@Vaguery@a2mi.social
@Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

Vaguery

@Vaguery@a2mi.social

Used to & might still: astrobiology, complex systems, agile software development, community design & development, data mining, artificial life, genetic programming (software synthesis), molecular biology (combinatorial chemistry), philosophy of science, management consulting (futurism-nobody-listens-to), open access…

Then a long disruptive break as my wife & I spent a decade taking care of sick friends & relatives.

Now, mainly: sell books on eBay; scan printed works; public domain support

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

Vaguery, to random
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Hey, Ann Arbor: WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?

Vaguery,
@Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

By which I mean the loud, house-moving explosion and/or thunder?

Vaguery,
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So apparently based on the police scanner chatter "items exploded in the basement" of a house on Winters Lane, in Whitmore Lake—11 miles from where I am.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

Alright, after all this talk of ketchup/catsup, I need to know:

What are the Top 5 Condiments you have to have in your kitchen?

Vaguery,
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@RickiTarr "natural" ketchup (no corn syrup), mustard BBQ, brinjal pickle, red barbecue sauce, sweet chili sauce

peterhoneyman, to random
@peterhoneyman@a2mi.social avatar

checked in to a days inn in cadillac michigan. no visible signs of bedbugs.

gonna chop down a scrawny xmas tree in the huron-manistee national forest tomorrow.

image/jpeg

Vaguery,
@Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

@peterhoneyman Did you see the Mushroom Houses while you're there? Even from the outside they're impressive.

thomasfuchs, to retrocomputing
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io avatar

For a while in the 1980s there was a weird obsession about stacking things on and under computers

Clunky external expansion box for your clunky IBM PC that goes under PC making the PC a tall boi.

Vaguery,
@Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

@thomasfuchs I remember using a huge 2-bay Bernoulli Drive underneath a horizontal-format IBM PC-AT for a summer job in the mid 80s. It was slightly bigger than the CPU box.

Vaguery, to random
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Yesterday I learned what a "Chicago screw" or "Binder screw" is, and realized why I might want to use some when building a new storage solution out of folded coroplast sheets.

Also I just now discovered that the Wikipedia article on these hardware items uses a broader term—which I note is ripe for misunderstanding—and calls the SEX BOLTS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_bolt

peterhoneyman, to random
@peterhoneyman@a2mi.social avatar

we trudged over to the arb with a knapsack full of books destined for the little free library at the end of the peony garden which was empty last time we looked

we found it pretty full but with enough room for our castoffs

before and after pix

image/jpeg

Vaguery,
@Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

@peterhoneyman Oh man I sold my copy of the UnDutchables....

peterhoneyman, to random
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It’s my birthday!

Vaguery,
@Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

@peterhoneyman 31 already?

Vaguery,
@Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

@peterhoneyman this implies some sort of cake-endianness

Happy Birthday!

Vaguery, to random
@Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

auctioneer’s assistant titling error of the day:

“Theronomus Bolch book”

Vaguery, to random
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a modest suggestion for one more skilled than I:

Beowulf, as read by Foghorn Leghorn

Vaguery, to random
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TFW it suddenly sinks in that you've been listing science fiction paperbacks for sale with 7 pounds' shipping charges instead of 7 ounces....

mcc, to random
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I have just found, on Amazon, a USB peripheral which is a gearshift for a manual transmission car

Challenge: What is the funniest way you could utilize this peripheral in software

https://www.amazon.ca/Thrustmaster-Shifter-8-Gear-Compatible-Playstation/dp/B0C2JCX1TD

Vaguery,
@Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

@mcc Hoping this hasn't already gone past, but @logista suggested my favorite so far:

Map CTRL/ALT/CMD keys to three bits (4/2/1), and then use this for smash key modality when typing.

So Mac's "Paste and Match Style" (opt-shift-cmd-v) is shiftkey+V+3rd gear, and screen cap on Mac (CMD-shift-4) would be shiftkey+4+1st gear.

Much simpler if you have a chording keyboard too I bet!

lzg, to random
@lzg@mastodon.social avatar

deleted_by_author

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    Vaguery,
    @Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

    @lzg I mean clojure sure

    Vaguery, to random
    @Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

    On the one hand, scanning books on a proper book scanner (like the Plustek 4800 I was just using) is [mostly] nondestructive, and the only damage you might cause is from handling the book itself. The binding doesn't open any more than a normal reader might open it.

    On the other hand, if you wiggle or sneeze or whatever and the book slides around on the platen, you got yourself a wiggly image.

    On the other other hand, this adds an interesting sort of provenance mark to your scans....

    Vaguery, to random
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    Every time I update or reinstall MacTeX I think to myself "Maybe I will learn one of the cooler new page layout systems, like LuaTeX or ConTeXt," but I never seem to do that.

    Vaguery, to random
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    Having finished Apple's Foundation season 2, I am... really kind of liking it a lot? Huh. Yeah Definitely good.

    It is absolutely not the 1940s plot, but to be fair that would have been awful unless it was done tongue-in-cheek as a sort of retro-future thing.

    And as space opera on TV? It's remarkable.

    Vaguery,
    @Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

    @glennf Yes. And unrolling surprises on top of one another. Big space opera vibes came in once they started to let the source material go.

    Vaguery, to random
    @Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

    Misreading of the Day: "Composting with Unicorns"

    hat-tip: @pragprog for the email I couldn't read

    Vaguery, to random
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    I am sitting here with the 1539-page Handbook of Discrete and Computational Geometry (2nd) under my hand. I had the smart idea of paging through, and jotting down ideas for interesting and useful benchmarks for genetic programming.

    I am on page 17 and have nine benchmarks so far, all having to do with the first chapter ("Finite Point Configurations")

    Gonna need a bigger notepad.

    Vaguery, to random
    @Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

    Ah well I suppose it's the cycle of life; the early morning mating flights of the small aircraft has begun. Their long migration is complete, and now they must find mates before the cold season by displaying their trailing elaborate tails in procession.

    Vaguery, to random
    @Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

    Nothing quite like when you somehow switch your monovisiok contacts and suddenly you're reading with your driving eye and driving with your reading eye.

    I felt like the world was about 30° off-kilter towards the left all morning.

    Vaguery, to random
    @Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

    I have to say that certain mathematical concepts have a lovely and ominous poetry in their naming.

    E.g., "Forbidden Configurations"

    https://www.maa.org/press/maa-reviews/forbidden-configurations-in-discrete-geometry

    Vaguery, to random
    @Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

    I feel like I, you know, have used the Internet for a while. Maybe I am not aware of all Internet traditions, but I kinda sorta know how to run the socials.

    And yet I have literally no idea how to re-log-in to the Discord server which has disappeared from the app I use.

    Like no trace of it. I read it last maybe two days ago, and today it is nowhere.

    Perhaps I have passed the test, and now I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Vaguery.

    Or just fuck 'em; who uses Discord really?

    Vaguery,
    @Vaguery@a2mi.social avatar

    @jasonnab Looks like lawsuit stuff

    https://www.reddit.com/r/internetarchive/comments/15r2mic/new_unofficial_internet_archive_discord_server/

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