@thorne@rants.au
@thorne@rants.au avatar

thorne

@thorne@rants.au

he, him
nee aus.social (2022), mastodon.social (2018)

I can’t handle the truth

May contain traces of nihilism

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

thorne, to random
@thorne@rants.au avatar

Since it’s a thing right now:
I am a senior career Linux sysadmin. I’ve been immersed in Linux since 1994, and a nerdy IT nerd longer than that.
I currently run Windows on both my personal and work PCs, by choice.
It’s not a simple choice and it’s definitely not a political choice. I could afford Mac hardware if I chose, and I have been All The Way down the Linux Desktop wormhole on multiple occasions.
1/2

thorne,
@thorne@rants.au avatar

IMO choice of desktop and mobile OS boils down to this:
Do you like to tinker with it, or do you have better things to do with your time?
Linux and Android are great for tinkering- all those subtle things that bug you? You can fix them.
MacOS is slick and shiny and tries harder than Windows.
Everything runs on Windows, and Windows is deep within the largest herd. Herds are a kind of safety, but also the largest, easiest target.
Do any of them much change productivity? No.
2/2

afouxenidis, to random
@afouxenidis@mastodon.world avatar

🚨#BREAKING: PROTESTS ERUPT ALL ACROSS ISRAEL - TEL AVIV ON FIRE

The largest protest to take the streets and they are demanding an immediate ceasefire deal with the Palestinian resistance

Protests so far are in 16 different locations across israel this includes blocking main roads and marching towards Netanyahu’s home.

Announcements are made inside israel for all the citiziens to hit the streets and block all main roads!
Via suppressed news

thorne,
@thorne@rants.au avatar

@afouxenidis @cstross I wonder if protesters in the USA, UK and Australia will still be ‘anti-Semitic’ when they’re protesting against Netanyahu using US-made live ammunition on Israelis.

AuldFoggerty, to random
@AuldFoggerty@mastodon.scot avatar

England, where politics and commentary is completely normal:

Reform got exactly zero seats, and the pundits can't stop talking about them.

the Greens got 159 seats, and no-one from the Greens is interviewed, and no-one on tv is talking about them or to them.

thorne,
@thorne@rants.au avatar

@AuldFoggerty @cstross one gets the distinct impression there as one does in Australia that, one day, we will elect an outright majority Green government, and every bureaucrat, every journalist, and every non-Green minister will just carry on as though the Green-held seats were empty, the Green ministers silent and invisible.

thorne, to random
@thorne@rants.au avatar

Ahoy Free Fedizens! Does anyone know of any systematic comparative testing or review of laptop keyboards?
I have clung to Dell laptops recently after a series of HP, Toshiba, Lenovo and MSI laptops proved to be total garbage in this respect.
I would love to know if anyone is applying actual science to this issue.
Indiscriminate boosts welcome!

thorne, to random
@thorne@rants.au avatar

Not entirely sure why I’m doing this, but here goes-
I need song suggestions. The general theme is:
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time”
First track is Nine Inch Nails /Every Day Is Exactly The Same/
Go. Or don’t. Your call.

thorne,
@thorne@rants.au avatar

@Korny Older is great, but also funny. The mood I’m trying to capture (for some reason) is definitely not funny.
Thank you though!

thorne,
@thorne@rants.au avatar

@Korny Ooof! You may have a point there.
I’ve got two whole tracks, but I’m in a much better mood than when I started this, and it’s hard to refute this- I may not have had any clear theme in mind in the first place.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

On which note it's worth reminding Americans that Brits do NOT say:
— elevator
— sidewalk
— railroad
— faucet
— crosswalk
— automobile
— 18-wheeler
— bellhop
— drugstore
— freeway/highway/turnpike/interstate
— parking lot
— attorney

(There are synonyms/equivalents but these are specifically AMERICAN things that flag you up as a foreign devil.)
https://mastodon.social/@tomhannen/112332893629022705

thorne,
@thorne@rants.au avatar

@cstross @tomhannen yesterday it was ANZAC day here. I got vociferously shouted at for using the phrase ‘ANZAC cookie’ rather than ANZAC biscuit.
It’s gets worse though. This is Australia where ‘fanny’ is specific and obscene, but ‘cunt’ is often a friendly form of address.

benroyce, to iran
@benroyce@mastodon.social avatar

With attacking , I'd like to point out the concept of a side channel attack in intelligence gathering

This is the Papa John's Pizzeria near the

notice something interesting about the little "busier than usual" indicator

and, why would that be, gentle reader?

thorne,
@thorne@rants.au avatar

@benroyce @cstross Mr Stross, of the last half dozen things I’ve read, roughly half were yours, and all have had that notable story dynamic:

  1. Many disparate threads begin.
  2. Some interrelations become evident.
  3. Everyone converges on a particular place and time, making the reader shit bricks.
  4. Things very much happen.
    …
    I enjoy this a lot. In fiction. I am noticeably less comfortable with step 3 IRL.
thorne, to random
@thorne@rants.au avatar

+++

thorne, to random
@thorne@rants.au avatar

Anxiety: not only is CVE-2024-3094 (the xz backdoor) absolutely terrifying from an IT security standpoint; the fact that it’s almost certainly the work of a state actor, combined with the sheer breadth of scope implied by this project-
Can an actual shooting war start on the internet?

thorne,
@thorne@rants.au avatar

Sorry everyone- I’m conflating xz with gzip, specifically as it’s used (nearly everywhere) in http inline compression.

baldur, to random
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

JFC, people in tech are really out there saying that language models will be better at therapy, financial advice, and career advice than trained people.

WTF is wrong with you people? Do you really have no clue about what other people’s jobs actually involve?

Language models can’t even do maths how are they supposed to get good at financial advice?

And therapy? Just… 😑

What’s wrong with people in tech?

thorne,
@thorne@rants.au avatar

@baldur @cstross I fear I may be about to Not All People In Tech, but hopefully there’s more nuance here-
People with inhuman wealth, people who pander to them, people who market their crap for them, and people who lie enthusiastically to manipulate the stock market- None of these are confined to tech.
Tech people have a particularly vague, general hammer which such bullshit artists find especially suitable when claiming they can Solve All These Nails.
These are old lies.

thorne, to random
@thorne@rants.au avatar

Dear Fedizens, have you lived through violent regime change or the outbreak of war in the place where you live?

If so, I need your advice.

I am (we are) living through a set of interlinked catastrophes of our own making. They are already very bad, and getting inexorably worse.
I know that the sensible thing to do now is live my life like it’s a normal day of a normal year.

How do you know when that changes?

What warning signs do you wish you had heeded, and how do you wish you had reacted?

thorne, to random
@thorne@rants.au avatar

Excess is death. Too much water is poison, right?
In that vein, any open-ended exponential is fatal.
Whatever else you can say about capitalism, it provably, inexorably concentrates wealth.
That’s what this is all about, right now:
Climate change? Pandemic? Famine? Hyperpoverty? Mass extinctions? Wars of conquest? Genocide? Racism? Theocratic ultraconservatism? Fascism?
All about more wealth for fewer individuals.
We are already dying to make them exponentially wealthier.

thorne, to random
@thorne@rants.au avatar

@ivory help! My cat executed an incredibly specific leap from the floor to my phone while Ivory was open. Now all the details (the ‘close’ and ‘post’ buttons, the privacy and language selectors, and all the icons) are an ominous red.
Should I be alarmed?
What did she do?

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Current listening: "Bad Head Park" by Fortran 5, a classic concept album about the first Gulf War in 1993-ish.

thorne,
@thorne@rants.au avatar

@cstross I’m minded of NIN’s Year Zero: Trent angrily ranting about how fucked the world is and what a terrible president dubbya is… in 2007 🤣

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Jan 31: Where do you write?

I turned one of the bedrooms in this flat into an office when we moved in. My desk is a 1970s Scandinavian-designed pine writing bureau (folding, but permanently wedged open by bookcases) that currently supports an iMac, a NAS box, several trophies, and a small junk pile. It's not really designed as a computer desk but I bought it in 1993 and am kind of attached to it. The current office chair is a Herman Miller Aeron, nearly 50 years newer.

thorne,
@thorne@rants.au avatar

@cstross Aerons aren’t just the most comfortable possible place to put one’s arse. They also look like some kind of magnificent H. R. Giger exoskeleton and last forever.

thorne,
@thorne@rants.au avatar

@mtraven23 @rrwo @cstross I bought mine in 1999 with my first proper dot-com paycheque. It got a few bits replaced under the original 10yr warranty and most recently I had to replace the gas lift myself (a sledgehammer was involved). Still an excellent chair after 25 years.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

I am currently sleeping 11-12 hours overnight … and needing a 2 hour afternoon nap as well. And that's WITH the SAD lamps!

thorne,
@thorne@rants.au avatar

@cstross modafinil works, although I’m not sure I’d say I ‘recommend’ it. You, too, could trade happiness for awakeness.
Also, the flaming hoops one must jump through to get the stuff in Australia are bad enough. I am disturbed to contemplate what grim bargain the NHS might want.

thorne, to random
@thorne@rants.au avatar

Can anyone recommend a relatively sane online sailing or boating community? If it’s Australia-centric or Melbourne-centric, that’s great, but not a requirement.
The main thing I need is a place where I can learn from people who know what they’re talking about.

JamesGleick, to random
@JamesGleick@zirk.us avatar

All Republicans have to do is say, “We’ll take a vote, and then we’ll have a winner.”

Only, to make this work, the losers have to abide by the results. And Republicans can no longer do that.

thorne,
@thorne@rants.au avatar

@JamesGleick @GreatDismal wait… The somewhat tired line about how the GOP would reject democracy when it stops electing republicans; the realities of insurrection are all too familiar, but this is a whole surreal angle I hadn’t thought about before: if you completely reject the principle of democracy, you become completely non-functional! Any group of more than one person with neither democracy nor an unquestioned despot has already failed, no matter the task.

Edent, (edited ) to random
@Edent@mastodon.social avatar

Couples of Mastodon! How do you handle emails for "joint" things?

Like utility bills, hotel reservations, and other domestic accounts.

Please 🔁 the 📊 for extra reach 🙂

thorne,
@thorne@rants.au avatar

@Edent @Korny two joint emails which go to both of us. Otherwise identity harvesters complain that the first email is already in use, and every asshat will try to second-guess it and use only one of them.

thorne, to random
@thorne@rants.au avatar

Obscure emotions:
confused screaming

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