Katy likes these YouTube channels where they teach about canning and such. One of the people in one of these videos is wearing a shirt with what looks like an AR-15 that says "defense is not a crime".
What in the cinnamon toast fuck do you need an AR-15 to defend yourself from?
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Got my hair cut for the first time in probably a year because I have an interview tomorrow for a job I really want to get (and think I have a pretty good shot at).
It looks decent, but has revealed a good deal more grey than I'm accustomed to seeing.
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Is there any branch of the provincial or federal government that we haven't had to deal with today?
I suppose it's possible.
“Slopsquatting” in a nutshell:
1. LLM-generated code tries to run code from online software packages. Which is normal but
2. The packages don’t exist. Which would normally cause an error but
3. Nefarious people have made malware under the package names that LLMs make up most often. So
4. Now the LLM code points to malware.
theregister.com/2025/04/12/ai_…
: Hallucinated package names fuel 'slopsquatting'Thomas Claburn (The Register)
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#Today I was asked for the first time if I'm a senior citizen. I mean, I have some grey in my beard, but I was masked so it wasn't visible.
I feel like I'm a senior citizen. Does that count?
TIL that Instacart now charges a "membership" to get higher priority on assignment of batches. This does not guarantee you anything, it just allows them to further exploit a workforce they're already working to the bone.
Do they not realize that many (if not most) of the people who are working this job are doing it because they don't really have any other options? And they expect them to pay for the privilege now?
Just when I thought they couldn't possibly get any more predatory, they pull this shit.
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One thing I really dislike, is the amount people think hosting data is hard.
People talk about needing dozens of cores or gigs of ram to host a database or a website. They get impressed by projects where someone runs a website from an Apple ][ or a pi0.
We, as free software advocates, need to remind people that the charger for a Macbook Pro is enough to run a website, not the Macbook Pro
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Reasons somebody may have misspelled a word: glitchy phone screen, non-native english speaker, they expected their spellchecker to fix it and it failed, dyslexia, standardised spelling is a fake invention of the printing press industry to sell more moveable type
Reasons somebody my have substituted a homophone (eg their and there): Their dictation software fucked up, their spell checker fucked up, they're a non-native english speaker, they were thinking verbally, standardised spelling is a fake invention of the printing press industry to sell more moveable type.
Reasons somebody may have put in the wrong word: Their spellchecker did a substitution and they didn’t notice, their dictation software fucked up, they speak a different English dialect in which that word was correct, they were editing the sentence and made a mistake.
Syntax errors very rarely indicate unclear thinking. They're just typos. It's the logic errors that fuck everything up. Anybody judging the value of an argument based on syntax is missing the more important picture: the printing press companies have lead us down an evil path, but its not to layt too eskayp
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Happens to me all the time, especially when I'm composing a post on a dinky phone screen with on-screen keys that are tiny pixels I must mash with my meaty sausage fingers.
I tend to compose non-linearly, maybe writing the conclusion last, then write the main points above it, and only then do the intro. That's often more than the max 500 chars, so then I go back to shorten sentences, change verb tenses, remove adjectives. If I'm not careful, that can result in weird syntax & spelling
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And then they extort you by saying: "Hey, but wouldn't you rather have an Orphan Crushing Machine that *didn't* accidentally leak the data of their parents in an incident, rather than one that did?"
And yes, the only answer to this is: Stop the madness and also stop collecting that data. But capitalism means you're right when you deliver shareholder value I guess.
Dear state and local governments: STOP using Google Drive as your only means to disseminate public information.
Private systems are not public, they are subject to arbitrary access controls with no public oversight or appeals process, and therefore they do NOT meet your responsibility to provide information via public means.
This means you, #Brattleboro and #Vermont. #VTpol
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Anxiety's been bad again lately. I am moderately worried about losing the apartment. Taking steps to try to keep that from happening, but sometimes just trying to engage with the problem brings on a panic attack.
I have medication to help with that now, but it makes it hard to think clearly. I will survive this one way or another, but my life is going to have to change. I don't handle change well.
This probably won't help me in my current job search, but is it worth learning COBOL? I've heard that there are still a bunch of critical systems out there that use it, and that it's hard to find COBOL devs these days.
Is this still the case? The only downside I can see is that I'd have to program in COBOL.
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Having worked adjacent to 4 different mainframes at this point in my career along with their "modernization" efforts. Reading COBOL, not terrible. Writing it, eh, probably not so bad but I've never done, only had to read and comprehend what it does. And there are non-MFs that provide implementation of COBOL so you can learn on your own time.
The devil is going to be understanding IBM systems "junk": CICS, DASD, DCLGEN, TSO, RACF etc
@billinkc
What he said. Mainframe basics are more important than COBOL, I'd say.
I work for a company that's doing "Mainframe Modernization" and as a result we have to understand the old crappy non-modern stuff in order to implement new stuff! (Currently my group isn't reimplementing anything based in Cobol. We do Db2 monitoring stuff.)
rocketsoftware.com
rocket.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/r…
(We have AI hype on the front page but really we're just programming. I guess some departments might be doing AI, but I think we're just scared we'll miss the bandwagon. So don't ignore us just for that.)
Rocket Software provides IT modernization and IT automation solutions that help businesses solve their most complex IT challenges, across infrastructure, data, and applications.Rocket Software
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Jonathan Lamothe likes this.
@nosrednayduj OMG super small world. One of the projects I was on dealt with model 204/m204. We ended up building a real time synchronization between m204 and SQL Server via messaging.
It was going to be a very cool way to modernize the client's data storage while they incrementally switched the front ends.
Pity literal debt caught up to them 💥
Dear job posting,
If you expect me to install spyware so that you can micromanage me while I work, at least have the decency not to expect me to supply the hardware.
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Went to pick up a prescription and the guy ahead of me in line was chewing the pharmacist out about the automated system, which admittedly sucks but is certainly a decision made by corporate, not her.
He repeatedly threatened to take his business elsewhere. Were I in her position, the response I'd have wanted to give was "please do".
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Sooo... I have a flatpak version of LibreOffice, and for whatever reason (probably sandboxing) the spellchecker can't see the text of my document.
I may or may not have sent off a bunch of resumes that said that I "wrote technical documentaiton" in a previous job.
That's just super.
There's a job I really want a decent shot at. Thank God I caught it before submitting to that one.
Edit: I typo'd my typo. 🙃
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Back in the 1990s I worked at a very large government facility on an RFP for getting an ISP. The winning bidder had in the footer of every page "Bid for Interenet Service Provider." Nobody but me noticed.
Of course, the Interenet was so new in the 1990s that maybe they thought that's how it's spelled...
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I had a bit of a hard time getting into this one, but once it got going it was worth it. That said, I think I'm going to step back from the horror genre for a bit. I'll probably return to it when life settles a bit.
(comment on HEX)
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I am in urgent job search mode, so I'm gonna throw this out here and see if anything comes of it.
I am a #Canadian, fluent in both #English and #French. I have experience with several programming languages. My strongest proficiency is with #Haskell and #C. I also have a reasonable grasp of #HTML, #JavaScript, #SQL, #Python, #Lua, #Linux system administration, #bash scripting, #Perl, #AWK, some #Lisp (common, scheme, and emacs), and probably several others I've forgotten to mention.
I am not necessarily looking for something in tech. I just need something stable. I have done everything from software development, to customer support, to factory work, though my current circumstances make in-person work more difficult than remote work. I have been regarded as a hard worker in every job I have ever held.
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OVHcloud Recrute ! Retrouvez l'ensemble des offres d'emploi du groupe dans le monde et postulez directement en ligne.careers.ovhcloud.com
I've been an #Emacs user for like 20 years because there was one thing I needed to do back then that was made easier by elisp, and I just got used to using it. In all that time, I hardly ever tinkered much with the config, save a few minor tweaks it was pretty much stock. I had no strong feelings about Emacs in general, it was just the text editor I'd grown comfortable with.
I've recently been diving into #Lisp and poking around with my Emacs config, and after all these years, I think I'm starting to get the appeal. I am still a proponent of "use the tool that works for you", but I'm personally firmly on team Emacs now.
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Everyone who confuses correlation and causation ends up dying...
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Welp, it's #FountainPen cleaning and re-inking day. #Today I re-learned why I don't use shimmer inks in my #TWSBI Diamond 580. In fact, I usually reserve them exclusively for dip pens.
Time to meticulously clean out a clogged feed. It didn't even make it a paragraph.
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So, I've been taking another run at learning #CommonLisp. The last time I tried, I simply could not wrap my brain around macros. I'm reading the same book again, but this time am a more experienced programmer, and it all just clicked in my head.
I might actually end up enjoying #Lisp after all. I don't know if it'll dethrone #Haskell, but I'm starting to get why people like it.
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@Karsten Johansson Tell that to the author of Practical Common Lisp.
That said, I get it now. It's so stupidly simple when it finally makes sense.
Also, yeah, learning Haskell in the interim helped a lot.
I finally got around to setting up a gopher hole. There's nothing there yet, but hopefully soon there will be.
gopher://sdf.org/1/users/jlamothe
(Apologies to anyone with a screen reader. There will be an accessible version.)
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I recently got a #Sailor #Hokoro dip pen, and much to my chagrin have found that several of my #FountainPen inks do not work well in it. It's almost like the ink refuses to be picked up by the nib/feed.
Has anyone else encountered this? Is there a solution?
Edit: the paper also seems to be a factor
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It will soon be Autism awareness month, that wonderful time of the year when many autistics hit their foxholes screaming "incoming", or take to their bunkers and hide.
"But why?" I hear you ask. "Surely awareness is a good thing?"
Well, obviously yes, normally, but mostly, actually, no. Not in the way this normally pans out, anyway. Because this is the time of year when everything starts getting lit up blue and puzzle pieces start making their appearance and Autism Speaks articles rear their ugly, eugenic, heads. No matter how many times the vast bulk of the autism community explain that these symbols and the organisation that they are linked to, do not bloody speak for us and never sodding will.
Pity-me mothers parade their kids to showcase how terrible their lives are, or how there isn't enough help for their darling children. Which, whilst admittedly this is true for the kids, could be highlighted in better ways. Various celebrities and sports stars come out about the wonders of being diagnosed with autism and the huge change it has made in their pampered lives and puff pieces pop up everywhere about how someone succeeded because of their autistic superpower, or how they wouldn't be where they were now without it, or how someone's a hero, for standing up for their autistic friend. And editors across the land, slap themselves on their backs for such a wonderful job of awareness and here's to the next year and then silence once again falls.
OK, I may be slightly exaggerating this, but unfortunately not by as much as you might be thinking. So many times, even within the good articles and representation, there is the implicit message that only an official diagnosis can do this for you, which is a real kick in the teeth for everyone who has as much chance of getting one of those, as of winning the lottery. That this is something that is seen in us, rather than something that we can see ourselves. And all too often, even with the good stuff, it's always accompanied by the stock, what is autism? answers, from the internet. You know, the ones that just dryly quote the highlights of our disorder, in a way that none of us can actually recognise ourselves in and certainly don't help with others seeing us.
And this is the real problem with awareness month. It's all fine and dandy trying to increase awareness. But of what? Is it the problems and struggles, the difficulty of having autistic children, or being autistic in a world without support? The virtues of finally having your eyes opened to your autistic superpower? Of how the community and others could finally rally around you.
Or is it the different stories that finally allow others to see us, or even for us to finally see ourselves after decades in the dark. That allow the friend or neighbour, or workmate to maybe stop seeing you as the weird, or creepy, or even scary, person. But instead, someone who's just different, who sees and perhaps understands the world in a way that they don't. Not superpowered, or a burden, or broken in any way. Just yourself, just autistic. The stories that lead to acceptance and not just awareness.
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@marionline I love your idea! Let’s make this month OUR month and not their. Will answer to the questions later!
@adelinej 😆 Yes! Exactly that!
I think this should have a hashtag. We could use #AutismApril or something in combination with other hashtags like: #actuallyautistic or
#autismacceptancemonth to make the questions&answer toots searchable?
Looking forward to read your answer, and of course I'll write an answer to the questions as well. 😀
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Kevin Davy
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •Sensitive content
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Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • •As a side note, I'm now pretty much convinced I'm somewhere on the spectrum. This felt a lot like the way I've heard an autistic meltdown to be. Sounds were particularly jarring. Katy was packing up her equipment to send back to her old job and the sound of the packing tape was actually painful.
I can think of a number of other incidents where I've become seemingly irrationally agitated at something that should have been a minor thing, and any form of external stimulus whatsoever only made it worse (which really sucks when people try to "help").
Am I way off base here?
Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🕹 👽
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •Sensitive content
That's very much an AS response. Some noises, physical sensations, environments are just intolerable, as if they're actively attacking your brain the way allergens do your immune system.
Finding out that my responses to things were *real*, and not just me being temperamental, was a big help.
Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🕹 👽 • •