Dave Rahardja

Software since 1998. Ex-Apple. I smushed AppKit and UIKit together and never looked back.

Black lives matter. LGBT+ rights are human rights. Healthcare, security, a decent income, and housing with dignity are human rights. Abortion is healthcare. Science is our best hope as a species. Kindness and empathy are the noblest of human traits.

I block assholes and bigots.

He/him.

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Last Notes

2024-10-07 07:50:13

This rings true.
Like the saying goes, you don’t have to burn down the Library of Alexandria, you just have to flood it with nonsense scrolls that are indistinguishable from the genuine ones.
I can totally see AI crud flooding the cold-call job application pipeline, especially for desirable positions. I find it entirely believable that your chances of getting a job is near-zero unless you are truly outstanding in your field and have a social following, *or* you know someone who will mention you personally to a hiring manager.
This also bodes poorly for the front line of hiring. How can recruiters filter out the spam without throwing out good candidates with the AI-generated ones? Can this become a method of DDoS where attackers jam up a competitor’s hiring pipeline by filling it with AI-generated busy work?
We need to rethink how we hire. https://hackers.town/@jakimfett/113264417099524234

2024-10-07 05:09:32

lol
lmao
#tesla #cybertruck #wankpanzer #incelCamino #dePlorean
“GEICO is Terminating Insurance Coverage of Tesla Cybertrucks, Says “This Type of Vehicle Doesn't Meet Our Underwriting Guidelines””
https://www.torquenews.com/11826/geico-terminating-insurance-coverage-tesla-cybertrucks-says-type-vehicle-doesnt-meet-our

2024-10-06 20:15:27

“USB 4 version 2.0”. Right, right right right. Because USB-C, Thunderbolt-3, USB 2 power cable, USB 3, USB 4/Thunderbolt-4, etc etc are not confusing enough.
#USB #sillyNames #stahp
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/113/262/310/700/374/238/original/207c598f37adbbce.png
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/113/262/311/854/555/792/original/b82ec6bb30c58e30.png

2024-10-06 07:21:04

“Going back to the five-day, in-office workweek is 'wishful thinking', says Yale's Joanne Lipman”
#work #remoteWork #flexibleWork #returnToOffice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUQF-cCJD34

2024-10-05 08:35:52

A shame. And not surprising that #xitter was the vehicle for this spewing of hate.
“Toyota Waves The White LGBTQ Flag, Cuts DEI Initiatives”
https://www.carscoops.com/2024/10/toyota-waves-the-white-lgbtq-flag-cuts-dei-initiatives/
#cars #toyota #lgbtq #diversity

2024-10-04 06:36:36

Here’s your regular reminder that the only real function of a third-party candidate in a winner-takes-all election system (like the one we have in the US for Federal elections) is to SPOIL a major-party candidate.
A third-party candidate’s job is not to win—it is obviously impossible for them to do so—but to DIVERT VOTES AWAY from the major-party candidate that is closest to you in policy and values, and thus reduce that major party’s chances of winning.
In other words, voting for a third party candidate is mathematically equivalent to voting for the major party you DISLIKE MORE.
And as always, follow the money for the third candidate. You’ll find your answers there.

2024-10-03 19:31:18

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Update: man who smashed Taylor Swift’s guitar with hammer is a #SchroedingersDouchebag.
“Speaking to NBC News on Tuesday (1 October), Estes said there was “nothing malicious” about the stunt and he had intended it as “a joke”, while also confirming that he is a Trump supporter.
“It was just a joke at an auction that we had to raise money for kids, right?” he said. “And that’s all it was. There was nothing mean about it, nothing bad about it. It was just a joke that they were making up on the stage, and we just followed through with a joke.””
See folks, he’s not a dumbass asshole; it was a joke after all!
“Man who smashed Taylor Swift guitar with hammer at Texas auction explains why he did it”
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/taylor-swift-trump-supporter-guitar-smashed-texas-b2623035.html

2024-10-03 07:02:37

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@npub1ka8…r9gt I know you’re just kidding, but man we really need to keep reminding voters about it. Their representatives are literally voting to prevent them from getting help.

2024-10-02 00:34:56

So some dude in Texas bid $3200 for a guitar bearing Taylor Swift’s signature at an auction and immediately smashes it with a hammer, I guess to own the libs or something?
What a perfect allegory of the heart of today’s Conservative movement: a tantrum-driven display of violence and hate that destroys objects of value for a performative display of tribalism that benefits no one and costs the performer money. It degrades public discourse (this was a *charity auction*), normalizes petulant behavior, demonizes and divides, and makes everyone dumber. Meanwhile, the people with money look on in bemusement as they pocket their profit.
#conservatism #destruction
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2024/10/01/man-destroys-taylor-swift-guitar/75466452007/

2024-09-29 02:49:11

Can’t wait for #Halloween season
#spoopy
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/113/218/561/703/151/074/original/d742c39f63b3d20b.jpeg

2024-09-24 03:42:12

lol
lmao
“Satellite images suggest test of Russian “super weapon” failed spectacularly”
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/09/satellite-images-suggest-test-of-russian-super-weapon-failed-spectacularly/

2024-09-18 19:35:35

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@npub1c5t…h8gn Is there a way to easily set up your own DNS server? Surely the zonefiles aren’t that big relative to modern storage sizes any more.

2024-09-14 01:22:20

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@npub1u3f…nne2 Did you get a refund? Class action? That sounds like a breach of contract.

2024-09-10 01:18:56

Getting real tired of the #WashingtonPost.
Its slide ever toward the #NYT is real. https://www.threads.net/@realjuddlegum/post/C_ssZjrpwzh

2024-09-09 07:48:35

#opsec #facialRecognition #biometrics #fail
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/113/106/526/901/802/601/original/0a55032f4dab34ca.mp4

2024-09-02 04:54:00

This is my 13th day testing positive for #COVID. I’m pretty tired of it, both literally and figuratively.

2024-08-31 20:24:41

Image content: A poster for “Bell Riots for Housing Abundance”, to be held at Hellman Hollow, Golden Gate Park from 1 pm, Sept 2, 2024. BYOB. A note states: “This is a Star Trek reference. Rioting is strongly discouraged.” The poster contains a highly stylized illustration of the San Francisco skyline. https://hachyderm.io/@ryanpark/113052459260889573

2024-07-28 23:45:19

I think most people don’t know this, but Tesla’s biggest profit-making product last quarter was not cars, but carbon-credit sales.
#tesla #cars #climateChange #decarbonization
“Half Of Teslas Q2 Profit Came From Your Taxes
Without EV credits, Elon Musk's Tesla would be in much worse shape”
https://jalopnik.com/half-of-teslas-q2-profit-came-from-your-taxes-1851606200

2024-07-12 19:36:34

How to not leak customer data:
- Don’t collect them

2024-07-10 02:10:29

“Why is that window so shiny?
Oh, it’s Juliet.”
#idiocracy #ai #reading #literacy
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/112/759/762/387/896/236/original/2e678912c3ca7273.jpeg

2024-06-30 04:48:28

With apologies to The New Yorker Cartoons.
#uspol #cartoons #comics #satire
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/112/703/760/505/331/333/original/851c65afd85a307c.png

2024-06-17 20:39:35

Remember how we fixed a hole in the ozone layer 40 years ago?
StarLink: Hold my beer
“SpaceX's Starlink May Be Keeping the Ozone From Healing, Research Finds”
#space #climate #ozone #starlink
https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-starlink-ozone-healing

2024-06-16 00:32:34

Good to remember.
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/112/623/481/892/556/918/original/2e6ee537e904277f.jpeg

2024-06-10 18:32:36

I really dislike the idea of using faces of *other people* in your photo library to generate AI images.
Seems like it crosses a line. #ai #wwdc #wwdc24

2024-06-10 17:15:15

How much insurance did they take out to have Tim stand on the sloped roof of Apple Park? #wwdc

2024-06-05 02:31:53

Ah shit https://indieweb.social/@stevestreza/112561076695641427

2024-05-27 06:23:27

#Google #ai #enshittification speedrun
“Google Search’s New AI Overviews Will Soon Have Ads”
https://www.wired.com/story/google-search-ai-overviews-ads/

2024-05-26 05:09:35

HAHAHA #Geminidiot
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/112/505/662/694/846/900/original/e1dff636ff16117a.jpeg

2024-05-24 06:29:27

So a German magazine decided to run an “interview” with Michael Schumacher, in which Schumacher’s “responses” were fabulations generated entirely by #AI.
The *real* Michael Schumacher sustained a brain injury in 2013 and has not recovered.
The Schumacher family sued the magazine and won a settlement. But the fact that this story ran *at all* is beyond dumbfounding.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/michael-schumachers-family-gets-settlement-after-fake-ai-interview

2024-05-21 18:05:53

I think “mierdificación” is a great word. https://paquita.masto.host/@camilo/112478885060680230

2024-05-17 06:53:20

I had no idea how bad things are at #DeviantArt.
#ai #artists
“The Tragic Downfall of the Internet’s Art Gallery”
https://slate.com/technology/2024/05/deviantart-what-happened-ai-decline-lawsuit-stability.html

2024-05-09 19:19:16

This is anecdotal, but I now personally know two employees of #AI-related companies whose valuations have imploded within the past month, and they are now looking to bail. One company lost 73% of their (publicly traded) value in a month. The other one is a startup whose founder (according to my friend) has “finally snapped”, and the company is now in freefall.
It feels like the bubble is bursting right now.

2024-04-25 23:44:27

Hhehehe
Credit: The New Yorker cartoons
#crypto #ai #humor #comic #art
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/112/334/514/901/107/148/original/f29509a4fa2e3f42.jpeg

2024-04-17 03:21:32

Nice response by #mkbhd to the self-entitled techbros who think they should be given slack for bad products.
“Do Bad Reviews Kill Companies?”
#technology #reviews #cars #fisker #humane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QztFpzKsdeA

2024-04-02 00:48:08

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@npub1vqm…ccpx This is the best April Fools’ today.

2024-03-30 21:33:24

Still betting that June is when we will start to see a significant pullback from all the #AI investments across the board.
AI is just *not that good*.
“DISILLUSIONED BUSINESSES DISCOVERING THAT AI KIND OF SUCKS”
https://futurism.com/the-byte/businesses-discovering-ai-sucks

2024-03-23 16:23:03

Porsche “GT3MR”—A 991 GT3 that has been tuned by Manthey Racing. #cars #photography #carspotting
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/112/145/922/949/074/561/original/e67ce0a976b0b828.jpeg

2024-03-19 01:04:32

Jaguar XK120 #cars #photography #carspotting
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/112/119/661/956/907/597/original/b4bf1ccf211f5e9e.jpeg

2024-03-04 05:07:26

Here’s a clear example of how aggressive the #ai image processing has become on newer iPhones. This is a comparison between the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the iPhone 11 Pro Max, taking photos of distant text at equal magnification. Note how the 15 Pro Max’s image pipeline has hallucinated all the details.
Original video: https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=885196069752553
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/112/035/680/315/581/077/original/9c40f48f37d85e90.mp4

2024-03-01 02:03:01

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@npub1r47…wytr Copyright is a direct consequence of capitalism, isn’t it? Without the need to recoup spent capital, nobody would care much about copies.
Same goes for patents. It’s all derived from capitalism.

2024-02-18 02:06:42

Cisco doing a #layoff to “shift its focus to “key priority areas,” such as artificial intelligence”.
Getting the feeling that “shifting focus to #AI” is becoming a bullshit term used to rationalize literally everything.
“Cisco to lay off thousands of employees”
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/14/business/cisco-to-lay-off-thousands/index.html

2024-02-17 18:58:33

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@npub1g53…v0hh You should have called it “Angry Tech Guy”—any resemblance to people alive or dead is purely coincidental!

2024-02-09 23:25:23

Starting to see people with #VisionPro show up in cafes and such and…ehh…I dunno, man. It isn’t something I’d wear in public. Pretty strong Glasshole 2.0 vibes.

2024-02-09 04:53:44

#Veritasium published an AWESOME video about the very unlikely invention of the blue LED. It’s an *incredible* story and you really should view it. It also contains the best visualization of semiconductors I’ve ever seen.
I witnessed the drama of the blue LED live in the 1990s. I watched tech magazines show dim blue prototypes for years until Nichia suddenly burst on the scenes with a bright blue LED and it changed the world. I watched as they created their first white LEDs ($1 apiece) which I gawked at in person. I was at Honeywell when they finally made white LEDs in surface-mount format (still $1 apiece). We used 50 of them as the backlight in the aviation GPS navigator I worked on (at $50 the backlight was one of the most expensive components in the whole system). They were so hot (100 mW each for a total of 5 W) we used them as *heaters* when the unit was below operating temperatures.
When I read about how Nakamura got screwed by Nichia, I was livid.
#technology #history
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF8d72mA41M

2024-02-06 06:21:20

I’m gonna guess this photo was taken in some tech company’s break room.
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/111/883/090/679/767/427/original/6365251ba4d298ea.jpeg

2024-01-31 02:57:48

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@npub1te6…zc4l 🤔 Now I’m curious which keyboard you used. I’m not aware of any other ADB keyboards except the //gs one I showed, and the Extended Keyboard and Extended Keyboard II, which look like the one in your photo.

2024-01-31 02:03:55

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@npub1te6…zc4l The Apple //gs keyboard was my absolute favorite keyboard at the time. The Alps switches were *chefs kiss* perfection. The key shapes were fantastic. The thunks were just right.
The only thing I disliked was the arrow key arrangement, but that wasn’t so bad coming from the Apple //e.

2024-01-31 01:41:25

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@npub1te6…zc4l Oh man you got the *fancy* keyboard!

2024-01-18 20:50:37

I know a guy who owned a photocopy shop (remember those?) in a university town in the early 1990s. Kinko’s came in to town, and priced their copies well below cost. They drove him and other local copy shops out of business, then raised their cost to eventually more than the local shops charged. https://indieweb.social/@CassandraVert/111778764162429973

2024-01-15 02:00:08

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Oh and for folks wondering why #Apple is insisting that people work in #Austin #Texas: I can’t speak for their actual motivation, of course, but this much is true:
In 2018, Apple received $25M in grants from the Texas Enterprise Fund, as well as a $16M property tax abatement from Williamson County for building their new campus, contingent on Apple bringing in 4,000 new workers to Williamson County over 12 years.
I’m sure those financial considerations come into play.
https://austin.curbed.com/2018/12/14/18141017/austin-apple-incentives-taxes-city-state-county
https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/12/18/apples-new-austin-campus-won-by-41m-in-incentives
https://www.wired.com/story/how-amazon-apple-google-played-tax-break-game/

2024-01-14 20:33:50

I find it especially aggravating when non-US posters scold US voters for planning to vote for Biden.
Look, I get it. Biden sucks. I hate him too. But the alternative this year is Literally Hitler, But Worse. I can assure everyone that allowing Trump to win will be far worse for the USA and the world than anything Biden might do. We do not want a Fascist USA Global Superpower, and that is what we will very likely get with Trump.
Maybe these posters have a voting system and coalition-based Parliament where they live, where they’d be justified in writing off a candidate like Biden. But here in the USA, our voting system is rigged and unforgiving, and we must vote accordingly.
I might also note that telling Biden voters to vote 3rd Party is also a well-known technique used by Republicans and foreign disinformation sources to secure a win for Trump. These posters are inadvertently playing into their hands. https://progressivecafe.social/@TonyStark/111755995729739680

2024-01-13 00:06:01

WebMD’s parent company, Internet Brands, released a cringey and abusive internal video threatening their employees to #returnToOffice. “We aren’t asking or negotiating at this point”, the CEO says. “Don’t mess with us”, the video reads at the end. The video features employees dancing and celebrating RTO (at gunpoint? or at least under threat of firing by HR?).
I know corporate videos are all kinda crappy, but this one is…spouse-beating levels of terrible.
#flexibleWork #remoteWork
https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kxqnx/dont-mess-with-us-webmd-parent-company-demands-return-to-office-in-bizarre-video

2024-01-12 17:59:17

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@npub178r…qekt Ah, the red filter explains why the shot looks almost infra-red!

2024-01-02 03:55:02

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@npub15l7…aang I work for a BigCorp™ and we use proprietary analytics tools; our systems aren’t available to others. I don’t have much experience with other libraries, e.g. Flurry, Firebase, etc.

2024-01-02 02:42:05

I finally have benchmarks for Mergeable Libraries! Here are the results on my iPhone 14 Pro. I took app startup measurements with 0–100 small frameworks in three batches: plain old dynamic frameworks, directly merged dynamic frameworks, and using one intermediate framework to merge the frameworks. See the results for yourself. The second image is a close-up near the origin.
The results are measured from the time the app begins running (the process is created) to just before the UIKit initialization signpost. Process creation time varies wildly, but typically ranges from 100–400 ms.
Blog post incoming.
#ios #iPhone #Xcode #performance #benchmarks
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/111/684/047/624/604/672/original/bfa8f8aa8fddbdec.png
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/111/684/047/697/954/298/original/95858e87a526fc5c.png

2024-01-02 01:41:41

The Y2K bug is a great illustration that a well-handled potential disaster looks like “nothing happened” in retrospect. The fact that Y2K seemed to be a non-event is a testament to how seriously people took this emergency, and how everyone buckled down and averted a worldwide infrastructure disaster.
I started working at Honeywell Aerospace (AlliedSignal back then) in 1998, and by that time people were already working on Y2K issues. We were in the GPS navigation business, and there were real issues that would have caused aircraft navigation to go awry unless they were fixed.
People buckled down, found the bugs, ran simulations, got FAA sign-offs, and deployed the fixes to all affected aircraft well before Y2K. Thanks to the effort, “nothing happened”. But I assure you (bad) things would have happened if we did nothing. https://infosec.exchange/@tychotithonus/111670219441506220

2023-12-27 00:27:47

Source: https://twitter.com/FuckfaceDrumpf/status/1739016317825626546
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/111/649/545/734/893/248/original/77d423fb97065e53.jpeg

2023-12-20 20:07:00

This is incredible reporting. Reuters somehow got their hands on seven years of internal #Tesla service records, as well as internal communications from service technicians and engineers.
What they found is pretty shocking to me. Repeated catastrophic failure of suspension parts. Power steering suddenly disabling itself. Evidence of denying warranty coverage. Failures that forced a recall in China that continued to be shipped in the US.
Pretty damning stuff.
#cars
“Tesla blamed drivers for failures of parts it long knew were defective”
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-musk-steering-suspension/

2023-12-20 07:13:31

Never forget that the money behind AI is in large part to accelerate the replacement of employees with automation.
In this instance, Google is entertaining replacing ad-campaign sellers with automated, ML- and AI-driven services that automatically target and buy ads on advertisers’ behalf.
This is doubly bad, because not only are human workers losing their jobs, but ad targeting will likely get weirder and make less sense, as ML/AI attempt to maximize ad effectiveness by trying odd combinations of target audiences.
I believe that adtech has reached saturation, and that ads won’t get much more effective regardless of what people do—short of creating outstanding, viral ads. I don’t even think more gross invasions of privacy will make ads that much more effective. In any case, there is no real path to greater ad efficacy by more *automation*. That way lies enshittifaction, and not much else.
Gift article: “Google Plans Ad Sales Restructuring as Automation Booms”
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/google-plans-ad-sales-restructuring-as-automation-booms?rc=tvp819&shared=110b13c0b2bc7894

2023-12-18 20:31:32

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@npub1e4c…ezn7 If that’s the worst thing about her, that would be ok by me.

2023-12-18 20:00:02

Yes, very normal.
I, too, use my helicopter to visit my 30,000 acre ranch, and charter flights to drop my kids off at school.
“Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez just blew up the internet by describing their ‘pretty normal’ typical day amid surging billionaire backlash”
https://fortune.com/2023/11/14/jeff-bezos-lauren-sanchez-vogue-normal-daily-routine-billionaire-wealth-inequality/

2023-12-16 07:41:20

A short meditation on work-life balance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6x6oLEqqZc

2023-12-12 09:33:40

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@npub1ta9…k2t2 Oh wow!
Though I’m not sure I want to play through the game again…

2023-12-11 18:40:42

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@npub13le…6saf The bidirectional mode usually creates those zig-zag lines as they can’t quite get the horizontal alignment to match going both ways. I always scan in unidirectional mode when it counts since it always uses the left-side stop as a timing reference point.

2023-12-11 18:27:54

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@npub13le…6saf I remember not having to use magnets on my ImageWriter II when I used the ThunderScan. IIRC the smoked-plastic translucent piece can be popped out to make room for the cable, leaving the rest of the cover in place. And the cable went the *other* way over the velcro.

2023-11-20 05:41:16

🤔
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/111/441/272/879/689/313/original/141c0617ee6ff575.jpeg

2023-11-18 03:48:29

people who deliberately type in all lowercase have sublime esthetic sensibilities despite their disarming outward humility

2023-11-16 19:12:35

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@npub1mmf…eknq The same reason why there are limits on anything generated by people, right? There has to be some way to budget and manage server resources, balanced against the intended use of the data.
The limits may be too low, but there *must* be limits in place for a public-facing service.

2023-11-15 06:34:18

Somebody posted this image and I suddenly remember how much I LOVED the Apple Desktop Bus mouse that came with the Apple IIGS (that’s this mouse). It’s the best low-profile mouse Apple ever shipped, in my opinion. Better than the ADB2 mouse. Better than the sushi Magic Mouse. This mouse was so light, so precise, such a joy to use.
#Apple #mouse #ADB #AppleIIgs
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/111/413/169/866/580/236/original/0a376ec84e83c7d1.jpeg

2023-11-04 00:44:08

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@npub1typ…c8hh To me, the most important part of alt-text is crafting an experience optimized to the reader. Is the image’s function simply illustrative? Then I write short, terse alt-text so the reader can get on with it. Is the image a piece of art that should be pondered and appreciated? Then I describe the stylistic aspect of it in more detail.
The same image used in different contexts may warrant different amounts of alt-text.

2023-11-01 23:33:10

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@npub1yck…ujmw @npub1ysu…2jyl https://chat.openai.com/share/06a2a25b-d194-4f09-a239-456cb0faed4c

2023-11-01 18:15:54

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@npub1kpw…xzz4 You’re right, I’m using “AI” to talk about LLMs. I did that intentionally for the sake of the punchline.

2023-10-23 22:29:45

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@npub17cs…fsmn @npub1yea…3zln But winamp was good

2023-10-21 07:39:31

I think this is a great metaphor for encryption backdoors. https://chaos.social/@nblr/111264213907736293

2023-10-19 06:22:08

I didn’t realize Tesla actually shipped AirPower.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CPGUe_IaZs

2023-10-15 16:19:50

When discussing social policy, It’s interesting to learn that some people will assume that *everyone* will abuse the system, while other will assume that *no one* will abuse the system.
People who fall into the former fallacy are quite easily found: people who mention “welfare queens”, and conservatives who decry any form of social welfare because the “wrong people” will get it. These folks vastly overestimate the number of people who will game the system.
People who fall into the latter fallacy are also easily encountered: they are commonly leftists and progressives who want to get rid of existing systems (economic, government structures) in favor of co-ops or other egalitarian power structures. These folks often *under* estimate how many people will game such systems to organize exploitive cartels and consolidate power.
I’m not trying to both-sides conservatives and progressives; but they both do have major blind spots that discredit their arguments.

2023-10-03 06:59:56

Agreed 100% with this.
“My Prediction
Every company that issued forced relocation ultimatums to their pre-pandemic remote workers will not only lose most (if not all) their top talent in the next year, but they will struggle to hire for at least the coming decade.
The bridge has been burnt, and the well has been poisoned.
> Trust arrives on foot, but leaves on horseback.
Dutch proverb
The companies that issued these ultimatums are not stupid. They had to know that some percentage of their core staff would leave over their forced relocation mandates. Many described it as a “soft layoff” tactic.
But I don’t think they appreciate the breadth or depth of the burn they’ve inflicted. Even if they can keep their ships from sinking, the wound will fester and their culture will not easily recover. This will lead to even more brain drain.
Who could blame anyone for leaving when that happens?”
“Return to Office Is Bullshit And Everyone Knows It”
https://soatok.blog/2023/10/02/return-to-office-is-bullshit-and-everyone-knows-it/

2023-09-26 06:33:17

Yep. #ReturnToOffice was never about productivity. #RemoteWork #FlexibleWork has obvious benefits that don’t affect work productivity; there never was a cogent argument about which arrangement is better for workers’ well-being while preserving or even increasing work output.
#RTO is about #CommercialRealEstate and the preservation of capital, and it is about satisfying the bosses’ lust for CONTROL. Not just control over workers’ productivity our output, but control over where they are, how they behave, where they can live, and what opportunities they can seek outside of their office. https://tech.lgbt/@deilann/110884985364053944

2023-09-24 02:18:49

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@npub1dh4…n4zf For viewers in the US: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq7FKO5DlV0

2023-09-08 05:54:16

Why do I dislike .webp files so much?

2023-09-05 02:44:30

Ah yes, this is a *great* way to turn “Can I see your driver’s license?” into “Can you hand me your unlocked phone so I can rifle through it?” at a traffic stop.
Yes, it’s more convenient than having a separate card, and it may serve as a great backup in case your physical card is lost or damaged. But please don’t use this as your *only* driver’s license, especially if you are an often-targeted demographic.
“Californians can now carry driver’s licenses on their phone as part of pilot program”
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-09-03/californians-can-now-carry-drivers-licenses-on-their-phone-as-part-of-pilot-program

2023-09-03 06:30:41

A study on #UniversalBasicIncome #UBI from 2020 is now peer-reviewed and published. The study gave $7500 cash to homeless people in Vancouver and compared their outcome versus a control group. The result was clear:
“The recipients of the cash transfers did not increase spending on drugs, tobacco, and alcohol, but did increase spending on food, clothes, and rent, according to self-reports. What’s more, they moved into stable housing faster and saved enough money to maintain financial security over the year of follow-up.”
Further, each person who moved into stable housing one year faster saves the city over $8000 per year, which makes this program cheaper than existing housing programs.
Universal Basic Income works. It sounds so obvious when you say it out loud, but: giving people cash lifts them out of poverty. We need to do that more.
“A Canadian study gave $7,500 to homeless people. Here’s how they spent it.”
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21528569/homeless-poverty-cash-transfer-canada-new-leaf-project

2023-09-02 04:33:53

Had a conversation with my friends today about why #Austin is failing to be the next #SiliconValley, despite the “progressive” nature of the city, the lower cost of living, the zero state income tax, and all the incentives they’re pushing to tech companies, and I’m wondering if it’s because it’s LITERALLY SURROUNDED BY #TEXAS.
If you’re not a conservative cis-het white able Christian man (or his cis-het child-bearing wife), Texas literally wants to exterminate you. If you have a uterus, they want to control it. If you want to teach your kid about black history, they want to prevent you. Austin may be an oasis, but it’s very much part of the state.
Maybe that’s why tech people don’t want to move to Austin. Have you seen who does tech every day? The same people they want to kill and control. Maybe that’s why they’re not attracted there. Just spitballin’ here.
“'Where ambition goes to die': These tech workers flocked to Austin during the pandemic. Now they're desperate to get out.”
https://archive.ph/fnXL2

2023-08-30 16:29:58

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@npub1yyx…qa5g @npub1sqf…5skr If a Musk-type can own a Tier 1 ISP to the point where there is no viable competition, I think the problem is monopoly.
I think people should be allowed to do business (or not) with anyone they choose, as long as it’s not based on a protected class; that’s what protected classes are for.
I think the EFF is misguided here. Private citizens in the US have no First Amendment obligations, and have no reason to platform anyone they don’t want (except protected classes etc).

2023-08-30 06:38:09

Welp, I think #BurningMan has jumped the shark.
When cops start mowing down protestors so rich people in private jets can go to a desert art festival, I think it’s time to call it a day.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2023/08/29/burning-man-climate-change-protest-tribal-ranger/804fc396-46b8-11ee-b76b-0b6e5e92090d_story.html

2023-08-30 03:53:05

#Microsoft is gaslighting their employees.
They reduced the bonus/stock award budget for the year, then turned around and told employees that the reduced budget wasn’t why they got less—it was because they weren’t making “impact”.
“Leaked Microsoft memo tells managers not to use budget cuts as an explainer for lack of pay rises: ‘Reinforce that every year offers unique opportunity for impact’”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/leaked-microsoft-memo-tells-managers-144817183.html

2023-08-22 01:20:36

The Dominionism religious movement is deeply intertwined with the antidemocratic power-grab that is now integral to the Republican party. It’s an offshoot of the Word of Faith movement, something I’m unfortunately intimately familiar with, having grown up neck-deep in that culture. It’s run by charlatans and hucksters, milking dollars from rubes by promising them divine wealth. Their corruption and greed now extend to national politics, and they are inseparable from the GOP. https://texasobserver.social/@TexasObserver/110929111156491050

2023-08-21 21:28:14

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@npub17rh…mj8d I often go to car meets that take place in open public lots, and always find it distasteful when people park in handicap lots without placards. It’s almost always exotics, too. It’s gross.
Example:
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/110/929/726/259/104/286/original/03bdbd671e02f176.jpeg

2023-08-21 00:10:29

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@npub1nlt…t44t No! What’s this?

2023-08-20 23:01:53

#TodayILearned that the delicious Mexican fruit sauce #Chamoy probably derives its name and recipe from the #Philippines’ “kiamoy”, which is a fruit sauce made with the same recipe. That recipe was in turn derived from a #Hokkien #Chinese recipe brought by Chinese immigrants, who called it 鹹梅 “kiam-mui” (literally: salted plums).
As a Hokkien descendant who loves #Mexican #fruit salads, this makes me happy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamoy_(sauce)

2023-08-19 22:13:55

I’m trying really hard not to go Full Conspiracy Theory on why major corporations are going #ReturnToOffice #RTO despite the widespread unpopularity of this policy among their management and workers, but the whole “RTO must happen to prevent a collapse of commercial real estate” angle is becoming more and more believable.
This FB comment is from someone who has a long career in nonprofit and governmental work, and currently works for a city government agency in #SanFrancisco #sfba. They seem convinced that SF’s mayor is pushing to get workers back in the SF to save her donors’ investments from collapse.
https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/110/918/581/232/702/303/original/9d0fa1dd63dc33b0.png

2023-08-11 15:35:54

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@npub1psd…9sr7 @npub15dm…nd6f Immediate public domain release of formulations and research findings is not the same thing as lack of regulation. The formulas for thalidomide is (AFAIK) now public domain, but it’s still regulated out of treatment.

2023-08-11 06:45:23

I truly believe that pharmatech is one of those industries that should be wholly owned and funded by the public, and its products immediately released into the public domain. It doesn’t matter how much it costs in taxpayer money; we will make it back a hundredfold in a generation in the form of a healthier species.
Imagine the US being the world’s source of freely usable medicine, instead of the world’s largest biller for healthcare. https://mstdn.social/@ashleygjovik/110867237141307266

2023-08-11 01:29:55

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@npub17rh…mj8d *flush*
*polite applause from a small crowd*

2023-08-10 06:34:53

The fact that Elon tried to protect Trump’s twitter account from a legal subpoena is pretty on-the-nose telling. If you still have doubts about Elon’s allegiance, please doubt no longer.
Also, fining the world’s wealthiest human $350k is like fining a median US household 50¢. It’s approximately zero. You need to put someone in jail, or fine them a fraction of their wealth, to make any difference.

2023-08-07 03:06:05

If you use Zoom to convey any proprietary information, including business meetings, you should consider switching to something else.
If you’re a medical provider talking over Zoom, you probably should check with your HIPAA lawyers about this clause.
EDIT: The relevant section is 10.4.
https://social.skewed.de/@tiago/110843570352378995

2023-07-18 01:50:04

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@npub19qm…sn8k It seems to me there’s a not-collusion-but-nudge-nudge-wink-wink “something in the air” trend in the tech industry to lay people off. It started late last year, but companies are still trying to see how long they can continue to lay people off in dribs and drabs, to take advantage of the fact that people currently can’t go to competitors for better pay. This seems like a continuation of that trend to me.
I think their short term goal is to goose profits by reducing payroll, but the medium term goal is to backfill positions in a year at a lower pay rate—because companies still need laborers to do work to remain competitive.
I also think companies are (not so) secretly hoping that AI will prove to be an effective replacement for many of the laid-off employees this year, so they wouldn’t have to rehire.

2023-07-07 20:06:00

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@npub19mh…xv39 My hypothesis: Big cars are more profitable (especially in the US, where the Light Truck loophole means huge SUVs don’t have to meet efficiency or crash-compatibility standards), so car companies put all their tech, design, and marketing into larger vehicles. “Luxury trucks” are now status symbols thanks to relentless marketing and celebrity endorsements, and their large sizes are attractive precisely because they demonstrate waste and excess.
But more than that, this dovetails with an aging Boomer and GenX population who buy non-luxury models. A larger portion of the market is finding it harder to crouch down to sit in a shorter car, and find the “step up” design of SUVs more comfortable.
All this works to shift the Zeitgeist on what a “car” looks like: ask a 10-year-old to draw “a car” and they will probably draw an SUV instead of a sedan.
That’s all an educated guess on my part, though.

2023-07-07 01:49:50

A group of protesters is disabling robotaxis by placing cones on their hoods, and I am laughing my ass off.
Autonomous cars are a blight, and it is the private-profit-maximizing opposite of what we need in dense, urban areas (i.e. more pedestrian spaces, fewer cars, more transit).
The energy here is pure chaotic good and I’m loving it.
“Grumpy Locals Are Sabotaging Cruise and Waymo Robotaxis With Traffic Cones”
#sfba #robotaxi #autonomousCars #sanFrancisco #chaoticGood
https://www.thedrive.com/news/rebels-are-disabling-waymo-cruise-robotaxis-with-traffic-cones

2023-07-05 05:37:00

All of my pain is a spider
I've learned not to crush
with the heel of my shoe
but to guide with a page
of my journal
into an empty glass
asking questions about its life,
its purpose, as I walk
careful out to the garden
and rest it down on the earth.
My pain, how happy it is
to leave me whenever
I treat it kind.
—Andrea Gibson
#poetry
Original here: https://www.instagram.com/p/Csg-Y9EuTCi/