George Budd @Gbudd@qoto.org

Valhalla doesn't discriminate against the kind of battle you lost.
A Story in 8 panels.

One of the most difficult aspects of Software Defined Radios for most people to wrap their heads around is the concept of "IQ sampling". This permits, for example, the entire AM broadcast band to be received at once and saved in an ordinary file. Later, you can read back that file and freely tune the entire AM band from that file -- including every station within it --- just as if you were tuning and listening live. Some non-trivial math (including complex numbers) is involved in this process, and it's really quite fascinating.

Bram Moolenaar has passed way. Sad news. I use his tool Vim almost daily along with probably millions of other people. Bram was exemplary open source proponent. Will be missed. https://groups.google.com/g/vim_announce/c/tWahca9zkt4?pli=1

Who thinks they should be fed, RIGHT NOW?
#caturday #catsofmastodon #cats

Vocabulary Quiz

#vocabulary #quiz

The word ____________ means “tending to promote survival of or reproduction by less well-adapted individuals (such as the weak or diseased) especially at the expense of well-adapted individuals (such as the strong or healthy).”

If you don’t know take your best guess.

Please boost to get more responses.

Check back tomorrow for the correct answer.

I'm not an immunologist, just a data guy. But my reading of the data reaches same conclusion: there is no actual "paxlovid rebound", just COVID rebound, which happens with or without paxlovid. Infection is often biphasic, with 2 distinct symptom periods.

https://www.acsh.org/news/2023/01/11/paxlovid-rebound-isnt-real-it-never-was-16796

“Why do I have to pay a full ER bill just to get ____ ?”

Because we as a society decided that ___ was not something we wanted the government to provide, and it isn’t profitable, so clinics don’t either, and ERs have to see you. ERs also have to, by law, provide a medical screening exam, which means a doc/PA/NP has to come see you, vital signs must be documented, and ER documentation must exist. That costs money. Y’all gotta decide — do you want public healthcare or not?

One of the creepier tech-related incidents I remember was many years ago when I wanted the Sam's Photofacts (a third-party creator of device specs and schematics, etc.) for a very old portable TV. Way out of date, but I was trying to help someone with it.

I mentioned to a friend that I was looking for old Photofacts, but I did not say anything about the TV. He scribbled an address on a scrap of paper, an address locally here in L.A. "Try him," he muttered.

I drive over. It's a small unmarked storefront. I go in, the bell on the door rings. Sitting inside, like the caterpillar in "Alice in Wonderland", is this little guy perched on a stool, with immense stacks of paper surrounding him everywhere. Total mayhem.

I walk up to him -- knowing that this was a waste of time and really wanting to get out of there -- and asked if he had the Sam's Photofacts for that specific very old TV model.

Without saying a word, he reached over to the pile of papers right next to him, took the TOP item off the pile, and silently handed it to me. It was the ancient one I needed. Stunned, I paid him the amount marked on the item, and left with it, not completely sure what had just happened.

When I drove by there a month later that storefront was something else entirely. He was gone.

Someone put a stick on all the dogs graves…❤️

Why it’s crucial to keep the humanity of our enemies firmly in our minds. (Hint: it’s not primarily for their sakes.)

Fantastic accomplishment!♥️👍🏿

https://19thnews.org/2023/07/chanda-prescod-weinstein-physicist-tenure-rare-feat/

And when she tried to join the Fediverse, she was greeted with a barrage of hate, sexism, racism, and anti-semitism that should have never been allowed to happen.

So now no one on Fediverse gets to interact with her directly about her work on here. Our loss. 😢

Which is why we'll make it so that this type of terrible welcome is unlikely to happen again. Allowing it to happen to her was a choice. We will make better ones.

#BlackMastodon