Reach for the Stars @antares@qoto.org

You walk away from the christmas tree for 5 minutes and this happens…

Dentist: So, do you floss?
Me: Do you use a unique password for every account?

This year I learned Minkowski sums work nicely on convex polygons as well as segments.
Like a simple example, the sum of this triangle and segment is a 3D prism if nonplanar, or a pentagon if coplanar. The pentagon has 5 edges, 2 edges of the triangle, and 2 edges as two sides of the segment (or digon).
A trivial property is the sum of equilateral polygons is a new equilateral one. As well, the "internal sums" define multiple convex dissection of the perimeter polygon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minkowski_addition

Google has now migrated maps.google.com to www.google.com/maps thus if you grant Geoloc permission in your browser, every G-service on www.google.com can track your location.

https://garrit.xyz/posts/2022-11-24-smart-move-google

Mastodon doesn't have perfect solutions to the moderation challenges that plague all social media platforms ... but at least we don't have ads.

So thankful for Elizabeth Warren and the #CFPB right now. After months of fighting with my bank, I filed a CFPB complaint last week. Today they called and apologized, as apparently the rep could see I tried to resolve this several times. They promised to make things right and do so in writing as a formal response to the complaint. Turns out a watchdog for financial institutions is a good thing.

I added an extra server to the #QOTO cloud. This should speed up our services, in particular gitlab and discourse were using up too much cpu, but now they are fine. Those services should run much smoother now.

A new mRNA based vaccine looks like it might be able to protect against all known forms of influenza even given the highly variable nature of the flu virus. 👩‍🔬

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm0271

hi mastodon, I just thought you all should know that I make exceptionally good mac & cheese (it is my grandmother’s recipe and has its roots in southern church basements)

@cwebber well when two servers like each other very much, they open an HTTP socket and start sending JSON blobs back and forth

“Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give thine angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for thy love’s sake. Amen.”

A happy Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates it, and a happy Thursday for everyone else.

@cstross I (who am totally not a robot) wish you a traditional American Giving of the Thanks as depicted in patriotic image of first Thankinggives at Plymouth The Rock. Has Turkeybird and Pilgrimship! Much American, very traditional, wow!

Nice to see some support on reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mastodon/comments/z09ioa/qotoorg_an_inclusive_stemfocued_instance/

#reddit

@b0rk famously the #haskell GHC compiler offers an option to make the computer beep at the start of a major garbage collection https://downloads.haskell.org/ghc/latest/docs/users_guide/runtime_control.html#rts-flag--B

From that link:
“Some people here use it for a variety of purposes—honestly!—e.g., confirmation that the code/machine is doing something, infinite loop detection, gauging cost of recently added code. Certain people can even tell what stage [the program] is in by the beep pattern. But the major use is for annoying others in the same office…”