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So, I've recently learned that solo RPGs... exist.

This is going to be bad for my bank account.



I wonder if there's a market for someone who can convert a schematic drawing (or rough sketch) to an STL file for #3DPrinting on a freelance basis. I'm getting to be pretty decent at it, and it's kinda fun.

I'm pretty sure there's probably already some AI garbage that purports to do so.

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Setting up a #Windows machine for the first time in forever. I've been out of the game for a while. What, if any, antivirus is decent these days?

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in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

@Jonathan Lamothe when I did use microsoft I just used the microsoft virus checker. But the simple truth is that windows is designed to be susceptible to viruses to discourage people from using non-microsoft software. So, the only way to stop the viruses is to stop using Microsoft. That is the only real solution.
in reply to beko

@beko

But the simple truth is that windows is designed to be susceptible to viruses to discourage people from using non-microsoft software.


Can you... elaborate on that one?

@beko
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

@Jonathan Lamothe I have used several operating systems such as Linux, which had no problem stopping viruses on the same machines as Microsoft. If they could do it, Microsoft could easily have stopped viruses. We might have accepted a transitory issue when viruses first appeared, but not a continued issue that continue despite many updates. The truth is Microsoft did very well from all the viruses, because they were used to deter people from trying non "official" microsoft software. That put Microsoft in a very dominant position and that is what made it so much money from some of the crappiest software on the planet.


Cleaning and re-inking my #FountainPens and I managed to spill one of my favourite Inkvent sample bottles. Fortunately, I somehow managed to save the majority of the ink. Don't ask me how.

I guess it's gonna be one of those days...



I love marketing.

"We're committed to reduce our carbon footprint by shipping directly from the manufacturer to the consumer."

Sooo... drop shipping then? That's one way to spin it, I guess.



I'm particular about my morning coffee. I always have 170g of coffee to 15g of flavouring syrup. (I used to drink double that, but I'm trying to keep the stimulants down.) The ratio is important.

Every now and again (like this morning) I accidentally overshoot on the syrup and have to adjust the amount of coffee to compensate.

This means, I get extra coffee (yay!) but I have to do semi-complicated math before my morning coffee, which is a little annoying.




Nothing like getting all cozy and bundled up in a hammock with a book only to realize you've forgotten your glasses.

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A slightly weird request: maybe someone among my mutuals is interested in staying at our place in South Wales for a few days to help us organise a hobbyist lab space at home? Vegetarian foods are on me, other than that, we can discuss 😁

An opportunity to touch many vintage computers, try some simple scientific experiments, and maybe design a PCB or two.

You'd think it's easy to find someone who would be happy to help, especially if you offer people money, but no 🙁

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The human brain did not evolve to handle a massive amount of misinformation.

It evolved to more or less believe what it’s told, because the community/tribe is focused on the survival of all together.

Social tools let it know who was the most trustworthy.

But overall if someone said
“that’s poisonous” or
“danger that way,” they meant it!

Not to oversimplify, but I really get why we’re struggling as a species with misinformation.

EVERYONE NEEDS ACCOMMODATIONS TO HANDLE MODERN LIFE

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in reply to mattia

Critical thinking is a skill you can't outsource, and it used to be taught in public schools.

Bernie Luckily Does It reshared this.

in reply to Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.

@BoydStephenSmithJr even so, there’s (some, needs replicating iirc) evidence that the human brain immediately accepts/believes everything it hears, and THEN begins a process of critical thinking.

So for people who are busy, overwhelmed, distracted, stressed… that critical thinking mechanism may not have time or energy to function well.

It’s easy for me as someone with enormous capacity for data & internal processing to forget it’s really not easy!

in reply to mattia

I didn't mean to claim it was easy, or to really put any blame on someone that fails to think critically. It is an acquired skill, and yes, there is evidence that it runs counter to our instinct / reflexive behaviors.

I just wanted to emphasize that (a) you can't depend on Google, AI, your Bubble, or _anything_ external to do it for you, and (b) we *should* try to skill people up on it as a public good like society did at some points in the past.

It's especially important when you are spreading information to try to think critically about it first, because some of your audience/followers/community might not be in the best condition to engage their own critical thinking skills.

Bernie Luckily Does It reshared this.

in reply to Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.

@BoydStephenSmithJr Admittedly, not a given these days, but my daughter, who teaches 7th grade history, says this: “I don’t care ultimately if you know if Attila the Hun invaded Europe in 952 AD, as long as you’re able to exercise critical thinking skills.” That’s her number one goal.

I hope there’s thousands more like her.

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Jonathan Lamothe reshared this.


Capitalism didn't give us the internet.

Large-scale cooperation, open protocols, and free software gave us the internet. Capitalism gave us mobile sites that don't work because fifteen ads cover the screen.

in reply to Existential Comics

Internet? 👀 I'll search for it on Yahoo! Is that why my AOL account only has some dude named bgates on it? AOL was basically AppleLink on steroids. Apple was trying to launch eWorld at the time also... and HyperCard, the original Web interface. So, capitalism is responsible for a lot of tech behind the current Web. Capitalism in the right hands can accomplish a lot of good things. It's the people who abuse it who are the problem. 'Got a notification on CompuServe - 'gotta go!
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in reply to Jaycosm🔆

The Internet was created by large-scale cooperation, open protocols, and free software. Capitalists stole that, called it The World Wide Web, and pretended they created it. The rest of us were on newsgroups, bulletin boards, and mailing lists, and never heard of Hypercard.

CC: @existentialcomics@mastodon.social

in reply to Jaycosm🔆

Just saying your experience may not have been the full story. The Internet didn't start with Compuserv / Prodigy Online.
in reply to cy

@cy I never had those. I was just making a point of the tech that led to the modern Web, browsers, and its advancements - it wasn't all work done by non-profits. There were corporations involved, and that work led to other innovation in the Internet industry.

I used Archie on UNIX to access content on the Internet before Mosaic existed. I don't think I participated in any online news / user groups at the time.

I believe capitalism can be positive if used properly, like a mom & pop restaurant.

@cy
in reply to Jaycosm🔆

Depends what you call "innovation." I certainly agree that we all got stuck using SSL because of capitalism. Mom & Pop Restaurants aren't capitalist though. They just own* a building and sell food.

* more likely they lease a building from a capitalist

in reply to cy

@cy
>they aren't capitalist though
>they own the means of production
Wat?
@jay
in reply to Light

I'm pretty sure capital is about owning people more than machines. You loan people money to buy a bunch of machines, and that money you loaned is capital. Investment capital, to be specific. Capital = leverage. It is true that capitalists use their leverage to control the means of production, but it's possible to control it without capitalism. i.e. NASA.

That's what I'm going on. I could very well be completely wrong.

CC: @jay@mastodon.gamedev.place

in reply to Light

Look into Tim Berners-Lee sometime. He did work at CERN when he proposed HTML and such. He's huge on microtransactions, getting people to pay for stuff over the net. Initially HTML was supposed to charge you for every link you followed, until someone pointed out that was utterly barking mad.

CC: @jay@mastodon.gamedev.place @existentialcomics@mastodon.social



Encountered my first mask ban in Canada. I had hoped we were smarter than this, but I suppose I'm not surprised. I guess they value their bottom line over public health, but it's a vape store, so I suppose that tracks.

Edit: autocorrect

Edit 2: It has been pointed out to me that there is an exemption for medical masks in the tiniest font imaginable at the bottom of the sign... almost as though they don't want you to read it.

in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

mask ban

Sensitive content



So, I've been using nov.el for #emacs to read epubs. It does a pretty decent job of it, but I have one point of irritation: I can't for the life of me find a way to tell how far through the book I am. Is there some way to see this?

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in reply to Zenie

@Zenie The feature might actually exist for all I know, so I hesitate to put in a feature request. I was just hoping that it was an already solved problem.
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

I glanced at the code. But I'm not at my usual computer so I can't look at help, the mode or the code more thoroughly. I only just installed it recently so don't know it well.


Little by little I've been going more and more analog. I still track every little thing I need to do in my #OrgMode system to help manage my #ADHD, but that list itself can get a little overwhelming. I've started combing over it in the morning, picking out the most critical things for that day and writing them down on a paper checklist in a small notebook I keep in my pocket. The notebook has the advantage of not distracting me with a thousand notifications every time I'm trying to do something productive.

Plus, I just really like having an excuse to put a nice #FountainPen and ink to paper.

Edit: slightly less clumsily worded

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Trying to design a custom phone holder for the dashboard of our car because it's a weird design that makes conventional ones unusable (I don't trust the suction cup ones).

Taking the measurements has made me painfully aware of just how... curved everything is on a dashboard. 🤬

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in reply to Brian Sullivan

@Brian Sullivan We've got a similar one that suction cups to the windshield. I didn't want to permanently affix the plate to my phone (especially since we have two phones between the two of us).

Thought I could get around it by putting the plate inside of the case, but it holds much less securely that way (though the suction cup has still historically been the weakest link).

Our current solution involves a wooden block and a sock. It works, but my plan is a decided upgrade.

in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

This one works well even with spirited driving (it's in my Porsche).

Jonathan Lamothe reshared this.


🎹 Need some LIVE MUSIC in your life? 🎵

Come to CONTROL VOLTAGE the last Wednesday of every month for live electronic music!

Takes place at the Shakedown Street Tavern in Benson, Omaha, at 8pm!!

#omaha, #livemusic, #synth, #music, #wednesday
Takes place at the Shakedown Street Tavern

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Jonathan Lamothe reshared this.


NOW FOUND! HUGE RELIEF. JUST BEFORE POTENTIALLY THE WORLDS BIGGEST BOLLOCKING EVER!

MANY THANKS TO ALL KIND TOOTERS WHO SWUNG IN TO ACTION TO SPREAD THE WORD.

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Katy needed a washi tape dispenser. She was using an old aluminium foil box as a makeshift one, but she didn't like it.

An hour with OpenSCAD later and I've designed us a simple custom one that fits our use case exactly. I just need to get it printed.

God, that was satisfying.




Just spent a good half hour pulling my hair out trying to figure out why one of the #elisp functions I had just written was always returning nil when I tested it. Turns out, my test was mistakenly passing its inputs to the wrong (but similarly named) function (pivot-table-get-columns instead of pivot-table-get-body).

#Haskell's type system would've caught this. 🙃

#emacs #lisp

in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

C's type system would also have caught it, and it isn't worth a hill of beans.

By caught it what do we mean? This is not a case of some undetected error escaping your attention due to dynamic typing. You know you got a nil which is unexpected and wrong. It's in a test case which catches it.

The only thing a type system would change is that you would instead waste a half hour not understanding how your obviously correct function call can possibly have the wrong return type.

in reply to Kazinator

@Kazinator I feel that that would have been much more useful information. nil is about the least useful failure state there is.


Okay, so this keeps happening. Up 'till now I've been able to fix it with a thorough cleaning, but no such luck this time.

Suggestions?

#FountainPens


So Katy has a #Jinhao10 and today the clicker seems to be jamming. When pressed, it seems to resist extending or retracting the nib. I'm giving it a cleaning right now to make sure there was no debris or anything in there stopping it from working, but I don't know if that'll fix it.

Has anyone experienced this before? Is there a fix?

#FountainPens


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Fine, I'll build an #emacs pivot table package for #org-mode.

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in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

Possibly related: github.com/tbanel/orgaggregate , could always use an easier interface =)
in reply to Sacha Chua

@Sacha Chua This looks like it could solve my problem but I've already started down the rabbit hole.
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

haha, no worries, I'm sure your adventure will help you learn interesting things!
in reply to Sacha Chua

you might also be interested in mastodon.online/@hajovonta/114…


#cfw got an org-table import/export functionality. Just select the org-table and run M-x cfw-org-load. Analyse, sort, edit, filter your table in CFW. Then update the original org-table by M-x cfw-org-save.

If there was no original org-table (the table was created from scratch or from other source like CSV), the cfw-org-save places the exported table into the kill-ring. This way org pivottables can be generated from CFW.

#emacs



in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

youtube.com/shorts/rEQhA-JJlH0

Jonathan Lamothe reshared this.


We increasingly hear about China travellers who use #deltachat successfully where Whatsapp and Signal fail to work. Recently a family onboarded including a 85 old mother, to prepare for China travel. Everbody succeeded, no troubles!

#deltachat is all about resiliency and "just works" user experiences. Despite ongoing and prospective network blocking attempts, our apps manage to mitigate and remain working everywhere. Meanwhile we are preparing some next level resiliency/security features ;)

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in reply to Delta Chat

are you saying that delta chat has been blocked in china but is able to employ mitigations that have succeeded where signal's haven't? is onboarding to deltachat easier than onboarding to the use of a vpn or proxy as is standard for users in heavily censored networks?
in reply to d@nny disc@ mc²

@hipsterelectron no, we are not aware of specific Chinese blocking attempts currently. The blocking attempts we mentioned happen with a different country, and another one is currently gearing up (more about the latter probably next week).


So, keeping a #journal in #teeline has had some unexpected benefits for my #ADHD brain beyond my handwriting just being more able to keep up with the rate of my thoughts.

I might blog about this later, but the TL;DR is that the process of transcribing my entries requires me to think deliberately about the meaning of every word I've written.

#ActuallyADHD #FountainPens

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For all the criticism I have of dynamically typed languages, I have to admit that the way #elisp (and presumably #lisp in general) does in-line documentation is pretty nice.


The seemingly canonical way of detecting whether the C-u modifier was used on an interactive function call (when an actual numerical argument wasn't provided) in #elisp feels... icky. #emacs
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

To be fair C-u *is* a numerical argument so you're not really meant to differentiate (it means the number 4). 😅
in reply to Alessio Vanni

@Alessio Vanni Yeah, it's just very magic number-ey.

Ah well, such is the way it is with legacy code sometimes. No way to change it without breaking about a billion other things.



Nintendo in my email today: We have updated our terms of service. If you agree, do literally nothing. If you disagree, please jump through the hoops necessary to delete your account.

How is this legal?

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Jonathan Lamothe reshared this.


Why is #TyreNichols not trending on #mastodon ?????
This is a black man that was murdered by memphis police and were acquitted by an ALL WHITE jury !
He lay on the ground asking for help from his momma while the cops kicked him to death.
If y'all ain't racist on this app shout out this injustice 🗣🗣
#blacklivesmatter #BlackMastodon
RIP Tyre ❤️
in reply to Jaden

A similar thing happened to me, except it wasn't cops and I was only officially dead for under 10 minutes

When i watched the videos of his murder i was screaming in pain for him... and when he cried to see his mom, that broke me. I have immense survivor's guilt and there iss no reason Tyre should not be alive today except for those cops

I pray for his family and fir all the others that have state violence inflicted on them undeserved

in reply to Jaden

The question I'm asking is why Memphis hasn't broken out into full-on riots yet. As soon as I heard the verdict, I thought the city would erupt. #TyreNichols

Jonathan Lamothe reshared this.


Salt Lake City unveils new flags to circumvent the legislature’s bill banning “non-sanctioned” flags: fox13now.com/news/politics/slc… #utpol #Utah

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in reply to Ben Winslow

Clever! Now they can make $ selling full sets 'cause you gotta catch 'em all. I know I'm tempted.


Me: I'm just going to specify these #org-mode table formulas so that they can be executed sequentially to update this whole table in a single pass.

org-mode: Hey bro, let me automatically sort those by position for you. You're welcome.

Me: 🤦‍♂️

#emacs



Wrapping my brain around using #org-mode as a spreadsheet. Is there a way to pass a range of cells as a vector to a custom function? Ideally, I'd like to embed this function into the file itself. #emacs

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in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

I like using org tables with org-babel like so:

#+NAME: test
| 1 | 4 |
| 2 | 5 |
| 3 | 6 |

#+begin src emacs-lisp :var test=test

(mapcar
'(lambda (r)
(mapcar '(lambda (x) (* x x)) r)) test)

#+end src

#+RESULTS:
| 1 | 16 |
| 4 | 25 |
| 9 | 36 |


in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

Okay, the problem seems to have been the charger. Still annoying, but less problematic.

Jonathan Lamothe reshared this.


With a whole bunch of folks leaving MS Word and similar as of late, seems like the right time to post this again, but I put together a little resource to help explain *why* it's so important to ditch Word and similar.

nopilot.xyz/

[edit: I'm aware of some readability issues on some systems, and am working to fix. See note below.]

This entry was edited (3 weeks ago)

Jonathan Lamothe reshared this.

in reply to Cassandra Granade 🏳️‍⚧️

Thanks to everyone who's pointed out that the page is very difficult to read on some systems; I have not had that happen on any of the laptops and/or phones that I have access to, so I wasn't able to notice that earlier, and I apologize for the accessibility issues that creates.

I'm not, unfortunately, a professional webdev, and have found it a little challenging to make a plain HTML page that works everywhere.

Someone in DMs very kindly suggested a fix, and I'll look at applying that ASAP.

in reply to Cassandra Granade 🏳️‍⚧️

I *think* it should be fixed? On my laptop and phone, it looks identical to how it used to, but it now doesn't fix the zoom level in CSS, such that hopefully it should work well in more browsers and on more devices.

Thanks again to everyone who let me know about the problem, and for the kind person who suggested a fix in DMs.




I wonder how difficult it would be to introduce rudimentary namespaces into #elisp.

#emacs

Harald reshared this.

in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

Just learned about interned vs. uninterned symbols. Feels like this would be a big piece of this puzzle.


So, I absolutely can't afford to start yet another hobby, but I really want to get into book binding.
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

Dane's law: There is not a hobby in existence that has any kind of an upper limit on how much money you can spend in it.

Fountain pens? Sure, there's the Platinum Preppy and Pilot Varsity, but also Momtblanc and Visconti!

Amateur Radio? Sure there's your $30 Baofeng, but also your $20,000 kilowatt at-home HF shack!

Drones? Sure, there's your $20 supermarket drone, but also tens of thousands of dollars super high performance FPV racing drones

Computing? $35 raspi vs at-home supercomputing cluster, just for giggles!



So, I've finally settled on a technique to keep shimmer inks from clogging my #FountainPens and it's working well, but it's not exactly condusive to writing in #teeline which is what I use 90% of the time these days.

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in reply to paradoxmo

@paradoxmo I'm currently using a TWSBI Diamond 580. As for the technique, I was basically just making a rookie mistake:


It looks like I wasn't moving the pen enough. As I would keep writing, the shimmer would collect in the feed until it just straight-up clogged. I didn't realize I had to periodically roll the pen around even while I was actively using it. This should have been obvious by the fact that my writing kept getting more and more, well... shimmery before the ink stopped flowing.

I'll try this approach in the future.

Rookie mistake, but in my defense, I didn't even know that shimmer inks were even a thing until late last year.




It always amuses me whenever I think about the fact that I got one of my favourite #FountainPens for free with a bottle of ink. It's even more amusing that I've never inked that pen up with that ink.

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Unknown parent

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
Jonathan Lamothe

@Kate McDonald It's a bit of a pain to work with because I only use it with a dip pen* and have to juggle that with a UV flashlight. That aside, it works really well. Completely invisible under normal lighting conditions and shows up really well under UV.

* Because I feel that cleaning it out of a regular pen would be a pain.



So, with this past #Inkvent calendar, I've found myself in possession of a bunch of shimmering inks. Problem is that they tend to clog my #FountainPens. Are there any inexpensive pens that handle shimmering inks well?
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

"Are there any inexpensive pens that handle shimmering inks well?"
Well, there's dip pens. 😉
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

I bought a few of those small plastic "Dinky Dips" ink containers- they come in three sizes. I can use my ink syringe to put some of my shimmer ink into a Dinky, add a drop or two of Gum Arabic (to help make it more dip nib friendly), and it's a better size--- you can use the dip nib to stir the ink each time you dip it in, since it's not that deep and the container mouth is wide (straight up and down shape). Inks stores well in it, the plastic cap screws tight. Just a thought!
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

It looks like I wasn't moving the pen enough. As I would keep writing, the shimmer would collect in the feed until it just straight-up clogged. I didn't realize I had to periodically roll the pen around even while I was actively using it. This should have been obvious by the fact that my writing kept getting more and more, well... shimmery before the ink stopped flowing.

I'll try this approach in the future.

Rookie mistake, but in my defense, I didn't even know that shimmer inks were even a thing until late last year.

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