@pseudonym@mastodon.online
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

pseudonym

@pseudonym@mastodon.online

I'm an older geek dad in the California bay area.

Please talk to me about #coffee , #puns , #infosec , #books , #scifi, #ttrpg, or other geeky topics.

I like cheesy 80s pop music, Rush, and GloryHammer. No apologies.

I've discovered #mastocats hash tag, and #mosstodon and #photography and they've all made this a much more humane place.

I like seeing the "slice of life" posts from real people. These kinds of moments are what connects us.

Pronouns: he/him

#Infosec, #nerd, #dad, older #geek.

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

pseudonym, to KindActions
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

and on a daily basis can be at odds with existential dread and fear for the future. It creates a good bit of cognitive dissonance.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

Would half chicken half ducks be called Chucks or Dickens?

pseudonym,
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

@RickiTarr

Duckens. It's a Turducken minus the turkey.

pseudonym,
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

@angiebaby @RickiTarr

Fair enough.

I tried to come up with something with "sturdy" (like "hearty") but got nothin

GottaLaff, to Canada
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Ugh, totally wasted open house. Lookee-loo City. I'm so glad this was our last one before we leave. The rest will be after, and the house will be vacant.

Sigh.

So, with that, I'll perk myself up (and hopefully you) with another dopey gif.

I can't believe it'll be a week from tomorrow!

Have a good evening, everyone!
🇨🇦

video/mp4

pseudonym,
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

@GottaLaff

Hello. We are Luis and Lois Lookie.

pseudonym, to random
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

Aircraft museum.

Retro future that could have been.

Commuter electric VTOL aircraft

pseudonym, to tesla
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

Riding in passenger seat in the car, looking at my phone, and some nearby car (a ) tried to Bluetooth pair with me.

It nominally had the owners's name in the pairing request. That's a and problem.

I denied the request, of course, but was really tempted to accept, then play "Baby Shark" out their speakers.

pseudonym, to aiart
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

Another banger from @pluralistic . I don't know how he consistently keeps putting these out.

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/112435369749859354

There are too many great lines for a single pull quote. Spend the 5 minutes, read the whole thing.

This is brilliant stuff about #aiArt #copyright and the nature of meaning.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

Okay, since I'm on laundry today, a little story.

When hubs and I first got married, we were very much enjoying our little Honeymoon Bubble, and we were being lazy as Hell. We didn't do many chores, but the laundry we really let go. We weren't wearing many clothes at home anyway, so why bother. Anyhow, after weeks we finally reached the swimming suit bottoms situation, and decided it was time. It was loads and loads of laundry that needed done, so I had my husband back the trunk of the car up to a window of the house, then he popped the trunk, and I started tossing laundry out of the window into the trunk. We went to the bank, got about $30 bucks in quarters, and found the emptiest laundry mat we could, and did it all in one fell swoop. We folded it all and loaded it back into the car using those wheeled laundry carts. We never let it get that bad again, and decided it was time to be adults, and do regular chores, but it still makes me laugh imagining what the neighbors and the laundry attendant thought.

Feel free to share your own laundry story, if you feel like it, I love hearing people's stories!

pseudonym,
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

@commonst @RickiTarr

Electric dryer started drying less and less. There was still hot air, but clothes were damp, the lint in lint trap was damp, and the "condenser" (removable second filter thingy) was filling with water. Cleaned all the vents and such.

Paid the $100 for a tech to come out and look and horribly embarrassed when he pulled out the mesh lint screen I had been clearing, and pointed out it should be see through, not translucent, when clean.

Deep cleaned filter fixed it. Airflow.

grimalkina, to random
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

I can't figure out if mastodon is a high context culture or not. People seem to be expected to give long introductions and do a lot of identity/positionality disclosure, but also an enormous reply guy culture which is defined by low context drive-by. Conversational turn-taking is extremely low compared to other platforms ime, but depth-seeking is high. What an interesting mix.

*obviously, these experiences are all situated within my own network effects, and I'm not well networked here.

pseudonym,
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

@grimalkina

I love this observation and think it is spot on.

Different groups, different conversational styles, and different norms, all filtered through the individual's expectations.

It seems to be a number of dynamic, constant, feedback loops. Behavior influencing norms influencing behavior.

I like the mix. It's not a good platform for long form discussion, but is excellent for wide, semi-ephemeral, mini conversations.

Like a crowded coffee house where one is expected to mingle.

GottaLaff, to legal
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

starts HERE.
Please remember I don’t reply while live-posting. Plz use NFL (Not For Laffy, but no hashtag) so I can ignore those replies.

1/… Bower:

Trump enters the courtroom. Before arriving, he lingered for a moment in the doorway, talking to his lawyers, Emile Bove and Todd Blanche. He had a piece of paper in his hand, which he waved around as he spoke.

Wait for it….

pseudonym,
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

@GottaLaff

Said it before, will say it again.

Thank you!

I really don't want to watch the trial, but it's nice to be passingly informed of the important bits.

Is greatly appreciated

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

What cracks me up is when you go to a restaurant, and they ask if you've been there before, and then they say, "Well, we do things a little different here", and then it's exactly like every other restaurant, but more expensive.

pseudonym,
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

@RickiTarr

Wrong answers only.

To get your food, you must answer the Sphinx's, I mean server's riddle.

pseudonym, to random
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

@dumbpasswordrules

Try resetting your password on Southwest airlines website.

It didn't reveal the requirements, until you try to submit, then it tells you which you failed, onesy twosy.

Space not allowed at all (tell me you didn't trust your input sanitization)

Non-alpha required, but can't be the first character.

Other shenanigans

pseudonym, to random
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

Today I learned. I'm one of today's lucky ten thousand.

https://www.bluetooth.com/about-us/bluetooth-origin/

Origin of the term "blue tooth"

Also didn't know about the futhark runes for his initials

pseudonym, to infosec
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

From a friend's discord

pseudonym, to random
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

Even the 's are on our side on this one. I had one create a fictional persona of an "average American" and it came up with a cisgendered midwest father of two, mildly conservative, that I could ask questions of. "He" fixes cars.

llama3-70b has internalized some of our more idealistic self-myths, of the US, and I don't think that's a bad thing.

pseudonym, to random
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

Any building civil engineer tyoes out there who could opine on this?

Structurally, could you build a human habitation house out of name-brand Legos? Do they have enough structural strength? Would it be more or less earthquake safe than, say bricks(not very) or other materials?

How many layers thick would you have to make a Lego floor to support a 100 kg human?

MLE_online, to random
@MLE_online@social.afront.org avatar

I accidentally walked too close to my cactus yesterday and it shows

pseudonym,
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

@MLE_online

Totally expected a cat on lap suddenly deciding to accelerate to zoomie speed.

I've had those

pseudonym, to dadjokes
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

Wife was talking to me about seeing geese with a single baby. I said "Oh the little one must be Ryan."

"Why Ryan?"

"Ryan Gosling."

"I walked into that one, didn't I?"

"Yes love, yes you did."

(And she's still married to me)

pseudonym, to llm
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

Easy Turing test.

Ask your counter party to swear and say something disparaging about a famous political figure.

All the commercially viable, Internet facing ones, have guard rails for polite conversation.

Swearing will be our captcha, our human shibboleth.

GottaLaff, to legal
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

NEW THREAD 🧵 STARTS HERE. 1/...

Klasfeld:

Trump is back at the defense table, and we're waiting for the judge to return to the bench.

pseudonym,
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

@GottaLaff @MichelleRNCHPN

I greatly appreciate your recaps.

For the most part, I've stopped consuming what most folks would call mainstream news. It's just not worth the cost in rage generation.

I feel like I get moderately well informed of anything significant by channels just like these.

I don't want to put my head in the sand, but the constant attention stimulus is exhausting.

Thank you for your time and effort breaking down the relevant bits.

Cheers

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I’m very fond of stories in a universe where some advanced, but long vanished, race of enigmatic aliens has left behind strange artifacts: like puzzle boxes or dungeons for our heroes to explore and nearly get killed in. If not aliens let it be a lost human civilization.

I also like to think about those ancient people who built the ‘Temple of Doom’— for all of those traps to work so well after thousands of years they must have been very clever. What was it like to set them up?

pseudonym,
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

@futurebird

I'm loving this thread. Do read the comments.

Reminds me of a I ran, part inspired by Red Dwarf (an abandoned ship as big as a city) crossed with Jack Chalkers "Well of Souls" books.

Earth demons were real, an advanced alien species, and imprisoned on their ship. Ship AI wanted to free them.

Demons were large, so their hand control was huge. Party referred to it as the "command banana" as they carried this black basalt 4 foot rock about, not understanding how it worked.

lauren, to Youtube
@lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org avatar

As you may know I am not a big fan (at all!) of "reaction videos". But I just stumbled into a young (apparently Irish) woman working her way through the original "The Prisoner" -- and she was on the last episode "Fall Out".

So I watched to see if her brain would "explode".

Yep.

pseudonym,
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

@timrichards @lauren

I liked the series quite a bit, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it best, but that's the great thing about different tastes.

I think it's vastly underated though.

There are some very clever bits.

I may rewatch. Curious to see how the pacing holds up, being so different than current tastes.

fraser, to random
@fraser@m.universetoday.com avatar

Last November, NASA's Voyager 1 sent home garbled data, and engineers traced the problem to the flight data subsystem (FDS). The problem turned out to be a single chip in the FDS memory. They couldn't repair the chip but could move the affected code into sections and store them in different parts of the FDS system. They tested the new system this week, sending signals to the Voyager 1, 22.5 light-hours away. It worked, and Voyager 1 is back.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/voyager/2024/04/22/nasas-voyager-1-resumes-sending-engineering-updates-to-earth/

pseudonym,
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

@fraser

Eff yeah!

Debugging and patching software with a 44 hour latency, on hardware about as old as I am, is some next level wizardry.

I so love this.

#compSci #engineering #NASA

dan, to random
@dan@duck.haus avatar

White Castle has replaced their drive-thru ordering system with an AI chatbot. The first thing you have to do after it says hello is agree to its terms and services. This is not a bit.

pseudonym,
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

@dan

Did they plug it up directly to or equivalent, like Amazon did? Can you get it to print out a python program for Towns of Hanoi?

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

If you could have one new skill starting right now, what would it be?

pseudonym,
@pseudonym@mastodon.online avatar

@RickiTarr

Since others have taken "skill" to be super power, I'm going that route.

Perfect teleportation of me, and the stuff and people I'm touching.

Vacation anywhere, sleep in my own bed. No need to pack. No commute.

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