@ovid@fosstodon.org
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ovid

@ovid@fosstodon.org

Well-known software developer. American living in France.

I have a poetic license to kill.

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ovid, to Guns
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As you may know, my niece was shot this morning (evening in TX) while walking down the street in a city she was visiting. A random drive-by shooting. She’ll live, but they can’t remove the bullet. She’ll probably have to pay a fortune for having her life saved.

The , culturally, doesn’t give a damn about people being shot. have more protection than people.

Nobody is seriously trying to take your 45-caliber fleshlights, damn it, so meet us halfway.

ovid, to France
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Ah, , I love you.

Went to a children's bookstore a few years ago. There was a book by the cash register whose title, translated into English, was "Why the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer."

I asked the lady behind the counter (in French) "Isn't this a children's bookstore?"

"Yes, it is," she replied.

"That doesn't seem like a children's book."

"It's a special edition edited for children."

ovid, to random
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Direct , where voters can propose and vote in legislation sounds great—ignoring the bought-and-paid-for politicians. Turns out it's not so great for two big reasons.

  1. Corporations are often behind those voter initiatives, with the "will of the people" directly serving the wealthy.

  2. Even when it's not, poorly thought-out laws get written (for Oregonians, think "Bill Sizemore") that can gut the government's ability to function.

https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1119939

ovid, to space
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

Just a few of the things created or improved. I suspect that research may be the most profitable thing the US government has done.

  • Air quality monitors used in smokestacks
  • Better structural analysis technologies
  • Energy efficient insulation
  • Freeze-dried food
  • Machinery lubricants
  • Many new medical techniques
  • New hydroponics techniques
  • Scratch resistant lenses
  • Semiconductors
  • Smoke detectors
  • Solar energy
  • Water purification systems
  • Weather forecasting
ovid, to debian
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Happily installing on an old and replacing . My current M1 is awesome, but any time I need to deal with anything touching the amd64 architecture, it slows to a crawl and is unuseable.

Edit: and I can't find a mouse with a cable, so now my new install is useless because Plasma requires the mouse in order to set up Bluetooth :(

ovid, to Cats
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How cats see themselves.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/61o39h/oc_the_battle_of_the_century/

ovid, to Toyota
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's claims for their new solid state-battery technology are stunning. 1,200 km range (~745 miles) on a full charge. Lighter and less expensive than lithium-ion batteries. And the icing on the cake? 10 minutes or less to fully charge.

Vehicles with these should start in 2027. If this holds up, EVs will start being more convenient than traditional engines and could be in serious trouble.

https://www.topspeed.com/everything-to-know-toyota-solid-state-battery/#decoding-toyota-39-s-potentially-game-changing-solid-state-battery-breakthrough

ovid, to random
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I have questions, but I don't think I want the answers.

ovid, to windows
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ActiveState on is a solid product, but I recommend you NOT use it unless you pay for it. We had a multi-billion dollar client whose build pipeline broke when they upgraded ActiveState Perl.

https://www.activestate.com/products/perl/

"ActiveState’s Perl downloads are free, but there are some limits on use: you can use no more than one “active runtime” for free. An active runtime is the number of instances of software from the ActiveState Platform that are run in a 24 hour period."

ovid, to random
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For several years I ran a highly popular "how to move to another country" blog. I won't be doing as much of that, but I'm starting to share some of the articles on my new site.

Many don't have the skills needed to be recruited internationally. So if you don't have the skills, what then? You need determination and a passport. Here are some pointers.

https://ovid.github.io/blog/young-persons-guide-to-moving-abroad.html

These posts will be more popular if Trump is reelected.

Please share and ask me any questions you like.

ovid, to random
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One of my more memorable conversations here in France.

Them: Where are you from?

Me: The US.

Them (with a puzzled expression on their face): But you're not fat!

ovid, to random
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ovid, to comics
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

For those of you who remember the glorious "The Far Side" by Gary Larson, he's doing more stuff. It's not on a regular schedule, but it's clearly Larson ❤️

https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff/369/snow-kids-snowball-fight

ovid, to science
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The Society of Canada has a great series of blog posts with a basic, but fun introduction to rocket physics. However, they didn't include a table of contents, so you kind of have to hunt for them.

Here's that table of contents they skipped, along with a summary of each post.

https://ovid.github.io/blog/rocket-physics-101.html

ovid, to rust
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

fans. I could use help and I don't know very well.

I'm trying to install tinysearch on an M1 Mac. https://github.com/tinysearch/tinysearch

When I run argo install tinysearch, I get:

warning: none of the package's binaries are available for install using the selected features

Search engines have failed me 😢

ovid, to BBC
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Seems the was investigating for hosting child abuse content.

When Facebook requested proof, BBC journalists sent links to the illegal content on Facebook.

Facebook reported them to the police for sharing child porn.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39187929

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

isn't getting a jury trial in his New York fraud case.

Instead, the judge who's already passed summary judgment against him and sanctioned his legal team is going to be deciding the case. There's no way Trump wins this.

This is insane. Trump desperately needs a trial by jurors who, unlike the judge, will have trouble following this complex case.

So why isn't Trump going to have a jury?

His lawyers forgot to ask for one.

https://boingboing.net/2023/10/02/trumps-lawyers-appear-to-have-really-screwed-up-in-his-fraud-trial.html

ovid, (edited ) to random
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If you've a background in #C and and have thought about contributing to the Perl core, you know it's daunting hacking on the core of a language.

@leonerd is offering to help you learn.

https://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2023/09/msg267112.html

Also, he's written a tutorial on how to contribute a core feature: https://leonerds-code.blogspot.com/2021/02/writing-perl-core-feature.html

ovid, to Software
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How backend developers, like myself, see software development.

After working for scores of clients over my career as a consultant sorting out software issues, I know that the frontend is often as bad as the backend, but no one wants to admit it because the end result looks pretty.

ovid, to random
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Did you know that the amazing , , is now in the public domain? Watch it for free, legally, on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHa8_bdZ3IA&ab_channel=FernandoMartins

ovid, to space
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I know our science education is abysmal, so I don't want to fault anyone for not knowing the basics, but this made me sad.

ovid, to science
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Bacteria which eat plastic sounds like something we desperately need.

But what happens when it invetably escapes into the wild and starts eating the plastic we currently use?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/28/plastic-eating-bacteria-enzyme-recycling-waste

ovid, to space
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desperately needs to update their web site.

Note that they even have non-functional "Text Only Site" and "Non-Flash Version" links. Flash has been dead for years.

Now how do I convince them to hire us to do a redesign? I don't even mean rebuild the site. Just redoing the HTML and the CSS alone would make it much, much nicer.

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/rocket/rktpow.html

ovid, to space
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has sworn in Charity Weeden as associate administrator for NASA’s Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy.

Look very closely at the book she's swearing in on.

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-names-new-head-of-technology-policy-strategy

ovid, to philosophy
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I used to be a very devout . I carried my bible with me everywhere.

I became an at 13 when I saw that the other Christians in my church were merely playing a role and didn't believe in the morals they were being taught. The last straw was when they kicked out the pastor for the heresy of saying that gay people have a right to seek god. Realizing they didn't believe made me examine myself.

It's good to know that not all Christians have forgotten their beliefs.

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