ceoln @ceoln@qoto.org

Today at QSF it's a special edition of Me Me - Me Me Black Friday. Readers, see what's on sale; Writers, tell us about your best Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals!

Use tag #MeMeBlackFriday

#queerscifi #queerfantasy #queerhorror #queerparanormal #gayscifi #gayparanormal #gayhorror #gayfantasy #NewReleases #LGBTQBookstodon @lgbtqbookstodon #bookstodon @bookstodon

#COVID19 affects your brain--even without Long COVID.

No published study yet--this study is being presented at a conference, but: “Here, we noted gray matter alterations in both patients with long-COVID and those unimpaired after a COVID-19 infection. Interestingly, we not only noted widespread microstructural alterations in patients with long COVID, but also in those unimpaired after having contracted COVID-19.”

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1008223

Seeing intelligence in software is the new seeing Jesus in toast.

#Unions in #Sweden 🇸🇪 have declared war against #Tesla & #ElonMusk. Examples include:

👉🏾 Postal workers not delivering Tesla license plates
👉🏾 Dockworkers blocking deliveries of Tesla cars at the ports
👉🏾 Electricians refusing to work with Tesla

This might also spread to #Germany 🇩🇪 too. Elon Musk bewildered by the situation.

‘This is insane.’ Swedish workers are getting under Elon Musk’s skin https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/24/business/elon-musk-tesla-sweden-strikes/index.html

A Mr Anderson believed his "Equilibrio couch" was the answer to seasickness.

It wasn't.

#FailureFriday

@lisafast @dan613 COVID has been raging in #Ottawa for weeks if not months. We're having a tough time coming down from this peak - probably because of the 2% masking and very low vaccine uptake.

This is what people seem to want, sadly.

I am re-reading the MATLAB package that caused me to quit being a neuroscientist and focus on how broken scientific infrastructure was (the first time), and i found my favorite bug of all time -

code for automated, trial-based behavioral neuroscience experiment:
- query a database with hardcoded credentials every time you want to calculate reward/reinforcement size. reward is delivered once per trial max.
- yes, hardcoded credentials use the password "password" and formerly exposed a root-level postgres user on public VCS.
- query is structurally pointless: the query checks that a value hasn't changed - the class is named "constantReinforcement"
- db connection has a 1s login timeout. connection always times out because db hadn't existed for ~6 years
- if db connection takes longer than 0.3s, send an email to code author saying database access is slow
- try to send email with an SMTP server without authentication, remarkably this works for awhile. SMTP server changes to require authentication.
- SMTP connection times out.
- default timeout is 100 seconds.
- rewards in fact calculated between every phase of every trial, not once per trial
- 5 phases in trial (6 phase transitions since trial transitions also count as a phase): pre-stimulus, stimulus presentation, pre-reward, reward delivery, post-reward

so our poor mice were waiting 600 total seconds, 10 minutes, to complete a single trial which should take ~1s. it took two weeks to debug the problem. this was one of about 2 dozen bugs of this nature that defined my first year or two of grad school.

since this I have seen far worse code in active use running live neuroscientific experiments that get published in the top-tier journals.

when i first started writing experimental code to fix this, one of the most famous ppl in my field told me not to waste my time because nobody really cares if the code is correct as long as it produces data. i stopped believing all papers and doing neuroscience shortly after.

"You shuffle forward so her head is between your thighs, your rock-hard cock resting against her head. She reaches her hands up, I watch her fingers exploring you. "

Since Sundial's first guest blog, people have been clamouring for more so I'm delighted to say that not only is she back with this HOT HOT #threesome story, she also has her own blog now too!

Guest post: https://www.girlonthenet.com/blog/threesome-erotica-feel-breathe/ Sundial's blog: https://goingdownwithsundial.com/

#NSFW #erotica #sex #blogging

I dunno who made this, but I love it nonetheless

The Georgia Supreme Court has refused to approve a recently set-up commission authority to remove state prosecutors, dashing the plans of Republicans who were poised to use it against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
#AureFreePress #News #GOP #Politics #USA #Trump #MAGA #Republicans

https://www.newsweek.com/fani-willis-trump-paqc-remove-prosecutors-supreme-court-1846648

This just went live: The John Scalzi Humble Bundle! Get a whole bunch of my books really cheap - and support the literacy charity First Book, which provides books and literary resources to kids in need. A perfect way to stock up on my eBooks. Please feel free to share around!

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/john-scalzis-interdependency-old-mans-war-and-more-tor-books

we're seeing air horn levels at about 100%

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Media has failed Canadians by giving a free pass to Pierre #Poilievre and not providing a clear picture of what a Poilievre Conservative government would look like.

'Canadians deserve better from their media. They deserve to know where Poilievre stands on major issues of the day, rather than having their media merely parrot, unquestionably, his criticisms of Prime Minister Trudeau.'

#cdnpoli #canada #cdnmedia
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/media-fails-canadians-by-giving-a-free-pass-to-pierre-poilievre/article_8010ae5f-c89d-524f-9f55-571e66870bc9.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share

“Some U.S. media began describing it as a terrorist explosion, caused by a vehicle entering from Canada.

Every element of that preceding sentence was dispelled within hours as flat-out wrong.

There was no attack from Canada; the incident occurred entirely on U.S. soil; in fact, authorities don't believe it was a terrorist attack at all.”

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/border-incident-erroneous-reporting-1.7036978

#canada #media #cdnpoli #journalism #RainbowBridge

pizza levels are currently at 53% but fluctuating wildly

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