Tilton Raccoon

Raccoon from the Seattle area. Greymuzzle, but young at heart. I live in the woods and melt metal. Recovering software engineer.

Homepage: https://tiltonraccoon.com
Pronouns: He/Him
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Location: Kitsap County, Washington, USA

Public Key

npub1tnp2pxg63x6spds6wlxdclans9nvnj830xmsuew8nszxf82phwcqlllr0f

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs9es4qnydgndgqkcd80nxu07eczekferchndcwvhrecpryn4qmhvqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsjstktm

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1tnp2pxg63x6spds6wlxdclans9nvnj830xmsuew8nszxf82phwcqlllr0f

Show more details

Last Notes

2026-05-12 22:13:37 GMT

- reply

One of the letters I found with my aunt's stuff was a letter from my grand-uncle, addressed to my grandmother, consoling her when her mother (and his sister) died. His handwriting is incredible and distinctive, and this kind of thing really brings family history to life.
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/116/563/895/713/851/398/original/4416ad80f3b3cdc8.jpg

2026-05-12 04:30:39 GMT

My aunt sent me a bunch of cool family history that includes a small stack of letters my grandmother saved, but I’m experiencing culture shock because they are all addressed to “Mrs. [My grandfather’s full name]”. I know that’s just how they did things back then but it sure feels weird now.

2026-03-31 22:49:38 GMT

- reply

An IRC-like chat environment is absolutely the worst place to post questions. I don't want to scroll back ten thousand pages to find the answer to a question! Just put it on the web!

2026-03-31 22:43:28 GMT

GOD I miss web forums. I miss you so much phpBB, I wish you were back in vogue.

2026-01-15 22:11:45 GMT

- reply

There is actually a large nuclear industry very local to me. Unfortunately, it’s the US Navy. I think they’re the largest employer in our county by far.

2026-01-15 20:15:29 GMT

Genuine question for people who may have done this kind of thing before: I need to figure out how to get out of tech this year. I don’t want to do anything rash, so I’d like to talk to a life coach or career coach or maybe a therapist (do they do this kind of thing??) Any advice?

2026-01-09 22:26:48 GMT

The thing I miss most about the 1990s is the feeling of optimism. It wasn't universal of course! Plenty of terrible shit was going on in the 1990s, but here in the US we were extremely privileged and genuinely feeling like all the biggest problems in the world were solved, just some loose ends to work out and the 21st century was going to look SO bright!
Were we naive and dumb? Hell yes, of course! But it was an intoxicating feeling, naive or not.

2025-12-26 18:46:57 GMT

- reply

Definitely need more practice! I think I had my amperage set too low, too. I was toward the low end of the range, and now that I’ve done more research, I probably want to practice around the high end of the range.

2025-12-26 03:05:40 GMT

I tried stick welding for the first time tonight, using E6011 rod. Oh my god, I see why people say it's difficult. Getting the arc started with a brand new rod was impossible for me, I just kept sticking it no matter how light and quick my touch was. Eventually the end of the rod was worn down enough that it became pretty easy to strike an arc, but after I burned through the first rod and started a new rod, I had the exact same problem. It's tricky! Respect to stick welders.

2025-12-21 22:58:46 GMT

- reply

My big chunky work truck I that I use to occasionally haul things seems to go about 5.5 km per liter. I’m so grateful it’s not my primary mode of transportation 😬

2025-12-21 20:45:57 GMT

- reply

(I know about Robertson screws, it’s just that T25 are SO much easier to find here)

2025-12-21 20:43:24 GMT

https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/115/759/500/544/932/279/original/f074eeaa460c0d2c.jpeg

2025-11-29 20:07:38 GMT

This has GOT to be Wisconsin, right? Opening day of hunting season? I can think of nothing more upper Midwest than this.
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/115/634/789/076/563/207/original/eecc62d5bdc9479d.jpeg

2025-11-28 16:26:48 GMT

- reply

It’s one of those rubber squishy flat containers characters would put on their heads when sick. I remember them from Looney Tunes and such.

2025-11-28 16:18:46 GMT

- reply

Wow, interesting results so far. I know about hot water bottles from cartoons, but I’ve never known anyone to own one in real life (US here). Electric heating pads seem to be the norm here.

2025-11-17 17:26:51 GMT

Ever wonder why the "vi" editor uses H, J, K, and L keys for cursor navigation, and why Unix shells traditionally use "~" as an alias for the home directory?
The ADM-3A terminal was a very popular and inexpensive Unix terminal in the 1970s. Notice where the arrow keys are, and where the "~" key is? It influenced a lot!
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/115/566/198/829/587/916/original/5be9d0774bb63316.png

2025-11-17 02:35:36 GMT

Ooooh, Peter Thiel’s hedge fund just sold 537,000 shares of NVidia, completely exiting the stock. That was almost 40% of the fund’s portfolio, according to The Street. Rats are fleeing the bubble.
https://www.thestreet.com/investing/peter-thiel-dumps-top-ai-stock-stirring-bubble-fears

2025-11-06 17:08:12 GMT

Humanoid robots are such a waste of engineering effort. Just totally shameful. Make them stable, they don't need to walk on two legs, we don't need to mimic nature! Get creative! Focus on useful arm configurations! Make them fuzzy and cute, so you WANT to interact with them! Oh wait, I forgot, tech can't be creative any more, it can only be smooth-brained.

2025-10-15 04:08:21 GMT

Watching foreigners try root beer and be repulsed by it is fun, but I want to make foreigners try Moxie. Most Americans don’t even like Moxie! Me, I love the stuff, but half my family is from Maine so I have an excuse.
Speaking of which, I need to find a source for Moxie, it’s so hard to find here.

2025-10-10 04:52:43 GMT

I learned the correct Nahuatl pronunciation of “axolotl” the other day and my world is shook.
https://youtube.com/shorts/d79EBJYJbuA

2025-10-08 22:06:02 GMT

The government exists in part to spend money on useful and beneficial services for its citizens that would otherwise not be profitable, change my mind

2025-10-03 17:22:22 GMT

The financial press is starting to ask fifth grade level questions. It’s a miracle!
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/115/311/387/482/570/706/original/e79e462431059513.jpeg

2025-09-27 19:25:03 GMT

- reply

I think we all know the answer to this one!

2025-09-23 15:20:27 GMT

If you want to live in the UK, you should speak Welsh. That’s common sense.

2025-09-23 13:06:25 GMT

Someone I know locally who does HVAC repair got turned away from a scheduled job yesterday because “the rapture is happening tomorrow and there’s no point in fixing it now”. I honestly thought that stuff was made up, and hearing about it happening for real, especially in my neck of the woods, is surreal.

2025-09-19 18:44:04 GMT

- reply

We’re going to have to use UUIDs for cons so they’re not susceptible to enumeration attacks

2025-09-15 21:08:05 GMT

Fuckin’ hot… “Toward a Cohesive Cherokee Typography”. Developments in the Cherokee syllabary in 2025!
https://www.typotheque.com/articles/towards-a-cohesive-cherokee-typography

2025-09-15 02:05:58 GMT

I think many people need to spend a lot more time offline.

2025-09-14 18:17:58 GMT

Wait wait wait…
Oracle has a 427% debt to equity ratio? Because they’ve been borrowing money to build data centers for AI???
Good lord what a clusterfuck.

2025-09-05 14:34:47 GMT

Why don’t they ever show James Bond regenerating when they change actors, why is it always off-screen???

2025-09-02 23:38:48 GMT

Hey does anyone have any favorite resources for learning about how to work on cars? I don't want to learn to rebuild an engine (not yet anyway!) but I'd love to know how to take care of an older vehicle in general, and how to identify faults that need a mechanic with experience. I hear terms like "sway bar" and "bushings" and I have no idea what they even are, but I want to know.
Some YouTube channels for beginners would be fantastic, if you know any!

2025-08-26 14:54:12 GMT

Somehow I ended up watching videos about how to wear a great kilt last night, and now I want a great kilt. They are gosh darn cool. A kilt, a cloak, a hood, all in one, so versatile! I’d just need to find a tartan that’s not any kind of family tartan, because regrettably, I have no Scottish ancestry that I am aware of.

2025-08-22 15:21:09 GMT

Free lawn care Friday
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/115/073/091/306/553/414/original/c9e25b1f2b517dd3.mp4

2025-08-20 19:53:18 GMT

Inshallah, let it be true 🙏
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/115/062/839/365/543/125/original/0457da02b0e01119.jpeg

2025-08-20 02:09:58 GMT

- reply

Seriously, the state of the Internet is so bad that I genuinely miss the Yellow Pages. From 2005 to 2023, I didn't miss the Yellow Pages, who would?? But now, I miss the Yellow Pages. Real businesses! In your town! That do real things! WHAT A CRAZY CONCEPT!

2025-08-20 02:08:53 GMT

- reply

Compounding the frustration is that Yelp, Google, and Facebook are all completely useless for finding a foundation repair company in my area. I've searched for a full 30 minutes and not found anyone, just a bunch of generic domains like "<YourTownHere>foundationrepairllc.com" that redirects to a parking web page full of SEO slop, which may or may not lead back to a real company that may or may not actually do business here? Not clear. Just give me the Yellow Pages please.

2025-08-20 01:43:55 GMT

“I wonder how much this foundation crack will cost” is the best part of being a home owner.

2025-08-18 18:08:16 GMT

I’ve started replacing CDs I’ve lost over the years, as well as buying new ones, and I really need to get a media storage shelf of some kind. It feels like 1993 all over again.
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/115/051/101/581/461/649/original/42b5d8bfeace4239.jpeg

2025-08-04 12:20:25 GMT

- reply

It’s a local airport, for local people.

2025-07-29 01:39:39 GMT

I may be an American, but I will never spell grey with an a. It just looks wrong!

2025-07-26 17:24:47 GMT

- reply

God bless Scotland

2025-07-22 23:06:18 GMT

I got my Meshtastic gear today! But, just as I feared, standing outside with a 4 dBi antenna finds no other nodes. I will try to build or buy an 8 dBi antenna, but I doubt even that will find anyone. Hey, someone has to be the first node in the area, right?

2025-07-15 22:43:53 GMT

The hottest thing in local Seattle politics is the city's war on Saint Rat / Hot Rat Summer, a mosaic that someone put up (without permission) on the old pumphouse in Cal Anderson Park last year. Recently, city workers have been painting over the mosaic, and good citizens have been cleaning off the mosaic to restore it when they do so. It is a fierce battle, and one I hope the citizens win. We must fight for Hot Rat Summer.
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/114/859/651/546/482/862/original/a78d430a84315a4e.jpg
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/114/859/653/373/843/107/original/87004e9c251c350e.png

2025-07-14 20:42:48 GMT

- reply

Ohhh these are currently banned in Canada. That makes sense. It’s hilarious you can buy these for your kids here, but not Kinder Eggs.

2025-07-14 20:33:46 GMT

Good lord, they still make this stuff?! I remember this from my youth, it gave everyone in Gen X severe brain damage. I assumed it had been pulled off the market ages ago. That smell… my God, the smell.
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/114/853/492/958/243/980/original/3a84cd3f28396b51.jpeg

2025-07-10 21:39:35 GMT

I just realized I can't be an evangelist for any computer or programming language because I hate them all. They're all bad. We should go back to slide rules and mechanical calculators.

2025-07-07 20:10:50 GMT

Ah yes, I remember the Golden Corral campaign. War is hell.
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/114/813/766/671/795/071/original/3362b20c0bb67f5d.jpeg

2025-07-04 22:28:57 GMT

So, am I a US Citizen?
I was born in California, so you would think obviously I'm a US citizen, but that's not clear now.
My dad was born in Maine, so you'd think that obviously HE is a US citizen, but THAT'S not clear now either, because *his* father was born in West Virginia, never got a birth certificate, and he was born before *his* father naturalized as a US citizen. How far back do you need to go?

2025-07-03 19:49:35 GMT

Yesterday, ADP published their private US jobs report, showing they estimate that the economy lost 33,000 jobs in June.
This morning, the Department of Labor published THEIR jobs report, showing an unexpectedly strong estimate of 147,000 jobs added in June.
I am not an economist, but this sure seems fishy to me. Where are these jobs?

2025-06-27 04:29:04 GMT

I have reached the point of my life where I am looking longingly at used mini excavators. What have I become.

2025-06-17 18:46:09 GMT

Finally out of the closet
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/114/700/187/503/643/416/original/4ba729c38d7f8fb2.jpeg

2025-06-12 16:46:43 GMT

Say what you will about IRC but it didn't beg me to buy IRC Nitro every time I logged in

2025-06-11 04:39:57 GMT

Here’s the money shot, the distilled essence of what bothers me most about AI coding.
(From Baldur Bjarnason’s recent blog post, “Trusting your own judgement on ‘AI’ is a huge risk”)
https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2025/trusting-your-own-judgement-on-ai/
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/114/662/886/161/928/545/original/fb0a8a48ef837d6f.jpeg

2025-06-05 18:24:45 GMT

44 years ago today, on June 5th, 1981, the CDC digest “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report” published the first report in the medical press about a condition affecting five gay men in Los Angeles that would later be known as AIDS.
It feels both very recent, and very long ago.

2025-05-30 03:17:56 GMT

- reply

I have a vivid memory of the day in 1998 when my boss at the startup I was working at was trying to set up sendmail. He was using the O’Reilly sendmail book and he’d been at it for hours. Eventually he screamed some profanity and threw book across the room in frustration. We gave him shit about it for the next year (but really, m4 sucks)

2025-05-23 20:22:48 GMT

- reply

If I lived near one of those bus shelters, I promise you I WOULD cover all of the ads with duct-taped cardboard

2025-05-23 20:13:37 GMT

- reply

I used to worry about that too, “am I just old?”, but I see just as many 20-somethings complaining about this as 40- and 50-somethings. It’s not just us. It’s just endless shit now, EVERYONE can feel it.

2025-05-17 23:51:54 GMT

Where’s a good place to rent a cabin for a few days and be completely off grid in western Washington? Willing to travel anywhere within a three hour drive of Seattle. Ideally pretty remote, little or no cellular service, isolated, but not full on tent camping. Anyone have any good spots?

2025-05-14 23:32:59 GMT

The new 2025 Apple Pride wallpaper images were shown off on AppleRumors.com today. I made the mistake of reading the comments...
Holy shit, things are grim. The vast majority were nasty, angry, hate-filled comments. Being homophobic is openly acceptable again. These comments five or ten years ago would have been shocking; people may have thought them, but most would have kept it to themselves. Now they're reveling in it. It's gonna take decades to recover from this, if we do

2025-05-13 21:20:27 GMT

- reply

I managed to miss that one entirely! I will watch it!

2025-05-13 21:08:07 GMT

- reply

It's been years since I watched Snatch (or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels). I think I need to cue them up.

2025-04-30 14:52:36 GMT

Sometimes Reddit comments make me chuckle. This was on a post about the GDP contracting 0.3% last quarter compared to 2.4% growth in Q4 2024:
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/114/427/478/098/474/099/original/3f6729c3b6e39ae3.jpeg

2025-04-29 17:53:23 GMT

- reply

I actually did not know that Carney wasn’t already a member of parliament. We’re so uninformed down here 😞

2025-04-29 17:27:56 GMT

Those of you who know Parliamentary politics better than me, an American:
What would have happened if, theoretically, the Conservative party had won a majority of seats, but Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre had lost the election in his riding anyway? Would they have had to scramble to elect a new leader who would then become Prime Minister?

2025-03-23 22:34:41 GMT

I feel like it's probably redundant of me to say this, you already know, but if you are thinking of traveling to the United States for a convention or to see friends: I know it sucks, but please reconsider. It is genuinely not safe right now. Do not put yourself at risk. Stay home, and hopefully your US friends can come see you. If you have ANY option at all that does not involve travel to the United States, I would suggest that. I'm sorry it is this way.

2025-02-26 23:03:02 GMT

Why does Firefox make it so hard to recommend Firefox?
Google Chrome is obviously evil spyware, you shouldn't use it, period. But Mozilla is always doubling down on being an idiotic company hell bent on shooting itself in the foot, and Firefox is sort of gazing longingly at being evil spyware too. It's not there yet, but they just want it to be soooooo badly.
Everything is awful and terrible and no good and I want it to stop being that way.

2025-02-25 18:10:03 GMT

People are always like “oh you have to watch Squid Game” or “You have to watch The Boys” and my friend, no, I literally cannot, I’m sorry. There are so many goddamn horrors in the real world, the last thing I need in my life is people being horrific to each other in fiction. I need the opposite of that. I need like Kindness Core or whatever

2025-02-19 16:52:56 GMT

This is very silly, but I put my DECstation on the Internet. (Sort of.)
http://dejavu.retronet.net/
It's a 25 MHz MIPS R3000 CPU, so it's officially much slower than a Raspberry Pi.
Also, if you click on that link in 2025 you may or may not get a huge warning. Why? Because it's not encrypted. It's plain HTTP, not HTTPS. It's running NCSA HTTPd 1.5.2, it's really really old. Modern browsers are suspicious of that. Sorry. That's just how it was in 1994, not my fault.

2025-01-22 16:39:41 GMT

Please forgive this strange poll, but I'm genuinely curious about this phenomenon. I don't know how widespread it was, but it seems to have been very widespread in my generation, and I suspect it died out in the early 2000s. I also suspect this might be more of an American experience, but who knows.
When you were a teenager, did you ever find a stash of pornographic magazines while you were playing in the woods? (I've broken this down by age) Feel free to boost.

2025-01-07 03:15:13 GMT

I installed a Windows 2000 VM just so I could do Palm OS development with CodeWarrior.
We've lost so much... No subscription needed, no developer account, just write software and run it in an emulator or right on your device. It's a joy compared to living in 2025.
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/113/784/892/009/393/209/original/6da0293e7829360c.png

2024-10-02 21:18:59 GMT

- reply

I flew Aeroflot once. In 1988. Never again.

2024-09-29 03:21:36 GMT

I don't know why it bothers me so much that Australians (and Brits, maybe?) shorten "Spaghetti Bolognese" to "Spag Bol"... but it does. It bothers me. It shouldn't, but it does.

2024-09-28 22:56:53 GMT

- reply

If I’m honest I’d love a proper Rohn tower or something, but I think this should be an ok compromise. It’s a somewhat popular arrangement.

2024-09-28 22:55:44 GMT

- reply

I’m putting together a hex beam that has elements for 20m, 17m, 15m, 12m, and 10m! The mast has to be sturdy enough to support that and a Yaesu rotator, which (if I’ve done my research properly) this one should be. It’s a guyed galvanized steel push-up mast.

2024-09-28 22:46:00 GMT

- reply

The mast itself is 10m tall and will be anchored to a galvanized steel post embedded 1m into the concrete. It’ll also be properly guyed every 2.5m or so to handle horizontal load.

2024-09-28 22:44:22 GMT

The post hole for my antenna mast support is done. It’s a little hard to judge scale from the video but this is about 3 ft / 1 m deep and 10” / 35 cm wide. That will do! Gonna plant the mast support and pour concrete tomorrow.
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/113/217/597/976/936/292/original/5f5700f09e78e5eb.mp4

2024-09-19 17:29:13 GMT

Two things are true at the same time:
1) X11 desperately needs to be retired and Wayland will be a worthy replacement.
2) Wayland needs a ton of work before it’s ready to fully replace X11.
We’re just in a really weird place in history right now.

2024-09-19 04:39:50 GMT

This is deeply, deeply sad. Generative AI truly is destroying the web, and research, in exactly the ways we predicted. https://github.com/rspeer/wordfreq/blob/master/SUNSET.md

2024-09-11 19:18:03 GMT

Americans are often shocked and amazed to learn that clothes washing machines are usually located in the kitchen in the UK, but it seems perfectly sensible to me.

2024-09-02 20:02:45 GMT

I suspect some of my bias against dishwashing machines is that I’ve never lived in a house with a dishwasher that was less than 20 years old. We should probably treat ourselves to a new dishwasher…

2024-08-30 17:31:53 GMT

I do not care for evangelism. I use Rust, but I really don't care if anyone else uses it. I use Emacs, but I really don't care if anyone else uses it. I use Linux, but I really don't care if anyone else uses it. I carry an iPhone, but I really don't care if anyone else does. Use whatever works for you, don't use what you find unpleasant. All programming languages are Turing complete. All operating systems let you get shit done. All editors edit code. All phones browse the web. Who cares!

2024-08-27 01:42:31 GMT

- reply

Bring back window borders and fat scrollbars, cowards!

2024-08-25 21:08:29 GMT

- reply

Two of them!

2024-08-25 21:03:37 GMT

- reply

I notice motorcyclists in the US do this kind of thing all the time, where they’ll pass someone else on a motorcycle and they have this very casual hand wave that says “Ah, yes, I see you are on a motorcycle, a vehicle which I also happen to be using at this very moment. Good day to you, sir or ma’am”

2024-08-17 16:28:36 GMT

The two best named places in my home state are Cape Disappointment and Point No Point (the latter is near my house!)
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/112/978/303/987/132/246/original/2fe9071e3e30262b.jpeg
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/112/978/304/252/675/378/original/48b2918bcf384b5f.jpeg

2024-08-16 05:06:47 GMT

I completely missed that the third place finisher in the Washington State primary election for governor was literally named Semi Bird. What a name.

2024-08-04 02:59:27 GMT

Have you ever used microfilm or microfiche to look something up?

2024-07-10 00:20:40 GMT

This is how you handle third person pronouns in your technical writing. https://www.tiltedwindmillpress.com/product/manly/
https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/112/759/311/536/252/756/original/70f6dcdc480ca725.png

2024-07-09 20:23:02 GMT

We have been forced to install GitHub Copilot at work. It’s not great. When I’m calling a function, my editor used to helpfully suggest an autocomplete based on functions it knows exist in the code base, with exactly the arguments they take. Very helpful! But with GitHub Copilot, this has been replaced. It now just makes up plausible sounding functions that may or may not exist, with plausible sounding arguments that the real function may or may not take. It’s incredibly frustrating.

2024-06-17 21:45:21 GMT

- reply

Microsoft Word peaked at version 5.1a for Macintosh. It's all been down hill since then!

2024-06-17 21:20:12 GMT

1985 to 2000: “You really have to train kids on basic computer skills to make them successful, or they’ll be left behind”
2001 to 2020: “Literally everyone in the workforce is intimately familiar with how to use a computer, a web browser, email, and word processors. It’s just a given that everyone knows this stuff!”
2021 to today: “You really have to train kids on basic computer skills to make them successful, or they’ll be left behind”

2024-05-30 23:52:20 GMT

ACAB except for when they’ve pulled over a Soverign Citizen, then they’re ok for a few minutes I guess

2024-05-27 01:25:14 GMT

https://files.fursuits.online/media_attachments/files/112/510/438/629/551/088/original/00a912db5fafcc0f.jpg