@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

wordshaper

@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network

Guy who bakes, snarks, writes, and codes.

Currently at Google (my second search engine employer!), previously at Bloomberg.

One time Perl 6 pumpking, lo these many years ago, as well as core perl contributor and part-time VMS perl port maintainer. I have written the occasional article, mostly on perl. (but once upon a time long ago on the Amiga. Those were the days...)

Currently not in France. Dammit.

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

mattwilcox, to random
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

"Matt, tracking on the web, it's just how it is. If we get rid of it so many companies will die off."

There were companies before tracking tech. There was advertising before tracking tech.

Tracking tech is just how they can pay the least, to get the most. It's not a right. It's not a given. It's not required.

How did it work before? You made good products and the stuff that was most popular rose to the top.

Ban tracking tech. Hamstring predatory and scammy products that survive on targeting.

wordshaper,
@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

@mattwilcox When I hear complaints from these companies over tracking and privacy regs, it all sounds like "Matt, my business is predicated on punching people in the face. If we stop allowing companies to punch people in the face then an entire industry of face-punching companies will die off!"

mhoye, to random
@mhoye@mastodon.social avatar

Weirdly, the better your documentation is, the less your audience will need it. Good documentation comes from the practice of caring about product clarity, discoverability and comprehensibility, for developers and community alike, and that manifests itself in the code as well as the docs.

wordshaper,
@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

@mhoye Better documentation often leads to a better product, since few things are as motivating to fix flaws in a system as "I have written this up as a description of how this thing works and it seems deeply broken, am I missing something?"

There's nothing quite like fixing really confusing sections of documentation by making things just not be broken any more.

StillIRise1963, to random
@StillIRise1963@mastodon.world avatar

I think we all should brace ourselves for how far this unhinged criminal will go to avoid prison.

wordshaper,
@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

@StillIRise1963 the most depressing thing about this post is it isn’t obvious what country this is about, let alone what person.

Lazarou, to random
@Lazarou@mastodon.social avatar

"Europe is embracing militarism"

We have a large, belligerent neighbour who wants to fuck us all up, are we expected to just lie down and let it happen you tankie fucks?

No, it's not ideal, perhaps if Russia weren't being such a fash dick we could spend that money on Climate Change and Social Issues but thanks your buddy Putin we won't.

wordshaper,
@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

@Lazarou I would really love a good dive into the funding behind a bunch of these groups newly opposing militarism. (or that have been opposing it for a while, I guess) Gotta wonder if they're in (possibly large) part funded by Russia as a way to reduce the threat of an actually-militarily-competent EU on their western border.

Remittancegirl, to random
@Remittancegirl@mstdn.social avatar

So, I've been working on hatching a theoretical structure to address the quandary of MAGA for a long time. I think it is almost impossible to combat it unless one can identify grasp the causal factors of the eruption of a mass psychosis. This is going to be a really long thread and I'm developing it slowly. Please feel free to mute me if this irritates you - I'm thinking aloud here. And most of my ideas aren't original, I'm just sometimes gathering them together in novel ways. #musings

wordshaper,
@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

@Lizette603_23 these particular social structures predate hitler by millennia. Which isn’t to say he didn’t steal them from hitler (trump is, if nothing else, profoundly incurious and unlikely to look very far for anything) but there is a long, long history of this kind of collective behavior all across the world, in many societies, and in many time periods.

mekkaokereke, to random
@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

They're talking about grade inflation at the Ivies again. And OK, fair. Everyone gets an A. But can we also talk about educator inflation? Educator inflation is a good thing! By educator inflation I mean: the typical educator at a top tier university today, is miles better at educating, than the typical educator at that same institution 50 years ago.

The field of education is not static. There are constant advances in how material is presented, and how students are supported.

wordshaper,
@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

@MisterWanko @mekkaokereke They are, in part because education is a semi-scientific-ish field, and certainly a field that tries different approaches and shares knowledge. New educators get taught the methods that have been shown to work, and as there's more research and knowledge sharing those methods improve. While individual instructors in the past might have been amazing, in the present the average quality of instruction has overall improved.

It's a generational process, but it's happening

wordshaper,
@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

@mekkaokereke @MisterWanko The vast improvement in the field of CS education can be seen just looking at the "classic" books in the field (even recent editions) and compare them to current, newly written books on the same subject.

Quite a few of these, including some well-loved ones, are frankly only useful if you have a table to level.

GottaLaff, to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

🤢 ’s VP short list. (My replies explode in 5….4…3…2…1…):

“includes 3 former GOP candidates, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Vivek Ramaswamy & Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.). …Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), Gov. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) and former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard…”

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4480275-trump-confirms-names-on-vp-shortlist/

wordshaper,
@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

@GottaLaff This reads like a list of people Trump wants to grovel at his feet. Are we taking bets on how long he'll make them beg before he throws them all over for someone else?

GottaLaff, to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Via Lisa Rubin:

If NY Attorney General is able to start enforcing her judgment as soon as next week, don’t expect Tower to top her list. Why? Because as recently as August ‘23, Trump reported Axos Bank still has an outstanding loan on that property for “over $50,000,000.”

wordshaper,
@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

@GottaLaff I'm gonna guess she'd start with Mar A Lago and his NY apartment, just to mess with him.

charliejane, to StarTrek
@charliejane@wandering.shop avatar

Every time someone meets Q on #StarTrek they should bring up the fact that he introduced the Borg to humanity decades before it was supposed to happen, thus causing untold millions of deaths.

wordshaper,
@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

@charliejane anyone who ascribes a motive more benevolent than “bored now. Dance monkeys, dance!” to Q probably should rewatch his first few appearance episodes more carefully.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Apple Cancels Work on Electric Car, Ending Decade long Effort

The most recent approach discussed internally was delaying a car release until 2028 and reducing self-driving specifications from Level 4 to Level 2+ technology.

Many employees on the car team — known as the Special Projects Group, or SPG — will be shifted to the artificial intelligence division

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-27/apple-cancels-work-on-electric-car-shifts-team-to-generative-ai

wordshaper,
@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

@SpeakerToManagers @cstross @FeralRobots right, the tech for wrist mounted BP exists. Unfortunately the tech for accurate standalone wrist mounted BP tech doesn’t exist. Aside from a number of issues with calibration and skin tone, the existing tech is… not great. It needs to be externally calibrated regularly, has a significant set of error bars, and doesn’t work for lots of folks.

Samsung, for example, tried this. The results were unfortunately awful.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

So, does anyone have any insights about how Apple vIsion
Pro™ compares with that Meta™-branded apple
Vision pro VR headseat?

Asking for a friend^Wtrademark lawyer

wordshaper,
@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

@cstross I need to order one of these so I can start work on my no-doubt blockbuster app "Tentacles Squirming at the Edge of Your Vision for Apple Vision Pro"

wordshaper, to random
@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

Oh, yay! Another Endless Ocean game! I played the hell out of the first one on the Wii -- mildly awkward controls aside it was chill and honestly chill games are nice.

https://www.polygon.com/24079098/endless-ocean-luminous-switch-nintendo-direct

wordshaper, to random
@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

Don't go making excuses for the actions of capital. Just... don't. They don't care and you won't get anything from it.

wordshaper, to random
@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

My linters and formatters don't check for meter or rhythm in my code and I take this as a personal attack. Where's my EDOESNTRHYME error?

grimalkina, to random
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    wordshaper,
    @wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

    @grimalkina …also they fail to factor out potential confounding issues from their flow state/cognitive load/feedback loop definitions or are indirectly (and hence poorly) measuring something entirely different from what they say they’re measuring.

    wordshaper,
    @wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

    @grimalkina In my experience doing stats is 90% primal screaming and 10% whiskey.

    On the upside, I do have several nice recipes for whiskey pie and hard-cider eclair, so it's not been all bad.

    wordshaper, to random
    @wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

    I think @amycastor and @davidgerard used to have some “Bitcoin—explain it again, it can’t be that stupid” stickers. I should see if I can get the SVG for that from them, I’m feeling a mighty need for a print run.

    wordshaper, to random
    @wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

    Kinda strange how a dude who just lost a huge judgement based on him wildly and unreliably mis-valuing real estate can't get an appeal bond using real estate as collateral.

    wordshaper, to random
    @wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

    If this finding holds it’ll be great—there are several options to treating these “hidden reservoir” kinds of infections which would hopefully at least halt the progression and give people a chance to recover. https://hachyderm.io/@bentomn/112073061220631720

    wordshaper, to random
    @wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

    Watching this video on self driving and it's darkly funny on many levels. My favorite is the part where he talks about where Teslas on autopilot run over kids in tests. Not that it does this (which it does) but the bits where Tesla apologists are all "the car can tell it's not a kid so it's safe to run over" and all I can think is "wait, so you think it's a good idea for your car to run into a post since it decided the post wasn't a kid?"

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DOd4RLNeT4

    wordshaper, to random
    @wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

    "I am so rich that this bond amount doesn't serve as any kind of deterrent to me so I shouldn't have to put it up" is... an argument. I'm not sure it's one I'd want to make, though I'm not a Very Stable Genius or the lawyer for one so what do I know?

    https://www.rawstory.com/e-jean-carroll-2667368251/

    wordshaper, to random
    @wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

    Another day, another own goal by Google. (Which I'm not directly affected by, so that's something at least, I guess)

    wordshaper, to random
    @wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

    Looks like the XBoxalypse is coming. The fact that anyone cares all that much is kinda depressing.

    https://kotaku.com/xbox-fans-content-creators-ps5-ports-starfield-rumors-1851230962

    cstross, to random
    @cstross@wandering.shop avatar

    21st Feb: Is your setting a stratified society or something experimental?

    It doesn't get much more stratified than the UK in a nightmarish alt-2015 where the Tory party has been taken over by an Elder God out of Lovecraft!

    Although the PM's weekly meetings with the Queen have become slightly fraught of late—it's no longer clear who reports to who!

    (Fade to strident ullulations of BREXIT MEANS BREXIT! STRONG AND STABLE! ALL GLORY TO THE BLACK PHARAOH! IÄ! IÄ! ...)

    wordshaper,
    @wordshaper@weatherishappening.network avatar

    @cstross When I was a young man I thought Warhammer 40K was a cynical, satirical, dystopian view of the future seen through a UK lens. Now that I'm older I know that Warhammer 40K is an overly optimistic, rose-tinted utopian view of the future when seen through a UK lens.

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