The Furvana main stage room is... not big, but every time @ratchetfoxxo.bsky.social and @terkwolf.bsky.social manage to cram a hilariously awesome rig into the space. There were at least 14 lasers, the system exceeded the building's power, and I think I blew out an eardrum :P #GeneratorPower
An idea for games series like Call of Duty - have a counter in somewhere that is not obvious that every game in the series can write into, of the number of friendly fire incidents the player commits. If it gets too high, one of the later games in the series can, just before the final battle, pull the player into a Temple of Hate and be confronted with Agrajag. Yes, it turns out every friendly fire incident was killing the same person, and they're fed up of it.
Good news everyone! The climate crisis has been solved: Reform UK and Donald Trump are going to make it illegal to talk about it and make sure all evidence is deleted.
“When we are told that living standards are up because the averages look rosy, we should remember what Danny Dorling pointed out: an average can hide a multitude of sins.
If Jeff Bezos walked into a Norwich pub, the average wealth in the room would shoot through the roof, but not a single person’s pint would get cheaper – and I doubt he would get to the bar ahead of anyone else, either.”
Exactly. When I think about good times in pubs (in part because I’m so old) I think pre-Amazon. But seriously, young people then spent their spare time and money out of the house…in the pub, cinema or bowling alley. This wasn’t high culture or especially healthy, but it was sociable and just about affordable. The tech bros like Bezos have brought us a very selfish, insular life.
Not just the tech bros though, is it. They're a big part of it, but the commercialisation of politics, failing to regulate or maintain existing regulation on everything from progressive taxation to rentierism, workers rights and corporate greed, has made it absolutely impossible for generations since 2008 to have the life we had back then.
The people most likely to be selfish and insular are the very ones who created the situation in the first place.
That is because the wrong sort of average is being used. Never use a mean average in a case like that, use a mode or even a median could be more accurate.
the way I tend to think about it: Talking about the average favours those at the top because you can make the average go up by just increasing the highest numbers. Talking about the median is better as you can only make it go up if the numbers in the middle go up. You can still abuse it but it's more difficult.
So some people are now talking about possible amendments to the #OnlineSafetyAct. One possibility being talked about is a "tiered" approach where very small sites get a pass on the requirements, but have to notify Ofcom that they're running a site under this exemption - presumably providing contact information in case Ofcom need to deal with any - let's face it - nonconforming speech.
Incredibly disappointing to see that many people, including @openrightsgroup appear to have had their expectations of what a "free Internet" means reframed to such an extent.
We shouldn't be bargaining for the right to gather and communicate online. This shouldn't be a conversation that we're having. Indeed, we tried this approach, and we were roundly ignored.
This is a human rights issue. This is a freedom of expression issue. You do not bargain with human rights abusers.
Fight this. Commit to fighting instances where Ofcom and the prosecutor pick a fight. Commit to bringing cases in front of the ECHR. Work with other digital rights organisations to give some sliver of hope to people who end up being targeted by this. Give people a little bit of confidence to flout this unjust legislation.
If you can't afford to do any of that, I still think legitimising this by effectively admitting to government that sites need to be on some sort of "register" and that gatherings of people online need to be carefully monitored is massively damaging to the cause.
Hot take but: If you're asking someone why they might need E2EE for their chat messenger, then you're probably sitting on some mighty fine throne of privilege my friend.
I think there'll be *some* outliers, of course. There's a good chunk of Z+ that I'm seeing in retro circles, who are very much trying to keep that alive. Just worried there's not enough of them.
I think the rise of games consoles in the European market and the switch from coding being part of computer literacy education to Spreadsheets and windows office drone work shortchanged millenials onward when it comes to computer literacy. People went from learning to type programs to typing word documents.
there are some genius Z programmers doing game reverse engineering stuff right now. I don't think all hope is lost. But yea, it is worrying. Roots of tech stuff are thanks to boomers too, there are some that know a thing or two.
@colinstu i was referring to more.to casual users than people in the field. "What is a folder structure" is not a question i imagined getting asked of me by someone significantly younger than me but (thanks to most tech interactions moving off PCs and onto walled garden phones and tablets) here we are
@colinstu Exactly. I don’t understand the details about FAT32, NTFS, etc, but I understand the basics about drives, partitioning, folder structures, etc.
In particularly dislike Microsoft’s “We handle all of this for you/put it all on the cloud” crap. It dumbs down the system way too much.
" Exactly. I don’t understand the details about FAT32, NTFS, etc, but I understand the basics about drives, partitioning, folder structures, etc."
Nor do you...or should you need to. There is such a thing as a middle-ground here.
Understanding how a computer works down to the bit level is not empowering. But understanding how to file away files and categorise folders DOES. It is this empowerment that big tech wants to take away through gradual dumbing down. And it has worked. You can always count on human laziness.
One of the two original creators of the UNIX operating system, Ken Thompson, is still alive and doing well at 82 years young. That really drives home how young the field of computing really is. 1970 was only 55 years ago, hardly long enough to even register in terms of human technological development.
"WHAT'S GOING ON? WHAT'S WITH ALL THESE WAVES! ARE WE GOING TO CAPSIZE?" "CALM DOWN! It's Kaiju Mating season." "So you're telling me all these unexpected waves are Kaiju getting it on?" "Got it in one"
I haven't had to much exposure to Kaiju's before reading the "The Kaiju Preservation Society" by John Scalzi and now this book comes to mind every time they pop up.
Randomly, I seem to have become a bit of a fan of Wacky the Wolf from a ten-year-old children's show called A.N.T. Farm. He's the school mascot and shows up briefly in pretty much every episode, either as a background character or actually interacting with the main characters. No one really calls attention to him specifically, he's just another person who happens to be there, just fluffy and mute. As it should be!
Today! (Well, yesterday as it's now well past midnight.) I achieved something! I've been meaning to do this for a while and it's been ages in the planning, but I got the physical work done in just a few hours on a single day. I've installed a hanging rail inside the under-the-stairs cupboard so we can hang our coats in there. We now have a proper Jeeves cupboard! And we no longer have to have the free-standing hanging rail cluttering up the hallway. Of course, now I need to find some other home for the ironing board, step ladders, clothes airers and such that won't fit any more now that there's a rail in the way! It was a simple matter of four screws (two into plasterboard, two into plasterboard-then-probably-breezeblock), plus a bunch of time making sure it was all as level and square as I could get it, and cutting the rail to length, but I'm kinda proud of myself. Just finding all the tools in the incredibly full garage was a challenge in itself. But it's done!
30 August: I got out on my bike! Having had some servicing done recently (11 August apparently! Oof, I'm really not getting out much) I really ought to get out on the roads more, but at least I got out on one day. This is a selfie in the mirrored doors of the hall wardrobe at the old house, so I must have visited there that day.
I think 12 August was about the sunniest day we've had since the solar panels got put on the roof. It's certainly the one with the best graph - it's nice and smooth and you can clearly see the "shoulders" in the morning and afternoon where the panels on the garage are shaded by the houses on either side; the couple of cloudy periods in the middle of the day are easy to ignore and don't prevent seeing the shape of the curve.
I've been slipping behind in so much lately. I was only a few days behind on my timeline, then got busy briefly and suddenly BAM - I'm a week behind. Ugh. Catching up again, hopefully, now.
I've taken several photos recently with the intention of posting here, but for some reason hadn't got round to. Maybe because posting is not as convenient as it could be. Video requires me to SFTP the file to one of my servers, squish it to a more web-friendly form factor with ffmpeg, stuff it in a specific folder and link it from a post. Photos Friendica can actually handle natively but it's still a bit of a faff, especially as I do prefer to write alt text.
So anyway, first photo.
28 August: Look! My kitchen window has been decorated! Halloween's come early. ;)
I haven't been very active here lately, but my convention season finally starts next week! Please get excited with me and check out my boyo's lovely new video here: 🤍💜🤍💜🤍💜
Hey guys,the time has finally come! After a long wait, we have finally finished the video for the last Eurofurence. I would like to thank all the furries who...
There's another name I haven't heard in ages. This makes me want to pull out some of my old con photos. I kind of miss conventions sometimes, I haven't been to one since 2010. But they're so different now I don't know if I would even enjoy it at this point.
I'm enjoying smaller conventions - not that I make it to many - but the big mega-cons are just too much work and stress leading up to 'em. I don't want to get a membership, then stress for weeks until the room block opens and hope to get a room in the thirty seconds before they sell out. I'm doing this for *fun*.
@xoagray Furry cons are just having trouble making the jump to big attendances - back when I was hitting haunt trade shows and IAAPA they had huge crowds but ran far smoother.
*nods* It's not only that though, even if you find a room sometimes physically meeting up with people can be difficult with that many people. And there are other things. Neither I nor the fandom are anything like we were 15 years ago.
what if your oven only allowed you to cook foods that its makers approved of what if your car only allowed you to drive on roads its makers approved of what if your scissors only allowed you to cut paper in shapes its maker approved of
why when it comes to electronic devices then suddenly it's completely fine for the maker to have a say on what you're allowed and not allowed to do with your own device you have possession of
I’ve long been a fan of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City…watching the characters evolve and have adventures over 5 decades has been a joy to follow. And at the heart of it is Mrs Madrigal. The perfect landlady and granny…and yes she’s #trans. It wouldn’t work without her.
"Be a human being and let people be who they are." Love it!
I read the first six books, probably around 1990. Loved them all except for the last of them, but hadn't realized he'd written more. I might tear through the entire series from the start!
YouTube made AI enhancements to videos without telling users or asking permission. As AI quietly mediates our world, what happens to our shared connections with real life?
in general I just hate how p2p is so damn neglected with modern tech, it's now extremely easy to send real time video to a server to the other side of the world
but it's a pain in the ass to have basic communication between two devices on the same room without an intermediary (in an open way, I know that for example apple devices so some direct connection stuff, but it's a proprietary closed system)
John Parry reports on a new, remote control, gyro-balanced film camera that can be mounted to a vehicle on the end of a suspended boom. Equipped with three g...
