Mx Autumn :blobcatpumpkin:

Terminally online, mostly harmless.

I like old computers, retro games and combining the two with some vintage game dev.

My day job involves building web based things with PHP.

My Blog: https://www.photogabble.co.uk
Webring: https://fediverse-webring-enthusiasts.glitch.me/profiles/carbontwelve_notacult.social/index.html
Github: https://github.com/photogabble
Pronouns: They/Them

Public Key

npub1973vu0r9xstgy8v7njqezzdpcnn5zfvpzf6xh985p6nkdpy9yqfq6lxkga

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqszlgkw83jng95zrk0feqv3pxsufe6pykq3yartjn6qafmxsjzjqysprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmnt5t940q

Publishing to

relay.momostr.pink

Author Public Key

npub1973vu0r9xstgy8v7njqezzdpcnn5zfvpzf6xh985p6nkdpy9yqfq6lxkga

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Last Notes

2026-04-08 09:30:05 GMT

This is quite possibly my favourite photo from the #Artemis mission.
It's very surreal.
https://media.notacult.social/media_attachments/files/116/368/378/075/377/785/original/1dccc066b8ae1989.png

2025-12-13 09:44:01 GMT

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wow. Does this seem like an accidental result of algorithmic automation or something more malicious?

2025-10-11 14:25:37 GMT

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oooh a lovely view and company to boot. What more can one need?

2025-09-21 11:55:29 GMT

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half the development here has copper installed, my house was one of the first to be built with fibre installed only, six years after the development started and it wasn’t for another five years before the first two phases got fibre connections retrofit involving a lot of front gardens getting dug up because unlike with the later phases they don’t have ducting installed from the service pit to inside their home for the fibre to be blown though.

2025-08-26 08:18:05 GMT

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you may be interested in reading this. It was quite unsettling https://time.com/7269166/dark-enlightenment-history-essay/

2025-08-14 17:17:34 GMT

Being a parent involves a lot more sitting in parks staring at the floor than I thought it would.

2025-08-13 21:25:04 GMT

For the first time in my life I have had to "uninstall" a device's drivers in Windows.
My cheap Tecknet M003 mouse worked just fine yesterday but I switch the laptop on tonight and the mouse does not function.
It works on my other computer and my other mouse failed to work on this one.
Opened device manager, uninstalled the device, plugged the mouse back in and it worked.
This is ridiculous!

2025-08-09 07:23:24 GMT

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I think largely the problem with rail is they acknowledge it’s a public service through government subsidies but still allow private operators to profiteer as though it is not.
Much the same with busses unfortunately. Where I live it’s cheaper to drive and park in town for three hours than take the bus.

2025-07-17 07:20:01 GMT

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I had the same question recently. Web3 is something I’ve not heard about in a long time now; but I’m also not on Twitter anymore so maybe it was just being hyped there and because media disproportionately promoted Twitter as being representative of what’s hot now it became a self fulfilling prophecy?

2025-06-23 19:41:51 GMT

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:good_post: :notacult:

2025-06-22 08:48:16 GMT

I’d like to find a small electric water pump that I could use to pump the water out of my children’s paddling pool and into my water butt. It feels a terrible waste to just empty it on the lawn and there is too much water for me to slowly scoop it with the watering can (not really, but I don’t fancy that strain on my back.)

2025-06-20 17:06:02 GMT

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cartography, now there’s a hobby with a map all laid out…

2025-06-14 10:20:27 GMT

Today’s #sky is quite nice.
https://media.notacult.social/media_attachments/files/114/681/209/608/086/537/original/8e13fb41e02364c5.jpg

2025-03-19 21:12:28 GMT

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yeah, it was happy to continue once I deselected the desktop environment.

2025-03-19 21:06:24 GMT

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And once more with the failure…
https://media.notacult.social/media_attachments/files/114/191/127/993/700/092/original/6ee69a34ec297b61.jpg

2025-03-19 21:04:44 GMT

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I chose LXQt but it keeps failing to install.
https://media.notacult.social/media_attachments/files/114/191/120/537/629/592/original/06789229d4bf4b2e.jpg

2025-03-19 20:59:51 GMT

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Oh no it’s asked me which desktop environment I want to use. How do I tell it I’ve been using Linux for twenty years without one?

2025-03-19 20:46:15 GMT

I’m doing some Linux
https://media.notacult.social/media_attachments/files/114/191/049/914/917/366/original/1baf31256d79d3da.jpg

2025-01-27 10:30:55 GMT

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wow, I was not aware that DeepSeek has been built upon the OpenAI model.
All the media coverage I have seen made it out to have been a ground up training using a model that had been engineered to use low powered hardware efficiently due to the lack of available high performance hardware caused by sanctions.

2025-01-20 17:35:40 GMT

Create the things you wish existed.

2025-01-09 23:23:15 GMT

Famous last words: “If not friend, why friend shaped?”

2025-01-04 07:52:15 GMT

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I still think that Germanys decision to shutdown their nuclear power generation was both short sighted and irresponsible.

2025-01-02 09:19:26 GMT

Happy New Year, I'm back at work today and logged out of every computer system with no way of logging back in :kermit:
IT have deprecated the online method of resetting your password, choosing instead to do so via Windows login, while also enforcing a 90 day password renewal policy.
I don't use a Windows comuter for logging in and as such every 90 days I get locked out, requring a phone call to IT help desk for them to reset my password for me. :kerm:

2024-12-31 09:46:19 GMT

Can someone who know about #sewing machines tell me if I’m doing something wrong. I’m trying to get this old machine to do a zigzag stitch and as far as I can tell it’s configured to do so but isn’t. It just does a regular straight stitch.
Am I missing something or is this machine broken? Boosts appreciated.
https://media.notacult.social/media_attachments/files/113/746/788/430/709/045/original/7bf21a4f105b0e37.jpg

2024-12-22 10:08:01 GMT

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I’m not sure if it helps with the haze but I use a polariser filter to get rid of reflections on glass.

2024-12-21 10:13:29 GMT

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your experience is how I expected mine to be if I had actually given the technology a chance.
Machine learning has been useful for decades, mostly quietly. The red flag against LLMs for me (aside from the authorship laundering and mass poaching of content) was there scramble by all companies to shoehorn it into their products, like a solution looking for a problem; I’ve yet to see it actually solve.

2024-12-20 11:45:35 GMT

#MastoAdmin question, what does it mean when the `tootctl media remove` command outputs: "Switching object-storage from red to green" ?
https://media.notacult.social/media_attachments/files/113/684/984/721/729/085/original/289d5f2e6b7a5753.png

2024-12-07 12:54:36 GMT

It’s #coffee O’Clock
https://media.moose.photogabble.co.uk/media_attachments/files/113/611/638/834/815/228/original/23d5892f37161a19.jpg

2024-12-02 08:08:38 GMT

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I strongly believe that foreign investment in companies should in the majority of cases have a statutory limit of 49%.

2024-11-29 21:44:08 GMT

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beautiful!

2024-11-29 21:40:22 GMT

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that looks nice to me. I assume you have redefined auto as method and added a handful of other custom definitions to make things nicer to work with?

2024-11-22 15:17:34 GMT

A few years ago I was tinkering with Soil Machine, a geomorpohology simulator by Nick McDonald because I liked the visualisations it generated.
I just visited their blog for the first time in ages and saw this 2023 update sharing their Procedural Hydrology simulator.
Beyond being impressive, what it produces is also very pretty!
#ProceduralGeneration #Simulation
https://nickmcd.me/2023/12/12/meandering-rivers-in-particle-based-hydraulic-erosion-simulations/
https://media.moose.photogabble.co.uk/media_attachments/files/113/527/261/883/720/679/original/16011b11a817a165.png

2024-11-16 11:52:07 GMT

When I follow a hashtag do the posts end up in my home feed or do I have to go looking elsewhere?
Every post in my home feed appears to be from someone I follow, I was expecting to see more from people I don't follow who have posted to hashtags that i'm "subscribed" to.

2024-11-15 22:03:52 GMT

Rather than working on my game, I have spent the past thirty minutes playing it because its fun...
I've never before got to this point in #GameDev where playing my game for the sake of playing has been natural. It's always been in hunt of bugs, or during development.
Nice.

2024-11-04 14:42:32 GMT

Tactile controls are back in vogue, finally!
https://spectrum.ieee.org/touchscreens

2024-10-27 10:00:41 GMT

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I imagine that would be the same effect as litter in a neighbourhood breeding more litter as a precursor to a downward trend towards degradation?

2024-10-19 20:59:02 GMT

This is a liminal space.
https://media.moose.photogabble.co.uk/media_attachments/files/113/336/091/086/938/413/original/a9706c9a5fb5ae59.jpeg

2024-10-10 12:17:47 GMT

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I absolutely loved watching your talk @npub1h8h…vmly. For the best part of this year I have had Tadi web on my list of things to look at, am glad I got to watch you explain it, albeit via video rather than in person.
@npub1p09…m5vl thank you for sharing and for all you do to promote the small web.

2024-10-07 16:16:32 GMT

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a single PHP file... I am genuinely impressed :kermit:

2024-10-01 12:22:38 GMT

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they are really good for cleaning shower tiles and glass screens as well.

2024-09-26 19:46:45 GMT

Spent some time this evening playing https://mattiasgustavsson.itch.io/neon-lies by https://mattiasgustavsson.itch.io/neon-lies
Really impressive, beautifully designed, point and click adventure game that even runs in the browser!
Took me a while to realise you can save progress by accessing the game menu from the top right.
#AdventureGame #CyberPunk
https://media.moose.photogabble.co.uk/media_attachments/files/113/205/546/786/955/255/original/dd0a60064db6b0cd.png
https://media.moose.photogabble.co.uk/media_attachments/files/113/205/554/944/383/208/original/a3f22ada35ce201c.png

2024-09-25 12:05:28 GMT

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when I see photos of these systems I can understand why people back in those days believed the future would be utopic.
These feats of engineering look stunningly beautiful.
(also I chortled at some of your alt text on those images, nicely done)

2024-09-23 08:09:15 GMT

A tale of two halves...
https://media.moose.photogabble.co.uk/media_attachments/files/113/185/838/959/816/518/original/efd87da0ddc3b1ee.png
https://media.moose.photogabble.co.uk/media_attachments/files/113/185/841/239/306/533/original/51a502f9b3ae611e.png

2024-09-19 06:42:50 GMT

I put fat balls out on Monday and normally they are gone by Wednesday but appear to have been untouched. Do birds not eat them in the summer/autumn or has something weird happened to my local bird population?

2024-09-12 11:29:31 GMT

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having personally worked in several London hospitals in a nursing capacity and knowing people who still do I can confirm this has been the case going back to at least 2008 if not before.
Every ward I worked on was running with a skeleton crew, there where many positions open but nobody to fill them.
Brexit only made things worse, I remember a brand new hospital wing being finished creating hundreds of positions and they struggled to fill any of them.

2024-09-06 09:08:41 GMT

Love me some hotdog car.
https://media.moose.photogabble.co.uk/media_attachments/files/113/089/806/498/246/890/original/119a24d5cb620f55.png

2024-08-25 09:29:52 GMT

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I think it was a few years ago but New Scientist has an article predicting that in the near future a near complete ecosystem collapse in the worlds oceans due to climate change will result in jellyfish being on the menu because they will be all that will able to thrive :sootsprite:

2024-08-20 07:06:24 GMT

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didn’t someone who used to run the prison service state that the billions being spent on building new prison capacity should be better put to use preventing the need for that increase.

2024-08-10 09:22:17 GMT

Last year (or maybe the year before) someone on here in the #RetroComputing community created an #IRC channel for retro and vintage enthusiasts.
I can't remember who and I can't remember where the channel was, but I would like to find it again if it still exists.