@slothrop@chaos.social
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

slothrop

@slothrop@chaos.social

Bumbling through the technosphere. Easily amused.

Messing around with #FOSS, baking #bread, paddling a whitewater #kayak, and #parenting a herd of kids . Sometimes I manage a Hello World without syntax errors in #python.

Professionally, I help to build and run #trains with software and IT stuff.

Middle-aged cishet white guy, trying not to be an asshole about it. Please let me know if I get it wrong.

Toots auto-delete after 2 weeks. #noindex or I will punch you.

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

outdoormutz, to random German
@outdoormutz@troet.cafe avatar

Der Trangia Sturmkocher kann auch Fondue und zwar locker...

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@outdoormutz Yay, Trangia!

slothrop, to stackoverflow
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

It’s always slightly remarkable to see people’s surprise when some company goes ahead and does the things that it gave itself permission to do in its terms of service.

eric, to random
@eric@social.ericwbailey.website avatar

My toxic trait is thinking that software developers need certification and standards of quality set by a governing body if they want to call themselves engineers the way people who build bridges do. https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/9/24152633/fda-recall-tandem-diabetes-care-insulin-pump-mobile-app

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@eric There are ways to build systems involving software that fail rarely and safely.

Those methods are widely known and used in various industries - health tech, aircraft and rail come to mind (ohai, Boeing!). They’re just not particularly fun, and they’re expensive.

It’s not that the developers are necessarily better. It’s that they work in a better / more appropriate system.

So this insulin pump problem is a regulatory failure first and foremost.

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@eric In other words, there’s no point in having developers laser-focused on quality if the company forces them to move fast and break things, and gets away with it (ohai, Boeing)

slothrop, to random
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

I’m setting up a laptop for a non-techie relative, who lives in another city. I couldn’t find a remote admin solution that would work under Debian, at least not one that seemed reliable and trustworthy.

Here’s what I ended up doing:

I created a user for the relative on my instance, and opened a chat session with them titled “Tech assistance”.

The chat session has a URL, which I bookmarked in the Firefox bookmark bar.

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

So now, when there’s a problem, my relative can give me a call. And then we can use the chat to share screenshots, terminal commands etc.

Let’s see how this works out in practice.

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@ProfessorGumby Thanks! NoMachine looks pretty good, but:

Both my relative and I connect through consumer-grade WiFi with dynamic IP addresses. My relative doesn’t have control over their router, nor the skills to fiddle with port mapping (and neither do I, tbh).

Given that they’ve been comfortably using Ubuntu for the past 5-6 years, my current approach is probably sufficient.

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

And yes, I’m absolutely giving my non-techie relative a Debian computer.

Why? Because it’s the easiest, safest and most sustainable way.

They can easily use this system for the next 4-5 years without major intervention. (Automatic updates enabled, natch).

@ProfessorGumby

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@mxmehl Ah, interesting - thanks!

I had not considered this so far.

slothrop, to random
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

I am, as the kids say, eepy.

zugkatze, to random German
@zugkatze@norden.social avatar

Ich hätte nicht anders gehandelt. Muss man so akzeptieren, wenn die Sicherheit gefährdet wird.

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@zugkatze Überhaupt ist ein sicherer Betrieb von öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln nur ohne Fahrgäste möglich.

sinituulia, to random
@sinituulia@eldritch.cafe avatar

Thinking about the Extremely Subtle And Understated Symbolism For Fertility painting again (Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables and Fruit, c.1620–5, Sir Nathaniel Bacon)
All the lovingly and painstakingly crafted cabbages. The lovely bosom-forward lass holding that pumpkin? All the erect carrots? The shape of the wreath? So subtle! Incredible. 😆

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@sinituulia @sewblue Wow!

The artist did a reasonable job on her breasts, but it’s the cabbages that really got most of the painter’s attention.

The nutsack-like fruits(?) hanging off the table are another lol-worthy detail.

StefanMuelller, to opensource German
@StefanMuelller@lingo.lol avatar

Hey, ho, I got the rights of my German textbook on HPSG back. \o/

So I will migrate it to @langscipress and it will be available and .

If you have anything that might be improved, please let me know.

Let's see, how long it will take me to convert the old latex code, written with styles for Stauffenburg to the LangSci-Setting.

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@StefanMuelller @langscipress Congratulations!

tre_bol, to random German
@tre_bol@mastodon.green avatar

Nähmaschine, Gärtle, Abstellraum fertig aufräumen, lecker kochen. Und was macht ihr heute so?

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@tre_bol Ausruhen, Mathe lernen mit dem Kind, aufräumen.

Vielleicht auch noch Kajak fahren auf dem See, ich hab ein Paddel auszuprobieren. Aber das Wetter ist eher so lala, so dass ich keine große Lust habe.

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@tre_bol Danke! Alles gut, das Kind lernt neuerdings ganz toll - so macht‘s Spaß 😄

Theorem_Poem, to random
@Theorem_Poem@mstdn.social avatar

Already in a grouchy-sad mood and my beautifully frothed milk curdled the instant it hit my coffee. flips table

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@Theorem_Poem Oh no!

Truly, the universe has conspired to bring you misfortune.

I hope you day gets better!

geoff_eg, to movies
@geoff_eg@mastodon.social avatar

Hello Mastadon!... time to try something new.

First an introduction - I go by Dyptre online, I'm a photographer based in Western Canada with a primary focus on capturing landscapes with a focus on natural and real editing. I shoot , I and primarily shoot

If you want to see more - give me a follow here I guess!

image/jpeg
image/jpeg
image/jpeg

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@geoff_eg Welcome! Those are beautiful pictures. Thanks for sharing!

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@geoff_eg You might like to add some alt text to each picture, describing it for non-sighted people. That way, everyone gets to enjoy your work 🤩

(For example, I would describe the first one as “Photo of a mountain with two peaks towering over a placid lake that reflects the lightly cloudy sky. The lake is rimmed by trees in fall colors.“
You can probably come up with something much better, though 🙂)

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@geoff_eg Hey 👋 Last time I checked, this was the (somewhat clumsy) way to do it:

  1. Hit “edit” on your post
  2. Delete the image(s)
  3. re-add rhe images
  4. now you can add alt text to the images
  5. hit “publish”

Not sure what client app you’re using, or if any of them are any better at handling this.

In any case, thanks a lot for putting in the effort 😃👍

scy, to vim
@scy@chaos.social avatar

My is now a tiling window manager.

https://codeberg.org/scy/dotfiles/commit/e9b79bcc1932c4d64b7c0d3224f873adae87186a

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@scy Torn between “neat” and “this has to be a sacrilege in some religion I’m not familiar with” 😂

PearlescentFerret, to random

Announcing the public launch of of Open Torment, a FOSS alternative to The Torment Nexus.

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@PearlescentFerret About time, too.

You don’t need documentation because you’ve got a Discord channel, right?

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@noodle @PearlescentFerret That’s probably accurate.

blogdiva, to music
@blogdiva@mastodon.social avatar

STEVE ALBINI, am so sorry you're gone too soon. may you rest in power.

"Steve Albini, Storied Producer and Icon of the Rock Underground, Dies at 61 | Pitchfork"
https://pitchfork.com/news/steve-albini-storied-producer-and-icon-of-the-rock-underground-dies-at-61/

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@blogdiva Albini produced (engineered?) albums both for Joan of Arc and for Joan of Arse.

nbsp, to random
@nbsp@yearning.gay avatar

finally, a good globe 🇵🇱 🇵🇱 🦅 🔥 💯

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@nbsp I thought the green thing on the Polski globe was a cabbage leaf, and thought “yeah, that works”

nota, to random
@nota@chaos.social avatar

oh: neurotypicals should really learn to mask better. I know you want to talk about the weather but please just pretend you have a favorite lizard or something, it's not that hard

slothrop,
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

@nota I’ve actually done this often enough for me to begin wondering whether I’m in fact neurotypical

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