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one of my fav german words: Loseblattsammlung


THE SLOG.

When you're not inspired—you're just stubborn.

I wrote something on what no one told me about writing a book. But really, it’s about anything worth doing.

kristie-de-garis.ghost.io/the-…

#Writing #Writer #Books #Author #Photography #Scotland

in reply to Kristie

I read your words and recognised myself. I cannot believe, you Kristie, know how hard language is because your words on the page flowed as a stream.
in reply to Kristie

P. G. Wodehouse once said he would:
"write every sentence 10 times"

Assuming you're a Scots lassie and as a Scotsman myself, I rather like this quote from the article:

"It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine"

bbc.com/culture/article/202006…

This entry was edited (1 week ago)




„Handelsstreit:
EU verhängt Strafzölle gegen Waren aus den USA – ab 1. April“
#Trump #Strafzölle #canada #schwarwel


How should a society be judged?

#EvanPoll #poll

  • The wellbeing of the most powerful and wealthy (0%, 7 votes)
  • The wellbeing of average people (5%, 56 votes)
  • The wellbeing of the least powerful and wealthy (94%, 1018 votes)
1081 voters. Poll end: 1 week ago



just heard a young person describe how an unexplained, sudden onset, and pretty dramatic health issue arose this morning, and then she cheerily said, "but the important thing is that I didn't miss a stream!"

we're normalizing so hard that we've normalized how hard we normalize things.

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Subjacent Banana

😬

I feel like so many of us in the covid-avoiding community have had bad disease experiences that have informed our caution now.

I wonder how many people on Team Virus Slurper have *also* had life-changing experiences of illness and just let the life lessons whoosh over their heads… 🤔

in reply to Elana | אילנה

I was just reflecting that at least here in the US we've tolerated inhumane health care for a long time, long before COVID. We've had no mandated sick leave and no mandated parental leave when having children or when children are sick for as long as I remember. You just sick your way through everything unless you have enough luxury you don't have to care about your job or schooling. I grew up in a working class family and that's what we all did, and it's what I did when I was a graduate student. I contracted what I think was pneumonia in graduate school--never knew because I never went to a doctor, because the health insurance was so bad--and I didn't feel right for years afterwards. I wrote part of my PhD dissertation on a laptop in bed.


With all the shit going around about how important the gender marker is on identifying documents, I have a question:

How many cis guys do you think add an inch or two when they fill out that form at the DMV? It's not like they measure...

in reply to Steph

@PurpleStephyr You probably guessed about your gender, too. 😉 I know I got that one wrong a few times. 🤭
in reply to Faith, chaos arc

I don't remember if I had to fill that out myself or they just copied it from my birth certificate. In either case I think that's more a case of autistic fawning (in the form of "this is the answer they're expecting, so that's what I'll give without thinking about it") more than guessing


I feel like there is an epidemic of governments studiously avoiding the thing that would actually solve problems they complain about. Like...
*the UK has the worst post-pandemic health outcomes. Our mental health is staggeringly bad & it's driving up welfare costs. But heaven forbid we address health disparities, invest in health infrastructure & access, get people care for mind/body, improve life so we are more resilient.
*Israel has "tried everything" except a serious 2 state solution...
etc.


[19:11] Trump backs Martin to solve Ireland's housing crisis

US President Donald Trump has backed Taoiseach Micheál Martin to solve Ireland's housing crisis.

rte.ie/news/politics/2025/0312…

#US #DonaldTrump #MicheálMartin #Ireland


in reply to minute

am i living under a rock and am i like the only person who can't imagine that everybody desires to run local AI models? or what's going on here
in reply to minute

I do run local AI models for voice interaction with HomeAssistant, and I don't get the hype either. It's kinda nice for a few niche things. Beyond that, it seems like just a bunch of marketing garbage.
in reply to jevans ⁂

oh yeah, whisper for voice recognition/transcription is an ML usecase that i get. but that doesn't require a lot of CPU/GPU power afaik?
in reply to minute

Everyone doesn’t need a Mac Studio Ultra either, yet it exists.
in reply to Mark Stosberg

@markstos idk when i think about mac my associations are design, music production, video editing at high res, that's stuff i understand better
in reply to minute

But in 2024 it’s required to market how good your hardware is at AI. 🙄
in reply to minute

I’m vaguely interested in running local models to experiment with contextual search and summarization (I have a massive PDF library), but not interested enough to finish the setup process. Way down the list of priorities.

On the other hand, looking at that thumbnail… when will we see the first MNT 10 inch mini rack server? ;)

in reply to minute

pretty sure like 95% of fedi will tell you they don't want to run any ai models
in reply to nina

@q66 that is what i hoped to be true... and outside of fedi? isn't that a super niche?
@nina
in reply to minute

@q66 It’s not as niche as you’d expect, it’s fairly popular with younger people exploring development and computers. I do expect the popularity to fade quickly just like cryptocurrencies did. (Cryptocurrency is still popular in investment circles but I feel like it’s become a small niche among developers and tech enthusiasts.)
@nina
in reply to minute

in reply to minute

btw i don't wanna mock framework here, i'm obviously interested in the fine points of computer marketing/strategy/branding and how it's colliding with sociocultural developments and the semantic bits and pieces that fall out of this (sorta like in a particle collider)
in reply to minute

they're a san francisco company and it seems as if they're unaware of being inside a bubble
in reply to minute

wait !? They designed a non-upgradable desktop after fully customizable laptops with swappable parts !?
Are they running backwards ?

I really don't understand ! And I am a happy framework laptop user... I don't think their move is wise but as stated by others before maybe fedi users are in a bubble ? Or they are ?



DOGE’s “extremely severe” FTC cuts prompt request to delay Amazon trial
FTC says credit card charges are capped at $1, amid other budget shortfalls.
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…


You know that stupid kid in early grade school who ate paste, and you are still surprised they are still alive, with all the stupid, irrational, and illogical choices you know they made?!

That is your target audience, and you should assume there are millions of those types of people. If you can make something, even they can use without putting any thought into it, and easily wrap their head around, you will have created something widely successful.

#Foss #OpenSource #Development #Linux #ActivityPub

in reply to Charcoal

No, this mindset is why smart phones were adapted. The same for any other widely popular and widely used product or service.

in reply to Patch Arcana

yeah I noticed that a couple days ago when enrolling a new device. neat idea.


The next Seattle-area MakerDeck IRL Mixer (for Makers, Techies, & Geeks) is set for *this* coming Monday - running alongside the Drink & Draw community! Join us for casual conversation and connections. I'm bringing a 3D printer with me this time. ;) Here's the invite link... meetup.com/makerdeck/events/30…

#3dprinting #seattle #pnw #beer #meetup #tech #geek #nerd



the old well
still yielding buckets
of darkness

#dailyHaiku reposts by Freeman Ng.

Today’s 3-5-3 haiku was originally posted on Nov 18, 2013.

HaikuDiem.com

#daily #haiku #micropoetry




Doctor concluded I'm almost healthy. Gave a vitamin D supplement (which I think I had problems with it since I was kid due to where I was born), and sent me to a nutritionist for a cholesterol reduction diet D: Otherwise I might be stuck with medication for the rest of my life for that. The past charging me for all the bad habits. I guess I deserve that.




[19:22] Oscarwinnaar Walter Salles: ‘Onder Bolsonaro werd 4 jaar lang geen interessante speelfilm gemaakt in Brazilië’

Walter Salles, regisseur I’m Still Here won de Oscar voor beste internationale film. Het is de kroon op het werk van regisseur, miljardair en autoracer Walter Salles, die met de film voor de tweede keer een renaissance van de Braziliaanse film inleidt.

lc.nl/cultuur/film/Oscarwinnaa…

#WalterSalles #I’m #Oscar #tweede



Really great analysis on the vulnerability of our Telecom stacks in the wake of salt typhoon.
soatok.blog/2025/03/12/on-the-…

in reply to Low Quality Facts

The little whippy things on bacteria are the basis for monks practising self-flagellation.


i hair cut a day keeps the doctor away ✂


Any act of repair a gratifying gesture of refusal and subversion these days. A poke in the eye to corporate waste and consumer lassitude.

Feeling like renegade heating engineer Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro) of ‘Brazil’ right now, having decided: eff no, not into landfill—not yet.

And how fitting: while finishing up, @pluralistic heard on CBC radio discussing DCA & right-to-repair.

details in #alttext

#Stratford #canada #repair #technology #corydoctorow #environment #coffee

in reply to Kyle Memoir 🍉

A neighbour asked me recently to take her dead power strip to the e-waste collection point. All it needed was a bit of soldering. Money saved, environment spared a bit, power strip producer furious. Triple win.


I printed out the decal on paper and put it on one of the test pieces. This one's going to my wall of prototypes.
This entry was edited (1 week ago)




@404mediaco has obtained a list of sites and services monitored by an ICE contractor ShadowDragon to let government analysts search and draw connections between people.

"The long list of sites and services that ShadowDragon’s SocialNet tool accesses is a reminder of just how much data is accessible and collected from and about us to provide surveillance services to the government and others."

404media.co/the-200-sites-an-i…

#news #USNews #ICE #immigration #surveillance #technology



Another reason I don't feel great about using Firefox is that I just got another fund-raising email from Mozilla. It doesn't say "Corporation" or "Foundation." Just "Mozilla."

They are asking for contributions because $3.55M in federal funding is "currently at risk."

Again, for the nth time, MOZILLA CORPORATION HAS HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS FROM GOOGLE. USE THAT MONEY.

Mozilla Corporation should fully fund Mozilla Foundation.




Ditto writing, making music, creating cartoons, etc., etc.


Well I'm in. Nothings configured as yet and I'm certainly not ready to swap out the currently working #OpenWRT APU router until I'm 100% happy. For now I'm going to explore and read the docs.
#RunBSD #OPNsense
in reply to Justine Smithies

Very nice. Tinkered with it myself as well. On an old Sophos box. A lot possible. Freq updates (in part a good thing) might be a negative in the sense of inconvenient reboots
in reply to Qper

It is very nice and OMG the sheer amount of available settings are vast. Also you can configure via the CLI too. Been playing around seeing what's where and reading up, maybe tomorrow I'll temporarily see if I can bring up the 1Gb pppoe fttp connection and then once I have connectivity I can concentrate on configuring the firewall and other stuff. I'll obviously keep my AMD APU router in the rack ready to reconnect should I have issues and need a reliable connection. Eventually the nuc will become my main router / firewall. Slow and steady wins the race. 😉


Hmm, bit obsessed with looking for a Lumon Waterdrop pin, but none are forthcoming that are either hideously expensive or far away. I can see me thinking about how to make one.

*goes away thinking about how to make one*




#news #bot #


Takeaways from our investigation on AI-powered school surveillance. The AP and Seattle Times teamed up on this investigation.

From their overview: "But these tools raise serious questions about privacy and security. In fact, when The Seattle Times and The Associated Press partnered to investigate school surveillance, reporters inadvertently received access to almost 3,500 sensitive, unredacted student documents through a records request. The documents were stored without a password or firewall, and anyone with the link could read them."

Read more at apnews.com/article/ai-school-c…

#databreach #EduSec #infosecurity #surveillanvce #AI

@douglevin @funnymonkey



This Image Is So Funny For No Reason HELP



#PPOD: NASA's Curiosity rover captured this image of the Sun through the dusty martian atmosphere in July 2018 while the dust storm that ended the Opportunity rover's mission was still raging. Curiosity was not affected by the decline in solar input because it is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Thomas Appéré

#space #science #scicomm