Erik Przekop @IAmErik@qoto.org
Parent, programmer, amateur astronomer and terrible guitar player.
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Here is my introduction post:
Instead of defining myself by saying “I am a…”, here’s a collection of hashtags that interest me (in no particular order). #meditation (specifically #twim right now) #cigars #bicycling #photography #computerscience #physics #guitar #music .
I live in #Michigan (in #LakeOrion, which is 35+ miles north of #Detroit), and spend a lot of time around #RogersCity (I’ll bet that’s the first time that hashtag has been used on Mastodon). My kids are really bright and sometimes struggle with #ADHD, so I’ll probably talk about that at times as well. I have spent more than 3 decades of my life as a #programmer, and now I get to be the old man who leads really smart people in solving big problems with small amounts of #software.
Joined Nov 2022
Erik Przekop
boosted
Carl sagan’s thought about books:
“When our genes could not store all the information necessary for survival, we slowly invented them. But then the time came, perhaps ten thousand years ago, when we needed to know more than could conveniently be contained in brains. So we learned to
stockpile enormous quantities of information outside our bodies. We are the only species on the planet, so far as we know, to have
invented a communal memory stored neither in our genes nor in our brains. The warehouse of that memory is called the library. A book is made from a tree. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.”
-Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Erik Przekop
boosted
Did you know Tesla has cameras both on the outside of vehicles and the inside, and everything is uploaded to Tesla? Anyhoo they’ve been exporting the videos, making memes of customers and then posting them on chat rooms. https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sensitive-images-recorded-by-customer-cars-2023-04-06/
Astute observation. Florida is it's own little dystopian nightmare lately.
Erik Przekop
boosted
Big-tech’s dash to incorporate #ChatGPT -like interfaces into their search engines threatens the ecosystem of human knowledge with extinction. AI engines can be enhanced to avoid this, leading to new forms of knowledge creation.
https://www.spinellis.gr/blog/20230316/
Erik Przekop
boosted
🇳🇱
I suspect docker removing the free tier is going to absolutely devistate them. All the open-source software, which is what dominated docker, is now scrambling to find alternatives.
Also since docker treates docker hub as first class for fetching images I suspect people will move off docker entierly.
It is going to be pretty crazy for the open source community too having all the images they depend on just disapear. Dev chains everywhere are going to break...
Erik Przekop
boosted
#Women are under attack in this country - as are many others.
In #SouthCarolina they want to sentence women who have #abortions to #DEATH. There are no #exceptions to this rule. If the life of the mother is at risk she will have to testify to #selfdefense in court. #Gilead is impressed. How long until they want to display the bodies for all the handmaids to see?
#Walgreens is not dispensing #mifepristone in 20 states - so it’s time to #BoycottWalgreens as well.
We are visiting Southern Tuscany this week, here are a few favorite photos from yesterday.
First night in Florence. Seems like a good time for a magnum opus. #cigars
Erik Przekop
boosted
Mass shootings in the US:
2014: 273
2015: 336
2016: 383
2017: 348
2018: 336
2019: 417
2020: 610
2021: 690
2022: 647
In the first seven weeks of 2023: 67
We do not have to live like this. No other country on the planet does.
Erik Przekop
boosted
The idea that bad people having a voice on social media causes other people to become bad people (often the argument as to why we must defederate from bad servers) is equivalent to:
Thinking violent video games cause people to become violent.
Thinking explicit song lyrics cause people to become criminals
Allowing people to be openly homosexual will cause others to become homosexual
Banning books
Erik Przekop
boosted
There’s an inverse correlation between how much you architect code to be reusable and how much you actually end up reusing it.
@ClayDowling
I would call that an "absorption" meditation practice. It can be a wonderful way to both notice and quiet your thoughts.
Erik Przekop
boosted
Pluto and Charon - Two Worlds in the Kuiper Belt - NASA's New Horizons
Zoom in on the 350MP resolution here (recommended): https://www.easyzoom.com/image/399206 to see surface details of both Worlds.
Download full resolution and raed more info here: https://flic.kr/p/2ocJWid
Composite image created using data processed from:
#NASA #NewHorizons
2015-07-14
Created using @GIMP and data processed from @PDSRMS
#Pluto #Charon #Space #Spacetodon #Astrodon #Astronomy #Solarocks
NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/AndreaLuck
@peckishly
That actually sounds like a good combination. Similar textures. Gelatinicious.
@freemo
Can you expand on that a bit? I'm taking it to mean that many on the left have a somewhat blind belief that all the products of science are benign. Or perhaps that if somebody supports their argument with data, that you must automatically agree with them.
An example would be wearing masks. The data support that masking greatly reduces the transmission of a lot of diseases, including COVID-19. That said, there are still a number of choices to be made at the level of a society and the individual. Might I be okay with risking some restaurant visits unmasked even during a peak of transmission? How do we balance keeping the economy going with the costs of various measures of fighting a pandemic?
A lot of it comes down to what value you attach to human lives at the policy level, I think. I don't think it is wise to simply throw up your hands and say that every human life is priceless and any risk is intolerable. I also don't think that we should take a Darwinian approach to things and let the death tolls mount beyond a certain level to support "freedom."
I don't think an absolute answer really covers all situations. That nuance that you mentioned is very important.
@jik
Thank you for sharing that. It is an excellent point.
I just assume that whoever does that is somewhat arrogant and believes that if they find it interesting everybody else will as well.
Erik Przekop
boosted
#FediTips Most of this screencap of a boosted toot is greyed out, so there's pretty much nothing to see, which is the point. The #Mastodon web app and in many cases the phone apps as well don't unfurl links properly, which means if all you post is a link with no explanation of what it is, many people are going to scroll right by.
It would be nice if links were unfurled more reliably, but until that's the case, PLEASE include some sort of content description when sharing links.
Parent, programmer, amateur astronomer and terrible guitar player.
----------------
Here is my introduction post:
Instead of defining myself by saying “I am a…”, here’s a collection of hashtags that interest me (in no particular order). #meditation (specifically #twim right now) #cigars #bicycling #photography #computerscience #physics #guitar #music .
I live in #Michigan (in #LakeOrion, which is 35+ miles north of #Detroit), and spend a lot of time around #RogersCity (I’ll bet that’s the first time that hashtag has been used on Mastodon). My kids are really bright and sometimes struggle with #ADHD, so I’ll probably talk about that at times as well. I have spent more than 3 decades of my life as a #programmer, and now I get to be the old man who leads really smart people in solving big problems with small amounts of #software.
Joined Nov 2022
