Mike Stone

Husband, father, nerd.

🌐 Blog: https://mikestone.me
:pixelfed: PixelFed: https://pixelfed.social/mikestone
:keyoxide: Keyoxide: https://keyoxide.org/hkp/EBD0831C9202570E2E2483B68555A0ABA3F28D2A

Public Key

npub1exv9k5cdzl3eumx8cuakxkzp75lu9azphm0gkmllq83atc0phe7sxd3ch9

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsvnxzm2vx30cu7dnruwwmrtpql207z73qmah5tdllsrc74u8smulgprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmntqyqqk6j6sh

Publishing to

relay.momostr.pink

Author Public Key

npub1exv9k5cdzl3eumx8cuakxkzp75lu9azphm0gkmllq83atc0phe7sxd3ch9

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Last Notes

2026-07-21 18:01:04 UTC

First day back to work after 10 days of vacation. I'm still not ready for this. I think I could have gone 2x or 3x as long and still been just as happy to be not working.

2026-07-13 01:20:41 UTC

My security cameras pick up a surprisingly large number of Waymos driving past my house when you consider I don't live in an area Waymo covers. I have confirmed they are driverless and don't seem to be carrying any passengers. It's like they're going for a drive.

2026-07-01 02:22:09 UTC

The song Paint It Black is better performed by a band called Gob than it is when the Stones do it.

2026-06-22 22:31:35 UTC

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I looked at it a while back, but never got so far as paying for it so I don't think I got any of the fancy features. I keep testing AI summaries, but so far I haven't found any that don't cost half a years salary that keep things accurate. Unfortunately I'm not hugely trusting of human summarizers either, which is why I hit a bunch of sites with the same news to make sure I'm not just getting someone's perspective on things.
@npub1080…cr2f

2026-06-22 21:41:08 UTC

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Ah, I spend an embarrassing amount of time each day just keeping up on the current events. I like to cover the same things from different sources to try to understand perspectives. A hypothetical AI (this doesn't exist) that could summarize news reliably and combine facts from multiple sources would be a huge time saver for me.

2026-06-22 16:11:05 UTC

RE: https://social.vivaldi.net/@jonnyevans/116794575155527480
Ignoring the "Apple" angle on this, Jonny Evans asks a very valid question. While he paints Apple as some kind of revolutionary, there have been other local services for almost as long as this AI wave has been a thing, and these local services are getting more and more capable. Improving local hardware makes it inevitable that the machine on your desk will be able to handle any AI task an average person could throw at it, and soon too. What happens to these massive datacenters then?
#note1j5a…t784

2026-06-08 19:17:12 UTC

I usually make an effort to watch #WWDC, but this year I didn't. Google's barrage of AI exceeded my bullshit quota for the year. Anything from Apple I should care about in the slightest? Did they finally do the thing with Siri?

2026-06-07 00:10:05 UTC

I've been using alternatives to Office for years. I started with Star Office in the late 90s or early 2000s. I stuck with it when it became OpenOffice, but moved to LibreOffice when Oracle got their claws into it. I've pretty much stayed with LibreOffice. The recent push for digital sovereignty from the EU has done a lot to move technology in a direction I like. I'm interested in Office EU. I was surprised it was built on Open, not Libre though. It does look nice. Anyone have experience with it?

2026-05-26 16:49:10 UTC

Is there a way to modify the text color in the address bar? I basically moved my address field to the status bar, which has historically worked great for me. I'm just using the standard Zen theme that comes with the browser, but it wants that text in the address field to be the same color as the background unless the field actively has a cursor in it. None of the buttons show, like the bookmark button or the site info button. They're there, but they are well camouflaged.
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/641/892/320/546/240/original/7be85149f24f6596.png

2026-05-19 08:26:11 UTC

Ummm, what?
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-releases-its-first-server-linux-distribution-azure-linux-4-0/
#AzureLinux #Microsoft

2026-05-07 20:40:36 UTC

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Probably not? All reports go into a single queue where they're grouped by the individual being reported and the general time frame of the report. There's no technical difference between a report originating on instance or one from elsewhere. The moderators may prioritize local reports over remote, but that would be policy based, not functionally. I don't think the moderation team on Fosstodon does that, but I could be wrong. Just my impression.

2026-05-07 18:30:29 UTC

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Historically there's been instances where I really enjoyed having the new features. I'm not even sure what's new in Android 17 though. Nothing has really jumped out at me. If I'm being frank, being in the beta program is almost like having a rolling release of Android. I sometimes find a feature and it catches me off guard. "Huh, how long has that been there?"

2026-04-10 16:06:00 UTC

I know it's Friday and not Saturday, but can we all just get this weekend started please?? I'm ready for a Saturday.

2026-03-19 18:23:11 UTC

This feels like it might be purely American..
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/257/224/947/505/876/original/c3a255c1540e7d19.jpg

2026-02-27 15:40:04 UTC

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Wait, what?? I'm looking at that UI, and do you seriously lose translations if you decide to turn off AI? Has the caffeine just not kicked in this morning??

2026-01-29 17:01:51 UTC

After a few minutes of toying with the new #Vivaldi, I have some quick thoughts.
I think a point that needs emphasis is this: "While other browsers add AI summarization and Edge pushes Copilot integration, Vivaldi 7.8 ships features users have actually requested."
There are a couple not huge, but super useful updates in this new version. Opening links in tiled tabs. Love that. I don't think they even mentioned opening links in different workspaces. Great feature.
https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-7-8-launches-with-message-to-big-tech-humans-dont-need-ai-babysitters/
1/?

2026-01-23 02:12:53 UTC

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Yep. It's practically my OS. If I have #Vivaldi and a terminal, I'm pretty much set.
@npub1080…cr2f

2025-12-17 19:48:18 UTC

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Ooof, that sucks. The iOS version of the browser is the newest version, and hasn't actually been available that long. I think that's probably why it experiences more problems than other versions. Just a guess though.

2025-11-27 22:24:42 UTC

I've been using a Google TV for years now, and it's been fine, but I'm less and less of a fan of having Google devices in my home. I'd like to replace it with a media PC, but since it's attached to my main TV, it's got to be simple to use. I'd like it to just be a Google TV type remote AMD an easy UI. Most of what we use on the Google is Plex and YouTube. Anybody have some recommendations for hardware and software that might do the job?

2025-11-25 17:31:31 UTC

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My thought is their biggest competitor in the field is Google. Google has access to more data than pretty much any other company. These companies NEED data to train their models. If OpenAI hopes to compete with Google, they need a source of more data. They can't do their own smartphone OS. Apple and Google have that market nailed down. Even Microsoft couldn't compete. They've got to find another vector for acquiring more data. This is their shot. Of course, I absolutely could be wrong.

2025-11-17 21:26:10 UTC

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Great write-up! I think about that stuff every time some company or institution I'm dealing with directs me to their Facebook page or their Twitter profile. I don't want to need a Facebook account or Twitter account to get the latest updates from my kids' schools, or see what the latest developments are in my community. An open solution is a much better choice. I'm hoping you get some traction. Fingers crossed!
@npub1z3w…c039

2025-11-17 20:26:14 UTC

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Good luck with the new instance!
@npub1z3w…c039

2025-11-06 17:07:45 UTC

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I'm honestly surprised it's not ready already since technically the standard for quote posts was in the last version too, you just couldn't do them. Personally, I've been using the PWA instead of an app for years and years now, so it's already ready to go!

2025-10-20 18:16:44 UTC

Note to self: When your boss asks you if you're impacted by an #AWS outage at 8:00, don't wait to mention it to your wife until 9:30 after she's been trouble shooting issues with her work software for 1.5 hours. Especially don't say, "Oh I've known about that for an hour and a half" when she says, "Did you know AWS is down?" :blobcatscared:

2025-10-14 20:30:08 UTC

Oooooo, new #ZorinOS :zorin: for me! Between ZorinOS, Vivaldi, LibreOffice, and Proton, most of the software I really depend on day to day is no longer US based. Add to that my favorite social network is based out of France and I'm feeling more secure than I would otherwise.
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/10/zorin-os-18-released-with-new-look-new-apps-more

2025-09-16 14:43:40 UTC

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I do, but it's probably not helpful. When I had to do it due to a hardware failure, it was super easy. I moved over to a new Pi 5, and after I wrote the image to the card it was stupid easy. Paraphrasing, it asked if it was a new install or if I should restore a backup. I said restore, and everything just stood back up like it was never gone. I didn't have any gotcha moments or anything.

2025-07-31 17:24:47 UTC

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Well, I guess no sleep for me for the next two weeks. Thanks for that.

2025-07-31 15:35:42 UTC

If you're going to be at #Fedicon, tell me all about it! I need people to live vicariously through.

2025-07-18 17:57:18 UTC

There's a particular time of day, where the sun comes through the window just right, where I realize just how grossly filthy my laptop really is.

2025-06-10 16:19:51 UTC

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We run MatterMost on a droplet from DigitalOcean. @npub1krv…94c6 has done most of the heavy lifting on that one, but it runs us around $15 last I looked. It's not stressing the droplet, but the community we have on there is pretty small.

2025-05-14 21:49:01 UTC

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Yea, the cost is pretty crazy. That's really the deciding factor on whether I'll get one or not. They look cool, but I'm just not sure I'm going to get a functional benefit that'll justify the cost.

2025-05-13 15:46:05 UTC

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In my family, I'm considered "imaginative", but I'm not sure that says much. I'm happy to experiment, but I don't tend to mix food groups much, especially fruit with non-fruit food groups. My parents were pretty meat and potatoes (literally), and my mom even described my dad as a "culinary coward", a term I'm not sure he appreciated. Compared to them, I'm wild and crazy. Compared to fruit salad on a burger though, I'm pretty generic.

2025-05-12 23:49:01 UTC

What's something you love that causes other people to question your sanity? Me? I love tomato juice. V8 even better.

2025-05-12 15:50:26 UTC

Happy Monday everybody.
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/495/651/282/557/443/original/0c5ffa6d0d0769af.png

2025-05-03 06:58:27 UTC

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Yea, emacs is one of those apps that designed with the terminal in mind, so it's keyboard heavy. I know there's a GUI for it, but still. Browser wise though, I'm pretty much all mouse all the time. Pretty much the only keyboard shortcut I use in my browser (other than copy and paste) is Ctrl-Tab to cycle through tabs.
@npub1080…cr2f @npub15f7…m7wr

2025-05-02 16:06:13 UTC

How often do you use keyboard shortcuts?
I was reading @npub1080…cr2f's recent blog post about his @npub15f7…m7wr, and he noted that one of the hardest parts of moving from a Mac to whatever he was using at the time was different keyboard shortcuts.
I spend a LOT of time in the terminal, but when it comes to GUI tools, Copy/Cut and Paste is really the only keyboard shortcut I use. Maybe it's still early in my day and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet, but I'm struggling to think of more.

2025-04-30 15:51:41 UTC

So, uh, did everybody see this?
https://hub.fosstodon.org/update-from-gina
You should read it. It's good.

2025-04-25 17:54:12 UTC

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Good luck. I hope all goes well.

2025-04-16 21:12:42 UTC

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I kinda ran into a road block on HOllow Knight. It was getting aggravating, so I jumped ship for a while.

2025-04-16 21:12:00 UTC

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Yes, this is public. I made my original post public, and neither of us has bothered to change the permissions on any of our responses.

2025-04-16 19:09:04 UTC

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Partially. Obviously if you're posting with public visibility (even quiet public), your posts are going to be scrapable. It's much more difficult (though not entirely impossible) to scrape Followers Only, and even harder to scrape DMs. I won't say either are impossible, but your public posts have an RSS feed, and any idiot can scrape that.

2025-04-16 16:32:35 UTC

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Welcome back!
@npub1j7t…kn6q

2025-04-16 16:30:50 UTC

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Honestly I haven't even used anything else for a long time. I still have a Facebook account out there, but I haven't signed in for a year or more. I tried Threads and Bluesky when they first came out, but didn't find anything I was super motivated by. I ran screaming from Twitter (I refuse to call it X). I can't imagine myself going back to those places. Even if I didn't have Fosstodon for some reason, I'd just create another account somewhere in the Fed.

2025-04-16 16:12:13 UTC

Hm, a new social network from OpenAI?
I'm going to be honest here. I'm a fan of messing around with LLMs. They're fun if more than a little untrustworthy. That being said, I have no interest in a social network from OpenAI. I have no interest in providing training material for free for the next ChatGPT model. The same goes for Llama or Grok.
Really, a contest between Altman and Musk? I'm pretty happy to see either or both lose.
I think I'll just stick to Fosstodon.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/16/chatgpt-founder-escalates-musk-feud-by-launching-x-rival/

2025-04-15 04:08:37 UTC

Fired up Ender Magnolia for the first time in a while. Seems there's been an update that has made my previous saved games incompatible. That's annoying, but there seems to be other updates to the game too. More backstory and some graphical changes. So far things have looked pretty good.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2725260/ENDER_MAGNOLIA_Bloom_in_the_Mist/

2025-04-14 15:28:54 UTC

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Yea, I've tied mine in with my Home Assistant to help with "smart home" type stuff. It does a pretty good job when it's used that way (better than HA without it), but when it's used to ask random questions is super hit or miss. My kids will use it like Alexa, and in that situation it can be...... less reliable.
@npub1z3w…c039

2025-04-14 15:14:32 UTC

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I like it because it's pretty reliable for my uses (which considering it's an LLM, the bar is pretty low). I really like that it's multimodal. That's a nice feature especially through OpenWebUI to ease UX.
@npub1z3w…c039

2025-04-14 15:12:22 UTC

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That's a pretty cool resource!
@npub1z3w…c039 [@dingemansemark](https://scholar.social/@dingemansemark )

2025-04-14 15:09:29 UTC

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That's a good recommendation on the model. I've been using Gemma:12b, but that's a Google model and on my hardware it's NOT fast. It gets the job done and if you're not worried about waiting a couple minutes for a response it's great. Still, there's the Googliness of it all. I haven't tested the Mistral models yet, so I'm grabbing 7b right now. I'm giving it a spin.
@npub1z3w…c039

2025-04-14 15:00:40 UTC

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If I had to choose, I'd probably go with #Ollama (which has been mentioned several times already). It's licensed under the MIT license and the models are about as close to open source as you can get. When I play with LLMs, it's what I use. Locally run and with an API that could be used to integrate with other stuff. I also have #OpenWebUI to make things prettier. Both can run locally, though OpenWebUI can integrate with cloud LLMs too. Of course, tomorrow everything could change.

2025-04-01 16:16:30 UTC

I forgot what day it was until I saw Warren Buffett bought Tesla for a trillion dollars in cash. Then I was like, "oh yea, it's ignore the news day". Signing off.

2025-03-19 06:06:48 UTC

Wowza, some of the random mail I'm getting lately is...... crazy explicit. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be spam trying to get a response from me or if it's hate mail attempting to intimidate.

2025-03-16 20:02:53 UTC

It's one in the afternoon and NONE of my children are awake yet. Not a single one.

2025-03-14 07:16:09 UTC

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That's pretty damn good for a phone.

2025-03-13 23:57:58 UTC

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It's running on a Lenovo Legion gaming laptop. 12th Gen Intel i7-12700H (20) @ 2.688GHz with a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU.
@npub1end…rhn5 [@chris_hayes](https://fosstodon.org/@chris_hayes )

2025-03-13 23:50:00 UTC

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It is worth noting that because this is running through an LLM, it does have a tendency to flat out lie.
Me: Turn on Amy's Lamp.
HA: Turned on the light.
Me: Turn off Amy's lamp and turn on Mike's Lamp.
HA: I'm unable to work with external devices as I told you earlier when I failed to turn on Mike's Lamp.
Me: Turn off Amy's Lamp.
HA: Turned off the light.
Me: Turn on Mike's Lamp.
HA: Turned on the light.
At least it knows todays date and time, which is an improvement.
@npub1end…rhn5 [@chris_hayes](https://fosstodon.org/@chris_hayes )

2025-03-13 23:46:48 UTC

So, I did it. I hooked up the #HomeAssistant Voice to my #Ollama instance. As @npub1end…rhn5 suggested, it's much better at recognizing the intent of my requests. As [@chris_hayes](https://fosstodon.org/@chris_hayes ) suggested, I'm using the new #Gemma3 model. It now knows "How's the weather" and "What's the weather" are the same thing, and I get an answer for both. Responses are a little slower than without the LLM, but honestly it's pretty negligible. It's a very little bit slower again if I use local #Piper vs HA's cloud service.

2025-03-13 20:44:32 UTC

Testing out the newly released #Gemma3 model locally on #ollama. This is one of the more frustration aspects of these LLMs. It must be said that LLMs are fine for what they are, and what they are is a glorified autocomplete. They have their uses (just like autocomplete does), but if you try to use them outside of their strengths your results are going to be less than reliable.
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/157/046/381/159/101/original/4c0a506b433ec526.png

2025-03-10 20:59:49 UTC

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Ouch, that hurt. A bit harsh don't you think? Fosstodon blocks a fraction (Fosstodon's 170ish to Arts almost 1300) of what Art blocks, and the vast majority of what we block was blocked because they were unmonitored instances generating spam and nothing else.

2025-03-10 20:25:57 UTC

In light of today's #Twitter outages, I just thought now would be a good time to remind everybody that even though #Fosstodon is an invite only instance, any member of our community can create an invite. If you know someone you feel would enjoy being a part of our community, don't hesitate to invite them.

2025-03-10 18:46:41 UTC

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Hey Robert! Welcome aboard!

2025-03-07 15:29:40 UTC

Happy Friday everybody!

2025-03-07 15:29:28 UTC

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Hi Clare. Thank you for the new "introduction".
I used to love horror books when I was older, but I kinda burned out on them. They just don't hold interest for me anymore. I don't read books nearly as much as I used to to be honest. I miss them, but there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day.
@npub1y4c…m42r

2025-03-07 05:24:05 UTC

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In settings, Address Bar, there's a checkbox that enables/disables autocomplete. You can also uncheck suggestions right below to avoid even getting a suggestion showing up. I typed www.temu and didn't see any autocomplete at all.
@npub1e35…d5me @npub19rt…adh9

2025-03-06 22:13:44 UTC

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Heh, I saw this "Introduction" and I was like, "Hey look, someone new! Wait, I know her. Wasn't she already here? Did she leave and come back? When did she leave? Did she just come back? Oh, she didn't leave."
I was very confused.
So, instead of greeting a new member of the community, I'll just say Hi! We're glad you're still here.
@npub18tu…kxhl

2025-03-04 17:43:03 UTC

Testing @npub1vpu…608s browser right now. I use #Vivaldi for my daily driver, and #Firefox for my backup, but I can see #LibreWolf taking that backup slot. It's incredibly fast to load pages. Stupidly fast. It comes with uBlock Origin preinstalled, and pages just fly open for me. If you're a Firefox user, I'd recommend giving this a spin.
https://librewolf.net/

2025-01-22 18:13:39 UTC

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Ahh, that's a familiar story. It's very close to how I got my last cat. Now Huckleberry is even more travelled than before. Ohio, Boston, California, Arizona? He's lived in more states than I have!

2025-01-11 16:50:05 UTC

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Yea, it's a twice weekly thing. Jira hasn't been around super long. When I started at this job we were using Bugzilla. That was a while ago. My biggest concern is authentication through our 2FA system. I'm not sure how that would work through the API since I literally have done no research on it.

2024-10-07 04:49:57 UTC

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Of course! Every year! Can't have a birthday without cake!
@npub1x74…ruph

2024-09-15 20:03:28 UTC

Well, that sounds absolutely horrific.
https://www.businessinsider.com/larry-ellison-ai-surveillance-keep-citizens-on-their-best-behavior-2024-9?op=1

2024-09-03 19:17:48 UTC

Sometimes being a nerd that works with a lot of non-nerds sucks a whole lot. I just had to explain that "192.168.0.0 through 192.168.0.16" is VERY different from "192.168.0.0/16". Easy mistake to make, huge ramifications.

2024-08-16 03:03:08 UTC

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Tomorrow's the day! You ready for this?