@fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk
@fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

fishidwardrobe

@fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk

Monsters from the Id! Fish from the Wardrobe! Or something.

(TTRPG/Coding/Linux/Politics/Snark/Woo/ASD, in no particular order.)

Boosts are almost certainly an endorsement of something. Possibly not literally the post in question, though.

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

HelenG, to random
@HelenG@mastodon.social avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @HelenG I thought "that's not a new story", but it turns out it's a different mouse, different shed … but the same guy

    djsundog, to random
    @djsundog@toot-lab.reclaim.technology avatar

    new rule: if your company puts a LLM bot on the front lines of your customer support effort, your company should be legally bound to adhere to whatever the LLM bot states on your behalf.

    oh, you put a lying machine at the front door and it's telling people your product does things it doesn't actually do? and now you're stuck making your product do these things? maybe you'll think twice about deploying lying machines...

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @djsundog
    I'm absolutely not a fan of corporate personhood and there is no way so-called "AI" will become anything like an AI any time soon. But maybe it's time to call their bluff on both counts.

    What would happen if an actual person lied so blatantly for the company they were representing? Or plagiarised works on a massive scale?

    For that matter, what would happen if a company had an employee that they didn't pay, worked 24/7 and couldn't leave the premises or change job?

    baldur, to random
    @baldur@toot.cafe avatar

    I see the punditry commenting on the NYT lawsuit is is pretending that current era LLMs aren’t specifically designed to memorise and regurgitate answers in standardised tests as a marketing ploy.

    (Memorisation and verbatim copying is pretty much required to pass, say, a bar exam)

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @baldur Tangentially: isn't it finally time we stopped judging people's skills based on their ability to memorise things?

    JustineSmithies, to voidlinux
    @JustineSmithies@fosstodon.org avatar

    If all goes well with my install tomorrow I might be tempted to give a try instead of my usual trusty ?
    Anyone want to chime in with reasons for and against zsh ?

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @JustineSmithies Theoretically completion is much better but you spend ages fiddling with it to get it just how you want it.

    The killer feature for me was file completion on remote computers when typing an rsync command…

    mcc, to random
    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar

    "I was having a problem. I tried to solve it. Now I have two problems. I am uncertain what lesson I should be taking from this."

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @mcc Plus the problem of now having two problems.

    mike, to random
    @mike@thecanadian.social avatar

    I think a simple change in nomenclature could help Mastodon incredibly. Servers is an inaccurate term and instance is unfamiliar and vague. Both create tension for new users.
    Why not simply call Mastodon instances what they are: Communities.
    Ask users which Mastodon community they'd like to join. Have community rules, community policy, and community leaders. Not server rules, instance moderators and administrators.

    Let me start. Everyone is welcome at our community, https://thecanadian.social

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @chris @mike I consider myself in multiple communities already, though. I'm English. I'm a programmer. I'm an SF nerd.

    fitheach, to VintageComputing
    @fitheach@mstdn.io avatar

    Epson Stylus Color 740

    It is that time of year again when I dig-out the old, reliable Epson to print some small photos. I've been doing this every year since 1997. The Stylus Color 740 has never let me down, and the quality is still good enough for small prints.

    I don't have any other IT devices with this longevity.

    Thanks Epson.

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @fitheach Oh my. I had that exact model. Worked well with Linux and even printed on 3×5cards and envelopes. Still miss it.

    mariyadelano, to random
    @mariyadelano@hachyderm.io avatar

    I’m not one of those people who are afraid of doing math. I’ve done advanced math classes and I was a physics major for two years in undergrad, I’m not scared of math as a concept.

    But yet the second I see a spreadsheet for any kind of financial calculations my brain blanks out and fails to process anything I’m looking at and I feel very stupid.

    Sincerely, a business owner who is having to put financial projections together because I’m about to get acquired oh boy.

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @mariyadelano Accounts <> Maths. Accounting is arbitrary. You have to take a view on how you want to represent things; there's not always one right way.

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @mariyadelano Good point.

    fitheach, to random
    @fitheach@mstdn.io avatar

    Statement on sign above the M90 motorway:

    "Don't take drugs and drive."

    So, is it acceptable to take drugs, and just not drive?

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @fitheach I'm guessing: "We're the traffic dept.; if you take drugs and don't drive, it's out of our remit."

    mcc, to random
    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar

    I'd say that "sync" is probably the most important UNIX command that people are most likely to not actually know.

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @mcc doesn't it only do anything on certain file systems?

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @mcc I seem to remember reading a man file that said it wasn't needed. I don't remember when or what

    lizzard, to actuallyautistic German
    @lizzard@social.tchncs.de avatar

    @actuallyautistic I'm having a hard time with demand avoidance right now. I can just about being myself to do things from my to-do lists, but I just pull a blanket over my head when it comes to social stuff, ignoring people's calls and messages. Any tips from you guys on how to get out of that hole?

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @lizzard @actuallyautistic Don't make long lists.Take care not to phrase what lists you do make as commands ("walk the dog") but instead in terms that might scratch an itch ("Get photos of snowy park. Take Rover.").

    When it comes to actually knuckling down and doing stuff, use any dirty trick you can – "once it's done I don't have to worry about it again"; for manual tasks I put on my earbuds and try to just let my hands do it without me.

    But: be kind to yourself. Don't push hard.

    YMMV. 🤍

    fitheach, to random
    @fitheach@mstdn.io avatar

    I'm wanting to get some WiFi enabled temperature sensors. However, I don't want ones controlled by a 'phone app. I'd prefer something which has its own web server. I know I could do something with a Raspberry Pi, but, that is too much faffing. I want a ready-made consumer product. I have seen commercial products which were too expensive at £100+ each.

    Am I expecting too much?

    Does such a thing exist?

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @fitheach Most of these commercial products store your data on someone else's computer, for them to use too. Home Assistant will sell you a box that doesn't but, yes, it's about £100.

    isomeme, to ai
    @isomeme@mastodon.sdf.org avatar

    I keep bringing this up in replies, and people keep dismissing me. So I'm going to say it in my own post, and hope for a real conversation.

    There is currently a raging debate about whether the ability of current AI systems to imitate human creativity indicates incipient sentience. This is a hard case to make, as current AI is just big predictive models based on training data.

    What if instead this indicates that we humans are mostly big predictive models based on training data?

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @isomeme I think that that last "mostly" is doing some heavy lifting; there is clearly something more going on. Also I gather that the science says that the way we think isn't anything like how LLM's "think"; so that might mean drawing your conclusion isn't very valid.

    Now, if you are asking that if we had a test for sapience – whatever it is – might some humans fail it? Sure! I bet I'd fail it early morning before coffee, for one thing…

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @isomeme Sapience, obviously! But: how?

    Edit: I do sometimes wonder if creativity, the ability to synthesise new ideas out of old ones, might be part of it. A bigger part of it than reasoning, maybe.

    The first step is to define what sapience IS, of course, and we've not managed that.

    But I think if we start by assuming that all humans have it and all other animals don't, we'll never get anywhere…

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @isomeme Well, it's not "our" sentience. It's just sentience. If the term is to mean anything, it has to apply objectively to anything/one.

    shellsharks, (edited ) to random

    What makes someone a “reply guy” to you? A poll for science…

    (This poll allows* multiple choices. Boost for reach plz 🚀)

    EDIT: Trying to redraft to fix multi-choice issue.

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @shellsharks This poll and the (all perfectly reasonable, but different) responses to it add weight to my feeling that "reply guy" is not a sort of person, but just a pejorative term.

    There are certainly plenty of problematic people, even in the Fediverse. I'm just not sure that the term helps describe them.

    Rasta, (edited ) to mastodon
    @Rasta@mstdn.ca avatar

    What makes you follow people on Mastodon?

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @Rasta After everything, we are individuals. "ADHD" is a useful label. But it describes a lot of very different people

    mcc, to random
    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar

    Me: I wonder how you remove a git submodule from a git repository without deleting the submodule directory from disk. I know, I'll ask Stack Overflow

    Stack Overflow: Opens its mouth and an infinite river of writhing worms spill out, horrible and reeking with the stench of death and the sins of forgotten aeons

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @mcc @gsuberland I don't even like submodules in Mercurial – unless it's got way better than it used to be. Usually Mercurial does the thing the right way, tho

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @mcc @gsuberland I will investigate tomorrow and see if it has changed then!

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @mcc @gsuberland Good time for a review, we bumped versions from 3 a year ago at work and I've not checked…

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @mcc @gsuberland Eurgh, yes, last time but one I had to find the source and compile it myself. It's not well supported, either! Version compatibility problems. You would think every Hg user would need it…!

    (Aaaaand, every time, I have to remind myself not to install "hg-git"…)

    EDIT: I meant "git-hg". See my problem? :)

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @mcc @gsuberland IIRC it was an upstream bug in the package that parses Git …Dulwich? Thankfully seems not to effect Hg > v6

    mcc, to random
    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar

    For the last year I've been semi-daily posting "What I'm Listening To Today" links in this thread:

    https://mastodon.social/@mcc/108199886340178151

    The thread is now so long it is increasingly breaking Mastodon, so I am making a new thread, starting here.

    To recap, here's the entirety of the year-one thread in the most impractical possible format: A YouTube playlist containing 246 songs and running for just over 47 hours:

    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLIjft6ja7DP_GwDs3XuTbiFmHYTwJWa7

    fishidwardrobe,
    @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    @mcc The movie was produced and directed by people who had no interest in the Monkees. Essentially, the group were conned.

    It's a bunch of sketches and a rubbish ending. It does at least manage to be surreal, and have this song.

    edit: LOTS of Monkees songs were written by Goffin and King. Also, Neil Diamond.

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