Flutterby™! From 2023-08-01 to 2023-08-31

RT John Cutting @jcutting@vivaldi.net

A passenger airline client is developing the complicated scheduling tools to ensure that pregnant employees can minimize working in states with actively dangerous restrictions on reproductive healthcare. Pilots also need to rethink where to divert if a passenger has a prenatal medical emergency.

The nearest airports are not necessarily places where care can be provided. This is a major safety, moral, and reputational risk, and it's damned shameful that we have medical "dead zones" in America

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Ethics Aviation Work, productivity and environment ]

Some years ago, I started to look into creating my own data set for training a Haar Cascade for facial recognition on my own images. I quickly discovered that my own image library was insufficient, and very white. And as I started looking at other data sets out there, I quickly ran into concerns about the sources and license terms of the data.

Be interesting to see some notion of ethical sharing of training sets come out of this new discussion of actually open "AI".

[ related topics: Language Books Ethics Invention and Design Community Artificial Intelligence Race ]

I think this could have been a little bit more, but that may be because I had lunch with Marissa the day before and we had much of the discussion. It was, however, one of those talks that helped me make some additional reconceptualizations of programming and think about things a bit more, especially as some of the conversations at the conference have me pondering all sorts of issues about community and programming language as religious endeavors, and the similarities between comments and stage direction.

Marissa Skudlarek: Two Kinds of Scripting: What Writing Plays Has Taught Me About Writing Python Programs — North Bay Python 2023 (YouTube video)

[ related topics: Religion Movies Software Engineering Writing Monty Python California Culture Community Video Conferences Python ]

A good essay on language policing, what's going on with mastodon.art, reclaiming words, and accepting communities: Two Braids: Reclaiming Agency on Mastodon.

[ related topics: Writing Art & Culture Community ]

Historical database of sundown towns, by state.

[ related topics: Law Enforcement Maps and Mapping Databases ]

Glamour of the Spheres: Mrs. Vera’s queer survival, in glorious adornment

Michael Johnstone and David Faulk tell the story of their indelible style creations in ' The Unabridged Mrs. Vera’s Daybook'

Charlene and I went down to The Castro to see this in the theater, and found great inspiration in it and really enjoyed it. And now it's available streaming!

[ related topics: Theater & Plays ]

Something something emperor clothes... Today in "no shit?": Fortune: Tech experts are starting to doubt that ChatGPT and A.I. ‘hallucinations’ will ever go away: ‘This isn’t fixable’

“But since they only ever make things up, when the text they have extruded happens to be interpretable as something we deem correct, that is by chance,” Bender said. “Even if they can be tuned to be right more of the time, they will still have failure modes — and likely the failures will be in the cases where it’s harder for a person reading the text to notice, because they are more obscure.”

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Artificial Intelligence Clothing ]

RT Heather Rose Jones @heatherrosejones@wandering.shop

All the “funny” memes about “the extraterrestrials show up to take charge of Earth and we fall at their feet in gratitude” seem a lot less funny if you substitute “fascists” for “extraterrestrials” and recognize the parallel dynamics.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Flowers ]

This is really good: The LLMentalist Effect: how chat-based Large Language Models replicate the mechanisms of a psychic’s con

That’s when I remembered, triggered by a blog post by Terence Eden on the prevalence of Forer statements in chatbot replies. I have heard this before.

This specific blend of awe, disbelief, and dread all sound like the words of a victim of a mentalist scam artist—psychics.

[ related topics: Weblogs moron Art & Culture ]

We’re now finding out the damaging results of the mandated return to the office–and it’s worse than we thought

We’re now finding out the damaging consequences of the mandated return to office. And it’s not a pretty picture. A trio of compelling reports—the Greenhouse Candidate Experience report, the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED), and Unispace’s Returning for Good report—collectively paint a stark picture of this brewing storm.

Via

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Economics ]

I am intrigued: Veilid Framework for encrypted transmissions, from the cDc (Cult of the Dead Cow), is having a launch party at DefCon 31 on the 11th.

Via Washington Post: Hacking group plans system to encrypt social media and other apps

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy Journalism and Media Cryptography ]

You know what I really love about YouTube? That at some point their UX folks said "fuck your back button or your linking or whatever, we're gonna randomly keep the video playing except when we're not", and somehow folks said "uh, okay".

[ related topics: Video ]

Well, the plaque spam suggests that my name is on another one, US patent 11692845. Some day I'll actually make money from one of these.

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Spam Monty Python Currency ]

Date night at the Petaluma Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee, came for the Active Transportation Plan visioning, now hearing about SMART path wayfinding.

[ related topics: Pedal Power Bicycling ]

I should sit through more city meetings, but every time I do I'm impressed by and grateful for those who give their time and attention to this process. The prep work some folks give to this process so that they can ask informed questions is really impressive.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Simon Willison's North Bay Python talk on LLMs is up, and I recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Jth_ijZyY

Notes at:

https://simonwillison.net/2023/Aug/3/weird-world-of-llms/

[ related topics: Movies Monty Python California Culture Guns Python ]

Humanity seems to be in a race to create a room temperature superconductor, and a race to redefine what "room temperature" means...

Flying OAK through Midway to Detroit to visit family near Toledo. Some masks in Oakland, I'm the only one I've seen in Midway. In transit phone calls and text messages suggest family visit is gonna be... A visit.

[ related topics: Nature and environment Aviation Bay Area Sociology Public Transportation ]

We're doomed. "I have a huge carbon footprint" in vinyl letters across the top of a windshield, at Jeep fest in Toledo OH.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Did you validate? Have you ever validated? Would you like to validate?

[ related topics: Photography ]

My niece has just made me aware of the "Barbie Cutie Reveal" line of toys, and I had no idea furries were this mainstream, and I am kinda pleased with this development.

I have a distant family member and her boyfriend visiting for a week. Both very intelligent, PhD student (physics/astrophysics) types. Also rock climbers/boulder types and very outdoorsy healthy. Also vegan and chaste. He's sleeping in the RV while she's upstairs. They vibrate with pent up sexual energy. I'm not sure if it's religious, family values or just masochism.

I'm trying to respect their decisions, but the urge to leave "The Joy of Sex" or the "Kama Sutra" out with a tub of coconut oil or grill some salmon/steaks is strong. If they can resist, so can I.

All of a sudden I see intense veganism as symptom of self-denial masochism and it almost makes sense.

Side note: current me goes vegetarian for a few days at a time. Easier in the summer.

[ related topics: Religion Interactive Drama Erotic Sexual Culture Health Sociology ]

At the Toledo Zoo, there was a two legged beaked alpaca, and these feathered Flemish Giant Rabbits. I'm beginning to think these signs may be misleading...

[ related topics: Photography ]

Margaret McMullan talks about Justice Sotomayor talking at her event. How I ‘bribed’ a justice to take a no-expenses-paid trip to Mississippi

The standard royalty rate for authors is less than 10 percent of the sales price. I don’t know anything about Sotomayor’s deal with her publishers, but 10 percent would make her cut of the 1,500 books our foundation purchased approximately $2,250 — for which she had to fly to Mississippi and give two presentations. During the hottest month of the year.

Was that a bribe? You be the judge.

Gift link: https://wapo.st/3DL60pH

[ related topics: Books Ethics Law Law Enforcement Travel ]

No wonder kids these days have trouble learning basic concepts like colors...

[ related topics: Children and growing up Photography Education ]

At DTW waiting for my late flight to MDW, and then to OAK, a connection that I am assured that I can make. We will see....

[ related topics: Photography Nature and environment Aviation ]

Your ohshit of the day: Science: ‘We’re changing the clouds.’ An unintended test of geoengineering is fueling record ocean warmth

But researchers are now waking up to another factor, one that could be filed under the category of unintended consequences: disappearing clouds known as ship tracks. Regulations imposed in 2020 by the United Nations’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) have cut ships’ sulfur pollution by more than 80% and improved air quality worldwide. The reduction has also lessened the effect of sulfate particles in seeding and brightening the distinctive low-lying, reflective clouds that follow in the wake of ships and help cool the planet. The 2020 IMO rule “is a big natural experiment,” says Duncan Watson-Parris, an atmospheric physicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “We’re changing the clouds.”

[ related topics: Invention and Design Space & Astronomy Machinery ]

Uhhh... Yay, "AI", I guess?

Google's units parser app appears to be borked, interpreting "mm" after a number with no space as meters. Works with a space.

Via https://mastodon.social/@selkcip/110864936777402377

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy Artificial Intelligence ]

Thinking about how currency is used as a proxy for work, but the distribution of value created between labor and capital is a policy decision...

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Currency ]

Oh, doh, here's the screenshot from my Google units conversion search that confused millimeters and meters

[ related topics: Photography ]

Temptations of an open-source browser extension developer

Over the years, I have received many proposals to monetize this extension so I think I'll just start posting them here for fun (but not for profit). The main reason I continue to maintain this extension is because I can hardly trust others to not fall for one of these offers. I'm fortunate to have a job that pays well enough to allow me to keep my moral compass and ignore all of these propositions. I realize that not everyone has the same financial security so hopefully this thread would shed some light on what kind of pressure is put on extension developers.

[ related topics: Ethics Heinlein ]

Upcoming North SF Bay area square dance gigs! Ongoing, Fifth Thursdays with Circle 'n Squares in Monroe Hall in Santa Rosa (I think this is gonna be SSD through Plus), and select Fridays, August 18th and September 15th, at Wischemann Hall in Sebastopol, SSD through Advanced, whatever the floor wants.

If you square dance, come challenge me on my assertions that it's always the caller's fault.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Bay Area California Culture ]

Study Finds Air Pollution May Be Fueling a Rise in Drug-Resistant Infections — Antibiotic resistance spread as a result of air pollution caused 480,000 premature deaths in 2018, the authors estimate.

The paper, published Monday in Lancet Planetary Health, concludes that particulate air pollution (PM2.5), which comes from burning fossil fuels for energy, industrial processes, and transportation, may be one of the largest contributors to the spread of antibiotic resistance worldwide. The link between the two phenomena has strengthened over time, according to the research.

[ related topics: Health ]

Just noting tis so I can find it later. 21208(a) CVC does indeed create a "separate but equal" situation on roads with a bike lane except where "When reasonably necessary to leave the bicycle lane to avoid debris or other hazardous conditions."

So, yeah, "reasonably necessary".

https://leginfo.legislature.ca...ml?sectionNum=21208.&lawCode=VEH

[ related topics: Pedal Power Bicycling ]

Some days I struggle, and some days Rootl is easy... https://rootlgame.net/

Rootl game #72

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

🟩🟩🟩⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

⬛🟩⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

[ related topics: Games ]

All of these concerns about shrinking attention spans are just a ploy by big attention to sell more attention.

Home ownership is just an endless cycle of trying to find a place to store the leftover flashing tape, being excited that you've finally used up all of the flashing tape, and then having to buy more flashing tape.

[ related topics: Pedal Power Bicycling ]

Gotta go get some paint and trim and finish this puppy up.

[ related topics: Photography ]

And need to do the interior trim

[ related topics: Photography ]

I know, fuck Nextdoor, but fuck Nextdoor suspending Charlene's account over real name issues. She's gonna send them a picture of her ID, but fuck Nextdoor.

Saved off for when I inevitably run across this book and am tempted to read it: Alex Guzey: Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep" Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors

[ related topics: Books ]

Was trying to find information this morning on food safety and cyanoacrylates. Amazing how the SEO spam has completely overrun Google, and how the vestige of usefulness that could have been there has been destroyed by the semantic matching which means that it was showing me results for all sorts of other adhesives.

[ related topics: Spam Food Monty Python ]

Whoah. The subject of the Michael Lewis book The Blind Side has sued Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy alleging that they used a conservatorship rather than an adoption in order to profit off of him. What We Know About Michael Oher and His New Legal Petition

"Since at least August of 2004, Conservators have allowed Michael, specifically, and the public, generally, to believe that Conservators adopted Michael and have used that untruth to gain financial advantages for themselves and the foundations which they own or which they exercise control," the document reads. "All monies made in said manner should in all conscience and equity be disgorged and paid over to the said ward, Michael Oher."

[ related topics: Books Invention and Design Law Handicaps & Disabilities ]

NPR: He [Russell Moore] was a top church [Southern Baptist Convention] official who criticized Trump. He says Christianity is in crisis. He says:

I don't think we fix it by fighting a war for the soul of evangelicalism. I really don't think we can fix it at the movement level. And that's one of the reasons why, when I'm talking to Christians who are concerned about this, my counsel is always "small and local." I think we have to do something different and show a different way. And I see in history every time that something renewing and reviving has happened, it's happened that way. It's happened at a small level with people simply refusing to go with the stream of the church culture at the time.

Drawing from that story:

• Raw Story: Pastor alarmed after Trump-loving congregants deride Jesus' teachings as 'weak'
• Newsweek: Evangelicals Are Now Rejecting 'Liberal' Teachings of Jesus

[ related topics: Religion Humor History Sociology California Culture ]

Prominent GOP donor who takes “offense” to being called a groomer gets 21 years for child sex abuse

From May to December of 2020, the then-30-year-old Lazzaro allegedly paid $50,000 to his then-19-year-old associate Gisela Castro Medina to arrange meetings with “broken” 14-, 15-, and 16-year-old girls that they found via social media and the “sugar daddy” website Seeking Arrangements.

DOJ: Anton “Tony” Lazzaro Sentenced to 21 Years in Prison for Child Sex Trafficking

In handing down the sentence, Chief Judge Schiltz commented on the “soulless, mechanical nature of Mr. Lazzaro’s crimes, like a sex trafficking assembly line,” adding that the only two people Mr. Lazzaro showed any remorse for were “himself and Jeffrey Epstein, who Mr. Lazzaro called ‘his brother.’”

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Nature and environment Law Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment Law Enforcement Gambling ]

Too real: McSweeney's: You’re a Cyclist Who Was Just Struck by a Car Driver. Here’s Why It Was Your Fault

[ related topics: Automobiles ]

So, yeah, not only did mobile Chrome search send me a highlight of a page that's reporting erroneous information from ChatGPT, Bard is parroting the same search results now. It's LLM poison, all the way up the AI stack.

[ related topics: Photography Artificial Intelligence ]

Considering registering a domain name riffing on NextDoortion, for the act of extorting participation and fact-checking out of a community by threatening to destroy civil discourse unless we participate in their ad revenue scheme.

[ related topics: Community ]

California Bicycle Advocates Call on Elected Leaders to Address Real Causes of Deadly Collisions: Road Design

In July of 2023, a person driving a van hit a 15-year-old bike rider in Encinitas who later died of his injuries. Witnesses reported that the teenager “did everything right,” following the rules of the road, which his father publicly stated that he “loved teaching him.” In response, the Encinitas City Council declared an “e-bike emergency.” A front-page New York Times article used this tragic death to advance the theory that teenagers riding e-bikes are behind a rise in collisions. The author singles out teens as the most dangerous riders but lumps all e-bikes into the same category and fails to mention the role of unsafe infrastructure in this and other crashes involving e-bike riders.</span>

[ related topics: Children and growing up Health Invention and Design California Culture Graphic Design Pedal Power New York Bicycling ]

RT 🚲 @dx@social.ridetrans.it

@enobacon "Get your kid off that bike! It's not safe with me on the road!"

[ related topics: Bay Area Bicycling ]

Okay, after all sorts of snarking about LLMs and search, I just asked Google Bard "Can you give me a list of popular songs with a 2/2 or 4/4 beat close to 126 beats per minute?"

And the resulting list, and additional list when I added "Are there any instrumentals that match those criteria?", gives me some things to dig into...

Edit: Okay, it's all bullshit.

Greta is worn out and thinks we should run the AC.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Spilled coffee and Apple's insistence on using weird keymaps (who maps the Alt key to Option and the Windows key to Cmd?) means I'm discovering all the funky glyphs that could possibly be accidental variable names today...

[ related topics: Apple Computer Microsoft Maps and Mapping ]

Down to San Rafael to call for Tam Twirlers, watching the tankers glide by.

[ related topics: Photography Bay Area ]

rock_lobster is a minimal Linux kernel module that offers up random lyrics from the B-52's Rock Lobster on /proc/lobster, and I'm storing it here so I can find it when I need to write a minimal kernel module.

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source ]

100 years ago: BERKELEY LOSS $9,000,000: 3,000 HOMELESS, 100 INJURED - The San Francisco Examiner, Wednesday, September 19, 1923

In Marin, a wildfire on September 17 burned from Ignacio through Lucas and Nicasio Valleys, to Woodacre, Lagunitas, and Bolinas Ridge. This happened at the same time as huge fires burned in Sonoma County and in Berkeley, along with 15 other counties in California.

[ related topics: Star Wars Bay Area California Culture ]

Ohio doctor who claimed covid vaccines ‘magnetize’ people gets her medical license taken away

This doctor said vaccines magnetize people. Ohio suspended her medical license.

State Medical Board of Ohio: RE: Case Number No: 22-CRF-0168: Sherri Tenpenny formal report

[ related topics: Health Law ]

The /. link to the WSJ article says "Microsoft Struggles to Gain on Google Despite Its Head Start in AI Search".

I'mma go out on a limb here and say /Despite/Because Of/.

Give us back actual freakin' search, damn it.

https://slashdot.org/story/23/...pite-its-head-start-in-ai-search

[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron Artificial Intelligence ]

Pondering yesterday's re-toot suggesting that “it costs nothing to be kind” involves a lot more effort than neurotypical people think, and how being a whitewater guide in the days of film, which gave me several picture sets a day in which I could evaluate and work on my smile in a way that I could help tune that part of my face for how other people interpreted.

https://mastodon.social/@lzg/110902990326122818

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Douglas Adams Whitewater ]

Set up an experiment with an HTTPS endpoint on a colo server, proxying via HTTP to a home server, and thinking about what it means that we have to treat Internet connections as essentially compromised, and probably need to do so on my internal home network as well...

[ related topics: broadband Net Culture ]

Beware Google results: Call Kurtis Investigates: Placer County couple with baby scammed escaping Maui. They Googled for the Southwest Airlines phone number, which gave them a scammer that hijacked their flight credits and left them without flights. Which echoes my experience buying theater tickets.

Here's the big takeaway: Never trust the top three to four Google search results. They are usually sponsored; essentially, ads anyone can take out. Scammers take advantage of that, and of you, especially after a disaster. Call the wrong number or click the wrong link, you could end up scammed.

Via.

[ related topics: Aviation Theater & Plays Current Events ]

Finally, after years of "meaning to get around to it", I finally laid in the 3/4" slot for running a carriage on the router table.

[ related topics: Photography Sports Furniture Woodworking ]

I had a bunch of thin strips, and a need for some long reach calipers for applications as diverse as measuring the thickness of a carved arch top guitar face to the radius of light fixtures.

[ related topics: Music Photography ]

All the feels to my poly friend dealing with the death of their lover and processing their feelings about being unrecognized by the lover's family and trying to support their metamor and... there's a whole lot of complexity in those relationships and the way we treat them in this society.

All the hugs to those who navigate it.

[ related topics: Sociology ]

Yay! Zoom using an external speaker but the internal MacBook mic appears to be working, which means we have a chance of pulling off this hybrid Know Before You Grow meeting on Wednesday, with Tony Jordan of the Parking Reform Network.

Petalumans, wanna join us at the Cavanagh Center at 7?

[ related topics: broadband Work, productivity and environment ]

I was searching for "I Didn't Like It The First Time (The Spinach Song)" by way of lyrics, and Google was getting very confused....

[ related topics: Photography Gambling ]

Listened to the recent episode of Your Undivided Attention with Esther Perel on Artificial Intimacy, and...

I feel like I need to go find what Siouxsie Q or Tristan Taormino or Susie Bright have to say on this. I think there's a lot of interesting space to explore here that I'm not exposing myself to, and should be.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Space & Astronomy ]

The Culture War Funded by Russian Roubles

Between 2009-18, anti-gender actors from within the European Union, Russia and the US have spent at least $707.2 million in Europe, with the Russian Federation making up 26.6% of that spend, according to research published by the European Parliamentary Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Rights.

Wikipedia on Byline Times, because I wondered about the source.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Aviation History Sociology Civil Liberties California Culture Community ]

Adrianna Tan linked to Chinese Cooking Demystified — The 1500 year old sourdough that powers Dim Sum (老面) (YouTube video), talking about "Laomian", "old dough", and why this isn't just sourdough starter, but might be approximateable with a rice wine yeast to kick off the starter...

[ related topics: Movies Food Wines and Spirits Video ]

That feeling when *all* of the sirens start going off, and then Watch Duty pings on the phone.

Ghost Fire, out west of town, so far small.

[ related topics: Movies Pyrotechnics ]

Ask MeFi: Songs with lyrics about food (especially pie!)

[ related topics: Food ]

Saved off for next time I'm tuning up a stringed instrument: Pro Guitar Tech's Most Hated Things (and how to fix them) (YouTube video)

[ related topics: Music Movies Video ]

Holy shit. At least 30 seconds of out loud laughter at the last two words of the latest episode of Where The Stars Fell.

I feel like I have managed my social media contacts well. I have seen two fake sensationalist pictures that were alleged to be from the tropical storm in southern California, and one of those was in the context of dunking on Ted Cruz for his forwarding of same...

[ related topics: Photography Journalism and Media California Culture ]

When a Coke Plant Closed in Pittsburgh, Cardiovascular ER Visits Plunged

A week after one of Pittsburgh’s most polluting plants closed in 2016, cardiovascular ER visits in the nearby communities dropped by 42 percent and continued to shrink every week for years, according to a recent study published in the journal Environmental Research Health. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular hospitalizations also decreased.

An interrupted time series analysis of the cardiovascular health benefits of a coal coking operation closure

DOI 10.1088/2752-5309/ace4ea

[ related topics: Drugs Cool Science Health Current Events Community Gardening ]

Hmmmm... Dear people with whom I have online accounts, including my favorite ISP, Sonic.com, please never ever do the "....follow our link HERE and confirm your information..." thing in your emails, because damn that trains users to be phished.

[ related topics: Machinery Trains ]

Ugh. Helping an elderly friend of mine last night with a passport renewal, he'd saved off a link from an earlier search before stopping to ask me to assist, and... I don't know whether he got it from Edge/Bing/whatever, or Google, but it was definitely someone trying to insert themselves in between him and the State Department, likely for nefarious purposes.

We need to figure out how to stop search engines from letting crap like this happen.

Oh this is cool: From this toot:

from reddit /TIL: #TIL a family in Georgia claimed to have passed down a song in an unknown language from the time of their enslavement; scientists identified the song as a genuine West African funeral song in the Mende language that had survived multiple transmissions from mother to daughter over multiple centuries

#BlackMastodon #BlackTwitter

Amelia's Song | Harris Neck Land Trust

[ related topics: Sociology Race Real Estate ]

RT Karl Higley @karlhigley@recsys.social

“AI” enthusiast: i have made a chatbot that answers your questions

Software developers: you fucked up a perfectly good search engine is what you did. look at it. it's got hallucinations

[ related topics: Software Engineering Machinery Artificial Intelligence ]

2-clicks to install Windows 11/10 without the third-party bloatware

Apparently the trick is to select "English (World)" when installing. Via

[ related topics: Weblogs Microsoft ]

Just learned some dirty secrets about how the Objective-C Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) works, and now I'm like "fuck it, malloc() a buffer, build my string, and only then `[NSString stringWithUTF8String:...]` all the things".

"With your Zoom One plan, you’ll experience unlimited meetings, team chat, productivity apps, and more."

Does... does... does experiencing "unlimited meetings", "team chat", and "productivity apps" sound like anyone else's idea of a literal hell?

This feels more like a threat than a marketing email.

[ related topics: Photography Consumerism and advertising Work, productivity and environment Marketing ]

You know all of the racist "OMG, TikTok is a tool of an oppressive Chinese surveillance state" bullshit that's flying around? Yeah, turns out that it's propaganda to try to strong-arm TikTok into being a tool of another oppressive surveillance state.

Gizmodo: The Feds Asked TikTok for Lots of Domestic Spying Features

“As has been widely reported, we’ve been working with CFIUS for well over a year to implement a national security agreement and have invested significant resources in implementing a firewall to isolate U.S. user data,” a TikTok spokesperson said. “Today, all new protected U.S. user data is stored in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure in the U.S. with tightly controlled and monitored gateways. We are doing more than any peer company to safeguard U.S. national security interests.”

Of course there's lots of stuff in this article about how TikTok is being more cooperative than other sites in sharing info with US intelligence agencies, but I think we can pretty much assume that all of the social media sites are doing so.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Aviation Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment Television Databases ]

The most interesting thing about using Google News search to find information about the death of Yevgeniy Prigozhin in an aviation incident in Russia is seeing which news outlets are reporting this as a plane "crash" vs as "downed by Russian air defences".

[ related topics: Cool Science Aviation Current Events Woodworking ]

Want to have your genes tested? It might be genetic

People in a genetic database have segments of DNA in common unexpectedly often.

Nature Genetics: Studying the genetics of participation using footprints left on the ascertained genotypes DOI: 10.1038/s41588-023-01439-2

[ related topics: Nature and environment Bioinformatics Databases ]

United States of America v. Roman Storm and Roman Semenov:

The Tornado Cash founders were aware of the Ronin Network hack on the day that tI was announced, and immediately recognized the likelihood that the hackers would use the Tornado Cash service to launder the proceeds. On or about March 29, 2022, ROMAN SEMENOV, the defendant, sent a message to ROMAN STORM, the defendant, and to CC-1 through the Encrypted App, saying "Have you seen a $600M hack today? Shit might seriously hit the fan now." SEMENOV then sent a link to a Tweet issued by the official Twitter account of the Ronin Network, describing the hack. Later that day, CC-1 sent a message to STORM and SEMENOV through the Encrypted App, saying "Heya, anyone around to chat about axie? Would like to ask a few general questions about how one goes about cashing out 600mil."

[ related topics: broadband Journalism and Media Law Enforcement Cryptography Skating ]

That painted bulb out sure is discouraging illegal and unsafe behavior. Drivers are definitely not peeling out right over the paint or anything. So glad that we can keep our neighborhood safe with some perfunctory markings.

[ related topics: Photography Bay Area ]

Well. We had a miscommunication over venue rental, so our hybrid Know Before You Grow meeting ended up on the steps of the venue, with folks encouraged to go home and participate via Zoom. Our speaker this evening was Tony Jordan of the Parking Reform Network, and he was great, and I think everyone needs to watch the video.

https://youtu.be/dEc2SeFHp_g

[ related topics: Movies broadband Video ]

I'm finding the juxtaposition of all of the Putin/Prigozhin "windows" jokes and discussion of Giuliani's "broken windows" policy amusing...

[ related topics: Microsoft Community ]

A little Mastodon thread about story about a theater usher, Yo-Yo Ma, and a career in music

[ related topics: Music Theater & Plays ]

Gizmodo: The College Board Tells TikTok and Facebook Your SAT Scores

“We do not share SAT scores or GPAs with Facebook or TikTok, and any other third parties using pixel or cookies,” said a College Board spokesperson. “In fact, we do not send any personally identifiable information (PII) through our pixels on the site. In addition, we do not use SAT scores or GPAs for any targeting.”

After receiving this comment, Gizmodo shared a screenshot of the College Board sending GPAs and SAT scores to TikTok using a pixel. The spokesperson then acknowledged that the College Board’s website actually does share this data.

[ related topics: Graphics Education ]

Business done right: Student writes Obsidian sync server, worries about infringement, CEO of Obsidian pops on with attaboys and gentle discussion of trademarks.

Via

[ related topics: Current Events Community ]

I have a simple flat file markdown to HTML system that I use for a couple of my web sites. It has a few annoying parser bugs that I could fix, but I'd really rather contribute to some other project, or support a commercial app.

It was built to replace Mediawiki with a flat file system.

The only thing I want is for my URLs to remain stable, so I want it to be able to find my old images, and output my files and internal links in a particular way.

Any recommendations?

British Museum director steps down amid theft investigation

Confusingly, this is about theft from the British Museum, not so much by.

Unrelated, nobody's yet taken Vicky Osterweil's In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action from our front yard library...

[ related topics: Language Books Art & Culture ]

RT Erin Beatrix :heart_trans: @unworthyBeatrix@girlcock.club

🎶 I am the very model of a modern useless lesbian,

I've mastered not a single art from music to the thespian,

I can not for the life of me tell when I'm being flirted with,

The common refrain from our friends is "when will you two fucking kiss?"

I haven't learned to rust or C, can barely start a document,

I don't own swords or dogs, don't have a single lesbi-complement

and if we have a second date then most importantly of all,

I do not have a license so I can not drive our date U-haul. 🎶

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music Sexual Culture Art & Culture Dogs Archival ]

Whoah: Wordpress — Introducing the 100-Year Plan: Secure Your Online Legacy for a Century

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

And just like that, Chrome's increasingly annoying treatment of Google identities vs Chrome identities has made Safari my work browser.

(Personal browser was already Firefox)

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Greta so wants to make contact and play, Bagheera is not amused.

[ related topics: Photography ]

The most amazing thing about the "see who died in horrible accident" phishing scams on Facebook is how Facebook websites that when someone's account is compromised, their friends can't fucking escape from those posts. For days. This shit should be easy to identify, so clearly FB wants accounts fished.

C4 - C in only 4 functions. A minimalist C implementation.

"The people that are against this hotel, watch their comments, and then follow them around Thanksgiving and Christmas, and they're also complaining that they don't get to see their grandkids." 19:23 or so...

https://livxplore.podbean.com/...-proposed-building-form-overlay/

[ related topics: Movies Travel ]

The plane discussion resulted in a neighbor dropping a cigar box of moulding plane parts on me. Now I'm trying to figure out how this assembles into a moulding plane. I suspect not all of the parts are here....

[ related topics: Photography Community Woodworking ]

More like this, please! Scripted road markings to help disorient drivers and help them navigate more safely.

https://www.euronews.com/next/...rs-with-crisscrossed-white-lines

[ related topics: Race hubris ]

At the Petaluma Blacks For Community Development annual picnic, need to steal the Sonoma County Children's Museum design for a pneumatic rocket launcher. But they had best results at 30PSI, and with a proper dump valve...

[ related topics: Children and growing up Photography Space & Astronomy Art & Culture Graphic Design Community ]

Different angle on that plane body

[ related topics: Photography Woodworking ]

Love this: French village, Bauné, disorients drivers with crisscrossed white lines.

[ related topics: Race hubris ]

The flyer whines "CA.gov is adding $1.12 in taxes and fees on a gallon of gas. The other states average only 29�." I'm not gonna give these assholes, "Californians for Affordable and Reliable Energy", a link, but holy shit yes and it should be $11.20 and fuck off you climate destroying petroleum industry shills.

[ related topics: Politics Photography Global Warming Government ]

Hanging out yesterday evening at Tara Firma Farm for the Evi Ladin barn dance. Good reminder of good calling, but also how different that activity is from Modern Western Square Dance.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Podcast listening while I do stuff today, and... I forget what got me to listen to the first episode, because Star Wars fan fic from the perspective of an Empire grunt isn't the thing that'd grab me, but I am so impressed by the sound design of Fearless Fred Presents: Mud 79.

https://curiouscast.ca/podcast...d-79-a-fan-made-star-wars-story/

[ related topics: Star Wars History Space & Astronomy Graphic Design Aviation - Helicopters ]

Ugh. I don't know what's going on today, but Google doing any job at all of managing my personal identities vs my work identities seems to be completely fucked.

Keep getting logged out of Jira, Firebase keeps choking, it's pretty awful.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Heinlein ]

Want password sharing between web browsers on different machines, but want to own all of the infrastructure yourself? Run your own Firefox Accounts Server

[ related topics: Open Source ]

How a whistleblower says Booz Allen Hamilton defrauded the government (gift link). BAH settled for $377M and their stock went up. So, yeah, just a cost of doing business.

As someone who's worked on projects that were accounted for by/through them to comply with government accounting rules. Clearly that's not working out well.

[ related topics: moron Work, productivity and environment Economics ]

So Facebook asks moderators to approve someone's participation in a group, without telling us what that participation is supposed to be, and then happily tells us that their post has been made, but damned if I can find the freakin' thing.

How come big social media sites don't provide the tools necessary for volunteer labor to keep our participation there high quality?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Journalism and Media ]

404 Media: ‘Life or Death:’ AI-Generated Mushroom Foraging Books Are All Over Amazon

[ related topics: Books Journalism and Media Artificial Intelligence ]

Wait, is "chuck berry" the more generic term of "throw banana"?

If you are fascinated by pedestrian infrastructure, history, the value of 9th Grade history reports (yes, really), interstates, white flight, the baby boom, construction of the Interstates, and so forth, this is a must read.

Tyler Vigen: The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Aviation Machinery Fabrication Race Model Building ]

Not too many years the chorus of "software developers and engineers need more liberal arts and philosophy classes, that'll fix the problems". Now that we have the Effective Altruists and AI doomers and similar making asses of themselves it's pretty clear that, nope, wasn't a lack of philosophy classes...

[ related topics: Software Engineering Artificial Intelligence Philosophy ]

RT qdot@buttplug.engineer qdot @qdot@buttplug.engineer

why does everyone want to own the libs

as an open source developer i own multiple libs

i would happily pay people to take them from me

you do not want to own libs. its so much work

[ related topics: Free Software ]

From a Mastodon discussion, I learned about kakashibu fermented persimmon tannin dye, useful for both woodworking and for textiles and leatherworking. Here's a commercial vendor for kakashibu, and Instructables has a How To Make Kakashibu, and next persimmon season I'm gonna try grinding up a bunch of green persimmons, boiling them with a bit of water (maybe steaming? some sort of sterilization), tossing in some yeast, throwing them in an airlocked jar for two years, and seeing what I get out....

[ related topics: Community Woodworking ]

Whipped up basic calculator style grammar specification and parser generation for work, handles numeric values and all the usual operators and basic variable assignment and use, and it's nice to have full control over the parser and be able to inspect the grammar for things like autocomplete and such, but boy howdy it's about to get into the language specification weeds and we should probably be thinking about adopting someone else's language...

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Science Vol. 381, No. 6660 — Mandatory disclosure would reveal corporate carbon damages

A potentially dispositive weakness in firms’ claims to achieve “net zero” and other promises about future GHG emissions reductions is the availability of reliable data regarding whether firms are living up to their promises or engaging in “greenwashing” that does not produce real emissions reductions. Mandatory disclosure would provide a way to hold firms accountable for their promises by providing annual assessments of their own and their competitors’ progress. Such benchmarking against previous years’ emissions or peer firms’ emissions could unlock continued emissions reductions. However, to be successful, emissions disclosures have to be credible, and the regime should ideally cover all but the smallest private and public firms.

Via Grist — The true cost of climate pollution? 44% of corporate profits. — Yet governments are still pouring $7 trillion into subsidies for fossil fuels.

[ related topics: Economics Global Warming ]

Cosmopolitan

Cosmopolitan Libc makes C a build-once run-anywhere language, like Java, except it doesn't need an interpreter or virtual machine. Instead, it reconfigures stock GCC and Clang to output a POSIX-approved polyglot format that runs natively on Linux + Mac + Windows + FreeBSD + OpenBSD + NetBSD + BIOS with the best possible performance and the tiniest footprint imaginable.

αcτµαlly pδrταblε εxεcµταblε

One day, while studying old code, I found out that it's possible to encode Windows Portable Executable files as a UNIX Sixth Edition shell script, due to the fact that the Thompson Shell didn't use a shebang line. Once I realized it's possible to create a synthesis of the binary formats being used by Unix, Windows, and MacOS, I couldn't resist the temptation of making it a reality, since it means that high-performance native code can be almost as pain-free as web apps.

[ related topics: Free Software Microsoft Open Source Software Engineering Theater & Plays Macintosh Economics ]

"I'm not saying you *have* to suck and fuck just that most sex parties these days are a macrame class with a dress code and bad techno music" — Another Angry Woman @stavvers@masto.ai

[ related topics: Music Erotic Sexual Culture Artificial Intelligence ]