@msh@coales.co avatar

msh

@msh@coales.co

Proprietor of coales.co, Python wrangler, tech tinkerer, advocate for a truly free and open society. Lives in Moh’kinsstis (Calgary) 🇨🇦.

NOTE: I have locked follows on my account to prevent bad actors from taking advantage. Feel free to request a follow. If your bio is filled out and the instance you are on is reputable I will gladly approve your request!

Header photo from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bow_river.jpg CC-BY-SA

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

sohan, to random
@sohan@freeradical.zone avatar

Americans: please give us an affordable, practical, small EV with decent range

American car companies: here’s a $70,000 EV truck that weighs 6 tons lol

<zero EV trucks are sold>

American car companies: wow americans aren’t ready for EVs

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

@sohan

Car companies:

We tried making them reach 100km/h in 2 seconds...

We tried making them use complex mobile apps to do things like open their doors and recharge...

We gave them Advanced Telemetry that collects GIGABYTES of their usage data every month so that we can teach Auto Pilot to drive badly on their behalf and also Optimize their Marketing Experience...

We tried adding quirky features such as light shows when they turn on, replacing the entire dashboard of controls with a giant touchscreen tablet, ice boxes in the frunk, 240V power plugs so they can use their welders on the go and even a Virtual Whoopie Cushion...

...and we even tried to make a giant steel pyramid on wheels...what a statement!

We gave them all of that value for a mere $99,999! How could anyone refuse!?

Clearly society is not ready to accept EVs yet.

thomasfuchs, to random
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io avatar

lol at people trying to retcon history and pretend the Y2K bug wasn't real.

I literally worked for like a year from late 1998 to the end of 1999 to fix databases of utility companies and health systems to not, you know, completely and utterly fail come January 1st, 2000.

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

@thomasfuchs as someone also involved in Y2K mitigation, I don't think it is an exaggeration at all to say that the global effort for Y2K was on the scale of the effort to battle COVID (and it worked out significantly better).

The difference is that while the public was vaguely aware of potential Y2K problems the effort to mitigate it had no visible impact on their daily lives, but for a good 2 years it was a dominant part of the lives of so many IT and industrial automation workers.

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

I miss having to defrag drives. There was something therapeutic about watching it.

video/mp4

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

@grumpygamer defragging is your computer's way of playing a game of freecell

dbsalk, to StarTrek
@dbsalk@mastodon.social avatar

I don't know enough people that would appreciate this joke/meme. #StarTrek #STTNG #Aha #80s #Music #Picard #Riker #Humor

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

@dbsalk that was quite a drawn out

roger, to Unions
@roger@coales.co avatar

I heard Mastodon likes and news about unions:

Right now, 560,000 people, about six and a half per cent of Quebec's population, are striking.

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

@roger holy shit Quebec has gone Full Scandinavian!

jackiegardina, to journalism
@jackiegardina@awscommunity.social avatar

Meta blocked a story critical of its climate change ad policies on all of its platform. An independent journalist asked permission to repost the story verbatim on her substack. It was blocked too.

Here it is.

#media #law #lawfedi #censorship

https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/kansas-reflector-meta-facebook-column-censored

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

@jackiegardina if anyone wonders why Meta is taking so long to properly support ActivityPub federation (ie. allow Threads users to follow us, not just the other way around), and what is in store if/when it finally does, this article should give you a good idea.

Meta is making sure any incoming AP feeds on Threads are put through their content filtering algorithm reliably, so that inbound federation stays UNreliable and Threads can remain a vapid feed of cats, minions, bragposts and corporate brandposts.

Meta is also betting on this having the side effect of maintaining an imbalance of information flow in their favour. If The Algorithm randomly buries, filters or blocks inbound fedi content for being "political" they'll just say "hey we are just making this a Safe Place for our users!" as an excuse to severely restrict federation.

THAT is what will truly choke off AP information flow, not the Fedipact instances preemptively limiting federation with Threads.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

The decisions and policy that have the most profound impacts on the greatest number of human lives often aren't the ones talked about most often in political discourse.

What is the biggest difference between life in this era and say... European feudalism?

I would argue it's near universal literacy. And along with simply having access to the written word, the highest percentage of a population armed with some scraps of what you might call a "liberal arts education"

The ability to self-teach.

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

@futurebird people in power are very much aware that progress depends on an educated society. Progress is exactly what people in power are trying to halt, because progress is what threatens their power.

This is why the people in power are pushing generative AI so hard. It promises (though probably will not deliver) mechanisation of decision making and knowledge work such that labour is commodified and workers are interchangeable. That is more valuable to them than even elimination of jobs.

Ultimately this could result in the halt of progress at exactly the point they want to halt it...where the uneducated masses are most easily managed so as to maintain the current order.

onepict, (edited ) to random
@onepict@chaos.social avatar

Thinking about how Folks held on to Twitter and Facebook for so long. I kinda feel that the folks who want mastodon/fedi to replace those networks perhaps didn't realise that for some of us, we'd already moved several times.

Once you've moved on from your first one emotionally it's easier.

So for those of us where this isn't their first rodeo what was your network pre Facebook? :BoostOK:

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

@onepict my first participation in online communities were BBSes, first just local but then federated via citadel and fidonet (yeah that's right kids, federation is a very old idea being rediscovered, not some radical new idea!). Once I had internet access in university I spent more time on usenet.

The web was invented when I was in university too but it took a couple years for bbs-like forums to catch on and there wasn't any effort to make them federate, which I think was a factor in Big Internet co-opting "Web 2.0" and basically ruining it.

msh, to random
@msh@coales.co avatar

Barely legal Mickeys in your area

https://archive.org/details/SteamboatWillie

msh, to HashtagGames
@msh@coales.co avatar

A Clockwork Orange

vga256, (edited ) to retrocomputing
@vga256@dialup.cafe avatar

today’s retro rescue: a wang word processing workstation and its WPS-5 disk drive unit!

go ahead, make jokes - we’ve heard em all! 😅

surprisingly the drive unit weighs 5x as much as the entire computer. at least 75 lbs

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

@vga256 five whole minutes since this was posted and nobody on Mastodon has told you to CW the pictures of your#BigWang I'm impressed

msh, to random
@msh@coales.co avatar

So the @MostFollowed human on Mastodon is apparently @georgetakei

Right on...we gotta be doing something right if that's how we pick our celebrities here

#OhMy

msh, to eggs
@msh@coales.co avatar

Sign my petition to change the name of to

msh, to random
@msh@coales.co avatar

Tonight's watch-along is !

Follow the hashtags as we get together to watch Karen, the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Woman, take on all the managers!

...

Er...I've just been informed that is a different Wasp Woman

Anyways, follow the hashtag for some scary entertainment or filter if you're square!

smallcircles, to bluesky
@smallcircles@social.coop avatar

Regarding opening signups, one person on HN comments:

> The account portability is probably the biggest problem with the right now.

And while that may be true from an end-user perspective, imho it is not the biggest problem. The fact that for a new dev building an app is like a Viking trying to discover America is problematic. While has the Holland-America line where you can check in for the ride.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39274882

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

@smallcircles @bhaugen Client apps look simple enough to design, and PDSes look like they are easy enough to self host, but relays, as well as anything that has to process the firehose coming out of the relays like AppViews, Feeds and Labelers, look quite complex and computationally expensive to me.I don't see how AT can reliably federate without depending on organisations with significant computational and bandwidth resources. I also think this makes the AT architecture less private and potentially more vulnerable to a large scale DDoS than the fediverse.

I'm sure that there will be some interesting AT apps that come out of this, but I don't think it is for everybody--it is too "big web" by design. I think"small web" is more fun.

msh, to random
@msh@coales.co avatar

It's Time! Gotta destroy them all! :ameowbongo:

msh, to random
@msh@coales.co avatar

I am generally of the opinion that economists lack a LOT of awareness (of self and the state of society in general) but sometimes they get the slightest sliver of a clue.

https://www.cbc.ca/lite/story/1.7118020

Towards the end of the article they suggest wealthier Canadians are not spending their excess money because they are getting more investment income by sequestering it and they are living comfortably enough anyways.

It isn't often economists realize really wealthy people actually cause economic stagnation not growth. Even "business conservatives" who are against tax-the-rich have to acknowledge that giving high income earners too much incentive to "save" (generate investment income, capital gains etc) can cause them to hoard wealth and eventually cause stagnation at a structural level.

msh, to random
@msh@coales.co avatar

If you're done with Superb Owls today and are into Magnificent Mushrooms watch with us right now!

Or filter it if we're getting in the way of your Swiftie posts whatever floats your boat

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

Today on we learned that effing off into the sea only works for the monsters.

Thanks @Taweret for hosting this delightful mash-up of Gilligan's Island and The Last of Us!

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Are any physicists or astrophysicists interested in studying my cat?

I have weighed her many times. She's just over 2.8kg (6 pounds)

The diameter of her smallest paw is at least 3 cm... so the area is something like 6 to 9 cm^2

I simply cannot account for the PSI with this geometry.

Recently it was hypothesized that cats can access a 4th spatial dimension... could this be how she has crushed my internal organs?

How is she able to pin a grown man to a couch for hours?

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

@Woodswalked @futurebird this lines up with my Theories on Felinity that cats posses their own state of matter somewhere in the middle of solid, liquid and plasma.

This is due to cats being alien beings from another realm who, cats being cats, are too lazy to bother with accurately manifesting themselves in our reality (they are basically like "ehh....close enough")...but it also allows them to do tricks with weight like Time Lords do with volume (a TARDIS can be bigger on the inside whilst a cat can be heavier on the outside)

msh, to random
@msh@coales.co avatar

Spiders!

SHATNER!!

It's in THREE MINUTES! Follow the hashtag to follow along with the commentary from the peanut gallery as we watch "Kingdom of the Spiders"

Or, mute if you are terrified of William Shatner

Or spiders maybe

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

And the whole county is Spider Food

THE END

Today on we learned you can accomplish ANYTHING when you Unionize even if you are just furry little spiders!

Thanks again @Taweret nothin's creepier than Shatner around the ladies!

msh, to random
@msh@coales.co avatar

So far the biggest takeaway from this is that good housekeeping services were hard to find

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

This is pretty heavy on pit and light on pendulum so far

msh, to random
@msh@coales.co avatar

From the depths of Hell

IT is here

No, not Meta Threads...

Follow along...or filter...as you would!

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

The nuclear fallout has embued Mrs Kilgour with powerful bisexual energy

msh, to threads
@msh@coales.co avatar

OK so i guess some people don't care about or want to avoid "political" criticism of (or ethical or philosophical either since any critical though it politics these days :blobrollingeyes: ) so I'm gonna try a more practical/technical argument to make y'all more comfortable.

First and foremost a lot of people don't like this because they LEFT Meta to be here because it is DIFFERENT. Facebook and Instagram and all that made me feel REALLY BAD. I deleted ALL my Meta accounts and users six years ago to get away from them...and now they are coming for me! If "meta like content" ends up dominating my timelines I WILL silence them!

People are all like "yay federation won!" but did it? Jury is still out. Regular people don't care about which servers their friends are on but they DO care that whatever place they interact on is SAFE SECURE and a nice place to be!

Honestly are Facebook and Instagram really safe and nice places to be? Good chance Threads ends up that way too!

1/2...

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

...So now for a more technical concern and a reminder.

is NOT THE FIRST TIME has introduced a product that supported an open federated protocol!

I repeat...This is NOT A NEW STRATEGY by Zuck & Co!

Facebook Chat supported XMPP for some time from its introduction. You could chat using any client app! Some day they might even FEDERATE!

Except you can't do either now...because Facebook dropped XMPP once they gained traction and had usage stats to make the argument it was an underused feature.

Threads looks SO MUCH like a replay of the XMPP playbook. This time they are federating out of necessity but make no mistake...Meta is hoping among other things that they can dominate the social graphs of non-meta fedi accounts to the point they can entice them to migrate (back) to Meta, perhaps by going as far as dropping federation in a few years due to relatively "low use"

I won't tell you to block/boycott Meta on priciple (though there are valid reasons to) but ALWAYS keep in mind their true agenda!

msh, to random
@msh@coales.co avatar

in the universe barrels of radioactive stuff just float around in the ocean this is OK

I welcome the arrival if our Ant Overlords!

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

in Capitalist America it's the PEOPLE that fuck off to the sea

THE END

Thanks for the buggy @Taweret !

msh, to random
@msh@coales.co avatar

"a Three...Hour...Tour...'
Three Hour Tour!"

msh,
@msh@coales.co avatar

Nice jungle matte painting Bobb Ross would be proud of the Happy Trees

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • anitta
  • GTA5RPClips
  • osvaldo12
  • thenastyranch
  • DreamBathrooms
  • khanakhh
  • magazineikmin
  • InstantRegret
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • mdbf
  • love
  • kavyap
  • rosin
  • megavids
  • everett
  • cubers
  • ethstaker
  • Durango
  • ngwrru68w68
  • tacticalgear
  • modclub
  • cisconetworking
  • Leos
  • provamag3
  • normalnudes
  • tester
  • JUstTest
  • All magazines
    •