Pat @Pat@qoto.org

@bonifartius @Sibylle

https://www.havahart.com/store/animal-traps

@mcintosh2001

I think it's just you...

@albertcardona

Thank you. I posted the question to the local feed here:

https://qoto.org/@Pat/109285078503372484

Any experts on Vespula out there?

I recently had an encounter with Vespula maculifrons and received several stings and bites but surprisingly, they were relatively painless. However, the sources I’ve read about the species indicate that the stings are painful.

They became very aggressive after I accidentally disturbed their subterranean nest, but the stings were merely noticeable, not painful. They felt like a bite from a large mosquito or a mandible pinch from a small insect like a non-venomous ant or slightly more painful than a ladybug pinch. Less painful than a black fly, and much less painful than a honey bee.

So, are my sources incorrect or do I just have some weird blood-chem that makes the venom less painful for me?

#entomology #venom #sting

Blocking @josemanuel for using a homophobic epithet.

#transparency #tos

@acjay

How come this week?

@trinsec @CanXClV

If you click the image you can play it within qoto, if you click the link it will take you to youtube to play it there.

@trinsec

And to current events, no less!

I guess things never change.

@trinsec

*** MOVIE SPOILER – WarGames (1983) ***

That's right. At the climax, the inventor of the AI war games machine (which has taken over control of all of the missiles at that point) tells the machine to play tic-tac-toe. The AI quickly plays all possible games and learns that playing against a knowledgeable opponent is pointless because it always ends in a tie – nobody wins.

The AI then applies the same tactic to nuclear war, working out all possible war game scenarios and learns that the result of nuclear war is that nobody ever wins, everyone losses. So it concludes that the only logical move is not to play the game.

@tuckerteague

I reviewed TRON in an earlier #FTW. I have an index of them pinned to my profile, which I update periodically.

@nautilebleu

It's in the milk bar. The tables are in the shape of women.

@aworldinpages

@icedquinn

>"just sends every outgoing datagram 1,000 times and that was their solution to packet loss"

if it's that unreliable, they should be using TCP or QUIP

>" then take the dictionary out and just pin that for future use."

dedup algos are pretty efficient, so could probably work even with excessive datagram abuse.

@nautilebleu

>"I read once a fetishist story where people were used as chairs by the elite. Maybe they weren’t so completely enslaved finally!"

There is a scene in A Clockwork Orange where they do this, but it's furniture that looks like women. Very objectifying.

IRL I think live models are just a few steps away from that.

@aworldinpages

@aworldinpages

>"that's true, but for me, it's horror of a different kind—the chair looks like a person in the dark"

This is how psychoses begin...

@jeshi@mastodon.social

#science #fiction #ScienceFiction #SciFi #FTW #film #movie #hacker #kids #cold #war #games #nuke #ussr #modem #8080 #6502 #ttl #bluebox #bbs #imsai #cpm #floppy #sals #pterosaur

Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

WarGames (1983)

The authenticity of this film has held up pretty well over time. They apparently had very good technical consultation with only a few incredulous “Hollywood moments” thrown in here and there. The film also provides an excellent snapshot of the early hacker culture and the 80’s cold war posture. At the time the film was produced, only a small portion of the population even knew how to use a computer, let alone owned one.

Production wise, it was pretty well made and is still entertaining even though it’s now been 40 years since it was produced. The filmmakers made liberal use of stock character actors in the film who played it a bit over the top at points, and there was quite a bit of awkward exposition, which is not uncommon for a film that is trying to introduce new concepts to an audience, which at the time, was digitally illiterate.

The film has acquired substantial cultural significance over the years and was likely influential in forming public opinion about technology, nuclear weapons and the cold war.

Recommended for anyone who needs to understand the early days of the computer revolution and the American cultural environment during the years leading up to the fall of the Soviet Union.

@gjcveenstra

Most Mastodon instances are not unlimited. Most don't allow hate speech, harassment, racism, or homophobia.

And can't imagine any platform allowing, e.g., malicious code injection or DDOS attacks.

Though, I understand your point about the difference between privately owned platforms vs. forms of sovereign government.

@albertcardona

A bidirectional neuron, like the Tartan Prancer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tojXcpnYScM

@albertcardona https://mastodon.social/@MatteoCarandini

When I read this, I immediately thought of the matter/energy waves of Quantum Mechanics and how QM represents the uncertainty of quantum states using probablility distributions. I wonder if that approach would work with the hard problem of consciousness.

@lunovox

I'm so proud of myself. I got it in about 30 seconds.

@totheralistair

Mastodon tip...

If you just include the youtube link in your toot, it will automatically grab the thumbnail and show it in the toot.

(But if want different thumbnail to be in your toot, you can do it as you did and put up an image separately.)

Welcome to qoto.