going back in time and telling baby!Alice that one day, she'll be able to go online and order a computer 8 times faster than her packard bell, with dual cores, and it'll arrive within 24 hours.
and she'll also be able to do the same for a sandwich, and the sandwich will cost more
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Actual footage of a vibe coder carefully checking the bot’s output
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Been trying to stress this point for years...
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For example: 10 years ago it wasn't "wrong" to seek an abortion in the state of Texas, but now you basically have a price on your head.
(My home state of #Arkansas is almost as bad, so the example is ever-present on my mind.)
Also (and the L.A. Taco definitely understands this), ICE is intentionally grabbing people that are _legal residents_, in a desperate bit to meet unreasonable and inhumane quotas, and certainly using the surveillance state to do so.
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Not that I actually have a job that contributes but 15 years ago when I went to grad school for air quality science, everyone close to me grumbled how that’s too fringe with no job prospects. Yeah, I never did get a job but I don’t regret studying that for one bit, specially when current administration is trying to gaslight people about environmental issues.
It hurts my heart to see every summer, I get proven right
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So, I think I might be a nerd.
@SDF.ORG is running a BBS called bitzone. On this BBS they have a door game called LORD (League of the Rare Dragoon (not to be confused with Legend of the Red Dragon, of which it is clearly a knock-off)).
The fact that I'm playing this game in the first place is kind of nerdy, but wait, there's more.
In said game you have a character with various stats. One of these stats is "charm", which seems to get you discounts in the shops. Unfortunately, there's nothing to say exactly how this relationship works. So I've decided to try to reverse-engineer it with #emacs #org-mode.
I've created a table to track my purchases. It tracks my charm at the time of purchase, the list price for the item, and the price I actually paid. There's also an additional colum that calculates the actual discount, but that's trivial.
Anyhoot, I'm adding some code to this file that reads the values in the table and computes the simplest polynomial function that satisfies the equation:
$$price_{actual}=f(charm,price_{list})$$
This is done with the aim of predicting how much I'd actually spend on an item before actually buying it. It of course assumes that the equation being used is a polynomial equation, but I'm hoping it'll at least be able to approximate with a large enough set of data points.
Am I doing this because it's reasonable?
No.
I'm doing it because it's an interesting challenge... and I'm a nerd.
CC: @tob
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So it occurs to me that the approach I was considering is probably not going to work for a couple reasons:
I'll continue collecting data to see if any patterns start to emerge, though.
I was a 911 dispatcher for a decade.
To really understand how absolutely terrible an idea it is to have AI answer 911 calls, I'll present you with a single real-life call:
Upon answer, the caller calmly began ordering a pizza. Large, pepperoni. Side order of chicken wings. To be delivered promptly.
The only sign the caller gave that things were amiss? She rather ignored the first few questions from the calltaker.
Because she was being physically abused, had already been beaten, and her abuser was *IN THE ROOM* listening to her order pizza.
Tell me how your AI is going to read between those lines.
AI has no place in 911 calls. From Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000’s latest episode “State of Emergency”.(with @emilymbender)
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Would you like to review the instructions for operating a pod, Dave?
Or would you like a list of additional doors that I can help you open?
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If I had a dollar for every time I tried to erase something in #krita that turned out to me a smudge on my screen... I would have a few bucks.
Also, I should probably clean my screen.
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Pluralistic: Trump's America can't even win a rigged game (22 Jul 2026)Cory Doctorow (Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow)
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this is "flying doesn't have CO2 emissions because the plane would fly anyway if i wasn't on it" logic and i'm disappointed to see an acclaimed public thinker like you not understand the connection between supply and demand.
Models are getting trained because there is a demand for them from users.
Gave myself a bit of a scare. My aNONradio stream cut out on me and when I went to investigate, I found the router dead. No lights. Nothing. Disconnectd the power cable from the back and re-attached.
Still nothing.
When I followed the power cord, I found that the wall wart seemed to have come mostly unplugged from the power bar. I have no idea what caused it to spontaneously disconnect, but I'm back now.
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This question doesn't lend itself well to plain text, so I LaTeX'd and screenshotted it. I'll do my best with the alt text.![Is there a way of writing the expression<br>\[ \sum_{n=1}^m f(n) \]<br>in a way that omits the term where $n=a$?</p><p>I know it could be written as<br>\[ \left( \sum_{n=1}^m f(n) \right) - f(a) \]<br>but this doesn't work when $f(a)$ is undefined.](https://social.jlamothe.net/photo/13528377976a61653463c9a386467268-1.png "Is there a way of writing the expression<br>\[ \sum_{n=1}^m f(n) \]<br>in a way that omits the term where $n=a$?</p><p>I know it could be written as<br>\[ \left( \sum_{n=1}^m f(n) \right) - f(a) \]<br>but this doesn't work when $f(a)$ is undefined.")
#math #maths #mathstodon #AskFedi
Edit: It turns out that Friendica has a MathJax addon. Who knew?
Also, it seems like there are a number of options. The one I like best is:
$$\sum_{\begin{matrix}1 \le n \le m\\n \ne a\end{matrix}} f(n)$$
Edit 2: It looks like this doesn't render properly when federated to a server without MathJax support. I suppose I should've seen that coming.
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I just got the following ad:
For questions you wouldn't want to ask anyone else, there's ChatGPT
I don't even have words.
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Here's a big part of the reason* I don't use so-called #AI to write code for me: I actually enjoy writing code. I wouldn't offload this task to AI for the same reason I wouldn't use it to go for a walk in the woods, or eat a delicious meal for me. Why would any sane** person do this?
* It's not the only reason, but this is a fedi post, not an essay.
** This post should in no way be considered as me claiming to be sane. 🙃
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Had the weirdest dream last hight. I dreamed I'd gone back to the Mormon church. It was very strange. I was happy to see many of the people I considered friends, but the whole thing felt dishonest because I was still an unbeliever. For all of its culty aspects, it does impose a lot of structure, and structure is a thing my brain very much likes.
For many reasons, this is not a thing I'd actually consider in reality.
I had a similar dream four years ago.
Went back to my old church, was glad to see a few people I really loved again.
Stayed for a couple months, but it had really devolved into a cult.
Noped out of there when the pastor invited people to come up to the front to receive healing and repent for taking the COVID vaccine.
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I've suspected for a while that I'm probably on the spectrum. It seems to fluctuate, but for the past few days I've been experiencing something that sounds very much like what I understand autistic burnout to be like.
Tasks which should be simple (e.g.: feeding myself) become insurmountable obstacles. I'm exhausted all the time, and when it's at its most acute, communicating what I'm experiencing becomes impossible. I literally lose the ability to form coherent sentences.
Is that what this is? Do others experience this? And more importantly, has anyone found any kind of strategies to help manage/minimize it?
The best way I've found to deal with it is to simply disengage from everything until I manage to build up a spoon reserve again. Unfortunately, this does not exactly seem compatible with the responsibilities of adulthood.
Edit: I realize that I may have given an incorrect impression in this post. I have experienced this before. It's just been particularly bad the past few days. It seems to ebb and flow.
In fact, I've had a term to describe this since high school. At the time, I had dubbed it a "neural meltdown".
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Could be autistic burnout, could be extreme fatigue for other reasons, could be a major depressive episode, could be dehydration as others have said. Could be a combination. (I speak from experience of all four)
Look after yourself. Hydrate and rest and try not to be angry or frustrated at yourself for going through this. It's not disrupting your life; it's an episode _in_ your life. It will pass.
@Drew is still tired 🇵🇭 I guess the best thing I can do is focus on the knowledge that it always passes (at least mostly). Hopefully the things currently on fire won't get too out of control while I do so.
I am fortunate to have a partner I can lean on when I need help, but I don't want to lean too hard. She has her own struggles to deal with.
Autistic burnout is the deep exhaustion that follows years of masking and overload. Here is what it feels like, the stages, and how recovery actually begins.HeyASD.com Team (HeyASD)
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be kind to yourself. Accept that there are limits to what you can do, and start saying no to things that would push you past those limits.
Also make sure your closest understands what you can and cannot do, so their expectations doesn’t wear you down.
But mostly, be kind to yourself.
hi! i really need help, could you spare some?
i'm an unemployed and disabled student who has struggled A LOT for the past three years. i currently live in a neglectful household that often lets me go without or shames me for basic needs.
recently things have deteriorated to the point i pretty much cannot count with help from anyone at home for stuff like my psych meds and food for my cats.
i’m currently looking for a job but didn’t get anything yet, so i really need help to buy food, cat food, medicine, toiletries and for some medical expenses.
if you're able to help me with a donation or simply a boost to this post, i am eternally grateful, it really means the world to me and makes all the difference in my life. thank you very, very much for reading and have a lovely day. 
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Not just YouTube either. Those ads are on billboards, podcasts, FM radio.
Doug Ford really loves spending money on ads about how great his government is (if you agree this is great, which I like you do not) instead of actually fixing problems.
The variant that enrages me the most is how "safer" means less encampments. Spending all that money telling us to be afraid of homeless people instead of spending it to house them.
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The funny* thing is that for the rest of us, it's a pretty comprehensive list of reasons not to vote for him.
* not funny
I think the biggest thing that the I've learned working for an org-metrics-visibility tooling company, and the AI "revolution" starting soon after that, is how many people at the seniormost levels of the world's largest software companies fundamentally do not understand what software is or does or how it works or where it comes from or even how their companies really operate.
linkedin.com/pulse/ai-layoffs-…
Everyone assumed AI would be cheaper than employees. The numbers just proved otherwise, and it's changing how smart leaders think about their people.Karin Volo (www.linkedin.com)
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Got an air quality alert due to wildfire smoke.
My dude, I know. The sky is yellow.
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I woke up this morning and thought to myself, "what's burning?"
It's only everything. No biggie.
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I just saw a video of an AI executive saying that people will connect their brains to the cloud so they can have 1,000 times more thoughts.
Neurotypical people. Please listen to me. I promise you, with all the ADHD in my body-
You really do not want 1,000 more thoughts.
You may think you do, but you extremely do not.
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Dear @Nextcloud 📱☁️💻,
If the official solution to a file getting randomly locked is to shut the whole server down and then manually edit the database, something's been done wrong. If this were to happen to a random non-admin user, they'd have no solution (other than pinging their sysadmin). The owner of a file should be able to manually clear its lock if necessary.
I've been thinking about #bicycling in the oppressive heat we've had lately. I wondered if there was a way to rig up some kind of fan that would be powered by the pedals to create a nice airflow as I rode.
...
Then I realized what a ridiculous idea this was.
Some of the world's brightest minds have the knowledge and skills to heal our #planet yet many spend their talents creating technologies for conflicts instead of solutions for humanity.
Imagine if that same innovation was used to restore nature, fight hunger, and build peace.🤔
The world needs wisdom that serves life, not destruction.
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Check out Red Racoon. They do that regularly. 😀🚴♀️❤️
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@🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄) I came across my first love lock a few days ago. I'd seen it a few times, but wasn't carrying my tools. I finally remembered to bring them with me today only to find that the keyway seemed to be filled with some sort of glue?
Have you encountered this before? Is there any hope of non-destructive opening left? I imagine probably not (especially at my current skill level).
I'm clearly not the first person who's tried to open it. It's in pretty rough shape.
@Organic Maps I've added some local businesses to the app on one of my devices, and that information can now be found on OSM proper, but those changes don't appear to have propagated to my other devices. Is there a way I can force a map update?
Edit: I have tried deleting and re-downloading the map.
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I just caught that Libera.Chat uses the phrase "insufficient human involvement" and I love that specific phrasing for flagging LLM-generated pull requests.
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According to the U.S. Copyright Office "insufficient human involvement" means the output doesn't get (new) copyright protections.
(The output could still violate the copyrights of the authors of the training data for the model.)
Got an odd email to my old Gmail address that I only keep around for legacy reasons, asking about an Emacs package I wrote. I'm not sure where they even got that address. It can't be found anywhere in the repository, and my current address is clearly in the README and on every single commit.
Anyhow, I don't even understand what they're asking, but I think they think I've used an AI agent to write the code and are asking about its configuration? I want to reply that I have no need of such things because I'm an actual programmer with an actual brain, but that would probably come off kind of asshole-ish, and I could be wrong about what they're asking.
Then again, this whole email could have been written by a hallucinating AI. Who knows?
"Ledge, if we can get out far enough on it, the spider can't follow us."
Riiiiiight. I've never seen a spider just scale a wall.
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Sometimes I wish I were less of a perfectionist. I was baking cookies for a potluck tomorrow. The recipe called for the dough to be rolled out into one inch balls. There may or may not have been a caliper involved.
In my defense though, they turned out amazingly. Now I just have to not eat them before they get to where they're going. I did have to eat some though, but strictly for QA purposes.
Plan A to Y
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • • •now my brain is stuck on the idea of next-day sandwich delivery
"Your sandwich will arrive sometime tomorrow between 2-5pm and does not require a signature"
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Alda Vigdís
in reply to Plan A to Y • • •Jonathan Lamothe likes this.
BigHeadMode
in reply to Plan A to Y • • •@Plan_A_to_Y
What kinda f----ing McDonald's has a message? Whaddu-I say I want a burger tomorrow? What the--?
youtube.com/watch?v=KwXeFDroKy…
mcdonalds answering machine
ROID (YouTube)David Zaslavsky
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • • •Luna Lactea
in reply to David Zaslavsky • • •The Witch of Crow Briar
in reply to David Zaslavsky • • •The Witch of Crow Briar
in reply to The Witch of Crow Briar • • •Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • • •it's actually way, way worse than I implied, and this isn't any kind of joke
You can get SIX computers for the price of a nice sub sandwich delivered to your door
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jordan
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • • •Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️
in reply to jordan • • •The cat who walks thru walls
in reply to jordan • • •mDuo13 📖
in reply to jordan • • •Alien software, human hardware
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • • •I kind of like though that i can buy a 6-pack of tiny computers at all.
when i was 10, i built a handheld computer from 2 wood pieces and painted buttons and a display on it.
kind of gone a long way since then.
Daniel V.
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • • •linear cannon
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • • •as i was pointing out the other day, i can order two of these devices that would put a mid-2000s touchscreen PDA to shame and it costs me $25.
i just have to bring my own operating system and unfortunately the ones for this class of device all died
(which is why i'm sitting here making my own)
evening bx
in reply to linear cannon • • •linear cannon
in reply to evening bx • • •it is an ESP32 board that has no brand name on it but is resold under the name of numerous vendors, documentation here lcdwiki.com/2.8inch_ESP32-32E_…
i also am developing with the LilyGo T-Deck Plus as a target, which is conveniently available at my local MicroCenter
2.8inch ESP32-32E Display - LCD wiki
www.lcdwiki.comlinear cannon
in reply to linear cannon • • •2.8” 240x320 ESP32 LCD Display | With WiFi and BLE | IoT & Embedded Projects
elecrow.openhardwareAlice Averlong🏳️⚧️
in reply to linear cannon • • •evening bx
in reply to linear cannon • • •linear cannon
in reply to evening bx • • •yes! i am missing things like that because all the stuff that exists and is usable now is either Android or some weird custom thing with vendor lock-in, and way too big of a computer in any case.
that's why i am making software for things like these devices for myself, and in the hope it will be useful for others
linear cannon
in reply to linear cannon • • •i have visions of running a clock app with all the alarm and stopwatch functionality you might want, a simple calendar app (probably with syncing), a simple email app, notes (drawing and text), calculator (maybe even graphing calculator eventually), and a terminal app to access the shell functionality on the RTOS i'm building this atop
and i'm working on loadable apps with an SDK. i plan to create a port of Quake as a demo of the capabilities of it, for heavier devices with the RAM for it (like the T-Deck). DOOM should also be possible on devices without lots of RAM
evening bx
in reply to linear cannon • • •linear cannon
in reply to evening bx • • •i am actually using Zephyr as the RTOS/kernel, basically as a pre-made microkernel that already makes a lot of the same decisions i would have anyway (plus, i use it at work too).
but it doesn't have all of the things i need. it doesn't have "apps" in the conventional sense, it is designed around an assumption that your firmware contains exactly one "app" that does everything. which works for 99% of commercial products that need to do precisely one thing
so i'm just writing all of my "OS middleware" to handle loading and managing user-facing apps, switching between them, and coordinating their use of resources like the display, etc
evening bx
in reply to linear cannon • • •linear cannon
in reply to evening bx • • •yes, and Zephyr supports a lot of other microcontrollers too. my firmware image builds without source changes for some RISC-V and ARM based microcontrollers as well as the Xtensa-based ESP32s
there's some missing functionality though, like dual-core SMP support (you can do AMP, with each core running a different firmware image), and there is currently no driver for high-speed MIPI-DBI displays using the LCD peripheral. but other than that most things work fine
evening bx
in reply to linear cannon • • •@linear wait, so does AMP mean gur second core loads off a different parition / regeon of flash???
or does gur first core load code into ram and then start gur second core?
(i've never actually used an AMP system before and basically all of my SMP experience is on x86 or arm)
linear cannon
in reply to evening bx • • •your first guess was correct, it is a separate partition in flash, though i am not sure how the second core is started, and that may actually still be kicked off by the first core.
paste.sr.ht/~ky0ko/8e27b0506bd…
this device tree file contains the partition layout i have define for my LilyGo T-Deck, which is set up for A/B partitions for each image type. you'll notice there are two flash partitions each for the main cpu, appcpu, and lpcore.
PROCPU (protocol CPU) is the name for core 0, and its name is omitted. APPCPU is the name for core 1. originally it was intended that core 0 handled wireless comms, core 1 handled GUI stuff, but nobody really does that. i currently don't use the appcpu or the low power core for anything.
8e27b05 — paste.sr.ht
paste.sr.htevening bx
in reply to linear cannon • • •@linear Ooh, that's more straight forward then i expected, i might have to try this out next time im doing an esp32 project
hmm, i wonder if i could have gur second core run a baremetal program to implement a virtual machine, and have gur first core run everything else
linear cannon
in reply to evening bx • • •you would even have the conveniences of Zephyr on the second core if you do this, and assign hardware specifically to one core or the other (ymmv; it depends very heavily on what is attached to the board and how, they can't share peripherals)
it supports first class integration with OpenAMP, which handles providing a communication channel between the cores. i've used this professionally in a medical device, to communicate between cores running an RTOS and controlling FPGA fabric, and cores running Linux on the same Xilinx SoC, it's pretty nifty
Clara 🏳️⚧️
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • • •Heathen 🐈
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • • •I'm guessing there's also delivery fees and a tip for the sandwich, so you might be able to claim 8 computers for that price, perhaps more.
Damn, now I'm hungry for computers.
Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • •Nina Kalinina likes this.
Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •@me yeah that's an RP2040 thing. It has 6 banks of SRAM, two of which are 4KB each, and the remaining ones are 64KB.
so it's 256KB+8KB
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BigHeadMode
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • • •I don't use Pico / embedded hardware much. What is this comparable to? Early 90s computers and the SNES?
youtube.com/watch?v=WaPJmCgseQ…
BBC Micro emulation on a $4 Raspberry Pi Pico
Raspberry Pi (YouTube)rk: it’s hyphen-minus actually
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • • •Bee (sleep-deprived)
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • • •Klaus Frank
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • • •From Okesska With Love
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • • •Dr. Bruce Simpson
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • • •C.
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • • •Jeff Craig
in reply to C. • • •Duke
in reply to Jeff Craig • • •kasperd
in reply to Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️ • • •Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️
in reply to kasperd • • •