screw_dog

jpm, 8 days ago to random

Wait… how the fuck does that even work?

mightyspaceman, 20 days ago to keyboard

Thinking about making a split keyboard. I don't really have the skills to design one so I'll just get something from online, but I think they're really cool nonetheless.

Anyone have any recommendations of designs?

#splitkeyboard #keyboard #electronics

ErikUden, 24 days ago to random

Overheard two diplomats in the EU parliament say “you're not important, you only have a blue passport” what does this mean? Passport racism??

screw_dog, 26 days ago to ukteachers

#MastoHelp: looking for resources on criticism of schooling, particularly from a left-wing perspective, and particularly videos suitable for a bright 12yo.

Child wants to do a presentation on the deficits of the current school system and I want to point them to resources to shore up their arguments.

Boosts welcome!
#education #schooling #parenting #Rousseau #philosophy

dgar, 29 days ago to random

Picnic At Hanging Rock is a work of fiction.

screw_dog, 1 month ago to Cats

After a couple of vet visits and surgery, Sancho avoided me for several days.

Looks like he's finally forgiven me (he's resting on my leg here)
#cats #CatsOfMastodon

dgar, 1 month ago to random

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but…

…I’m disappointed.

Book cover, titled: HOW TO DATE FURNITURE An Easy Reference Guide By TREVOR YORKE Image shows various examples of timber furniture.

screw_dog, 1 month ago to Cats

The vet gave him cat heroin and he's sat like this staring for 20mins

#cats #CatsOfMastodon

Hyperlynx, 1 month ago to random

Wait why am I cross-examining my own witness? That's not how that works! 😆

#AceAttorney #ApolloJustice

dgar, 1 month ago to animals

Tora Tabby has an idea and lies in the birdbath.

#ToraTabby #Caturday #CatsOfMastodon

screw_dog, 1 month ago to ArtificialIntelligence

Child just challenged me with a maths q:

You have an n by m grid, where each square is either filled or empty. You also have a stamp in some shape that you can use to fill squares in the grid. You can only stamp squares if none stamped squares are already filled.

Is determining if a given grid with preset files squares can be completely filled with the stamp in P or NP?

(He dropped this on me just as he went in to see his OT "so you can think about it while waiting" lol)
#maths #algorithms #parenting #ActuallyAutistic

screw_dog, 2 months ago to mastodon

Anyone know of a #Mastodon instance that has public preview disabled (ie no unauthenticated viewing of the public timeline)?

I want to ping a (1) request off it to see what error it returns since the official Mastodon docs (https://docs.joinmastodon.org/methods/timelines/#public) don't say.

(Boosts welcome!)

KathyReid, 2 months ago to random

"Fuckers!" mumbled the Prime Minister, almost inaudibly.

BlerghFeed were playing hardball, refusing to renew the media deal.

She breathed deeply, closed her eyes and re-grouped.

"What are our options?Everything's on the table."

"We could just let them block the media sites".

"But then the content from the right wing nut job sites does get posted".

"Ugh."

"And we'll be pilloried in the press. We're going to a general election next year. We can't survive more than a 7% swing."

"We could regulate large internet sites, put some local content rules in."

"Didn't work for Amazon or Netflix did it? They just threatened to exit the country."

"Yeah, that'd be more than a 7% swing!"

There were chuckles, easing the tension.

"Perhaps ... "

Thirty pairs of eyes settled on the bespectacled tech analyst.

"Go on, Kim."

Kim rarely spoke. Rarer still in high-stakes emergency meetings.

"So, we know all the CDN IP addresses of their network in Australia, right?"

"Ah, English, Kim".

Kim's face flushed.

"Sorry."

Kim swallowed some cola and continued.

"Content Delivery Networks - CDNs - position the content for these sites closer to the people requesting the content. You know, so they're not hitting servers in America and having to wait an extra second or two for the content to transit the Pacific."

"Be a shame if those CDNs, and just those CDNs, started dropping packets."

"Dropping packets?"

"Being flakey. Being slower. Would take BlerghFeed longer to load".

"And it would just be BlerghFeed, right?"

"Yeah, the CDN servers are isolated. Wouldn't affect other stuff."

"So it wouldn't look like an NBN outage? And the ISPs could blame it on BlerghFeed."

"Absolutely, if we do it properly."

"Won't the CDN companies figure it out? Won't BlerghFeed figure it out?" queried Vani. Whip smart, that Vani.

"We, ah, own a majority share in most of the CDNs now, thanks to the Futures Fund. They should be willing to help."

"Yeah, but still, BlerghFeed will have top notch IP networking people. They'll be able to see patterns of CDN activity that don't match."

"Yeah, good call Vani."

"What about BusyBox?"

"BusyBox?"

"Yeah, sorry, English. BusyBox is what most routers use as their software. The box that the NBN goes into in peoples' homes".

"And ..."

"Sorry." Kim flushed red again.

"So, if we could alter BusyBox to get it to slow down BlerghFeed, and we could do it to all the major routers, it wouldn't look like public internet traffic at all."

"Because there wouldn't be anything different about the traffic in transit, it would get choked at the router."

"Right."

"But, how do we get the ISPs on board to give the routers new firmware?"

"Didn't you hear? There's a massive CVE in BusyBox. They need to patch it."

The Prime Minister, for the first time in days, smiled.

---

Bruce thumped his keyboard.

"Farking useless."

BlerghFeed kept getting slower and slower these days.

#Tootfic
#MicroFiction
#PowerOnStoryToot

purplepadma, 2 months ago to random

So we started chatting to this American couple in the pool, it took about ten minutes before the man went off on an anti-immigration rant. Apparently back in the day his Scottish and Italian ancestors had it tough getting into the USA but now we just let anyone in and give them all cellphones. I wanted to say, “national borders are a form of violence” but I knew Tom would never forgive me, so I artfully steered the conversation onto whether he had ever been to Europe in search of his family history. What makes people feel they can just spew their odious politics to people they have literally just met and be so sure that they are on safe ground to do so?

screw_dog, 3 months ago to Cats

Have a pic of Sancho to bless your timeline

#cats #CatsOfMastodon #WhiskersWednesday #AdoptDontShop

greg, 3 months ago to hacking

I updated my instances terms of service to say "no hacking". It was much easier than upgrading. If that doesn't work I'll block the hashtag "#hacking" and defederate from hackers.town.

#MastoAdmin #Security #Mastodon

luciedigitalni, 3 months ago to random

My step-mother is winding up her business and is giving me a surplus high-spec HP laptop. It comes with the Windows 11 virus, which sounds horrific, so this will be my first Linux-only machine.

You are invited to validate this decision

jpm, 3 months ago to random

Luv2Read API documentation that basically says “if you’re reading this you’re already elbows-deep in some fucking wizard-level shit, because this is kinda how it looks like but we don’t actually provide headers for it”

timrichards, 3 months ago to random

Chilling on the astroturf lawn within the Fremantle YHA. Can you tell it used to be a prison?

Picnic bench and tree on an astroturf lawn. Behind is a tall stone wall with a watchtower.

screw_dog, 3 months ago to browsers

Been thinking about software bloat (and Zawinski's law), particularly with browsers, and had an idea.

The promise of add-ons was that we could have a lean core and then whatever additional functionality we wanted could be customised. In reality, most users probably have 1-2 add-ons and we can't expect most people to trawl through software repositories just trying to get their browser to do what they would consider to be "simple stuff".

But what if browsers were more like distros? No one expects Linux, GNU/Linux, or even say Debian to meet the needs of most users as-is or for most users to select all the various software packages necessary to bring it up to that they need.

We could have a Gecko/Firefox core and then different browser distros could select a set of add-ons that make it functional in a particular way. That way, each browser distro could make sure that the set of add-ons worked together and met the needs of their particular user base.

And in Linux land, Linux distros could include their particular browser distro tailored to their intended audience.

#browsers #firefox #SoftwareBloat #IdleThoughts #FOSS

screw_dog, 3 months ago to Cat

Confession: sometimes I roast my #cat by asking "who's a good little furry boy?" and then tell him "not you! you're naughty!"

#cats #CatsOfMastodon

screw_dog, 4 months ago to Cats

PSA for cat owners

Vet suggested we feed our cat raw chicken with bones in it for his teeth and the bone content had the pleasant side effect of making his poo almost odourless.

Chicken necks here are about $5 per kilo which is about 1/2 the price of wet food sachets (but isn't a complete diet) so it's cheaper too.

#cats #CatsOfMastodon #catstodon