Flutterby™! From 2023-05-01 to 2023-05-31

Slow streets sign making party, Walk and Roll to School day is Wednesday...

[ related topics: Children and growing up Photography ]

Someone did the moose crossing sign, so of course I had to do a squirrel...

[ related topics: Photography ]

From the department of about fucking time: Pro Publica: Roadside Drug Tests Used to Convict People Aren’t Particularly Accurate. Courts Are Beginning to Prevent Their Use.

Courts have overturned 131 drug convictions in the past 10 years after laboratory analysis determined the alleged drugs were legal substances, according to a database maintained by the National Registry of Exonerations. A large majority of those wrongful convictions originated in Harris County, Texas, where the crime lab analyzed its backlog of suspected drugs from closed cases and discovered the evidence in hundreds of convictions did not contain drugs. The defendants in those cases had pleaded guilty at preliminary hearings

Via Tech Dirt: Cheap Field Drug Tests Are Finally Getting Called Out By Courts As The Bullshit They Are . Via.

[ related topics: Drugs Health History Law Databases ]

A toot thread on interference between Ikea's MARKUS chair and HDMI monitors.

[ related topics: Furniture ]

Washington Post: [Jack Teixeira,] Discord leaks suspect discussed mass violence, had ‘arsenal,’ prosecutors say

In the court documents, prosecutors reveal that Teixeira was suspended from high school in 2018 after a classmate overheard him talking about “Molotov cocktails, guns at the school, and racial threats.” On social media in recent years, he has continued such rhetoric, prosecutors say, writing in a November message that he wanted to kill a “ton of people” because it would be “culling the weak minded.” In February, he asked a user for advice about what kind of rifle would fire best from an SUV, saying he wanted to commit a shooting in a “crowded urban or suburban environment.”

If you're having trouble reading this, I'm a WaPo subscriber, but I suspect that some of the links on these have gift-tracking stuff enabled: via and via

Dude was proudly displaying the logo of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on his notice board (via)

RT dan @thedansimonson@lingo.lol

@peter just really makes my blood boil that this whole leak is being spun as a “social media issue” and not a massive fucking failure of the clearance investigation process.

How did this turd pass a poly? I guess “have you ever plotted to commit a mass shooting” isn’t one of the questions—though god forbid you copped some adderall in college

[ related topics: Religion Children and growing up Interactive Drama Humor Nature and environment Writing Journalism and Media Pyrotechnics Guns Education ]

Anne Derenne: The Modern Noah's Ark (illustration).

The thing about profiling is holy shit Objective-C has soooo much overhead and as I go down through the Firebase API call tree and see all of the objc_... functions I seriously reconsider my life choices.

When advertising for car culture infringes on the minimal pedestrian facilities....

[ related topics: Photography Sociology Consumerism and advertising California Culture Automobiles ]

RT The Trandalorian 🏳️‍⚧️ @charliejane@wandering.shop

I just found out that Michael Shannon did a bunch of live performances of Neil Young's music some years back, and I can see how that could have prepared him to join the Superman franchise.

Because Neil before Zod.

RT Doctor Memory @memory@blank.org

@charliejane oh my god.

OH MY GOD.

IT'S TRUE. ALL OF IT.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRwPRRgQ/

[ related topics: Religion Music Health Theater & Plays ]

You may have heard about the vinyl resurgence...

Revenues from vinyl jumped 17.2% YoY, to USD $1.2 billion in 2022, while revenues from CDs fell 17.6%, to $483 million.

Yup: Vinyl now generates more than double the annual cash that CDs do in the States (see below).

The article draws from Luminate Data: Top Entertainment Trends for 2023, and apparently this is an increase in vinyl buying because in 2016 ICM found that nearly half of vinyl buyers don’t actually play their records, but at that point only 7% of vinyl buyers didn't have a turntable.

Via Sensible Endowment.

[ related topics: Music Current Events Art & Culture Television Typography Graphic Design ]

Based on Mike Masnick's observations on the KOSA bill, I just wrote to my Senators to oppose KOSA:

The creators of FOSTA are at it again, trying to further regulate the Internet in ways which will harm the most vulnerable. This time they're attacking the ability of kids to communicate.

As someone who came of age in the early days of online communication (the '80s), and found particular solace in being able to escape bullying at schools by finding communities which helped me communicate with my actual peers, and see horizons beyond my limited family culture, I'm very sensitive to attempts to restrict access to communications with ill-defined notions of "harm" to minors.

Not to mention the civil liberties and free speech impacts that bills like this have.

Please help shut this latest misguided attempt to harm children down.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Sociology California Culture Net Culture Community Douglas Adams ]

Just read Murder by the River: A True Story of Homicide, Infidelity, Power and Revenge in a small Southern City by Jerry Burden. My family moved to Chattanooga at the end of 1985, I spent a week or so in the school and said "oh hell no", moved back in with a friend to finish high school in Connecticut, and then... was gonna take a "gap year" in the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and ended up staying 'til mid 1995.

But in the time there, it was a place of legend. Some long-standing settlement, perhaps it was out near Suck Creek, had just gotten electricity. The Signal Mountain murders were on everybody's mind. The Lookout Mountain Adult Motel was swinging along. The Treat Mountain DC-4 had been landed a decade earlier, but tales of smuggling aircraft landed on back roads, or dumping loads at prearranged points, were widespread.

There was all sorts of gossip about money flowing back and forth between good ol' boys, a car dealership the owner whose name I forget who skipped out on his debt and later turned up in Florida under an assumed name, a South Pittsburgh fireworks stand that exploded in the middle of the night (with the subsequent discovery of a burnt-out truck in the wreckage), and, of course, all of the TVA eminent domain corruption (Bet you thought the Snail Darter was about endangered species, which it was, but it was also about people trying to hold on to their land...).

I started river guiding on the Ocoee in, I think, 1989, shortly after the era David Brown recounts in The Whitewater Wars: The Rafters and the River Trip that Saved the Ocoee & The Gauley River Battle, which was in the area of the Benton fireworks disaster (I think that's where the Sunburst outpost was). The local general store near the outpost had a bulletin board that offered moonshine for sale or trade, and local "law" enforcement was legendarily corrupt.

(And this was decades before the Hamilton County sheriff's department had a "hard drive failure" that destroyed evidence in the case of an employee facing 44 criminal charges and 10 lawsuits.)

Anyway, the book took me right back to that, seeing the end of the bootlegging fortunes play out, the trendy nightclubs along Brainerd Road, the separations between the Chattanooga neighborhoods.

If you were in that area at that time, it's a fun quick read.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Interactive Drama Books Sexual Culture Cool Science Nature and environment Aviation Sociology Law Consumerism and advertising Work, productivity and environment Chattanooga Travel Automobiles Pyrotechnics Machinery Currency Education Whitewater Real Estate ]

Using various graphical elements in Unicode for UI design and thinking about how, shortly, with image generation systems like Midjourney and the like we'll abandon Unicode encoding and just go for :description_of_the_glyph_we_want_to_show_here: and it'll all render just fine as long as we're using the same vendor for our platforms....

[ related topics: User Interface Graphics Graphic Design ]

We're doing stuff with the RSS feed.

[ related topics: Content Management ]

Doing more stuff with RSS testing. Work is using this to pick up change notifications...

[ related topics: Content Management Work, productivity and environment ]

I suppose I really should set up a feed just for testing the work system that I'm working on, but just one more can't hurt, right?

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

From a MeFi thread about forgotten songs, comes a decade-old reminiscence: Pinpoint Uncertainty: 21 Years After My Band's "Hit" Song I Receive an Unexpected and Very Touching Fan Letter

[ related topics: Music Gambling ]

I'm hearing reports that six people were arrested during the coronation this morning. That it is still being referred to as a coronation suggests that it was the wrong six.

Hearing lots of reports of butts and nipples on Bluesky, which suggests that it's a performatively heterosexual version of MeWe?

[ related topics: Erotic ]

While walking through a parking lot I realized that ya can't spell Bronco without Ronco, and now I will never be able to see that vehicle without thinking about slicing and dicing.

Some hooligans have defaced the neighborhood and suggested that maybe Mountain View Ave doesn't need to be a racetrack. The temerity!

[ related topics: Photography ]

And no, the warning stripes and the white painted rocks have historically not been enough to protect that pole.

[ related topics: Photography Race ]

I cribbed this sloth from a similar sign I saw up in Portland

[ related topics: Photography Woodworking ]

Roman numerals are still in fashion.

[ related topics: Photography Fashion ]

Yo roll.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Or, you know, you go mo slow.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Snails are always a popular theme

[ related topics: Photography ]

Unicorn crossings. I haven't seen one yet, but be careful

[ related topics: Photography ]

Ewe. Yes, ewe.

[ related topics: Photography ]

I suspect this stop sign has the second lowest compliance rate in the area. The incoming traffic one here would be lower...

[ related topics: Photography ]

I mean, many in the neighborhood have chickens, but so not wrong

[ related topics: Photography Birds ]

What kind of hippy dippy sentiment?

[ related topics: Photography ]

Many many kitties, in fact.

[ related topics: Photography ]

The chickencorn returns! Along with a 20 is plenty.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Another unicorn crossings!

[ related topics: Photography ]

The mythical creature theme continues

[ related topics: Photography ]

Hah. As if anyone's gonna look up from their phone long enough to see this.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Photography ]

If ya can't get their attention with human peril, invoke dogs

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Photography Dogs ]

And, of course, when all else fails invoke popular culture.

[ related topics: Photography Sociology California Culture ]

Saved for the inevitable: Radley Balko: Hi! You've been referred here because you repeated a false claim about California's shoplifting law

Not only did California not "legalize shoplifting," its shoplifting law is still comparatively strict

[ related topics: California Culture ]

Another because I'm sure this grift is gonna come around multiple times, and I didn't link to at least one extensive takedown of the "paper" referenced here: Dave Karpf: Pamela Paul, Cancel Culture Grifters, and the Republic of Letters — It's 2023. How is this possibly still a thing?

The latest entry into this overstuffed binder of photocopied anecdotes comes from Pamela Paul. Her column this week, titled “A paper that says science should be impartial was rejected by major journals. You can’t make this up,” makes it abundantly clear that she has zero familiarity with scientific journals, the peer review process, or how academia works. It’s clear that Paul chose to devote her scarce column inches to this topic because it aligns with her general worldview that there exists a righteous, meritocratic status hierarchy, and that is terribly threatened by those who fail to appreciate the status quo ante. Pamela Paul is a citizen of the Republic of Letters; its borders must be zealously defended.

Here's Keiran Healy's take on the paper.

[ related topics: Books Sociology California Culture ]

Men in dresses abusing kids abuse bankruptcy law to hide their assets: Oakland Catholic Diocese files for bankruptcy due to sex abuse claims

“We believe Bishop Barber does not want these men testifying under oath. He does not want to reveal how many times Bishop [Floyd] Begin, [Oakland’s first Bishop], appears in his secret files,” SNAP’s statement reads. “Bishop Barber does not want the public to know how Fr. [George] Crespin—himself accused multiple times of abuse—managed the many complaints he received while Vicar General.”

SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

[ related topics: Religion Children and growing up Erotic Sexual Culture broadband Bay Area History Copyright/Trademark ]

Washington Post: MLK’s famous criticism of Malcolm X was a ‘fraud,’ author Jonathan Eig finds. Looks like a lot of Alex Haley's Playboy interview with him took some pretty creative liberties based on a transcript of the original recordings:

On page 60 of the 84-page document, Haley asks, “Dr. King, would you care to comment upon the articulate former Black Muslim, Malcolm X?”

King responds: “I have met Malcolm X, but circumstances didn’t enable me to talk with him for more than a minute. I totally disagree with many of his political and philosophical views, as I understand them. He is very articulate, as you say. I don’t want to seem to sound as if I feel so self-righteous, or absolutist, that I think I have the only truth, the only way. Maybe he does have some of the answer. But I know that I have so often felt that I wished that he would talk less of violence, because I don’t think that violence can solve our problem. And in his litany of expressing the despair of the Negro, without offering a positive, creative approach, I think that he falls into a rut sometimes.”

That is not how King’s response appeared in the published interview. While the top part is nearly identical with the transcript, it ended in Playboy like this: “And in his litany of articulating the despair of the Negro without offering any positive, creative alternative, I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice. Fiery, demagogic oratory in the black ghettos, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as he has done, can reap nothing but grief.”

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Nature and environment moron Philosophy ]

Testing a new encrypted messaging app's (Converso) extraordinary claims.

tl;dr: Don't use it.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Cryptography ]

The way to tell that the current wave of AI hype is hogwash, aside from dramatically declining search result quality, is that nobody's harnessing it to solve the obvious problems: email spam, social media moderation, Pinterest in the search results.

When LLMs can solve those issues, I'm interested.

[ related topics: Spam Journalism and Media Monty Python Artificial Intelligence ]

I have never been much of a Led Zeppelin fan, I mean, sure, I can pluck out a few chords to Stairway, but I don't need to sit down and listen to the Immigrant Song, or Black Dog, or whatever. However, as my vocal lessons progress I'm appreciating Robert Plant, and the general musicianship, and the progosity of their arrangements, and a lot more.

Tom Fleet said some positive things about Greta Van Fleet, about them being in the vein of Zeppelin, but making the style their own, specifically suggesting Highway Song and Meeting the Master, and I'm impressed. Josh Kiszka has some vocal chops.

[ related topics: Movies Dogs ]

BlueShield email suggesting that "It’s time to check in on your mental health", and no, no, I don't think it is. I. Am. Fine. Thankyouverymuch.

[ related topics: Photography Health ]

I have one YouTube video that's a few thousand views, but most of mine are longer, and very niche audience, so I'm ecstatic when one crosses 350 views (like Tony Parkes on square dance history), and a bunch of "popular" videos are in the 150 views range.

I've started taking lessons for round dancing (a form of called ballroom), and there are some very nicely produced demonstrations of various steps that... Well... I have found an even more niche hobby, apparently.

[ related topics: Video ]

Hmmm... My 3+ decade old generic multimeter isn't showing any current draw, but when I try to reattach my truck battery lead I'm hearing sparking. Soooo... any suggestions for a good basic digital multimeter? Is it still spend the bucks for the Fluke because I got 3 decades out of this one?

[ related topics: Machinery ]

Sometimes date night involves lying in bed watching a SPUR panel discussion on office to residential conversion, and realizing that it doesn't really apply to Petaluma because we don't have any height...

https://vimeo.com/channels/1558982/712943945

[ related topics: Community Furniture ]

That BSD doesn't have a distro named M is a tremendous marketing opportunity.

[ related topics: Open Source Consumerism and advertising Marketing ]

Republican Admits Key 'Informant' Against Joe Biden Now Missing

"Well, unfortunately, we can't track down the informant," Comer responded on Sunday. "We're hopeful that the informant is still there. The whistleblower knows the informant. The whistleblower is very credible."

Comer also criticized the FBI's efforts to investigate the allegation, before Bartiromo asked him again about the informant, "Did you just say that the whistleblower or the informant is now missing?"

"Well, we're hopeful that we can find the informant," Comer responded, adding that the informant was in the "spy business" and therefore "they don't make a habit of being seen a lot."

[ related topics: Law Enforcement ]

WHO advises not to use non-sugar sweeteners for weight control in newly released guideline

The recommendation is based on the findings of a systematic review of the available evidence which suggests that use of NSS does not confer any long-term benefit in reducing body fat in adults or children. Results of the review also suggest that there may be potential undesirable effects from long-term use of NSS, such as an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and mortality in adults.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Current Events ]

Oh dear, somebody at CitiBank let an SSL cert expire. Presumably they just fired all of the competent people who knew how to host a web page, and it's not that Citi is the next to follow SVB, First Republic, Credit Suisse, and all of the others into oblivion...

[ related topics: Photography ]

Listened to You Know Me Now EP013: The Learning Curve. Nominally about a homeless woman and her stolen dog, but it reinforces that feeling that we need to make space in our society for ways to give those who've experienced deep trauma, often in childhood, things to trust and believe in.

https://www.youknowmenow.com/y...b4-yhn44-8srey-jyc5m-bbpen-ckg6z

[ related topics: Children and growing up Space & Astronomy Education Dogs ]

My own desires in computer languages are evolving even further towards strictly enforced semantics and behavior, making sure that I'm correctly expressing my intent as early in the process as possible. Catch those mismatches at compile time so that I don't have to be manually checking all my arguments for type.

So it amuses me to see the LLM crowd be all "but what if it not only doesn't matter if that's a string or a number, what if the computer just guessed at everything?"

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Reading a bit about Warhol v. Goldsmith, and thinking that the thing that distinguishes this from Shephard Fairey's use of the Mannie Garcia poster is, perhaps that Warhol licensed the image and then it was used outside the agreed-upon bounds of the license, where Fairey just copy and pasted? And the Warhol estate has deeper pockets?

Wish I could find better commentary that explored the differences there.

A few years ago, we were hanging out at Petaluma's "Salute To American Graffiti" old car cruise, and a late teen we were with asked "did the past really smell this bad?"

And I was like "whoah".

Which is the long way of saying that due to a whole lot of volatile hydrocarbons and airborne carcinogens, we're gonna make special effort to stay away from downtown this weekend.

[ related topics: History Pop Culture Automobiles ]

I like a lot of the points raised in Mental Illness Is Not in Your Head — Decades of biological research haven’t improved diagnosis or treatment. We should look to society, not to the brain., but not enough to recommend reading it. It's a review of two books, Mind Fixers: Psychiatry’s Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness and Desperate Remedies: Psychiatry’s Turbulent Quest to Cure Mental Illness, and I'm torn between "oh, that looks interesting", and being even more depressed about the current state of psychiatry and psychology.

But the MeFi thread has a comment from Mr Visible with a whole bunch of resources on the links between pollution and mental illness, and that I had to save for future reference.

[ related topics: Books Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality tolkien Invention and Design ]

Pindo starting to bud, we need to make a decision about clipping them off now, or turning them into wine come November.

[ related topics: Photography Wines and Spirits Beer ]

The opposite of antique is proque.

If you do any sort of internet searching and research, you owe it to yourself to go exploring Tara Calishain's big list of search gizmos. Wanna look at when something in the news was mentioned last time? What people have in common? Find social media feeds and webcams in an area where stuff just went down? It's here.

https://searchgizmos.com/biglist/?amp=1

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Current Events Journalism and Media Net Culture ]

Realization: expressions of emotion are a language that I do not speak natively. I have learned to express in some ways, but I will always "speak" with a accent.

This has been a block to my social fitting in, but is also a hurdle I'm working on with my singing.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Two new web comics:

How to be a werewolf

"Why does everything smell like cheap perfume and french fries?"

"That's the smell of capitalism!"

"Capitalism needs to take it down a notch."

And False Knees, in which a mysterious meteor changes a forest ecosystem.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Astronomy Comics ]

Objection to sexual, LGBTQ content propels spike in book challenges

An analysis of book challenges from across the nation shows the majority were filed by just 11 people

[ related topics: Books Erotic Sexual Culture Television Education ]

This Ask Mefi question about Elvis songs in the public domain exposed a place where the content farms and the "AI"/LLM generated text have already polluted search results and the web to the point where search engine results are unusable.

https://ask.metafilter.com/372...Presley-are-in-the-public-domain

[ related topics: Machinery Artificial Intelligence ]

Guardian: CEO of biggest carbon credit certifier to resign after claims offsets worthless

David Antonioli to step down from Verra, which was accused of approving millions of worthless offsets used by major companies

Last year: Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest certifier are worthless, analysis shows

The nine-month investigation has been undertaken by the Guardian, the German weekly Die Zeit and SourceMaterial, a non-profit investigative journalism organisation. It is based on new analysis of scientific studies of Verra’s rainforest schemes.

[ related topics: Nature and environment Television ]

SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes

SectorC (github) is a C compiler written in x86-16 assembly that fits within the 512 byte boot sector of an x86 machine. It supports a subset of C that is large enough to write real and interesting programs. It is quite likely the smallest C compiler ever written.

Amusing trick with replacing the variable symbol table with a hash...

[ related topics: Shoes Databases Furniture ]

RT Matt Haughey 🦣 @mathowie@xoxo.zone

It’s striking to read an article about a 11yo being shot in the chest by a cop unprovoked (cop is on paid leave pending investigation) versus an overactive cop at a Buc-ees who puts a white guy in cuffs for a few minutes will likely result in immediate firing of the cop.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...mississippi-police-shooting-911/

vs

https://youtu.be/1RQvRwfu9QM

[ related topics: Law Enforcement Race ]

The Florida mom who sought to ban Amanda Gorman’s poem says she’s sorry for promoting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Salinas told JTA she was not a member of either group ["Moms for Liberty" and "Proud Boys"] and said she had just been in attendance at protests where they were both present. A Moms For Liberty media representative also told JTA Salinas was not a member of the group and said, “We denounce antisemitism in all its forms.”

[ related topics: Journalism and Media ]

Gmail's AI summarization of this event calendar email gave me expectations that... well... I'm kinda glad the email didn't manage.

"Scything HOTS Bio Bottoms Ring Out Danger Buckey Boys" sounds like lyrics to me...

[ related topics: Photography tolkien Artificial Intelligence ]

Return with me, if you will, to the days of VHS and 1997: Millie Jackson - "FUCK YOU Symphony" (YouTube video)

Bonus: Tom Cardy: H.Y.C.Y.BH? (Official Video) (Have you checked your butt hole?)

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Movies Video ]

That thing where I'm doing arpeggios while working on the high part of my range, and suddenly realize that I'm up an octave from where I thought I should be.

Definitely need to find something to do with this voice beyond square dance calling, but do not need another hobby.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Even a few years ago, if you told me I'd be casually throwing around 25k on a side images on a laptop in ImageMagick, I'd have scoffed. (It didn't do well with the 40k version)

But now tonight I'm trying to get CVS to accept a couple of 8k on a side JPEGs for printing, 'cause I mucked up my landscape/portrait on my 3k on a side ones for tiling the Milky Way on a couple of posters...

It's a crop from https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1242a/ , and I guess we're gonna take this 3'x6' print and do something else with it...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

I have been trying to make various different Android apps into a home jukebox, from copying files on to the tablet's SD card, to various media server solutions, and they all suck.

Before I write this myself, has someone written a simple browser app that you can point at an HTTP folder structure of MP3 files, and browse and manage a playlist off of that?

This should be easy...

[ related topics: Music Journalism and Media ]

Look, you can try all of the wacky anime mascots you want, but none of them can compete with the weird of regular BART riders....

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay...to-try-and-attract-youth-riders/

[ related topics: Current Events California Culture Trains Public Transportation ]

Code it like it's going to be operated by a 50-something tech expert trying to help his non-technical 80-something.

#HolyFuck #DoubleFacepalm #KaiserAffiliatesLookingAtYou #YesAppleAsWell

Screwed up and printed the posters the wrong way for Charlene's project, and now we have this extra 3'x6' shot of the Milky Way to find a place for.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Announcing GrumpyPlayer: the audio player for old tablets and a home HTTP server. No Plex logins. No trying to keep weird-ass servers running. No Java or npm or Ruby or other bullshit. No ID3 tag confusion.

Just put it in a web accessible folder, symlink ./Music to your .mp3 files, tap a folder or file to add it to the playlist, tap a song in the playlist to start playing.

https://github.com/danlyke/GrumpyPlayer/

[ related topics: Music Software Engineering Sports ]

Quite the traffic jam waiting for the D St bridge.

[ related topics: Photography ]

I say I'm going to have to go back and relisten to podcasts, and never do, but this episode of Switched on Pop with Dan Tepfer talking about the narrative structure of the Bach Inventions was a good if whirlwind overview of music theory.

https://switchedonpop.com/epis...ventions-reinventions-dan-tepfer

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music ]

If I forgive GitHub everything else, gamifying incentives for people who have absolutely no other interest in project to come by and post on my to-do items "Can you please elaborate the issue?" should be enough for someone's eternal torment.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

I'm a Mac user because clean package management and end-to-end build systems are for Linux nerds, and putting a buggy slow UI on top of half a half-baked Un*x-like system is definitely worth it, because this way my entire user experience is based around a continued attempt to upsell me to cloud services I don't need!

F*cking Ruby versionitis mucking up Fastlane. And whatever you do, *do not* let yourself get lulled into automatically migrating from Intel to M series platforms. Copy it yourself

[ related topics: Free Software User Interface Open Source Macintosh ]

Thinking about how people are working on prompts to get around LLM safety controls, and how that contrasts with "I bet none of my friends will share this" or "This is just for fun" or "How popular is your name?"

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Dear Enphase: I am skeptical that from midnight to 6AM my system was continuously generating 124 Wh/hr.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Office discussion led to asking Bard for a table of the population of Caribbean nations, sorted. It not only sorted them wrong, it gave numbers that disagree with Google.

I didn't dig deeper than the Google above-the-results card on those numbers (which are often hilariously wrong on their own), but it's a good reminder to not trust the outputs from such things.

Especially don't bring them to conversations with me about policy, because I will check if it matters...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Community Furniture ]

Here's the Bard table that's not sorted correctly and presenting questionable numbers.

[ related topics: Photography Furniture ]

The interesting thing is that, yes, Google's summary card disagreed with Bard, but that within the front page of Google results various sites also had a wide span of values for the population of the Dominican Republic. Wikipedia claiming 10,694,700, World Population Review suggesting 11,323,179. But it's a good reminder to not use LLMs for anything where sorting or precision or accuracy matter.

[ related topics: Photography ]