wiredog

ucblockhead, 3 months ago to random

Saw a reference to "cliometrics" and it suddenly hit me that the name of the emperor character added to "Foundation" for TV was named "Cleon". Great reference if true.

Stacky, 3 months ago to random

Food for tomorrow

#colonoscopy

wiredog, 3 months ago to random

Over on BlueSky saw I picked up a follow. Took a look, as usual, to make sure it wasn’t someone horrifying (as I used to do at Twitter). Not horrifying, but… @anonymous.expectus.fyi you are going to be so disappointed… I am definitely of what is now the center left, pretty much a Standard Democrat™ . So maybe 25% congruent with Anonymous?

I mean, I firmly believe that having to spend the rest of his life in Putin’s Russia isn’t less than what Snowden deserves.

Daojoan, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to random

The death of the writer has arrived. Vox have pretty much nailed it in their piece on self promotion.

In the social media era, writers must become podcasters, graphic designers, videographers, and conventionally attractive TikTok models to gain an audience.

The profession of "writer" no longer exists - only the "influencer" remains.

A thread on the demise of the solitary writing life…

briankrebs, 3 months ago to random

Had to get a loaner vehicle from a local dealership because a 10 y/o car that I love needed a lot of work. So they gave me the latest model of the same car -- brand new -- which was vastly less powerful than ours, and kept trying to steer me between the lines and cause the steering wheel to rumble when I hit a line and all kinds of crap that just annoyed me.

The dealership probably thought they would entice me to buy the newer model, but driving it just made me more convinced I made the right decision to put the money into the old car.

wiredog, 4 months ago to random

Apparently an American professor suggested adding a pinch of salt to a cup of tea. The US Embassy in London has stepped up to repair the damage.

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:3tmtbhttwq4d3li7m4pc22aw/bafkreibzpbbp3ihtiqnsro6qela3d2oqt2xabzfbwh7zlvkwnldurul3p4@jpeg

image/jpeg

wiredog, 4 months ago to random

Man, Boeing is a real clusterfuck.

https://leehamnews.com/2024/01/15/unplanned-removal-installation-inspection-procedure-at-boeing/

ravirockks, 4 months ago to random

Fundamental points by Prof Ciaran Martin about the British Library incident and its aftermath.

= Why resilience matters.

https://ciaranmartin.substack.com/p/on-the-matter-of-the-british-library

wiredog, 4 months ago to random

This is not good.

https://www.science.org/content/article/paper-mills-bribing-editors-scholarly-journals-science-investigation-finds

Stacky, 4 months ago to random

Puppy at home resting peacefully after pain meds.

No hiking for her for the next 14 days.

ucblockhead, 4 months ago to random

What do people use for Mastodon clients? I've tried the default one and https://phanpy.social/#/, and both have features I like, and those I don't. I like the way phanpy separates boosts, and does threading, but I don't like it's narrow phone-centric design

Stacky, 4 months ago to random

Ugh, pretty sure my head cold has turned into a sinus infection.

obvioustroll, 4 months ago to random

On a completely unrelated topic, my credit union hasn't been able to generate statements or other documents since January 1. No explanation.

Well, they did add a banner to the website to tell everyone how diligently they're working to fix the problem and how we shouldn't worry...

And I'm just sitting here, thinking "Ransomware?"

carnage4life, 4 months ago to random

Wondering how big tech are going to handle promotions now that the model of “we need to hire lots of people for you to manage so we can make you a manager” looks to be broken again this year.

I suspect some companies simply won’t have (m)any the same way Microsoft had no raises last year.

Stacky, 4 months ago to random

Any Strava users here? Is it a good place to corral all my workouts/active stuff to get an overall picture of my activity?

wiredog, 4 months ago to random

It’s not just Marvel and Star Wars that have too much Stuff for me to keep up with. The Star Trek novels got away from me a couple decades ago and I never even tried with the Star Wars eu.

https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/scalzi-on-film-when-fun-becomes-homework/

wiredog, 4 months ago to random

In addition to hating Cmake I’m beginning to seriously doubt the utility of git.

Things that were relatively easy to do in Turbo C++ on MS-DOS 30 years ago are difficult in Linux today.

ucblockhead, 4 months ago to random

Well, that's that. Now I just need to unload my Musk-mobile.

I know it's fashionable to act like they are the Yugos of the 21st century, but that's as much crap as the the delusional love-fest it gets from other circles. It's a solidly middling car in terms of reliability, miles better than the shitty-ass Ford I had as a teenager, or the other shitty-ass Ford I had briefly as a teenager.

What I'll really miss is the charging network, though I didn't use it much.

carnage4life, 4 months ago to random

A key difference between Apple today and Microsoft in the 1990s/2000s is that Microsoft at least provided rich capabilities for web apps (see ActiveX) along with native apps since they cared about people usingWindows.

Today Apple ensures web apps lag native apps in a variety of ways (notifications, haptics, touch controls, etc) because of the 30% app store cut.

Web apps being better on iPhones versus Android isn’t as lucrative as ensuring people prefer the App Store to the open web.

robpegoraro, 4 months ago to random

It can be fascinating to see how page views of a blog post I wrote about a specific subject of current interest can fluctuate over time. Does the pattern here give any hint of what I covered in that post?

gzt, 6 months ago to random

Free Palestine