pentney

@pentney@sfba.social

ML engineer, multi-head attender, likelihood maximizer, waveform manipulator, San Francisco inhabitor, information securer, infosponge, lover of bicycles and transit

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carnage4life, to random
@carnage4life@mas.to avatar

I got into tech because I fell in love with the idea that software could give people superpowers (like Richard Pryor beating Superman in Superman 3) which is why a new general of startups pitching AI as a way to replace people rubs me the wrong way.

It’s a dark dream.

pentney,

@carnage4life for a lot of VCs, being superhuman is clearly primarily about being superior to others

pentney, to random

it is being made increasingly clear that the market will converge upon delivering us a minimum threshold of quality for any product at which point the company will not totally fail or be sued, and nothing better, ever

skinnylatte, to cycling
@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io avatar

Arranging for someone to come and angle grind my bike lock so I can finally ride my bike again.

Locking your bike and then losing the key is such a n00b mistake. At least now I’ll get a live demonstration of how easy it is to steal a bike (I’ve had my last 4 bikes stolen)

pentney,

@skinnylatte this is why I've been getting into the Lock Picking Lawyer's YouTube channel. learning dangerous new skills and saving me some $ in the future on a new Kryptonite, hopefully

skinnylatte, to random
@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io avatar

Giving moving to San Francisco advice to other Singaporeans who are moving here. By and large, people from Singapore cannot deal with living in the suburbs, and we also think somewhere like say, the Inner Richmond or Bernal Heights is a suburb. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling to not be around high rise buildings and massive density.

The actual suburbs are still terrifying for me. Especially the part where you have to get into a car

pentney,

@skinnylatte Bernal a "suburb"? some of it, I guess, but if you live off Cortland or Precita you can practically stumble into a grocery store from your doorstep

malwaretech, to random

An unintended side effect of Twitter becoming paid is it makes existing accounts more valuable. It may be more convenient for bad actors to purchase hacked accounts rather than make their own. Verified accounts used to face a lot of phishing attacks, but less so now you can just buy verification.

If phishing of regular Twitter accounts does become more common, it's going to absolutely suck for users. Previously, it was near impossible to recover a hacked Twitter account when they actually had a support team. Now, there's absolutely no way they could handle an volume of support requests.

pentney,

@malwaretech of course, if real people stop using the service because it turns out they don't want to pay for a shitty site, the value will be adjusted down accordingly

seldo, to random

Entering 2024 with ".eth" attached to your name is a sign that you simply haven't been paying attention to recent events.

pentney,

@seldo gotta buy the dip

seldo, to random

Why did San Francisco decide to put all of its fanciest hotels in the absolute worst part of town? Do we just hate tourists or did it happen later?

pentney,

@seldo probably much more of an uphill battle to get a hotel permitted in Pac Heights

skinnylatte, to random
@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io avatar

So I’m on a lot of personal finance forums and subs and, one of the more annoying things about those spaces is how very often people suggest moving to a state where many women and trans people and other minorities don’t have any rights, because obviously halving your cost of buying a house is more important than like, personal safety. Also that so many of those folks have no clue why shit like that.. matters, how it impacts our daily lives.

pentney,

@skinnylatte they'd have a stronger argument talking about underappreciated cities in blue states, e.g. Minneapolis, Buffalo, Ann Arbor. not to everyone's taste, but places with an actual sense of community

ernie, to random
@ernie@writing.exchange avatar

Wow, this feels like a big deal.

pentney,

@ernie as a former engineer on Google search, that article was full of technically true claims that were stretched into gross misrepresentations, based on the word of a competitor

malwaretech, to random

Aight, I wasn't going to post the extra-spicy hot wings take. But, fuck it.

Reply-guy climate activists are the most annoying out of touch people on the planet. They'll literally show up in my mentions with shit like "why don't you bicycle down the freeway to the grocery store. You can just clench your re-usable grocery bags between your ass cheeks".
"Need to go to NYC for an important meeting? Take the train....oh, the US doesn't have trains? Why don't you just build you own."

How someone can witness the entire covid pandemic and not only be like "yes, personal responsibility will for sure solve humanity's problems" but also propose nothing but the most braindead solutions imaginable is literally beyond me.

I get the frustration with the currency system, but annoying the shit out of random Mastodon users with the most garbage advice you can muster is just not it. Some of us are actually trying to make real systemic change.

pentney,

@malwaretech this is why I don't try to guilt people into buying an e-bike instead of a new car; I just occasionally talk about how much fun they are to ride and how nice it is to not have to worry about parking

SafeStreetRebel, to random
@SafeStreetRebel@sfba.social avatar

The self-driving car encountered an unexpected situation and stopped for everyone's safety (on top of a badly injured human being)

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/woman-run-autonomous-vehicle-san-francisco-18403044.php

San Francisco firefighters arrived and used the jaws of life to lift the car off the woman. She was transported to San Francisco General Hospital with “multiple traumatic injuries,” said SFFD Capt. Justin Schorr. The victim was in critical condition as of late Tuesday afternoon, according to the hospital. It appears that once the Cruise car sensed something underneath its rear axle, it came to a halt and turned on its hazard lights, Schorr said. Firefighters obstructed the sensors of the driverless car to alert the Cruise control center. He said representatives from Cruise responded to firefighters and “immediately disabled the car remotely.”

pentney,

@SafeStreetRebel I think it could've been programmed to not stop on top of a possibly-human obstacle, but I also have to give 90% of the blame to the human-driven taxi for this one. this is just another data point for Ban Cars (driverless and otherwise)

TechConnectify, (edited ) to random
@TechConnectify@mas.to avatar

[EDIT: Likes are on tweets I'm mentioned in, not my own tweets}

Interesting. Hopped over to that other site and a bunch of thirst trap bots are liking my tweets despite my account being locked.

Figured a bunch of existing followers got their accounts compromised but nope - these bots aren't following me.

So that site continues to decay...

pentney,

@TechConnectify the last time I was over there, I discovered I could see replies from an account that, for whatever reason, has me blocked. very functional site

carnage4life, to random
@carnage4life@mas.to avatar

Flexport drama continues to embarrass everyone involved. Ryan Peterson steps down as CEO to become a VC and hires Dave Clark, an Amazon veteran and CEO.

Peterson decides to return as CEO, unceremoniously ousts Clark, rescinds offers to a bunch of new hires then blames Clark for overhiring.

Clark, or his team, have responded by leaking a bunch of docs to CNBC showing Flexport was a mess internally until Clark fixed things with Peterson’s support. Ouch!

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/02/the-inside-story-of-dave-clarks-tumultuous-last-days-at-flexport.html

pentney,

@carnage4life it's all fun and games until interest rates go up and the knives come out

seldo, to random

Mastodon: the nerds
Bluesky: the cool kids
Threads: the jocks
Twitter: the normies

pentney,

@seldo which normies? I saw racist trolls, crypto spam and OnlyFans shilling when I last went back to Xitter, but less and less actual human discourse

malwaretech, to random

I just saw that Am I The Asshole reddit thread where the white girl started going to a black salon because she had extremely curly hair and the black salon was the only one that didn't massacre it. Her white friends straight up gaslit her into believe she was engaging in cultural appropriation and stealing resources from black people. WILD 💀​

pentney,

@malwaretech people with just half an understanding of a problem can get it so much more wrong than the totally ignorant would

seldo, to random

Tinder's newest feature is "rich men can pay $500/month to proposition you even if you are clearly not interested". I'm sure this will go great. https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/25/tinder-snobs-can-now-pay-499-per-month-to-be-matched-with-the-most-sought-after-profiles/

pentney,

@seldo they should've leaned into it and called it Tinder Blue

foone, to random
@foone@digipres.club avatar

I just realized I'm writing python3-flavored QBASIC
PRINT (PX)

the parens are unnecessary and it does nothing

pentney,

@0xabad1dea @foone RETVRN

seldo, to random

I for one am shocked to learn the valueless JPEGs are now also worthless https://mastodon.social/@shoq/111106159429593848

pentney,

@seldo to be more precise:
the database rows informally associated with JPEGs still owned by the database owner are now worthless. they didn't even give you the IP rights for their shitty ape pics!

davidrevoy, to random
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org avatar

In the Press right now:

"All Those NFTs Are Officially Worthless" → https://kotaku.com/nft-meaning-scam-crypto-marketplace-price-bored-ape-1850860661

"Your NFTs Are Actually — Finally — Totally Worthless" → https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/nfts-worthless-researchers-find-1234828767/

Me:

pentney,

@hacks4pancakes @davidrevoy excuse me, that's GNU/creep to you

parismarx, to random
@parismarx@mastodon.online avatar

all my apes gone to zero

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/nfts-worthless-researchers-find-1234828767/

pentney,

@parismarx so what did all the criminals switch to for money laundering?

seldo, to random

Okay I'm bored of 30% of the people I used to follow being on one social network each, everybody pick the same one, experiment time is over.

pentney,

@seldo as long as it's this one

jk, to random
@jk@mastodon.social avatar

i reckon all software developers should read this thread. it's incredible. literally everything is here. entire books could be written about it
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=120627&p=515618

pentney,

@jk the developer in this thread has that infuriatingly arrogant, condescending Developer Voice that I hate more than just about anything else about the industry, made worse by how obviously wrong they are

if users overwhelmingly want a feature, you refuse because you think it's too hard to implement, and others have clearly done so, you are failing. no one cares if it offends your aesthetic sensibilities or whatever. stop hiding behind that nonsense

carnage4life, to random
@carnage4life@mas.to avatar

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has expressed a personal preference for remote working, stating that it suits his own working style better.

Despite this, he still requires Salesforce employees to come into the office three days per week, arguing that a mix of in-person and remote work can enhance productivity.

Return to office for thee but not for me.

https://fortune.com/2023/09/15/marc-benioff-salesforce-says-hes-remote-worker-office-return/

pentney,

@carnage4life it doesn't make any sense. remote work is cheaper for them and expands the labor pool to pull from! even if they're heavily invested in commercial real estate, which is what I suspect is behind some of this coming from the C-suite, it would make more sense to pull out and cut losses, instead of signing on to this clumsy campaign to kill remote work.

malwaretech, to random

The only ads I get on LinkedIn are propaganda from oil companies trying to prevent combatting climate change. Great job, Microsoft 🫠

image/png
image/png
image/png

pentney,

@cazabon @malwaretech TV remotes had wood/metal cases and buttons in the 1970s. wouldn't be the worst thing to revive from that decade

ernie, to random
@ernie@writing.exchange avatar

This should be criminal. A CEO that rescinds job offers at the last second should be charged with fraud.

https://www.businessinsider.com/flexport-ceo-rescinds-job-offers-short-notice-hiring-freeze-2023-9

pentney,

@ernie IANAL, but I've been told there are sometimes legit claims for breach of contract or promissory estoppel in that scenario

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