Noah, brought to you by Mutual of Omaha and PBS viewers like you

I started out as @monkeyninja and eventually decided I wanted to run my own Mastodon instance, so here we are. I'm a dad, devoted husband to @oceanic, Site Reliability Engineer turned SRE Manager, GenX geek, #ActuallyAutistic, #Jewish and wishing Israel would just stop fucking murdering people for like 30 seconds. Level 3 Goth who took multiple levels in Druid and a few in Barbarian. If you're any form of bigot, fascist, or fascist-enabler, I will plant a tree in your ashes and listen to Peter Murphy while I do it.

I write about navigating life in #chronicpain, #technology, #bigotry, #ttrpg, #politics, and occasionally I'll share some of my #recipes. Will sometimes share #vegan recipes but not Vegan myself as my body does not do well on a vegan diet and endocrinologists are fucking expensive.

Final Fantasy XIV player, Brynhildr on the Crystal data center.

My kiddo is "The Zergling." I want them to have anonymity and I want them to feel that if what they were assigned at birth doesn't fit as they get older that they have choices. So until they're old enough to decide who they are and the extent they want their life online, you'll never see me post a photo of them and unless I slip up, you'll never see me post their gender.

#nobot / #noai / #nobridge / #nomore

Profile photo is a wall-eyed, cartoon pigeon looking frazzled, holding a mug of coffee and wearing a white t-shirt with "devops" printed across the front of it.

Header is a clip from the comic "Crow Time" by Secondlina_Isa. It is a white background with a cartoon pigeon in the center, its head poking through the middle of a slice of toast with the caption "Existential Bread" on it.

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(Mario pixel art just for grins)
--
If you're wondering how my bio got so long and you run your own instance, edit /app/models/account.rb and set the NOTE_LENGTH_LIMIT variable to be whatever you want.

Public Key

npub1wp5wdv77vt2waejr0r5zwgu05dxp5d9s93fn85ass82nxktsh93sh7xecv

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs8q68xk00x948wueph36p8yw86xnq6xjczc5en6wcgr4fnt9ctjccpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43q6zp7ca

Publishing to

relay.ditto.pub

Author Public Key

npub1wp5wdv77vt2waejr0r5zwgu05dxp5d9s93fn85ass82nxktsh93sh7xecv

Show more details

Published at

2026-10-04T20:17:04Z

Kind type

0 Metadata

Event JSON

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Last Notes

2026-08-25 19:06:17 GMT

I once saw a post, probably from Tumblr, that said “In this age of performative cruelty, kindness is punk as fuck.”
#DollyParton was punk as fuck and her kindness will be sorely missed.

2026-08-20 12:55:33 GMT

I don't know who needs to hear this but anything you want to eat for breakfast is a breakfast food. Food does not magically become inedible at breakfast because you personally only ate it at dinner. Rice and beans for breakfast? Go for it! Oatmeal for dinner? Hell to the yeah. Become ungovernable.

2026-07-08 00:29:04 GMT

I wrote a post when I was on mastodon.cloud that I wish I could find again to share as it was really lovely but since I can’t, I wanted to recreate it here.
I had asked folks if they would share what their comfort #food was and if they happened to have one, a link to a #recipe for how to make it.
It was so great, folks from all over the world replied and there were some really fantastic foods that a lot of people had never seen before.
If folks wouldn’t mind boosting this a bit, I bet we can get a great food thread going. I suspect we all could do with a bit of comfort right now.

2026-07-02 14:14:51 GMT

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@nprofile…nmr0 It's like I don't even *want* to be spied on or help a near-trillion dollar spyware company increase their spying capabilities by wearing their spyware in public. Crazy right?

2026-07-02 12:37:50 GMT

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@nprofile…nmr0 That feature is available in several different ear buds without paying a subscription, it’s one of the things that had me considering purchasing Apple EarPods.

2026-06-14 18:47:07 GMT

Are there folks here who know anything about #textiles?
I've been buying bamboo clothing lately because I really like the feel of it and it's the first fabric in a while that I find consistently pairs well with my sensory issues.
As a bonus, the bits that I could find seemed to indicate that it was pretty sustainable but I know that a lot of the market copy for products can be pretty prone to green-washing and I honestly can't seem to get a reliable answer on the matter.
My gut says that it's likely to be somewhat sustainable because of how quickly bamboo grows and replenishes but for all I know the chemicals necessary to turn it into a fabric are so toxic that it outweighs any potential positive impact it might have.
Anyway, putting that out there, curious if there are folks here who actually know about how its made. My search engine works just fine so I'm hoping to hear from folks who know about it and aren't in the same boat as me, reading random articles we find on the internet.

2026-06-12 21:01:06 GMT

Yep, that week pretty well did it.
This week helped me make the decision to put dedicated energy into finding a new job so I'll be getting my resume polished and sent around.
I'm looking to #GetFediHired, ideally working with a company that is interested in leaving the world in better shape than it was handed to us. Remote-only as I'm not looking to uproot my family.
In terms of working with #AI, anyone who follows me knows that I'm against it, it's too harmful in its current iteration, but I am definitely interested in groups like #DAIR who study and understand AI and are interested in creating an alternate future with technology so if that's you then I'd love the opportunity to work with you.
In terms of my background, nowadays I'm a people manager in Engineering but I have my own tech projects that keep my skills sharp. Primary skills are CI/CD development, OpenTofu/Terraform, Ansible, Python, Shell Scripting, C++, Perl, Go. I can do Windows scripting though haven't had cause to do so in a few years.
I've been at this for 26 years so there aren't many things in the Ops/IT/DevOps space that I haven't at least played with a few times and I'm a quick study. Not meant to be a brag, that's just the reality I think of anyone who has been at this long enough. The landscape shifts and when we look back we all realize that we've worked with a lot of different tools over the years. Hell, my first job was working in Fortran 90 and COBOL and thankfully that knowledge is buried somewhere in my brain and will hopefully never see the light of day again.
Ideally I'm looking to stick with a management gig as I enjoy people leadership, but if the company is a good fit, I'll gladly jump in and write code, it's just not what I'm looking for. For the right company though I'd probably make an exception, especially if you're working on bettering things for people.
So yeah, shoot me a message if you have something, otherwise I'll start sending the resume out to places I find on LinkedIn and the like.

2026-06-09 00:42:59 GMT

When we were looking for an upgrade to our TV, I specifically wanted a “dumb display.” No internet connection, no built in streaming services, just a display that would connect to a computer and show me the stuff my browser was playing from my Jellyfin server. If you want that kind of device, it seems that “Digital Signage” or “Commercial Display” is the category under which you are wanting to look.
They do often have network ports as they’re designed to be centrally managed (think hotel TV) but there’s zero requirement to give it a connection and it works beautifully without one.
Anyway there you go, hope that helps someone.

2026-06-05 18:11:03 GMT

“But surely all these CEOs can’t be wrong at once!”
— Legacy News Media discussing the future of #AI
“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….*wheeze*…AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”
— Everyone who either works in tech or knows anything about the history of tech executives making mistakes more often than making a good decision

2026-05-24 14:32:22 GMT

Can we all, as a human species, please just stop with bullshit purity tests? They are the absolute worst kind of gatekeeping and need to fuck all the way off.
I have been playing D&D since the days of the red box. I still have the super cheap blue dice that came with it. I probably still have the crayon that came with it to color in the sides of the dice.
Hit tables live rent-free in my head.
THAC0 lives rent-free in my head.
That does not make me more of a gamer than someone whose first version of D&D was 5th edition, it just makes me old and cranky.
I see it in gaming, philosophy, religion, food, politics. It's everywhere!
"You're not a real liberal because you know how to safely fire a gun."
"You're not a real vegan because you walked past someone cooking bacon in 1987 and didn't yell at them."
"You're not really into Crossfit because you haven't told every human you've ever met that you're into Crossfit."
Can we please...for the love of all that is sane...just stop doing this!

2026-05-16 00:55:24 GMT

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@nprofile…dyu0 I kind of love that though. Some of my posts that have taken off like that and It’s crazy right? It can be months and then someone sees it posted elsewhere and then they boost it and it takes back off all over again. I love that about this wild , weird, web of people we have here on the fediverse.

2026-05-03 01:01:05 GMT

I bet Clippy wouldn’t have needed to burn down three billion acres of rainforest just to tell me how to use pivot tables incorrectly.

2026-04-24 16:40:46 GMT

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@nprofile…8snd Man it would be a pity if people used services like Cloaked or IronVest for payments as they obfuscate the payer data, use zero logging, and are outside five-eyes territory. Then you could donate to such organizations fairly anonymously. It would just be such a shame if people knew about that.

2026-04-14 14:32:41 GMT

It kind of seems like food producers in the US want to cram protein into everything. I've seen protein sodas of all things. I think I even saw a protein-infused liquor recently...maybe that was a fever dream...I hope it was a fever dream.
Anyway, for me, I've been eating smaller meals lately and getting enough protein has become a bit of a problem as I tried to eat less meat - especially with my digestion issues. Unfortunately with my GI problems, many of the #vegan go-to options for protein can be problematic for me.
There being protein crammed into everything finally played in my favor for once though and I've been having pretty good luck with the Barilla Protein+ stuff. I made a pasta salad with it that's been quite nice to have in the fridge for a quick meal so I thought I'd share the #recipe:
First thing first, you're going to quick pickle a red onion:
3/4 cup / 175 ml red wine vinegar
1/4 cup / 60 ml water
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp of sugar
Mix above ingredients together, then add a very thinly sliced red onion to the mixture and let sit for 30 minutes while you prep everything else.
Ingredients
---
411 grams / 14.5 ounce (whole box) Barilla Protein+ Penne (cooked in well-salted water, drained, and rinsed in cold water to cool off)
1 whole English cucumber chopoped
340 grams grape tomatoes (a pint container) chopped
100 grams / 3.5 ounces kalamata olives (either buy sliced to save time or slice them yourself here)
170 grams / 6 oz. crumbled feta or vegan feta substitute if going for the vegan version
1. Drain the quick-pickled onions, retaining the liquid to use in the dressing
2. To a bowl, add the pasta, cucumber, tomatoes, and olives.
3. In a small bowl add 1/2 cup / 120 ml of your vinegar mixture, 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard (just confirm yours is vegan if you're making this for someone who is, as not all Dijon is produced in a way that is 100% vegan), 1 teaspoon oregano, and 2 cloves of garlic smashed and chopped, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper (you can likely omit the salt if you salted your pasta with a heavy hand when you cooked it).
4. Whisk the mixture and then while whisking, slowly drizzle in 1/2 cup of olive oil to make an emulsion.
5. Add the feta crumbles to the dressing and stir, then pour entire bowl of dressing over the pasta salad in the other bowl.
6. Taste test, add more salt and pepper as needed, would recommend waiting until it has sat overnight before doing so though as the blending flavors might make you think it needs more salt than it actually does.
It's pretty good to eat as-is but tastes even better if you let it sit in the refrigerator overnight so the flavors can blend together.
It has a decent amount of protein and fiber and works well as a quick meal or as a side-dish in smaller quantities.

2026-03-24 21:24:17 GMT

Things in the world are pretty rough right now but y’all, I got curly fries and I’m about to feast on them. So long as there are curly fries, I think we stand a chance.

2026-03-22 16:43:07 GMT

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@nprofile…cm0q @nprofile…94ng @nprofile…2x84 @nprofile…zvpa That's phenomenal. I had scrolled through his account and didn't see any replies so i erroneously assumed he was not here at all. I'll update my original post.

2026-03-22 14:22:28 GMT

There are a few really popular accounts here on the Fediverse that I muted some time ago. It’s not that I don’t understand why folks follow them, it’s more that I couldn’t understand why I felt like those accounts bothered me so much. I mean…it’s folks like Robert Reich and George Takei so it’s certainly not a content issue, and I love reading them under other circumstances.
It took me a while to tease it out and it ultimately comes down to the difference between the Fediverse and sites like Twitter.
When I had an account there I rarely posted anything and after a few attempts to participate in conversations, realized that I was whispering at a Throbbing Gristle concert and no one was hearing me.
So when you look at accounts like Robert Reich or George Takei, they’re not actually here, they’re just mirrors of content they write elsewhere. So even though I see people responding to those posts as if they’re writing to a specific person, they might as well be replying to a bot.
Take as a counterpoint folks like @nprofile…2x84 or @nprofile…zvpa. Very popular accounts, thousands of followers, but they’re actually here, they’re a part of the ecosystem and will boost, reply, favorite, etc.
I love that about this wild, weird, little slice of internet. I think that’s why I muted folks like Robert Reich, they’re not actually here to interact, they’re ultimately not a part of the community. They’re just here so they can access us, not interact with us. That’s not why I’m here. If I reply to someone, I want to know there’s a high likelihood they see it, whether or not they choose to respond to it.

2026-03-10 11:35:16 GMT

I don’t understand why people named Timothy would shorten their names to “Tim” when “Moth” is quite clearly the superior choice.

2026-03-01 16:23:11 GMT

The #tech industry pays well, especially if you’ve been working in it for more than a few years. I’ve often wondered if that steady paycheck makes people forget. It really seems like some folks lose sight of what living without money means, even when they grew up with food insecurity as a part of their life experience.
For instance, I’ll see posts where #infosec folks absolutely lambast anyone who doesn’t use a service like Tuta or Protonmail for emails and just will not hear it when people say, “Hey, it’s a good idea you’ve got there, but the reason you know this is important is because you work in the industry and unless you can explain why it is important without being an ass, you’re not convincing anyone.”
Spinning up private, encrypted Nextcloud instances sounds amazing! How do you think someone is going to do that when they are worried about access to food? You have a spare computer under your desk running your Plex server and you’re yelling at someone who doesn’t have their own internet connection and is only able to get access to the internet from the library.
Knowledge is just another kind of privilege. Don’t use yours to punch down, use it to educate and elevate.

2026-02-26 15:34:45 GMT

Huh...it was surprisingly easy to get a private instance of the #Firefox sync service up and running, I'm not sure why I never thought to do this before. So now I can have my #Waterfox data sync for a backup in case anything happens to my primary system and I lose my install and it's not at all reliant on using Mozilla services that would be used to fuel their AI initiatives.
Steps here are pretty accurate - https://mozilla-services.github.io/syncstorage-rs/how-to/how-to-run-with-docker.html.
Their steps for compiling from source were complete shit, there was so much additional work needed in order to get it to compile cleanly that they do not list in their build documentation.
Honestly the container setup is so dead simple, compiling it yourself seems a waste of energy unless you're trying to build a version to run on an ARM processor or something. Anyway, I'm happy to provide what steps I had to follow to get their compilation to work on a clean VM I had just built if someone is trying to go about it the hard way.

2026-01-18 06:12:56 GMT

Hahaha, so Disney apparently deleted a thread where they asked for folks to post quotes from Disney movies describing how they felt and folks picked every single anti-fascist, anti-authoritarian, anti-bully quote that you can think of from Disney films.
I love it.
You can’t give us “Newsies” and then act mad that we learned from it.
🎶 This is for kids shinin' shoes in the streets with no shoes on their feet everyday 🎵

2026-01-06 13:49:05 GMT

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@nprofile…zvpa My personal favorite is “Comic Profit Tools.”

2025-12-31 12:27:59 GMT

“What radicalized you?”
I don’t know man…I don’t think people should be treated like shit and that’s apparently a big deal or something.

2025-12-22 01:35:11 GMT

Curious if any of my friends here have made oven roasted chickpeas before. I tried it out the other day and it was tasty but definitely didn’t get the crispy crunch that I’ve seen folks get with theirs. I even tried roasting them longer but still didn’t seem to make them crispy. My process was to rinse them after I dumped the can out, dry them out thoroughly, and then tossed them in a bit of olive oil before putting them in the oven. If you’ve got a good recipe for them and wouldn’t mind sharing, I’d greatly appreciate it.

2025-12-15 21:57:45 GMT

Dear phone:
How in the name of all that is good and right in this world did you look at me sliding between the letters T, H, I, and S and think, “Oh I know this one…Rustburg!” Just…how? To my knowledge I have never once typed “Rustburg” on my phone and yet somehow you felt it was more likely than the word, “this?”
Signed,
Me
#enshittification #ios #wtf

2025-12-08 05:53:04 GMT

It is so fucking cold right now that all of my genderfluid friends are turning gendersolid and adhering to surfaces.

2025-12-02 22:21:28 GMT

I’m sitting here, managing 7 different workstreams, 5 different environments,150 apps, all with no budget for tooling or training and with a team of 5 engineers and a sixth who I can’t use, all of whom are burnt out from constantly context switching and I’m just sitting here thinking, “Damn, only having to manage two or three swim lanes would make for such an amazing break right now.”
So yeah, if you’re looking for a #DevOps or #SRE manager with 25 years experience to come join your team, let me know! I love the idea of having a semi-realistic number of plates spinning and maybe a team that is just normally understaffed instead of so completely understaffed that it sits in the realm of the absurd.
Looking for a remote job where being treated as an adult human is not a thing that needs to be fought for but is the baseline standard for the company.
#getfedihired #opentowork #INeedANap

2025-10-30 14:08:52 GMT

If you're wondering why it seems like the #military branches have been completely silent in the #news while #trump carries out the summary execution of citizens of #Venezuela, it's because one of the first things that #hegseth did when he started was to fire any JAG officer who wasn't seen as 100% loyal to the #maga agenda. He even publicly stated that the firings were to remove anyone who might put up "roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief."
Like many other posts, JAG positions have historically been apolitical. They fill the role of setting each service's legal priorities and interpreting military law for leaders. They are supposed to oversee everything from criminal cases involving the rank and file to making sure commanders are aware of international law in combat, which is currently being violated by the killings in Venezuela.
The firings of senior JAG officers also cleared the way for the use of troops in #Oregon, #Illinois, and #California without the normal legal oversight required to engage troops in such a way.
So in short, these earlier actions were scaffolding for everything else. No one did anything that suddenly brought the attention of the Eye of Sauron onto them. These violations of due process were intentional and premeditated.
Don't operate under the assumption that you doing something or not doing something is going to magically keep you safe, that's not how #fascism works. Use your rights to stand up and push back, or they won't stay rights for much longer.

2025-10-22 19:25:42 GMT

This week has been challenging and stressful. I could talk about that but instead I’m going to post a photo of the flowers that my wife and the zergling picked from the garden on my birthday. Get the men in your life some flowers. Chances are pretty high that they went through a lot of their lives without ever getting flowers before. I know I did and I had no idea how nice it feels to get flowers from someone until I met my wife.
#bloomscrolling
https://media.10base2.dev/media_attachments/files/115/419/433/012/612/981/original/e34421ed14e7463f.jpeg

2025-10-16 00:03:39 GMT

On the importance of being froggy:
The play in the #fascism handbook that #trump and his handlers have been itching to play out is a more widespread martial law.
They don’t need an excuse mind you, but oh my does it piss them off that they don’t have one in Portland. The corporate media agencies are built around clickbait and even though they’re a propaganda machine for Trump, folks in frog suits facing off against an armed gestapo is too juicy for them to ignore.
So now you have folks like Miller desperately lying to the media about “war-ravaged #portland” and people laughing at him because there are no riots for them to inflame, just folks laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Keep laughing. Keep mocking. It’s infectious. The more we laugh at them now, the less likely it is that the people we need to march in protest are cowed and kept too scared to do so.
If we’re lucky maybe we can laugh them out of office on a raft of inflatable frogs. I’m not naive, I know that’s unlikely, but for now at least I’m choosing to have some faith in the power of the absurd.

2025-09-13 17:45:35 GMT

It’s #caturday so I’m going to share my current favorite of my furry family.
#catsofmastodon #cats
https://media.10base2.dev/media_attachments/files/115/198/220/395/807/916/original/1df3e6642adb4c81.jpeg

2025-09-11 11:52:33 GMT

We should start floating the conspiracy theory that #trump had #CharlieKirk killed to try to change the news to be about something other than #epstein and the #EpsteinFiles.

2025-08-22 17:25:57 GMT

Are there any archivists (physical media, not digital media) who read my posts? My wife inherited some really old newspapers and letters that we’d love to protect from further degradation and was wondering if there was a particular site or brand of storage solutions that archivists trusted especially.
I searched online for details and it sounds like it’s pretty much the same thing as how I kept my comic books safe when I collected (acid free backing, Mylar bagging, keep away from light, etc.) but I definitely prefer hearing from experts as opposed to automatically trusting a site that I found.

2025-07-28 23:11:11 GMT

It is 7:11 PM. I have clean sheets on the bed, I’ve taken a shower, I am in my comfiest clothes, and I plan to be in bed at 9 PM tonight to read a book. I would not have believed you if you had told me at 25 that this would be exciting to me. Except the reading part, that’s always been exciting to me. Not much longer until autumn is here!

2025-07-07 00:45:52 GMT

These are truly strange days. To find myself staring at a lawsuit in which Disney and Universal are teamed up to sue a #GenerativeAI company and I find myself kind of rooting for Disney and Universal?
OK that's not entirely accurate. I crave the impossible if I'm being honest here. I want a quantum superposition in which both the #AI company *and* Disney/Universal lose and I know that this is not likely.
I despise big businesses. I just despise Generative AI even more. I know we're approaching a crash similar to the dotcom bubble bursting, I just wish it would get it over with so we could move on to whatever the next horrible thing is going to be because this one is just so incredibly stupid.

2025-07-03 03:15:59 GMT

I got my first engineering job on 14 February 2000. I got paid $28,500 a year to start out, $14.25 an hour. I was ecstatic when I got the job.
At that time I had been working as a line cook making $10 per hour and I was splitting a house with two other people. We split the rent three ways evenly, each of us paying $433 each month. The restaurant was popular so I always easily found overtime if I wanted it, so with time and a half I was making my rent with a week worth of work.
So now with this new engineering gig, I had some more money coming in. When I got my first raise, I moved into a place on my own. It was a two bedroom townhouse all to myself. I had a yard, my own washer and dryer, two bathrooms, a fireplace. It was luxury’s lap for a single twenty-something and I got it for $700 a month. I had to work more hours to afford it, but it was still doable.
The house I rented with my friends is still around. Comparable sized houses around here rent for anywhere between $3000 and $5000. First and last month’s rent as well as security deposit equal to one month rent due at signing. To me that’s not rent anymore, that’s a down payment. That’s more than the down payment my wife and I paid for our first house.
The greed that keeps things this way is maddening. You can’t make your rent on one week of work anymore. You can’t even make it on a month of work.
That’s heartbreaking.
I keep hearing I’m going to get more conservative as I get older. Greedier. Meaner. I buy expensive underwear now that doesn’t trigger my sensory issues but that’s kind of it for me living some lavish life. I don’t need more. I don’t WANT more. I want soft clothes, enough food so I don’t go hungry, maybe a book or two every so often. Maybe a game on sale from GOG. I want everyone to have that. I want my taxes to enable that. I make a good living now. I want people who are younger and starting their careers to be able to do what I did. Go rent a place with friends. Eat junk food. Play video games. Go shopping at 3 in the morning. Smoke enough weed that that sandwich combination you just thought up tastes amazing. I want to pay for that with my taxes and not so some schmuck who already has more money than many countries GDP can go get married in space or something.

2025-06-23 02:51:55 GMT

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@nprofile…eqw3 I needed some good after the week I’ve had. This is so lovely, thank you for sharing it.

2025-06-01 01:33:21 GMT

It's time for #HashTagGames again and tonight's theme is #CookieAndBiscuitABook. I think what comes to mind for me is the picaresque novel by American author Mark Twain about a boy seeking to fulfill his dream of joining the Girl Scouts. The classic we all read in school, "Adventures of Huckleberry Thin Mints"

2025-05-25 18:01:56 GMT

How many of you remember “The Tick” cartoon from the ‘90s? It’s one of my favorites and I quote it a ton.
Anyway I had a #dream last night where I was facing #trump in an #mma octagon and he yelled at me in this weirdly distorted helium voice, “YOU CAN’T FIGHT FASCISM WITH A MACARONI DUCK” and then I calmly replied, “I’ll be the judge of that” as I hit him in the face with a 300 pound piece of elbow noodles carved into the shape of a very angry Muscovy Duck.
I woke up before he had a chance to retaliate.
Anyway, bottom line is that you can in fact fight evil with a macaroni duck so long as as the duck is suitably angry or suitably large.

2025-05-19 20:53:02 GMT

If you haven’t felt old yet today, it’s only 17 more years until the opening of the Nickelodeon time capsule that was buried in 1992 and set to be opened 50 years later. You’re welcome.

2025-05-11 05:35:48 GMT

I think I''m going to like this new #pope
https://media.10base2.dev/media_attachments/files/114/487/552/362/201/300/original/0a2d6c7fcbff2e7a.png

2025-05-10 23:14:31 GMT

I've seen a few articles written about #AI recently discussing the uptick in hallucinations within the current generation #LLM and while that tends to mean something very particular to folks working on machine learning, it has a far different connotation to the rest of the population.
So just to level set, In the simplest terms when it comes to generative AI models, a hallucination is a response generated by a model that contains false information that the model presents as an answer as if it were true. It's a legacy term that underwent some shifts in semantics over the years and sometimes I worry that we still use it.
It used to be used more specifically with machine models working on image processing where they started adding details where there were none before. The media has grown the use of the term because it lets them drive more click-through traffic if they have articles talking about how all the AI models have started hallucinating.
I've had far too many conversations with people who really want me to believe that I don't understand the nature of consciousness and thus I don't know for certain that a high-powered autocomplete feature hasn't in fact become self-aware and started seeing things. I can assure you, they have not.
I'm definitely in the camp that prefers the term "confabulation" when discussing such things as it's not quite as widely used and thus folks might not try to assign sentience where there is none.
Anyway, there you go. If you see an article about AI using the term and they don't include a definition somewhere within the text, I'd be highly suspicious of the veracity of the rest of the article as it is clearly trying to paint an inaccurate picture and make it seem true...kind of like a hallucination.

2025-04-10 23:30:02 GMT

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@nprofile…d2rl To quote the meme, you had my curiosity but now you have my attention. Is that tiramisu that’s been made with pancakes in place of the ladyfingers or is this a particular dish available somewhere and I just haven’t encountered it before?

2025-04-10 23:12:05 GMT

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@nprofile…d2rl Curses...I was going to ask you to discuss furry corn politics but now I've got nothing. Ideal pancake, discuss. I personally am partial to fairly thin pancakes without much loft to them, lots of syrup, small bit of butter.

2025-03-29 22:39:18 GMT

I post about #chronicillness and #chronicpain every so often and I think perhaps the most frustrating people I encounter end up not being the folks who are currently able-bodied. Believe it or not it’s usually other people who have a physical #disability or are similarly #disabled.
The #ableism i get! I block and move on with my life and I hardly bat an eye. It absolutely floors me when I’ll post something that has some component of “Hey, gentle reminder that not everyone can do X, Y, and Z which is why A, B, and C are super important” and I’ll get folks who will reply with some flavor of “Well I’m disabled and I have no problem with this so therefore everyone can do this.”
Just…holy shit biscuits! You’d figure if anyone would get that everyone has different capabilities and different thresholds, it would be someone who is literally living that experience!
Whoa…I just realized that I’m literally doing the exact same thing, just from the other side. Thinking that because someone has shared an experience that they must process it a similar way. Damn…
I love that even though I’ll be 50 this year, I’m still open enough to new ideas to be comfortable with not being right all the time. I guess with what I wrote above, maybe it’s a lot like how some people that grew up being bullied say “never again” while others shrug and say “it’s not a big deal, I turned out okay.”
Well…damn! I guess instead of venting my frustrations, y’all got to hang out with me and my stream of consciousness while I worked through that little mental snarl. I guess we all just process things differently and some of us are just more compassionate than others and that’s all there is to it.
Good talk, I’m glad we had this chat.

2025-03-28 13:31:23 GMT

Since there are many #protests against #trump, #musk, #republicans, and ultimately #fascism, it’s important y’all know something about printers and photocopiers. Many add special watermarks to the paper that identifies the specific device that was used to print the document. Security experts and journalists are fairly certain these were used to identify #whistleblower Reality Winner and ultimately convict her.
Given many people print out pamphlets, posters, etc. it’s important to know that they may inadvertently be leaving a digital fingerprint.
While I’m not a fan of the #EFF as of late, they do maintain a handy list of printers that do not implement tracking dots here: https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots
There is also a GitHub project with code that obfuscates those dots, making them unreadable by authorities: https://github.com/dfd-tud/deda.
Right now the legality of protest is codified in the constitution. However, Trump has already flaunted numerous other laws to go after people he perceives as his enemy, so be safe out there. If you are printing protest literature, make certain it can’t be tracked back to you.

2025-03-09 21:59:59 GMT

I’ve said this before but I absolutely adore how immensely lazy a conspiracy theory the whole “flat earth” schtick is.
I mean, take some of the other myths like Bigfoot, or The New Jersey Devil, or compassionate republicans. At least those you can claim it’s more that you just haven’t been able to find one but maybe they’re out there somewhere. But you really have to admire a conspiracy theory that states that you will run into an impenetrable ice wall by flying about an hour from Japan and everyone who supports the conspiracy just kind of universally agreed to be too lazy to hop on a plane and check. I love it.
It’d be like saying two dollar bills really smell like cheese grits and just uniformly deciding you will absolutely not be verifying this or taking any action to ensure you know this as a certainty. I love it.

2025-02-25 21:00:50 GMT

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@nprofile…d2rl Hopefully that includes you, how are you doing and holding up through all of this?
In terms of leads, I have a couple of openings on my team for SRE, one would need active security clearance, one not. Remote-only positions for the uncleared. For the cleared positions, remote is definitely possible but we'd love to find someone near Northern VA or in the Boston Cambridge area.
Not on my team but more in the infosec wheelhouse, there's several open Security Researcher positions and a couple of management positions.
Happy to chat with people and help get resumes into the system more quickly if I can. I can post links if that would help.

2025-02-23 19:59:10 GMT

I saw this article a while back about the “Equifax Work Number” and I figured while I was going through freezing my credit, I might as well freeze the work number as well.
Now, to start off, I don’t know that the info from the work number is a useful attack vector for identity theft, maybe one of my friends in infosec could chime in on that, but I will say that it was disturbing what kind of data a company can collect in a routine background check during the interview and hiring process.
I grabbed a report from the site and it had most of the jobs I’d worked, all the way back to my first job in high school working for Waldenbooks. What was interesting was that it also had my title as well as my pay at each job. I rolled that one around in my head a bit and the longer I thought about that the more annoyed I became.
As of this year I’ve been in some flavor of #engineering, #it, #devops, or #sre for 25 years. When I interview for a job, part of the privilege that comes with those 25 years is the ability to say “this is how much I’m willing to work for in order to do this job” and many companies will pay that if you’re who they want and you’re still in the range they’re willing or able to afford.
Junior folks in #tech when negotiating #salary, I could *easily* see this screwing them over. “Ah yes, I see you have three years of Python programming experience, but now I know that you only got paid $15 per hour for that in your last job so this position you’re interested in now magically pays $40K a year instead of the $75K we originally thought we would have to pay.”
And maybe that’s just pure speculation, pessimism, and the jadedness that comes from working in tech for 25 years. I’m curious if folks have any experience into that work information playing into their salary negotiations and/or if anyone has experience with going through an interview process with their work experience frozen from being queried without their express consent and if that kept them from being offered a job. I know it can impact things like applying for a credit card or financial assistance but I was interested in hearing personal experience with this.

2025-02-23 14:24:57 GMT

I know some people are afraid of sourdough. I suspect it’s because every guide I have read will have something similar to “well so long as you bake once a week or at least feed the sourdough once every week then you’re fine but IF YOU DON’T FEED IT THEN IT WILL SURELY TURN ON YOU AND DIIIIIEEEE! I have had the same sourdough starter for about 5 years now. Yes, I go through periods of #baking and bake bread often, but I’m also busy and burned out and human, so I go through stretches where I don’t. Sourdough is resilient, you can use it as much or as little as you like.
Anyway if you’re not using your starter all the time then just do the following: It’ll likely have liquid on the surface, just pour that down the sink. Scrape anything discolored from the surface until you get to the normal dough color and discard the discoloration as well. Take the rest, scrape it into a bowl. Add around 30 grams of flour and 30 grams of water. Leave it covered overnight on the counter. In the morning discard half of it and repeat with the 30g flour and water. Once more before you go to bed.
Depending on how old the starter is, you might need to do this for a day or two but it’ll work and the starter will be fine. Don’t worry, your starter will survive and so will you 💚.

2025-02-14 16:27:41 GMT

A #haiku for you about #tech and #ai
---
AI writes haiku?
Perhaps, but it would likely
metronidazole

2025-02-11 18:29:53 GMT

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@nprofile…kftc Oh wow...my kiddo loves anything and everything cat-related. If I tell them there's an RPG where they can play a cat-rogue it is almost guaranteed to spark their interest.

2025-02-10 19:06:47 GMT

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@nprofile…5k2y My wife and I were just talking about this the other day. Everyone thinks they'll be the ones marching in the streets, standing up to authoritarianism, but the reality is that most people if they can ignore things will ignore things because very few people want to be uncomfortable and right now there are a lot of uncomfortable truths that need to be accepted and faced before it's too late to do so.

2025-01-27 22:35:41 GMT

You really do have to admire the creativity in some #vegan #recipes. I do also feel though like some of them were created prior to the existence of modern vegan offerings.
Like…don’t get me wrong, if you want to make a vegan béchamel with puréed tofu then you do you Pikachu. But you don’t actually have to do that if you don’t want to. You can literally just make it the same way you would a dairy version.
Just melt vegan margarine, add flour to make a roux, let the flour cook for a few minutes, then add rice milk and whisk until thickened. Boom, vegan béchamel. If you have vegan cheese that melts you can also add vegan cheese at this point and you’ll have yourself a cheese sauce. FYI though if you go this route the oil tends to separate from the cheese, so I’d recommend an immersion blender to emulsify the sauce.
Now granted if you like that much tofu then by all means have at it but this is an excellent alternative if you’re not as much into tofu or have soy allergies,

2025-01-22 00:09:45 GMT

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@nprofile…hpxz Sigh...I admit, I engaged with you because I checked out your profile and at least based on what I read there in terms of your world views, I thought I was clearly misunderstanding your point. That's because context is important as is information about the person and what they support.
That's why I am looking at what Musk did as a Nazi salute and what Harris did as not. Who the person is, what they say, who they support, all is important framing as I previously said.
I'm not really interested in waxing pedantic about whether his Hitlergruß was historically accurate or not. My beliefs about Musk weren't formed out of a singular event but out of an established track record for what he says, what he does, and what he supports. This event didn't deliver to me any new information it just further cemented an already communicated narrative about who he is.
Anyway, because of your profile I chose to assume you're not just a troll (as some folks have reached out and suggested to me). To be honest, I have no idea, we've never crossed paths before. Usually folks with left-leaning profiles and 31K followers on Mastodon aren't just trolls but hey, I'm flexible.
Maybe you are and if so, nice job getting me to waste my time. If I didn't have your profile to go off of I would have blocked you ages ago because minus that info this all just reads like your average run-of-the-mill trolling with a bit of nazi-apologism thrown in for seasoning. If it's not then...well color me confused as it seems like you're ignoring a plethora of information on Musk to arrive at this point with any positive beliefs about his character and pedantry on this particular topic isn't a particularly good look for anyone.
And if you are a troll, before you throw the flag on this reply as ad hominem since that's usually next in the play book when we get to this stage, I'm not attacking your character, I'm questioning it. Because this all reads as trying to defend someone like Musk and trying to draw false equivalence and as someone else already stated, that's pretty low.
If that's all there is here and you're just trolling then cool cool, I'll just go ahead and block you and go on with my life. Either way I think I'm likely done with replying to you. You have yourself a great day.
cc: @nprofile…700m @nprofile…62pa since you two were the last folks to reply on the thread

2025-01-21 14:55:01 GMT

"It's not a #nazi salute, he just got really excited and this was a socially awkward person's attempt at connecting with people."
Hey y'all, your friendly neighborhood socially awkward person here. Now this is not a new mantle mind you, I have been socially awkward my whole life to the point where I wrapped around the bend and found myself socially accepted within a band of other socially awkward folks (which is quite lovely mind you). So when I see people talking about #musk throwing his arm out in a Nazi #salute, I have many thoughts on this matter.
Things that are 100% in the realm of "OK yeah, I can see that as an example of how other socially awkward people might act"
- Making a weird noise that someone thought might be an ostrich gargling oatmeal and/or a Castrato singing "Ave Maria" in the key of rusty belt sander (I swear, the sound made sense in my head at the time)
- Slamming one's fist down excitedly and hitting a carton of orange juice which explodes in a 5 foot radius (that was me...I did that once...don't ask)
- Giggling anxiously while staring at one's feet (did this too many times to count)
- Speaking waaaay too fast or way too softly (still might do this...)
- Repeating what you want to say under your breath several times before actually speaking and then speaking way too fast or way too softly (OK...I've gotten better about this but still do it)
You know what's not socially awkward? Nazi salutes. Fuck your bargain basement excuses for bullshit Nazism.
#ElonMusk showed who he is and now it's our job to believe him.

2025-01-20 23:42:33 GMT

Happy to report that my first update experience for my #mastodon instance was super painless. Looks like it might be different for each git tag so I'm guessing it's possible there might be thornier processes to come but going from 4.3.2 to 4.3.3 was just a git checkout, a bundle install, and a bounce of services. I took the opportunity to run some server patching while I was at so there was a brief downtime but it looks like I probably could have done this upgrade without even needing to do that. That's pretty nice.

2025-01-16 21:54:31 GMT

Sigh...so just found out the news that #protonmail is run by a #trump fanboy. Fantastic...
Curious if my #infosec friends are looking at other options for secure email service. I've heard maybe Tuta Mail is a viable alternative but I've zero experience with them.