 years of the Flutterby blog.
[ related topics: Weblogs Mathematics Archival ]
Entry: 2025-01-30 00:22:43.412507+01 Qwen by Dan Lyke comments 0
Alibaba releases Qwen2.5-max, their entry into the DeepSeek salvo.
Via /., whose
[ related topics: Weblogs Artificial Intelligence ]
Entry: 2025-01-21 18:15:58.714439+01 No faith by Dan Lyke comments 1
While we're thinking about marketing and AI this morning: Google has no faith in its ability to launch new products.
[ related topics: Weblogs Invention and Design Space & Astronomy Consumerism and advertising Marketing Artificial Intelligence ]
Entry: 2025-01-18 18:52:43.890862+01 Abandoned OAuth by Dan Lyke comments 2
Careful about your abandoned domains (as in startups that were using SAAS HR tools) Millions of Accounts Vulnerable due to Google’s OAuth Flaw
[ related topics: Weblogs ]
Entry: 2025-01-17 19:44:10.116966+01 Writing an MP4 Muxer by Dan Lyke comments 2
This is fascinating for someone who, back in the '90s, did a little work with Apple's QuickTime MOV format files, and also has some interesting notes about why you may have experienced audio sync issues: OBS Studio: Writing an MP4 Muxer for Fun and Profit
[ related topics: Apple Computer Music Weblogs Writing Work, productivity and environment ]
Entry: 2025-01-17 18:58:40.640244+01 Google requires JavaScript by Dan Lyke comments 0
If one were to go back through the history of this blog, one would find me ranting again and again that the standardization of the web, and JavaScript, was going to lead to lock-in and monoculture and too much control by the big players.
It is, frankly, surprising that it took this long, but Google begins requiring JavaScript for Google Search.
[ related topics: Interactive Drama Weblogs ]
Entry: 2025-01-15 18:10:24.315256+01 The Visible Zorker by Dan Lyke comments 0
Wow. If you have memories of Zork, "Interactive Fiction" or ever looked at the Infocom game language/Z-machine stuff, Andrew Plotkin (Zarf) has released The Visibile Zorker, and a blog post talking about the thing.
[ related topics: Interactive Drama Games Weblogs ]
Entry: 2024-12-29 22:56:35.86888+01 Fish of Theseus by Dan Lyke comments 0
A little cheerleading to help motivate me to learn more Rust: Fish 4.0: The Fish Of Theseus.
Via @genehack@dementedandsadbut.social, but somehow I missed that link, so thanks to @davepolaschek@writing.exchange.
[ related topics: John S Jacobs-Anderson Weblogs Writing ]
Entry: 2024-12-20 19:30:08.523093+01 your actual goddamn policy by Dan Lyke comments 0
Yesterday at lunch I was reminded that, when a local City Council member whom I admire said something about "policies that reflect our values", I quietly observed that the cynical among us might say that they already do. And apparently the room, more than I noticed at the time, went "oh, damn." (and "that's cold", and...)
Anyway, there's a polarizing figure on the nerd social media that has a long rant this morning on culture and kindness and this pull-quote is repeated here, for emphasis.
Soatok Dreamsoaker: The Better Daemons Of Our Profession
The in-practice consequences of any policy is your actual goddamn policy.
[ related topics: Weblogs Sociology Journalism and Media California Culture ]
Entry: 2024-12-20 18:57:57.066446+01 Merkle-Trees by Dan Lyke comments 0
We Have Google Drive at Home: Musings on Merkle-Tree Based File Sharing.
Kind of a puff piece for Dolt: The world's first and only version-controlled SQL database.
[ related topics: Weblogs Nature and environment Databases ]
Entry: 2024-11-26 21:21:10.928119+01 PGP alternatives by Dan Lyke comments 0
What to use instead of PGP. Breaking down encryption by various different applications and looking at the right tool for each of those.
[ related topics: Weblogs Cryptography ]
Entry: 2024-11-15 18:56:09.361764+01 RIP Thomas E. Kurtz by Dan Lyke comments 0
In Memoriam: Thomas E. Kurtz, 1928–2024
Thomas Eugene Kurtz (Feb. 22 1928–Nov. 12, 2024) was an American mathematician, computer scientist and co-inventor, with John Kemeny, of the BASIC programming language and Dartmouth Timesharing System.
[ related topics: Weblogs Software Engineering ]
Entry: 2024-11-10 17:42:00.171844+01 local LLMs by Dan Lyke comments 0
Everything I've learned so far about running local LLMs
[ related topics: Weblogs Sports ]
Entry: 2024-11-07 21:04:37.755789+01 What went wrong by Dan Lyke comments 0
Qasim Rashid — What Went Wrong in the Democratic Party? Lots of good stuff here, about how the Democrats have lost their social media game, how Biden promised to be a one term President and then reneged, but also:
The Democratic Party’s obsession with courting Republican voters by moving to the center is an abject failure of a strategy. In 2020 the Biden Administration actively courted Republicans. Only 6% of registered Republicans flipped party lines and voted for him. In 2024, Kamala Harris actively courted Republicans, promising to appoint a Republican to her cabinet, inviting former Republican members of Congress Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger to speak at the DNC, and even proudly accepting the endorsement of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney—a man credibly accused of war crimes by Amnesty International. As a result, a whopping 5% of registered Republicans flipped party lines and voted for her, while 4% of Democrats flipped party lines and voted for Trump. All that for a net 1% gain, while losing young people nearly 30% to Trump. A truly failed strategy.
[ related topics: Politics Games Weblogs History Journalism and Media Home Improvement ]
Connectivity provided by highertech.net , awesome bandwidth, well away from fault lines and other potential for natural disasters, reliable, and run by cool people.
Questions, comments, flames: contact Dan Lyke
Flutterby™ is a trademark claimed by
Dan Lyke for the web publications at www.flutterby.com and www.flutterby.net.