Dan Piponi

Disclaimer:
👽 My opinions are not my own. They're beamed to me by aliens

Current life:
🎮 Epic Games

Previous lives:
🍩 a PhD in Riemann theta functions
💥 many years working in movie visual effects
🎈 some years devising navigation strategies for balloons
🎲 a year drawing random samples from tricky distributions

Likes:
🚴 I like to bike
🏃 I like to run
🎛️ my musical tastes lie towards the electronic end of the spectrum
🚀 I like Andor *and* The Mandalorian

Public Key

npub1xs30e0pj7velktf5sxewnqf93tu2pdt3s6wtl6fug2tzgy8zxthsgfgrae

NIP-05 Address

dpiponi@mathstodon-xyz.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsrgghuhse0xvlm956grvhfsyjc479qk4ccd89lay7y993yzr3r9mctsyrr0

Author Public Key

npub1xs30e0pj7velktf5sxewnqf93tu2pdt3s6wtl6fug2tzgy8zxthsgfgrae

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Last Notes

2024-11-10 22:42:51

Gemini is unutterably bad. Google should be ashamed of themselves for putting such a steaming pile of crap at the top of every search. It's as if Ferrari decided to strap a Skoda onto the front of their cars.

2024-10-17 14:57:25

It's hard to photograph the moon.
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/113/323/344/443/735/536/original/f412dcef67caeef7.png

2024-10-14 18:18:39

If your "AI" isn't very smart, you can make its lack of smartness a feature. Clever!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyc
(I like to check in on how Cyc's doing once or twice a decade. Interestingly they now have an opportunity to use the ability to reason using logic as a novel selling point.)
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/113/307/138/267/295/312/original/69882beea7bbbc89.png

2024-10-11 16:26:07

News headlines without context
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/113/289/720/744/794/097/original/8aa23c216c853c5f.png

2024-10-09 16:34:17

This, but with chemistry instead of physics
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/113/278/426/703/402/671/original/8da0d36b136d139c.png

2024-09-30 17:25:44

In every programming language you find yourself wrestling with aspects of the language solving puzzles that are intellectually stimulating. Wrangling the C++ type system is full of puzzles and I think the sense of satisfaction in solving these is one reason why people still enjoy C++ despite it's many flaws.
But Haskell also has many kinds of puzzles like this. But there's one enormous difference between C++ puzzles and Haskell puzzles. The former often seem like arbitrary one off puzzles. When you solve Haskell puzzles it often seems like you haven't solved one single puzzle but something generalizable that occasionally rises to the level of being a "theorem".
So sometimes the C++ puzzles can be fun (in that frustrating way puzzles are), but the Haskell puzzles seem to me of more lasting value.

2024-09-13 20:29:31

TASCHEN had a half-price sale so I ordered their book of fantasy art. OMG it's the biggest book I've ever owned. Yet cheaper than your average textbook on, say, quantales. No photo can do it justice. But here are a couple of pictures of Giger's concept art for Jodorowsky's Dune.
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/113/132/119/958/424/568/original/1364361bc63ea709.png
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/113/132/120/980/153/266/original/03be824941d979d2.png

2024-09-10 18:41:00

Visual C++ error reporting is a bit like using an LLM. If it hits a problem it tries to hallucinate a way to continue and then when it doesn't work out later you get bizarre error messages that have no obvious connection to the actual error.
If you read all of the error messages in sequential order you can find the point where it started hallucinating. But the error list in the GUI is (for reasons beyond my ability to understand) a cherry picked subset that often omits the start of the hallucinations.

2024-09-09 16:22:04

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@npub1790…frxx A data point!

2024-09-09 16:21:06

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@npub10zh…nn29 "paper, scissors, rock" and "scissors, paper, stone" both have a good rhythm. "Rock, paper, scissors" is just wrong :)

2024-09-07 20:05:13

Drippy nut disease is incurable, but luckily it's mostly harmless. Still, it's a bit annoying.

2024-09-06 19:57:21

We have derivatives, and nth derivatives, and fractional derivatives, and at a stretch derivatives of complex order, but what about the Ath derivative where A is a matrix?
https://ajms.ksu.edu.sa/sites/ajms.ksu.edu.sa/files/imce_images/2._g._r._miller_and_a._b._thaheem.pdf
(Annoyed with myself for not thinking of this - even if I can't imagine an application.)

2024-09-06 04:18:31

Any time I forget how long we've been married I just have to look up Diana's funeral because it, and our wedding, started simultaneously. 27 years tomorrow.

2024-09-04 17:50:30

Mistyped "tangential" as "fangential" and I think I prefer the neologism. I just don't know what it could mean...

2024-09-04 14:28:38

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@npub162c…l0z4 Sound wrong to me too. I hear it on both British and American TV.

2024-09-04 14:08:53

I think every grammar book says "lie low" is the correct present tense and "lay low" is past tense. In the last decade I can't recall anyone apart from me using "lie low" for present tense. So it's probably time to update the grammar books (and me).

2024-09-03 23:21:43

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@npub1qt2…4xvg Very timely as I was at that moment listening to a song about someone having to get a job moving furniture :)

2024-09-02 21:08:18

So why haven't we heard from aliens?
Obvious really. In the future interstellar communication will be quantum. But for this to work the sender and receiver need to have large enough telescopes that the sender can resolve the receiver's telescope. But this means any potential sender can see we don't have a big enough telescope to receive their message. So they're clearly not going to send anything to us.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.02445
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/113/069/985/627/495/760/original/e9b8917a1da3d2b6.png

2024-08-29 17:02:24

A spoon of honey with a load of turmeric sprinkled on top tastes pretty good.

2024-08-27 03:42:37

Mummification techniques led to interest in chemistry and knowledge that was handed on to the Greeks and which eventually made its way to the alchemists. Some of the discoveries of alchemists led to the discovery of photosensitive compounds that gave rise to photography and then film and visual effects. The demand for more effects led to digital rendering techniques pushing the need for GPUs which eventually led to ChatGPT.
See, I too can play the James Burke Connections game. (With some help from ChatGPT.)

2024-08-26 16:48:34

"For older generations, talking on the phone is normal"
No. No no no.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crgklk3p70yo

2024-08-26 02:18:06

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BTW the mention of artwork is because I was looking at the reviews of this wonderfully illustrated version
https://comic-watch.com/news/the-old-ones-are-here-lovecrafts-the-dunwich-horror-illustrated-by-baranger-has-been-released/amp

2024-08-26 01:50:00

I just read The Dunwich Horror again I confess I still can't see the romance plot Amazon's AI was perceptive enough to notice.
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/113/025/805/395/595/282/original/fb9619e46cf8a069.png

2024-08-20 03:29:30

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@npub1t76…4l63 OMG every visit to the doctor filling out the same forms asking the same prurient questions about all my vices, to what end I don't know.

2024-08-20 03:24:32

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@npub1jv7…mncm Managed to weed whack a finger not that long ago ago. The finger is intact, but the pain...OMG...the pain!

2024-08-19 01:10:38

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@npub1mwg…lagv Counting how many fingers they have. The usual complement. Surprising.

2024-08-16 00:36:10

Judging by recent news I think humanity is going through a bad statue phase.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx29e0w3gkvo
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyxd93w4y2o
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz9xqy6ggz1o

2024-08-15 21:53:18

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@npub18u7…jv2s I'm less worried about laws created by an (admittedly flawed) democratic process than by corporations that have absolutely no interest other than their own in creating their contracts.

2024-08-14 19:49:46

Trying to think of ways to drop the word proslambanomenos into a conversation.

2024-08-14 18:11:18

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@npub18ad…pl7t It feels like it's changing the axioms rather than working with the axioms.

2024-08-14 16:10:16

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@npub1lxm…syff I enjoyed reading Denning's judgment. I'm old enough that I vaguely remember him.

2024-08-14 15:55:48

I feel like this is a really important story
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8jl0ekjr0go
I have no idea what is in the contracts I agree to. I'm not reading them and have no intention of doing so in the future. I'm not convinced it's physically possible for a reasonable person to have read and digested all of the details of all of the contracts they apparently entered into and it's a mockery for courts to pretend we can do so. I hope one day this state of affairs is eventually recognised by the courts.

2024-08-14 02:56:06

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@npub1lks…a4mq Spent forever trying to get a camera to charge at the weekend before realizing it needs 9V USB and I'd thrown out that charger because I thought they were all the same.

2024-08-13 15:06:30

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@npub1jqn…s82j I'd be disappointed if it was :)

2024-08-13 01:19:05

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@npub1d8a…tcc0 If anyone at Google filed a patent like that it would have been the group I was in!

2024-08-12 22:56:27

Walking through walls training system
"This invention is a training system that enables a human being to acquire sufficient hyperspace energy in order to pull the body out of dimension so that the person can walk through solid objects such as wooden doors."
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20060014125A1/en
(Application abandoned.)

2024-08-12 20:36:32

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@npub1ez3…xnxl The gap between the kind of movie she'd watch, and the D&D movie, is insurmountable.

2024-08-12 20:20:01

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@npub1rrk…3qnt How did you discover this?

2024-08-12 02:53:24

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@npub1rrk…3qnt It works! I've asked so many things that Siri couldn't do so this is a nice surprise.

2024-08-11 22:20:26

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@npub1rrk…3qnt Can't wait to get home to try this!

2024-08-11 17:21:27

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@npub1mg0…r7j0 I've heard about this time called "the future" when such miracles can happen

2024-08-11 17:20:14

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@npub1764…a43w As I said in another reply, !!!!!!

2024-08-11 17:19:57

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@npub1uhn…2f8t !!!!!!

2024-08-11 16:46:43

I'll sign up for whatever streaming service first implements a back-up-10-seconds-and-replay-that-with-subtitles button.

2024-08-11 15:31:46

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@npub1mla…6554 The biggest negative to me of the Polestar is not having wireless CarPlay after driving cars that had it.

2024-08-11 00:38:34

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(But I don't think so, we've known for more than a century the universe uses a weaker model than serializability.)

2024-08-11 00:15:58

The universe, of course, could be throwing exceptions all the time, retrying transactions repeatedly until it finds a consistent state to commit. You'd be none the wiser, at least the yous in the committed transactions wouldn't be.

2024-08-10 18:55:18

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@npub13r2…jw2z (Or maybe not at $400)

2024-08-10 18:52:31

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@npub13r2…jw2z No. I didn't even know about "Out of the Unknown" which is weird considering that I tried to watch every scrap of sci-fi on TV as a kid. I'll be getting the DVDs!

2024-08-10 18:43:28

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@npub1jd5…grlk Yeah, bike transport was a requirement for me too. The Polestar has plenty of room for one.

2024-08-10 18:01:36

This is a very good story but as often happens with high concept sci-fi I can't say why. It's short if that helps.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31979/31979-h/31979-h.htm

2024-08-10 17:56:00

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@npub13vx…xg4e At least it's not *just* a tablet. But yes, I agree, I don't like these displays that look like after market kludges.

2024-08-10 03:46:00

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@npub13t0…vj4p Rather than two renderer instances I actually linked to a second completely different rendering library. I started off thinking this was silly but it turned out to be a good move.

2024-08-10 02:13:17

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@npub13t0…vj4p It's true, but sometimes you are your own user, and then it's tricky.

2024-08-09 16:25:47

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BTW I enjoyed that book "The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo" which was basically a Western set in the present day in my neighbourhood. It brings a little extra something to the story when you know most of the locations very well.

2024-08-09 16:08:43

I know I've added a lot of books to my Kindle recently but as you can see it's getting out of hand...
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/112/932/917/104/701/778/original/286f2bbc2d0839d3.png

2024-08-08 18:07:32

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@npub1uzg…ychd You write this as I'm poking around on ebay realising I regret throwing away so many magazines but wondering if maybe I can reconstruct a representative set...

2024-08-08 14:10:12

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I left out the important historical footnote that GURPS is the game that led to the formation of the EFF...
https://www.eff.org/cases/steve-jackson-games-v-secret-service-case-archive
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._United_States_Secret_Service

2024-08-07 16:04:48

The best thing about Kamala Harris is no longer having to read all the sad toots from people trying to convince themselves that Biden was the best choice of candidate.

2024-08-07 03:09:02

I'm always a bit bemused when surveys ask "would you recommend...?" I mean, I've had a thousand opportunities, and I didn't, so there's nothing hypothetical about it.

2024-08-06 14:55:59

It was otherworldly out there this morning
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/112/915/646/096/374/650/original/27c7ce60176179aa.png

2024-08-06 14:53:28

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@npub1tmp…9ns2 So if you normally used d20 for a task and get a bonus you might use d24 instead. AFAIK this wasn't ever used before DCC.

2024-08-06 02:51:59

Missing the Cardiff Internet Movie Database. It was like IMDB but you could find the information you wanted in it.

2024-08-04 23:05:53

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@npub162c…l0z4 Tge original GW was almost exactly over the road from my school.

2024-08-04 22:10:24

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@npub1kae…u0qx Now I'm wondering about all the boxes full of rules lurking in the attics of kids who left home...

2024-08-04 21:02:44

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@npub1tmp…9ns2 I should add that the game mechanic is interesting. Instead of using + or - modifiers to the result of a roll like in D&D you modify the number of sides of the dice that you roll.

2024-08-04 21:00:37

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@npub14uc…7un5 No, but now I've looked I'm wondering how much I'm going to end up spending on cool looking dice!

2024-08-04 19:49:33

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@npub1tmp…9ns2 https://goodman-games.com/dungeon-crawl-classics-rpg/

2024-08-04 17:51:08

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And I couldn't resist when Amazon started showing me dice with eyes floating in them. This lot probably don't go through rigorous χ² testing.
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/112/905/012/415/251/058/original/e38c8e9fc9b3ac2d.png

2024-08-04 17:29:20

It's the 50th anniversary of D&D so I thought I'd do some binge reading on the subject to see what's happened in the RPG world since I used to play (on and off around 1978-1988).
First surprise: too many people hurt their feet on tetrahedral d4's so now you can get them with "kinder" shapes. And they also do d24 and d30. And there's an abomination that serves as a d5. The manufacturer say they do χ² tests...
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/112/904/924/087/077/263/original/d5131c53387872be.jpeg

2024-08-04 17:22:40

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@npub1knz…c73p There should be some interesting physics here I'd have though. It's all kinda uncertainty principle-ish.

2024-08-04 15:59:43

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@npub1knz…c73p Gotta test to see if people are actually reading ;)

2024-08-02 19:42:31

Phrase of the day: "ontological gerrymandering". I'll leave you to carve out your own meaning for it.

2024-08-02 14:44:45

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@npub1uzg…ychd You may have come across this application: because the Fourier transform describes the evolution of a beam of light, the Hermite functions give rise to stable light beams.

2024-07-31 17:47:08

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@npub1ys8…4zeq Whether the EDL itself is fascist is debatable but its membership has a high proportion of overlap with explicitly fascist organizations. So I'm pretty sure there were plenty of fascists present.

2024-07-31 16:46:04

So weird to see the sleepy seaside town of Southport in the news. My grandmother used to live there and I spent countless vacations there as a kid. Shocked to see the streets I used to play on become a battleground for racists and fascists. My family were on those streets just last week.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv2gyv882nvo
(Admittedly I saw worse rioting on in my own neighbourhood a couple of years ago - but nothing's a surprise in Oakland.)

2024-07-30 22:14:20

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@npub18eg…t22x Very interesting case. I learnt about the reasonable man idea from reading about Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr but that was 30 years earlier.

2024-07-30 20:00:03

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@npub1rv4…ft5j Languages!? With all those variables. All you need is 3 registers. 6502 is the truly American way to go.

2024-07-30 02:24:08

Dunno about you but I'm always xufwyxing around town to catch up on the latest 4pyxri.
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/112/873/059/016/790/916/original/cf20d9c08299e1b9.png

2024-07-29 23:13:00

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In a way this isn't the remarkable part of the story. There was actually a C with B. B was training for a 100 mile race. C was training for a 200 mile race. On foot. Seriously hard core! I also wish I could do that.

2024-07-28 19:53:47

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I was going to watch Tetsuo but I started browsing the list of recommendations that came up when I selected it and picked Divinity instead. Definitely very bizarre. Great images and sound. At one point the film makers run out of money and switch to stop-motton(!). Disappointingly the core idea behind the story, what there is of it, is a Q conspiracy theory - an old sci-fi trope really.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinity_(film)

2024-07-28 02:04:07

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@npub1fam…e55h I didn't know about that website. I was just wondering if there's a Goodreads for movies. If I have a moment tomorrow I'll make a list - if that makes sense for this web site.

2024-07-28 01:52:08

Working my way through this list of the 25 most bizarre sci-fi movies. Bumped my score up to 14/25 by watching Upstream Color. Not sure what I just watched but it was beautiful and Any Seimetz cuddling a piglet was the cutest thing I've seen in a movie.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/the-25-most-bizarre-sci-fi-films-of-all-time/ss-BB1qCO4P#image=1

2024-07-27 01:59:09

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@npub19r3…2wu5 Someone from the company looking at it now...

2024-07-27 01:44:43

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Still puzzling how the Flume managed to send me an email saying it has no wifi.

2024-07-27 01:39:02

Electric company did some work outside house today. Now we have electricity to the house flickering on and off several times a second. And any electronic device that still has an internet connection that sends notifications when it loses power is sending emails at a rate of hundreds a minute and I have a very full inbox... (looking at you Ring).

2024-07-26 21:00:02

"Dan, I'd like to invite you to attend an hands-on tutorial on August 7th at 1 PM ET where we will guide you through the essentials of setting up, ingesting, and querying an Iceberg-based lakehouse using Polaris Catalog on Snowflake."
I really have no idea what these emails are about that I keep getting. I can't imagine this course is any use to me in a heat-wave in California.

2024-07-26 19:29:43

Amazon must have started using AI for search now because you can type in a name of a book exactly, even a long and unique one, and have the search fail to find it, even though the name was a direct copy and paste from the item on Amazon (found by a different path).

2024-07-26 05:29:37

I finally watched all of The Acolyte. It turns out I am unique among the people of Earth for not entirely hating it.

2024-07-25 16:00:50

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@npub1j9d…vau4 The set of all strings drawn from characters in Σ is called Σ* and is technically a formal language :)

2024-07-24 21:43:34

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TBH This almost seems like a category error in the sense that a TeX program doesn't seem to me to be the sort of thing of which you can ask "does this have a parse tree?"

2024-07-24 21:37:17

"It is...undecidable whether a TeX program has a parse tree."
https://latex.js.org/limitations.html#when-parsing-tex-as-a-context-free-grammar

2024-07-24 15:50:48

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@npub16g7…wuy4 Some improvement, but as he's allergic to penicillin (or at least he says he is) he's on antibiotics that aren't as effective and seem to work slowly. Thanks for asking.

2024-07-24 01:03:40

A few days ago I and my wife agreed on our secret protocol for communicating that something's amiss if we're ever find ourselves having to say something while under duress. It's helpful to have some things shared between you that are 100% normal for other couples but not for you.

2024-07-23 04:16:27

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@npub15m2…ahal Someone had to write it I guess

2024-07-23 04:07:04

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@npub1vmm…kc2a Until I actually read it it's just bravado :)

2024-07-23 02:15:33

"A room, full of violence to come. Then with the nasty white light of LEDs. Then a man came in and sat between the metal lockers. He took a machine from his pack and ran protocols on it. Alone awhile, he stared at its screen. His comrades followed him in at last."
I don't know, I don't think that opening bodes well, but it's Keanu so maybe I'll read it anyway.

2024-07-23 01:11:28

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@npub13t0…vj4p But the combination of the two would be really cool

2024-07-23 00:33:37

Natural electrolysis. I have a lot of questions so I may need to look at the Nature article...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/22/dark-oxygen-in-depths-of-pacific-ocean-could-force-rethink-about-origins-of-life

2024-07-22 14:24:11

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@npub1ar3…dcxz I hope so as it sounds pretty awful - mostly the incredibly long waits to get anything done about anything.