Computery PSA

If you ever deal with making bootable USBs, get Ventoy! Ventoy is a bootable USB system that you install once (via easy and working commands), and then any time you want to boot an image, you just throw the ISO file directly onto the USB FAT partition.
No repartitioning, no setting bootable flags, no dd, no UEFI detection debugging. It works on UEFI and BIOS.

You just boot to Ventoy, which displays a nice (and themeable) list of all your ISOs, and select which one you want to boot.

No more keychain of 5 bootable USBs for different OSes. No more “damn, I wrote over that installer and now I want to use it again”.

I have one USB stick, with my general data transfer partition, bootable Ventoy, and the ISOs for Mac, windows, five different linux flavours, memtest86+, rescatux, clonezilla, etc.

https://ventoy.net

One of the interesting things about this book I'm reading from 1968 is that Simak is using Heinlein's "rolling road" concept, originally published in the 1940 short story The Roads Must Roll.

Basically you have multiple parallel rows of moving slidewalks, each slightly faster than the next. The outermost is barely at a walking speed, the next is a little faster, and so on, until you reach the inner strip running at 100 mph. There are no cars, you just ride the road, stepping between strips to speed up or slow down.

I just thought it was interesting to see this come up almost 3 decades later and by a different author.

It's an intriguing idea, though entirely impractical from a technological standpoint (or trying to stand up in a 100 mph wind). But I have seen an illustration of a system that might actually work. It's greatly simplified, with just 2, 4, and 6 mile per hour strips, with the innermost strip equipped with benches so you could sit down while moving.

Dairy farmers get vast subsidies from taxpayers -- ridiculously high subsidies in some cases (though they have nothing on weapons contractors).You would imagine that would persuade them to do their civic duty in reporting possible bird flu cases. Nope.

https://www.notus.org/healthcare/farmer-bird-flu-cases-hide-cows-federal-government

If bird flu breaks out widely in humans, it will be beyond catastrophic.

Mistrust Between Farmers and the Government Is Jeopardizing Bird Flu Response

Dairy farmers, increasingly polarized following the COVID-19 pandemic and worried about economic damages, are hiding likely bird flu cases in cows from the feds.

^{Anna Kramer (NOTUS)}

New development policy: code generated by a large language model or similar technology (e.g. ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot) is presumed to be tainted (i.e. of unclear copyright, not fitting NetBSD's licensing goals) and cannot be committed to NetBSD.

https://www.NetBSD.org/developers/commit-guidelines.html

https://www.netbsd.org/developers/commit-guidelines.html

Presenting that cake like I'm on The Great British Bake Off~ 🍰

🐕: @\ZackHusky on Twitter
📸: @\XaviPurr on Twitter

#furry #FursuitFriday #fursuit

Folk might be interested to know that across the month of May, Sustainable Fashion Week’s #MendItMay campaign invites people to mend one piece of clothing, celebrating repair as an act of empowerment.

I think I'll have a go at my #mending pile. If anyone wants to share mending projects or #craft pics, that'd be lovely.

The stats for why #repair is great are pretty compelling:

#fashion

"They see all of this business with lifetimes and ownership as a dirty mess that Rust has had to adopt because it wanted to avoid garbage collection. But this is completely backwards! Rust adopted rules around shared mutable state and this enabled it to avoid garbage collection. These rules are a good idea regardless."

Great post by withoutboats: https://without.boats/blog/references-are-like-jumps/

Microsoft's carbon emissions up nearly 30% thanks to AI

Company will require certain suppliers to run on 100% carbon-free electricity ... by 2030 Microsoft has increased carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 30 percent since 2020, making its goal of becoming carbon-negative by 2030 even more difficult, and it looks like AI is to blame.…
#theregister #IT
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/16/microsoft_co2_emissions/

Microsoft's carbon emissions up nearly 30% thanks to AI

^{Dan Robinson (The Register)}

Teenagers could help fill train driver shortage

The government is asking for views on reducing the minimum age for train drivers from 20 to 18 as an attempt to handle the dwindling number of drivers as more retire over the next 5 years

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz747krrw9lo

#ukRailway #ukRailways

Teenagers could help fill train driver shortage

The government has put forward plans to reduce the age to qualify as a train driver from 20 to 18.

^{Katy Austin (BBC News)}

Carbon credits are pollution permits for the rich

Offsets allow companies and countries to make 'carbon neutral' claims without taking real steps to decarbonis

https://www.context.news/net-zero/opinion/carbon-credits-are-pollution-permits-for-the-rich

#MassExtinction #pollution #ecology #environment #climate

Carbon credits are pollution permits for the rich

Offsets allow companies and countries to make ‘carbon neutral’ claims without taking real steps to decarbonise

^{Mohamed Adow (Context)}

Btw, it's perfectly fine to not "be mutual" with someone (not a fan of that concept) or to unfollow them

There are all kinds of reasons, their posts don't interest you, maybe your mental health suffers rn from them sharing your life etc.

Unfollow is not unfriend, this isn't facebook

I finally did it. I used an LLM. A couple of months ago, MS added its Copilot to Windows. I turned it off. But the latest update shoved it back in my face and tried to get me to let it use my data. So I asked it a question: How do I get rid of Copilot? It suggested I uninstall it like any other program, but MS removed that option. But Copilot went on to tell me the exact registry key to change to block it from loading, and now it's gone.

ETA: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-to-uninstall-copilot-i-dont-want-to-disable-it/b301b77d-b879-4433-9979-f8795805e9f1

I wrote a fairly mundane post on Reddit that led to me getting an AI-prompted message with suicide prevention resources.

I was completely mystified but then I realized it was probably because I included the phrase: "I find it hard to manage" (in a context like "I find it hard to manage the crabgrass in my garden ... ").

This is the future isn't it? AI pestering us with context-free misunderstood nonsense. I guess I should just count myself lucky that the AI didn't institutionalize me.

Q: Why did you need to wait in a long line at Radio Shack to buy a 6502 microprocessor?

A: Not enough registers.

We don't know who needs to hear or read this today, but:

• Your gender identity is valid.
• Your sexuality and romanticity are valid.
• Your mental and physical health struggles are valid.
• Your disabilities are valid.
• You are worthy of love and friendship.
• You're not faking it.
• You deserve the healthcare and support you need.
• You are not a burden.
• Others struggling does not invalidate your own struggles.
• You are not responsible for the bigotry, prejudice, racism, misogyny, classism, or hatred that others aim towards you.
• You are not being selfish for wanting to live your life as your authentic self.

There are so many more things we could say or add, but we hope you get the gist 🩷

"UK firms accused of profiteering as study finds margins rose 30% post-pandemic"

https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/may/15/uk-firms-accused-of-profiteering-study-finds-margins-rose-30-percent-post-pandemic

UK firms accused of profiteering as study finds margins rose 30% post-pandemic

Unite union study of 17,000 firms shows sectors from energy to banking, and vets to car dealerships, profited from inflation crisis

^{Hazel Sheffield (The Guardian)}

#throwbackthursday to Nev 1 at AC2012. There’s always something exciting about visiting a new place you’ve never been before both then and now (with me attending my first FWA this past weekend).
📸 - TMFox

#fursuit #fursuiter #fursuiting #mascot #furry #furries #furryfandom #fursuitphotography #foxfursuit #costume #cosplay

whenever anyone uses the phrase "for the time being" i like to capitalize it in my head.

"ive done all i can for the Time Being"

"for the Time Being, these are the available options"

"this is the situation for the Time Being"

all hail the Time Being

hot take: the 5.25" floppy diskette was the most reliable storage format we had.

it did not appear to have any resilience whatsoever, so if something was important and unique, you would commit it to multiple diskettes.

every storage format since has something about it that implies a resilience that it just does not carry through on, making it less trustworthy than good ol' 5-and-a-quarter.

3.5" floppies straight through "the cloud", they're all fibbers.

good night, fedi.

GREMLIN MODE ACTIVATED

#FursuitFriday

🪡: @wolf_daz on twitter
📸: @syntaxruntime.bsky.social

🥺pwease.. can I have your soul and all your belongings. You'll get a hug in exchange, that's a deal right?

#fursuit #kemonofursuit #fursuiteveryday #kemono #furry #furryfandom #fursuiter #fursuiting #kemonosuit #fursuitphotography #furrycommunity #catfurry #catfursuit #fursuits #nfc2024 #nordicfuzzcon #nordicfuzzcon2024

You didn’t see anyone’s deadname on a payment processing app

You didn’t see anyone shoplifting

And you didn’t see anyone pirating

“Create art with our AI”

how about go fuck yourself

Don't be fooled. This is not a serious effort. It's merely a capitalist performance, acting as if they want to cut emissions while making absolutely *certain* that Business As Usual will continue.

In other words, it's greenwashing.
________________________________

Hopes that replacement fuels for airplanes will slash carbon pollution are misguided, and support for these alternatives could worsen the climate crisis, a new report has warned.

There is currently “no realistic or scalable alternative” to standard kerosene-based jet fuels, and touted “sustainable aviation fuels” are well off track to replace them in a timeframe needed to avert dangerous climate change.

“To bring these fuels to the scale needed would require massive subsidies, the trade-offs would be unacceptable and would take resources aware from more urgent decarbonization priorities," said Chuck Collins, co-author of the report. “It’s a huge greenwashing exercise by the aviation industry. It’s magical thinking that they will be able to do this.”
________________________________

FULL ARTICLE -- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/14/sustainable-jet-fuel-report

#Politics #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Capitalism #Greenwashing