@jmac@masto.nyc
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

jmac

@jmac@masto.nyc

I live in New York. I get paid to write about databases. I don’t get paid to write about other stuff, but I do it anyway.

Tech writer at Google; Co-founder of IFTF, an interactive-fiction nonprofit; Liker of coffee, cats, open web technologies, et cetera. Co-admin of https://masto.nyc.

All views I express in my personal posts are my own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Five Borough Fedi Project.

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

jmac, to random
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

Amy is a superfan of this show (and many others like it) so we’ll be there.

I absolutely lack the affinity-muscles to totally get the appeal of this sort of thing, and I am also able to step back and look at all the dumb stuff I love that makes my spouse shrug blankly.

She comes with me to my bleep-bloop baloney electronic music shows and I go watch some attractive people roll dice and yell apparently hilarious inside jokes for several hours. It’s a fair deal!!
https://mstdn.social/@TechCrunch/112259440961053035

jmac, to random
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

This makes me say "Suuuuuperman” in a deep voice and then sob, which I don't think is the intent of the artist here
https://tapbots.social/@ivory/112258690517926304

jmac, to random
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

Please please please consider this if you're a bilingual American who is fond of democracy.

I worked the polls in 2020 in a neighborhood with a large Spanish-speaking population, and we had only one fluent Spanish speaker among the volunteers. I can assure you that any polling station would be better with your help.
https://wandering.shop/@maco/112255084478364348

jmac, to random
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

I do laugh when I open someone's profile in Ivory and I see the (FOLLOWS YOU) bubble for just a split second before the app says “ope" and hides it.

jmac, to comics
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

Learned about today’s Brooklyn Independent Comics Showcase in Industry City only this morning, but I have reason to wanna be out of the house for a few hours today, so hey why not. https://industrycity.com/event/brooklyn-independent-comics-showcase/

This webpage implies it's indoors but a friend tells me it's outdoors. I don't know! Let's find out!!

jmac,
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

(Kind of not a great photo illustration for an indie comics festival though!)

jmac, to random
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

With kindness and sincerity, this video made me feel great empathy towards my nation's food service workers, and also gave me a rising sense of anxiety edging into the threshold of an outright terror of a flavor I have never tasted before. "Easy.”
https://mastodon.social/@hotdogsladies/112254463591200744

jmac,
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

My employer's documentation style guide includes guidance against calling anything "easy" or "simple", including phrases like "To [make something happen], simply [take this action]".

It's simple for you, the expert writing the docs, perhaps! But this doesn't help the person trying to follow your directions, and risks making them feel frustrated or even defeated if they run into trouble while following "simple" instructions on very challenging topics.

That video is a good counterexample.

jmac, to random
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

Like everyone, I took a moment on Monday to marvel that our sun and moon are just the right relative size for the magic to happen the way it does. And then for the first time I wondered if that coincidence was necessary for human-level consciousness to arise, that uncannily perfect shadow strobing over the surface of the earth on a billion-year scale gradually making animal brains bend into themselves, a missing letter in the Drake equation.

jmac, (edited ) to random
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

Is everyone in the Hugging Face community too young to remember the Alien movies or is this some kind of satire operating on an incomprehensible level

zarfeblong, to random
@zarfeblong@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Well, that was a pretty good four months.

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/-distributed-studio-possibility-space-abruptly-shut-down-by-prytania-media

jmac,
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

@zarfeblong this is the dumbest goddam thing, they didn’t deserve you, and I’m sorry you had to find out this way.

rejinl, to random
@rejinl@masto.nyc avatar

Icymi: I just switched instances again because the one I had just moved to is shutting down. Don't expect another introduction post so soon after my previous one 🙃

jmac,
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

@rejinl Welcome welcome!

swiftyshq, to random
@swiftyshq@wetdry.world avatar

some months ago i saw someone with a graphic t shirt with a logo i thought was from a video game, but months later, i realized, thanks to my beautiful mastodon friends here, that it was a shirt with the arch linux logo.

jmac,
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

@swiftyshq You've made it. welcome

KaraLG84, to random
@KaraLG84@dragonscave.space avatar

I saw a tweet the other day that was like If you click anything but 5 stars on those surveys companies push out these days, you're a bad person or something like that. I never fill them out at all and just delete them so I must be the spawn of Satan to them.

jmac,
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

@KaraLG84 Ignoring surveys you don't want to answer is fine.

The advice you saw was probably more referring to the conventional wisdom that, in far too many environments where customers are asked to rate service, five stars is considered baseline, and if you give someone e.g. three stars, that's you giving them two demerits.

samplereality, to random
@samplereality@post.lurk.org avatar

can still confirm that—[checks notes]—going viral on any social media platform, even decentralized ones, sucks

jmac,
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

@samplereality I nod my head, look curiously at your recent posts, say "Oh, cool" and contribute to the problem. 😔 👍

jmac, (edited ) to random
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

Everyone in my house achieved great things today:

• My spouse got elected to the board of the American Library Association's Core division: https://www.ala.org/news/member-news/2024/04/announcing-2024-core-election-results

• I finally figured out the location of the elusive and scandal-plagued artist Boniface Mercurio in the 2021 video game Sherlock Holmes Chapter One

We really hold each other up in this partnership, you see

Wiswell, to random
@Wiswell@mastodon.social avatar

Unveiling my travel and con schedule for the year! Missed my book launch but still want to get your book signed or hear me make puns in person? Well you can! Literally starting this weekend.

jmac,
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

@brainwane @Wiswell I do enjoy these sorts of things!

jmac, to random
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

I didn’t realize before studying this album cover anew that “West End Girls” and “Pet Shop Boys” have the same scansion and thus some kind of implied parallelism and this is itchy knowledge
https://mstdn.social/@boomtownpodcast/112241421077881665

smadin, to random
@smadin@better.boston avatar

So eclipses are pretty good actually

jmac,
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

@smadin This may be the best of many similar photos on my timeline today!

jalcine, to random
@jalcine@todon.eu avatar

Just backed the Iron Circus's newest comic line: Rigsby WI. https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/iron-circus-comics/rigsby-wi-volume-1 (https://jacky.wtf/2024/4/ABuv)

jmac,
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

@jalcine That's a good one!! I love S.E. Case's work so much.

arstechnica, to random
@arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar

Elon Musk just gave another Mars speech—this time the vision seems tangible

"These are unthinkable numbers, but we’re not breaking any physics to achieve this."

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/04/elon-musk-just-gave-another-mars-speech-this-time-the-vision-seems-tangible/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

jmac,
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

@arstechnica folks, what are we doing here

rejinl, to random

"Path of totality" sounds more apocalyptic than ecliptic.

jmac,
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

@rejinl

"Ecliptic": Stock studio music behind a gym-membership radio ad

"Path of totality": A Cruel Angel's Thesis

jmac, to random
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

Accessibility scolding is the only kind of post scolding I stand behind.
https://social.growyourown.services/@FediTips/112230995018439653

jmac, to random
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

Stories of "I asked an LLM to tell me garbage, and it told me garbage!” do remind me of a video I saw when iPhones started getting big-but-thin. It showed a pair of hands clearly exerting significant and intentional force to bend an iPhone, and lo: the iPhone bent. Scandal!

They also remind me of amusing myself as a kid with 10 PRINT "I AM A STUPID COMPUTER 2 + 2 = 5 DUHHH”; 20 GOTO 10

None of which excuses loosing LLMs on the public with zero education or context.
https://mstdn.social/@brettwitty/112231864997956888

jmac, (edited ) to Kubernetes
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

The command-line program kubectl is most correctly pronounced:

jmac,
@jmac@masto.nyc avatar

@cnoocy something like Koo-bay-cutl, then? Like Chocolatl?

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