@TomSwirly@toot.community
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TomSwirly

@TomSwirly@toot.community

.uk ➡️ .at ➡️.ca ➡️ .nyc ➡️ .nl

Check out my silly little bot here: https://botsin.space/@fortune

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evacide, to random
@evacide@hachyderm.io avatar

"...a would-be hacker would need to gain physical access to your device, unlock it and sign in before they could access saved screenshots."

I've got some news for Microsoft about how domestic abuse works.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwwqp6nx14o

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@xyhhx @skry @GossiTheDog @evacide

> browsers' password managers are totally insecure.

For the skeptical (which should be everyone! 😀 ), here are some not-so-technical citations as to why they are insecure:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/stop-using-your-browsers-built-in-password-manager/
https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/how-to-store-passwords-securely/48784/

Huntn00, to random
@Huntn00@mastodon.world avatar

I’m observing a consistent background drone on Mastodon attacking President Biden over US Gaza policy.
While I disagree with the USA’s complicity with Israel in Gaza, and have complained about it often in smaller forums, the consensus is:
Keep some level of perspective and pragmatism. Under no circumstance can you not vote for Biden and expect a better outcome for Gaza and Palestinians. You want to help them? YOU ARE NOT by enabling Trump as POTUS to team up with Netanyahu. 🔥🤔

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@GreenFire @Huntn00

I first heard the idea that you weren't allowed to criticize the Democratic candidate in the Reagan Administration.

After two generations, when exactly will be a good time? Will your grandchildren see it?

If you don't tell your lords and masters what you want, you are certain not to get it, which is why the US has moved so far to the right in that time.

Logically, the DNC feels no need to offer anything to progressives, and instead courts moderate Republicans.

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@GreenFire @Huntn00

> Obviously you don't give a damn about our climate crisis, gay rights, racial justice, gun violence, etc

Your reasoning is defective.

> your support for Republicans

If insults are all you have, you have nothing.

America doesn't have the most basic things that other developed countries have, like socialized medicine, or leaders and law enforcement officials who are subject to the rule of law.

1/

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@GreenFire @Huntn00

After generations of this, it's perfectly reasonable to ask what happened. Each election Americans are told to shut up their criticisms and vote D or the sky will fall, but then the Ds deliver only marginal change over generations, so overall Americans lose and lose and lose.

Now the sky really will fall, but the slogan "We are not the Republicans and that's all you get" has worn remarkably thin.

/2

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@GreenFire @Huntn00

America and the world would be devastated by another Trump administration - this would be the time for Democrats to actually offer something life-changing for the poorest 50% of Americans: socialized medicine, public transportation instead of the car subsidies that dominate the Inflation Reduction Act, federal enforcement on lawless police officers, stern limits on Israeli weapons.

It's horrifying to see their lackluster performance and natural to crave better.

jeffjarvis, to random
@jeffjarvis@mastodon.social avatar

The Times found two dozen random who said what it wanted them to say and then put this high up on its home page, where anything bad about Biden goes....
In His Beloved Philadelphia, Biden Faces Wariness From Black Voters https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/18/us/politics/biden-philadelphia-black-voters.html?smid=tw-share

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@jeffjarvis If you hate the Times, don't give them the clicks.

https://archive.is/FEkdG is a mirror.

junesim63, (edited ) to Cats
@junesim63@mstdn.social avatar

Has anyone had experience of a cat with hay fever?
For a week now, Copper has been intermittently sneezing, with red eyes, runny but dry nose, wheezing and lethargic. He's still eating heartily, doesn't have a temperature, and everything else is normal.
He improves overnight when I keep him in, which makes me think it's an external stimulus.
He loves being outdoors so I don't want to deprive him.

Edit: Muting as thread has been hijacked. Thanks to all who offered genuine advice.

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@junesim63 Keep him indoors, for his health, and the health of the environment: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/faq-outdoor-cats-and-their-effects-on-birds/

lauren, (edited ) to random
@lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org avatar

Large tech firms these days with lax security don't seem to ever pay a significant price for the hassles caused to their users when user data breaches occur. Perhaps if the CEOs of these companies were held directly responsible in a more direct way, they'd work harder on their security systems. What should be done with these CEOs?

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@lauren That was a hard one. Public flogging is more fun, jailing is more effective.

microtones, to AmbientMusic
@microtones@mastodon.social avatar

something very recent for Bandcamp Fri., check out my current piano musical direction...

https://davidbeardsley.bandcamp.com/album/blue-in-blue-in-blue


TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@microtones I have a new job starting Monday and I got an unexpected tax refund, so you better believe I'm going to catch up with you and complete my Beardsley collection, as well as purchasing all of Daevid Allen's work (I have a bunch but it's mostly copyright violated, not my fault!) and some others.

Greetings from Rouen, a lovely little town with terrible weather but lots of good energy and very affordable housing!

Meanwhile, back in Amsterdam, https://nltimes.nl/2024/05/02/amsterdam-parking-spot-goes-market-eu495000

atomicpoet, to random
@atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org avatar

This might sound silly, but for video games, I’d rather have 800p at 60fps than 4K at 30fps.

Once you get used to 60fps and higher, 30fps drives you up the wall. You’d think it wouldn’t matter since movies typically run at 24fps, but it really matters with video games where reaction time is so important.

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@atomicpoet Human reaction time to visual stimuli is ~250ms. In 24fps, one frame is 41ms; at 60fps, one frame is 17fps.

So the maximum delay in seeing an event between these two speeds is 24ms, or about 1/10 of human reaction speed.

Many musicians can perceive time errors down below that level, though...

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@atomicpoet Alas, in order to save my hands, and my spare time, I long ago gave up addictive games which make heavy use of my manual dexterity!

Go is the only game I play online these days; I do play fairly fast, but not at the speed where milliseconds make a difference.

A 24ms delay would be noticeable when playing music, though you'd compensate (the delay between actuating a note and hearing it can be far greater than that): it doesn't seem unreasonable that it'd affect game play.

timClicks, to random
@timClicks@mastodon.nz avatar

An short comparison between Python and Rust for text processing tasks. (An efficient algorithm is left as an exercise for the reader. 😅 ) https://youtu.be/3-odyhxzWkE

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@timClicks

from string import ascii_uppercase as upper, ascii_lowercase as lower

SWAP_CASE = str.maketrans(upper + lower, lower + upper)
assert 'No Gods, No Masters'.translate(SWAP_CASE) == 'nO gODS, nO mASTERS'

(Tested for correctness...)

DrALJONES, to random
@DrALJONES@mastodon.social avatar

Analysis: recent poll on voter intentions

About half of all voters would replace both candidates on the ballot.

62% of Biden-supporting voters would replace Biden.

Voters have little confidence in either Trump or Biden, including re fitness for office, personal ethics & respect for democratic values.

Pew research shows 49% of registered voters favor Trump, while 48% support Biden.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/24/in-tight-presidential-race-voters-are-broadly-critical-of-both-biden-and-trump/?utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=0c78f7e640-Weekly_4-27-24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-0c78f7e640-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

..

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@DrALJONES The D/RNC have completely blocked any other choice. Perhaps the Hand of Fate might sweep one or both of these pieces off the board.

> 49% of registered voters favor Trump, while 48% support Biden

I fail to understand why even one human who isn't Trump would support this man.

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@DrALJONES NO!! Not Biden, but Trump! 😲

I mean, as a socialist and a pacifist I am very, very much not a fan of Biden, but compared with Trump?!

Trump comes off as an unhinged rambling psychopathic narcissist!.If you saw him on the street, you'd expect him to come after you with a knife, smelling of human waste.

The States will not survive United if Trump wins. Yes, one tiny irrational accelerationist part of my mind say, "Those belligerent Yankee fsckers deserve it," but I repudiate it.

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@DrALJONES Man, somehow I managed to enrage someone with this post by not being extreme enough!, they wrote a long screed and then deleted it.

To make it clear, Biden is against most of what I stand for, but isn't a deranged maniacal psychopath who hates even more of the things I care about.

If I could press a button and remove them both, I'd do it now!! Heck, if I got to keep that button indefinitely, things would be very different for the evil old USA.

StillIRise1963, to random
@StillIRise1963@mastodon.world avatar

On its face, what fucking sense does ticketing people who can’t afford a home make.🙄

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@StillIRise1963 The supposed theory is simple - if you maltreat homeless people enough, they will magically figure out some way to not be homeless to avoid being tortured further.

Of course, almost no one becomes homeless by choice; and stress makes you stupid, not smart.

The real explanation is that in order to avoid thinking "There but for the grace of God go you and I," the architects of all this mess want to dehumanize their victims as much as possible.

DrALJONES, (edited ) to FreeSpeech
@DrALJONES@mastodon.social avatar

The issue of free speech on campus

Christian Parenti & Norman Finkelstein

Well worth watching - thoughtful & nuanced views on a difficult issue.

How can marginalised voices best protect themselves from loud money?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoSmAtVN19Q

Finkelstein at 25min

..

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@DrALJONES Seems like bullshit to me. Punching down is nothing like punching up.

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@DrALJONES You have so far posted well here, so I am willing to believe you!

I'd read a transcript, but YouTube videos on serious subjects don't work for me for several reasons, mainly because when I read serious material I read some parts very fast and other parts very slowly, and often stop just to think. (Also, now that we're peripatetic my wife has to hear everything I listen to...)

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@DrALJONES

I should start by saying that I'm seriously regretting my initial flip remark, based on having had too many free speech absolutists in my life. 😀

I have considerable respect for Professor Finkelstein, who generally speaks for me on most matters

I know there's a transcript in YouTube, but pasting it elsewhere hasn't resulted in readable prose for long texts: with timestamps, everything's in tiny uniform chunks, without, the text comes in blobs with random carriage returns.

futurebird, (edited ) to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

"The Why Files" is a youTube channel that regularly has videos with over a million views. They started as a kind of paranormal/fringe science channel that was mostly harmless, and that often debunked conspiracies.

But, they've moved beyond that in to material such as suppressed patents for cars that run on water. And treating climate change like it's a unresolved question. This has made their audience grow.

The things is they aren't just spitting lies. 1/

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@futurebird

> For example cars can run on hydrogen and one can make hydrogen through electrolysis of water.

But that cannot ever lead to "a car that runs on water". It takes more energy to electrolycize water into hydrogen and oxygen than you will get by burning the hydrogen because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

The idea of a car running on water is simply wrong.

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@futurebird

grrrRRR...

I have had too many friends who were completely into these things, and my cousin went off into this for no reason a few years ago, he's 60 and a university professor!

He also was telling me how the UFO people were going to be revealed "this year" - that was in 2020...

pvonhellermannn, (edited ) to climate
@pvonhellermannn@mastodon.green avatar

Just listened to @rahmstorf’s enormously helpful &clear Alfred Wegener Medal lecture:

“Is the Reaching a Tipping Point?”

Answer: it looks more and more likely. There are still uncertainties, especially as to “When”; but with ever increasing evidence it is clear, as Rahmstorf says: we must, must apply the .

During sobering conclusion a pop-up message about Taylor Swift. What a time to be alive.

https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU24/sessionprogramme/5215#

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@pvonhellermannn @clarebee Living in the Netherlands, and now France, I get a lot more of a feeling that "the people in charge" are actually concerned with the welfare of the average guy than I ever did in the USA or the UK.

kissane, to random
@kissane@mas.to avatar

A few weeks back I encountered a FOSS guy here explaining that when he sees open source devs ask for money, he blocks them and then stops using their code because they're morally wrong and he only wants to work with tools made by people who are doing the work for the right reasons. (I'm paraphrasing to avoid indexing the post.)

I've resisted writing about it because I'm slammed, but the question I can't shake is: Who benefits from the ideology of "pure" volunteerism?

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@kissane A possibility that no one seems to have considered is that this person is a troll, aka a low-level sociopath, who doesn't actually do what they pretend to do.

It's very hard to find a significant open source project which doesn't involve some people accepting money for spending their time to improve software for the common good.

For example, what language does the troll program in? Not C, C++, Python, JS, Ruby, ....

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

WHERE THE WEB IS GOING: The convergence of LLMs and web advertising will lead to "ads" consisting of several hundred gigabytes of javascript containing a (weighted) neural network designed to generate unique per-user video advertisements—generated on your computer at your expense to ensure the imagery is unique and evades AI-based ad-blockers.

"AI spam" is an entire AI, squatting on your CPU and making it glow dull red as it works out how to capture your attention.

Welcome to the spamularity.

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@ianturton @cstross It's the sequel to that book, "The Merchant's War"

TomSwirly,
@TomSwirly@toot.community avatar

@cstross @ianturton

I assure you, it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchants%27_War_(Pohl_novel)

In one of the earliest scenes, Tennison Tarb gets hit by the most advanced form of advertising and becomes hooked on Moka-Colas. He gets more and more hooked - there's a nasty scene where he tried to deny that he ordered some large number of these drinks, and is shown his signature on each purchase.

Later he goes through a horrifying detox, phase one of which is described in great detail, and he is repeatedly told...

1/

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