MichaelTBacon

charlotteclymer, 3 months ago to random

Democrats just flipped a GOP House seat in an enormous landslide. Here's why that's bad for Joe Biden.

KatM, 3 months ago to random

Corporate America seeks a return to the Guilded Age.

My firm’s biggest client just cut all of their contractors in marketing, IT, advertising, and design with zero notice and basically told their overworked in-house teams to suck it up. They’ve got investors to please. Now I have to cut my subcontractors unless I replace the client quickly. We’re all scratching our heads… to do this right in the middle of multiple large projects underway. 🙁

This is the real “trickle down economics.”

jdm2, 3 months ago to nba

Mavs getting PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford from the Wizards and Hornets.

I like it. Decent upgrade. I was bracing for a Josh Green trade but they made it without him somehow. #NBA

drahardja, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to random

Oh hey, the Attorney General of Indiana has published a snitch line for schools that teach LGBTQ+ issues, or make Woke materials available to their students!

Here’s the URL. Use it responsibly. Don’t use it to report Godzilla flying the Trans flag or anything like that, ok?

https://in.accessgov.com/attorneygeneral/Forms/Page/attorneygeneral/education-transparency-form/1

MichaelTBacon, 3 months ago to random

One thing I miss about the X-Parrot site is people live tweeting local political meetings.

Which brings me to say, does anyone have any news sites or anywhere else with updates on the #Durham #DPS emergency meeting today?

spaceraser, 3 months ago to random

There's a thought that I'm having a difficult time teasing out at 5:30 in the morning, but it's been with me for a little bit. I don't know that a lot of people have room, in their conception of computing and tech, for the legitimacy of what my brain is calling aesthetic taste, or doing something for the artistic merit it has. Let me try to explain with examples.

I follow a couple of open source hardware projects that are very active right now, the @mntmn Reform series of computers and the Tangara music player from @jacqueline and co. Both are boutique, small batch electronics, made by people who seem to be driven mostly by the desire to see something exist in the world. It would be nice if something like this caught on and they sold a couple million open source laptops, but I don't think that's a reasonable expectation from these teams. There is appreciation coming from the public, but there's also a lot of criticism focused on the price of small batch, hand assembled electronics ($250 for an mp3 player? My sansa clip was $3 on ebay and it does the same thing!) or on the "impracticalities" of the design decisions made by the team. My phone can do what this thing does, it's not practical to carry around a music player. My ThinkPad is cheaper and does more work, and is half the size. This chonky boi laptop isn't practical.

There just seems to be a blindness to the importance of, and the validity of, the power of an emotional response to a piece of consumer electronics, the same way a piece of fine art might move you. We can accept that a painting is valuable, primarily, as an object that elicits a human response, that requires a human element for the "thing" to "work" at all. An oil painting isn't practical. It requires care and a bit of maintenance and a big wall to hang it on and who has the time? It's just a picture. There's a guy out there making custom one-off computers using techniques from fine furniture making, trying to imagine and create a world where this semi-magical piece of human ingenuity, the product of countless hours of labor, care and creativity, isn't consigned to the e-waste pile after a couple years. Tech people are baffled. How are you going to upgrade it? Why use wood, it's not as thermally efficient as aluminum. It's not practical.

The instinct to tear something down, just because it's primary merit is artistic expression, isn't present in other disciplines. When someone shows up to a dinner party in a nice outfit, and the wearer shares that they made it themselves at home because they couldn't buy something exactly the way they wanted, people are impressed at the effort and might ask more about the construction. If they share that they're trying to buy less clothing because the waste in textiles and fashion is ATROCIOUS, SIMPLY A MONSTROUS ATROCITY BY ANY MEASURE, people may admit that they don't share that conviction that strongly, but good for you. Or maybe they'll say "well that's well and good but you aren't as good a sewist as the person from checks tag Bangladesh that constructed my outfit so keep trying." What you don't hear from the majority of people, right off the bat, is that you're dumb for spending all that time making your own or paying a sewist to custom make it for you because you could have bought something to cover yourself for $20 at walmart.

So I guess I just want to validate the emotional response to a piece of computing hardware as a good enough reason, on it's own. The joy of ownership of a device that not only fits your taste but also has a story and a particularity. Something with stickers and spray paint and dents and wood scrollwork and a CRT monitor. Because you like it. Because it's yours, and it's made the way you want it, and it's made for you to use.

I'll conclude with a similar thought I read in a book about building and renovating kitchens. The author spent a lot of time in the introduction opposing the HGTV-ication of the entire conversation of a kitchen renovation. How much do we spend, how much did the value of our home rise? What finishes and fixtures do we use, which do we avoid? We don't want to negatively impact the value of our home, we don't want to put custom cabinetry in because we'll never get the money out of it that we put in to it. What if they don't like teal paint, they may not pay as much for the house. Completely left out of this conversation is how much you will enjoy using the kitchen in the intervening time between you renovating this kitchen and you selling this house! You're the one who spent the money, you should enjoy using the kitchen!

You should enjoy using your stuff. If you'd enjoy it more if it was spray painted neon green, then break out the rattlecan. Make it yours. Even it it's less practical.

gwensnyder, 3 months ago to random

Abolish the New York Times.

And then no one ever give reactionary attention seeker Pamela Paul platform again, please. This is so destructive.

shortridge, 3 months ago to random

in case there are other nerds out there who haven’t yet read this classic, behold “the case of the 500-mile email” https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html

I adore the “absurd computer-borne mysteries” genre and kindly ask for more content from the annals of y’all’s careers

mekkaokereke, 3 months ago to random

🤡There's a non-zero percent of the US population that genuinely believes that The NFL, Joe Biden, "The Pentagon" and Taylor Swift, conspired to create a fake relationship and rig the NFL playoffs, so that Taylor Swift could pop out in the middle of the Superbowl halftime show and say "Vote for Biden!"

I wish I was kidding.

Like, not a small percentage either.

majorlinux, 4 months ago to random

What would you like to see in a Native American Tekken character?

Harada wants to know!

Tech Talk Thursdays Episode #106 (01/18/2024) - Desk Chair Analysts

https://dcanalysts.net/tech-talk-thursdays-episode-106-01-18-2024/

#DCA

futurebird, 4 months ago to random

The surfer wasn’t just a dork, he was also something of a jerk. But he did promise that if he won the surfing contest he’d tell me how he knew when the waves would crest. Most of the crowd cheered for the kinder and more elegant contestants but me?

I’d root: “mean square!”

(told this joke once to my calc 3 students— and they wanted ‘extra credit for being forced to listen to such a bad joke.’ Absurd! it’s very funny if you ask me.)

semibogan, 4 months ago to random

LMAO holy crap they didn’t clear coat cybertrucks 🤣

https://www.motorbiscuit.com/tesla-youll-have-to-wipe-dead-bugs-and-bird-poop-off-your-cybertruck-asap-to-avoid-corrosion/

MichaelTBacon, 4 months ago to random

Aight, NC COVID data should have just been published. Let's go have a look.

Will it be surprisingly good, like last week's? Will it be horrible, turning that news into a cruel tease? Will it be really contradictory and unclear not only as to what's happening now, but cast doubts on previous indications that looked somewhat conclusive?

Yeah, probably that last one.

taylorlorenz, 4 months ago to random

Chicago-area Tesla charging stations are lined with dead cars and have essentially turned into car graveyards as temperatures have dropped to the negative double digits: “A bunch of dead robots out here” https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chicago-area-tesla-charging-stations-024817227.html

MichaelTBacon, 4 months ago to random

I just double checked, and no, those aren't my monkeys and that's not my circus.

skinnylatte, 4 months ago to random

“homelessness "is not highest in the parts of the country where poverty is highest. It is instead highest in parts of the country where exclusionary zoning rules are most binding."

https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/a-way-forward-on-housing

futurebird, 4 months ago to random

So.

None of you thought it might be important to tell me that ferns have sperm that swim??? I just had to find all this out on my own?

And, (apparently, & no one thought to bring this up either🙄) fern plants are only one form... they have this 'other form' (tiny, ephemeral, difficult to find in the wild) alternates generations-- Fern spores don't grow into ferns! (WHAT) they grow into 'gemetophytes' (WHAT) THEN you get a fern.

Feel like I've uncovered a massive scandal.

MichaelTBacon, 4 months ago to random

I've really enjoyed reading this post. It's both an implementation of the GPT-2 engine (a predecessor to the engine used in ChatGPT) in native PostgreSQL. But it's also an extremely good explainer of how the tech underlying the transformer in these engines works. I knew a lot of this but not all of it, and even for the part I knew, this was a good refresher.

https://explainextended.com/2023/12/31/happy-new-year-15/

MichaelTBacon, 4 months ago to random

Boy, United finding loose bolts on its aircraft only AFTER the door exploded just really makes you excited to take a plane trip, doesn’t it?

TarkabarkaHolgy, 4 months ago to Parenting

Me, introducing the new clock-nightlight gadget to the child:

"See, when the sheep's eyes are open and the light is green, it's play time. When she sheep's eyes are closed and the light is red, it's sleep time."

Child, already prying the sheep's eyes open with her hands:

"So if the sheep's eyes are open I don't have to sleep?..."

Me, making mental note:

"... I am not DMing for this kid. Ever." 😅

#parenting #DnD #ToddlerDnD