robryk @robryk@qoto.org

@tqbf I'm sort of tired of the HN explanation that Google is doing stuff like that as a part of some secret agenda, though.

I call it an "asymmetry of nudges". One day, you dream up a way to improve security or make the platform cooler. If an unintended side effect of your proposal is that Google could lose revenue or market position... you just check yourself and don't go with it. If you try anyway, you will be arguing with execs for months or years. Even if you win, the effort to ship such features is high and the throughput is low.

The opposite is not true: if your feature could accidentally strengthen your company's position in some morally questionable way... the answer is just "we're the good guys, and it's not why we're doing this". If 3-5 years down the line, some PM in another org unit decides to use your feature precisely the way the critics feared - well, it's too late at that point.

So you get this gradual drift that is just an emergent property of the corporate culture. But if your only argument is "you have evil intentions" or "well, but your company could theoretically abuse it down the line", you're not gonna win too many debates.

TIL about unzip-http, a successor to something I was trying to do with the dead httpfs:

https://github.com/saulpw/unzip-http

It let me get a single text file of metadata out of an *11 GB* zip file of data

Thanks @saulpw!

Ich begreife weiterhin nicht, warum nicht in Praxen (ärztlich, Physiotherapie usw) flächendeckend #Luftfilter eingesetzt werden. Ein gutes Gerät, dass einen 40m2-Raum leise und zuverlässig reinigt, kostet in der Anschaffung 300€, im jährlichen Stromverbrauch bei 8h täglich Dauerbetrieb ca. 70€ + Wechselfilter 1x 50+60€ jährlich. Das würde ich mir doch (erst recht als absetzbare Ausgabe) schon zum Eigenschutz nicht nur vor Corona-Viren da hinstellen. Ich verstehe es einfach nicht. #CleanAir

Company: We have a monolith!

Me: ...

Company: *holds up diagram of 8 services, 15 databases, and a home grown queue implementation*

Me: You fucked up a perfectly good distributed system is what you did. Look at that thing, it's got clock skew.

I knew geckos relied on van der Waals forces to cling to walls, and I assumed most insects and animals with similar abilities did them same.

But no ... ants wet their feet and use capillary adhesion.

Text article:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2023-01-18/sticky-animals-ants-ceiling-geckos-walls-nature/101579912

Audio:
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/what-the-duck/what-the-duck!/14058326

Slowly progressing from 'how do protons behave in relativistic collisions?' to 'what the heck are protons even doing when they're just sitting there?'
https://xkcd.com/2797/

@robryk @ilja @rysiek
We probably need to face that there's no such thing like "almost-public posts".
The only thing we can achieve is preventing interaction below our post – at least on our own instance and on the ones of our followers, as we won't relay these replies to all our followers like done otherwise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE9rEQAGpLw that's some very advanced and high effort shitpost-but-not-really. Building a fake real camera in Blender.

I did it! I made an epicycle clock!

Check your loopy time here:
https://sophiehoulden.com/randomstuff/epitime/

Reposting some tweets I wrote on June 26th, 2021 about Myst:

Technically, this script on the first card of the Myst stack that players get to interact with is a spoiler for the game's ending:

#mystReverseEngineering

Not logged in people are not allowed to search the code in a repository anymore.

Fuck you #Microsoft #GitHub

ADSL works over wet string? Now, what about "ADSL over a UNPLUGGED phone line"? During a building-wide copper to fiber upgrade, the phone company stupidly unplugged my phone line from the distribution box. the phone was completely dead, no voltage. But my ADSL modem could complete the handshake. Speed degraded to ~128 Kbps, but I could still read basic webpages or chat on IRC... Apparently the parasitic capacitance on the line was enough for the AC signal to jump across the gap. My best guess was that only the ground wire was lost, and the parasitic capacitance of the modem's isolation transformer could complete the circuit via the mains powerline.

Looks like @coprolite9000 found the answer.

It's atmospheric chromatic dispersion.

https://cseligman.com/text/sky/atmosphericdispersion.htm

This makes sense:

1) regular chromatic aberration due to camera optiics would be the same color on both sides of the bright object, hence my surprise at this image

2) I didn't mention it, but the moon was only a couple of degrees above the horizon when I took this shot.

(In fact, it was bright orange but the auto light balance screwed up and I didn't color-correct before posting.)

A new road bridge got opened in December in a small town somewhere in Poland. For six months it was being used by regular traffic.

Elections are coming, though, so the Polish PM decided he needs to officially open it, with media present and all. And so, we get to behold this absolute gem — an announcement from the local municipality saying that:

> On May 18th, 2023, between 10:00 and 19:00, the bridge in [location] will be closed due to its opening.

Strong @scarfolk vibes.

#Poland #Polska

Sitting on a train delayed at Paddington. Waiting for the train manager. Who is on a train waiting outside Paddington for a free platform....