Ángel Ortega
@angel@triptico.com
Gender neutral guide
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon this is too good 😂
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon As a former PR person, I particularly like Spokesfighter. And I don't think "bootlicker" adequately gets at the evil inherent in a policing system built on slavery to benefit only the propertied.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon what do you call the child of your sibling (gender neutral)? Not trying to start a fight, looking for an answer because at one time it wea relevant.
@rubaiyat We don't have a gender neutral word for that in English. They're just nieces and nephews.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon as a bootlicker, i am offended by that
XScreenSaver 6.07 is out now, including iOS and Android. Two new hacks by me, droste and skulloop, and two new contributions: papercube and cubocteversion. xscreensaver-settings was sometimes turning off the DPMS checkbox. Added some new map sources to...
https://jwz.org/b/ykDy
@jwz Does this work on AppleTV? 🙂
@psu_13 No, but almost! I tried to get that working but I need help from someone with better understanding of building tvOS apps. I talked about that at the bottom of the 6.02 release announcement, 2 years ago. I haven't had any responses, so maybe nobody cares? https://www.jwz.org/blog/2021/10/xscreensaver-6-02-out-now/
@jwz If I noodle with it and learn anything I will let you know. But I mostly know only macOS and iOS.
@jwz thank you for finding a workaround for the multiscreen thing, it was harshing my mellow. And thanks more generally, XScreenSaver is v good.
When you won't get a smoke break for another four hours.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon I used to make joints in a similar style.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
Or -if you replace the Cigarettes with Joints- if you have to listen to Trumps oder de Santis Bullshit for the next Hours.
I didn't know they could be fixed.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon I have a shovel with a broken handle. I wonder if they can repair it.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon A little stitching and tightening and ready to get back to work
VOCABULARY QUIZ FOR 2023.08.29
Which person might we think of as being “louche”?
If you don’t know take your best guess.
Please boost to get more responses.
Check back tomorrow for the correct answer.
| A firefighter: | 3 |
| A proctologist: | 9 |
| A refugee: | 12 |
| A prostitute: | 80 |
Closed
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon I didn't vote because I have no clue even though I think I've seen the word before. Now that I've looked it up, I see it's a really good word. Thanks for that!
@Qbitzerre Voting is anonymous. There's no penalty for getting it wrong. : )
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon yeah, but picking a truly random answer didn't seem right. If I got it right it would skew the results! :)
This quiz has ended with 77% getting it right.
The correct answer is “a prostitute.” Louche means not reputable or decent. It is pronounced like /lewsch/.
Louche is also the term for the transformation of absinthe from clear to cloudy when you slowly add ice water
@tlariv Really? I did not know that.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon to be fair, used in Europe this would rather mean "shady" (like a street vendor selling stuff of questionable quality or legality), and not really apply to prostitution which is often legal under certain conditions.
Unless it's the kind of sex worker you expect to rob you at gunpoint before climax, then they are "louche".
I intentionally left the poll blank because I'd rather call a banker "louche" than a sex worker.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
It's a pity you can't have more quiz choices, could've had "Tory MP" and "Republican candidate" on there. Oh, Princes of the (UK) realm as well!
The Turtles - Happy Together (1967)
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, those were the days....
Yesterday’s Mystery Person was Leonard Nimoy.
From Wikipedia: Leonard Simon Nimoy was an American actor, famed for playing Spock in the Star Trek franchise for almost 50 years. Nimoy began his acting career in his early twenties, teaching acting classes in Hollywood and making minor film and television appearances through the 1950s. He originated and developed Spock beginning with the February 1964 Star Trek television pilots "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before." #MysteryPersonQuiz
Edit: @Morgunin has identified this artist as Yuri Hill, from Ukraine. Thank you.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon lovely 👍❤️
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon looks like a path into the unconscious. Let’s have a look on the horrors that lie there. 💀
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon sorry not sorry
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon The knights who say "Nee"?
Artist: Yuri Hill
https://www.artstation.com/hill
@Morgunin Thank you. Will edit post.
Manly man.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon the manly man looks really similar to the person on YouTube, always presenting funny pieces on piano with a super stern face.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon many of my Friends are Lumberjacks
OMG, she is so considerate. What a nice lady.
On the radar: shrinking the Emacs C core
Another one of those "I'm Eric Raymond and I'm here to help you" moments:
https://lwn.net/ml/emacs-devel/20230809094655.793FC18A4654@snark.thyrsus.com/
He showed up on the Emacs list wanting to thrash up much of the core editor code for some secret project that he didn't want to tell anybody about... the reaction was about as might have been expected. It did, though, kick off an extensive discussion on how much of the editor should be implemented in Lisp and whether moving C code to Lisp makes sense.
MYSTERY PERSON QUIZ FOR 2023.08.28
Do you know who this person is? This may be a hard one.
Give your answer or make your best guess below. (No reverse image search and peeking at other responses.)
Her name will be revealed tomorrow.
Please boost for more responses.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon it’s not Kiri Pritchard-McLean but I think they *have* to be related, right? 😂
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Emelda Marcos?
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Victoria de los Angeles?
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon first thought was Birgit Nilsson. They share some traits, but it’s not her.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Patsy Cline?
It Follows (2015)
This is such a fun movie with a somewhat unique premise.
Hi all! I just finished “The Three Body Problem” by Liu Cixin and enjoyed it a lot. It’s got me curious about sci-fi written elsewhere in the world and what cultural differences may appear in sci-fi written from a non-US perspective.
Does anyone have recommendations for what I should check out next? I only speak English and (sort of) French so I’m reliant on translations to one of those languages. Thanks!
Check out Roadside Picnic, inspiration for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series.
Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Inspired the STALKER video games.
At some point in the 20th century, aliens esentially fired some rockets filled with garbage at the earth. The fallout of these rockets created several “exclusion zones” around earth. The book chiefly follows speculators who risk crossing military cordons in order to recover and sell salvaged tech.
Anything by Stanislaw Lem. I really liked Fiasco.
Tarkovsky movies, either Stalker or Solaris. Both are incredibly slow but very solid. Admittedly, I watched them both during pandemic so the length bothered me less than it might of.
Not Before Sundown by Johanna Sinisalo.
Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky.
Like others, I’m hyping the Strugarski brothers’ Roadside Picnic, and Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris.
Thanks! What don’t you like about Risto Isomäki? This is the first I’ve heard of them.
Oh, well, it’s been a while, but… While Risto’s ideas tend to be interesting enough, as a writer and a storyteller I think he lacks finesse. Especially his characters and their interactions come off as flat and formulaic. Romance feels tacked on and clumsy and he’d be better off focusing on other areas. Still, I can’t say it’s all bad. I don’t want to drive anyone away from giving his work a chance.
I’ll suggest The Doomed City by the Strutgatsky brothers. I found it much more satisfying than Roadside Picnic. It’s much longer and much more philosophical. My username is from one of the characters in the book!
I’ll interpret non-US a bit broader as non-English. English is hugely dominant in scifi so it’s often hard to find good books in other languages. I’d also love to hear the recommendations of others too! A few I read:
Another person already said Stanislaw Lem, so I’m going to take a side route and suggest one of my favorite series…
BUUUT… It’s not sci fi. It’s still genre fiction, but rather modern dark fantasy.
The Night Watch books by Sergei Lukyanenko
…wikipedia.org/…/Night_Watch_(Lukyanenko_novel)
Premise is that magicians, wizards, vampires, witches, werewolves, sorceresses, they’re all real. The forces of light and dark were at war for centuries before they came to an agreement. The forces of dark would limit their activities to licensed behaviors, policed by the Night Watch, and similarly the forces of light would restrict themselves, policed by the Day Watch.
Now, here’s the problem… Lukyanenko is a Russian nationalist of Ukranian heritage. He fully supports the war in Ukraine.
The books have nothing to do with it and were largely written even before the Crimea invasion, but since then Lukyanenko has made a large number of unfortunate comments.
So how much you enjoy the works is going to depend on how much you can separate them from the author. ☹️
As a counterpoint I can recommend the Metro series by Dmitry Glukhovsky, who is an anti-war Russian, recently sentenced (in absentia) to 8 years prison.
Interesting… that’s the 2nd video game based on a book that I had no idea was a book.
The other being S.T.A.L.K.E.R. which was based on the book Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, who are also Russian.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic
Now we have a whole rabbit hole of Russian genre fiction!
I’ve been meaning to read the Metro books! Loved the games but never got around to reading the source material. Thanks for the reminder!
Unfortunate about Lukyanenko’s comments nowadays but I might still check out the books because they sound interesting! Maybe I’ll avoid buying copies of those though. Thanks for the rec!
Andreas Eschbach is quite unknown outside of the German speaking world, but I can recommend e. g. his The Carpet Makers.
The Best of World SF is undeniably an excellent sampler of voices from around the world, both of authors and of translators.
The editor comes off as maybe a bit self-centred? But I can't deny they have excellent taste and connections.
I'm depressed and I was wondering if anyone could help me with something: long-distance music collaborations.
Basically, I need a guitar player right now who plays metal, punk, or post-punk (the latter includes bands like Killing Joke, Lords of the New Church, and New Model Army)
The name I have chosen for this project/band is "The Very Idea" which was the name of a transgender bar in an Andrew Vachss novel - which is where I got it from.
If someone who has a DAW is interested I can send individual tracks as MP3s through email. You import those MP3 files into your DAW and then add guitar. And if you're skilled enough maybe EQ the vocals and some effects. (I only know the basics.)
I plan on re-singing it with my "good" singing voice. (I purposely channelled Jello Biafra, but I am a much better singer than this recording lets on.) A new version with keyboards has also been worked up.
The lyrics are at the SoundCloud link but I changed the first two lines of verse three to "Marx envisioned post capitalism to be a classless world without a state . . . "
The title is a play on "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" by the Dead Kennedys
1/2
https://soundcloud.com/theveryidea/tankie-punks-fuck-off-mp3
(2/2)
This song needs guitar and a naughty girl singer. I originally wrote it for at least 3 chick singers, and the title was "ANTIFA Sluts."
You can play it in Mastodon but you can read the lyrics at Soundcloud itself
I used an effects pedal that raises the pitch of your voice so a man can sound like a woman and sang it myself but I think it has the makings of a great song:
@dgar do you know anyone who might be interested?
This is the third toot in a thread of toots. See the first and second ones.
@CosmicTrigger I think I might be able to help with the guitar side of things
@scott What DAW do you use? Everything is contingent on you having one on your end.
I use Reaper. I used to use Cubase but Cubase sucks
@CosmicTrigger yeah my DAW situation is a little...up in the air right now. But also audacity has gotten really good lately so that might work.
basically I've been trying to get into this whole attitude of treating a linux desktop machine as a DAW rather than having a dedicated DAW software.
I'm pretty familiar with FL studio which runs well in WINE nowadays but I don't have money to buy reaper.
@scott Reaper is free, Scott. LOL
@scott You'll get a pop-up sometimes that says "Reaper is free for 60 days" but you keep getting that pop-up forever. You just have to wait for a countdown from 4 and then click "still evaluating." In perpetuity
@CosmicTrigger lmao i did not know that! I'll have to give it a shot!
@scott let me know.
Normally a music producer would never dream of using MP3s as audio files.
But I'm not a persnickety perfectionist.
In fact, I can't really tell the difference in quality between CD-R, WAV, and MP3.
The only difference I can tell - and this might sound a bit elitist - is between all those other sound files and vinyl.
Something about the way a record player sounds playing vinyl makes the music sound . . . I don't know . . . alive?
@CosmicTrigger yeah I was actually gonna ask if you could send .flac or .wav, it makes a difference if you're working with eq and stuff during production. I used to think there wasn't a difference but then I started listening to .flac all the time and then my vinyls didn't sound anything special.
@scott I don't have the money to pay for onedrive so I can send anything bigger than MP3s. I'd have to send thumb drives through snail mail. Which I also do not have enough money for.
@CosmicTrigger Mastodon has a 40MB upload limit (at least my instance does) which should be enough for individual .flac files unless they're REALLY long.
I could also add you as a user to my Nextcloud.
@scott I tried to add a video file once but it was too big. Let me go export some audio files and see if I can direct message them to you.
Which one are you interested in? I'd say Tankie Punks Fuck Off because I don't have girls to sing ANTIFA SLUT
@CosmicTrigger I'm gonna be honest I just realized that they were there to listen to and haven't listened to either one yet haha
@scott there's a few cool songs there but a couple I've decided are going to my professional band instead.
I wonder if the "Kill all cops" song is still up there.
@CosmicTrigger no, it's not 😂
I mean if you have a guitar part you need recorded, I can do it. I don't have a ton of time for more than that, but which song doesn't matter to me. Both sound pretty typical punk (which isn't really my style but I don't mind contributing) and you could always add in the vocals later if you find some willing and capable singers.
You got tabs for these or some thing of what notes you want me to play or at least what notes the bassline is so I can match up to it?
@scott I don't know what tabs are.
Past guitar players who worked with me just wrote punk or metal guitar parts of their own.
I don't mind if the bass stays keyboard bass. It certainly didn't hurt The Doors
@scott I'm gonna go add the "kill all cops" song. I will definitely be re-recording all the vocals. I can sing way better than what's on soundcloud.
@CosmicTrigger yeah but what notes are you using for the bass line?
Don't worry about tabs, it's fine.
@scott Uh . . . I can look at the piano roll in the midi sequences and see.
But figuring out every note would be silly. I can just look at the repeating notes and say the song is played in G (or F or A)
@scott Listen to Tankie Punks. The verse bass line starts and ends on one note.
So does the chorus bass line
So that parts/song would be in that key
@scott both songs are under 2 minutes
@scott OK I'm gonna direct message the four flac files for "Tankie Punks" (I added keyboards because that's what most of my music has in it - see my two pinned posts)
@scott Since I would be sending MP3s you probably don't need an external audio interface, but it does help.
Those are NOT free, sadly
I've been helping some friends and colleagues block some of the site scraping bots that are feeding "AI" models. Decided to take some of my notes and make something others could use too. It's a work-in-progress. Happy to add to or correct things.
https://neil-clarke.com/block-the-bots-that-feed-ai-models-by-scraping-your-website/
[transcription]
never got bullied but I remember a kid that did when I was growing up. Let’s call him Mike.
>scrawny. pasty kid. Curly hair, ginger, wore glasses.
>no friends
>constantly picked on by everyone
>I was pretty much the only kid that was pleasant to him. Never really had it in me to be a dick to people.
>Didn’t talk to him much though. Mostly just a smile and a headnod in the hallways
>spent most of his lunches writing and drawing in a notebook by himself
>everyday, constant bullying
>one day on the bus home, it was worse than usual. Don’t remember what exactly was said, but it was bad.
>I sat there and minded my own business
>kid goes home and hangs himself
>next day at school, everyone talked about how much they missed him and how they all loved him
>words cannot describe my disgust
>his funeral is coming up, I go only kid from my school that shows up his mother runs up to me
>you must be Phil! Mike always told me how you two were best friends! He always told me about all the fun you guys had etc etc
>It dawns on me
>everyday at lunch he was writing down made up stories of he and I hanging out and having a good time
>the thing that really haunts me, the thing that still keeps me up some nights now, 15 years later, is what she said next
>I just know that if you were on that bus you would have stopped them
I take solace in the fact that, as a 4chan post, it's probably made up.
scant solace.
If you live in a city with tall buildings, take a look at the night skyline. The buildings probably have flashing lights on them to help aircraft pilots to identify the shapes of buildings and not fly into them.
You might notice that the buildings flash in synchrony, even though they are hundreds of metres apart. What's going on?
(continued)
Testigo accidental | Calima - El Salto - Edición General
https://www.elsaltodiario.com/testigo-accidental/columna-opinion-paula-llaves-lecturas-verano-calima
Yesterday’s Mystery Person was Karen Silkwood.
From Wikipedia: Karen Silkwood was an American chemical technician and labor union activist known for raising concerns about corporate practices related to health and safety in a nuclear facility.
She worked at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site in Oklahoma, making plutonium pellets, and became the first woman on the union's negotiating team.
1/2
After testifying to the Atomic Energy Commission about her concerns, she was found to have plutonium contamination on her body and in her home. While driving to meet with a New York Times journalist and an official of her union's national office, she died in a car crash under unclear circumstances.
Here is the trailer for the movie about her life starring Meryl Streep. 2/2
ROUND 8
There's only one woman you can have sex with for the rest of your life. Who is it going to be?
Round 1 thru 4 winner: Gillian Anderson
Round 5 thru 7 winner: Margot Robbie
| Margot Robbie: | 94 |
| Britney Spears: | 15 |
| Angela Bassett: | 27 |
| Gwyneth Paltrow: | 11 |
Closed
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon this is obvious as I am in love with Robbie
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon guy with a jade egg for a dick: 👀
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Gwyneth Paltrow is very beautiful but I wouldn't want her quack tinctures in my house
there's always someone in the group
who hasn't figured out yet
what a sea of shit
they're swimming in.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon where's Sigourney Weaver?
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon no country for old men
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
Little Shop of Horrors Between My Legs
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon a few good men 😏
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon The Big Short Between... no wait I mean
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Between My Legs.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon That would be a potty, wouldn't it? A chamber between the legs, that is.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Rambo between my legs....
Oh boy. That is some horror movie.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon "Goldfinger Between My Legs"
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon ... "The Spy Who Loved me Between My Legs"?
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Beauty and the Beast Between My Legs
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Don't Look Up
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon A Room With a View...
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
12 Monkeys Between My Legs
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
Happy Feet Between My Legs
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
The Iron Giant Between My Legs
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
Labyrinth Between My Legs
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
Manos: The Hands of Fate Between My Legs
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Romancing The Stone Between My Leeks
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon A Fistful Of Dollars Between My Legs
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon "gone with the wind between my legs."
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Easy Rider
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Lethal weapon between my legs
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon snatch between my legs 🤔
@bnlandor That's almost too easy.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon What can I say? It's probably my favorite movie, so I couldn't resist 🤷♂️
Not that I tried 😁
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Aliens between my Legs
Jaws Between My Legs” because every so often we need to be reminded that Mommy has a Terrible (Lie) side, and vagina dentata is the ultimate way to die to yourself and get off at the same time… the best (mystical) deaths are the ones that HURT so good!
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Surprised no one suggested Little Big Man yet
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Hot Fuzz between my legs
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
Mission Impossible?
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon MATRIX BETWEEN MY LEGS 😂
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon The Fellowship of the Ring Between My Legs
The Unbearable Lightness of Living Between My Legs...
Wait, are there any movie with a title that isn't made automatically funnier by adding "...Between my Legs"?
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon The Grinch Between My Legs
Revenge is sweet.
#antifa #transrights #revenge #transphobia #transcakesofrevenge
MYSTERY PERSON QUIZ
Do you know who this person is?
Give your answer or make your best guess below. (No reverse image search and peeking at other responses.)
His name will be revealed tomorrow.
Please boost for more responses.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
Andre Leon Talley?
POLL TIME AGAIN!
Which fictional bad guy do you love to hate but also hate to love . . . because you do, in fact, love them?
| Dexter Morgan: | 18 |
| Magneto: | 36 |
| Niklaus (The Vampire Diaries and The Originals): | 3 |
| Hannibal Lecter: | 21 |
Closed
@CosmicTrigger Love me some Hannibal.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon In the books he's so much better, too.
The film "Hannibal" strayed from the book in HUGE ways, like Clarice and Hannibal become lovers and run off together at the end. One of the characters sees them years later, together at the opera.
@CosmicTrigger Seems to me I listened to Hannibal on CD decades ago, but I have absolutely no recollection of that.
Maybe it was Red Dragon I listened to and I forgot.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Did you know there are three film/TV versions of Red Dragon? In 1986 an adaptation called Manhunter came out and Brian Cox did a SUPERB job of playing Hannibal.
And then it was adapted for the show Hannibal, and Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikkelson's portrayals of Will Graham and Hannibal Lector is fucking mind-blowing.
Like anal fucking mind-blowing. I need to watch that series again.
I'm in a really dark place as it is.
I'm cheering on Niklaus in "The Vampire Diaries" and he's not an antihero at ALL, he's just a fucking villain, albeit a really charming one
@CosmicTrigger I've seen Manhunter but not the second one.
@CosmicTrigger @The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Klaus is also like the perfect character specimen of someone who is possesive of family in necrotic ways that ultimately destroy them entirely, and he also likes saying "Brother" in this way that is hilarious and so Vampire Diaries Universe in context
@ciggysmokebringer @The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
I'm not gonna lie:
I cried when Cami died in "The Originals."
But she redeemed Klaus in a way I never thought possible.
@CosmicTrigger @The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
*me and wife shouting at the screen*
"Stop trying to murder your brother, bruuutharrrr, jesus christ!"
@ciggysmokebringer @The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
My "scream at the TV" moments in all three series is when the "good guys" decide "death is too good" for the bad guys and lock them up - and they ALWAYS - NO EXCEPTIONS *EVERY SINGLE TIME* get loose and come looking for revenge.
I haven't finished the show because it got so over-the-top ridiculous I couldn't take it seriously but the way they made Elizabeth Saltzman and Aurora de Martel bond over them both having mental illness redeemed Aurora in my eyes
@CosmicTrigger @The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
I think a huge part of the fun of these shows (Soaps, lets just agree they are a type of Soap Opera) is that they do get unhinged and over the top, but yeah...The Originals plays it a lot more serious and straight despite melodrama and plot conceits to keep things dramatic, and it produces some real howlers and eye rollers for it.
Fwiw, Legacies is like the perfect in universe antidote to The Originals if you full stopped on anything having to do with it. Like, a more ensemble cast with fun pairings for episodes and some overriding central characters but not like, "Klaus remembers a time Elijah purposefully 'forgot' to tell him about a thing that vexes him and how unforgiveable that is"
@ciggysmokebringer @The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
I am from New Orleans. I don't live there now but it is where I call home.
And a friend of mine from way back got me to watch The Originals. It really made me miss home. I lived in the French Quarter or just a few blocks away a few times in the 16 years I lived there.
Then I started watching TVD and was all like "High School vampires? No way" and skipped to season two when Elijah and Klaus come into the picture. And kept watching and kept watching and kept watching.
I lost it when Elena was grieving for Damon. It reminded me of how I feel about New Orleans and all my friends there.
I wound up connecting way more with the characters in TVD than in either The Originals and Legacies. So I went back and watched from the beginning to see what I missed.
I thought the whole "Vampires in High School" thing was going to be cheesy to the point of being unwatchable. It wasn't. At all.
The ONLY thing that seemed utterly ridiculous and unbelievable (I mean, other than, you know, Vamps and Wolves and Witches) was Rebekah, who looks at LEAST 28 or something, going to high school and being bratty like Caroline and trying to be popular. That was utterly stupid.
But other than that, it tugs at my heartstrings, that show. It really really does
@CosmicTrigger Plankton
@CosmicTrigger you should have killed me softly when you had the chance, Charles
Dexter Morgan, but without all the hate, only love (except for the last two or so seasons, which I consider non-existent).
@angel Dexter was an anti-hero but his actions had lethal consequences for others.
In the last season, he deliberately kills a decent human being and friend just to get out of jail
What's the book?
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon 100 recipes for human meat
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon The bible
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon the Bible
/ducks
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
Mein Kampf
Joker answer: The Necronomicon
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Atlas Shrugged
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon "The Fortran programming language"
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon The New Testament
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon 12 Rules For Life
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Natural Harvest.
Or shoot, maybe it's a good sign? I'm torn.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Atlas Shrugged
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Mein Kampf, clearly.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon The Art of the Deal
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Atlas Shrugged
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Atlas shrugged
Thiss superb question requires two answers!
1st choice: The Inequality of the Human Races by Arthur Gobineau
2nd choice – Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille…and I immediately leave and rush to my car to quickly retrieve my C3P0 buttplug, gleefully and with much agiggle insert it into my not-so-virgin ass, & return where I proceed to get down on both my knees and ask her to marry me, followed by an a cappella extra breathy rendition of “Ringfinger” by Nine Inch Nails
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon “Atlas Shrugged”
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Mein Kampf
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
C++ For Dummies
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon The Secret
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
Been dealing w/ a heart condition called atrial fibrillation for many years, and for a long time medicine kept it under control. Until recently. Was told that the new Apple watches will let you know when/if you're in afib. I already had an older one but all the literature said the newer was better at afib detection and monitoring.
I've found that while there were a few times over the past few months where the watch has alerted me to my heart being in afib, it's more the exception than the rule. Because apparently I've been in afib long enough w/out noticing that the heart thinks this is normal. Got a real heart monitor and found out it's pretty much in afib all the time.
Obviously, this is less than ideal, and we're looking at various treatment options. The point of this post, however, is just to say that if you're counting on your Apple watch to let you know if your afib is under control, you probably shouldn't.
TRIVIA QUIZ
This quiz is a repeat. Please skip if you’ve participated before.
Octopuses have __________.
If you don’t know take your best guess.
Please boost to get more responses.
Check back tomorrow for the correct answer.
| eight tentacles: | 79 |
| eight arms: | 36 |
| six arms and two legs: | 16 |
| four tentacles and four arms: | 4 |
Closed
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon in swedish they have arms :)
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon hmm, according to their name, it's feet. Maybe a clue for the right answer *looking at you, monkeys*
Don't know a word about octopuses (I voted anyway, as the reckless kamikaze I am) but I'm pretty sure that squids have 8 arms and two tentacles, which are those longer limbs that only have suckers (is that the word?) In the flatter surfaces at the end.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
Just asked Paul the psychic octopus, he said "darn can't get any fitting soccer apparel, i need three shorts for a jersey"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjsIp-gbKXg
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon I knew this because of the album Eight Arms To Hold You by Veruca Salt 
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
Hilarious that the correct answer came in 3rd.
And I was also wrong.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon No idea if this source is worth looking at at all, but there it says arms for octopusses, arms and tentacles for squids..
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon the difference between arms and tentacles is the length. Therefore most humans develop tentacles around puberty and shed their arms.
This poll has ended with only 12% choosing correctly.
The answer is “six arms and two legs.”
Octopuses don’t have tentacles, but squids do. “Tentacles tend to be much longer than arms and only have suckers at their "clubbed" ends, whereas arms are shorter, stronger, and suckered all the way down.”
1/2
Scientists have ascertained that octopuses use the first three pairs of appendages for hunting, feeding, climbing, digging and exploring their environment. These three pairs have been classified as arms for obvious reasons.
The last pair of appendages seems to be only used for walking on the ocean floor and propulsion, and these two have been classified as legs — giving octopuses six arms and two legs.
2/2
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Well, I learned something new today!
ROUND 7
There's only one woman you can have sex with for the rest of your life. Who is it going to be?
Round 1 thru 4 winner: Gillian Anderson
Round 5 & 6 winner: Margot Robbie
| Venus Williams: | 17 |
| Kelly Clarkson: | 3 |
| Ariana Grande: | 15 |
| Margot Robbie: | 88 |
Closed
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon “I recognise a trap when I see one.” , he said, rotating his wedding ring slowly on his finger.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Do any of them like philosophy?
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon I just saw Barbie so I didn't need to think about this one
Chose Venus Williams because she is pretty hot but given that I'm 55, unfit, unemployed and depressed and she is like a tower of strength, that "rest of my life" will be rather short.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon I'm kinda surprised Arianna got so many votes, I guess people are Ok with the only person they can have sex with, can go around banging whoever she wants.
Question to the physical book readers here, what do you use as bookmark?
I currently got a paper bookmark but don’t like it to be honest.
I got a couple fancy plastic bookmarks with some books I pre-ordered, and I use those mostly now. Otherwise I just use the receipt from buying the book
Whatever I happen to have around me when I stop reading. Generally some form of paper, but I’m flexible.
I just have a bunch of bookmarks laying around from bookstores that I buy my books from, but I’ll use receipts as well if I can’t find any bookmarks lol
Generally. Whatever piece of paper I have handy, even if that’s a piece of toilet paper.
However, if it’s what I call a “loaner” copy, I dogear. There’s some books that I (for whatever reason) end up loaning out more than most, so I keep a few cheap paperback copies around. Those are what I reach for, for bathroom reading as well. Since I know they’ll get loaned out and never returned, I just don’t care about losing corners here and there. But I don’t dogear big folds, just enough to mark the page. So if the section gets torn off, the text is still there.
I’ve had dozens of dedicated bookmarks over the years, and they disappear like bic pens and socks. So I gave up on them and just use whatever thin paper is handy.
A bookmark... one of these magnetic ones (although you need to careful; some of them are too thick and leave actual marks on the pages).
I have a probably too large and pedantic collection of cardboard bookmarks, some bought in remote cities, some given to me as gifts, some that went included inside other books. I even have a real chinese Yuan/Rembimbi bill that I got from a friend, long dead.
Sometimes I even use napkins and buy receipts and pieces of torn newspaper.
These 3d printed ones. www.printables.com/model/59453-bookmark-basic I use tiny prints to finish up the last meters of a filament roll. I’ve made tons of these and give them away.
I don’t. I just look at the page I’m on when I’m done reading and then open it to that page when I come back.
Came here to say this, thinking I’d be the only one. If I can’t remember the exact page I enjoy thumbing through and skimming sections til I get to where I left off. Most of the time though I just open up to where I left off and continue
I use whatever is around… a receipt, a square of TP, a cat’s whisker once. I have a bunch of bookmarks but they’re never around when I need them (and I always forget to grab one when I grab a book off the bookshelf).
I use the receipt I get from the library when I check the book out. No danger of forgetting due date.
I usually use a receipt. Right now I'm flying fancy, though, using a round, two-inch-diameter sticker, back still attached, that I got from the Danish Pipe Shop with my last order. It was the only two-dimensional object in the vicinity when I last needed a bookmark. Its small size makes it kinda impractical, but I can't really muster the energy to do anything about it.
My mother actually had a grand collection of bookmarks that she collected during her life, and that I inherited, but I never really felt compelled to use them.
Many years ago, I fell from the stairs due to a diabetic episode. I was kept in a coma for a few days. When I woke up I had this id bracelet on my arm. I still use it as a bookmark till this day.
Book Darts! I’m typically reading for research and writing and the book darts are great for coming back to the right sentence when I’ve stopped off and will leave them in long-term if I’m swapping between edited volumes. I’ve got a tin of 100, so it’s no problem if I leave a few within books here and there. I typically add one whenever a new book comes home. If I haven’t got one already placed or I start reading while out and about I dog-ear.
I have a bunch of magnetic bookmarks, I’m usung mainly them because thise don’t fall out accidentally
I fold the corner of the page that I stopped on.
How do you find the courage to do that? For me that would feel like a crime punishable by death.
I hate seeing people abuse their books in horrendous ways, but maybe I’m just overly OCD.
Id never do it on a borrowed/library book, but for personal books why not? You arent exactly doing significant damage to it and it’s rather unlikely that any given random book is going to significantly hold it’s value or be worthwhile on a historical timeframe or anything like that. Books are made to be read, and I kind of like how well loved books get dog eared and spine-creased over time.
I laminated some of my duplicate Pokemon cards (don’t use holographics as they heat up in the laminating machine!!!) and use those, now.
I don’t like honest bookmarks as well. A proper bookmark should be mean-spirited and lie to me, so that I’ll never find my place again!
I fold any piece of paper into one of those dog-ear corner bookmarks. I’ve got dozens around, made of everything from sticky notes to receipts to a parking ticket. They way I do it has a line going down the middle on one side that I use to show me which side of the page I’m on.
My wife bought a few sets of bookmarks off aliexpress. They look really good. Here’s an example:
Here’s the link: www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004921501847.html, but you can find tons of styles and models.
A sticker of cute dogs in space suits and the caption “we want fully automated intergalactic luxury gay space communism” because it reminds me of Ian M. Banks - also gets a laugh out of people 😁
Kleenex, usually since I can never find my real bookmark. I seem to have left it in a book somewhere in my bookshelf…
Status of the #activitypub in #azorius.
Figured out, I think, some of the weirdness with kbin. Instead of using the group actor, it just picks a random person to announce new posts. Not the author, not anyone related, just apparently anyone on the server. It works in the sense that the post arrives, but it will look a bit weird if you look at any of these people's profiles. I mean, whatever.
Added a few fixes and workarounds so federation with lotide should work pretty well now. Not a lot of instances, but the code base is pretty simple.
I leave you with this gem.
🐼
(she / her) :EA DATA. SF:
+ u, err := url.Parse(keyid)
+ if err != nil {
+ dlog.Printf("error parsing keyid: %s", err)
+ return
+ }
+ u.Path = "/" + strings.TrimLeft(u.Path, "/")
+ keyid = u.String()
Instead of using the group actor, it just picks a random person to announce new posts. Not the author, not anyone related, just apparently anyone on the server.This is pure insanity.
It's a tough decision. But if you've been working on this album for ten years, it may be worth to wait just a little bit more (yes, it's easy for me to say it, don't know any detail).
Can't you both agree on some part of the material to be published right now, and keep working on the rest for, say, a second album, or an extended one?
@angel I write all the songs. And lyrics. He just adds guitar and then swaps out the sequenced bass with real bass. We hire a drummer to play real drums to replace the fake drums.
I have all the albums written. The second AND third albums are already written and I am getting angrier and angrier that we haven't started on the second one already.
He wants to release four songs at a time and whatnot. And in a way we have done that (see my two pinned posts)
But I want the entire album released at one time. I really upset that our first album has become our "Chinese Democracy." (Guns n Roses last album that took 20 fucking years to be released.)
Oh. So you are the real creator here.
How difficult could be to find another collaborator? You may have one or two different bands simultaneously, apart from the one you already have. You may even give different musical approachings to these different projects.
Just guessing. It's hard when you feel a collaborator is lagging the final work. I wish you luck.
@angel I am too beaten down to do that.
If I quit, I quit forever. 53 years old is too old to be chasing the dreams I had in my 20s.
MYSTERY PERSON QUIZ
Do you know who this person is?
Give your answer or make your best guess below. (No reverse image search and peeking at other responses.)
Her name will be revealed tomorrow.
Please retoot if you can.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon awesome Joan Jett haircut but I didn't think that's her. 1978 or so?
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon I’m going to guess it’s Sandra Bullock.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
She's Snowden's older sister 🤔
But on a more serious note...
'Killed' in a car crash. They even made a movie about her.
Over 153,000 square km of Canadian land were burned in 2023, bigger than South Korea's total land area of 100,339 square km.
In 2023, the number of burned areas in #Canada is nearly double the 1995 record.
As of August 2023, 5,881fires have been reported across Canada.
Forest fires in Canada this year have released 290 million tonnes of CO2, doubling a previous annual record, account for over 25% of the global total for 2023 to date.
https://ciffc.ca/
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canadian-wildfire-emissions-double-previous-record-flames-rage-2023-08-03/
@yogthos and how much of that forest had been traded for fraudulent #CarbonCredits?
Every business that claims it is #CarbonNeutral based on so-called carbon trading, every politician who promotes #CarbonTrading schemes, should be treated as criminal. This is deliberate deception.
@simon_brooke if I recall correctly, more forest has burned down than was planted as part of the carbon offset initiative
@yogthos @simon_brooke What we still need to do is plant trees. A lot of the well-meaning messages on carbon trading create a false equation: we can’t fix it with trees = tree planting itself is useless. As well as huge #CO2Reduction We need a #CarbonTax & we need to use a it to plant trees. 79% of the USA’s electricity comes from direct burning of fossil fuel- transport still relies heavily on direct burning of fossil fuel. Burning trees 🌲 is a disaster but not replanting a worse one.
@ScotHomestead @simon_brooke oh I'm all for planting trees, but it has to be done in a meaningful way and given that forest fires are becoming an increasing problem, a lot more resources need to be devoted to preventing them now.
I personally don't think carbon tax will do much. What really needs to happen is for the industry to be nationalized, and for the profits to be directed towards addressing the climate crisis.
@yogthos Again, I agree, but we don’t have time to wait for wholesale political revolution, (so while we are campaigning for it) maybe a tax is a step forward in a way in which voluntary industry sponsored carbon ‘off-set’ or whatever nonsense name they want to call it is never going to make a difference.
Canada promised to "plant 2 billion trees over ten years" against criticism of increasing oil sales speed.
This Climate Catastrophe has burned 24 Billion Trees. Canada has never completed its "first" year of planting.
The ludicrous joke, the shaming karma, the fish slap in the face of irony.
We have been "reassured" to the brink of disaster.
It is time to build sun an wind like ships and tanks for war.
Past time.
INSIST
Not 𝟚𝟡𝟘 𝕞𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕥𝕠𝕟𝕟𝕖𝕤 of carbon, but 𝟚𝟡𝟘 𝕞𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕥𝕠𝕟𝕟𝕖𝕤 of carbon dioxide
@kevinrns ran out of char limit :)
@yogthos damn you hate people using screen readers huh
Normally when we post patents, they're late 19th/early 20th century objects for interfacing with vaginas.
This is neither, but we're going to tell you about it anyway.
This is the Apparatus For Facilitating The Birth Of A Child By Centrifugal Force, patented in 1965.
Por favor, que se ve que ahora que han tirado de la manta se está investigando que Rubiales usó fondos de la Federación para irse a Nueva York fingiendo que tenía reuniones de trabajo y estuvo con una mujer que no es su esposa
y la gente se está centrando en esto último
peña, os señalan la luna y miráis el dedo
ser infiel (si lo es) no es ilegal, estará feo como mucho
lo otro sí es un delito
@CosmicTrigger @dgar don't give people ideas I'd say
@CosmicTrigger @dgar makes me wanna give them hallucinogens. let the alligators gain consciousness !
@CosmicTrigger @dgar It reminds me a little of the 2-metre python police discovered in a meth lab near Sydney, that needed to be rehabilitated to shake its addiction: https://dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/meet-the-2m-iceaddicted-python-who-had-to-dry-out-in-a-prison-rehab-program/news-story/16c9f2ba6b399983037b66bf95ffd9a2
@CosmicTrigger @dgar there's a board, there's a history
@CosmicTrigger @dgar
From the producers who brought you Cocaine Bear comes this summer's biggest blockbuster: Shroom Gator!
as we say in Brazil: "if there is a sign, there is a history behind" :)
como dizemos no Brasil: "se tem placa, tem alguma historia" :)
@CosmicTrigger @dgar
They don't talk about that night anymore
obsdfreqd moved from tildegit.org to sourcehut
https://git.sr.ht/~solene/obsdfreqd
testing for the version 1.2.0 is welcome 
@solene that is hosted in the same suite as OpenBSD Amsterdam, these days. :)
@solene I'm running 1.2.0. I only have 2 CPUs, so I don't expect to see any change. 
Just so you know, your posted diff to ports@ included embedded HTML, so it would not patch(1) without a little editing.
@jggimi thanks for testing
in my patch, I don't see any HTML there https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-ports&m=169277381928517&q=mbox
@solene I downloaded it again from lists.openbsd.org, and this time it patched cleanly. Yay! 
I must have made a mistake with the first extraction. 
@jggimi maybe the email was encoded with some =3C or something like that, but it's totally legit per email specification. Maybe marc.info strip it
@solene
I have been running 1.2.0 on a Thinkpad with 8 cores since it was release. Note, OpenBSD turns that into 4 cores. No issues and seems to me it is working fine.
@jmcunx yes, you have 4 online cores, the other are disabled because SMT is disabled, you could enable them again using sysctl hw.smt=1
obsdfreqd uses the online cores for calculation :)
My boss recently bought a couple of books that he expected my team to read.
In the past when previous bosses have done this, I’ve generally gained a lot out of reading the books, even if I disliked some aspects of their arguments I’ve been able to get a lot of insight from the arguments and evidence presented.
But this book is complete garbage. Truly first rate trash. It barely qualifies as a book. Conquer Your Rebrand, is ostensibly meant to be a business strategy guide to branding. But it is more like a long winded LinkedIn post. It’s clearly an attempt by the author to fill his sales pipeline that’s barely disguised as him passing on ‘expertise.’ It presents no arguments, is severely lacking in any sort of citations and is written like someone desperately trying to flog a timeshare at a weekend convention. I have redlined the shit out of it but I got so infuriated reading it that I can’t imagine how to have a decent discussion with my boss about this book without seeming like my low opinion of this book reflects back on him (which in reality it really does.)
I think it’s so much worse because I just finished two brilliant books on my own time —Jack Welsh: The Man Who Broke Capitalism and When McKinsey Comes To Town: The Hidden Influence of The World’s Biggest Consulting Firm — that both present compelling arguments, detailed referencing and excellent writing.
How would you handle this?
Just use your social skills. Compliment their book to have an interesting starting point, then pivot the conversation to the books you find more impactful. Compliment the person on having the good graces to find and launching point. And then move on to what you find more effective.
It’s the same thing as a friend tries to get you to try mustard ice cream. You don’t have to be mean. You can say oh ice cream is amazing I love chocolate ice cream, mustard’s interesting.
Don’t talk about it unless asked.
If asked, find ONE and only ONE good thing to say about it. Surely there’s something in there that’s appealling… “I really liked how confident he is!” He’s confidently WRONG, but don’t get into that part. “He’s really enthusiastic!”
My favorite? “It was amazing!” (how stupid and inane this book was) Spot the unsaid part. :)
Looking for backhanded corpoflattery?
I think x is an important subject that the author mentioned.
The level of expertise the author has is very apparent.
They obviously put a lot of work into this.
The last one basically means “its absolutely worthless”.
The trick is to take a statement which should be true for any book. Usually these statements are followed by a more detailed description of what you found to be commendable. Lack of such a description speaks loudly but the other party does not need to engage it.
If you actually said “its worthless”, then the other party would have to engage your statement. This leaves the opportunity to just gracefully accept your opinion and to just never speak of it again.
Based on the OP's description, I'm not sure these are enough to hide the towering contempt - they are thinly veiled snide remarks. I empathize, just, y'know, it is what it is. If the boss has issues taking criticism or OP doesn't deliver the line perfectly, it's not far off from "it was shit and the author's a dumbfuck" and is very likely to get (fairly correctly) interpreted that way.
Oh its a very thin line to tread sometimes in office politics. Do not merely drop that line and leave it hanging, there has to be some padding around it.
The larger point is what OP wants to say. If they do not want any sort of confrontation, lie. Its OK to lie to your boss if its not directly related to work.
If you want to be honest but not engage in any further discussion these statements convey that I think. Sometimes you actually want to say “I think that person is not qualified and will never learn” but leave the option for the other party to gloss over that statement.
Don’t try to be clever by saying one thing and meaning another. Be clear about what you want to communicate and then how to communicate it.
They obviously put a lot of work into this.
The last one basically means “its absolutely worthless”.
So when someone says this about me they’re actually calling me worthless? This is why I hate talking to people. Everything means the opposite of what it’s supposed to.
It depends on the context. If you’re asked to evaluate something and all you have to say about someone’s work is that it took effort there is a lot unsaid. As in “at least they tried”.
If you’re saying “wow that looks like it took a lot of work” it means that you’re acknowledging that someone spent a lot of energy on something. Like if its a really elaborate piece of art and you’re just marveling at it.
If someone’s saying this to you about your work they most likely mean the latter since the former is pointlessly cruel. Unless they’re trying to bully or harass there is no need to tell someone their work is worthless.
A lot of language is subtle.
On this case, the use of the word “obviously” is a backhanded compliment. It’s like seeing someone come last in a race and say “well they obviously tried”. I
I don’t really think if this (the subtlety of language) as a bad thing. If you want to improve as a writer you have to begin dissecting words and meaning and underlying context. It’s part of emotional and social intelligence.
When taking to people, it’s not as easy as “everything is the opposite”. If that were true, then it would be easy since everything is the opposite. Learning the subtlety of language is a skill—you might argue in every way as important as learning to code or learning maths or learning how to walk.
You already kinda said it—this is a problem with the relationship with your boss, not with the book.
With my boss, I can just say, “Honestly, this one was a miss for me. I appreciate the recommendation, and I wanted to give it a chance, but I didn’t find much actionable substance in it. What did you get out of it?”
If you don’t feel like you can do that, have a conversation with him about how he likes to receive feedback. If the answer is “he doesn’t,” it might be time to go boss shopping. But I doubt that will be the case.
This. Plus you can soften it with “I recently read X and Y, which taught me A and B plus a lot more, so maybe I’m just spoiled by a really high bar.”
Your boss may not have fully developed their confidence in leadership yet. This is ok. We all can grow, including them. You may have an opportunity to teach your boss something here, which is also great since we should be open to learning from anyone, but avoiding any purposeful harm to their ego would be a nice gesture. Not required of course.
The first question to ask yourself is: “why do I need to say anything at all?”. If you don’t like the book or think it’s garbage, you don’t need to say anything. It’s not your job to educate your boss on what’s good or bad. So keep your yap shut.
The second issue is how to feign interest or how to steer the conversation. I would treat something like this the same way I treat a conversation about religion, race, or gender, that might disagree with amongst colleagues or people I don’t know.
As others have said, you can turn questions around and ask them. “It’s not my type of book but did you enjoy it? What part did you like?”
The key to it is to leave your ego behind. If a child comes up to me and says they liked some trite novel, I wouldn’t disparage them. I’d feign interest and ask them to talk about it.
Thanks. I appreciate the advice. I will definitely take onboard what you’re saying about keeping my ego in check.
you can turn questions around and ask them
+1 to this. If he asks if you read it, just say "Sure did boss! And actually, I'm curious, what was your favorite part?" Then just nod at appropriate times while listening to him drone on until it's socially acceptable for you to bow out of the conversation.
Honestly some of it is a skill, right? Since having kids and being around more children you quickly learn how to feign enthusiasm and excitement.
Also as you grow up you just learn how to pick your battles. Sometimes the gaps between people are so wide.
Science and logic and rational thinking is, in some sense, a religion. Either you drank the kool aid or you didn’t. It’s hard to convert people to it after they hit the work stage.
How did he pick it? Did he personally think it was good or did he relay somebody else’s suggestion? Should be easier in the latter case to say something like “it doesn’t seem relevant to my work” in the latter case without hurting his ego
Real talk, are you getting paid to read this book? Like, on company time, or you’re expected to read it after work?
This entire concept of reading a book for work sounds awful to me. Ive only ever had one boss buy me books, and it was just because they were friends with the authors and got us signed copies. There was no expectation that we would actually read them, and they were not all that relevant to our work.
Yeah, it’s pretty normal to be given readings in my role as part of my cpd. There’s no way to read them on company time so I typically read them after work or on weekends. I don’t love it.
This sounds aweful.
There’s no way to read them on company time so I
typically read them after work or on weekendsdon't read them.
Company tasking happens on company time.
I’ve worked in a sales role for a Fortune 500 company that expected this as well. The way it was explained by my boss was something along the lines of “Reading this will help improve your sales, so don’t you want to make more money? Aren’t you a team player?”
Not reading it would have been tantamount to saying you don’t care about doing a good job, and while not a fireable offense, it would have made me look like I was just coasting and not someone to be taken seriously in the company. It’s all part of the game and corporate culture.
I got out of that company the first chance I got.
An abusive culture doesn't make abuse acceptable. I'm happy to hear you got out.
I do read books for professional development, but while I'm sitting in my office during project lulls. I even keep them on my bookshelves, with The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck prominently displayed in a very visible position where I can point to it when I need to make a point.
I’d just be honest and savage the book. If you just cushion his ego he’s going to either do this again or actually follow whatever nonsense is in the book.
I would suggest finding a book on a similar topic that is better, and just mention the other book to your boss, saying you think this other treatment of the material was better organized or something innocuous. You might get your boss to read the better book which could improve things at work. 🙂
If your boss gave you this book with the honest intention to hear you opinion and share ideas, just be sincere and say what you said here: "It presents no arguments, is severely lacking in any sort of citations..." and the rest. You say that it's garbage without explicitly saying it. It may even give birth to a real interchange of ideas. Mentioning the books you liked instead may even prove positive for everybody involved.
If, on the contrary, it's the usual material from crappy bosses that only want to reaffirm themselves in their bossy bullshit, just tell them that it was "very remarkable and with very enlightening ideas" and move on.
OP why would you give a shit about honest feedback if honest feedback will influence your job in a negative manner? Say mindless nice bullshit so you boss leaves you alone and move on.
If there was worth in honesty in your working environment you wouldn't need to make this post.
Tell your boss he’s a genius.
Seriously, it’s a job and you shouldn’t have to worry about anything after five pm.
I think you have to ask yourself why he picked out this book. You can even try asking him how he heard about it, if you can do it in a curious non-judgmental way.
If you think he chose it because he wanted the team to improve or grow in this area and the title sounded like a good fit, you can probably be more honest with your criticism, especially if you can offer other theories or strategies and recommended the sources you learned them from. In this case, I think he’d care more that his book triggered these discussions than whether it was strictly any good.
But if you think he has read and enjoyed this book himself, or that he saw it advertised on LinkedIn and thought it would be a nice manager thing to get it for everyone, I think you should keep your comments more positive. Tell him about any parts that you did think were good, point out the topics that you’re most interested in researching further, tell him about any ideas for the team that were triggered while reading, etc.
This is a good opportunity to practice managing upward. Engage with your boss about the book. Bring up a talking point from the book without judgement, and ask the boss what he thought about it. Ask what other talking points the boss found valuable, and why. Ask if there are any strategies from the book he woule like to try, and how he would test the success.
Your boss recomended the book, so in his eyes there is probably value there. Even if you found none, you can use this as an opportunity to understand your boss, and to clarify and shape expectations.
This is excellent.
The book, from your perspective, didn’t ha e any value.
But for your boss, it did.
And if anything, this makes you look good for valuing his opinion, even if in the end, you don’t plan to use it.
There must have been something in the book that resonated for him. Something he feels is missing from your company or could be implemented in your company. Try to find that thing and use the discussion to ask him how you think your company could operationalize that concept/idea. Also have your own ideas ready for this.
This will change the conversation and pump his ego.
My go-to is “It didn’t quite hit for me, but that’s the beauty of the reader’s perspective. What stood out to you?”
As someone who has read a lot of absolutely shit-teir books (think the zombie obsession circa mid 2000s), I’m ok saying if something didn’t resonate with me.
I got nothin'.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon
Me up an email, get fired, lose pay, lose housing, lose access to food.
I think this response is proportionate
There may be exercises or other forms of therapy that healthcare professionals can recommend. Reach out to them.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Sooooo many drugs.
But seriously... If I nearly crash my car at high speeds, I do the clearest, calmest thinking I've ever done. Making a phone call though?? Not happening.
Don't mess up your kids, folks.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon I'm in this picture, and I don't like it :p
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon the greatest question of the Information Age
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Love it! This song makes me wonder what the world would have been like without clinical depression and poor coordination.. Seriously though, the 70’s was thee decade for dancing, porn, and hairy chests. I'm so feeling the whole vibe right now. My inner Disco boy is ready to sniff a line of coke and bust a hustle on the dance floor!
Wow. Wikipedia says this gem was published in 1975, but I would have sweared that it was much earlier. Talk about the Mandela Effect.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon it’s a beautiful, catchy song. <3
I wish I knew this when I was younger.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon I was such a D&D/anime/comic nerd and also bullied when I was in my teens I didn't realize that with the right wardrobe and look I was smoking fucking hot.
Once I did realize this, I realized that confidence is very, very sexy.
Being highly intelligent and charming helped as well. As did knowing THIS:
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon@mastodon.social should i put this on my bumble profile or nah
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon funny but abuser / stalker talk
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon you have letters, you can make words with them, with words you can make sentences, but that does not mean those sentences make any sense. like this example for instance.
MYSTERY PERSON QUIZ
Do you know who this little girl is?
Give your answer or make your best guess below. (No reverse image search and peeking at other responses.)
Her name will be revealed tomorrow.
Please retoot if you can.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Just imagine, if she had never been born Britain would have clean drinking water today.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Dag Hammarskjöld
It took me longer than I care to admit to find the problem
Only ever bought prebuilts, I’m guessing something was left behind on the motherboard?
When they removed the sticks of RAM they also removed the slots the RAM goes into.
I’m 99% sure this is a shitpost.
You’d have to be significantly less intelligent than a raccoon, to not notice the little levers on the sides of the RAM sticks.
Everyone talks about the levers in RAM sticks, but why the FUCK nobody talks about levers on PCI-E sticks? I thought that three didn’t exist and did the same thing as OP.
This actually doesn’t look that bad. I know it’s not good but you don’t need new ram (even if it is 4gb of ram). You only need a new motherboard which is probably an old one because you wouldn’t pair a bad CPU with a good motherboard and it has to be a bad CPU since no good CPU will run with 4gb of ram. The motherboard for this probably costs under $30.
Se ha descubierto una grave vulnerabilidad de seguridad en WinRAR que podría permitir a un atacante ejecutar código de forma remota en Windows
https://thehackernews.com/2023/08/new-winrar-vulnerability-could-allow.html
La vulnerabilidad, identificada como CVE-2023-40477, es el resultado de una validación incorrecta al procesar volúmenes de recuperación
La explotación exitosa requiere que el usuario interactúe abriendo un archivo malicioso o visitando una página comprometida
Se ha solucionado en WinRAR 6.23, lanzado el 2 de agosto de 2023
¿Todavía existe el WinRAR? 😳
VOCABULARY QUIZ
The word ___________ means “commonplace and ordinary.”
If you don’t know take your best guess.
Please boost to get more responses.
Check back tomorrow for the correct answer.
| recherché: | 15 |
| muciferous: | 15 |
| quotidian: | 174 |
| incommensurable: | 6 |
Closed
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Three of them might work together... why you muciferous quotidian incommensurable brat
We Spanish speakers had an advantage here, because the absolutely-non-exotic word we use for "commonplace and ordinary" is "cotidiano".
ROUND 6
There's only one woman you can have sex with for the rest of your life. Who is it going to be?
Round 1 thru 4 winner: Gillian Anderson
Round 5 winner: Margot Robbie
Gillian Anderson was finally unseated by Margot Robbie. Will Robbie win again?
| Sophia Vergara: | 48 |
| Grace Jones: | 26 |
| Margot Robbie: | 69 |
| Megyn Kelly: | 3 |
Closed
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon is megyn kelly a stratospheric hate-fuck?
Un helicóptero apagafuegos en Tenerife queda inutilizable tras recibir una pedrada mientras recogía agua
https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/5166167/0/inutilizan-un-helicoptero-apagafuegos-tenerife-tras-recibir-una-pedrada-mientras-recogia-agua/
@VictorMoral @euklidiadas con lo mostró que es desde tipo de vuelo, lo arriesgado que es, sólo falta que encima estés a punto de matarte por qué alguien te de una pedrada
@josem_sgp @euklidiadas y sobre todo si lo hacen guiados por la idea de que les están robando agua para sus cosechas. Que ya les han dicho que será repuesta, pero los bulos son lo que son.
@VictorMoral @euklidiadas nada, que se queme su cosecha y su casa y luego vivan de su alberca 😓 Tengo amigos volando esos bichos por media España, sólo pensar que les den una pedrada me pone enfermo
¿Cómo hay que ser de borrico para inutilizar un helicoptero de una pedrá? Madre mía que mastuerzo
@angel hay un grupo de negacionistas proclamando que quieren quemarlos vivos y atizando más aún el ambiente de desesperación. Para ayudar, vamos.
Muy interesante esta opinión sobre el beso que Rubiales robó a la ganadora Jenni Hermoso.
"Es natural que, en su primera intervención en la cadena COPE, Rubiales haya insultado a todo el mundo que se ha metido con él entre risas de sus entrevistadores, más perdidos aún que él. Son las declaraciones de una persona que se considera incomprendida por parte de unos supuestos márgenes de la sociedad que no saben de qué va el mundo, y lo siente así porque es poderoso, porque reparte prebendas, porque se rodea y se deja entrevistar por gente que, como él, cree que los que van en dirección contraria son los otros"
El mundo cambia, para mi gusto, despacio. Pero no olvidemos que hay personas que ni siquiera son consciente de que está cambiando, que lo que ayer se aceptaba hoy se ve con malos ojos. Hay (mucha) gente que no sabe de qué van las cosas. No entienden por qué no pueden hacer algo que antes sí podían. No es que no quieran que cambie el mundo, es que no entienden por qué debería cambiar, ni siquiera cuando se lo explicas, porque no están para nada sintonizados con los cambios. Son el padre de cualquiera diciendo que "eso no es música, es ruido", sin importar el siglo en el que uno esté.
Hace unos años un amigo me lo explicó de una forma que me hizo crujir la cabeza. Atentas todas, que vienen curvas:
Los progresistas de hoy seremos los conservadores de mañana.
Estoy convencido de que conoces a gente de cierta edad que luchó por la democracia o por el feminismo, pero que no entiende del todo lo 'gay' y que cuando le hablas de lo 'trans' piensa que hablas de gente disfrazada.
Es normal. También es una mierda. Nuestros cerebros no evolucionaron par aun sistema de valores tan cambiante en el tiempo, para adaptarse a diferentes culturas cada pocas décadas.
No es una excusa, es una explicación.
Estar al día exige cierto nivel de esfuerzo, así como determinadas circunstancias y un entorno propicio. Fuera de ese entorno, nuestros valores son más estáticos de lo que tendemos a pensar.
Con la inestimable ayuda de su mujer y su hija, Rosling presentó hace unas décadas el siguiente test, que os animo a cumplimentar y ver las respuestas. Es el ejemplo casi perfecto de lo fácil que es quedarse anclado en el pasado:
@euklidiadas 38%, qué vergüenza. Algunas de las respuestas me han sorprendido mucho.
@VictorMoral Es lo normal. En el libro explica que es un rango aceptable y promedio. No es cuestión de fustigarse, si te hago otras preguntas tu índice de aciertos será similar. Piensa en cuánto aciertas en el Trivial. Estar al día es imposible y tenemos que interiorizarlo.
I finally read “Old Man and the Sea”. I have tried to start it many times, but the beginning was just so slow. Has anyone here read it? What are your thoughts on this Ernest Hemingway classic?
@MariaRomanov A few people have told me that the whole thing needs to be read in a single sitting for it to work.
Personally... It's just slow and depressing. Nothing that really keeps me, and nothing that makes it feel worth reading.
I don’t know how to explain why I like Hemmingway. His work just feels hyper true in a way. Him and Steinbeck both stay with me for a while after I put the book down.
Read it long ago, don’t remember it being depressing, but definitely had a raw feeling about the story. I see it as a piece that takes an aspect of life that may look devoid of meaning from the outside and reveals meaning buried within intricate detail… But take that with a squeeze of lime, it’s been a while :P
I agree with others that a single sitting improves the book. I’m not sure why it has such acclaim, but it was at the very least memorable to me. I read it a year or so ago now and I can still recall the plot
Not his best book (in my opinion), but a great one. It's a remarkable example of the "whole is much better than the parts": the start is a bit boring, the pseudo-dialogs with the fish are a bit silly and the climax is a bit disappointing, but when you close it you get the feeling that you experienced something great.
What is always superb in his work is the language economy, the to-the-point sentences, the lack of useless words and meaningless descriptions. Hemingway invented the modern prose and all of us readers and writers owe him a drink.
Una cuba, que duela o fondo pierde,
como a uno yo vi, no se vacía,
de la barbilla abierto al bajo vientre;
por las piernas las tripas le colgaban,
vela la asadura, el triste saco
que hace mierda de todo lo que engulle.
Bueno, ya ha pasado más de un mes de la muerte de Francisco Ibáñez.
¿Ya se puede decir que yo también me divertía mucho con sus cómics de pequeño, pero que en realidad era súper racista?
@chuso sí, como el humor de todo el país. No era desde luego un rebelde en ese aspecto.
Feliz descanso.
@Boqueroni
- Hija a ver si vamos un día de compras que tienes todo hecho girones.
- ¡Soy Gótica mamá!
- ¡Ni Gótica ni Románica!
Ese cuervo es del tamaño de un pavo.
Eso no es exactamente así. No existe una categoría masculina: está la general, en la que pueden participar hombres y mujeres, y una femenina, en la que solo participan mujeres. Una mujer puede elegir libremente en cuál de ellas quiere jugar.
Aunque antiguamente se llamaba torneo «masculino», siempre se han podido presentar mujeres. Fue en 1986 cuando Susan Polgar [1] llegó a semifinales y le tuvieron que cambiar el nombre a la categoría y esta pasó a ser general.
The Unspeakable Eldritch Horror is In.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon My love is Fhtagn! 🥰🥰🥰🥰🐙
Religion and positive thinking.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Capitalism as a state religion.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon turning of human relations into transactions.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon buying food.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon W2 workers having to manually file taxes.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon The rows of social media handles, bottom left.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Cable TV still charging fees to view even though they show ads.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon chiropractors
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Building car centric cities
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon circumcision
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon the trucking industry over trains.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon The Housing Market
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon you have to accept everything everyone says
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Health Insurance.
ROUND 7
There's only one man you can have sex with for the rest of your life. Who is it going to be?
Round 1 thru 6 winner: Trent Reznor
Ok, this is getting ridiculous. Can’t anyone unseat Trent Reznor? My choice from Saturday was Bernal.
| Justin Long: | 1 |
| Trent Reznor: | 11 |
| Keanu Reeves: | 45 |
| Sen. Josh Hawley: | 1 |
Closed
I'm afraid the only way to exit this loop will be to include Atticus Ross.
@angel IDK, looks possible that Reeves may unseat Reznor at last.
My husband.
Unfortunately, he passed away before me.
I'm going to have some angry words with him for that, if at all possible.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Hawley???
Jeez, you might as well put me on the list if you’re running that low…
@grumpybozo Different strokes for different folks. Kind of gotta be egalitarian in a way. Though I'm glad he's gotten 0%.
Me resulta difícil no tener una "mirada ecológica" leyendo "Dune". El clima de Arrakis, la adaptación climática de los Fremen, la gestión casi mística del agua... En algunos momentos veo proyecciones futuras de nuestra vida en el texto de Frank Herbert.
Inspiración para las charlas.
Well played, OP and OOP.
My dyslexic ass spent like 5 minutes trying to put it all together 😭😭, then I just gave up and looked the comments, thank you 🙏
Hmm I don't think it's meant to be doing that
@mjg59 ffffffphtphthtpt
@mjg59 Geez, let the poor hose have some privacy so it can take a leak.
@mjg59 that’s generally discouraged in pipes that are supposed to not be porous.
@mjg59 Thirsty work, being a rock.
I always say to myself that it is not worth to force books through. I do like 1/5th then I drop it if it did not catch me. Now I’m reading Pandora’s star which is a great scifi book and sandwitched inbetween the great scfi chapters there is this uninteresting detective storyline with zero scifi, people talking to eachother about uninteresting stuff. I found myself forcing the book and questioned multiple times if I should continue. Then again a great chapter comes with interesting stuff I get hooked and within an eyeglance I’m back into this people talking each other for 30 pages. I will decide if I keep going or not, maybe I try to force it throgh the base storyline is keeping me hooked. Did you had any similar experience? What did you do?
I had this problem with House of Leaves. The narrator components felt unnecessary, but I didn’t want to read only part of a book. The Navidson Record parts were fortunately compelling enough to pull me through the rest kicking and screaming. I ended up loving it and the narrator sections finally started to pay off to an extent.
If I really like a book or series and there are parts that are very dry to me, I just skim to see if there’s anything I might miss. I rarely have to backtrack.
Pandora’s Star all ties together, give it time. The second book is great too. I’ve read them both like a dozen times!
Believe it or not the detective storyline ties in.
As for the detective she’s methodical but wait until they get into her background too (which will offer some insights as to why)
I like the series but he can be a bit wordy. In the end Hamilton pays off but I completely understand where your coming from.
Drop it. There are other 1 trillion books out there waiting for you that are worth your time, not like this one.
Have you read it? I agree with OP that the first half is utterly hard to get through, but the second half definitely makes up for it.
I tend to set things down if it’s not working for me at the moment, because sometimes later I’ll come back to it and it will. But in this case, where it’s part not the whole you’re struggling with, maybe you just need to know what the point of the bits you find uninteresting is? The writer will have included all of it for a reason.
For this specific case (Pandoras Star) I urge you to push through. It took me half a year to finish it because it’s so much stuff that’s just boring in the first half of the book, but the later part of it definitely makes up for it. I’m reading Judas Unchained now even though I promised myself not to pick up a beast (800+ pages) for a good while.
I skip chapters. Game of Thrones was a tough one to power through because I hated most of the characters.
After the first book, I only read the Jon and Arya chapters, nothing else was interesting. When I hit the aftermath of the Red Wedding I had to backtrack and read Rob’s chapter going “Man, glad I wasn’t invested in him, that would have sucked!”
Under the Dome had a similar problem with large sections focused on the cardboard character villains so I started skipping the bits with them. I wanted to see how Barbie and the gang were working things out.
"And to be understood is to be leveled down,
And to be grasped is but to reach one’s fullness"
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58713/defeat-56d23d566b4c3
Pronounce
Bonus panel here: http://smbc-comics.com/comic/pronounce
#smbc #hiveworks #comics #linguistics
Corey Hart - Sunglasses at Night #80sMusic
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon I see your Corey Hart, and I raise you Corey Feldman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ67H9JHAHM
Thanks for bringing back those great #80sMusic memories! Corey had some cool tunes out there.
Corey Hart - Eurasian Eyes
@angel I just now had time to sit down and listen to this. I have no recollection of hearing this before.
People of my age (i.e. old farts) will probably remember this song from the 9 and 1/2 Weeks OST.
@angel I remember the movie but never saw it.
ROUND 6
There's only one man you can have sex with for the rest of your life. Who is it going to be?
Round 1 thru 5 winner: Trent Reznor
Reznor remains undefeated. He seems to be some kind of sex god. Though, I was glad to see Tokala Black Elk got a little love anyhow.
Today we’ll pit Reznor against 3 different men and see who wins this round.
| Gael Garcia Bernal: | 18 |
| Tom Cruise: | 2 |
| Mark Zuckerberg: | 2 |
| Trent Reznor: | 25 |
Closed
These four movies were all based on books by Richard Matheson. Which do you consider to be the best, and why?
Please boost if you can for a greater response.
| I Am Legend (2007): | 26 |
| The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957): | 24 |
| The Legend of Hell House (1973): | 6 |
| Stir of Echoes (1999): | 13 |
Closed
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon I would say I am Legend if they had kept the original ending, true to the book in which the "hero" understands he is in fact the villain of the story by becoming menace to the actually peaceful vampires.
Changing that and making him cliche hero did the story a real disservice, so I'm going with shrinking man. Loved that movie as a kid and still have a real soft sport for it. Really holds u, IMO.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon Are we talking about the books, or the movies?
The Incredible Shrinking Man is a very good movie. The special effects (given 1957) are pretty good, and I remember it giving me the creeps when I watched it when I was a kid.
I Am Legend (the book) has been adapted into films three times: The Last Man on Earth (featuring Vincent Price, 1964), The Omega Man (featuring Charlton Heston, 1971), and this one with Will Smith. All three are crap.
@angel It's been forever since I've seen _Shrinking Man_, but I remember the special effects were cool — and probably great for their time. I remember the tarantula well.
Seen the VP movie twice and it is not phenomenal, but it is a product of its time, too. The CH movie, I can't recall if I liked it. I remember liking the WS movie when it came out, but only seen it once and not sure if it would hold up.
Oh my god, the tarantula... but what really scared me when I was a kid was the dread sense he feels when he is small enough to fit through that small fence, and starts wondering where will it end. What an existential horror.
The Vincent Price one is probably the most faithful to the book, but it seems like done on a severe budget with no passion. Probably a product of its time, as you say.
The Charlton Heston one is the most different. Basically, the "new people" are mostly proto-goth vampire/zombie mishmash. Mr. Rifle shoots them from a car while driving. Very forgettable.
I may be a little rude on the 2007 one, but all Will Smith movies feel the same to me. This one deserved to be better, but the end is so disappointing.
@angel Yes, the VP movie had no passion. Kind of dull, tbh.
I'm not a WS fan. He plays the same role in most movies.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon the Incredible Shrinking Man is a masterpeice of its time, the rest are just sort of “ehh”.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon If I may be forgiven for subverting the poll, my vote is for Richard Kelly's "The Box".
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon am I the only one who prefers The Omega Man (1971) to the 2007 I Am Legend?
I am a little surprised that _I Am Legend_ did so well here.
My choice is _Stir of Echoes_.
My choice is Stir of EchoesI haven't watched it and now I have to.
@angel I thought it was well done. One of the better ghost movies out there. Does not follow the book faithfully though. It's more of a modernized adaptation.
It's a hate symbol hon.
@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon You don't really see the confederate flag anymore, but the American flag has been subverted to the same meaning. Like that stupid thin blue line flag.
Starting with version 116, #Firefox will drop support for macOS versions prior to 10.15 as well as Windows 7, 8 and 8.1. This has understandably annoyed a few users so let me explain why we're taking this step: the maintenance burden of supporting several versions of each platform is very significant. I'll show you how much by citing three platform-specific bugs I've worked on over the past two years. 🧵 1/13
One of the hilarious things going on is that the big capital-owned news companies in Canada decided that they wanted some of Facebook's money.
So they bribed the Canadian politicians into writing a copyright law which requires that anyone who links to the big capital-owned news companies pay those big capital-owned media conglomerates money for every link.
😆 🤣
Obviously Facebook then just stopped allowing their users to do that, because they don't even want their users to leave Facebook and go to news company websites anyway. It's the users that wanted to be able to link like that.
😆 🤣 And now.. And now..🤣 😆
For reasons not unrelated to the corporate/capital capture of law and sovereignty, all of Canada is in fire.
People are trying to tell their friends on Facebook about how they have to immediately leave the town because it's going to burn down and they are all going to die.
But they are trying to do so by linking to the local capital-owned news media conglomerate's web-pages.
But doing that isn't allowed any more because, the news media conglomerates demand payment for that sort of thing, backed up by genuinely paid-for "democratic" bribery to the Canadian political parties.
😆 🤣 And now.. And now..🤣 😆
The Canadian government is today demanding that Facebook allow the linking even though it's the Canadian government's laws that tax and so forbid it.
😆
This timeline is so fucking cursed. I really hate it when Facebook is right.
Though I do hate it more when people are all burning.
F-Droid 1.40.0 crashes on start · Issue #2639 · deltachat/deltachat-android · GitHub
https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-android/issues/2639
Esto me acaba de morder en el culo hoy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Aún no parece arreglado...
Barbiephonic Forever.
Blarg: Way Back In The Day, 2007, I found and scraped out a Barbie phonecall-generator service and compiled what I'd found into a single .ogg file, with the 17000 names in its dataset. Again, I am obligated to warn you: that...
https://jwz.org/b/ykDh
@jwz SCREAM
@xorn @jwz If you want a pink torment nexus? Boy howdy, have I got a novella for you! https://www.amazon.com/Escape-Puroland-Laundry-Files-Book-ebook/dp/B08JK7TVXS/
@jwz Immediately thought of this scene from the movie her:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku858jn0Qzc
Well, that and the Milkweed Triptych from Ian Tregillis where beings from beyond space time perform miracles for Warlocks in order to collect enough blood sacrifices (names) to locate our aberrant species and extinguish us, our existence being an insult to multidimensional reality.
@jwz I miss the Internet.
@jwz
Oh my Blob
@jwz
when we start picking up the Barbie numbers station, we're coming for you
@jwz producing the album linked on the post is only possible if you go into the center of the uncanny valley and dig a deep pit.
@jwz It'd be cool (or maybe not) to run that Barbie voice over the lyrics at the end of Underworld's "Juanita/Kiteless" song.... "Silver and blue and blue and denim And silver and red and silver and red And blue and yellow and white and blue And blue and red and grey and red and Green and blue and yellow and black and Black and red and green and white and blue (and blue)" etc
@jwz As I type this, I'm up to Alana and it strikes me that it's working in my brain to calm the noise. It's canceled out the tinnitus and focused me in a way that my ADHD medication doesn't.
This is...something...
It's fascinating how the voice actress that read the 17000 Infernal Names manages to keep the same tone of cheer.
@jwz Are you telling me that SCP isn't pure fiction?
@jwz the nine billion names of god, worst timeline edition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_God
@jwz tempted to try exactly the thing you say not to, but where am I gonna find 4 free hours in the day? Can it count if I listen in my sleep?
@jwz i listened to the entire almost 5 hours today 😵💫
thank you for compiling this
my favorite name was "little red riding hood" which I don't think I hallucinated
OJO, alerta sanitaria:
11 agosto 2023 :
Alerta por presencia de Listeria Monocytogenes en salmón ahumado procedentes de España (Ref. ES2023/200)
Más info en https://www.aesan.gob.es/AECOSAN/web/seguridad_alimentaria/ampliacion/2023_19.htm/AECOSAN/web/seguridad_alimentaria/ampliacion/2023_19.htm
pues el bot de alerta sanitaria ya estaría listo
He creado una cuenta en botsin.space y estoy a la espera de que la aprueben y así notificar desde ella
Is "show up at a scrap yard and ask to buy parts" a thing in Europe? All I can find is experiences from the US, and EU web stores (that don't have the parts I need).
Wondering if anyone on here has done this before or has general advice on how to find parts for old (1990) vehicles
It's science.
That shit works!
@praxeology i think i would file this one under "directionally correct but somewhat optimistic".
I hate writing code to use tombstones in the database because literally every time I type the word, I type tomestone.
@tedu
Then just referr to it as tomestone.
saw another cockroach...
@wxcafe one of the things that makes me question the nature of reality is how cockroaches get into my apartment. They are clearly too large to fit through any of the seams, and yet here they are.
Right now if you search for "country in Africa that starts with the letter K":
- DuckDuckGo will link to an alphabetical list of countries in Africa which includes Kenya.
- Google, as the first hit, links to a ChatGPT transcript where it claims that there are none, and summarizes to say the same.
This is because ChatGPT at some point ingested this popular joke:
"There are no countries in Africa that start with K."
"What about Kenya?"
"Kenya suck deez nuts?"
Google Search is over.
DKIM: rotate and publish your keys (diziet):
"As a user, you probably don’t want your emails to be non-repudiable. (Other people might want to be able to prove you sent some email, but your email system ought to serve your interests, not theirs.)"https://diziet.dreamwidth.org/16025.html
Can you name this state?
Most Europeans can't
(And don‘t mind either)
@TerribleMaps
What is the advantage of knowing that as a European?
@TerribleMaps
I'll name it Dave.
@TerribleMaps West West West West West Virginia
@TerribleMaps
it's called North Ozarks, but I can't ever remember their 2 senators.
@TerribleMaps
Easy. That’s North Missouri.
@TerribleMaps you almost had me 😛
@TerribleMaps that's West West North Virginia, obviously
@TerribleMaps
Kansas 9 ¾
@TerribleMaps We call it Minorti
@TerribleMaps There is no estate there. It is Missouri.
@TerribleMaps That's Not Quite Iowa, I guess.
@TerribleMaps my guess goes to Iowb
@TerribleMaps
No, of course I can't!
Who cares about US states anyway?
But I'm still mad at Americans for not knowing the name of my tiny country.
@TerribleMaps
A new state between Iowa and Missouri ?
db
@TerribleMaps we don't want to go there for sure
@TerribleMaps I European and I'm pretty sure that's Canada
@TerribleMaps Randolph county
@TerribleMaps Gonna bet most Americans can't either.
@TerribleMaps I love how no one is talking about the fact that Illinois annexed Wisconsin.
@TerribleMaps
Phew. I got worried there a moment but then realised that I knew the answer.
@TerribleMaps i hate this, thanks.
@TerribleMaps Hohoq, also known as Ar. See "The Areas of My Expertise" by John Hodgman for more info.
@TerribleMaps Aah! The German Democratic Republic! I've been wondering where it is since 1990. Have fun with it.
@TerribleMaps This is extra evil
@TerribleMaps I'm not European, I'm a map junkie, and I still can't either :-S
@TerribleMaps Missouri 😜
@TerribleMaps North Kansas, according to its capital city.
@TerribleMaps
Wait, what?
@TerribleMaps
Is it "The 19th Century"?
#maps #geography
@TerribleMaps idaho? XD
La Agencia Española de Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición ha activado una alerta alimentaria tras detectarse listeria en un lote de salmón ahumado de esta marca https://elpais.com/sociedad/2023-08-11/alerta-por-listeria-en-un-lote-de-salmon-ahumado.html?ssm=MT_CM
@el_pais de esto también tendría que haber una cuenta para seguir.
No sería muy difícil hacer un cron diario que scrapee la web, por ejemplo esta página https://www.aesan.gob.es/AECOSAN/web/seguridad_alimentaria/subseccion/otras_alertas_alimentarias.htm
Suena a que te has presentado voluntario para hacerlo 😆
Jeje, seguramente si maburro mucho estas semanas de vacas monte un algo, a ver que sale
¡Estaremos a la escucha!
el script guarreras version 0
me falta meterle que tootee pero eso son 2 lineas
Taxing the rich isn’t radical. It isn’t even new.
The current top-bracket tax rate is 37%.
But in 1965, it was 70%.
In the 1950s, it was over 90%.
NOT taxing the rich is what’s new.
It's #caturday and two black kittens named Infrared and Ultraviolet have fused together into a Power Ranger-esque configuration by snuggling so closely that their bodies are indistinguishable from one another.
Aprovechando que comentaba una duda por otro lado, os comparto mi factura eléctrica de julio, 100 % #renovable m 0 % gas, 0 % cogeneración, 0 % #carbón, 0 % #nuclear. Una copia más accesible la tenéis en la URL de abajo.
Es emitida por La Corriente, la cooperativa de comercialización de la que formo parte.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pYBSTnkiauaj5oCHk5AhsGTCqUg_mnL9/view?usp=sharing
Que guay, yo llevo en #somenergía unos 10 años. Al principio como consumidora y luego como socia.
Y lo recomiendo completamente. Me encanta cuando me envían los informes comparando mi consumo con otros similares e ideas para mejorar.
Al igual que La Corriente son 100% renovables y cooperativas.
¿Qué son esas columnas «Periodo 1», «Periodo 2» y «Periodo 3»? ¿Tarifa pico, valle...?
@angel Sí, formalmente se denominan períodos. P1, P2 y P3.
@euklidiadas@red.niboe.info ¿Y responden a tramos horarios o a algún otro criterio?
@angel Puramente horarios:
Período Punta P1 – De 10 a 14 y de 18 a 22 h (más cara)
Período Llano P2 – De 8 a 10 h, de 14 a 18 h y de 22 a 24 h. (intermedio)
Período Valle P3 – De 00 a 8 h (más barata)
In honour of my mentions all day being about how terrifying birds are, I think it's time for a murderbirds thread!
A few years ago I spent a lot of time at a bird of prey centre and had the chance to do a portrait project on the birds housed there. It's probably one of the best things I've ever had the chance to do with my photography and certainly something I'm proud of.
To start off, here's a juvenile Egyptian vulture
He encontrado un enlace Atom para avisos a nivel nacional de la #AEMET
https://www.aemet.es/documentos_d/eltiempo/prediccion/avisos/rss/CAP_AFAE_ATOM.xml
También los hay por zonas:
Dios mío he empezado a seguir este feed y me ha mandado todos los avisos desde que ABBA ganó Eurovisión con el Waterloo
@angel para que te hagas una idea global. :-)
Siempre me ha flipado cómo se alarga un barco. Es algo increíble.
Sí que es increíble. A escala menor, yo estuve de visita en un taller de esos en los que construyen esas limusinas horteras con Hummers y Lincolns de color rosa y es lo mismo: corta / suelda dos cachos de viga / entuba / cablea / cierra. Y luego funcionan y no se parten por la mitad ni nada.
Bien, entendido. De todas formas, no digáis «En el Fediverso hay servidores nazis pero están desfederados» porque eso es una marcianada que solo entendemos nosotros. Decid «En el Fediverso, si un servidor se llena de nazis, se le desconecta del resto».
Recapitulando: según tu hermana, que haya servidores que usan el mismo software que el de una red que tú usas pero que son totalmente inaccesibles (y que bien podrían estar en Saturno), es un escándalo; sin embargo, que Twitter sea un nido de neocons, nazis, terfs y niños ricos sin escrúpulos (empezando por su dueño), eso tiene disculpa.
¿Sabéis si la AEMET tiene cuenta aquí o hay algún bot? Para avisos nacionales, de esos de "nueva ola de calor cuando aún no se ha terminado la actual" y similares?
@VictorMoral Veo que existe este clon de Twitter: https://bird.makeup/users/aemet_esp
@elvector gracias, pero no parece sencillo de usar. Más bien busca si existe ya algo así.
@VictorMoral Solo tienes que seguir a @aemet_esp. Es una cuenta más, indistinguible de las demás cuentas de Mastodon.
@elvector pues no. Esa cuenta no aparece en la búsqueda en mastodon.social. Ni etiquetas relacionadas ni publicaciones. O algo está fallando en el servidor o estoy muy torpe.
@VictorMoral El nombre completo es @aemet_esp
@elvector ya, ya, y te agradezco los esfuerzos pero mastodon.social sigue diciéndome que no hay ninguna cuenta así.
Un amigo (@angel) lo ha probado desde su estancia con snac y me dice que el follow ha salido pero ha vuelto el accept. Supongo que está fallando el puente.
Esperaré un poco más.
He dicho que "el follow ha salido pero NO ha vuelto el accept" 😆
La confirmación de follow no tiene por qué ser inmediata, el otro lado puede servirlo cuando le parezca (o no servirlo nunca).
@angel ¿por qué me sale lo de traducir en tu publicación? ¿ Es porque le has dicho que está en inglés ? Me encantaría una forma de ver las interioridades de los toots, como se hace con el correo.
Yo no he configurado nada en mi instancia sobre el idioma, así que vete tú a saber. Igual es que hablo raro.
@angel o que como valor predeterminado está el inglés. El pobre intenta traducirlo, eso sí, y queda igual. O está muy orgulloso o muy frustrado. :-)
@Ribera_Met gracias. Según he entrado me he dicho: "qué feo el fondo rojo" hasta que he leído las temperaturas. :-(
@VictorMoral En mastodon.social que es tu instancia no se puede acceder a las cuentas creadas en bird.makeup en la que se replican las cuentas de twitter porque el administrador ha considerado que no quiere aceptar cuentas automatizadas con contenido de otras redes. En concreto: bird.makeup
Suspendido
Third-party bots
https://mastodon.social/about sección de servidores moderados.
En otras instancias como http://masto.es por ejemplo sí se permite seguir a este tipo de cuentas.
@tiflonet joder, muchas gracias. Me estaba volviendo loco.
Algo así me temía y me parece bien. Al menos no es un problema técnico.
Tendría que intentar comunicarme con la AEMET para ver si se animan a poner cuenta en el fediverso, su propio servidor incluso. A ver cómo puedo hacerlo.
@VictorMoral Suerte con eso! Yo hace tiempo que les pido que hagan algunas cosas accesibles a personas ciegas y como quien oye llover! Osea, nada porque últimamente ni llueve! Por poco que puedas intenta cambiar de instancia a una que sea más local y con menos problemas de moderación.
Lana Hall:
Unlike sex work, my “good” jobs didn’t threaten to overthrow traditional power structures. Many sex workers, including myself, have long hypothesized that the reason so many people in power work to keep the commercial sex trade marginalized is because they’re threatened by it—by the idea that it’s the only field where women outearn men, that it’s an industry where women get to call the shots, and that women profit off something that men have been told they’re entitled to for free: sex and attention in equal parts. In my experience of the corporate landscape, there was none of this radical power structure, only an upholding of the traditional: men talking and women listening, men in powerful positions getting both credit and profit for the labour of women beneath them. Is this what I worked so hard for? I wondered daily."https://hazlitt.net/feature/we-are-all-animals-night
Authenticate the SSH servers are you connecting to
In this article, you will learn how to use SSHFP DNS records in order to prevent TOFU when using SSH.
https://dataswamp.org/~solene/2023-08-05-sshfp-dns-entries.html
gemini://perso.pw/blog/articles/sshfp-dns-entries.gmi
#ssh #security
"curl: ‐‐connect‐timeout is weirdly broken"
Using funny unicode letters instead of ascii can give you weird-looking results.
Reminder that you should absolutely never use the website called “sci-hub dot st” to get free access to research papers instead of feeding the greed of for-profit publishers.
That’s basically communism, which is of course illegal. 👩🏻🏫
avrin 
🐇🕐🎩☕🇧🇷
