@Charles@gascoigne.social
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

Charles

@Charles@gascoigne.social

Bikes and old Macs and urban planning and whatever happens to have distracted me.

Lawyer by trade, lives in Canberra Australia.

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

davemark, to apple
@davemark@mastodon.social avatar

"The decision came after the executives Craig Federighi and John Giannandrea spent weeks testing ChatGPT. The product’s use of generative artificial intelligence, which can write poetry, create computer code and answer complex questions, made Siri look antiquated"

Amazing to me that it took 3 wks of ChatGPT to convince Apple that Siri was "antiquated".

Whole bunch of folks have been screaming this from the rooftops for years. 😐

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/10/business/apple-siri-ai-chatgpt.html
#Apple #Siri #AI #ChatGPT

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@davemark Siri isn’t even good at what it’s supposed to do. Reliably set a timer? Play music in the only app I ever use to do that, which is also Apple’s own? Extract a time and date from an email?

luciedigitalni, to auspol
@luciedigitalni@aus.social avatar

They seem to have left off a zero

"At the upcoming Budget, we are committing $100 million to a new national Active Transport Fund that will upgrade and deliver new bicycle and walking paths."


https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/c-king/media-release/national-active-transport-fund

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@luciedigitalni How much are they spending on roads in the budget, I wonder — how many billions, that is?

CurbsideShip116, to Canberra
@CurbsideShip116@mstdn.matthewmcgranahan.me avatar

The Liberal's Woden Busway plan in place of LR Stage 2B is giving me the NBN Mixed Technology vibes.

I'm wondering if it was to go ahead, would we be returning in 5 to 10 years time to put in light rail anyway?

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@CurbsideShip116 Yes. I love how everything there is “for investigation” and “potential”. They also don’t say where the space is coming from — presumably effectively reducing Commonwealth Ave to two lanes all the way. I don’t oppose that, but it’s something a lot of people will be interested in.

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@CurbsideShip116 Also, they have “Made in Canberra for Canberran’s”, complete with apostrophe, written on their badly photoshopped bus. Ugh.

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@CurbsideShip116 Strikes me as populist nonsense. Fine if it were remotely feasible, but establishing that sort of industry in Canberra from scratch would be incredibly expensive, and where would the workers come from?

More focus on improving the bus network’s frequency is good though.

MLE_online, to random
@MLE_online@social.afront.org avatar

Meat so expensive now I'm experimenting with and rediscovering the old classics of offal, like gizzards.

Stewed gizzards for dinner tonight!

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@MLE_online As long as it’s not kidneys. My grandfather used to grill sheep kidneys. Whole house spent of lanolin and urine. 🤢

Not enough garlic in the world.

vga256, to SmallWeb
@vga256@dialup.cafe avatar

little story for tonight.

while i was goofing around with #globalTalk, I ended up searching for some old Simpsons icons for my classic Macintosh (an LC 475), and stumbled upon an entry on the garden called Banned Simpsons Icons. (Who could resist downloading something with a title like that?)

They were called the "Banned Simpsons Icons" because Fox once sent the artist - Jeanette Foshee - a cease & desist letter for her uncannily perfect renderings of the copyrighted characters. they planned on suing her for every penny she made ($0.00) on them. this was back in 1995.

i thought - hell, what a wild story. why don't I get a hold of the artist - jeanette - and find out more about her banned icon set?

what i stumbled upon broke my heart, and i ended up spending a week digitally preserving what i could find.

read the rest of this diary entry here: https://www.dialup.cafe/~vga256/diary.htm

#smallWeb #homepage #worldwideweb #marchintosh #macintosh

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@vga256 That’s very sad. I had these icons back in the day. They really were good.

luciedigitalni, to auspol
@luciedigitalni@aus.social avatar

@fuckcars https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/14/melbourne-yarra-city-council-parking-fees-suvs-utes

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@luciedigitalni @fuckcars
Dickson the other day…

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@luciedigitalni @fuckcars I quite liked the suggestion someone made the other day when I posted a series of jets parked across the footpath — thermite.

MLE_online, to random
@MLE_online@social.afront.org avatar

A few days ago I was working in the driveway when a random man came up and asked me in broken English if I needed the carpets cleaned in my house. I said no, and then he said, "Wow, you are a tall one. How tall?"

I told him and he smiled and said to have a good day, and left.

Today, a random man came up to my front door and told me in broken English that he was selling leggings and wanted to know if I wanted to buy any. I said no thank you, and then he said, "My brother who cleans carpets said there was a tall lady here. How tall are you?"

I told him and he smiled and told me to have a good day and left.

Am I the neighborhood cryptid now? I don't think I like it.

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@MLE_online

Madam Maxime, a giant, slapping a lantern out of the way and shouting.

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@MLE_online Oh — Madam Maxime from the Harry Potter series. Headmistress of Beaubaton’s academy for girls and - relevantly - a giant who’s like ten feet tall.

(I’ve been reading them to my kids — apologies for the slightly obscure reference!)

NanoRaptor, to random
@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar

Just look at the purity of those pixels.

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@NanoRaptor There is no better looking screen than a 1-bit active matrix LCD. And you can read it in sunlight.

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@RL_Dane @NanoRaptor
Oh — yes, you’re quite right. Definitely grey pixels there. I agree though — the design of the early MacOS is a masterpiece of functional minimalism.

hotdogsladies, to random
@hotdogsladies@mastodon.social avatar

I have found the most English name, and it is

"General Sir J.G. Smyth, V.C."

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@hotdogsladies Makes it more awkward when a VC winner engages in extracurricular…alleged war crimes. Alleged. Ish.

Oh, link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Roberts-Smith?wprov=sfti1

luciedigitalni, to Canberra
@luciedigitalni@aus.social avatar

Leave the peacocks alone!


https://citynews.com.au/2024/new-petition-stirs-narrabundahs-peacock-wars/

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@luciedigitalni What sort of miserable motherfucker wouldn’t want peacocks around?

qurlyjoe, to random
@qurlyjoe@mstdn.social avatar

Our reliance on telescopes that use mirrors leaves us vulnerable to invasion by space vampires.

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@qurlyjoe @vampiress Just a shill for big refractor.

sdw, to random
@sdw@mastodon.social avatar

In case you’re wondering about the effects of the Boeing groundings since the blown out door incident:

Mother in law ended up waiting on hold with @AlaskaAir for 7 (seven) hours today because of 737-MAX9 cancellations, trying to get a new flight home.

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@sdw Says a lot about the increase in call reliability of modern mobile phones, but ugh. Not having a call-back feature ought to be illegal.

gedeonm, to DoctorWho
@gedeonm@mastodon.social avatar

Watching the third special. Wow, it’s pretty frickin’ amazing.

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@gedeonm I’ve had that damn spice girls song stuck in my head for days.

Charles, to random
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

Longstanding retro Mac ambition achieved — a copy of Painter in its paint tin. Version 4 and accelerated for Power Macintosh, so newer than I generally prefer, but complete.

A paint tin with “Painter” written down the right hand side side, a large yellow sticker promising an upgrade to version 5, and a stylised painting of a paint brush tin.

alexkidman, to DoctorWho
@alexkidman@aus.social avatar

Got a tiny bit more detail on Doctor Who on Disney Plus (with a big ol' tip of the hat to "Puggs") -- so I've updated my piece on how to watch the 60th Anniversary specials in Australia.

https://alexreviewstech.com/how-to-watch-the-doctor-who-60th-anniversary-specials-in-australia/

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@alexkidman Bit more:

Charles, to random
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

Hey @davemark — check what just arrived in the mail:

santiago, to random
@santiago@masto.lema.org avatar

Damn HomeKit cameras are still the most expensive & unreliable shit. I keep hoping for them to get better for years but as soon as you leave the country they lose connection sometimes. Glad I have other stuff.

1/3 responding right now. UniFi: all of them working perfectly. That’s in Switzerland where electricity is perfect and 10 Gigabit fiber never cuts.

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@santiago HomeKit is garbage. My garage door opener still unreliable on my watch.

davemark, to apple
@davemark@mastodon.social avatar

Is 8GB enough for basic Mac usage?

I would love to see a test configuration that proves 8GB is not enough. Some setup that brings a specific 8GB Mac to its knees (using built-in apps).

Like, open a browser, open 40 tabs, open 20 Pages documents, etc.

I hear a lot of complaining about an 8GB base config, but I am still unsure.

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@davemark I have a MacBook Pro 13 with m1 with 8 gigs. I bought the Pro because of the fan, which comes on when I play civilization which is precisely why I didn’t want the passively-cooled Air. I have never run into memory issues with it. I use it for word processing, page layout, emulating windows to talk to my car’s computer, and emulating old Macs. Not heavy usage by any means, but the fan makes the Pro worth it for me.

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@davemark There seems to be a lot of IT dudebro gatekeeping along the lines of “you’re not a real pro if…”. There are an awful lot of “pros” whose work isn’t computationally intensive. I’m a lawyer. I basically use Word professionally (but have to do so on Windoze because government).

If people need more RAM, buy more RAM. Perhaps people just want to look at their photos on a really nice screen. That’s fine.

Charles,
@Charles@gascoigne.social avatar

@davemark I’m fully on team Jobs/Siracusa/Mark when it comes to fan noise generally.

Maybe I need two machines…

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