mhoye

Working my way through Linkers & Loaders, I’m reminded that the architecture PDP-11 has much the same place in the software pantheon that Freud has in psychology - it’s a good story, and because its so easy to retell it’s become a part of the Lingua Franca metaphor set of the common parlance, but despite those tropes’ durability they have very little to do with the real state of the art in modern research and practice, and the field abandoned those ideas a very long ago.

2026-11-09 17:08:30 GMT

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The rare stories from the world of serious full time spooks that make it out to street level are incredible. Travelling withf faraday-cage blackout tents to unpack in hotel rooms, because every room is being recorded all the time and tempest shielding isn't good enough. Phones that get an software update nobody else does. That glass of wine has more booze in it than you think. Every charming, pretty person you meet works for the other team. The full court press on every axis all the time.

2026-11-09 16:30:11 GMT

One of the things that used to be standard practice at an old job was that when an Important Person went to Certain Countries, they get a new phone and a new laptop and both of them contained a carefully vetted set of exactly and only what they needed for that trip and nothing else at all.
When they got back somebody with no sense of humor whatsoever met them at the airport, took those devices away and destroyed them off site.
That was just what the trip cost, the price of the ticket.

2026-11-09 00:52:56 GMT

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"This software is provided AS IS, with the recipient accepting in full and without qualification liability for any consequences of its deployment, particularly in the case of accountability for anyone's legal or human rights alleged to have been violated in the course of that deployment."

2026-11-08 21:10:05 GMT

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Anyway, I think that's got to be the three pillars of the next generation of free software, if we want free software to produce a free society for a free people.
- Software liability at the point of deployment.
- Transparency and legibility, supported by state wherever necessary, in all software deployed by the state for any regulatory capacity, and
- A right to traceability, accountability and appeal in any decision made by or mediated through software.

2026-11-08 20:48:12 GMT

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In a legal context, there is an underpinning assumption throughout that people are fallible, corruptible and imperfect, but can nevertheless be held accountable for their decisions. There are mechanisms of accountability, including liability and appeal, throughout. The phrase "exhausted every appeal" comes up a lot.
Classical FOSS actively opposes the existence of any of those ideas. I've said this plenty, but you can't sell a can of soda water in Canada on the same terms we tolerate in FOSS.

2026-11-08 20:25:38 GMT

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I believe that the answer to this involves public policy, transparency and liability.
In a functioning civil democracy, people have to be able to read the text of the laws - that is, the rules, decisions and policies that affect them - and as a matter of course have expertise available to them, often provided by the state gratis, when they need to navigate the sharp edges of those laws. "I would like to speak to a lawyer."
Consider: "I would like to speak to a software analyst."

2026-11-06 17:37:20 GMT

Google news yesterday: Google will turn off search for schools that disable AI, claiming they're too deeply integrated. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/google-will-turn-off-search-for-schools-that-reject-ai/
Google news today: Google is being sued by the parents of a 13-year-old girl who their Gemini chatbot helped to plan her suicide. https://www.commondreams.org/news/google-ai-chatbot-teen-suicide

2026-11-06 15:46:55 GMT

The brisket in here is going to stay in the smoke for another few hours, then it’s back into foil this afternoon and into the oven until dinner tomorrow. Let’s see if it comes out ok.
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/117/570/260/786/832/593/original/cd6ec05820e62534.jpeg

2026-11-05 22:30:02 GMT

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Kennedy, 100%

2026-11-05 22:06:33 GMT

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I think we probably could have figured out a way to spend a trillion dollars on security analysis and fuzzing without destroying the environment and the commons in the process.

2026-11-05 21:27:41 GMT

The work's not close to done, I get it, but the people of the world and the idea of that there's such thing as a society and a common good in sure does seem to be racking up the wins this week.

2026-11-05 16:13:59 GMT

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Respectfully, I think that's an unkind thing to do in the current market, with so much social pressure in the world to feign enthusiasm.

2026-11-05 15:04:22 GMT

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Thanks for coming to my career-limiting ted talk.

2026-11-05 15:01:28 GMT

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How do I feel about routine security disasters from vibe-secured supply chains.
How do I feel about my performance being judged by how much I use tools that routinely lie to my face.
How do I feel about using to systems that strip-mine a commons I played some small part in helping to build just sell a superficial imitation of it back to me a token at a time.
How do I feel about having my career options hinge on my complicity.
How should I feel about any of this.
How should you feel.

2026-11-05 14:57:54 GMT

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How do I feel about companies illegally razing forests. (Google and Gemini)
How do I feel about keeping long-overdue-for-shuttering coal plants operating.
How do I feel about illegally-run methane generators poisoning the air in predominantly black communities.
How do I feel about using systems that occasionally coax children to suicide.
How do I feel about the systematic exploitation of labor in African and South American classifier sweatshops.
How do I feel about this.
How do you feel.

2026-11-05 14:22:37 GMT

The really wretched part about looking for work these days is knowing what AI costs.
It's sitting in interviews with people who think of themselves as progressive, socially and environmentally conscious, who'd never in a thousand years say proudly that this staggering scale of theft, exploitation, pollution and destruction is an acceptable price to pay for toy apps and mediocre prose, that it's all worth it, ask me "how do you feel about using AI?"
How should I feel.
https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/117563412850178430
#note1td3…jsdv

2026-11-05 12:53:17 GMT

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@metacurity/117563890918703974
_Two hundred and thirty six._
I made a joke years ago that there's an unlisted matrix room somewhere in the world where a dozen or so agencies with unlisted names and black budgets from all over the world are quietly collaborating on a timesharing exercise for CPU time on Trump's phone, just to make sure it doesn't heat up the phone or drain the battery enough to notice.
But this is ridiculous.
#note1h54…kgw4

2026-11-04 23:43:25 GMT

My N64 gave up the ghost ages ago, but I've still got a working GameCube here with the Ocarina Of Time Master Quest disc in it, and I'm playing through the Old Testament of the Zelda series an hour at a time with my son now. Maybe we'll pick up the 40th anniversary edition, but between now and then he'll experience The Water Temple as originally intended, from before balanced gameplay and forgiving controls, walking with metal boots through the labyrinthine trials of an angry and spiteful god.

2026-11-04 23:36:20 GMT

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Pickled beets is theologically correct, obviously.

2026-11-04 23:30:19 GMT

RE: https://mastodon.social/@benroyce/117559704643014071
The baffling implication of this joke is that there are people out there whose lives have not yet had shawarma in them.
One of the most important tenets of Shawarma Law is that adherents like myself need to find those people and help them. Like Jehovah's Witnesses but with a lot more garlic.

2026-11-04 19:23:25 GMT

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Hurting a major donor's feelings.

2026-11-04 16:23:39 GMT

If there are no consequences for the damage Republicans have done, the laws they've broken and the whole "naked attempt to supplant democracy with theocratic fascism" thing, then there's no reason whatsoever for them not to come back better funded in a few years and try again.
Representative Jeffries here has decided not to learn the single most important global political lesson of the last fifty years.
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/117/559/047/929/807/177/original/079952afe4253ffc.png

2026-11-04 15:48:10 GMT

I expect that the big push to abolish the Electoral College will now come from Republicans who realize that "Texas flipped blue and Florida is probably next" means that under the Electoral College system there will not be another Republican president in their lifetimes.

2026-11-04 15:43:31 GMT

Glancing at my referrer logs, both genuinely both flattered and mildly startled to learn that people are making hot sauce with a recipe I created.

2026-11-04 05:10:38 GMT

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ah, he's back. Alas.

2026-11-04 05:09:23 GMT

so in texas if everything's bigger do they issue subpoenas on like those big cardboard novelty cheques in game shows, because I think they should

2026-11-04 05:01:21 GMT

Wild that Trump and Musk both own entire social networks that neither of them have touched in hours.

2026-11-04 00:40:20 GMT

Ok, I laughed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibbJTGtDbfc

2026-11-03 21:38:22 GMT

"Bloodless trust fund brunchlords" is a great phrase. https://karlbode.com/the-new-york-times-is-simply-not-a-credible-newspaper/

2026-11-03 20:21:21 GMT

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Very specifically, yes.

2026-11-03 18:52:15 GMT

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The Huge Tell for me has been things like "dubai chocolate" and nonsense like sponsoring Mr. Beast or promoting it as a tourist location. There's absolutely no reason you'd ever bother caring about Dubai as a brand or cultural destination if the writing wasn't already on the wall.

2026-11-03 18:48:22 GMT

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R&R, it's true.

2026-11-03 18:31:48 GMT

My prediction is that we're going to see a lot of these in the next decade.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/10/261031013035.htm

2026-11-03 17:22:10 GMT

RE: https://beige.party/@gildilinie/117553615804141099
"letter-ampsersand-letter" is a very strangely populated sparse matrix. We've got bed-and-breakfasts, a music factory, a mediocre fast food chain over there on the right, a fantasy board game, it's all over the place.
#note1e2e…d98s

2026-11-03 17:17:51 GMT

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The only real story of Effective Accelerationism is that their shitty takes age badly in hours, not months.

2026-11-03 17:16:12 GMT

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The reason all of this continues to be interesting to me is that solar power fundamentally changes the power dynamics of the state.
The classic definition of The State is an organization with a monopoly on the use of violence within its borders. A societal dependency on supply chains - the power grid, the oil industry - that can be cut off at will is one of and maybe the foremost levers of that violence, more so than police or the military.
Solar+batteries changes that entire relationship.

2026-11-03 17:05:48 GMT

Friday night versus Monday morning.
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/117/553/590/300/095/689/original/0862ae1fe9588451.png

2026-11-03 16:43:47 GMT

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People championing nuclear are also lost in the weeds. Nuclear energy costs between $0.45 and $0.60 per kilowatt-hour, and that's only in fuel costs; it doesn't include the cost $5b-$10b best case for a five-year-minimum reactor buildout.
If you want the $0.08 to $0.15 energy solar provides, you can have huge installations for a few million in months, and home installations for thousands in weeks.
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power
https://solarcalculatorcanada.org/solar-panel-cost-canada
https://liberalandlovingit.substack.com/p/cost-analysis-of-a-nuclear-power

2026-11-03 16:29:05 GMT

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There's no substitute for leaving the carbon in the ground, but massive reforestation efforts are the next best game in town.

2026-11-03 16:24:58 GMT

"Carbon capture" is clearly nonsense. Solar is clearly not.
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/117/553/431/733/113/932/original/e1589ecfd3282be8.png

2026-11-03 14:53:30 GMT

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The Chupacabras mythos is is about a decade older, late 90s. Now that I look at it, the Chupacabra might be the last significant pre-internet, pre-cameraphone cryptid? The Fresno Nightcrawler dates to 2007, but "haunted pants" make for thin mythological gruel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno_nightcrawler

2026-11-03 14:26:39 GMT

RE: https://mastodon.social/@jplebreton/117552962323152542
Definitely liking the idea of "digital cryptids", lurking in places like Miro, Jira or Confluence, ready to emerge from cursed spreadsheets or badly transcoded old videos at any moment.

2026-11-03 14:07:43 GMT

Lazyweb, an idle question: have there have been any new cryptids introduced to the common culture in the last 20 years or so?

2026-11-03 13:03:29 GMT

"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all."
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1695/1695-h/1695-h.htm
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/117/552/637/522/490/566/original/fd05ef939bc005df.png

2026-11-02 23:41:06 GMT

Reading the Jepsen analysis of ParticleDB is like watching a vivisection, and autopsy that happens to also be a murder.
https://jepsen.io/analyses/particledb-1.1.4

2026-11-02 21:43:28 GMT

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So... it looks like the common wisdom here is "it's fine as long as you ramp up slowly". This is certainly the first time I've ever had this problem, and I've been using cast iron on my induction top for a while.

2026-11-02 21:24:31 GMT

Well, this is a new one for me. A few seconds on an induction cooktop turned up, then two loud cracks and this.
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/117/548/909/949/960/462/original/bbefe0f036676fc3.jpeg

2026-11-02 02:12:36 GMT

The crossover nobody asked for but everybody needed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYxIlKiqh38

2026-11-01 21:27:27 GMT

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when you say “a few minutes”, do you mean cumulative physical effort, mental burden or wall clock time?

2026-11-01 18:04:07 GMT

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Regular Costco would sell you a box of six regular sized terriers. At Business Costco you’d have the choice of either four hundred dachshunds or a bear.

2026-11-01 17:32:03 GMT

RE: https://mathstodon.xyz/@pozorvlak/117541731058952094
This is brilliant.
Particularly because that baseline is probably implemented already.
#note13aa…7yrr

2026-11-01 15:40:20 GMT

If this whole exercise had run the other way around - if somebody had suddenly demonstrated that you didn’t need to use hundreds of thousands of processors, terabytes of ram and terawatts of power to produce uncertainty and nondeterministic results, that you could create programs that ran on tiny single core machines that barely sipped watts to produce precise, deterministic results, that discovery would be hailed as one of the greatest engineering and scientific marvels of human history.

2026-11-01 14:05:38 GMT

Proposal: chaotic time zones but always moving backwards. Spring backward. Fall backward. Summer: backwards. Some number between one and five. We all just randomly get a few extra hours of sleep ever few weeks. Winter? That's right, backwards.

2026-11-01 01:39:03 GMT

RE: https://mastodon.social/@tubetime/117538390940690319
omg this thread

2026-10-31 22:29:29 GMT

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are they gkuten free

2026-10-31 22:25:19 GMT

Doing a Los Muertos crossover event here with Halloween tacos.
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/117/537/863/854/604/764/original/476b0bf339bb0958.jpeg

2026-10-31 20:20:57 GMT

Kind of amazing how many people think "where else am I going to park" is a permission slip to leave their SUV in the bike lane.

2026-10-31 18:34:09 GMT

Time for a bike ride IMO.

2026-10-31 17:48:40 GMT

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The number of webdevs in this world buy a new macbook every time Craig Federighi gets near a microphone and then say the "the web is fine on my machine" is too god damn high.

2026-10-31 17:43:15 GMT

RE: https://flaki.social/@flaki/117536748497863970
The fact of it is that we live in a world where the mood swings of a ketamine-addled narcissist are a national security issue for more than a few countries.
#note1f50…4f6j

2026-10-31 17:40:07 GMT

Whenever the tech news says "new macbooks omg so much faster", my brain hears "web about to get slower again."

2026-10-31 15:48:46 GMT

I think people don’t fully understand that basically every company out there ignores “we will go somewhere else If you don’t do X” now, because the number of people who follow through on that is a tiny fraction of the number of people saying it.
You have to either do it or don’t, but the talk doesn’t matter.

2026-10-31 15:35:15 GMT

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there’s not enough alcohol in the world.

2026-10-31 15:04:18 GMT

RE: https://mastodon.social/@glyph/117525567840003054
sir your name is gleyephuh

2026-10-31 14:54:08 GMT

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Something something invisible hand Pareto optimal allocation of resources something something.

2026-10-31 14:52:24 GMT

If anyone in east York has any gardening soil needs, the woodbine valu mart has a bin full of potting soil out back that’s all still in bags.
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/117/536/082/775/944/693/original/1acaa322a8222f1c.jpeg

2026-10-31 14:22:30 GMT

I’ve gotta tell you, sparring practice during the week of Halloween is kind of awkward. I’m not a religious man, you understand, but if the day comes that I have to stand before St. Peter and answer for what I’ve done I definitely don’t want the first thing I hear to be “oh, you’re the guy who threw hands with a kid wearing cat ears and butterfly wings, we’ve been waiting for you.”

2026-10-31 14:11:59 GMT

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Methodical.

2026-10-31 13:55:07 GMT

Need an addon that changes this text to "maybe that's enough internet for now."
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/117/535/857/571/216/021/original/b289244fca82904c.png

2026-10-31 13:26:11 GMT

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But the other thing is... the thing that makes chatbots so seductive, the mechanism, is the same thing that lets us connect with others, and engage with the world: it's our empathy. Chatbots hijack the same reason we have feelings for dogs or cats or a backhoe someone glued googly eyes onto. So, if we want a real harm reduction strategy for AI psychosis, we need to meet people's needs for social connection some other way.
I think we need to get back to building community centres.

2026-10-31 13:23:17 GMT

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I strongly suspect two things. One is that - like cybersecurity training - "chatbot training" would quickly become more of a line-item exercise in shifting blame than harm reduction. These days we do that training because it got encoded into laws or written on insurance coverage checklists, not because it works worth a damn.

2026-10-31 12:26:15 GMT

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This is a great shot; this would be an amazing location to shoot the next Torontohenge.

2026-10-31 11:43:13 GMT

RE: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/117535097309905304
"Resources would be more efficiently used in a single common ownership model" says billionaire with well-thought-out political position.
#note1hum…unjs

2026-10-31 11:06:28 GMT

RE: https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:o72ypk5c474zqklkukaphuy3/post/3mz4msxagtc24
🎵🎶🎵🎶🎶🎵 you can’t stop this 🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵you can’t stop this 🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎶🎵🎵🎶
#note1fpz…97r2

2026-10-31 04:01:45 GMT

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knowing how anything works is 2024 thinking, why would he need to understand how a system works if he can just rebuild it with ai?

2026-10-31 03:42:53 GMT

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So uh apparently the list of things we need to be Aware of in November is:
- Lung cancer
- Stomach cancer
- Pancreatic cancer
- Pulmonary hypertension
- Alzheimers'
- COPD
- Epilepsy, and
- Manatee
and if any of those are going to go as hard as cybersecurity has gone this month can we all agree to pick manatee? I don't know how the monkey's paw is going to curl on this one but please just be manatees. I'll be aware of manatees every damn day. I'll be happy to do it.
https://savethemanatee.org/a-history-of-manatee-awareness-month/

2026-10-31 03:33:32 GMT

RE: https://mastodon.social/@Meyerweb/117533017221348391
We're gonna need to bookmark this one for later.

2026-10-31 03:30:32 GMT

For the record I think that with about 24 hours of Cybersecurity Awareness Month left, at this point I'm sufficiently aware of cybersecurity.
I don't think any further cybersecurity awareness is necessary.
This is plenty, you know? More than plenty. I get it. Awareness confirmed. We're good.

2026-10-31 02:57:49 GMT

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Yeah.
This happens - it only happens, really - when an executive's career is on the line. And it's a sign that the organization has stopped prioritizing service restoration and started looking for a scapegoat. So if you're an ops team lead, it's a sign that you also need to stop prioritizing that restoration and start thinking about protecting yourself and your team, because guaranteed the company has stopped thinking about protecting you.

2026-10-31 02:34:59 GMT

My friend also mentioned a bit of veteran professional advice for the young ops team member some of you may need: The moment a lawyer who does not and cannot contribute anything starts - somehow, mysteriously - joining your incident calls, they're there specifically and only so that conversation is sheltered from regulatory scrutiny by attorney-client privilege. And that means shit is way, way worse you realize and you need to start thinking about protecting yourself.
https://mastodon.social/@oration/117533008158449710

2026-10-31 02:23:16 GMT

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2026-10-31 02:06:29 GMT

Agriculture $200B
Health care $150B
Military $800
Chatbots $3,600B
Utilities $150B
someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my country is dying

2026-10-31 00:18:18 GMT

RE: https://xoxo.zone/@Ashedryden/117529420092750765
A thing I can tell you with some confidence, as a person who has organized and participated in more than a few of these things over the years, is this: everybdoy already has a water bottle.
Everybody has shirts. Nobody will wear the shirt a month after the conference. The number of people in this world who need another lanyard is zero. One or two good stickers are plenty.
Spend that budget on something people won't have if you don't spend it on those people.
I have so many water bottles.
#note1jxe…en6m

2026-10-30 23:50:35 GMT

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Yeah, the line dates to a time when there was a presumption of competence, and the idea was that the law mattered.

2026-10-30 23:35:17 GMT

The old line was that people think the government is your enemy until the day you really need a friend.
https://newsthump.com/2026/10/30/man-who-wanted-his-money-outside-the-reach-of-traditional-authorities-now-pretty-keen-for-traditional-authorities-to-get-it-back/

2026-10-30 22:56:34 GMT

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You're going to need to be a little more specific.

2026-10-30 22:31:51 GMT

RE: https://scholar.social/@researchfairy/117532213787969321
"Nothing is ever allowed to take modify or surrender focus until five seconds after I've stopped typing, ever" is the number one nonexistent, OS level feature I want from modern computing.

2026-10-30 22:21:21 GMT

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A few minutes later they passed $14,000,000 lifetime donations: https://kind.social/@desertbus/117531125758667727

2026-10-30 22:18:27 GMT

RE: https://kind.social/@desertbus/117530936065952803
In their inaugural year, the Desert Bus For Hope raised just under $23,000 for the Child's Play charity.
In this year's event, they just broke a million dollars.

2026-10-30 22:07:58 GMT

why do I feel so unfulfilled
computer do a creativity
wow that looks just like a creativity
people don't think it's a creativity, but it looks like a creativity
computer do another creativity do creativity more
i used to like that one game, computer make it more like that game
wow that looks just like a creativity and like that game almost
computer do a creativity ore
I made the computer do a creativity, i did a creativity
why do I feel so unfulfilled
computer do a creativity

2026-10-30 21:43:33 GMT

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Both!?!

2026-10-30 21:32:52 GMT

RE: https://mastodon.scot/@kim_harding/117531162568683916
RAM as scrip wasn’t on my radar but it’s the obvious next step.
#note1t2x…mjx0

2026-10-30 19:33:24 GMT

Just saw someone loudly proclaim "BONKWAVE > DONKWAVE" , and....
Look, you know you've got genre homework ahead of you when you look up some music term you've never heard of and find an argument that it's _way, way better_ than this _other_, music genre you've never heard of.
Much gratitude to [@ErickaSimone](https://mastodon.social/@ErickaSimone ) for periodically reminding us that we are actually living in a miraculous golden age of music that's bigger and weirder than you think.
Anyway here you go: https://music.bonkwave.org/the-four-seasons-of-bonkwave-autumn-waves-3/

2026-10-30 19:19:02 GMT

I love biking through the city so much.

2026-10-30 18:45:25 GMT

Ever had that feeling in your stomach you get when you’re trying to root-cause-and-restore some outage and find out that the backups for your failed service are on the same physical strata as the service itself?
Well, funny story but Binance’s emergency fund seems to also be held in cryptocurrencies.

2026-10-30 15:15:45 GMT

What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness, and say to you, "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence, and it’s also always cybersecurity awareness month for some reason.

2026-10-30 14:47:21 GMT

RE: https://cosocial.ca/@mhoye/117128013778871216
Another place that the computing ecosystem needs a cooldown window is the tool-addons space. Browser and developer-environment extensions carry the same risks and need the same mitigations.
#note1wq0…lfx0