Reach for the Stars 
@antares@qoto.org
- Pronouns
- It's complicated. IDK. Maybe ze/zim/zir https://pronouns.org/ze-hir
- Degree
- Physics, Cal Poly SLO
- Work
- I fix broken stuff
#Technology, #baseball (Dodgers), #politics, #religion (#Christian)
Joined Apr 2022
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Yay, Ars Technica now has an official Mastodon presence! @arstechnica
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If Star Trek were real, the Borg would have gone extinct after a disastrous firmware update.
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🇳🇱
re: Announcing the Oliphant Social BlocklistS (plural!)
@oliphant@oliphant.social we are mostly in agreement about needing a good block list for most new servers..
What gets me is the very low quality choices on the council, nonrequirement for receipts or any way for users to effectively research blocks, and the fact that notorious instances like rage.love known to lie and manipulate to encoirage their block list on others, makes for a bad aggregate list.
Getting 50 servers on the council could potentially address the server, but if a list of 50 servers has the same poor quality members as the 10 you have now then you will have the same problem.
I think if you want to solve the problem then the solution is not to simply have more servers on the council but rather have criteria for what servers can be on the council. Id rather have 3 server council that has well maintained receipts and transparency around their receipt process than 100 servers all hand picked to look like rage.love with few receipts and a bad reputation for abusing their block list.
The best solution is to build a receipts database and ensure any participating server must have receipts on a block throuvh the receipts server in order for the bloxk to be calculated at all. At least then users of thr blocklist will have the tools to do their own due dilligance
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It's interesting how reading USENET newsgroups was such a big part of the early Linux history. It actually makes sense now that it is pointed out. This was the late-1980s/early-1990s equivalent of "social media", where discussions happened digitally, etc. Before the web it was also a huge source of information that was otherwise much harder to come by. Either way, a great post by Lars Wirzenius reminiscing about the pre-1.0, the very first time Linux was ever installed, and even pre-Linux days going all the way back to Linus's first multi-threading x86 assembly program. What I'd love to see is a demo of Linux from that era :). #linux #ComputerHistory #RetroComputing #LinusTolvalds lwn.net/Articles/928581/
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RT @MattGlassman312
People seriously underestimate the role @FiveThirtyEight played in improving the ratio of data analysis to pundit bullshit in elections reporting. It's hard to remember, but before 2008, media and public discussion was *way* dumber, and @NateSilver538 really helped change that.
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@revoluciana There's conflict in them, but it isn't the centerpiece...
#BeckyChambers stories are really wonderful, lovely stories with queer characters, interacting different cultures, and some continuity if that's another thing that you enjoy. (One of the tertiary chars from book 1 has their backstory explained in book 2, which is the continuing story of one of the secondary characters from book 1...but you can enjoy book 2 without reading book 1.)
I'd love to see any of them as movies.
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@mhoye "Cheery was aware that Commander Vimes didn't like the phrase 'The innocent have nothing to fear', believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like 'The innocent have nothing to fear'."
-Terry Pratchett
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The worst thing that ever happened in software engineering was when Kirk asked Scotty how long something would take and Scotty said thirty minutes and Kirk said you’ve got five and Scotty got it done in five and impressionable children watched this and grew up to become managers.
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The so-called "decline of the humanities" is such an epically epiphenomenal problem it is almost laughable. It has absolutely nothing to do with the humanities and everything to do with the fact that, as tuition has skyrocketed, students have become more risk averse, and the advice they receive is that humanities degrees won't help them on the job market. Which isn't true, but is besides the point. The real issue is the price of college.
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Quiet quitting this, quiet quitting that. But no one talks about quiet pay cuts, which is when your salary isn't adjusted for inflation. So when you've been receiving the same salary for the past 3 years, you're actually taking pay cuts because your money has less value now.
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If a public agency wants to create an official Mastodon server it controls (or use one the state has set up) — that's great! They should do that. I'd love to see a dedicated National Weather Service instance, for example.
But this shouldn't happen at the expense of having their web sites actually be **useful**. So start putting all this information on the web again. Get that stuff back into those dormant RSS feeds.
Then pipe that information wherever you want (including Mastodon)!
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I am continually frustrated by the number of people on social media who want to change democratic systems in a way that would be an obvious vector for abuse.
Most recent one was to require federally elected officials to pass a security clearance background inspection. They erroneously think that it would only filter out GOP demagogues like DJT and MTG. But lets be honest, would the DoD under Trump have done a fair background check or would any rumor or innuendo have been enough to disqualify all the serious democratic candidates.
Same thing with not allowing indited or convicted felons to run for office. You may thing this is aimed at Trump, but what happens when Pres. DeSantis (it could happen) convicts hundreds of Democratic candidates of illegally facilitating abortions and in that way has them disqualified from standing for office.
In Trump era of politics where honor and integrity no longer matter it is vitally important that our actions not be ones that can be turned against us by populists with no morals.
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Could we maybe stop shaming people for reading kids’ books? Adult books are full of sad people having affairs while kids’ books have magic wardrobes and worms driving around in apples; you tell me who’s winning.
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“I’ll miss this place,” the graduating senior says.
“You’ll see it again.” I smile. “In dreams, whenever you have anxiety. It won’t be exactly the same… That’s why you’ll be lost. And late for class. Then realize you haven’t attended all year. There’s a test.”
“Wh—“
“You haven’t studied.”
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Note to self: It sometimes is useful to read the documentation 😁
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Do not seize the day. This will startle the day and may cause it to become aggressive and give you a nasty bite.
Instead approach the day calmly without making eye contact, pet it gently, and slowly enfold it in a careful embrace
If the day shows any signs of resistance to being engaged with, it is likely to turn on you. Back off and return to bed.
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California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
- Pronouns
- It's complicated. IDK. Maybe ze/zim/zir https://pronouns.org/ze-hir
- Degree
- Physics, Cal Poly SLO
- Work
- I fix broken stuff
#Technology, #baseball (Dodgers), #politics, #religion (#Christian)
Joined Apr 2022
