@pndc / is on Nostr

Grumpy Northerner ex-🇬🇧, now in 🇳🇱 where there are fewer Brexiters, TERFs and other fascists [citation needed]. Spends most waking hours swearing at computers. Thank Cthulhu for beer! Got a non-buttcoin 🦀 gig? Ping me.

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Last Notes

2024-10-20 07:59:06

I do wonder why I still bother following the @npub196q…96ja RSS feed. They should rename it YouTubeADay as most of their alleged "articles" are little more than a YouTube link plus some waffle which is basically the video description paraphrased and padded-out to meet some minimum word limit.
Because a half-hour video of a talking head with a strong accent mumbling off-the-cuff into a cheap phone-grade microphone for half an hour, intermingled with 5–10 minutes of PCBWay/NordVPN/cryptocurrency scam/etc adverts, before finally cutting to a 15 second clip of out-of-focus shaky footage of something that might be a Raspberry Pi or possibly just a slice of toast, is absolutely the best way to document a project. And extremely accessible to the neurodivergent for whom this sort of content is intended. No need to bother writing anything down so people can follow along at their own pace!
This morning was a particularly fine example of the genre: all but two articles were said summary waffle before a YouTube link. One was self-promotional, basically "like and subscribe" (bleurgh) for HAD itself. The final one was summary waffle for TikTok and Instagram video links, just to rub it in.

2024-10-20 07:59:06

2024-10-11 10:09:12

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@npub1lks…a4mq You're around these parts? Fancy a biertje?

2024-09-24 16:55:49

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@npub1psd…9sr7 As an indicator of existing datacentre costs, Hetzner charge €0.40/kWh (ex VAT) for colo power, which works out at €3.50 per watt-year. So a company running a GPU 24/7 at maximum capacity would only see a 29% price increase with this $1/watt tax, whereas us plebs who just make reasonable use of graphics hardware to do things such as play games will get utterly shafted.
Do I need to pay this hypothetical tax twice if I buy a new machine and shove the old one in the loft as a source of spare parts? What about my retro collection of Amigas with their high-performance (for 1985–1990) graphics hardware?
It's an utterly unworkable tax which would be extremely unpopular once introduced and the population understood its effects. So I expect it'll happen by Friday.

2024-09-11 14:03:52

Eight billion would pay for rather a lot of those £200–300 winter fuel payments the UK apparently doesn't have money for: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chancellor-announces-8-billion-amazon-web-services-investment-as-she-vows-to-make-every-part-of-britain-better-off

2024-07-14 23:39:26

TIL about the Penetron tube which is such a brilliant idea that it's a shame it never got developed further for consumer/office applications. It would have approximately halved the power consumption of colour televisions and the lack of a shadow mask would have meant that one did not need to choose between a sharp monochrome monitor or a fuzzy colour monitor back in the 1980s.

2024-06-14 10:15:04

Looks like it's going to get a tad nippy towards the end of next week:
https://cache.treehouse.systems/media_attachments/files/112/614/446/716/793/779/original/a1d00472f312d9a0.png

2024-05-31 20:32:33

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@npub16ju…y8u7 A bunch of bananas?

2024-05-29 09:45:53

Křetínský’s EP Group is apparently making a takeover bid for the British postal service, but I have yet to see the headline "The Mail's in the Czech."

2024-05-25 09:30:25

Neuralink want somebody to just give them something which can do a 200:1 compression of noise, plus other extra ridiculous requirements. It’s theoretically impossible (ask Claude Shannon) and if I were brilliant enough to find a solution anyway, I’d patent and bleed the capitalists dry with it.

2024-05-15 11:12:06

The current state of Rust recruitment. I note that some of these companies are particularly reticent about revealing that they're into bl*ckch**n, but anybody who reads @npub1lp8…4rrw's blog knows the signs.
https://cache.treehouse.systems/media_attachments/files/112/444/788/306/890/985/original/79b7c2015afbfd33.png

2024-05-07 13:55:40

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@npub16ju…y8u7 If you can export Branston Pickle, Bovril, etc to me, I'll export the finest skunk back.