GeePawHill

GrandPaw, Geek, Software Development Coach, Writer, Ass Pain. Continuously startled by people and people-stuff. Pronouns: Don't care, will respect yours. https://geepawhill.org

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npub1gvq4v7a0yt8dqdyy7la0z8d7qvyuc020mwlfl4eykc5ue2q7zpqsfwdvmp

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GeePawHill_at_mastodon.social@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsyxq2k0whj9nksxjz007h3rklqxzwv848ah05l6ujtv2wv4q0pqsgprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wdmksetjv5hxxmmdg9lesz

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relay.noswhere.com

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npub1gvq4v7a0yt8dqdyy7la0z8d7qvyuc020mwlfl4eykc5ue2q7zpqsfwdvmp

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Last Notes

2024-09-11 19:11:04

Wow. I just followed a link to read an article, and it didn't pop *anything* up.
It didn't ask me to allow notifications. It didn't ask me to authorize cookies. It didn't ask me to register. It didn't ask me to donate. It didn't ask me to disable my ad-blocker (I don't have an ad-blocker, I have a surveillance-blocker.) It had an ad over on the right, which I glanced at.
But. Like. It just let me read the article and go along my merry way.
I forgot how much I miss the old web.

2024-09-11 04:11:50

Yes, it's important to note creepy xenophobic racist aspect of the immigrants-eat-pets narrative.
Yes.
But, before we engage with the narrative.
This is s a fucking lie.
It is a lie.
Anyone who says or suggests it is telling a fucking lie.
You don't have to engage with these low-life motherfuckers.
It is a lie.
A lie.
It is a complete and total lie, from top to bottom.
A lie.
Alleged journalists? Do your fucking actual fucking job.

2024-09-09 22:56:01

Hmmmm. Newest mastodon advanced webclient seems to have made the columns wider. Too wide, now, in fact, for me to fit 4 on my screen.
<sigh>

2024-09-05 02:29:44

So. Anyone can steal anything for any purpose as long as it serves capitalism.
Got it.

2024-08-31 15:11:18

<subpost type="pedantry">
Fahrenheit was not stupid. The scale was defined for its relevance to sailing. 0 degrees is near where *salt* water freezes. 100 degrees is near where sailors can't work safely.
I am not a particular fan of imperial units, but shit-talking Fahrenheit is a) unfair, and b) ignoring the relevant context.
</subpost>

2024-08-28 01:59:32

@npub13vv…0sze Jessamyn. It is my habit to, once a week or so, tell someone whose work I value that I value it.
Tag. You're it.
Your output here makes my life better, and I thank you for it.

2024-08-28 01:17:42

How, btw, do you explain the fact of your internet-only friends, to the your IRL friends?
I have people I've known and spoken to for over a decade, who I have never met IRL.

2024-08-24 23:28:51

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@npub1zdp…vqv8 I dislike Silver. Just the same, his projections were remarkable. They are not 538 any more.

2024-08-19 05:28:35

Look. The Harry Potter books weren't actually that good. They weren't *bad*. But they weren't legendary.
Y'all should read Judy Blume, or Harriet The Spy. Or Zilpha Keatley Snider, or even Scott Corbett.

2024-08-18 03:48:03

(Stolen, happy to get an attribution.)
"Days since last timezone error: -1"

2024-08-17 05:22:18

Aight, I'm out.
1) Be gay.
2) Do crimes.
3) Wear a mask.
4) Do alt text.
5) Burn this motherfucker down.
6) Vote.
7) Be as kind as you know how to be, to yourself and others.

2024-08-15 15:31:22

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@npub1lrv…tth9 Yes. I have a fifth of the followers here that I had there, and I get five times as much engagement, and a 50th of the drive-bys I used to get.

2024-08-15 00:58:19

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@npub1su4…a0dw Of all the world-famous premier tech sites I've coached or taught, the *only* one the gee-kids thought was cool was Redbox.

2024-08-07 04:27:29

There isn't a kind of hate that will be a counter-hate.
Hate, all the hate, any hate, whatever hate, does just one thing: make more hate.
And love? Well, don't kid yourself, love mostly fails.
Except, I mean, except, when it doesn't. And when it doesn't, its power is life-changing, world-changing, beyond your wildest imagination.
Choose hate. Get hate.
Choose love. Get hate. Except, I mean, except, sometimes, when you don't.

2024-08-05 01:28:32

Oh! Nice touch: female villain wears elegant but sensible shoes, maybe an inch of solid heel. I always like that.

2024-08-04 02:38:05

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@npub16r2…el76 Excellent!

2024-08-02 05:17:28

Once again, a parting shot. No beer, just a slightly overpoured double of cheap rye.
Often, you may have noticed, I exhort you to be kind. But. You'll notice, I never define "kind" for you.
I'll tell you why.
It's because I trust you.
I don't trust you to do the same things I would do. I don't trust you to be "right", either.
But I trust you to know what kindness is, and to try.
You're gonna mess it up. We all mess it up. It's insanely fucking hard.
But I trust you.
G'night!

2024-08-01 04:18:12

I know that nobody wants to hear this, but the truth is, most rare earth mines are slavery-at-gunpoint camps.
Most corporate users of rare earth materials obtain them through very complex laundering operations.
It's still slavery. And it's in every computing device you use.
It's in *my* computer, too, and my phone, and my fiber modem, and my router. (It's not in my car, which is ancient, but it's in most cars.)

2024-07-30 04:08:30

My Black friends say it is pretty awful here.
I have not seen that.
This does not make me disbelieve them.
I didn't know what happened to women in the geek trades until a woman in the geek trade trusted me enough to let me sit at her table at conferences, and tell her network, "He's okay, go ahead."

2024-07-29 06:29:06

Now you want excellent geeks.
Here's the thing, after forty years sitting atop a money-printing machine, the exact precise thing you have done is create generations of geeks who could not code their way out of a wet mugwump bag.

2024-07-29 04:01:40

The DOJ says TikTok collects personal information about social issues from its victims.
Heh.
Virtually every "free" service you use is collecting -- and selling -- information about you.
Facebook knows more about you than your therapist does.
Google knows more about you than your therapist and your dog combined do.
Surveillance capitalism is *ubiquitous*. And don't tell me some of my info is in the hands of bad guys, and some of it is in the hands of good guys.
It's all bad guys.

2024-07-26 04:22:16

Back during the pandemic, which is to say, you know, right fucking now, I avoid enclosed public spaces, and when I can't avoid them, I wear a KN95 mask.

2024-07-25 04:36:16

<subpost>
HuffPo is a propaganda outfit.
But, yes, in fact, for fifty years, not a single study of immigration has found any negative effect from it.
All of them have concluded, I am not kidding, *all* of them, that immigration is a net economic good.
Most of them have also concluded that it is a positive *social* good.
</subpost>

2024-07-25 03:45:08

I actually really like spy TV.
But my suspension of disbelief really flags every episode of every spy TV show in the modern era.
(Pace the BBC Smiley's, which didn't have this kinda shit.)
There is no fucking way on earth the computer tech works this well or this often.
P.S. Facial scanning databases *never* show the faces they're scanning, cuz that kinda graphics would have massive performance issues for exactly zero benefit, unless, of course, you were trying to please a showrunner.

2024-07-24 01:34:06

I think it is inconsiderate to not either hashtag or cw your commentary on the US elections.
The US elections matter to a lot of people who are not in the US, including a lot of people who are our friends.
But there's a difference between here-and-there-now-and-then and deluge.
There's a context-insensitivity going on here, and to be straight up, it is *exactly* what Americans are universally known for.

2024-07-23 22:59:57

Tonight is FGNO, "Friday Geek's Night Out", my weekly meeting with my old geek friends, at which we gossip, show code, talk shit, and hang out.
I like to precede it by a tune.
Here's an insane live performance, by Josh Weathers, of "I Will Always Love You".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xh6fxaQkm8

2024-07-22 05:47:22

There is *not* bound to be litigation over Harris on the presidential ballot.
No matter what pundits and typesetters think, the law here is actually crystal clear: if a major party nominates someone, that someone is on the ballot. That's state law in 50 states.
And, yes, "major party" is actually part of the scheme by which the GOP and the Dems block 3rd parties. But that doesn't matter.
It is the "major party" nomination that matters, and that hasn't happened yet.

2024-07-17 01:30:43

To anyone, I urge you in the strongest possible terms, to go to youtube and type in "james baldwin". You'll get a bunch of hits.
Watch any of them.
I have many role models, including King and Gandhi, but none so incisive, so angry, and so committed to resisting hate.

2024-07-13 03:52:51

Wear a fucking mask.

2024-07-11 05:52:20

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@npub1lrv…tth9 Yeah, however much strident shit-talk, yeah. They still don't care about users who aren't computer-literate,

2024-07-11 04:03:14

<subpost>
Well, good luck, sugar.
The purveyors of LLMs -- I refuse to call them "AI" -- don't actually give a fuck about your potentially beneficial use case.
They're running a con, and all they care about is getting out right before the pyramid collapses.
As with blockchain. As with bitcoin.
</subpost>

2024-07-11 03:55:39

Read about Project Coast.
Then try to tell yourself the GOP would never seek to do such a thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Coast

2024-07-08 04:12:03

In my timeline, I'm hearing a lot, re: France, "this is why you must never believe polls".
I think that's a bad take.
If the left and center had not believed the polls, they would not have worked together to create this outcome.
I'm hardcore about the politics in the US, and the merest dabbler in the politics of France, so g'ahead and bust me if I'm being ignorant, but my reading is that believing the results of the first round is what created the results of the second round.

2024-07-06 03:46:02

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@npub1gfd…7gg6 As a pro, you mean? As a pro, the first project I created was a word-processor in Forth.

2024-06-24 05:23:42

Be gay, do crimes, root devices, encrypt everything, reject LLMs, break DRM, resist hate, work-to-rule while you ready yourself for a general strike.
Change the world.

2024-06-22 22:24:09

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@npub1ryk…dfrp Cool. 1) Never seen a dual steering arrangement before, only a single. 2) I forget that Scottsville, I live further north in Nelson, is on the James, which I for some reason think of as far away.

2024-06-21 11:10:42

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@npub14uk…2erc He not only said it out loud, he said it forcefully and well.

2024-06-21 07:46:40

Last day -- night, for me, I time-shifted -- of doing student demos, just two more, one starting in 15 minutes.
At the end of the session, we usually ask the students if they have any questions for us. Some do, some don't, it varies.
But here's a good one:
"GeePaw, what should we do to become better developers?"
So many possible answers, but here's mine:
"Put your fingers on the keyboard, over and over again, one problem after another. That's the only way forward."

2024-06-19 10:45:52

@npub1zdp…vqv8 Hey Mermie, been a little while since I remembered to say.
Your presence here, your posts, your threads, your lovely poly-dorktual deep dives, I dig them so much.
What they do for me is make my world better.

2024-06-19 06:37:58

Aight, well, seriously.
Social media control for children. Like you give a shit for a child.
Like you dint advocate separating children at the border.
Like you dint ban masking in school during a pandemic.
Like you dint outlaw abortion for a raped girl.
Like you dint just shut down food for kids at school.
Like you dint just seek to kill every single aspect of our social net.
Like you think 13k dead children in Gaza is some kind of just war.
You are a liar. You don't care about children.

2024-06-19 05:45:05

I am questing for a keyboard. Mechanical, wireless. I was very satisfied with the Logitech G613, hence their refusal to make more of them.
Mechanical is mandatory.
No tenkey-less, no fake-ass tiny laptop thing.
Quiet is nice.
Backlit is fucking stupid.
I feel like Logitech is failing me here.
What should I do, instead?

2024-06-17 13:35:48

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@npub1h3v…fdj2 Totally foolish and irrelevant reaction, but you triggered me to play "I'll Be Seeing You"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0Go8Xep9fY
I'll be seeing you.

2024-06-17 09:24:23

Said it before, I'll say it again.
If we want better men, and we certainly do, we need to take better care of our boys.
Women can help with this, they really can, but ultimately, it's up to us men who have survived our masculinity, to the extent that we have, to serve.
Do it today. Even just a little.
Mentor a boy or a young man who could use even a *semi*-healthy male figure in their life.
It makes all the difference. It did for me, and I've sought to pay it forward. You can, too.

2024-06-14 05:49:27

Me talking to people worried about scaling:
"You're right, we're gonna need a 2nd generation FitBit w/an external drive to handle that kinda load."

2024-06-08 05:38:42

Parting shot, of rye but not exhortation, only delight.
Here's Eydie Gorme w/Trio Los Panchos, "Sabor A Mi".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQCo3rczB-w

2024-06-08 03:51:31

Just wear a fucking mask.
How hard is this?
Wear a fucking mask.
Extra credit: stop saying "back during the pandemic". We're still in the pandemic.

2024-06-07 22:11:15

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@npub1zdp…vqv8 Did you know this was happening in the moment?
I'd've been worried sick.

2024-06-05 03:47:58

I am a very lucky and privileged white American male, but for the record, I am the son of a single mother, and I grew up on welfare, and the lawns I mowed earned money for family food.
I am pretty broke, but I own my house, and my land, and my car, and my professional tools.
I worked hard.
But don't kid yourself.
Most people work hard, and don't have what I have.
The game is rigged. No one who is thoughtful or serious will deny it.
We need to break the game.

2024-06-02 04:36:43

Sex work is work. Just go get laid, please. It'll be a lot more clear once you get the little brain out of the question.

2024-06-02 01:43:51

Here is how unimportant your vote for Biden is:
Republican legislatures all over this country have already passed laws -- and are continuing, desperately to pass laws -- to make it impossible for you to vote.
Sugar, if your vote didn't matter, they wouldn't be trying so hard to keep you from voting, or convince you not to.

2024-05-30 17:26:11

People advise one not to use Chrome -- I don't -- but they also advise to use Firefox, instead -- I do -- but for the record, it is not clear to me that any of these browsers can be trusted.
It feels more like Chrome is just a chapter ahead, and the others will soon catch up.

2024-05-30 01:46:40

A developer pattern I have noticed: the Crystalizing Name.
You're designing something that's kind of complicated, and you know there's a thing that does a thing, but you don't yet know what it *is*, and therefore you don't yet have a name for it.
You stall, and let the mixture bubble on the back burner. Then, *boom*, you got the name, and the whole concept gels seemingly instantly.

2024-05-29 05:22:50

...when you just give love, and never get love, it's time to let love depart.
I know it's so, and yet, I know, I can't get you out of my heart...

2024-05-29 02:15:56

I remember when I trusted the CDC.
I didn't trust them to always be right. Science is damned hard when events are breaking.
I did trust them to always do their best.
Those days are as gone as my youthful enthusiasm for ELO.
Wear a fucking mask, and fuck the fucking CDC, and if you work for the CDC, baby you brought this on yourself.

2024-05-27 03:34:50

Black Lives Matter.
It is inconceivable to me that anyone else could think otherwise.
Black Lives Matter.

2024-05-23 14:39:56

<sigh>.
A kotlin project that built and ran two years ago should not have experienced bit-rot.
I got it going again, but *why*!?!?

2024-05-19 03:19:12

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@npub1djh…zatj Or, at least, a taco truck.

2024-05-16 05:59:17

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@npub1slp…4xfq looking forward to seeing you on Monday, my friend.

2024-05-16 05:50:37

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@npub1slp…4xfq You know, PY, we worry.

2024-05-14 12:21:27

Hey folks!
Leading Technical Change is a live remote seminar hosted by yours, truly.
6 attendees, 4 sessions, 2 hours each, with just 1 topic:
Real Change in the Real World.
If you're seeking to create or nurture change in your technical organization, this course is for you. Next offering, May 20,21,23,24, 1-3pm Eastern (UTC-4).
We still have a seat open, but act now!
https://geepawhill.org/courses/leading-technical-change

2024-05-14 04:41:18

Parting shot: you wanna know an incredibly cheap way you can create a tiny bit of change in the world, right now, by the time you finish reading this post?
Tell someone on the internet, someone whose free makings improve your life, that this is so.
Makers, the world over, need money, for sure. But *first* they need juice, and every time you tell a maker that they have added value to your life, you supercharge them to keep on making.
Try it!
You'll see.
Now I'll slam this shot and go to bed.

2024-05-10 02:24:28

Hey!
Do you make stuff? Are you doing threads about your work in progress (WIP)?
Any stuff.
Software's my jam, but I follow people who make lace, cabinets, music, drawings, food, articles & books, videos, photos, paintings, boats and planes model and real, people who make anything, to be honest, anything but hate.
I like it when you share the WIP, and I am not the only one who does.
In fact, following along folks as they work is often one of the most pleasing parts of my day.
Show us!

2024-05-09 15:24:51

Reminder: Trump is accused of fraudulently hiding an in-kind campaign contribution.
He is not accused of having sex, which is legal. He is not accused of paying hush money, which is legal.
It does not matter whether Daniels is telling the truth. It does not matter whether she had sex with Trump. It does not matter what Daniels's motivation was. It does not matter whether Trump paid her to keep quiet.
If he knowingly conspired to hide an in-kind campaign contribution, he is guilty.

2024-05-08 02:49:53

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@npub1ept…jcl3 OMG I didn't think it would be so *soon*!

2024-05-07 04:55:10

Nine minutes to bedtime, just enough for a parting shot:
If you want to be a great geek, or better still a great coach or mentor or leader of geeks, lay off the geek books or -- heaven forfend -- the management books.
Read narrative history, and novels.
Why? Because what geeks do for a living, and what coaches and mentors and leaders do for a living, is change. And all narrative history and all novels are about change.

2024-05-05 03:30:00

I know that everything sucks.
Believe me, I know.
But let me tell you a thing. In my "everything sucks" "i hate everyone and everything" mode, I have been binge-ing TV.
Excellent TV, yes, and, mmmm, barely okay TV, and DON'T JUDGE ME, mediocre TV.
And here's the thing: at all three levels of modern TV, there are important portrayed non-het relationships. Not implied, explicit.
All of this was inconceivable 20 years ago.
Don't quit. Keep pushing. Love who you love.

2024-04-30 23:55:46

When you're a graybeard in a room full of chillun, and you have a question, you need to know a particular phrase:
"That was not Socratic."

2024-04-30 21:31:39

Aperiodic reminder for anyone giving their first presentation:
*You* are the show.
Your *story* is what they came for.
Your *slides* are just props.
Do what you need to do, prop-wise, to feel comfortable, but remember the props are the third most important thing about your prezzie.

2024-04-28 00:24:35

A headline at The Hill asks "What happened to the once-popular social media sites?"
The same thing that happened to what was, at one time, your excellent, lively, and informative site.
Capitalism turns everything it touches to shit, as soon as it can, and as hard as it can.
It drains every resource from every community, preferably from the commons, because that's cheaper, but any community resource will do, in order to deliver quarterlies to the stockholders.

2024-04-27 03:15:50

So many old fuckers in my trade want you to follow them.
I don't want you to follow me.
I want you to rise above me.
I want you to be smarter than me, stronger than me, more kind than me.
I don't want you to be me. I want you to be better than me.

2024-04-26 23:41:15

- reply

I have sent a few.
I only ever received one.

2024-04-26 23:40:57

In the ManyRegerts category:
Didja ever send or recieve a mixtape?

2024-04-26 23:15:12

Dare we risk hope?

2024-04-26 21:29:15

You kids today, with your protests, and your encampments, and your opposition to a genocidal war, I am old enough to be your *great* grandparent, and I gotta tell you something that, in your naive and wild and feckless youth, you may not have yet heard:
I am so proud of you.
I love you, and I support your efforts to end this war, and I oppose in the strongest possible terms the deployment of armed thugs to prevent your peaceful protest.
Keep the faith.
https://mstdn.social/@kathimmel/112334107930785954

2024-04-24 20:16:32

When you quote an older source (in a positive light), and that source uses the sexist language of its era, do you do anything about that, or do you just quote it literally?
Here's a literal quote:
"The expert must find his place within the social process; he can never be made a substitute for it. Technical experience must be made a part of all the available experience."
Would you maybe bracket "his" and "he" and replace them w/non-gendered language?

2024-04-22 03:47:23

Have you thought *at* *all*, for even a minute, about the business model of OpenAI?
In one sentence: "We will take every actual human-created content, the golden egg, from everyone, without permission, and then we will use it to sell plausible made-up shit, simultaneously choking out the creation of all new human-created content, the goose."
Ponzi was *vastly* more sophisticated than this.
I've long regarded extractive capitalism as corrupt, but I had no idea they were all so stupid.

2024-04-21 04:07:03

Well.
There it is.
Finished "Killing Eve".
Two thumbs and two bigtoes up, way way up.
An (incredibly violent) meditation on love, and women, and power.

2024-04-19 03:08:07

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@npub1mmf…eknq Have you heard of a place called Vietnam?

2024-04-19 03:04:55

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@npub1mmf…eknq 2019? Friend, I'm old old old, and the world has been watching genocide since before I was born.

2024-04-17 01:42:24

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@npub1lrv…tth9 I wonder if David Ingram has an X account?

2024-04-17 01:36:00

Reminder: The NY criminal case is not about the morality of having an affair, which, whatever one thinks of it, is not a crime.
Nor is it about paying hush money, which, whatever one thinks of it, is not a crime.
Those two narratives are efforts to spin this case to make it seem silly, minor, irrelevant.
It is a trial about falsifying official business records in pursuit of the crime of interfering with a federal election.

2024-04-10 02:13:30

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@npub1f6a…pnql So, to be clear, your issue with shipping Eliza is that it would be "stupid". Is that like, stupid, I mean, is that like, a poor way to make profit?

2024-04-10 01:54:39

The only possible responsible position is to stop telling people that LLMs are "AI".
If you are doing that, or if your org is doing that, please, please, stop it.
Marketing is one thing. I don't care for it, but it's at least somewhat of a gray line.
Telling people an LLM-based system is "artificial intelligence" is a) a fucking lie, and b) doing great harm to people who do not know better.
You oughta be ashamed of yourself.

2024-04-09 02:35:14

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@npub1ykd…6j2y What, no, really?

2024-04-02 19:05:04

One of the key facts here keeps getting sidestepped by a mixture of scam marketing and common language usage out there.
LLMs don't *sometimes* make shit up, they *always* make shit up.
That's what an LLM *is*: a piece of software that makes up plausible sounding shit.
What's impressive about this is the extent of improvement in the plausibility.
What's horrifying about it is the extent to which so many people don't care to distinguish between plausibility and correctness.

2024-04-01 07:37:44

So. Lemme get this straight.
Y'all used this guy's thing.
You never paid him, you just used his sweet shit.
And when he was tired and sad and lonely, you demanded that he -- for free, mind you -- take care of your needs.
So he admitted a bad actor to his inner circle.
And *now*, you are mad at a) him, and b) the bad actor.
But not, you know, c) yourself. cuz idunno, somehow, you are absolved of your role in this by being paid by a corporation.
Sheeeit.
You need to check yourself, sister.

2024-03-24 01:23:06

Generic shouts-out to all the people whose streams make me laugh.
This fucking life is so hard.
It's so hard for *everyone*.
We've modest means to make it easier, modest. And bereft any real control, I can only cry or laugh.
Laughing feels better.

2024-03-19 03:11:15

Lotta chatter about the RBG awards tonight. It all mentions Musk and Murdoch. And surely, if RBG herself had any opponents, Musk & Murdoch were those.
But, just a little reminder, one of the other people slated to receive the RBG award is convicted felon Michael Milken, who pled guilty to the charges.
The Opperman Foundation is being completely and entirely disingenuous in its "agonizing reappraisal" take.

2024-03-15 03:33:13

Y'all just keep being surprised that capitalist corporations have no sense of responsibility.
Sugar, corporations were *invented* to isolate capitalists from responsibility. That is their central defining function.
You might want to consider setting that surprise aside, and working to leash these legislatively created nightmares -- purpose-built for resource-extraction from a resource-rich colony -- by *changing* *the* *law*.

2024-03-13 22:55:54

You think *you* got problems, lemme tell you, these poor fuckers ran through the entire world supply of women of distinction in just four short years, and are now forced to give Ruth Bader Ginsburg awards to wealthy white males who are right-wing capitalist ideologues.
https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/4526558-elon-musk-martha-stewart-rupert-murdoch-rbg-award/

2024-03-12 22:11:01

Me genericizing a class that already calls Kotlin generics:
Kids, don't try this at home!
I am a licensed professional on a closed course with an ample supply of cheap beer, two *strikingly* undesirable groupies, and a full team of emergency medical technicians.
"Reified, inline, KClass, no wait, Kclass, no wait, inline, no wait. out, no wait, in?, no wait."

2024-03-10 05:09:55

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@npub1zlf…jxfl Hehehe. Well, I will say this, I *have* read novels where the first five pages were so incredibly strong I knew I was going to be in the hands of a genius. :)

2024-03-10 05:00:35

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@npub1zlf…jxfl Haven't yet, no. But the Booker's really the best of the fiction prizes. I used to read *all* the shortlist. I read less, nowadays, I spoze.
Do you have first impressions?

2024-03-07 23:29:31

Guy claims to be a multi-billionaire, claims paying $83 million is a hardship.
American innumeracy being what it is, let me point out that a billion dollars is 1,000 million dollars, and 83 out of 1000 is the kind of money multi-billionaires keep in petty cash.
Unless. Of course.
I mean, unless he's not a multi-billionaire at all, just a tax cheat, legally confirmed financial fraud, legally confirmed sexual assaulter, and legally confirmed slanderer.
Unless, you know, that.

2024-03-02 00:59:21

HEY!
Don't forget to tell the people you love that you love them.
They know, they kinda know, yes.
But if you *tell* them, they really know.

2024-02-28 03:02:46

We're not, I know, living on a timeline where science actually matters, but I gotta say this anyway.
*Every* serious study of the economic impact of immigration has the same conclusion: "immigration has a net-positive effect on the economy". Most of them go further than that, citing non-economic positive effects.
Leaving one's homeland is just not a thing stupid, lazy, cowardly, or ignorant people do.
The "border crisis" has a shorter name. That name is "racism".

2024-02-24 07:20:26

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@npub1zdp…vqv8 We were, I think, always bound to fail them. Failing one's children is the story of humanity's history.
I just wish we weren't failing them *this* way.
I wish they were saying "your music is stupid, your food kills animals, your liquor tastes like gym shoes, your clothes are severely fucked up".
They won't, though. Our failures are bigger than all that.

2024-02-23 04:20:55

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@npub1khx…geyg I've a few librarian friends here on mastodon.
Whenever, as a kid, I got outta hand, my Mom would tell some annoyed stranger: we have to be patient with him. He was raised by wolves and librarians, you see.
When I was 9, I was named hyperactive, and they started giving me speed. ("hyperactive" was the word for ADHD back then, which I don't have, and "speed" is the reality of modern ADHD meds).

2024-02-22 04:38:22

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". . . and *that* is why, when you go to bed at night, I lay awake."

2024-02-22 04:36:45

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". . . and we call this, 'fucking people over' . . ."