Flutterby™! From 2024-12-02 to 2024-12-30

Tree trimming at scale. A crane and the Petaluma Center Park redwoods...

[ related topics: Photography Machinery ]

Interesting thread on Chinese terms and how they do and don't translate to English.

I'm a huge fan of speed enforcement through passive infrastructure: No fine or enforcement works nearly as well as destroying your car if you deviate from the lane into the bollards, or attempt to speed through a traffic circle. But it turns out technology has its place too, traffic cameras work to reduce carnage when they're widely deployed enough.

How São Paulo Cut Traffic Deaths Overnight by a Third

The São Paulo data contradicts at scale the argument that speed cameras “don’t work” — and it’s a comparative case involving not compact pedestrianized European cities but a sprawling, car-oriented, new-world city.

Via

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Photography Invention and Design Law Work, productivity and environment Automobiles ]

Dear XCode: If "Project->Clean Build Folder..." and then a build doesn't rebuild your database for finding the call hierarchy, WTF does?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Databases ]

RT mixed berry social anxiety disorder 🍓 @monorail@glaceon.social

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

1. You MUST NOT have any gods before me

[ related topics: Net Culture Trains hubris ]

Thinking about how the various "describe this picture" large models are showing just how much more we need better photo organization software: They're describing what's in the picture, sure, but they're not describing the context that shows why that picture is important to me.

[ related topics: Photography Software Engineering Television ]

My Mastodon feed right now is about 1/3 people talking about various healthcare struggles (like stretching drugs that have hit healthcare plan limits through the year, other struggles with coverage), 1/3 shitposting, and 1/3 discussion of the United Healthcare CEO assassination.

Can't help but think the first and last there are linked.

[ related topics: Drugs Health Journalism and Media Community ]

Amused at the distinction between "chin beard" and "beard" to disambiguate facial hair from someone of the appropriate gender to bring to social events to convince people that one is heterosexual.

Oh hell yeah! Crosswalks going in at 5th and Mountain View Ave!

Oh hell yeah! Crosswalks going in at 5th and Mountain View Ave!

Now with picture.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Reddit user Mountain_Fig_9253 on the United Healthcare CEO shooting

Apropos of ... uhh ...

Cory Doctorow: The reason you can't buy a car is the same reason that your health insurer let hackers dox you: When monopoly meets infosec, hilarity ensues.

How did we end up with Change Healthcare as the linchpin of the entire American prescription system? Well, first Unitedhealthcare became the largest health insurer in America by buying all its competitors in a series of mergers that comatose antitrust regulators failed to block. Then it combined all those other companies' IT systems into a cosmic-scale dog's breakfast that barely ran. Then it bought Change and used its monopoly power to ensure that every Rx ran through Change's servers, which were part of that asbestos-filled, termite-infested, crack-foundationed, sag-joisted teardown. Then, it got hacked.

Via

ProPublica: How UnitedHealth’s Playbook for Limiting Mental Health Coverage Puts Countless Americans’ Treatment at Risk

So when a California regulator cited United for its algorithm-driven practice in 2018, its corrective plan applied only to market plans based in California.

When Massachusetts’ attorney general forced it to restrict the system in 2020 for one of the largest health plans there, the prosecutor’s power ended at the state line.

And when New York’s attorney general teamed up with the U.S. Department of Labor on one of the most expansive investigations in history of an insurer’s efforts to limit mental health care coverage — one in which they scored a landmark, multimillion-dollar victory against United — none of it made an ounce of difference to the millions whose plans fell outside their purview.

[ related topics: Health Invention and Design Software Engineering Law Consumerism and advertising Journalism and Media California Culture Automobiles Currency New York Gambling Dogs Economics ]

Not United Healthcare, but... make sure your state's Insurance Commissioner is paying attention: Big Insurer Sets Time Limits On Anesthesia Coverage During Surgeries — A surprise medical bill could be waiting for you when you wake up in the recovery room.

The new policy published last month by Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield means patients will not know whether they’re going to be stuck with the massive bill until they wake up from surgery. The policy change will affect more than eight million people covered by Anthem’s commercial and Medicaid insurance plans in Connecticut, New York, and Missouri.

Via

Edit: Anthem backtracks in Connecticut.

[ related topics: Health Invention and Design Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment New York ]

Oh look, the FBI is back on the "use encryption" side of the swing, rather than the "we should be able to backdoor everything" side, because their backdoor got pwned: U.S. officials urge Americans to use encrypted apps amid unprecedented cyberattack — FBI and CISA officials said it was impossible to predict when the telecommunications companies would be fully safe from interlopers.

(Via, but a number of other places too)

[ related topics: Bay Area Law Enforcement Cryptography ]

I have been using the EDITOR environment variable. Several days ago a Julia Evans conversation introduced me to VISUAL. I'm not sure that in 2024, with XTerm everywhere, that the difference is significant now, but if you really care about history and all environments you probably wanna use the latter...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Nature and environment ]

RT John Comninel ‪@jcom93.bsky.social‬

The reward for Brian Thompson's killer is $10,000, which is less than 3% of one of Brian Thompson's biweekly paychecks.

I... uh... suspect that the reward for Brian Thompson's killer is largely emotional, and that any monetary gain was secon... oh, wait, what?

Police in Adair, Iowa, reselling guns, apparently including an M134 Gatling-style minigun

"If I'm guilty of this, every cop in the nation's going to jail," Wendt told CBS News just days before a federal judge sentenced him to a 5-year prison term. Wendt's crimes appear to be part of a nationwide pattern.

Oh hell yeah! Let's do this!

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Law Current Events Law Enforcement Guns ]

Today I learned about pump(dot)fun and crashout(dot)fun, and if there was any doubt at all that crypto was one big ol' giant scam, this really really puts it to rest.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama moron Cryptography ]

My new hobby is browsing marketing LinkedIn profiles and ranking which AI "enhanced" profile pictures are best paired up with singing "The Future Belongs To Me".

[ related topics: Photography Invention and Design Consumerism and advertising Marketing Artificial Intelligence ]

Please tell me that the finale of Finding Mr Christmas involves dropping the three remaining guys into a small town with green grass and "snow" that's remarkably walkable despite all the detached single family suburbia homes, and seeing which one can woo the bookstore owner.

[ related topics: Sociology ]

Wonderful afternoon at the Computer History Museum with square dancing friend Kim Harris (of Forth fame) as guide.

And now Oren's Hummus in downtown Mountain View for a late lunch before heading to Martinez to dance this evening.

[ related topics: Art & Culture Douglas Adams ]

Charlene is on the other end of the couch giggling heartily about a Nextdoor thread on the proposal to put housing on the site of the mall in Terra Linda.

She's already read me bits about making the housing look like the Frank Lloyd Wright designed civic center across the highway. If the NIMBYots weren't real, we'd have to invent them for satirical purposes.

Though having condos that can serve as the set for a gazillion SciFi movies does have some appeal.

[ related topics: Ziffle Interactive Drama Movies Real Estate Architecture - Frank Lloyd Wright ]

Someone trying to get me to install Telegram. I observed that I really don't need more potentially hostile apps on my devices, sending telemetry back to who knows who.

His response indicated that he thought my concern was about what information was being fed to me, rather than being concerned about the integrity of my own systems and information outflow.

Today in "I'm not sure how I feel about 'earns' in this context": Teen creates memecoin, dumps it, earns $50,000 — Unsurprisingly, he and his family were doxed by angry traders.

The reason I'm unsure is: It's gotta be pretty hard to find new crypto marks in this environment, right?

Via

[ related topics: Nature and environment Invention and Design Sociology Pop Culture Cryptography ]

Contribution of childhood lead exposure to psychopathology in the US population over the past 75 years

Assuming that published lead-psychopathology associations are causal and not purely correlational: We estimate that by 2015, the US population had gained 602-million General Psychopathology factor points because of exposure arising from leaded gasoline, reflecting a 0.13-standard-deviation increase in overall liability to mental illness in the population and an estimated 151 million excess mental disorders attributable to lead exposure. Investigation of specific disorder-domain symptoms identified a 0.64-standard-deviation increase in population-level Internalizing symptoms and a 0.42-standard-deviation increase in AD/HD symptoms. Population-level Neuroticism increased by 0.14 standard deviations and Conscientiousness decreased by 0.20 standard deviations. Lead-associated mental health and personality differences were most pronounced for cohorts born from 1966 through 1986 (Generation X).

https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.14072

USA Today: Leaded gas created a mental health crisis for this generation

[ related topics: Children and growing up Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Health History Model Building ]

About time... New York police release surveillance video and photos released of 3 wanted in stabbing death of Yeremi Colino

[ related topics: Photography Invention and Design Law Enforcement Pop Culture New York Video ]

RT Toilet full of bugs @ephemeromorph@topspicy.social

Me: May I have one of those stripy aquatic snakes?

Someone: No, they're all mine.

Me: Alright, keep your sea kraits.

While we're thinking how UnitedHealth lobbied and contributed hard against California's single-payer healthcare, a look at the other side: ProPublica tells the horrifying story of Dr Thomas Weiner at Helena Montana's St Peter's Health.

However you imagined a bad doctor story being, this one is worse.

Via MeFi.

[ related topics: Health Food California Culture ]

IIHS: Vehicle height compounds dangers of speed for pedestrians

Particularly amusing for those of us who like to dunk on (and have been) BMW drivers, the chart of injuries by speed of median pickup, median car, and "German vehicles".

[ related topics: Current Events Automobiles ]

New socks! If you convert my age from Fahrenheit to Celsius, it's a bit over 13, so it makes sense that I'm entering my goth phase.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Invention and Design Clothing ]

New socks! If you convert my age from Fahrenheit to Celsius, it's a bit over 13, so it makes sense that I'm entering my goth phase.

With picture

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Photography Invention and Design Clothing ]

More new socks evidence of my dark gothy mood.

[ related topics: Photography Invention and Design Clothing ]

So, yes, I'm using the ChatGPT API for work, and I'm trying to simulate a conversation, so I search for best practices and, sure enough, one of the top results starts out: "Maintaining conversation continuity with the ChatGPT API involves managing the context of the conversation effectively. Here are some strategies to consider..."

Fucking LLMs, man.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

I'm old enough to remember when the tech industry at least publicly gave a little credence to the notion that technical competence mattered: Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger calls for prayer and fasting for employees

"Every Thursday I do a 24 hour prayer and fasting day," Gelsinger wrote on X on Sunday morning. "This week I'd invite you to join me in praying and fasting for the 100K Intel employees as they navigate this difficult period. Intel and its team is of seminal importance to the future of the industry and US."

[ related topics: Religion Work, productivity and environment ]

This was posted to Facebook by a high school friend of mine who recently retired from a career with the FBI, and I think it's worth reading for the subtext, and for what it's trying to help the members of the agency aspire to: Director Wray’s Remarks for the FBI All-Employee Town Hall Address

[ related topics: Children and growing up Current Events Work, productivity and environment Law Enforcement ]

Yeesh, Apple, fix your "this window has been marked as needing another layout pass" shit already.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Graphic Design ]

A Lakeland Florida woman was charged Tuesday after police said she ended a call to an insurance company with the words, “Delay, Deny, Depose.”

[ related topics: Current Events Law Enforcement ]

RT Peter Krupa @peter@thepit.social

pretty interesting how everyone in the genAI space has moved on from RAG. now it’s agents that are going to fix all the problems with generative AI (while making each query 20x more expensive).

RT Peter Krupa @peter@thepit.social

trust me bro, generative AI is going to be **huge** for enterprise bro, please bro, just a few more iterations and we’ll have it bro, we are so close bro.

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy Artificial Intelligence ]

RT Helen Czerski @helenczerski@fediscience.org

11 yrs ago I found this funny: 'How many Microsoft designers does it take to change a lightbulb? None. They just define darkness as “industry standard”

But now I can't unsee this:

'How many huge companies does it take to fix the climate? None. They just define global warming as “industry standard”

[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron Global Warming ]

RT Matthew Haughey @mathowie@xoxo.zone

can the hallmark channel seize the moment and release a new Christmas film before dec 25 where another healthcare CEO is visited by three ghosts of people who died after their medical claims were denied

Last night on the season finale of Finding Mr Christmas they referenced that it takes roughly 2 weeks to shoot a Hallmark movie, so...

The lead time to get it in the line-up is probably way way longer than that, though.

[ related topics: Movies Invention and Design ]

So if you were part of an organization with a bunch of static pages currently using SquareSpace, and considering switching to something else largely because of bad search, what would you consider?

I want something the non-profit can just buy, with a focus on an admin assistant able to update pages, and users being able to find linked to YouTube videos and programs of past events.

WordPress has been batted around, but that seems overly complex for our needs, and given the current meltdown...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama History ]

Elsevier Economics of Transportation: Free rides to cleaner air? Examining the impact of massive public transport fare discounts on air quality

We quantify the effect of public transportation fare subsidies on air quality by exploiting the sharp discontinuity in the cost of ridership introduced by policy intervention. We identify this effect by taking advantage of four months of massive discounts for transit services introduced in Spain on September 1, 2022, as part of the national plan to tackle the global energy crisis. Across pollutants and specifications, we find no evidence that low-cost or free-of-charge public transportation financing schemes have improved air quality. Our results reveal that measures aimed at reducing transit prices may fail to achieve the claimed environmental benefits through a modal shift from private to collective modes of transport, which suggests that massive fare discounts may not represent an efficient allocation of public funds.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecotra.2024.100380

Via this BlueSky/David Zipper thread

[ related topics: Invention and Design Economics Public Transportation Aviation - Helicopters ]

Careful about relying on your bullshit generator, even if it is from Apple:

BBC: BBC complains to Apple over misleading shooting headline

9To5Mac: Apple Intelligence botched a notification summary about Luigi Mangione, and the BBC isn’t happy

Additionally, the BBC pointed to a post on Bluesky that shows Apple Intelligence mischaracterizing a New York Times headline about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Interactive Drama Invention and Design Current Events Monty Python Television New York ]

Abortion bans are killing women — and states like Texas want to hide the truth

An analysis published in September by the Gender Equity Policy Institute found that, from 2019 to 2022, the rate of maternal deaths in Texas increased by 56%, compared with 11% nationwide.

'Bodies are piling up': Reporter finds GOP-led states are hiding abortion ban death toll

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Health ]

Charlene, in the waffle of me grinding off a fingertip, burning the crap out of a hand by catching a recently welded piece, and more: "You do stupid things with those hands."

Dan: "That needs to be a country song."

[ related topics: Fabrication hubris ]

Big winds this morning, a tree went down across half our road, power lines blocking the boulevard, so there was a ton of traffic diverted onto ours. The usual "get to it" guys looked outside, saw that traffic was slowed, went back inside. Eventually some passers by (maybe city) stopped and cut it out of the way with an electric chainsaw, and we're all bummed that the speeders are no longer impeded.

[ related topics: Woodworking ]

So Android Firefox Beta appears to still respect the "keep my fucking address bar at the top where it belongs" flag, but has moved the rest of the buttons down to a bar at the bottom.

Ugh.

Interesting, with various caveats: Cannabis Use and Age-Related Changes in Cognitive Function From Early Adulthood to Late Midlife in 5162 Danish Men

Results Men with a history of cannabis use had less cognitive decline from early adulthood to late midlife compared to men without a history of cannabis use. Among cannabis users, neither age of initiation of cannabis use nor frequent use was significantly associated with a greater age-related cognitive decline.

https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.70136

Via Science Alert: Male Cannabis Users Seem to Show Less Cognitive Decline, Study Finds

[ related topics: Mathematics ]

At various times I have tried to make https://retroshare.cc/ work with friends, and never gotten enough uptake to continue, but has any third party looked at the code and ... is the issue vs all of the other distributed messaging things that are attempting to get my attention just that ya can't do mobile without some sort of relay system?

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

RT Simon Tatham @simontatham@hachyderm.io

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED BUT REPULSIVE", "WRONG BUT WROMANTIC", "FREQUENTLY MISUNDERSTOOD", "NOBODY BOTHERS WITH THIS BIT", "SHOULDN'T REALLY BUT WE WON'T JUDGE", "REQUIRED IN ORDER TO WORK AROUND EVERYONE ELSE'S BUGS", "YOU DO YOU", and "OBVIOUSLY ABSURD BUT VERY COMMON FOR SOME REASON" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

[ related topics: Law Work, productivity and environment Net Culture ]

RT Colin Beveridge @icecolbeveridge@mathstodon.xyz

There's no point in complaining about a tautology. It is what it is.

RT 𝐿𝒶𝓃𝒶 "not Christmas Cake" @Lana@beige.party

Reluctantly crouched at the starting line

Waiting, and ready, and pacing in time

When what to my wondering eyes did appear

But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer

More rapid than eagles his coursers they flew

With a sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too

Reckless and wild, they pour through the turns

Their prowess is potent and secretly stem

As they speed through the air they don't dare look down

At the tops of the roofs of this slumbering town

All the world is asleep except for one man

Still driving and striving as fast as he can

So the moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow

Gave a lustre of midday to objects below

But he's driving and striving and hugging the turns

And thinking of someone for whom he. still. burns.

He's going the DISTANCE

He's going for SPEED

He's all alone (all alone)

All alone on this CHRISTMAS EVE

Because he's racing and pacing and flying his sleigh

To every part of the world in a single day

He's going the DISTANCE.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Aviation Sports Pyrotechnics Dan & Charlene's July 2003 San Juan Trip Food - Cake ]

Jaromil: ⚒️ minimalist C — small is beautiful in C

Via

Still adding LLM features to work project. Still having the "dancing bear" reaction and not happy with what I can prompt ChatGPT 4o to give me.

Anyone have a "smart person's guide to prompting LLMs" suggestion? I'm already cueing it to give me extra stuff in machine readable form, but it all seems like such bad SEO inspired insipid elementary output, and, of course, gets facts wrong.

So how are people seeing these things as valuable, and getting useful output?

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

Discussions about prompt engineering and leading with "you are a competent professional" vs "you are a helpful assistant" are helping me to see that, at best, LLMs are a bad improv scene.

[ related topics: Law ]

How to talk about the Bitcoin reserve dumb idea

In July Senator Cynthia Lummis proposed the so-called BITCOIN Act which would establish a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve." Shortly after, Trump promised Bitcoin enthusiasts that he would create a "strategic national stockpile." Naturally, Bitcoin holders are rapturously elated: The USG buying Bitcoin represents massive exit liquidity at guaranteed high prices for the rest of the decade.

In particular, this talks about what happens when the math naturally leads to asymmetry in mining capacity. Which, I mean, we're kinda at the stage where a few consortiums control the mining, and anyone who's not bought into the scam deeply understands that there have already been some concerns about this, but...

Anyway, holy shit we do not need to be propping up the scam, other ways of talking about this, other than that it's a big ol' Ponzi scheme, might help?

[ related topics: Politics moron Mathematics Handicaps & Disabilities ]

RT Shannon Prickett @Binder@petrous.vislae.town

When someone calls you “dear,” it means that they’re fawned of you.

RT Davey :sugar_approved: @sugar@goblin.camp

almost posted "if he's your man why does his breath smell like my toes 😏" but i didn't, pretty proud of myself

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

I think these two things are related:

David Gerard @davidgerard@circumstances.run

Microsoft refuses pull request to put documentation in readable table form because LLMs are bad at parsing tables https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/WSL/pull/2021

Edit: Same sentiment with more text at Pivot To AI.

Jef Poskanzer :batman: @jef@mastodon.social

Which is worse, newspaper websites or restaurant websites?

[ related topics: Humor Microsoft Food moron Journalism and Media Furniture ]

RT mkb @mkb@mastodon.social

Basis:

People increasingly use phones for their internetting rather than full-size computers.

News sites are so full of popups and other advertising dreck that they are frustrating to use, sometimes even impossible to use.

Thesis:

This has driven people to use lower-quality news sources— tweets, friends comments, etc —which has then made it easier for Trumpists and others to spew lies.

Sometimes I wish I had a little better visibility into what it is that browser tabs are chewing up CPU on, because it sure seems like the crypto mining in ads on sites like Wired is out of freakin' control.

[ related topics: Current Events Consumerism and advertising Cryptography ]

Another day, another "fuck you Apple for your dumb-ass bottom up view layout system that randomly blows the window has been marked as needing too many layout passes errors.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Graphic Design Handicaps & Disabilities ]

When I saw that the latest episode of Today's Lucky Winner was titled "Rita's Holiday Special: A Christmas Carol", I was like "Oh great, another Dickens rework", but on my drive home from voice lessons yesterday I was laughing out loud.

And, no, it's not a 3 ghosts take. And I'm not sure how much it needs the background of the rest of the podcast story. But if juvenile sex and scatological jokes are your thing (they're apparently mine), yeah. I LOLed.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Erotic Sexual Culture Woodworking ]

infinite-horizon219 — Unix-Privilege-Escalation-Exploits-Pack (2001-2014)

Fun bit, my anonymous lead to this says they found it inside a device they were examining. Which... do you trust that the machines you attach to your network aren't trying to get shell on things?

[ related topics: broadband ]

Dear zeitgeist: The "sheet music with lyrics from one Christmas carol and melody from a different one, or just nonsensical" was funny the first... maybe two or three times. Several years ago.

But it's played out. It really is.

[ related topics: Music ]

Apparently there are typing twisters too: I'm working on some features today related to "set sharing", and the number of times I've typed "shet sar..."

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Awwww, we missed the excitement. At roughly 2am someone missed the curve on Mountain View Ave coming up to Olive and took out a sign and much of the landscaping.

Picture with two kids on the way to school picking their way through the debris because of course the automobile lanes were cleared...

[ related topics: Children and growing up Photography Automobiles ]

Where's your Ed at: Never Forgive Them

In the last year, I’ve spent about 200,000 words on a kind of personal journey where I’ve tried again and again to work out why everything digital feels so broken, and why it seems to keep getting worse, despite what tech’s “brightest” minds might promise. More regularly than not, I’ve found that the answer is fairly simple: the tech industry’s incentives no longer align with the user. 

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

RT Max Leibman (Taylor's Version) @maxleibman@beige.party

Men are often told that we aren’t good at coping with our feelings, but I want to discuss the real issue, which is that feelings are stupid.

[ related topics: hubris ]

Joe Cardillo (they/them) @joecardillo@federate.social

Reminder that technology isn't bad, we have bad tech

It doesn't have to be this way, information doesn't have to be controlled/owned/driven by extreme profits system & billionaires

RT Mike [SEC=OFFICIAL] @mike@chinwag.org

"Free Copilot in your GitHub account" is the 2020s version of "Free U2 album on your iPod".

I have cynical said that the Saudis bought Twitter to destroy it in retaliation for the Arab Spring. With what's happening with Elon Musk in US and German politics, it's become clear that, no, they did it to continue the destruction that the Saudi funded 9/11 hijackers were working towards.

[ related topics: Politics Work, productivity and environment ]

I'm not sure whether this indicates that the NYPD understands iconography, or doesn't... RT Jef Poskanzer @jef@mastodon.social

Compare & contrast:

[ related topics: Photography ]

RT Rudy @rudy@mstdn.ca

who decided on the name Secret Santa when Nondisclosure Claus was right there for the taking

Sean Conner talks about his experiences using Github's Copilot

Skepchick: Why Did We Throw Away Our Black Plastic Utensils?

But here’s where we get to the same old story that I see again and again with these environmental watchdog groups: the hyperbole. And in this case, it wasn’t just the organization saying that your spatula is going to give you cancer. The study specifically noted that the levels of DecaBDE they found in the utensils could result in a person consuming 34,700 nanograms per day, which they said approached the EPA’s safety limit, which is 7,000 nanograms per kilogram of body weight. They claimed that for a 60-kilogram (or 130-pound) adult, that was 42,000 nanograms per day. Which…it isn’t. It’s 420,000 nanograms per day. The levels they found actually didn’t even hit 10% of the EPA’s limit.

Joe Swarcz at the McGill office for Science and Society: Are Black Plastic Spatulas and Serving Spoons Safe to Use?

I mean, lots of reasons plastics aren't great, but...

[ related topics: Health Bay Area Law ]

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 ]

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 ]

So my awesome ISP, Sonic, recently offered me an upgrade to 10gigabit fiber, same price I'm paying now, but $300 in one-time ONT fees. We've been a bit price sensitive lately, and it would require upgrading a bunch of hardware (I'm still using 300megabit era WiFi transceivers, my hub is only 1 gigabit, etc).

But I've been thinking about what one might use that much bandwidth for. When I was working with map data, even the bidirectional gigabit I've got now would be handy.

Turns out one application might be malware: This VPN Lets Anyone Use Your Internet Connection. What Could Go Wrong?

A free VPN app called Big Mama is selling access to people’s home internet networks. Kids are using it to cheat in a VR game while researchers warn of bigger security risks.

Via /.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Games broadband Work, productivity and environment Net Culture Maps and Mapping ]

We know that a good amount of the anti-immigrant rhetoric comes from the businesses that can use the state to enforce what's essentially slavery by employing undocumented workers, but the return to slavery is more explicit than just that:

AP: Alabama profits off prisoners who work at McDonald’s but deems them too dangerous for parole

Best Western, Bama Budweiser and Burger King are among the more than 500 businesses to lease incarcerated workers from one of the most violent, overcrowded and unruly prison systems in the U.S. in the past five years alone, The Associated Press found as part of a two-year investigation into prison labor. The cheap, reliable labor force has generated more than $250 million for the state since 2000 through money garnished from prisoners’ paychecks.

Via

[ related topics: History Work, productivity and environment Beer Currency ]

Yet again seeing people ask what's so disruptive about a cell phone ban in schools, so I'll point out that if the kids don't have cell phones, how are they gonna call 911 when there's a school shooter?

(Also, so much of the problem with schools is that the classroom as we know it is a fucking lousy way to learn, and schools are a horrible reinforcement of the worst social patterns, and we should maybe try to fix that shit?)

[ related topics: Children and growing up Interactive Drama Wireless ]

If you ever think your own work has no meaning, just remember that some one put that "remember this device" checkbox on your bank's web site, and your payroll provider's web site, and...

I hate to think of how many wasted hours that was, let alone the wasted hours of people clicking them thinking that they might actually have any effect.

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

RT Capital @capital@scalie.zone

Incompatible functions, aka O(LOL NO)

I had closed several tabs on this without posting them on Flutterby because it's... awful and if you have any sorts of issues around non-consensual sexual attacks triggering as hell, and please don't feel compelled to follow any of these links, but...

BBC: New name, no photos: Gisèle Pelicot removes all trace of her husband

NBC: Dozens of men found guilty in Gisèle Pelicot mass rape trial that shocked France

...the reason I'm now posting these is reading through the Disabled Ginger on how this exposes medical misogyny (among a whole bunch of other effects), and how the husband was recruiting people for this horror on some sort of online messaging system, and nobody stepped in. Nobody said "holy shit, this is awful".

And there's probably some strong vetting to get access to those forums. It's not something that one is likely to just stumble across. And even, unlike the early days of say, alt.sex.stories on Usenet, you're not gonna run across NC fantasizing of this sort and maybe be able to tie pieces together.

But there's clearly a branch of "masculinity" where it's a stepping stone from one place to another, and long before legal lines get crossed there are moral lines where we need to be saying "oh fuck no, that's hella not acceptable".

Maybe knowing that this evil is out there will help us all say that sooner.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Photography Erotic Sexual Culture Ethics Invention and Design Law Current Events Monty Python Net Culture Community Handicaps & Disabilities Marriage ]

Some test data has me looking at Union Pacific's Big Boy No. 4014, the huge 4-8-8-4 steam locomotive that was recently restored.

Anyway, I'm now pretty much convinced that if such a locomotive were built today it would unironically be called "Hekkin' Chonker".

[ related topics: Interactive Drama California Culture Machinery Trains ]

In a recent episode of Switched on Pop, producer Reanna Cruz discussed that she kept a list independently of what she played for the year, and her "Spotify wrapped" did not correctly report what she listened to.

So, yeah, they're pushing you in directions that aren't true, but... Apparently they're also figuring out who's using Spotify for background music, and pushing in-house royalty-free music on listeners for that application, so that they don't have to pay for streams.

Ted Goia: The Ugly Truth About Spotify Is Finally Revealed

Harpers: The Ghosts in the Machine — Spotify’s plot against musicians

[ related topics: Music Flowers Real Estate ]

Shit is about to go down...

[ related topics: Photography ]

Thinking a lot about a conversation last night with someone who was adamant that downtown Petaluma be encased in plastic to never change, while simultaneously bemoaning that they were going to have to leave the town they were born in because of housing costs.

[ related topics: Real Estate ]

One of the things I'd love to do with this week off is learn a little Rust. So I "cargo new foo; cd foo; cargo run", and, friends, is it normal that on a modern Mac M2 machine this takes close to a minute?

But then the same process with "bar" takes about 3/4 of a second?

[ related topics: Music Invention and Design Macintosh ]

Merry Christmas Adam, everyone!

Taking the time this week to do some Rust learning, and figured I'd do so with moving a little parsing toolkit I wrote for some work projects from Objective-C to Rust.

So I'm now in the "what's the idiomatically correct way to compare and classify characters from strings?" stage, and... I'm not having warm fuzzy vibes right now.

I *think* the answer is to process everything as bytes with str references? And just assume that > 127 is identifier territory?

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Education ]

Oh damn: " One of the ugliest things to point out about American white supremacist culture is that it’s not viewed as rape until the victim is old enough (18+) to give consent." Metafilter user Callisto Prime on media using "underage sex" vs "statutory rape" in talking about the Gaetz report.

https://www.metafilter.com/206...Laws-and-Violates-Ethics#8664934

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Ethics Sociology Law Journalism and Media California Culture Race Government ]

So we watched the "Finding Mr Christmas" movie ("Happy Howlidays"), and they were saddled with an awful script, but I can't help but think of how it might have been with Elijah or Hayden. But, it's media designed for a particular audience and purpose, ya don't look for emotional depth and backstory on the metaphorical pizza delivery guy.

Anyway, can drop the Hallmark+ subscription now, and for those braindead nights where we want something to watch look for things with a more redeeming message.

[ related topics: Movies Journalism and Media ]

Nextdoor discussion about homelessness, to which I'm bringing citations, but... Who'd have thought that a generation which grew up on "search your feelings, you know it to be true" would take vibes based on the one time they talked to an unhoused person rather than the wealth of information from smart people who've been deeply studying society.

Star Wars ruined a lot...

[ related topics: Star Wars Space & Astronomy Community Aviation - Helicopters ]

So has Trump threatened to take back the Sudetenland yet, or is that just implied?

Just finished Rob Wilkins' "Terry Pratchett: a life in footnotes". Good read.

[ related topics: Terry Pratchett ]

Okay, starting to see what people mean about refactoring to satisfy the borrow checker in Rust, because, yeah, i can't figure out how to tell it that the "Chars" I'm passing around have an str that's safe.

But now I'm in the "how does one keep generic behavior when structuring code like this?", and maybe the answer is one doesn't?

I can see making a bunch of cheat sheets and trying to make notes about ways to think about data structures differently as I move forward.

[ related topics: Bay Area ]

I'm seeing a lot of "LLMs will be amazing when" and "are showing promise". We're now past the initial swarm of obviously scammy things like "personal assistants" which would have been amazing if they delivered what was promised, but ya could tell they were scams because they bundled some unrelated technology along with it. Now we're deep into something else, and I'm offering even more side-eye at people who are telling me how amazing these things are.

Which brings me to this long post by David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) @david_chisnall@infosec.exchange that goes into attempting to use GitHub Copilot.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama History ]

Happy Boxing Day to all of the would be Mike Tysons and Mohammed Alis of the world.

C/C++ coders who've learned to love the Rust language: what was your path there? I'm finding that a lot of the ways I'd like to express, for instance, a parser aren't super convenient to do so, and I'm trying to figure out how to think in the sort of data structures that Rust encourages, while working in idioms that are going to be relatively performant (like I *think* that Char iterators to track the parsed location, rather than using indices, is a good idea unless I want t odo my own UTF-8).

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Driver crashes into Golden Gate Bridge toll collection booth. If only they could have painted the building bright orange or something so that drivers could see it...

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea...oll-booth-christmas-20000931.php

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Bay Area Automobiles ]

Further Rust learning, got to the point where I'm realizing my data structures need to be circular, and I'm learning about Rc, and... wow I hope the payoff for this is good.

[ related topics: Education Model Building ]

Third party security/anti-virus software is mostly just increased attack surface, part #87942 in an ongoing series: If you're running Chrome extensions from Cyberhaven, Internxt VPN, VPN City, Uvoice, or ParrotTalks, you might wanna have that looked at.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.c...on-hijacked-to-steal-users-data/

[ related topics: Interactive Drama virus Software Engineering Current Events Sports ]

Now that I am turning out a little more Rust, I am becoming even less sensitive to complaints about Perl: <'a>? "{?:}" (or is it "{:?}")? Vec<Box<Type>>? Statements dreamed up by the utterly deranged...

[ related topics: Perl Open Source hubris ]

Neighbor has a Shopsmith he's trying to pawn off on me, and I could use a lathe, but I just went to Google and auto corrupt changed it to "shouldn't"...

[ related topics: Woodworking ]

Interesting. Sounds like the Santa Cruz wharf collapse may be due to historic preservationist NIMBYs...

https://www.kqed.org/news/1201...-collapse-a-rebuild-is-uncertain

[ related topics: Current Events Work, productivity and environment ]

You really can get everything as an app these days...

[ related topics: Photography ]

If you can't beat the scammers and catfishers at their own game, bring the technology in-house: Facebook Planning to Flood Platform with AI-Powered Users — "We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do."

So, yeah, expect Facebook to be even less focused on connecting you with friends and colleagues, in ways that LinkedIn can only dream of.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Games Artificial Intelligence Real Estate ]

The Fediverse/Mastodon/what-have-you has been a weird place. The "We want this to be a place we can become influencers/sell our shit" crowd has been trying to push it to be a Twitter drop-in, some of us are just happy that we can communicate with the people we've met who found blogs too much work (and that we never really found an RSS solution to keep up with), and there's a lot of drama.

Barks by Aria Salvatrice: Actually, it’s about Ethics in Transgenderism (the title a nod to the disruption of social spaces by the Gamergate movement) is a long rant that's entirely too in love with its own language and conceits, but makes a good case that several of the attempts to create shared blocklists and moderation for the Fediverse have been assholes just looking to profit off of our social spaces.

There's a lot to unpack in here, and I'm not the best person to do so. I've got gobs o' privilege in online spaces I've inhabited over the years, and I've mentioned before that in the early '90s we had this optimism that if we brought the world online we'd create this fantastic space, and instead we brought all of the shit of the world into that space and destroyed it.

Undoubtedly some of that is related to making it a more inclusive space.

But it's also definitely the case that the people who want to profit off of our communities have destroyed my connections with all sorts of people over the years.

Via Soatok Dreamsoaker

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Content Management Ethics Space & Astronomy Law Work, productivity and environment Community Dogs ]

Augie Ray's Google spreadsheet of COVID-19 studies that suggest the longer-term or chronic issues of COVID infections and reinfections.

In response to Amanda Marcotte linking to Tradwives, incels and cat ladies: The year MAGA broke heterosexuality, GhostOnTheHalfShell @GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai wrote

Sociopaths like Nick Fuentes or Jordan Peterson first tell boys to become monsters, and to be repellent, and then tell them they should be angry that nobody wants to be around them.

And I think the creepiest and saddest thing about this that even if they get sex, they’ll never be well laid by their own acts.

In a recent Fediverse exchange about some fash indoctrination nofap YouTube video, agatha wrote

re: masturbation

@dysfun @kescher @danlyke “i could’ve done something more productive with my time, like nothing…”

And... I think this is related to that whole Elf Sternberg thing about how straight men resent sex, and ties in to how the traditional masculinity roles have become so perversely awful that nobody really wants to perform them, the people who do are so desperate to fit in, and so susceptible to being told to get in line, that they think "if only I do more of this" when it doesn't work for them.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Erotic Sexual Culture tolkien Work, productivity and environment Artificial Intelligence Salon magazine Video ]

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 ]

RT Ambulocetus @Ambulocetus@mefi.social

Please don't open a new can of whoop ass when there is already an open one in the fridge.

I... uh... forgot it was there, and it went bad.

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

BMJ Group: Almost all leading AI chatbots show signs of cognitive decline

Age against the machine—susceptibility of large language models to cognitive impairment: cross sectional analysis doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2024-081948

Not only are neurologists unlikely to be replaced by large language models any time soon, but our findings suggest that they may soon find themselves treating new, virtual patients—artificial intelligence models presenting with cognitive impairment.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Artificial Intelligence ]

Governing: Criminalizing Homelessness Can Lead to More Crime, talking about policy in the wake of the Grants Pass decision:

Criminalization policies also bear a significant financial cost. The cyclical churn between homelessness, shelter and incarceration is estimated to cost taxpayers $83,000 per individual annually — far more than providing treatment and housing. A study of Seminole County, Fla., found that the annual cost of repeatedly arresting 33 frequently homeless people is roughly $171,225 per person. In New York City, the daily cost for supportive housing is $48 per person, compared to $1,414 for incarceration and $3,609 for hospitalization.

Just because you can arrest the homeless, doesn't mean you should...

[ related topics: Content Management Invention and Design Artificial Intelligence New York Real Estate ]

Pretty sure Rust programmers just never deal with recursive structures. Object has a Vec<Rc<dyn Foo>> in it, after adding an Rc of it to one or more other object's Vec, I want to be able to add to its Vec, and danged if I can figure out the magic incantation.

(Yes, I know I'm gonna have to do careful handling to free this, I'm good with that.)

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Clowns Model Building ]

I was gonna just let this moment in history slip by, but I think it's worth taking a moment to celebrate Jimmy Carter. It's easy to remember Carter for his willingness to go inside a damaged nuclear reactor to repair it, or being so threatening to the GOP that Republican operatives collaborated with the Ayatollah Khomeini's government in Iran to delay the release of American hostages in order to damage Carter politically, but...

One of the things I've been pondering recently is how it's not, generally, enough to be first, or right, it's about how you get your ideas spread. It's easy to say "Jimmy Carter was the best ex-President the US has ever had", but it's harder to acknowledge that the US was willing to put someone who appears to have actually been a good person into the seat because Nixon was so bad and Ford was just a lackey, that Carter actually did accomplish a lot of good things that were then deliberately and systematically obstructed or dismantled.

So, yeah, I'm gonna celebrate that he fucking tried.

The Onion (2017): You People Made Me Give Up My Peanut Farm Before I Got To Be President

Wonkette: Rest in Power, Jimmy Carter:

He prioritized conservation, insisting his inaugural reviewing stand be made of steel, which was disassembled, shipped to Atlanta, and recycled as a bandstand. He had solar panels installed on the White House in 1979, which Ronald Reagan later had torn off, just to be an asshole.

CBC: Jimmy Carter will be buried in the same tiny, gentle town he put on the map

First, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and his wife, Roselynn, sat down and enjoyed a lovely homemade meal at Jill Stuckey's home in Plains, Ga. Then, he got up and took the chair home with him. It was wonky. Maybe the leg was loose — Jill doesn't recall. But she does remember that when she got up the next morning, there it was on the porch. Carter had taken the chair home, fixed it, and brought it back. He was maybe 92 at the time.

Qasim Rashid: President Jimmy Carter has died:

In 2007 President Carter sat down with Democracy Now! to discuss what motivated him to write, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” In this book, President Carter cogently argues that the main obstacle to peace in Israel and Palestine is in fact the hundreds of thousands of illegal settlements that Israel continues to build, all with U.S. backing and support. As you watch the short clip below, note that President Carter warns how “powerful forces” remove any member of Congress who speaks out against this unjust policy. Then note how those “powerful forces” that he names have only since grown in power and influence to the detriment of U.S. democracy and world peace.

[ related topics: Politics Books Cool Science Movies Food moron Current Events Automobiles Maps and Mapping Race Marriage Real Estate Furniture Photovoltaics Global Warming ]

Google Gemini knows what's going on...

Hat tip to https://labyrinth.social/@nash/113523679892181031 and https://labyrinth.social/@nash/113716846756817088

[ related topics: Photography ]

Heath Robinson: Another AI cautionary tale

Google CEO says AI model Gemini will be the company’s ‘biggest focus’ in 2025 (Hat tip to Tara)

[ related topics: Artificial Intelligence Archival ]

Whistleblower finds unencrypted location data for 800,000 VW EVs

According to Motor1, a whistleblower gave German publication Der Spiegel and hacking collective Chaos Computer Club a heads-up about the misconfiguration. Der Spiegel and CCC then spent some time sifting through the data, with which allowed them to tie individual cars to their owners.

Volkswagen leak exposed location data for 800,000 electric cars

I was listening recently to the excellent "Dark Star" by the Grateful Dead episode of A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs, and reminded of John Perry Barlow and the techno-utopianism of the '90s, and I think we have a new corollary for "information wants to be free", which is "if you collect it, it will eventually be world readable".

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music Invention and Design Space & Astronomy Current Events Aviation - Helicopters ]

Cool little puff piece on the Brienna Hall, a woman who runs one of the ASML extreme ultraviolet lithography machines in the Micro facility in Boise: It’s the Most Indispensable Machine in the World—and It Depends on This Woman

[ related topics: Current Events ]

Wanna know why your local bar band sounds like crap? Mixing "One Day More" from Les Miserables (YouTube video),video of the sound guy's hands on the mixer...

[ related topics: Movies Video ]

Just wrote "I don't want to tar all car drivers with the same brush, just like gun owners there are responsible ones..." on Nextdoor, now casually walking away while *that* explodes.

[ related topics: Automobiles Guns ]

"Flourish" describes powders that one can mix with some liquid and leavening and create baked goods, and I will die on this hill.

RT Benjamin Ross @BenRossTransit@mastodon.social

Waymo (aka Google) admits that it trains its robotaxis to break the law. When WaPo reporter finds robotaxis fail to stop for pedestrians in marked crosswalk 70% of the time, Waymo says it follows "social norms" rather than laws. Expert explains: When robotaxis obey law, they don't go fast enough to compete successfully with Uber, so Google execs ordered engineers to ignore laws.

https://wapo.st/3ZZDifm

[ related topics: Machinery Trains Government ]