@virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca
@virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

virtuous_sloth

@virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca

Married to a wonderful wife with with two adult sons, living in Calgary. I like getting out on my bike. I care about social justice.

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

timbray, to random
@timbray@cosocial.ca avatar

Seems that for the past few months most of the books I’ve read have been sci-fi or about music.

So here I discuss recent sci-fi feat. Emily Tesh, Martha Wells, John Scalzi, Sandra Newman, Vajra Chandrasekera, Arkady Martine, and P. Djèlí Clark: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2023/12/10/Recent-Sci-Fi

And here, recent books on music, feat. Phil Glass, John Cale, Cuba, and substance abuse: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2023/12/11/Recent-Music-Books

virtuous_sloth,
@virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

@timbray

I only started reading @scalzi in a recent 10 day vacation where I read Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony, Zoe's Tale, The Human Division, & The End of All Things.

I had checked out several of his books from the library for this vacation then he went and released a 21 book Humble Bundle so I had to buy it!

It made reading in the pool on my eReader so much easier.

It's been so long since I read a book with my Internet-addled brain.

It was wonderful!

evan, (edited ) to random
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

Do you like the engagement you get on the fediverse, or do you think we have a Reply Guy Problem?

virtuous_sloth,
@virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

@evan I am fortunate not to have this problem. I am certain others had had the exact opposite experience.

mekkaokereke, to random
@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

A Penn donor talked about rescinding a $100 million donation, because Penn is improving its DEI and he didn't like that.

After Magill fell into the GOP trap by flubbing that answer, the donor rescinded the donation pending a new president.

Right-wing framing is that the new president will be someone that is "Not anti-semitic." Left framing is that the new president will be "Someone that speaks with clarity on protecting Jewish students." Both slightly off.

The new prez will likely be anti-DEI

virtuous_sloth,
@virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

@mekkaokereke
I keep saying that marginalization is suppressing a huge pool of talent that could be key in solving the many problems in the world

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

Okay...I just...there's just so much happening here...what the heck is going on?!

virtuous_sloth,
@virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

@RickiTarr
Ok you win the Internet for today for that ALT text.

Bravo!

virtuous_sloth, to VintageOSes
@virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

Hey ,

I'm a veteran / / system admin who has specialized in site reliability and devops before it was a thing. I'm looking for employment or contract work. I can do remote but would love to work in person in Calgary too!

I've designed, deployed, and maintained fleets of systems supporting ERP landscapes and other commercial applications.

I find structure in your chaos, I automate my way to laziness and reliability.

aeva, to random
@aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

You ever think about how propagation latency means your thoughts already happened by the time you are aware of them?

virtuous_sloth,
@virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

@aeva
Oooh, you might really love this Seminar About Long-term Thinking
https://longnow.org/seminars/02016/oct/04/brain-and-now/

virtuous_sloth, to random
@virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

Starting to look for work. Hoping I'll start feeling relieved soon.

virtuous_sloth,
@virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

@timbray Thanks, I will do that. I appreciate your encouragement.

siderea, (edited ) to random

There are two problems that are coming for Mastodon of which apparently an awful lot of people are unaware. These problems are coming for Mastodon not because of anything specific to Mastodon: they come to all growing social media platforms. But for some reason most people haven't noticed them, per se.

The first problem is that scale has social effects. Most technical people know that scale has technological effects. Same thing's true on the social side, too.

🧵

CC: @Gargron

virtuous_sloth,
@virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

@siderea @Gargron

Do you recall how Google+ had circles and you could limit visibility of posts and the ability to share posts at the level of a circle or a circle plus one relation removed (I think?).

evan, to random
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

If you're Canadian and you support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, like 71% of all Canadians polled, you should sign this petition for the House of Commons. Only a few more hours left to join the 280k+ other signers.

https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4649

virtuous_sloth,
@virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

@evan
Done!

carnage4life, to random
@carnage4life@mas.to avatar

Microsoft is learning lessons from OpenAI that Google learned from Firefox 15 years ago. A lesson so important that the person who drove the creation of Google Chrome is now their CEO.

virtuous_sloth,
@virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

@carnage4life
Believing in capitalism is a serious brain fuck, isn't it?

evan, to random
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

This whole OpenAI thing has all the hallmarks of time-traveller interference.

virtuous_sloth,
@virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

@evan
How did you find out?

johl, to random
@johl@mastodon.xyz avatar

In the ongoing religious war in the AI world between the TESCREAL cult and the crowd that wants to burn the planet for profit, I‘d rather choose neither side.

virtuous_sloth,
@virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

@mrcompletely @johl
I'd definitely put "idealist" in scare quotes in that sentence.

evan, to random
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    virtuous_sloth,
    @virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

    @evan

    I don't understand why liars gonna lie.

    Lying is hard to do because you have to be consistently lying, at least for the truly deceitful kind of lying (the bullshitty kind where you are flooding the field to confuse people is different, in kind).

    I'm far too lazy to try to lie.

    virtuous_sloth, to books
    @virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

    Hey @pluralistic, thank you for all your book recommendations.

    I'm preparing for a a 10 day tropical vacation which will feature no screens and a lot of reading.

    Currently at the beautiful Calgary Central Library going through pluralistic.net for book recommendations. Such a delight to see one, look it up in the online catalogue, see that it is here, walk 100 feet, and find it on the shelf.

    fraying, to random
    @fraying@xoxo.zone avatar

    So this is the "Techno-Optimism" I've heard so much about.

    404 Media: Andreessen Horowitz Invests in Civitai, Which Profits From Nonconsensual AI Porn
    https://www.404media.co/andreessen-horowitz-invests-in-civitai-key-platform-for-deepfake-porn/

    virtuous_sloth,
    @virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

    @fraying
    I'm an optimist with respect to the power of human ingenuity to do more with less, but not when under a capitalist economic system; that just takes all progress and perverts it.

    virtuous_sloth,
    @virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

    @fraying Yes, indeed. That's also why I turned it into a different phrase instead of echoing that exact phrase.

    kevinrothrock, to random

    History tells us that in order to stop a conflict one should begin not from exploring reasons why it happened but from a ceasefire.

    virtuous_sloth,
    @virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

    @kevinrothrock Pragmatism for the win.

    johnefrancis, to ubuntu
    @johnefrancis@mastodon.social avatar

    A second problem with my 23.10 upgrade was that somehow ffmpeg got removed, causing the Shinobi video monitor to stop working.

    Given that the dist-upgrade crashed, weewx wouldn't work, and ffmpeg got removed...this hasn't been the smoothest of dist upgrades.

    virtuous_sloth,
    @virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

    @johnefrancis
    What was your starting point?

    I was on lunar with btrfs when my SSD started to die, so I bought a new one and went back to jammy on zfs, not 100% sure of what my problems were.

    I want to get up to mantic since it sounds good.

    But maybe not while travelling.

    virtuous_sloth,
    @virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

    @johnefrancis thanks for the background, much appreciated!

    seldo, to random
    @seldo@alpaca.gold avatar

    The advice on carrying human ashes on an airplane is that you don't need special permission to do it but they recommend a "sturdy container", which is the kind of addendum that comes from horrible experience.

    virtuous_sloth,
    @virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

    @seldo

    Point taken.

    evan, (edited ) to random
    @evan@cosocial.ca avatar

    "Ukraine : Russia :: Israel : Palestine"

    virtuous_sloth,
    @virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

    @evan Wut?!?

    Analogies fail.

    virtuous_sloth,
    @virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

    @skyfaller @evan
    Well put, Nelson, well put.

    LeftistLawyer, to climate
    @LeftistLawyer@kolektiva.social avatar

    This is the first thing I’ve seen from a major press outlet that even resembles a stick in the eye of conventional economic wisdom. And it is absolutely on point.

    We must scream at the top of lungs, and shame any who dare, try to defend the conventional orthodox economic machine that is tearing our children’s future down around their ears. !!!

    Please, I beg you, circulate this article as far and wide as you can.


    https://theintercept.com/2023/10/29/william-nordhaus-climate-economics/

    virtuous_sloth,
    @virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

    @LeftistLawyer
    The infinite value of the natural world breaks their terrible math.

    georgetakei, to random

    Puppet says what? https://secondnexus.com/trump-quotes-putin-tough-russia?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=infeed&utm_campaign=linkprogram

    virtuous_sloth,
    @virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca avatar

    @georgetakei He must have got the quote wrong too. "If you aren't tough now I'd hate to see what you are like when you are tough" would make more sense, if Trump were to make sense.

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