George Budd @Gbudd@qoto.org

A teacher friend of mine posted this on FB, and I haven't been able to stop laughing since I read it:

OMG - a few weeks ago someone posted an idea for outsmarting ChatGPT. Imbed weird instructions in white font color in the assignment. If they’re just popping the instructions into AI the weirdness will be included. So guess who just got a paper about Zora Neale Hurston that has references to ostriches and labradoodles?!

Maggie: You're welcome, miss nothing-in-the-toaster

Over on the bird site people are sharing a piece of advice that really struck them. There have been many for me, but the most recent came from a man on YouTube teaching his daughter to snowboard. At one point, she says “daddy I’m a little scared“ and he replies back “ that’s OK! What do we do when we’re scared?“ And she says with the most chin-up-eyes-forward-fire-in-my-veins tone: “We do it scared.”

I know it isn’t #Caturday yet, but this.

The correct way to eat a cupcake with too big icing.

I'm working with some younger EMTs and I'm trying to impress on them one of the most useful pieces of advice I got which is that the first thing you should do with a patient is take a manual radial pulse.

You get:
1. the temperature of their skin
2. the moisture of their skin
3. the rate of their pulse
4. the regularity of their pulse
5. the strength of their pulse

I wonder if I count as a crabby old medic now because there are multiple people I want to throw the pulse ox at.

Happy #BlackHistoryMonth !

I'm still not onto Black history. I'm still on white US history.

Q: Why were Black folk so happy when OJ was acquitted? To be honest, it feels disgusting. Why does it seem like you're happy he got away with murderer?

A: Racism. Black folk did not like OJ that much. In fact, many Black people think he did it. Black folk didn't "celebrate OJ." Black folk celebrated the hope that a brutally unjust, evil, and racist system, could be defeated at all.

#BlackMastodon

#cats #gifs

The Attack Turkey

this morning on the run i got to the top of the hill and was resting, bc i'm out of shape, and off in the distance i see a bird trotting my way

as it gets closer i realize it's a turkey. it had a big red gobbler and its neck was iridescent. It was actually really pretty, so i just watched as it approached

I wonder who will be giving the mass at Peter Higgs' funeral?

Because they bring me such joy, I will share with you all the software testing videos I share with my Software Design and Development students.

Video 1/3: “We don’t need user testing! We already know our users”

“I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand.”

Last week we learned that part of a cargo pallet of depleted batteries that was jettisoned from the ISS in 2021 not only did not fully burn up on reentry, but also crashed through the roof and two stories of a private civilian’s home in Florida. (Read the Ars Technica article here: https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/04/trash-from-the-international-space-station-may-have-hit-a-house-in-florida/)

1/

Ecologists: We should try to find a way to convince people to stop or at least reduce flying.

Boeing:

This video from Corridor Crew is pretty amazing. They re-create the nearly perfect compositing from the penguin dance sequence in Mary Poppins, which was achieved using high intensity sodium vapor lights and a very custom beam splitter, instead of a blue or green screen. It truly feels like a lost art rediscovered. When the matted footage just perfectly drops in I gasped haha https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UQuIVsNzqDk

Today's #Muppets GIF of the Day is...

Happy April Fool's Day, reposting this old classic is all I got, hope you have a good one and nobody does something shitty as a "joke"

what's your favourite way to simplify your life with git? mostly interested in slightly unusual tricks like:

- never using the stash, just creating temporary branches instead
- deleting your `main` branch so that you can never accidentally commit to it

Nothing more motivating than a royalty statement with a £0 balance 😓

If you're a curious human, please consider buying a copy of my book, Sticky. It's the best thing I've ever written! 🦎

• You can find on all the usual spots - and in store - in hardback and/or paperback.
• It's available as an eBook (Kindle & Kobo)
• And if you like to listen to your science - delivered in an Irish accent - it's also on audiobook (Amazon only) with me narrating it.

Thanks in advance! #scicomm #science #author

Feeding street #cats with a remote controlled