friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
nerdy story time

So, today Katy and I had to go to the jewlery store for her rings' bi-annual warranty inspection. They've changed to a new electronic system, and they needed me to show them an email that they had sent (which was somehow different from the email they'd sent to Katy). Problem is, I'd already archived it, so it wasn't on the mail server any more and I had to SSH into my machine at home to read it in gnus... in a terminal... on my phone... that's a tiny font so it can accommodate an 80 column display.

The lady at the counter, who'd understandably never encountered this setup before, proceeded to pinch to zoom, which did succeed in increasing the font size, but left the text she needed to read off the bottom of the screen. She then got very frustrated trying to scroll it... because terminals don't work like that.

Yes, my setup is janky and weird, but it works for me, okay?

in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

mastodon - Link to source

Maddie

This has been my experience with Northeastern University (Boston campus), and I never considered they could be throttling traffic, it always looked more like dropped packets, and so I assumed it was a problem with their Wi-Fi/lack in fiber, combined with how UDP is a bit more robust to dropped packets

I'll see if I still have some data on that after a nap

huntnewsnu.com/89834/editorial…

Op-ed: Northeastern’s wifi needs to be fixed

You have just gotten back to your dorm after three back-to-back classes, but your day is not over yet. You still have a bunch of work to get done, so you fire up your laptop and try to sign into Canvas. But something is wrong.
news (The Huntington News)
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mastodon - Link to source

How to get prescribed ADHD medication in the Netherlands, a guide based on real world success:

1) spend over a year repeatedly trying to tell the GP that it’s not going well and you need help. This will not cost you money, only your precious finite time on this earth. It helps if you have a husband to drag you to the doctor when you’re at your lowest and argue with them

2) finally get escalated to a psychologist who takes a few months to be sure there’s definitely something wrong. She will recommend the GP to prescribe ADHD medication

3) Your prescription mysteriously disappears into the system. After several attempts to follow up that take months, and several confused phone calls from your psychologist to the GP, it turns out the GP refuses to authorize it because *shrug* reasons. Maybe if a psychiatrist also signs off on it?

4) You attempt to get an appointment with a psychiatrist. Every psychiatrist in the Netherlands is booked until 2034.

5) Finally, after a dozen rounds of pleading and nagging, you get a mysterious phone call from an unknown number. They give you an address and tell you to be there at 7 in the evening.

6) You find yourself at the door of a historic art deco mansion in the most exclusive district of Amsterdam. There is absolutely no indication that this is a medical practice. You ring the doorbell. Nothing happens. You wait nervously, and try again.

7) The door creaks open. An elderly man wearing crocs stands before you. He silently bids you follow him up a winding staircase to a parlor filled with a thousand thick and aging books in every tongue of the earth and perhaps a few also of the angels. They concern prophecy, and music, and poetry, and the apocalypse.

8) In a thin whisper of a voice barely to be heard, he asks your name, and where you were born. He slowly, very slowly, so slowly that you think you have died and this is purgatory, types this into a computer. It is in his lap because his desk is covered with strange devices beyond identification.

9) He tells you the prescription will be ready for pickup tomorrow.

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mastodon - Link to source

DontSurveil.Me has put together a great explainer on Bill C-22.

Canadians need to pay attention.

Expanding surveillance powers, retaining metadata, and weakening encryption all threaten privacy, free expression, civil liberties, and digital rights.

If we care about privacy, digital rights, and a free society, now is the time to speak up, contact MPs, and push back before this becomes law.

Learn more: dontsurveil.me/c22.html

#CDNPoli #BillC22 #Privacy #DigitalRights

Canada is about to end private digital conversation — Bill C-22

Bill C-22 would force every messaging app in Canada to build a backdoor — and track all your activity for one year. Apple says no. Signal says they'll leave.
dontsurveil.me
#privacy #cdnpoli #digitalrights #billc22
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mastodon - Link to source

EDIT: I agree with the majority! I'll use this to attempt to convince the powers that be to improve the situation in some way, as best I can. Thanks folks!

Does autoplay of a muted video in the background of a website bother you? Like as a decorative/design element behind the content.

If yes, let me know the effect it has and how it makes you feel (in the moment, about the website, about the company, etc)

Answer honestly (idk why you wouldn't but I feel compelled to say that)

:boosts_appreciated: boost so I can get more data pls

  • Yes, autoplay bothers me in this case (95%, 553 votes)
  • No, I don't notice in this case (4%, 27 votes)
580 voters. Poll end: today, 8:21 PM

This entry was edited (Wednesday, May 20, 2026, 6:13 PM)

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mastodon - Link to source

Remember 100 years ago when radiation was new and exciting and poorly understood, and companies were putting radiation into everything?

Thankfully we learned our lesson and will never make that mistake again.

This entry was edited (Sunday, May 17, 2026, 3:52 PM)
in reply to Chris Ammerman

mastodon - Link to source

Picture Bandit

that's what I thought as well... it glows it has to be powerfull. mastodon.social/@PictureBandit…

Picture Bandit (@PictureBandit@mastodon.social)

Yeah we are totally doing the equivalent of painting radium on to our teeth at the moment. Just digtially & globally. What could go wrong.
Picture Bandit (Mastodon)
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mastodon - Link to source

I would like to have a new electric car but the whole data collection part is the main thing keeping me away from it.

So I liked this article quite a lot. Forgot where I found it, likely here somewhere on the fediverse...

arkadiyt.com/2026/05/13/removi…

Removing the Modem and GPS from my 2024 RAV4 Hybrid

Modern cars are computers on wheels that send home nonstop telemetry about you. In this post I remove my 2024 RAV4 Hybrid's modem and GPS to prevent that :)
arkadiyt.com

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in reply to mc.fly

mastodon - Link to source

Face Thumb

Also, I usually gets cars when they are at least 5 to 8 years old and take them to third party mechanics, so I don't have a warranty and I don't get software updates from the dealer and from a software point of view my car is basically unsupported at that point anyway. How much functionality are they going to change anyway? They probably aren't going to keep improving anything important over a decade, unless they can charge me for it like drift mode or something.
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glitchsoc - Link to source
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My dad started quoting this and now I found the original

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in reply to Spring Jo 🥚 🍀

mastodon - Link to source

I am Jack's Found 404

The new Behind the Bastards podcast on "AI" as an historical bastard is 👍👍👍

They mention that they go after art & writing because they're the 2 most common things people share on the internet, and thus the best for convincing regular people that it's "doing something"...

Very interesting analysis of the hype & marketing of shatbots [sic], worth the listen!

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

I've been down a YouTube rabbit hole working on improving my art. I've always been somewhat decent at replicating something I can see, but when I have to draw something from my head, the poroprtions always looked kind of off.

I've watched a bunch of videos by a couple different artists, but I've found this one who has a whole channel teaching in a way that seems to work for me. My anatomy drawing (which has always been my Achilles' heel) has rather vastly improved in a remarkably short period of time, and I've been happy with the progress... at least until I compare them against the artist's examples. Hers are way better.

Then I have to remind myself: I've been at this a few days. Of course the professional artist is going to do a better job than me.

in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

mastodon - Link to source

🦆🦆 J Riley 🪿

Dead priest? you call a “fixer”

The Wolf: Jimmie, lead the way. Boys, get to work.
Vincent: A please would be nice.
The Wolf: Come again?
Vincent: I said a please would be nice.
The Wolf: Get it straight buster - I'm not here to say please, I'm here to tell you what to do and if self-preservation is an instinct you possess you'd better do it and do it quick.
Jules: No, Mr. Wolf, it ain't like that, your help is definitely appreciated.

#monsterdon #silverbullet1985

#monsterdon #silverbullet1985
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

mastodon - Link to source

Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.

Yes, like I said, in basic regular expressions those characters only have special meaning when escaped. In extended regular expressions, they have special meaning unless escaped.

Both types of regular expressions are well documented in the latest Single UNIX Specification from The Open Group. Older versions of SUS are available from Debian contrib (or non-free?).

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mastodon - Link to source
*long drag on cigarette* Kid, this is Mastodon. We're all the algorithm here. You. Me. Everybody. Now get out there and boost somebody's bullshit.
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mastodon - Link to source

This is your regular reminder that the large tech companies are pretty evil. Also anyone wearing those glasses needs to have a good think about their lives and what they are doing.

bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y7yv…

Dispute over fate of Kenyan workers who saw Meta AI glasses films

Meta and its subcontractor disagree over why over 1000 Kenya-based workers were made redundant.
Chris Vallance (BBC News)

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
onpoli, healthcare, security breach

Just got a letter in the mail that our healthcare information may have been compromised in a potential data breach. The hospital was very adamant that it wasn't their system that was compromised, but the systems of a third-party contractor used by the province.

Dear government, I take great pains to secure our personal systems. Can you please stop authorizing deals to hand over our sensitive information to sketchy third-party contractors without our consent? It's your responsibility to vet them. You don't just get to wash your hands of it when they inevitably screw it up.

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in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

diaspora - Link to source

Krit

The only thing I think is bad about the shirt artwork is that the text is not in a position it can be easily understood. Other than that it looks good to me.
If you are using anything other than a mouse you will probably get things better setting accurately the brush dynamic options. Also I believe Krita has a threshold setting for the smooth.
Those are just my views and opinions, not meant to mess up your way of doing things.
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akkoma - Link to source

here are my favorite chess strategies:

- eating the opponent's pieces while they aren't looking
- the "pawn on a string" trick
- putting the opponent's pieces upside down so they can't identify them as easily
- hiding monopoly money up my sleeve
- playing on a very slight incline so the pieces slowly slide off the board
- knight dupe glitch
- arbitrary code execution via pawn placement and null piece reference
- bribing the opponent with a $20 bill to throw the match
- putting worms on the board
- putting superglue on some spaces so the opponent's pieces get stuck
- cheating
- intentionally underdeveloping residential spaces to keep demand high, ensuring steady population growth over time
- bringing an atari 2600 and a copy of video chess so i can just copy its moves
- using nucelar pressure to secure a draw
- threatening the opponent's family

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
I know it's a little late to cash in on the #caturday points, but here's another drawing I did of @Benny in #Krita. This time, in addition to cell shading, I also threw in some highlights. Also, this time his rear end isn't featured.
Drawing of a brown and white cat in a blue tunnel with a yellow spiral trim. He is laying comfortably, looking toward the viewer, with his two front paws outstretched in front of him.
#caturday #krita @Benny

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akkoma - Link to source
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Who could have ever predicted this!

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in reply to Reid

mastodon - Link to source

gábor ugray

unpopular opinion: this is actually quite ok. this person created an MVP to test if a market exists for a particular product. it is a cheap MVP, and there is real signal (paying customers).

now they can calculate if revenues justify building the real thing. if yes, they can put up or raise the money, hire a team, and build it. if not, it was a fun ride, and they can move on.

in reply to gábor ugray

akkoma - Link to source

Reid

@twilliability there are 2 issues with that:

1) Nobody will actually fix things up later, ever. They say "nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution" for a reason
2) the people running in communities where they build the AI datacenters and accompanying power plants would likely not be so enthusiastic about it

@gábor ugray

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
Decided to dust off my copy of #Krita and play around with #drawing again. This is my current work-in-progress. I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out considering I'm pretty much a novice.
Line drawing of my cat, Benny, laying on his cat climber by the window. The angle is from beneath, and only his rear end and one paw hanging down are visible.
#drawing #krita

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mastodon - Link to source
mutual aid

Sensitive content

#mutualaid
This entry was edited (Thursday, April 30, 2026, 10:30 PM)
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

friendica - Link to source

silverwizard

@Jonathan Lamothe that's incredibly concerning. Both because the lack of log event means you're either sleepwalking, or in a state to not perform a log. And the alarm is likely the trigger. Uh - can you account for theft? Are they worth stealing?

Sorry - that's "my brain goes paranoid" level of fear

@Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to silverwizard

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Jonathan Lamothe

@silverwizard No, they're antacids. If someone were going to steal a pill, the ADHD meds were in the same organizer.

There are many benign possibilities. It's possible that when I loaded the organizer, I accidentally put only one of those pills in it (I take two a day). It's possible that since I was late with meds today, I got the schedule wrong, and accidentally took one at the wrong time. These are much more likely.

Still, I'll keep an eye on the situation.

@silverwizard

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