C.

I'm a (recovering) software engineer by trade, an electronics hobbyist and amateur guitarist by night, and a house-rabbit enthusiast and ambassador all the time.

I live in the windswept prairies of Canada.

I like fixing things and taking things apart to figure out how they work. I volunteer at the local Repair Cafe and enjoy helping others with their broken stuff.

#RabbitsOfMastodon #rabbit #OpenSource #FreeSoftware #RodentsOfMastodon #electronics #retro #1970s #70s #blinkenlights #repair

RetroFutureTech - build and own a piece of 1970's future. The future used to be cool...: https://retrofuturetech.ca./
Spirit Animal: Beaker, from The Muppets
Free Software: https://github.com/ccazabon?tab=repositories

Public Key

npub1tsa6e35egxn7ct0tdwvxcn9pa9zacee3ezw4nn29daql9qt4awwsgfqgs4

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs9cwavc6v5rflv9h4khxrvfjs7j3wuvucu382ee4zk7s0js967h8gpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsyeecaq

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1tsa6e35egxn7ct0tdwvxcn9pa9zacee3ezw4nn29daql9qt4awwsgfqgs4

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Published at

2026-09-08T21:42:44Z

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0 Metadata

Event JSON

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Last Notes

2026-09-08 21:04:33 UTC

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It's like "conservatives" are always complaining. Those professors always lean to the left.

2026-09-07 04:22:36 UTC

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Lookin' sharp, Casper. Keep an eye peeled for those darned snoopers!

2026-09-07 04:08:53 UTC

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House bunny moults finish?

2026-09-06 04:29:31 UTC

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Oh, I agree - commercial filament is better and cheap, if it's available. My point was more for when "they" start requiring ID or even permits to buy the stuff commercially. Tracking buyers of filament catches people who aren't buying the printers through legitimate channels.
Though I suspect there will be a healthy black market for filament if that becomes the case.

2026-09-06 02:51:37 UTC

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It might be wise to buy one of those inexpensive plastic-pelletizing-and-extruding machines from AliExpress, where you can feed in plastic soda bottles (PET) or various other plastics and make your own filament.

2026-09-03 18:40:38 UTC

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Reading this comment of Lauren's basically slapped me in the face with a realization.
Google has gone from "mostly not evil, even though we killed that slogan" through "definitely not putting users first" and "actively hostile to users if it helps the business case" to full-on fascist enablement in a surprisingly short span of years. It really was like a loose boulder on a hillside, slow at first put picking up speed all the way to the bottom.
Their trajectory was obvious for some time, but I definitely missed how quickly they were progressing in that direction.
Shame.

2026-08-31 02:10:11 UTC

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You sure she's not trying to figure out if that shirt is her size?

2026-08-25 17:57:13 UTC

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Are you allowed up on the furniture by yourself, professor?

2026-08-24 18:41:34 UTC

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Nope! You can't make me! LA LA LA LA LA LA LA ...

2026-08-19 05:03:58 UTC

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Did they go on to offer a way to increase that visibility / number of stars?
I know there are spammy operations doing exactly that, hitting every repo owner they can find.

2026-08-16 19:08:18 UTC

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Very interesting. I've not encountered one that failed in the way you describe, but I can imagine some electronic faults that could result in those symptoms.
Warranty time?

2026-08-16 18:59:51 UTC

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Have you checked to see if it's fake?
No-brand USB sticks and flash cards sold online are rife with fraud, as well as some fake name-brand stuff sold in retail stores. The cheat is firmware on the device that reports a larger size to the computer than it actually has flash memory for.
Everything looks good at first, but when you try to write past the end of the actual flash, it either (a) errors out, (b) wraps around and corrupts the filesystem, or (c) silently drops the extra data.
There are tools you can use to verify whether such a device actually has the capacity its firmware claims. You can do it by hand, too, but that's fiddly work.
I like `f3` - "Fight Flash Fraud" or "Fight Fake Flash":
https://fight-flash-fraud.readthedocs.io/en/latest/introduction.html

2026-08-12 20:01:42 UTC

I heard something on the radio today that kind of blew my mind.
A story was related about someone who flipped out because they came across a black and white photo of a celebrity posted to one of the big commercial social media services. Why did they flip out? They said it was obviously an attempt to claim the celebrity had died.
They literally said black and white photos were only for the dead. And that it had traumatized them.
I can't even. Black and white vs. colour photography is an artistic choice, just like an artist choosing between oil paints and watercolours, or pencil vs. charcoals. You don't get to tell artists they have to make a particular choice because *you* somehow decided that type of artistic subject *has* to be done in a particular medium.
This is kind of like the idiots who pile on @npub1jsl…93xu for doing black and white photography, claiming it's pretentious or whatever - or indeed traumatic.
Get over yourself.
#BW #photography #entitled

2026-08-11 20:20:30 UTC

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Fantastic news!
Wishing you much speedy recovery, Skye. 🤗
[Edit: apparently I had a stroke typing it initially]

2026-08-10 22:49:57 UTC

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I have a relative that has a bunch of inner scar tissue like that, and ya, it can create all kinds of not-obviously-connected symptoms.

2026-08-10 22:31:01 UTC

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Agreed with Lauren - it's multiple orders of magnitude harder than 20 years ago (I'm coming up on year 28 of running my own mail service).

2026-08-10 22:05:38 UTC

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We're glad she doing better and you have some clues and a hypothesis. It sounds reasonable to me, though I don't know anything about the necrcotizing fat tissue thing - is that like when humans lose weight and suddenly suffer from too high levels of some fat-soluble nasty that was stored away in their lipids?

2026-08-10 05:24:40 UTC

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FWIW, we had real difficulty getting our in-town vet to do a CT of George (or a culture of his respiratory infection). Kept wanting to wait or do research or whatever excuse. When I ended up taking him to Saskatoon to the WCVM, after his initial exam (which they did without me present - not sure if that's new policy or what, it wasn't like that years ago) they suggested the CT before I could even bring it up. Since it wasn't a critical / "right now" emergency it was done the next day rather than that night - still pretty quick.
I know it's a lot more trouble for you to go there - ~5 hours instead of 2.5, and you likely don't have relatives there like I do, so staying would be a problem, too - but it's something to consider.

2026-08-10 05:14:45 UTC

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Oh, I'm so sorry you're dealing with this shitty behaviour on top of the stress of everything else. I hope things turn around for you, and we'll be wishing Sitara the best possible outcome.

2026-08-09 21:56:15 UTC

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I gotta watch it again.

2026-08-09 21:02:17 UTC

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I was actually thinking it terms of hooking the output of the slop machines to the 600 VDC of the third rail on various subways. 480 3-phase would do in a pinch, though.

2026-08-09 20:24:57 UTC

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Unfortunately not literally. Can we hook up the slop machines to 600 V and really change some incentives?

2026-08-09 02:35:40 UTC

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Telling other people "You're internetting wrong" is rarely the helpful interjection the people doing it seem to think it is.
#MYOB

2026-08-07 20:53:07 UTC

So, African Grey parrots will pass this test, but #billionaires won't.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2229571-african-grey-parrots-are-smart-enough-to-help-a-bird-in-need/
Chop chop, Mr. Moneybags.
#OligarchChop #guillotine #rich #poor #greed #AfricanGrey #parrot

2026-08-07 20:08:20 UTC

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But the tail is *right* *there* ...
#temptation #HandsOffTheCottonYouSwab

2026-08-07 19:37:49 UTC

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I'm not familiar with the soil properties of bubblegum clay (and searching for it is ... tricky 😉 ) Our soil is called "gumbo", a heavy clay soil. The joke is that when it's dry, you can't get a shovel into it, and when it's wet you can't get it out. I don't doubt yours is similarly problematic.
Between wetting/drying and freeze/thaw cycles, it heaves quite badly here. Many older homes will have steel I-beams installed all along the inside of the foundation walls, braced across the middle, to keep them from shifting enough for the house to fall in 😱 . When we moved in this house was still new enough that the basement was mostly solid, but the floor has heaved and cracked and separated in the years since.
As someone else noted, at least we don't have mine subsidence risks. My partner's family came from Nova Scotia, full of old coal mines, and it's a problem there, too.

2026-08-07 02:40:30 UTC

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I know about shifting foundations [grumble grumble Regina grumble].
The extended humidity can also cause wood to swell. Got any doors sticking?

2026-08-07 00:59:08 UTC

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I second the motion to use clips screwed to wall studs or some other solid support. Just using construction adhesive to glue the mirror to the wall is sketchy at the best of times.
Picasso's theory of the humidity is also very interesting!

2026-08-06 17:47:42 UTC

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What sort of of restoration work do you need done? Is it just the cleanup of the mirror debris?

2026-08-05 04:57:26 UTC

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... I'd be very curious if you notice her keeping her ears close to her body more than usual in the next few days, because they lose a lot of heat through them.
Maybe my partner should knit her some ear-warmers. She loves making socks, these would be just tiny socks...

2026-08-05 02:29:18 UTC

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Rats are a lot less massive *and* easier to hold/control. I went with #centrifugal force [1] and seemed to work out alright.
[1] Okay, #centripetal acceleration for the #physics #pedants out there.

2026-08-04 03:17:18 UTC

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Egads! I hope that fixes it.
I had to improvise-heimlich-maneuver a pet rat once, never anything bigger.

2026-08-04 03:13:24 UTC

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Such good news!
Just keeping you on your toes, I guess.

2026-08-03 03:46:38 UTC

Unions aren't perfect. I've pointed out various flaws in the past. However, I am 100% in the corner of the flight attendants in their fight against WestJet.
The correct number of unpaid work hours for any job is "zero hours".
Zero.
Not 35 hours / month.
Not 15 hours / month.
Not 5 hours / month.
Zero hours / month. Period.
Shame on WestJet - and every other airline that does this.
#Canada #WestJet #FlightAttendant #UnpaidWork #UnpaidHours #strike #airline #union #labour

2026-07-31 23:25:40 UTC

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Not disagreeing with that at all.
I'd just clarify that they pulled the feature not because it could be used for evil, but because they got bad publicity about it. If it had never hit the mainstream news, it would still be live, even with privacy advocates and disinfo researchers and everyone else pointing out the problems.

2026-07-29 22:24:31 UTC

I picked up George's cremains today. I wasn't expecting that call this soon after dropping him off yesterday.
It was a different young woman as receptionist today, so I told her I was there to pick up George the rabbit. She got up and went over to where they hold the packages in the little office area, and after confirming my name - or rather, George's surname, which is my partner's surname, not mine - she asked, wide-eyed, "Is this George, the very large rabbit? We've never seen one this big...".
Maybe not the most appropriate time - but I wasn't offended. It was nice to see George had one final opportunity to make someone else smile.
He'd put back on most of the weight he'd lost throughout his health issues, so he was 15 pounds. A great big bundle of joy that I will miss.

2026-07-29 00:53:27 UTC

There are many legal and political topics for me to comment on today.
And I just can't. Instead, you will mostly see me boosting pictures of animals and other pleasant things. I'm sorry if I don't respond with words to much of anything at the moment.
Normal cynical service will resume in the near future.

2026-07-28 14:48:15 UTC

Friends,
George passed suddenly and unexpectedly in the night. My partner gave him his usual snacks before she went to bed, then I did the same later. As is my habit, I talked to him and told him I would see him in the morning.
It was apparently peaceful. My partner found him this morning in his usual sleeping position in his little wooden cottage where he would spend most nights.
Perhaps with his health challenges of the last year I shouldn't be surprised - but it doesn't seem to be related to his chronic snuffles.
He'll be missed.
https://a.mindlycdn.com/media_attachments/files/116/998/126/845/506/411/original/6b73a9bb2a9ec829.jpg

2026-07-27 19:34:54 UTC

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Also appears to "sniff, sniff - yup, it's you".
So very cute.

2026-07-27 00:36:35 UTC

So, Codeberg (which is a FOSS/freedom-focused code hosting site) is run as a cooperative, with members able to nominate measures/policies and vote on them etc.
They just had a vote and approved policies making "AI" / LLM-based projects basically unwelcome there. The vote wasn't close; 70% voted in favour of the policy. It's not a hard & fast "if you use LLM, you're banned" or anything of the sort - it's quite a measured, reasoned stance.
The slopcoders are freaking out. They just don't understand how this is possible. Imagine! A community of people that makes their own decisions and you can't just make them do what you want or ignore them and consume their resources without their consent!
"I like slopcoding, actually" is turning out to be a *really* good litmus test for people you want to have absolutely nothing to do with your project or your community.
Look at some of the whining (this is the only reason I would ever link to YCombinator [1]):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49021856
[1] Your occasional and irregular reminder: "Hacker" "News" is neither.
#NoAI #NoLLM #sloperator #slopcoding #vibecoding #consent #Codeberg #hosting #forge #community #FOSS #HackerNews #YCombinator

2026-07-24 04:55:49 UTC

FAFO exists for chuds in Canada, too.
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/cold-lake-alberta-cafe-separatism
#FAFO #Canada #chud #chuds #FO #separatism #Alberta #Alaberta #CanadaStrong

2026-07-23 00:53:42 UTC

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A lovely set of them indeed.
Are they mixed black and white? Or is that just because a few are silhouetted against the window light?

2026-07-17 03:21:32 UTC

I keep seeing this weird thing happening in the fedi, and I'm not sure if it's malicious or not.
I keep seeing what look like obvious duplicate accounts - same account name, same profile image, same description, only different Mastodon instances - taking identical action. Following my account, or boosting or favouriting a toot, all simultaneously (or close enough not to matter).
I'm having trouble imagining why anyone would do this deliberately. Is there some Mastodon/Fedi app that automatically creates a duplicate account - a "backup" or something - and mirrors all your activity from account to the other?
#fediverse #mastodon #duplicate #DuplicateAccount

2026-07-16 03:01:32 UTC

We had a visitor in the back yard early this evening. This is a young white-tailed jackrabbit (which is a species of hare, not a true rabbit) probably from this spring's first batch, so he's probably about 3 months old. The proportions are different from an adult. This species is also known as prairie hare or "white jack", or just "jack" hereabouts.
This one was sitting in the long grass and then sat up when I came into view. He wasn't scared, but kept a wary eye on me. Pardon the lousy picture quality; I didn't get out the Big Lens so this is a tiny crop out of the middle of the frame. I have a little video I might post later.
Of course, he immediately started being cute(r), having a bath, after I put the camera away.
Pardon the weeds; it's been too hot and humid to mow lately, and I went chemical-free a few years ago.
#wildlife #UrbanWildlife #jackrabbit #hare #WhiteTailedJackrabbit #PrairieHare #jack #SK #YQR #prairies #Canada #RabbitsOfMastodon
https://a.mindlycdn.com/media_attachments/files/116/927/416/295/834/951/original/110d307098ee0e99.jpg

2026-07-14 19:54:15 UTC

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Imagine, you lose one loyal R senator and have a second out of commission indefinitely, and you suddenly find "evidence" to sideline two D senators.
A lot of lawyers will be making some very expensive overtime very soon.

2026-07-13 18:53:08 UTC

"I would have liked to have seen Montana."
#RIP #SamNeill

2026-07-08 16:35:27 UTC

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Thank you for the information; it may be helpful with George.
Wishing Skye the best and quickest recovery. 🤗

2026-07-06 17:31:32 UTC

I love how 95% of personal websites can still serve URLs first seen 30 years ago, but anything owned by a company bigger than "some guy in his basement" treats any URL older than 12 months as an unreadable runestone inscription, throws its hands in the air, and intones "404".
#website #URL #StableURLs #PersonalWebsite #HTTP #HTTP404 #web

2026-07-06 06:16:19 UTC

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I don't specifically remember this one, but I almost certainly read it at the time. 27 years ago...
(It's great, btw)

2026-07-06 05:41:08 UTC

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😆
Little-known fact: early versions of the transporters in the Federation used wired connections, too.
#FakeFact #StarTrek

2026-07-06 00:33:04 UTC

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Based on today's market, I'd say around two million dollars' worth.

2026-07-04 16:21:21 UTC

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Well, it is Roland Emmerich after all. He's a hack.
Most movies featuring computing / "hackers" are terrible (at least concerning the computer stuff) - Hackers, The Net, Die Hard Umpteen...
The only ones that leap out of memory that didn't bug me as much are "Colossus: The Forbin Project" (1970) and "Sneakers" (1992) -- and Sneakers isn't particularly accurate, it just has roughly the right shape.
Lauren - any favourite movies featuring computing?

2026-07-04 07:02:14 UTC

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And WIll Smith reacting to something else Goldblum said...
https://a.mindlycdn.com/media_attachments/files/116/860/413/948/043/828/original/77f7a21fb6660aaf.mp4

2026-07-04 03:24:58 UTC

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Oh yes, "opt-in" for sure.
"This employee did not opt in" is going to feature prominently in many managers' assessments of employees, I'd be willing to bet.

2026-07-03 05:14:27 UTC

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(getting to this late)
I'm sorry to hear it didn't go well. We'll be thinking of Skye and the rest of the Thirring household. 🤗

2026-07-03 02:49:26 UTC

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We had to nebulize George last fall when he got his acute upper respiratory infection. I bought a large storage tub with lid and hacked that up to serve as the chamber.
For the actual nebulizer, I used a spare/old CPAP machine. They generally have a humidifier component, though not always. With the reservoir loaded with sterile hypertonic salince (from the vet) and the humidity setting turned up, it did a very good job of getting the moisture and salt into the air feeding from the CPAP machine, through the CPAP hose, into the chamber. Just putting the end of the hose up to my nose/mouth, I could immediately taste the salt, so it was obviously working.
One caution is that the use of salt water did cause some surface rust on the stainless steel reservoir pan. It came off relatively easily with a mild abrasive, but if I was doing it again, I might give it a clearcoat of something to prevent it in the first place.
If you don't have a spare CPAP machine lying around, it's not going to help - a regular medication nebulizer machine will be cheaper and easier to get.

2026-07-02 02:26:50 UTC

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Best of luck, Skye!
(psst... I think there's someone watching you. No, over there.)

2026-07-01 18:36:24 UTC

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Oh, this one's fabulous! Thanks for sharing it.
It looks like (s)he's halfway to learning to skateboard like those dogs 😆

2026-06-28 05:23:24 UTC

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It has not escaped my irony detector that this post was also mass-boosted by several tag bots on this problematic instance.
#irony #bots

2026-06-28 04:58:16 UTC

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I'm curious how my pointing out that they are violating consent and poisoning the commons led you to believe that I did not understand their self-serving justification for their abuse.

2026-06-28 04:43:19 UTC

This new "tags.pub" instance that just blasts out boosts of anything with a matching hashtag is ... annoying.
Pointless.
Practically abuse.
It just boosted a post of mine with *seven* different accounts. Didn't ask for permission to follow/do things with my content.
Its account overviews say "You can opt out!", which is absolutely *not* how bots should be interacting with people in the Fediverse. This should be opt-*in* only.
How is this okay? Frankly, I think it should be completely defederated, it's not operating in good faith.
#Fediblock #OptOut #consent

2026-06-27 00:25:17 UTC

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I saw an article that said that despite him mostly being famous for that (deservedly so) infamous bizarre claim, he was actually well-liked by FEMA workers, because he was willing to listen to them and stand up to the administration, pushing back.
That's *rare* in this administration. I guess we know the real reason he's out, and it isn't "personal reasons".

2026-06-26 19:17:27 UTC

Epic Games' CEO, Tim Sweeney, has been a loud proponent of the use of generative "AI" in creating games, rather than having to hire as many artists and other creative people. He says using AI is natural, it's the way to go, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, and that people who object are just luddites.
And he complains bitterly about Valve's Steam Store requiring disclosure of the use of "AI" in games sold on that platform.
So, Tim, which is it? "AI" is good and natural and you're proud of it, or you're mad you have to tell customers you used it in creating the game you're trying to sell them?
Those two positions are mutually incompatible. Hypocrite.
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/tim-sweeney-on-the-future-of-games-ai-and-whether-valve-will-ever-join-forces-with-epic-its-now-clear-that-nobodys-going-to-end-up-with-an-absolute-monopoly/
#AI #creative #artist #game #gaming #disclosure #hypocrisy #Valve #EpicGames #TimSweeney

2026-06-26 06:17:23 UTC

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Aw, finish healing quickly, Skye. 🤗

2026-06-25 16:28:16 UTC

LLM (noun): a machine used by software teams to turn piles of cash into technical debt
#LLM #AI #software #TechDebt #TechnicalDebt #coding #AmbroseBierce

2026-06-23 21:35:12 UTC

We've had so much rain over the last few weeks - total, not single huge deluges like Edmonton - that the city hasn't even needed to fill the tree-diapers on the more-recently-planted trees.
Is there a word for those things? Diaper is kinda the opposite of what they're intended to do.
#tree #TreeDiaper #dendrology #trees

2026-06-21 18:21:16 UTC

Reminder: Trump doesn't care if you hate him. He likes it! Love him or hate him, it's two sides of the same coin, because it means he's important to you.
What he cannot stand is if you laugh at him.
This is why the reflecting pool business will eat him from the inside out: he claimed to be the one experienced genius who could fix it, and it immediately went to shit, and everyone is laughing about his incompetence and bluster.
Keep laughing - publicly, loudly, directly.
#USPol #Trump #ego #love #hate #ridicule #MangoMussolini #DipshitDonnie

2026-06-21 03:05:48 UTC

WOULD EVERYBODY PLEASE STOP LOOKING AT THE STRAIGHT OF HORMUZ TO SEE IF IT IS OPEN OR CLOSED
YOU ARE COLLAPSING THE PROBABILITY WAVEFORM AND PREVENTING OTHERS FROM USING IT IN ITS NATURAL INDETERMINATE STATE
#Hormuz #SoMuchWinning #USPol #quantum #Schroedinger #SchrödingersCat #probability

2026-06-18 04:25:22 UTC

Jerry Pournelle, a polymath, used to say that a dark age was not when people forgot how to do a thing, but when they forgot that anyone was ever able to do it. I don't know where he got it from, if anywhere.
At a previous job just a few years ago, my team were mostly young and junior engineers. I remember showing them some photos of the new electronics workbench I'd built, because I was proud of it. I was having trouble getting this across - it eventually became clear that they all thought what I meant by "I built this" was "I assembled this".
They were flabbergasted when I said that no, I bought wood and sheetgoods and stain and varnish and designed it on a notepad and made it exactly what I wanted it to be. And they didn't ask me "why" - they asked me "how".
I sometimes get the impression that (in the West, at least) we are already living in the dark ages. Many young people are unaware that you can actually create things, and that it used to be common to do so. To them, it seems that civilization is something you pull out of a sea-can from China.
#DarkAge #DarkAges #China #SeaCan #container #cargo #civilization #maker #making #JerryPournelle

2026-06-17 01:11:05 UTC

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@npub1lq6…nf7e has a workaround; if he's linking to something with an image that Mastodon will extract and use automatically, he includes a picture of Leela (his cat) in the post.
Mastodon won't auto-add the image if you manually put one in.
But yes, there should be a setting controlling this.

2026-06-10 04:13:19 UTC

So, we had a severe thunderstorm watch this afternoon, and then a little while ago they changed it from a watch to a #warning.
It was somewhat humid, low 20s C, and basically no wind at all. And then suddenly, in the space of 30s, the sky got dark, the wind picked up to 50-60 km/h, and the temperature dropped like a stone, about 10 degrees.
I was outside looking at the storm clouds when it started raining *huge* drops. The first one I saw literally hit me in the left eye 😆 🏴‍☠️ . The skies opened up, and visibility dropped so much I couldn't see the end of my street.
And then the hail came. Quarter-sized - that'd be about 25 mm. And because of the wind (this is the prairies...) it was coming down horizontally, so it was all bouncing off the front wall and windows of my house, and on the roof over our front room with a vaulted ceiling, pinging against the metal window frames and glass. It sounded like skeletons having sex on my roof...
Here's a clip from the back deck, so I didn't get totally soaked. Video's kinda crappy, sorry. This is two bits spliced together from different times.
#storm #SK #prairies #Canada #hail #rain #ThunderStorm
https://a.mindlycdn.com/media_attachments/files/116/723/850/320/576/211/original/7158cb0c48b958fe.mp4

2026-06-09 05:44:40 UTC

Want to feel better in these trying times? Here's one way.
#Make something. Anything.
Today. (Or, it's late evening where I am, so tomorrow.)
Bake a cake.
Design a tee-shirt.
Write a poem.
Hot-glue something amusing to an ugly baseball cap.
Use tiny magnets to stick an LED and a resistor to a 9V battery, so you have a little glowy thing.
Sketch your pet.
Write a confessional sign for your pet.
Take a photo.
Take a photo of the confessional sign and your pet.
Assemble that birdhouse kit.
Pick up that guitar and come up with a new (to you) lick.
Build a campfire.
Turn an old-fashioned wooden clothes peg into a toy by Sharpie-ing a face onto it.
Fold a piece of paper and cut out a paper doll chain.
Just create something - whatever you have skills for, or materials for, or the desire to do, whether it's going to be #great or #terrible, whether anyone else is ever going to see it (but you should share it, if I can convince you of that).
Creativity is something you do, not something you are. And the need to #create is universal. It fulfills us, releases us. Just knowing that there is now #something in the world which was not in it before, and that the reason it exists is you *chose* to #create it, will satisfy an inner craving so deeply buried we don't think about it most of the time.
And then share it with someone. And ask them to share theirs with you, if they want to.
#philosophy #creativity #create #creation #satisfaction #happiness

2026-06-09 01:11:46 UTC

We have the various #Canadian grocery chains in my city. For bunny salad I go to whichever one has the freshest produce, and that has changed between them quite a few times over the years.
Currently, it's Save-On Foods. And for whatever reason, in addition to the #bunny salad and other items I get for the humans, they have these ... carrots.
I hesitate, because these things are so large they don't trigger the "carrot" identification in my mind. They're practically horses' legs. I mean, I'm no #Popeye, but I've got fairly chunky forearms, enough so that it's difficult to get the mail out of the Canada Post community mailbox since they redesigned them a few years ago. And even so, these "carrots" approach the size and shape of my forearm.
Do they have these monstrous things everywhere? I've never seen them at the other #grocery stores in this town.
And it occurs to me that a photo of such a #carrot next to a house rabbit would make an interesting picture, particularly if it's longer than the rabbit is.
Professor Skye, are you up for it? 😉
#rabbit #vegetable #RabbitsOfMastodon #HouseRabbit #BigThing #BigTwinkie

2026-06-05 05:07:05 UTC

Now *this* is a garbage job listing for a senior position. "Design Engineer", even!
> Design Engineer
> $COMPANY - Toronto, ON
> $50,000–$60,000 a year
>
> The Design Engineer is a high-impact systems role focused on engineering
> workflow optimization, design validation, and technical coordination.
$50k / year. For what should be a *very* senior engineering position. In Toronto.
Give me a $#*@(&^ break.
#cheap #salary #MarketRate #Canada #engineer

2026-06-05 02:03:12 UTC

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You recognize some scratches or serial numbers or something?

2026-06-04 06:52:21 UTC

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Even the complete non-techies, the kind who almost think there's a fellow behind the screen putting the search results together like the Mechanical Turk when they press "search", are starting to notice and kvetch about it.
I'm not sure I've seen anything quite like it. Unifying virtually all of humanity against the "not remotely human anymore" AI grifter billionaires is indeed truly impressive.

2026-06-01 17:25:17 UTC

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I'd say she's succeeding at it!
"Cato, it is I, Jacques Clouseau! This is merely a disguise!"

2026-05-31 23:35:23 UTC

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You have Rogers now? I just walked through the living room and saw a commercial for Rogers where they claimed to be "the most reliable Internet in Canada".
Ha! Pull the other one, it has got bells on it.

2026-05-31 21:16:02 UTC

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That relationship description just gave me a headache, relatively speaking.
Cool story, though!

2026-05-27 02:28:31 UTC

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So you went from BunCon 2 to BunCon 3, I guess?
If so, good to hear!

2026-05-26 03:13:38 UTC

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Aww... sorry to hear that, Sitara. Good thing you have great bunparents to take care of you while you get better.

2026-05-24 17:18:48 UTC

We had snow a week ago. We had a big thunderstorm with hail and tornado watches during the week. Today is supposed to be 28 C with a chance of another thunderstorm.
Getting a bit dizzy.
#Canada #SK #prairies #weather

2026-05-23 02:53:40 UTC

RE: https://mastodon.online/@JMMaok/116621109510246621
Introduce yourself with 10 bands you’ve seen live (in no particular order):
1. The Shuffle Demons
2. Aerosmith
3. Iron Maiden
4. Doug and the Slugs
5. April Wine
6. Nazareth
7. Cowboy Junkies
8. Kiss
9. Eric Clapton
10. Paul Simon
#10Bands #10BandsSeenLive
#note193g…tcxw

2026-05-20 19:21:29 UTC

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"Fat armpits" is not a phrase I was prepared to hear today.
Don't listen to them, Violet!

2026-05-20 19:20:24 UTC

So, we had our monthly Repair Cafe (in #Regina, #SK, #Canada) on Saturday. Geez, how did almost a week go by before I got to write this up...
At my table, there was the usual assortment of electronics and small appliances (containing electronics in most cases...). In many of those, after testing every common mechanical, electrical, and sensor failure, the problem was narrowed down to the main logic board. And every testable component on those boards tested fine, and there were no physical signs of problems (leaky caps, soot marks, etc). Almost certainly a failed microcontroller or its support circuitry.
So frustratingly, the answer in those cases is "The board is bad, it's specific to this model (or some small number of similar models), it can't be ordered from the manufacturer and would cost too much if it could, the best you could hope for is to find someone selling one ripped out of another unit, but that one's probably being stripped for parts because the board went bad in that one, too". So off to the landfill these items will probably go.
It's annoying. In many cases, there's an obvious design flaw that leads to these early, unfixable failures.
Some fixes, and one interesting case. A portable dog toy thing that wouldn't take a charge at all - but probing around its logic board appeared to kick its battery-management system into life (due to the tiny current from the meter I was using) and it started charging. I hope it worked once charged.
#RepairCafe

2026-05-16 23:18:05 UTC

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These sound like the ones that Big Clive looked at and did a teardown. Have you seen it?
https://youtu.be/IPn97d48Rww

2026-05-14 05:16:49 UTC

My toolbox is gonna be better organized for the Repair Cafe this Saturday. 💪
#RepairCafe #toolbox #organize
https://a.mindlycdn.com/media_attachments/files/116/571/219/015/481/442/original/5827c91be0488e7d.png

2026-05-09 04:49:41 UTC

Random observation of our blobular house rabbit, George...
George has never been a huge fan of hay. You're supposed to make sure that hay/grass form a large part of a rabbit's diet - a majority of it, in fact - but that seems a bit too rustic for some bunnies. George is one of them.
He always has access to hay, of course - even if his food bowl is empty, there's always hay. And you'll see him pick at it sometimes.
But in the last few days I discovered that George is perfectly happy to eat hay for an indeterminate period - provided I sit on the floor and hand-feed it to him, one blade at a time. 🤦‍♂️
I've been a rabbit ~~owner~~ servant for 25 years, but I think this level of service is beyond me.
Sheesh.
#sheesh #HouseRabbit #rabbit #bunny #blobular #hay #grass #servant

2026-05-08 18:43:36 UTC

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There's also this in Canada, though their "flat rate shipping" to Saskatchewan is $21.
https://www.theparrotshop.ca/Yucca-Chunks-5pk_p_3106.html
I haven't looked at their other stuff.

2026-05-08 03:59:27 UTC

Headline:
> US and Iran launch attacks amid tenuous ceasefire
#ThatWord #WordsMeanThings #ceasefire #YouKeepUsingThatWord
https://a.mindlycdn.com/media_attachments/files/116/536/947/901/312/317/original/d975a2da02261b4d.mp4

2026-05-07 23:52:14 UTC

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Do you know what species of wood it is? I presume it's a soft "hardwood" so it's not full of the resins and whatnot of coniferous woods?
Maybe tulipwood (which is normally sold under the name "poplar", even though it's not related to poplar trees at all...)?
#poplar #tulipwood

2026-05-07 02:24:13 UTC

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I'm not leaving Linux, but I am leaving systemd. I've been in the process, slowly, for quite some time, but took some real concrete steps more recently. Then the systemd age field BS popped up and erased any remaining doubts I had.
So, unless Debian brings back a non-systemd option, I'll be switching the remainder of my machines to Devuan.
#Debian #Devuan

2026-05-05 22:56:12 UTC

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omg 🤮
Which part is supposed to taste like marmot? 😜

2026-05-05 18:54:50 UTC

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Indeed 😃
Oh, and I forgot to mention that the "tribe" name Marmotini really, really ought to get a second life as a cocktail name. But I have no idea what would go in it.

2026-05-05 16:07:18 UTC

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Cool aloof cowboy chipmunks... 🤣
Marmotini tamiina frigus puer bovis

2026-05-04 23:40:33 UTC

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Huh. When I was a kid, we used to spend a lot of time up at a relative's cottage in "northern" Ontario (on Lake Nipissing, same lake as North Bay). There were lots of chipmunks, but they were not shy.
We would come out the front door of the cottage, sit on the edge of the concrete steps with peanuts in our hands, and the chipmunks would come perch in your lap or on your arm and eat them (the peanuts, not your flesh) without a care in the world.
Different behaviours - different species? Just environment? Weird.
#chipmunk

2026-05-04 04:16:25 UTC

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Four seconds and you didn't get the snacc yet? Is your cute broke?

2026-05-04 02:52:23 UTC

Minor George update...
The docs were right about him feeling better, this thing coming & going. For the last two days, George has been eating like a horse. Like, completely finishing a full bowl of greens in under an hour, then lying down curled around the bowl, which is his way of begging for breakfast/dinner.
So yes, he has been enjoying second breakfast (and second dinner).
Maybe he lost weight while he wasn't feeling as well and is making up for it now?

2026-05-02 03:25:13 UTC

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Exactly. I said in another thread that every single email I have ever received from the "new" GTLDs - .biz, .shop, .online, all of them - was either spam, scam, or phishing.
Every. One.
But I guess ICANN sees dollar signs for selling vanity TLDs to the Googles etc of the world.

2026-04-29 02:14:14 UTC

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Followup if you're interested. I got a call from the vets at the U. of S. CVM SAC. George's swab culture and sensitivity test came back from the lab.
It's pseudomonas aeruginosa. While it can become an acute infection, it's generally an opportunistic one. It's present, basically, everywhere.
There's mostly good news. The level of bacteria they got suggests strongly it's not an acute infection. It's one of the bacteria that can cause the snuffles, and rabbits can live with it for the rest of their lives. Treatment for non-acute is basically just symptom management - I'll be giving metacam for another week or so to keep inflammation down in his sinus cavity. If possible I'll start nebulizing him again.
The only bad news is that if it does become an acute infection, it's hard to treat. It's resistant to most common antibiotics, and the last-ditch ones that are used to treat it in human cases aren't safe for rabbits.
Big George is still Big Mad about being grabbed and burrito'ed. He actually charged me tonight before I'd even put my hands out towards him. He's gonna love being stuffed into the nebulizing chamber again...
Anyways, I want to thank you all for your wisdom and words of kindness. I feel less stressed now than I have in more than a week.
Trivia: going through his records this past week, I realized he's 8. 8! He was born in the spring of 2018, and I drove out to the middle of nowhere to get him and Gracie that autumn.
#pseudomonas #rabbit