@rick@ricko.social
@rick@ricko.social avatar

rick

@rick@ricko.social

I write code, fiction, and educational material. Enhanced with autism superpowers.

Photos I post are mine, and copyright by me. They may be reused under the CC-BY-NC-SA license, but not in any kind of machine learning.

My avatar is a 4-color animation-style rendering of me making a goofy hand gesture, in front of a pride flag for demisexuality. My background header is a photo of an electric truck parked off the road, overlooking a cloudy sky above a rocky coastline obscured by mist.

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

LinuxAndYarn, to random
@LinuxAndYarn@mastodon.social avatar

Does anyone else who lives in have trouble with their eyes shying away from video calls when there are a bunch of people with white backgrounds? I keep having this thing where half the people in my calls have these stark white virtual rooms, and my eyes just keep finding phantom hairs and reasons for me to take my glasses off when that's not the way I am off these calls.

It's even worse when there are more than six people on, and a lot of head movement.

rick,
@rick@ricko.social avatar

@LinuxAndYarn Mine isn't specific to dark mode (though I am a fan) but more a generalized overwhelm with lots of people in video calls. My brain very much trips and stumbles over trying to read so many faces at once.

Which is interesting to me, because I don't experience that same overwhelm trying to read that many faces (or more) IRL.

But I do think you may be onto something with the backgrounds. I wonder if filtering out the background IRL is easier because there's only one, versus dozens.

willaful, to RomanceBooks
@willaful@romancelandia.club avatar

? I found Level Up by Cathy Yardley a bit of a slog. She's reworked some of the same themes (career vs love, introversion vs isolation) in later books more successfully, and the geeky elements feel more authentic in her later books too, IMO. (Though perhaps that's just because game design isn't my thing.) Also needed some editing. Not sure I'll continue this series.

@romancebooks

rick,
@rick@ricko.social avatar

@willaful Lately, I've finished:

"Lavash at First Sight" by Taleen Voskuni — I appreciated that the tension was (mostly) between the parents and not the MCs, though it relied more heavily on communication tropes than I prefer.

"Second Night Stand" by Karelia Stetz-Waters — I like KSW, but I DNFed this one at 75%. I just couldn't get past the reality TV BS combined with the MC's dismissive swagger.

"Can't Spell Treason Without Tea" by Rebecca Thorne — I wanted more, but it was ... fine.

rick,
@rick@ricko.social avatar

@willaful I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for more from Taleen Voskuni. I also enjoyed her other book, "Sorry, Bro", which had similar themes of trying to figure out how to respect one's heritage without getting mired in the past.

(And I think other people might really enjoy "Second Night Stand", as it's actually a solid story about the knife's edge between being true to yourself and putting food on the table. My reasons for giving up on it had nothing to do with the writing itself.)

twipped, to random
@twipped@twipped.social avatar

It's interesting that after over a century of innovation in automotive design, still today the best way we've found to slow down a vehicle is to rub two pieces of metal together, and just understand that we will have to replace them eventually.

rick,
@rick@ricko.social avatar

@twipped I do appreciate that we eventually figured out "hey, you know that high school physics trick where you slow down a falling magnet by passing it through an induced field? I bet we could totally use that here to not only stop this 2-ton truck, but to also maybe get a bit of that power back and save on both gas/electricity and brake pads".

rick,
@rick@ricko.social avatar

@twipped Yeah, sorry, didn't mean to come across as nitpicky - I am just truly in awe at the out-of-the-box thinking that leap must have taken.

Magnets!

rick, to soccer
@rick@ricko.social avatar

I have all the sympathetic feels for Morgan in this USA vs KOR match.

"What do you mean off-sides? I have one job: ⚽ goes 👉 that way. If the other team can't keep up, how's that my problem?"

(I'm paraphrasing and interpreting, of course.)

rick, to random
@rick@ricko.social avatar

A few days later, how am I feeling about my switch from stock Android to ?

Mixed bag. Overall glad I did it, but it also shows me how much more degoogling I need to do.

I think locking down RethinkDNS to "deny by default" and only unblocking specific apps to specific domains is working out well for me. I expected more problems, and I still occasionally need to go adjust the safelists, but it mostly works.

But at the same time ...

🧵 1/

rick,
@rick@ricko.social avatar

@aiken I haven't needed Maps yet, as the navi in my truck is pretty solid. I did see a few offerings on F-droid, but I admit I have not tried them yet.

rick,
@rick@ricko.social avatar

@hk I have not tried. Could go either way, though, as while I don't have any of the usual rooting artifacts (su, supersu, etc), I do currently prevent GSF from talking to the device attestation cloud endpoints. So any apps using modern hardware attestation would likely fail, but anything older trying to just sniff around would likely still work. (And if you're not doing HTTP filtering, it seems like you would probably be fine.)

JoscelynTransient, to random
@JoscelynTransient@chaosfem.tw avatar

Is it just me or does it actually seem like corporations are afraid to do a Rainbow Capitalism this year?

Maybe it's just because Pride started on a Saturday, but I'm noticing far fewer featured pride product lines, sales, etc. than the past several years. Last year, Target started to retreat and hide away Pride merch or just take it out of their stores altogether in some places. But other companies that would usually do a little email announcing the sale of Pride merch or something are either not doing it or are actually making it hard to find and featuring other sales instead.

Maybe it's too early and they are planning it over the next few weeks...it just seems conspicuous. I'm gonna circle back around to this after the month goes on because this could actually be an important thermometer on the state of things in some circles

rick,
@rick@ricko.social avatar

@JoscelynTransient Last night, while attempting to find something novel to watch, we were scrolling through streaming options. Corri said "oh, just scroll down and let's see what they have up for Wrath". And yet, not a rainbow was seen on Netflix. Switched over to AMZ, and yet again, no rainbow.

Apple was the only one we saw with a Pride section.

We though it slightly ominous.

malcircuit, to random
@malcircuit@thingy.social avatar

My coworkers are booking stuff for DEFCON. I've never been to it and I was thinking about going, but honestly the idea of going makes me anxious.

Big events like that always make me anxious. Social anxiety, I guess.

Also flying makes me anxious.

Everything makes me anxious lol

rick,
@rick@ricko.social avatar

@malcircuit I've only been to DEFCON once, but I vividly remember how anxious I was about triple-checking that all my electronic devices were powered off before I left the hotel room.

rick,
@rick@ricko.social avatar

@malcircuit I'd had that same thought! Because, for real, you kindof get morbidly curious about how pervasive that kind of hacking really is in that culture. And you want to put just a little bait on the hook to see if you get any bites, right?

"Is it just hype, or are there actual people who actually do that?"

rick, to random
@rick@ricko.social avatar

In the last 24 hours:

  • Star Trek Discovery ended
  • 45 got 34 and finally won the popular vote
  • Eminem released a new song and video
  • Sony threw in the towel at their State of Play
  • Apple and OpenAI signed their deal

Y'all. Accelerationism is no joke.

majorlinux, to random
@majorlinux@toot.majorshouse.com avatar

After doing some research into increasing PC gaming performance, I was able to get more frames until I went and messed with the settings.

The MajorLinux Show (05/29/2024) - More Frames with Horizon Forbidden West

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxHJaU56aiA

rick,
@rick@ricko.social avatar

@majorlinux That opener with the Scorcher has to be one of the fastest shifts from "it's a beautiful day" to "I regret everything!" I have ever seen. Well played.

rick, to random
@rick@ricko.social avatar

PSA: Take your dramamine, or equivalent motion sickness meds, before you watch the series finale of . So much unnecessary shaky-cam.

rick, to random
@rick@ricko.social avatar

Oh holy frak. It's almost Pride. How did that happen?

Anyway, I have some you're welcome to share.

:infinity_agender: :infinity_aromantic: :infinity_asexual: :infinity_autistic: :infinity_bisexual: :infinity_demisexual: :infinity_genderfluid: :infinity_genderqueer: :infinity_intersex: :infinity_lesbian: :infinity_nonbinary: :infinity_pansexual: :infinity_polyam: :infinity_progress: :infinity_trans: :infinity_trans_blue: :infinity_trans_pink: :infinity_mental_health:

rick,
@rick@ricko.social avatar

To see them all:

https://emojos.in/ricko.social

Thanks to @iliana for providing the emojos.in service!

rick,
@rick@ricko.social avatar

And just so we're practicing good provenance hygiene:

The pride hearts and squares are from Amy Artful: https://ko-fi.com/s/9c742fd6bb

The subtoot is from WelshPixie: https://ko-fi.com/welshpixie/shop

The infinities are all by me, and, as explained in my bio, available under a CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

rick, to random
@rick@ricko.social avatar

Open question to anyone in Software who manages interns:

When you have the "I'd rather have you happy and excited and working half as fast and stumbling along the way, than have you stressed and overworked and going through twice as many tickets and pretending you're okay" conversations with your interns, in a way that a 21-year-old can hear, understand, and internalize?

Like, specifically, how do you explain that to them?

(Every time I try, I get the "yeah, okay, sure" blow-off.)

rick, to random
@rick@ricko.social avatar

Oh hey, SciShow is once again being awesome:

https://youtu.be/DmRWHdJwtGw

"Actually Understand Hormone Replacement Therapy"

:pride_transgender: :pride_nonbinary: :pride_agender: :pride_intersex:

rick, to random
@rick@ricko.social avatar

Where do you get your masks these days?

I need to restock as my mask stockpile is deteriorating and dwindling. Requirements:

  • NOT over-the-ear
  • NOT Amazon
  • Cloth preferred
  • Flat colors preferred, patterns or designs acceptable if nerdy. Hexagons are the bestagons.
  • Must ship to the US

I do have a Flo, which is awesome for all-day use, but I'm looking to fill the "visiting the Post Office" quick-and-casual niche.

Boosts appreciated if you think your friends might have good recs!

rick,
@rick@ricko.social avatar

@MAMaverick Thanks!

rick,
@rick@ricko.social avatar

FWIW, I do like these, with my sole complaint being the ear loops:

https://masklab.us/collections/reusable/products/the-reusable-collection-bi-ion-mask-1-mask-1-protector

(These ear loops aren't any better or worse than any other ear loops. But they're still ear loops.)

Their other masks are pretty decent, too, with nice simple ombre color schemes.

rick, to random
@rick@ricko.social avatar

Serious question: whatever happened to Sentiment Analysis in NLP?

As someone who has to really work to not end up in negativity spirals on social media, I was actually kindof looking forward to self-safety tools which would say things like "hey, that seems super negative and you asked me to confirm when you're about to post something this negative".

Did these just vanish into the capitalism vortex?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentiment_analysis

rick, to random
@rick@ricko.social avatar

We have a gorgeous hawk which hunts in our yard once every few weeks. I think it's a Cooper's Hawk, but as always IANAB. (I Am Not A Birder)

And I apologize for the potato quality, but that tree line is a bit beyond the limits of that lens, and each were just snap shots.

The same hawk still in mid-flight profile, but this time in a slight dive. Its wings are high and extended, bent to curve around the flowing air. Its legs and talons are visible — a bright, almost chicken yellow — not tucked back along its tail.

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