@roadskater@mastodon.social
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

roadskater

@roadskater@mastodon.social

Inline skating the mean streets of NYC since 1993 and still alive to kvetch about it.
Webmaster for some scientists.
Java netCDF dataviz and cartography coder.
Somewhere left of center.
Recovering Idahoan.
Bobcat grad.
Jack Methodist.
Once upon a time RPGer and developer.
Erstwhile alternate history authority.
Miscellanea and erratica.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

lzg, to random
@lzg@mastodon.social avatar

frustrated once again googling what the fuck is a red herring, an idiom that never sticks to my brain no matter how many times i’ve looked it up

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@lzg
Whoever used the phrase on you apparently distracted you from whatever else it was they were saying and didn't want you to actually pay attention to. Win-win.

dangillmor, to random
@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

@hiltzikm is one of the consistently best business commentators in daily journalism. Here, he pulls apart the corporate sleaze -- and gross mismanagement -- that pushed Red Lobster into bankruptcy.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-05-21/column-it-wasnt-just-the-endless-shrimp-red-lobsters-corporate-owners-drove-it-into-bankruptcy?utm_source=press.coop

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@dangillmor @hiltzikm I don't think I have ever read about one of these sale-leaseback transactions that worked out well for anyone except for the hedge fund or the private equity fund that made bank screwing the company over.

And didn't I read around 8-10 years ago that the state of New Mexico was thinking of doing something dumb like that with one of the state government buildings?

clive, to random
@clive@saturation.social avatar

“I had a guy come in with his family ... and he did 16 rounds of shrimp scampi. He was there for over two hours on a busy Friday night. They had one of my biggest tables. I just had to watch this man eat plates upon plates of the scampi, which isn’t even served over pasta. It’s shrimp in a garlic-wine butter.

"It was so gross.”

Red Lobster employees tell grim tales of the chain benighted "endless shrimp" deal: https://slate.com/life/2024/05/red-lobster-restaurant-closing-bankrupt-endless-shrimp.html

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@clive ISTR a Simpson's episode from long ago (~25 years?) where the seafood restaurant has an all-you-can-eat deal, and Homer took it on as a challenge. A court case might have resulted.

lzg, to random
@lzg@mastodon.social avatar

finally the org is large enough that there's another Lena at work. let the namespace collision begin!

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@brohrer @lzg Like when I started grade school and there were four Davids in my class. Thankfully, I was not one of them.

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@lzg @brohrer Looking at the Social Security table of most popular baby names, and yep, David was in the top 3 boys' names there for a very long stretch. But I'll bet even the guys named David were glad they weren't named Michael.

jamesthomson, to random
@jamesthomson@mastodon.social avatar

This is oddly satisfying in VR. One of these days I might make an actual game!

A man destroys a wall with a series of dice and other objects fired from his fingertips. This is clearly the killer app for the Vision Pro.

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@jamesthomson @markv Little Brick Out for the 2020s. Just saying.

Andres4NY, to random
@Andres4NY@social.ridetrans.it avatar

12yo: "so can we switch my bedtime later, then? I'm not getting to bed at my [earlier] bedtime anyway."

her: "Privileges are earned. You don't fail at something and then get more privileges because of that."

me: "well.... we are in the US."

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@Andres4NY Someone's aching to get his TV privileges suspended, and it isn't the 12yo.

nixCraft, (edited ) to linux
@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar

Poll: #Linux users, do you regret buying a laptop or desktop with an Nvidia card because of drivers and other problems?

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@nixCraft The best part of a poll like this is having no dog in the fight and just watching the e-violence that ensues.

(This toot does not condone animal fighting at all. Get real, you nerds.)

lzg, to random
@lzg@mastodon.social avatar

hell yeah i found The Dress of Many Requirements (it only needs some light alterations!)

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@lzg You could tempt somebody's uncle in a dress like that.

nixCraft, to random
@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar

If you're following me for linux or coding advice, you're making a huge mistake 🙃

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@nixCraft Neither of those. Nor humor. Why am I following you? 🤷‍♂️

sundogplanets, to random
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social avatar

I am talking o a reporter about this in a couple hours: https://regina.ctvnews.ca/from-outer-space-sask-farmers-baffled-after-discovering-strange-wreckage-in-field-1.6880353

This is about an hour away from my farm, so this'll be a fun conversation, and yet another great opportunity to tell a lot of people about what a huge problem we have with unregulated commercialization of orbit. (Also I just redid my slides for my public talk next week, this is going in!)

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@sundogplanets "… donate to the local skating rink" sounds like a perfectly Canadian request.

flargh, to random
@flargh@mastodon.social avatar

the new iPad Pro is very thin and powerful, but is it strong enough to whack tech pundits with dumb opinions upside the head

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@flargh
Strong enough, yes. But do you really want to pay have the crack in the display fixed afterward?

Not, a sideways swipe edge-on aiming for the pundit's throat. That might shut 'em up.

roadskater, to bikenyc
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

Manhattan Bridge bike counter, 23:30 on 5/6/2024.

dangillmor, to random
@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

The Dallas Morning News' appointment of a public editor is a great move for that organization.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2024/04/30/heres-how-the-dallas-morning-news-is-investing-in-readers-faith/

And it highlights the New York Times' arrogant decision to get rid of that post years ago.

Would it have mattered if they'd kept the position? Maybe not, given the propensities of the most recent top editors.

But it sure couldn't have hurt.

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@dangillmor My recollection is that I was unimpressed by the NYT’s first (or second?) public editor. Was the name Okrent? When did they eliminate the position?

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@dangillmor Eliminated in 2017 during a wave of cost-cutting. I would not have guess that there had been 6 of them.

nixCraft, to random
@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar

Humans now share the web equally with bots, report warns amid fears of the ‘dead internet’ https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/dead-internet-web-bots-humans-b2530324.html Dead internet theory is real :P

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@nixCraft "Nearly half, 49.6 per cent, of all internet traffic came from bots last year." Based on what I see in my office website's logs, that seems... low.

Andres4NY, to random
@Andres4NY@social.ridetrans.it avatar

It's depressing to know my family's tax dollars directly fund the vicious clowns in the #NYPD.

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@Andres4NY Wanna be more depressed? All the court judgments against them for day-to-day brutality on up to multiple vacated convictions because a detective lied on the stand for many years, they all come out of the city general budget. So they can do whatever, it doesn't cost the department anything.

lzg, to random
@lzg@mastodon.social avatar

i’m full of bad ideas and i have two free days ahead of me!

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@lzg Text if you need bail money.

lzg, to random
@lzg@mastodon.social avatar

there was a moment in my mid 20s when I got really into watching boxing matches.

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@lzg I'm trying to remember when this attitude changed. I can remember watching boxing when I was a kid, definitely Olympic boxing but even a couple Ali fights. And all we got were the network broadcasts. Cable TV and HBO were barely on the horizon.

roadskater, to random
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

My spider sense is trying to tell me something.

Something about a game. A basketball game.

video/mp4

lzg, to random
@lzg@mastodon.social avatar

today a stranger woman said to me "you're so pretty" and I'm still trying to figure out how women can say things like that in non creepy and really sweet ways

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@lzg @jessamyn I could not help but notice one of the young female baristas had a nice new haircut a week ago, but I so much did not want to be the creepy old guy.

roadskater, to CrystalsHashtags
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

Wasn't really paying attention last night while , but I passed at least two ghost bikes. The photo here is at Central Park South and Fifth Ave, which... what... some driver was desperate to beat the light and get stuck in the perpetual traffic jam on East 59th St and so killed a cyclist?

The other bike I passed was the one in BK at Wythe and the highway where the assistant DA was killed a few years ago.

lzg, to random
@lzg@mastodon.social avatar

not cool enough for school

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@lzg Wrong school?

sundogplanets, (edited ) to random
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social avatar

Quick poll: off the top of your head, without searching online, do you know what "Kessler Syndrome" is?

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@sundogplanets "Assuming I'm thinking of the right syndrome" == "I have a vague idea".

Turn out I had it correct because of reading Stephenson's Seveneves.

MissingThePt, to random
@MissingThePt@mastodon.social avatar

Who’s laughing at NASA now for buying the extended space probe warranty.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/voyager/2024/04/22/nasas-voyager-1-resumes-sending-engineering-updates-to-earth/

roadskater,
@roadskater@mastodon.social avatar

@MissingThePt Dude, they re-branded. It's NASACare+.

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