New server means a new #introduction
Hi, I am a design executive in Europe who started as a backend developer in Missouri.
My life has taken many turns, but I’ve always benefited from the advantage of being a white cishet male who is stereotyped as credible. Hopefully, I leave this planet more equitable than I found it.
I strive to apply critical analysis to everything yet also find solidarity with everyone.
While I value “strong opinions, weakly held”, I do indulge in strongly-held opinions on a few issues. I’ll thread them here so you can make an informed decision on whether to follow or block me:
Step to write software by human:
1. Decide what you want your software to do (medium)
2. Decide what you REALLY want your software to do in all the corner cases (very HARD)
3. Write the code (Easy to Medium)
4. Test the code (Medium)
5. Debug the code (hard to very HARD).
Now, thanks to ChatGPT, you could improve this workflow by:
- making step 3, the only easy step, somewhat easier (and thus hiring less competent engineers)
- making step 5 nearly Impossible.
#wwdc24 if I want to mirror my iPhone in visionOS, do I have to use a Mac intermediary?
Before they will let me publish a new release of XScreenSaver on the "Play" [sic] store, Google, the most rapacious privacy violator ever, insists that a screensaver have a privacy policy.
This is where you come in!
I'd like this policy to be a series of bullet points: "Unlike Google, XScreenSaver will not [Thing.] An endless, concise catalog of their sins.
I need both your snark AND a link supporting your snark. It's critical for the joke to land. Include both.
GO!!
Fact check gem of the day: On Karl Popper's contribution to neurotransmission
In the early 1950s, neuroscientists were arguing about whether neurons communicate with one another via electricity (sparks) or chemical neurotransmissions (soups). It was known as "The War of the Soups and the Sparks" (Big reveal: It's mostly soups).
The experiment that put the debate to rest (at least for the spinal cord) was performed in 1950 by John Eccles and colleagues. In that experiment, they demonstrated that their own hypothesis (sparks) was wrong.
What inspired them to do a "disproving" experiment as opposed to the type that would gather support for their favorite theory? In 1944, Eccles met Karl Popper, and they began corresponding. Per one historian,
"The association with Popper made Eccles reformulate his experimental questions in accord with Popper’s philosophy that apparent ‘‘authentication” is no proof at all. It is only the clear-cut ‘‘falsification” of a theory that carried intellectual weight."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18617413/
More than twelve years ago I was invited by @LaQuadrature to come to the Europarlament to help stop ACTA:
https://rys.io/en/65.html
This was the first time I got a chance to directly talk to MEPs to try change their minds on an issue I cared deeply about. It was not the last.
I've done a lot of activism, on both EU and national level. My experience with the European Parliament remains the best.
It really matters who we send there. And we do have a say on that.
Go vote. 🇪🇺
Just another day in the Best Country
https://mastodon.social/users/augieray/statuses/112584347973940563
“Unbearable to bigots” is a great standard for allyship. https://toot.lgbt/users/ellesaurus/statuses/112575419515785030
at what point does the industry in need of disruption become the tech industry
Publicly available container images are very similar to USB drives you find in the parking lot. They are meant to be downloaded and run in production.
Hello London! Is it normal that a tube train is covered in maps for a different line than the one it’s actually running? What are y’all doing?
Hello London! Is it normal that a tube train is covered in maps for a different line than the one it’s actually running? What are y’all doing?
Do any of you know of a workshop/bootcamp for learning to make + manufacture + distribute physical products on a small scale?
Maybe something a bit like Bolt’s Groundwork workshop, but less startuppy and perhaps more practical, plus… still exists? https://web.archive.org/web/20230313123137/https://groundwork.live/
(Boosts outside of my normal less-physical-and-more-digital audience appreciated.)
Remember when Roskomnazor tested disconnection of Runet from the internet, establishing Russia's ability to network independently?
Maybe it's time to make that more permanent. https://www.euractiv.com/section/elections/news/eus-stratcom-struggles-to-counter-russian-election-disinformation/
Some of y'all are still confused as to why it seems that Silicon Valley billionaires are "turning to Trump." That's because you don't listen to Black people, you disrespect poor white people, and you ignore obvious statistics that have been staring you in the face for decades.
Silicon. Valley. Billionaires. Have. Always. Supported. Trump.
Not because they like the tax breaks. Because they are more likely to be racist, and racism is the greatest predictor of Trump support.
1/N
A copywriter (IDK who) had a good idea, and a Belgian company (Impact) made it into a building-sized advertisement. Someone (IDK who) took a picture of that.
Then someone who posts lots of unattributed photos and screenshots from other people to build their fediverse following posted it, without attribution, with some anti-AI snark.
Which keeps getting boosted into my timeline by the same people who complain that generative AI can copy other people's work without attribution. #AIrony
Bring back iWeb, with iCloud indieweb hosting https://www.apple.com/welcomescreen/ilife/iweb-3/
One Night of Terror times 830
Here, the trajectories of Russian missiles and UAVs during the combined missile and drone attack overnight against peaceful Ukrainians.
All this killing is just one night.
Stop driving WOKE cars and ride a bike like a PATRIOT today
THIS IS A PRETTY HARD TIME FOR YOUR REPUBLICAN FAMILY MEMBERS. KICK 'EM WHILE THEY'RE DOWN. CALL YOUR UNCLE A BABY. ASK HIM IF HE'S GONNA CRY.
Used to be you could order free Ubuntu CD’s. Their first release proved controversial. I got like 48 of them as a teen. They’re now going for $10+.
Ubuntu is a Zulu word for an African philosophy of interconnectedness, which is the theme they were going for.
Remember, Russia attacked Ukraine in Fall of 2018, attacked Ukrainian Naval boats transiting the Kerch strait. Trump cowered in fear shutting off all operations in the Black Sea, for months... because he's a coward.
NSA and DoD recommended a host of options that would have advanced deterrence... deterred further Russian aggression. Trump was petrified. He froze. He was and is a scared, weak child.
Remember, Iran attacked US troops Feb 2020 injuring 109 Americans in Iraq, and Trump responded with nothing but fear. He's a small man.
He Did Nothing. He is weak.
It serves our ememies that the convicted felon, convicted fraud, sexual abuser said, 'It would not have happened if we were in office' because it did happen. Donald gave cover to Iran and Russia, and he mocked US service members, saying their traumatic brain injuries were just headaches.
Dutch F-16s supplied to Ukraine can be deployed on targets anywhere in Russia without US permission, says Netherlands Foreign Minister Hanke Bruins Slot. https://nos.nl/artikel/2522702-nederlandse-f-16-s-ook-inzetbaar-voor-doelen-in-rusland
I'm amused that it is "news" that OpenAI is training another model. Did anyone expect them to let their primary capital assets just lie dormant?