Simon @spoltier@qoto.org

As an American (who speaks one language, and poorly) I realize these are big rocks in a thin glass house, but as we end our Europe trip I’m reflecting on how different languages sound to my ear.

German: vaguely threatening, no matter how kind the speaker

(British) English: some regrettable decision is being made

French: so smooth it convinces you a fried ham sandwich is classy

Dutch: a muppet pretending to speak German

I'd like to give a conference talk about what infosec can learn about risk from outdoor recreation — kayaking, backcountry skiing, climbing, mountaineering, etc.

A focus in these communities is “safety culture": finding ways to pursue inherently dangerous activities more safely. Lots of it translates to infosec!

If you think this would be a good fit for your con, reach out! I'm not looking for special treatment, happy to put a proposal into a CFP, just not sure who might be interested.

An absolutely bonkers assault on encryption is happening right now in Nevada.

This week, the state AG moved for a temporary restraining order to stop Meta from rolling out default E2EE on Messenger for under-18 Nevadans. The state's brief characterizes E2EE apps as a tool for child predators. It argues that Meta's claims about E2EE protecting privacy & security are deceptive, so E2EE is a CONSUMER PROTECTION VIOLATION. Oh, and half the brief is redacted.

Brief is here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qq9ZkJaLHEsEiMg2rSd2hqI1SPSQb0Y8/view?usp=sharing

@arclight @0xabad1dea
Do note that R doesn't really version its dependencies; whatever code your software runs today isn't necessarily what it runs tomorrow.

And more importantly, any given version of R doesn't keep its packages. Installing the exact same version of R in a year will likely be largely broken.

@b0rk All of the above, really. My impression is that merge tools are good for going through many conflicts in a file that can be resolved by picking “left” or “right”; if it requires more than that, I have to edit the text anyway.

@b0rk i voted for "edit the file by hand" but in reality I sort of edit by hand, but also often rely on the merge conflict tooling from vscode (which does feel like editing the file by hand). being able to click a button saying "keep this group" is really nice. i like that it's a thin layer on top of the regular text file

Okay. I guess I'm gonna make this account a little more annoying. I'm gonna spend a little time each week exploring my mastodon experience and talking about how to make it better.

I say "annoying" because I'd rather be interesting than just useful. And I think this kind of content is the opposite. Potentially useful but overall not the most interesting. (It's okay if you disagree. We don't have to talk about it)
https://social.polotek.net/@polotek/111966798276024291

It’s getting a little bit crowded
#SavageGarden #carnivorousplants #bloomscrolling

This paper titled "Methodological Irregularities in Programming-Language Research" does not mince its words.

> Substantial industry and government investments in software are at risk due to changes in the underlying programming languages, despite the fact that such changes have no empirically verified benefits. One way to address this problem is to establish rigorous evidence standards like those in medicine and other sciences.

ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7999115

@elmine you can't even get tech people to shift from WhatsApp to Signal. The alternative needs to be way way way better, visibly, before anyone changes their ways.

Its a rare pleasure to have the time and good reason to help some ppl doing a project you like pay down some technical debt. Its like social grooming, sometimes its more fun to eat the bugs out of someone elses fur.

Regarding AI *in* Firefox, this has brought us a built-in translator that does not outsource the work to the cloud. That's amazingly good work. I'd love to see the browser do more of that kind of thing. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/features/translate/

If the U.S. will play a smaller role in European security going forward, we need to have a conversation about nuclear weapons. The current UK and French arsenals are not sufficient to deter Russia, but the big question is if the solution is to grow their stockpiles, or if more countries need to join the nuclear club.

(The fact that this is now a discussion just goes to show the shortsightedness of American isolationalism.)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/15/uk-europe-nuclear-shield-donald-trump-germany-nato-deterrent

From Oliver Burri via #ImageJ mailing list:

SwitZerland’s Image and Data Analysis School #ZIDAS2024

At ETH Zurich from June 23th (Yes, Sunday!) to June 28th 2024.

Are you a life scientist working with microscopy images?
Do you feel like you could use a nudge in the right direction in order to dive into quantitative image analysis ?
Want to learn to program in ImageJ macro language, use novel deep learning tools, discover best practices in image processing all while working on your own data?

The program will focus on hands-on work using the best open source tools available to the BioImage Analysis community.

Registration is open until 2024-03-16.

https://2024.zidas.org
#BioimageInformatics #ImageProcessing

Edmondma wiggles.

If this flame is beautiful, ⭐ or boost this post to improve its chances for future breedings.
#fractalArt

Criminal that Emily Oster has a clothing line and Gavin Yamey doesn't.

https://www.axios.com/2023/12/04/an-economist-walks-into-a-fashion-website

Indeed, Git provides us with powerful commands and workflows to tackle these pesky issues. However, instead of getting good at Git, we should remember that nearly all the need for advanced Git tactics stems from insufficient working methods.

Listen. All I know that all the evil people are over on bluesky. Mastodon is the good place. Everybody who's already inside here is cool. We checked.