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'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’m sorry, but I see the BSD license as misguided.
The argument for it is sound, but it doesn’t protect the commons, and what we need now more than ever is a thriving and protected commons.
“High quality software should be universally available” is noble. “Software we depend on shouldn’t be vulnerable to theft” is pragmatic.
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There is no "theft" if the original is still there.
Your license *cannot* protect your software from a corpo taking it. You can't afford to sue, even if you find out. Roku proved GPL is meaningless.
What you can do is keep your software free for real people (not corpos) to use. BSD does that better than GPL, which can only be used in GPL-specific projects.
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@mdhughes That doesn’t make it meaningless. Blender, Krita and other projects endure only because of the GPL.
Code only being usable in GPL projects is the entry price of a better model.
If a corpo can effectively destroy the open development of a specific software, they’ve stolen it. Changing the license on blender and using coercive tactics against the original, if those tactics are successful, would be effectively stealing it from the commons.
BSD doesn’t survive that threat.
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Blender & Krita would be just as free under BSD. There might be "pro" closed-source versions, but the originals would still be there.
How can a corpo destroy a project? MS wants a paint program, they'll steal whatever they want GPL or BSD, or generate slop copied from them. The original is STILL THERE. Where do you think BSD projects go when someone copies them?
"OH guess they own us now!" is not how anyone reacts when corpo copies their code. More like "Good luck with that!"
@mdhughes BSD has though. macOS uses FreeBSD code extensively.
SPICE is still around even if there’s a huge number of forks.
The thing about GPL is… well, it is supposed to force companies to give back
It doesn’t say that what they give back is useful
Example: a TON of “open-source” corporate Linux kernel code is slop that is essentially useless, they do the dumbest thing that works
@Elizafox And, Apple doesn't do too badly at keeping their BSD stuff open source:
opensource.apple.com
Does have most of their tools, and updates where possible/relevant. You can build opendarwin, tho it's not super useful when FreeBSD, etc. exist.
I’m not really interested in debating which software is more “free” but is more resilient to modern tactics.
A BSD-licensed or MIT-licensed project is vulnerable to a CLA being instituted assigning copyright, and an eventual rug-pull in which multiple years of development is retroactively not BSD licensed.
It’s not trivial to pull this off, but GPL licensed code just doesn’t have this weakness.
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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You know how there are weird tricks with computer stuff that you think everyone knows but they don't? I live learning and teaching new things like those when they come up.
Today's was the carat substitution in bash. It probably works in other shells too but IDK, I'm too old to learn a new shell.
The way it works is fairly similar to the / in sed or similar. You can use them to run the previous command but with a string substitution.
For example, let's say I entered this command:
dig A cascadiacrow.org
When it fails to resolve, I realize it was a .com domain. Rather than retyping the command, or hitting the up arrow to change the previous command, you could do this:
^org^com^
And it would run:
dig A cascadiacrow.com
Kind of cool with those one liners you spend way too much time on and find a typo.
Anyway, I used it and someone thought it was magic so if it's new to you too, happy Monday.
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First time doom-scrolling on Mastodon for me. You're all amazing!
Will have to invest my first 2 hours at work tomorrow to keep up with the replies.
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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Could this help? mastodon.mit.edu/@almonds/1168…
I keep hearing friends on/off Fedi worry about aggressive AI/web scrapers or mention them hitting their servers.I've been experimenting with different defenses for the last few months and want to share this setup, even if helps just one other person directly or indirectly. It has reduced the load on our servers usually by 80% by CPU as well as log entries.
sum.mit.edu/git/almonds/block_…
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.
Sometimes I like researching obscure mathematical topics just for fun. The frustrating thing I occasionally run into is notation that I don't know how to interpret. This turns out to be rather difficult to search for online.
For example: I'm doing some research into finite fields, and I have encountered something that looks like ℤ/pℤ.
I know that ℤ typically represents the set of integers. I'm also given that p, in this case, represents an arbitrary prime number. From context, I think it's meant to represent the set {0, 1, 2,... p-1}, but I could be wrong, and, if so, I don't follow the logic.
I'm trying to brush up on my set theory, but nothing I've seen thus far explains it.
Edit for additional context: The document I'm reading is at:
people.math.harvard.edu/~lande…
Page 3
@uxMark is this a reference to my favorite research paper?
link.springer.com/content/pdf/…
I bring up this paper at parties and ask people to draw bicycles.
@shapr Just had a quick search and it was probably this!
booooooom.com/2016/05/09/bicyc…
In 2009 designer Gianluca Gimini started asking friends and strangers to draw a men's bicycle from memory. While some got …Staff (BOOOOOOOM!)
I feel like the way some folks are expressing annoyance with the goose discourse, that they're not viscerally connecting with the symbolism the way most of us are.
🤔
Like, I *feel* this meme. It's representative of my whole life, of having my lifeforce sucked out of me by parasites until I'm ill at age 50 and have nothing to show for it. It's a rare but accidental honesty from the clueless fucks who rule this world. It's the entire story of each of us and the whole world told in a handful of phrases and images.
"Goose is not valued" feels like a rallying cry for valuable people who are only just now starting to realize...
...that we do have value.
And that the only way they're going to understand our value is if we make them.
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Overheard today: "The best thing we can do for all these drug addicts is to throw them in jail. It's not nice but it'll get 'em clean."
Why is it that the people with the most uninformed opinions always seem to also have the loudest ones?
Edit: deleted and reposted because I realized it should've been CW'd.
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So, for a while now, after hearing a bunch of #ActuallyAutistic individuals talking about their experiences, I've been asserting that I wouldn't be shocked to learn that I was on the autistic spectrum.
Today, for shits and giggles, I decided to take the AQ and RAADS-R tests, and scored "very strong alignment with autistic traits" on both. While I'm not shocked to learn this, I have to admit, I didn't expect to score that high.
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Me: Why can't I get this damn projector to focus?
*realizing I'm not wearing my glasses*
...oh.
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Katy and I both love Taco Bell, but we seldom get it because:
A) It's expensive
B) It's not exactly healthy
...but it was a special occasion, so we did today.
As I was picking up our order, out of nowhere, the guy behind me in line asks "Have you tried the Diablo sauce?" He then, before I can even answer, proceeds to tell the young woman working the counter—who seemed as taken aback by this exchange as I was—to give me some Diablo sauce. I don't object because... I mean... what the hell is even happening?
I figure this guy either really loves this sauce or is getting a kickback somehow. If the latter, I guess Taco Bell has adopted a weirdly aggressive marketing campaign, because... who does that?
Anyhow, it was okay, I guess...
What did they do now? You reminded me, a while ago, I tried to use my multimeter, but the 9V was dead, so I swapped it, and that one was dead, too.
I figured the dozens of others in the office cabinet must be dead, too, so I went home to use a crappy multimeter to measure the batteries, and *that* 9V was also dead. I swapped it once more, and it finally let me measure the others.
6.6 volts, 6.6 volts, and 9.5 volts (zinc-chloride). And then the battery dies, that I had just swapped in.
@Maddie I was just annoyed at the fact that the battery in a laptop I'd spent a bunch of time installing Debian on is toast. I didn't realize this earlier because I had it plugged in for the install process.
I've also had a number of other similar incidents lately. Most notably with the battery in Katy's e-bike.
Trying to install #Debian on another machine, but #Windows is being stubborn. I accidentally let it boot into Windows 10 and now it's insisting on installing updates before it reboots. Holding the power button to force a shutdown appears to have been disabled somehow.
Fine, whatever. It's not like I have anything else to do tonight.
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Welp, I've hit a snag. The installer doesn't seem to be talking to to the wifi card. The laptop has no ethernet port. I have a USB to ethernet adapter, but the laptop has only one USB-A port (and a USB micro port, weirdly?). The USB port is occupied by the flash drive with the installer. I've tried using a USB hub to make more ports available, but then the system can't see the flash drive.
I'm at a loss.
Luckily I've not had to deal with this situation, but I am aware of two work-arounds.
1. Best may be to include the driver you need - if you can determine what it is - on the install media.
2. Next best is to perform a minimal install to get a bootable system and then use the USB/Eth adapter to find, download and install the WiFi driver. (This will rule out the 'netinst' media.)
'lsusb' and 'lspci' should help to ID the WiFi module. Or documentation for the laptop may help.
HTH,
Does the flash drive need to remain inserted after the installer boots? Quite often they don't.
And something else to consider, which I've found useful in similar situations in the past, would be a "live" USB key rather than an "installer" one. Often those are able to get to the point where you can remove the USB key, and then have enough of a system to pursue other install methods.
🎶 A new system of changing information as applied to a musical context. 🎶
June 29th, 8pm, Shakedown Street, Benson, OMAHA
No cover 🆓
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I got an entry-level Wacom tablet as an early birthday present. As I was forewarned, it takes a little bit of getting used to.
One of the tips I was given on how to get used to it is to ditch my mouse (trackball, in my case) and just use the tablet as my day-to-day pointing device. The only problem with this strategy is that, outside of when I'm actually drawing, probably 90% of my computer use is keyboard-driven (including the browser (qutebrowser) that I'm using right now).
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A video of my speech to Tri-Pride festival here in Waterloo Region on June 6. Runs about 16 minutes all told, probably 12 of them are me. The other four are a very kind introduction by the MC and former head of Tri-Pride and my good friend, Kamil Ahmed (he/him).
The reference to Jan Liggett and Adam Cooper near the end is to this story:
My speech has a few naughty words in it, so maybe don't put the sound up high if you're gonna be overheard by a prude.
Sorry about the sound quality - the wind was a bit fierce, and I haven't received the second angle we set up yet, which hopefully will have different windy bits.
Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.Fullmetal Feminist (YouTube)
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Thanks for sharing your story here! Waterloo Region is fortunate to have benefited from 30 years of your activism. And from your ongoing activism in this municipal election year!
And yeah, the wind noise is something, but your message got through 😀❤️
Ok, I toss this out every 6mos or so as fedi grows...
I'm gathering local connections of fedi folk in #Guelph and area. Get some low key meatspace hang outs going on.
Walks, masked movie nights or board games, knitting in a coffee shop, hanging out at the library...
I'm hoping to do more structured events at some point but am pretty low energy these days so keeping it simple.
We have a signal group to connect and organise. Hit me up if you'd like an invite.
🔄✨
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And I am once again looking to hire someone to come in for 2hr/week to help with food prep and house cleaning. Pays $20/hr, DT #Guelph
In particular, we're getting a weekly CSA produce delivery and need help to make sure we use it up. We're two burned out autistics, so aren't great at improvising or meal planning on the fly.
Just need a chill grounded person to help keep the basics under control so we can spend our spoons on building resiliency (and fun, we need fun!) .
🔄✨
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I'm not in your country but you are so seen right now
I myself have trouble getting through meal kit boxes due to all the food prep, but I still get them because I don't want to draw a blank at dinnertime and end up eating nothing but cereal every night, not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that, but I really like vegetables
I hope you find your helper!!!
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Anyone have ridiculous #InternetOfShit examples you're really fond of?
Toasters, coffee machines, or microwaves that don't work without Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Vacuum, TV, or toothbrush botnets. Preferably something you have a picture of, from first hand experience.
I teach an #EmbeddedSystems class, and it's good to show examples of what *not* to do, in case they pursue the industry. (Boost for reach appreciated)
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R.L. Dane 🍵
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •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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