Ret

Half-fox, half-wolf, half-engineer. Into electronics, radio & software. (Very) amateur radio operator. Talk to me about TETRA V+D. Talks about NSFW stuff sometimes - please be 18+ 🔞 Runs (NSFW) https://isthisyiff.net

#NoBots

Pronouns: he/him
Blog: https://foxdog.blog
Signal: Ret.10
Discord: @retsplines

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npub1dactg8lym75h57ztn6mrzxzvw0ehvqex4xhrmg2rex307j467v8sj8kdes

NIP-05 Address

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Profile Code

nprofile1qqsx7u95rljdl2t60p9ead33rpx88umkqvn2nt3a59punghlf2a0xrcpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds7xnsns

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nos.lol

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npub1dactg8lym75h57ztn6mrzxzvw0ehvqex4xhrmg2rex307j467v8sj8kdes

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Last Notes

2026-03-16 22:12:19 GMT

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If you were wondering...
https://maps.app.goo.gl/N2YG99xR9tjcoC85A

2026-03-16 22:05:21 GMT

Modest Mouse always makes me feel better, or worse. One or the other. But it never leaves me feeling just the same.

2026-02-13 18:03:58 GMT

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Back when we… y’know… made shit.
Ngl this thing is a bit scary.
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/116/064/637/559/688/944/original/7b9003c09b21c8b9.jpeg
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/116/064/637/892/290/297/original/c51f65ce146802e3.jpeg
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/116/064/638/298/320/045/original/839c03c002e03440.jpeg

2026-01-06 10:12:00 GMT

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https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/115/847/607/832/715/371/original/90c35d48ffae1e4b.png

2025-12-16 22:08:38 GMT

the language tech companies use when they're about to kill a product.
"The future of WidgetDesk"
"What's next for FooBar"
"Upgrading from FooBar to ShitWasp"

2025-12-12 22:51:12 GMT

Anyone had any luck bypassing Persona age verification? I'd like to continue lurking Reddit but I refuse to provide anything to these AV companies as a matter of principle.

2025-12-12 12:56:08 GMT

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I think that was the No to Digital ID one. This one was the Repeal the OSA one (550k signatures I think)

2025-11-26 19:35:39 GMT

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Incidentally, in my quest to find an easy way to sniff serial ports on Linux, I did end up using [interceptty](https://github.com/geoffmeyers/interceptty ) which works excellently. Yes, it's the "10 year old repo" answer type, but it did build and run flawlessly.

2025-11-26 19:33:46 GMT

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Awh yis.
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/115/617/668/236/692/754/original/c0f94754fb85c0a3.png

2025-11-26 19:33:07 GMT

Heck yeah! After a ton of debugging I narrowed the problem down to some weird echo behaviour of my RS-485 adapter. Every response appeared to have my request prefixed to the start of it, which was causing the CRC failures I was seeing! A bit of fiddling with settings solved it.
Not massively happy with the cabling finish. Unfortunately I used external UTP cable which is very difficult to cable clip neatly.
Super happy it’s working though. Real-time 10 second resolution data!
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/115/617/666/073/643/804/original/7cba2dec0a87f290.jpeg
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/115/617/666/406/741/815/original/e0dfaa7ed82ab025.jpeg

2025-11-25 21:02:51 GMT

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putting you in the “Answer type A” category :blobfox_w:

2025-11-25 19:57:02 GMT

🔍 “how to sniff serial port linux”
Answer type A “pfff just do socat -l -p -d -o -67 -420 | fucktty -p >> /dev/ttyS0 << /dev/ttyUSB0 > vim”
Answer type B “pfff just use strace and carefully interpret the resulting list of system calls”
Answer type C “just install this package” (doesn’t exist)
Answer type D “just build this 14 year old repo” (configure works, make fails with obscure C++ error)

2025-11-10 09:47:24 GMT

Decided to ditch multigig networking at home. After 3 years, we still only have two computers that can do 2.5GbE. I have never once thought “ah, I wish I could transfer this a bit quicker” over my local network. My ISP still cannot offer a sensible symmetric connection that breaches 1Gbps.
It has not been worth the additional energy use or equipment expense. Selling the USW-Enterprise-24 and swapping for a USW-Standard-48.

2025-10-16 11:44:09 GMT

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Volvo ES90 weighs 2410kg, and it isn't an SUV.

2025-10-16 11:41:46 GMT

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for the subsequent 2000kg limit right? The 2400kg threshold applies to all.

2025-10-16 11:24:07 GMT

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I'd like to see it based on dimensions and not just weight. Electric cars are unfortunately heavy.

2025-10-14 11:17:43 GMT

KEENE: Things look rather bad, sir. What are we going to do?
SIDNEY: "Do" captain!? We're British. We won't do anything.
SHORTHOUSE: Until it's too late.
SIDNEY: Precisely. That's the first sensible thing you've said today.
SHORTHOUSE: Thank you, sir.
SIDNEY: No, gentlemen. As always, we will carry on as if nothing were going to happen.
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/115/372/230/250/857/529/original/6605031378d3ebb0.mp4

2025-10-10 22:36:14 GMT

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never been that convinced of the necessity of that stuff. I read some studies a while back and Legionella from DHW tanks (especially small residential ones) is basically unheard-of. I guess better safe than sorry though.

2025-10-09 14:07:51 GMT

still maintain that saying "idk, I heard that's all going away" to crypto/AI fanatic techbros is the *funniest* thing you can do.

2025-10-03 10:59:28 GMT

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Fuck Kier Starmer

2025-10-03 10:59:04 GMT

“why are we so unpopular?”
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/115/309/880/315/741/337/original/c182de90cd0ea1b2.jpeg

2025-10-02 09:11:19 GMT

[I] (10-01 21:53:44) log: Waiting for GaS lock... Got good GPS fix (1 secotds old).
Love when memory corruption presents as a slow descent into madness before a final complete breakdown.

2025-09-19 22:01:27 GMT

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Or shall I get a spot welder and some known-good Samsung 18650s and re-cell mine?

2025-09-19 22:00:59 GMT

I am once again searching for a good quality T480 battery :blobfoxsad:

2025-09-19 20:22:42 GMT

fedi
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/115/232/824/255/062/661/original/8464877c519f6462.jpeg

2025-09-08 12:47:21 GMT

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how long until our wonderful Labour government makes it illegal to share images of it online? Deemed "Harmful" under the Online "Safety" Act.

2025-09-06 11:13:38 GMT

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Kofi? If you just want to accept tips but I think it’ll do subscriptions too.

2025-09-01 13:07:14 GMT

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I captured this with my Nikon D600 about 10 years ago. The old "continuous shooting mode, hold the shutter button down and hope" approach. I think I filled two SD cards and got ~4 usable images.
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/115/129/189/921/845/438/original/0c742dd848b6c04f.jpg

2025-09-01 13:03:24 GMT

Just ignore the flag people. They will get bored. Dedication and resolve are not in their vocabulary.

2025-08-18 07:40:05 GMT

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“sure everything runs at 1Mbps but at least it works!”

2025-08-18 07:34:51 GMT

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I’m getting a premonition… 🔮 “Labour vows to crack-down on unmonitored ‘self-hosted’ sites” - BBC, June 2027

2025-08-12 22:23:10 GMT

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I think you've pretty much got it yeah :) The "Water Analogy" as it's called only goes so far really.
Amperes, in this situation I'd say is the "flow rate" of the water.
Some people even push this analogy a bit further and suggest that say a water-wheel (that water sets spinning and then has some inertia) could be compared to inductance, or that a stretchy section of pipe could be seen as capacitance too.
Something I found interesting working with our Chinese counterparts in electronics design at work is that they often translate Voltage to "pressure".

2025-08-12 20:44:40 GMT

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looks AI generated itself to me? The long dashes…

2025-08-03 10:39:54 GMT

Absolutely insane that Ofcom is paying influencers to astroturf the #OnlineSafetyAct. I’ll be complaining to their board about this gross misallocation of funds. Ofcom is a regulator, it should not be involved in polishing public perception of the Labour Party’s authoritarian behaviour right now.

2025-08-02 20:20:47 GMT

“Why aren’t the drinks in the fridge cold anymore lately?”
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/114/961/025/740/029/201/original/e58b79e714889ad7.jpeg

2025-07-30 12:57:56 GMT

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for sure, but like, but the broader problem needs attacking. I shouldn't have to do that to listen to music in a civil society. What next? ID checks for books?

2025-07-30 11:48:47 GMT

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what the? What features are they gating behind this?

2025-07-29 08:40:08 GMT

https://bsky.app/profile/kefyor.bsky.social/post/3ltpec6nvv22s
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/114/935/625/031/127/028/original/0059caa035f47bf9.webp

2025-07-27 21:56:56 GMT

Kinda wild when you think about how little power -115dBmW actually is.

2025-07-26 20:26:26 GMT

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How many hundreds of thousands of UK citizens are now having all their internet traffic inspected and monetised by Christ-knows who?
We warned government and Ofcom about this and they ignored us.
They need to face the reality of this, and the consequences.
Tell your MP about this today. https://writetothem.com
#OnlineSafetyAct

2025-07-26 20:24:20 GMT

ProtonVPN has overtaken Yoti (an age verification app) on the Apple App Store free apps chart to move into first place.
Apps at ranks 4, 5 and 6 are all VPNs.
4 and 6 are absolutely sketchy no-name VPNs from “Mobile Jump Pte” and “Free VPN LLC.”
This is fine.
#OnlineSafetyAct
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/114/921/403/247/911/164/original/ed4491154890ace4.jpeg
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/114/921/403/587/905/029/original/4c36d45cc82dcd13.jpeg

2025-07-20 20:06:51 GMT

https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/114/887/358/930/524/556/original/2316f813a5eaa5b2.jpg

2025-07-14 09:14:33 GMT

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also some amusing URL enumeration fun to be had with those URLs... The image name doesn't matter, just the ID.

2025-07-06 16:59:26 GMT

So... anybody know much about vinyl cutters? Kinda tempted to get one but I don't want to be in a world of proprietary shit (looking at you Silhouette/Cricut etc). Is it worth buying an ancient (Roland CX/GX series) one on eBay for £50 and a just using USB-Serial and firing HPGL at it? Or are there better options?

2025-06-30 19:21:45 GMT

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I think in many cases you’re right. In this case there’s certainly an element of privilege and class warfare; if not a more sinister drive to cull the smaller, less controllable parts of the Internet in favour of centralised, Americanised megasites.

2025-06-30 18:22:10 GMT

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I think it's a broader problem with our system of government & legislation.
The problem is the one way communication path between people who are knowledgeable about what is sensible/possible (*actual* industry experts, engineers, academics, researchers and Ofcom - I think) and people who do not have a clue and write laws that sound good or put themselves or their relatives in favourable financial positions (MPs, Lords).
There needs to be a path where group A turn around to group B and say "no, that's bonkers, it's not going to work - go back to the drawing board". That path (as far as I know) does not exist, or in this case failed to work properly.

2025-06-30 18:14:09 GMT

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don't worry, there's video evidence of named Ofcom spokespeople hand-waving away my very direct questions around this. I'm sure nothing can go wrong.

2025-06-30 12:44:04 GMT

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I saw they added a "lock spending" option in the app a few months ago. Wonder if that's why...

2025-06-30 12:42:31 GMT

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that's actually nuts... I didn't know that.

2025-06-26 19:13:03 GMT

how it feels to come back to a programming project after a few months
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/114/751/248/632/489/654/original/2408c6b9720b9107.png

2025-06-26 09:18:00 GMT

Thanks, dogs. Thanks.
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/114/748/914/130/894/785/original/da6cf1e39ea7afa8.jpeg

2025-06-23 19:46:36 GMT

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is that one of those pre-connected ones that you can’t separate the indoor and outdoor units?

2025-06-21 18:28:52 GMT

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2G is sticking around for most networks in the UK afaik? At least for now.

2025-06-21 18:13:45 GMT

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no 2G fallback? :(

2025-06-20 20:25:17 GMT

Bad: "Maybe later" consent-violating popups.
Worse: no option at all other than the OS close button.
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/114/717/559/017/675/465/original/8dd71b675e81f57c.png

2025-06-17 21:07:29 GMT

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same for lots of stuff like that. Moneymaking schemes that drive up the cost and slow down the adoption of tech. REFCOM/F-Gas is quite similar.

2025-06-13 10:30:01 GMT

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also "here's a screenshot of the issue" - 📎 pptx or docx file with single image of screenshot in it, randomly placed on the slide/page.

2025-06-13 10:29:04 GMT

boomers, I beg you, please stop having email signatures with 10 images in them.

2025-05-29 11:32:32 GMT

I love embedded development because it really reminds me how fucked vibe coders would be with this stuff...

2025-05-19 16:38:42 GMT

look what they did to monopoly
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/114/535/477/546/469/918/original/c48c0eb268859323.png

2025-05-11 22:55:45 GMT

my whole evening culminated in drawing a circle, basically
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/114/491/662/421/340/999/original/413bc89cee5baecc.png

2025-05-10 09:50:52 GMT

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not just bandwidth egress too. You find a lot of services have strange fees for things like this exporting in a downloadable format. See RDS: exporting tables to parquet format is charged at $0.012/GB *processed*. That’s before you’ve downloaded it from S3…

2025-05-05 21:01:59 GMT

Ermmmm... yeah I think something's missing mate...
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/114/457/231/973/193/722/original/ab19a0158d381f7e.jpg
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/114/457/232/235/406/541/original/249298a23796e3c1.png

2025-04-07 14:54:49 GMT

*literally any music video on YouTube*
“anyone here in 2025?”

2025-04-03 18:39:42 GMT

Leaving this in the guest bedroom bedside drawers like it’s a Gideons’ Bible.
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/114/275/488/732/789/863/original/2963f1ab4f3f8b4e.jpeg

2025-03-28 16:52:34 GMT

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I have not tried tinkertube so I couldn’t speak for that ^

2025-03-28 14:25:55 GMT

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every single one of the alternatives I’ve ever looked at have been infested by right-wing/conspiracy nuts or crypto shills for some reason. Odysee certainly is/was.

2025-03-06 20:20:56 GMT

Matrix has kinda fucked me off lately. I want to like it. I want to use it. But it’s just so damn flaky.

2025-03-06 12:02:57 GMT

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though I do wonder why they don't watch the flow-control lines? I am too young to know the details of old serial printers but I'd expect they would have asserted CTS when they are ready for more data? Hm.

2025-03-06 11:58:21 GMT

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heh. yeah I think the baud rate is totally irrelevant here - the slowness is governed almost entirely by the delays between sections of the PCL data being sent. I guess those delays were just decided empirically based on the two supported types of printer (Epson FX-80 and HP LasterJet III).
Indeed, 19200 is the fastest supported rate for the serial port on that test set!

2025-03-06 11:50:46 GMT

Update on last night's experiments though (it wasn't exciting enough to justify a blog post) - extracting screenshots from the test set using the "Print to Serial Port" option is... not feasible.
It takes at least 2 minutes to transfer the 40k of PCL data at the maximum 19200 baud. Mainly because the test set waits ~5 seconds between bursts of data (I guess because normally a printer with a small buffer and slow drain rate would be on the other end!)
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/114/115/334/667/415/284/original/ba09405eac8cb4c1.png

2025-03-06 11:46:48 GMT

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:blobfoxheart:

2025-03-06 11:44:25 GMT

ok here we go we are LOCKED THE FUCK IN. no more furry trash shorts for me.

2025-02-27 11:21:42 GMT

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Google: "Is your app for adults?"
Me: "No? It's suitable for anybody."
Google: "Oh so it's for kids then? Answer these 25 questions about how you protect kids in your business-focussed app."
Me: "Okay then, yes, it's for adults."
Google: "OH SO IT'S A PORN APP THEN... Answer these 50 questions."
:blobfoxangry:

2025-02-27 11:20:03 GMT

Here we go again...
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/114/075/577/661/033/506/original/f8a46a37f49dea65.png

2025-02-26 17:31:09 GMT

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a very good point made on Reddit...
Leave the platform where you have the biggest following?
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/114/071/372/482/540/035/original/b97cb0b43c8d4712.png

2025-02-19 11:55:39 GMT

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political changes, technological changes, or... other kinds of changes. who cares?

2025-02-16 15:41:51 GMT

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the main reason I swapped to Tado°. Nest was so painful to work with :(

2025-02-05 11:21:08 GMT

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This will not fuck off though. There is literally no way to "dismiss" it without turning "Image Creation Tools" On and back off again.
The assumption that everybody wants this is so fucking insulting.
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/113/951/010/936/416/924/original/ffc8891b3e2e497b.png

2025-02-05 11:20:12 GMT

Oh lovely, "Apple Intelligence" enabled itself automatically after updating to macOS 15.3.
Never disabled something so fast in my life.

2025-01-30 23:40:44 GMT

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used to be pretty common here to have no neutral (blue in the EU/UK, white in the US) at lightswitches. Just an in and out.

2025-01-30 23:21:29 GMT

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I think Wi-Fi neutral-less switches are pretty unusual because of the power they require. Might be wrong about that but most neutral-free options I find are Zigbee or Z-Wave or some other low-power radio.
Might be easier to grab a Zigbee dongle and just bite the bullet with a Zigbee network. The nice thing about it is you can get switches that will run from a coin cell for 2 years+ with zero mains wiring.

2025-01-25 18:20:06 GMT

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https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/113/890/371/492/644/565/original/73b9c445cbbce614.jpg

2025-01-25 18:11:31 GMT

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Where I have found it useful is for HTML and CSS. Visual stuff. Because you can instantly validate it as correct or incorrect. There's very little chance of subtle bugs. Very little chance of semantic errors (you'd spot them immediately anyway).
So... they made a billion dollar HTML machine... cool.

2025-01-25 18:10:10 GMT

Yeah. Totally given up on Copilot now. At least for the Rust stuff I'm working on, it is totally unusable. It just seems to be *bad* at Rust generally. Maybe because it's a *comparatively* new language for which there is less content out there to train on steal.
Combine with the unfamiliar/unpopular domain I'm working with (TETRA protocol stuff), the propensity for it to hallucinate absolute horseshit is far too high. Everything it generates is either wrong from a language semantics perspective or wrong from a domain perspective.

2025-01-23 19:15:00 GMT

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I feel like “beside” (no S) and “next to” are the same?
A is next to B
A is beside B
Beside*s* (with an S) is a strange and annoying preposition that I don’t feel I often use.
I feel like it’s super tough to describe prepositions like that :blobfox0_0: One of those where just hearing/reading it used and pattern matching the places where it is and isn’t valid is probably better.

2025-01-22 22:54:58 GMT

I miss Stargate.

2025-01-15 20:05:32 GMT

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more generally, can companies just like, shut the fuck up about politics? It’s exhausting tracking who is a shitbag and who isn’t. Not saying I’d rather live in blissful ignorance like… but damn…

2025-01-12 12:53:27 GMT

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"no, the soldiers are canonically murderous agents of a brutal mortal lottery, they shouldn't appear alongside a smiling friendly lady delivering a takeaway"
... "actually fuck it, money"

2025-01-12 12:39:51 GMT

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like, what even is capitalism anymore? everything is just reduced to meaningless slop to sell unrelated widgets to people
https://furry.engineer/system/media_attachments/files/113/815/415/057/329/043/original/f1ba3f55eb96bf9d.png

2025-01-12 12:35:28 GMT

thinking about the JustEat billboard I saw where the soldiers from "Squid Game" are delivering your takeaway and how like... off-message... that is

2025-01-10 14:02:03 GMT

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how about just being decent fucking human beings? The fuck is wrong with you?

2025-01-06 13:50:38 GMT

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that would be awesome. also there are so many talented furries, pretty sure with 100 of us you could fix and maintain any given thing.

2025-01-06 10:49:15 GMT

X rules? No it doesn’t.

2025-01-05 21:17:16 GMT

AI just makes everything look cheap and nasty. That’s genuinely my main gripe with it. If I visit your website and it’s full of AI images and AI slop blurb, I’m done. It’s obvious to me that you don’t give a shit. It’s like a rude careless salesperson.

2024-12-30 16:55:48 GMT

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Am I just being dumb? Why do you need to protect against data races in a single thread? What is the point of this?

2024-12-30 16:45:14 GMT

Okay, time for some Rust negativity again. Reading Chapter 15… it’s slightly galling reading the absolute tangles of Rc<T> and RefCell<T> being proposed to accomplish what is in reality a fairly common use case/requirement.
https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ch15-05-interior-mutability.html#having-multiple-owners-of-mutable-data-by-combining-rct-and-refcellt
Does anybody look at this and say “yeah, that’s normal, that’s a sensible way for that to work”? Feels like an ugly mess to me.

2024-12-23 11:16:18 GMT

I will say, I do like languages that have very expressive type systems (like TypeScript, and… grumble… Rust) because you can describe a ton of your application domain before you even write any actual runnable code.
Since I first started working in software, one of the first things I do on a new project is draw an EER diagram. The next step is to formalise that in code, be it with database migrations, structure definitions, etc.

2024-12-22 21:58:01 GMT

Anybody know a good place to buy actually-decent new ThinkPad (T480) batteries from? (UK)

2024-12-22 14:06:40 GMT

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I respect the GDPR and its aims more than this piece of shit.