George Mari @GeorgeMari@qoto.org

NEW POST

@bboeckel recently spent some time trying out running local LLMs for some programming tasks. In this memo she outlines the factors that influence how viable they are for the job.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/exploring-gen-ai/local-models-for-coding-factors.html

I spent a lot of time redesigning and improving the new https://fediverse.info

it would mean a lot to me if you boost this, and spread awareness of this powerful onboarding resource ❤️

NEW: The First Major Overhaul of Public Lands Grazing Regulations in a Generation Looks to Cut Out Public Involvement

For the first time since 1995, the Bureau of Land Management is rewriting its grazing regulations. The new rule, which governs ranching across 155 million acres of public lands in the West, would heavily favor the livestock industry.
https://www.propublica.org/article/public-land-livestock-grazing-ranching-access?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

#News #PublicLands #Livestock #Cattle #Regulation #Native #Environment #Conservation

New blog post — I used LLM’s and all I got was this lousy layoff https://grumpy-learning.com/blog/2026/07/02/job-search/

If you're thinking 'Wait, a giant crystal cave in Mexico? What's that?' then I'm SO excited for the image search you're about to do.
https://xkcd.com/3266/

Donald Knuth is one of the greatest computer scientists alive quit email in 1990 & never looked back. His reason? Deep work requires deep focus. He communicates by postal mail, once every 6 months. While we’re drowning in social media & email notifications, this man is calmly finishing a masterpiece he started in 1962. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is simply be unreachable. This is worth reading for anyone who works in IT industry or beyond https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/%7Eknuth/email.html

Later this week #GitHub introduces a way to limit how many pull requests users without write access can have open at one time... As a way to combat heaps of low-quality PRs.

I'll start out trying with this set to 2 for #curl.

In the get people Fedi-hired category, my university department has an opening for a senior (research-side) sysadmin where you'll get to do fun things in a dynamic group that's doing stuff at the crossover of chemistry, robotics, and computing. It's sadly not open to remote people, so Toronto only. And you'll be my indirect colleague (not in my group but working closely with us).

https://jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-Research-Computing-Support-Specialist-ON/603316117/

(boosts welcome)

The ingredients for flash flooding will be coming together on the Gulf Coast between Texas and Alabama this week. We explain what is known right now, and what we're watching: https://open.substack.com/pub/theeyewall/p/setting-up-a-southern-soaker-this?r=5w82qw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

@BenjaminHCCarr Blistering Barnacles! A trade disruption I hadn't considered. The original article is fascinating, and based on experience.
https://thedeepdraft.com/2026/06/08/the-barnacle-problem-waiting-behind-hormuz/
@dantheclamman

#barnacles #SeaLife #StraitOfHormuz #shipping #IranWar

This is a RCA SelectaVision CED video disc player.

It’s selling for $15 at a thrift store—so I must buy it.

Why my excitement? Because this absolute unit plays the ill-fated CED (Capacitance Electronic Disc) format.

In terms of tech, CED is mind-boggling: it’s a vinyl record for video.

Inside that slot goes a massive plastic caddy containing a 12-inch vinyl disc. When you push the caddy in and pull it out, the bare disc is left inside the machine. Unlike LaserDisc (which used lasers to read data optically), CED was an analog, mechanical system. It used a diamond stylus riding in microscopic grooves, akin to a standard phonograph record.

The story behind this machine is one of the greatest, most tragic in AV history—and directly led to the decline of RCA.

It took RCA 17 years to design CED. By 1981, they spent $200M—thats $732.7M after inflation—on R&D of this product.

Maybe it would have been a success if CED released in 1964, when they first started work on it. But by the time it came to market, it was competing against VHS, BetaMax, and LaserDisc.

And while CEDs were cheaper to manufacture in 1981 compared to all the other home video formats, it was the most prone to failure. While it looked better than VHS under ideal situations, the reality was usually less than ideal. Just a little bit of dust caused the video to skip, loop, or violently glitch.

The death knell for CED was the drastic fall in price of Beta and VHS. Their superior quality, combined with the ability to record, proved devastating for RCA.

All CED players were pulled from the market by 1984, three years after their introduction. RCA would soon no longer be a major tech company. This SelectaVision is a remnant of that history.

Less than an hour from now, 0000 GMT, our radio show debuts on shortwave (as well as airing on ~70 AM/FM stations this weekend). Tune in to the Radio Free America transmission via WRMI to hear 'America@250: Due Diligence' on 9395 kHz to North America & 5050 kHz to Caribbean, Central/South America.

Damn, I signed up for a PeerTube server a while back and I don't remember which one. My ADHD ass couldn't handle the two day waiting period to get approved so by the time I got the email my mind was already somewhere else and I didn't save the info anywhere.

Anyway, if I wanted to join a PeerTube community so I could post video essays which should I go to?

Airlines are outsourcing empathy to AI and one passenger just saw behind the curtain 😂 oops 😅 this is the customer support from hell 😈 via https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0JpguCUhF9Z3SYJfyThfreg3aQFzLouLHqi5oPuggoRabW4uKFrcYBat7LvxFHngcl&id=100077434363121&mibextid=wwXIfr

#jobgesucht

Gibt es in der #IT in #Dresden Jobs für einen alternden Diplom-Informatiker mit fast zwei Jahrzehnten Berufserfahrung?

Ich bin vor allem im Backend-Bereich erfahren, fachlich war ich in der freien Wirtschaft vor allem bei Banken und Versicherungen unterwegs, habe aber einen Hintergrund im Scientific Computing.

Sprachen: Deutsch, Englisch, Java, Python, (Object-)Pascal, COBOL, Fortran, SQL, C.

Was mir wichtig wäre: Nach Corona endlich wieder mal aus dem Home-Office zu kommen und mit freundlichen und wertschätzenden Kollegen zusammen zu arbeiten.

Gerne retröt.

New post: BYD Did What Tesla Never Would. Just Not For The Reasons You’d Hope https://www.transportevolved.com/2026/06/04/byd-did-what-tesla-never-would-just-not-for-the-reasons-youd-hope/