Skip to main content

in reply to Sarah Brown

@montag what if we made some kind of plug-in, that used chatGPT to ramble incoherently at Facebook?


reshared this

in reply to Sarah Brown

I also heard - though don't know how true it is our how much bearing it has - that he got the CD cheap as it was old stock and possibly out of date 😬
in reply to Sarah Brown

The other obvious flaw, besides being made of a material that is notable for being strong in tension, not compression, is the use of a cylinder for a vessel that is going to experience pressure from the outside, not the inside.

Just suck the air out of an empty lemonade bottle, and you'll see how little of a pressure differential is needed for the cylindrical center section to squash flat, while the spherical ends keep their shape. Thicker walls are only going to do so much to prevent that.

That's why cylindrical submarines used down to hundreds of feet have bulkheads at intervals along their length to support the cylinder from the inside.

And submarines that are used at thousands of feet of depth are made up of spherical pressure vessels, because additional bulkheads and thicker walls cease to reinforce cylinders sufficiently at depths where the slightest imperfection can result in deformation, that /will/ progress further under those forces. Even submarines that look cylindrical from the outside, like the DSRV:



The boat is filthy. We need to go outside to clean it. We have brought materiais to clean it. We cannot be forced to clean it. Once we are outside the hatch, we are outside the law.



Silo S1 spoilers

Ok, they ended that a minute or two before I thought they were going to.

In the book, she worked out it was a lie before she went outside. They discovered the code for the display and noted that it was only 8192 * 2048 pixels: enough for a helmet, but not enough for the cafeteria view screen.

in reply to Sarah Brown

Silo S1 spoilers
Nice!
Was season 1 one book or only a section of a book? (IIRC there are several books in the series but I didn't want to spoil myself)
in reply to Ozzy

Silo S1 spoilers

@Ozzy It was the first half of “Wool”.

How they choose to do season 3 is going to be interesting. The second book, “Shift”, takes place partially in flashback to our near future, and partly contemporaneously with the events of Wool.

The books are Wool, Shift, and Dust. Dust unites the storylines of Wool and Shift and continues immediately afterwards.

@Ozzy
in reply to Ozzy

Silo S1 spoilers

@Ozzy One thing they’ve changed from the books is the whole Simms/enforcers thing. It’s simply not in the book, where it’s all Bernard.

I suspect Simms is going to take on the role that Lucas (guy who looks at the stars) takes.

@Ozzy
in reply to Ozzy

Silo S1 spoilers

@Ozzy I think what happens at the end of Wool works better with Simms’ motivation. The way he does it with Lucas in the book is a bit 2 dimensional.

The question I’m wondering now is if S2 will end at the end of Wool, or about a chapter from the end. That would give them a nice cliffhanger, but if S3 is the first half of Shift, then none of it involves the characters we know (a lot of it happens pre-silo and we find out why they were built, who built them, and what it is that kills them when they go outside).

@Ozzy


First time @Zoë O'Connell and I have got to the boat in months.

A new lifeform has evolved, created from some sort of capillary action resulting in months old sewage working its way back into the toilet bowl. Dealing with it was more disgusting than I care to think about. I am now having a beer.

The utter glamour of yachting.

in reply to Sarah Brown

@Zoë O'Connell Yachting: unclogging a rank toilet while drinking tea that tastes of bleach.

Tomorrow we need to clean the accumulated verdigris off the deck with the jet wash. That bit at least is enjoyable.

The engine is running on diesel that's, on average, over a year old. It's not running very well on it. Need to sort that out too.

in reply to Sarah Brown

Remember this is the millionaire lifestyle the glorious people’s revolutionary orcas are trying to stop you enjoying.

in reply to Sarah Brown

swans also live in London, so it serves londoners right for invading their territory.
in reply to Simon Waldman

@Simon Waldman Yes. People should stay out of waterfowl territory. It is their home, and the swans are simply defending themselves.


This is very good. huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/tra…



Farage, karma
A shit tonne of British people living in the EU have had their UK bank accounts closed because of you, so consider it karma, you nasty piece of shit. independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli…

reshared this

Unknown parent

re: Farage, karma

@same as it ever was I’m also politically exposed and yeah, they get seriously on your case because of it.

But I’m not dodgy, so I get to keep my accounts. Cheers, Nige 🥂



I can announce to all (four) my users that I have not been in talks with Facebook.

But I have posted stuff on there.



Should you see one of those “schoolchild identifies as cat” stories, note that at least one UK journalist has been spotted on social media offering money for stories from parents whose children “identify as cats”.

Which is, of course, going to result in totally accurate stories.

in reply to Sarah Brown

It resulted in such deliciously deliberately inaccurate stories that she had to delete her post.


The best bit about having your own fediverse server is the ability to go full Malcolm Tucker on reply guys and nobody can ban you for it.

Sure, server admins can defederate, but they probably aren't going to just because you told someone who has a desperate need to fuck off to fuck off.

DeterioratedStucco reshared this.

in reply to Sarah Brown

I don't have patience to setup an instance for myself, but the big reason to be would be the 500 char limit, which is increasingly pissing me off.


Watching a pair of flies go round and round aimlessly in my bedroom. They are clearly lost.

Humans are better than flies because shortly after developing flight, we developed air traffic control to avoid this problem.

Flies have been at this for a gazillion years and they don’t have ILS or navigation beacons or anything.

Bit shit of them really. Flies, do better!

reshared this

Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source
Susan Lewis
@Uraael windows are a one-way portal for a fly, a bit like in 2001.
in reply to Sarah Brown

would that mean I get to declare the area around my body and kitchen restricted airspace? Cause if so, I’m on board!

Coffee (Team CW) reshared this.



Apparently before carrot was domesticated, it was almost indistinguishable from hemlock.

I bet the story of how humanity sorted that one out is wild.

reshared this

Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source
IanMoore3000
I recall Guns Germs & Steel mentioning that not being poisonous in almonds is a recessive genetic characteristic, then speculating that some almonds being non poisonous might have been discovered by accident when a naughty child ate almonds and then didn't die.


Apparently Elon’s mum has grounded him and told him that he isn’t allowed to go and get the shit kicked out of him by the Facebook guy.

So that’s that.

in reply to Sarah Brown

He has a mother? And she didn’t ground him for his contributions to global fascism?
in reply to Alexandra Lanes

@ajlanes his particular apple didn't fall from any particularly distant trees. On either side.


Self checkout experience, Portugal: 12 year old puts 5 litres of vodka through; this is fine

Self checkout experience, UK: 49 year old woman buys ibuprofen; steady on, gonna have to run this by the feds

Baron Woke of Carlsberg reshared this.

Unknown parent

Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source
Alexandra Lanes
@geekylou I had age verification for a box of Rennie

in reply to Sarah Brown

Actually, just checked. Prevailing westerly. Don’t bother. It would be totally on brand for Russia to dirty bomb themselves though.
in reply to Sarah Brown

The more I think about the 'coup' in Russia, the more I wonder if it wasn't just a bit of staged performative theatre, in order for Putin to appear as the 'strong', 'authentic' leader.


Dear god, people cutting and pasting shit on social media without thinking what they’re doing. Just seen on Facebook:

“Don’t enter the sea at the indicated spot! It’s a rip current! It will take you offshore!”

Mate, you posted this in a stand up paddle boarding group. That’s exactly where you want to enter the sea, you muppet.

reshared this

Unknown parent

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
Sarah Brown
@Ghost of Hope To literally post it in a paddleboarding group tho 🤦🏼‍♀️



Elaine (middle left, top photo) wasn’t present for the reenactment so we had to improvise, but other than that, same people, 20 years apart. I’m the one at the back.


More Silo spoilers, probable ending scene of S1. Don't open unless you have read Wool.

So, S1 cliffhanger: I'm guessing it's going to be a zoom out from Juliette as she walks away, as Bernard says that line from the book, "Silo one, this is silo eighteen. We've got a problem."

Or is it going to show her entering Silo 17, and seeing that the airlock is jammed open, the silo is dark, and everyone is dead?

They're obviously playing up the whole, "the view screen is a lie" thing, so a huge part of the cliffhanger is gonna have to be the revelation that, no, the view screen is showing the truth (presumably by, as in the book, the skybox in the helmet view failing as she crests the hill. Seeing the ruins of Atlanta off in the distance would be quite dramatic). The human race is, indeed, almost extinct. The last sheriff and his wife did indeed die on that hill after cleaning the camera. There is indeed something very nasty out there. They're all dead, Dave.



Feels like the last 36 hours have been an excellent test of the Fediverse as a place to get and follow breaking news, and it did really well.
in reply to Sarah Brown

Couldn't agree more! The fact that posts were shown as they were made rather than jumbled around by an algorithm really helped get actual up-to-the-minute information rather than whatever had the most engagement.


Silo spoilers
No, Juliette. I'm afraid that your conclusion is incorrect.
in reply to Sarah Brown

Silo spoilers
Also, I'm pretty sure Sims doesn't know about ... it.


Living in the future where I can check up on and water my plants from 2000km away.

Jasper reshared this.


Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source
xs4me2

@northernlights
Yes indeed...

csis.org/blogs/brexit-bits-bob…

washingtonpost.com/politics/20…



Musk challenging fellow techno- oligarch arsehole, Mark Zuckerberg, to a cage fight is mind boggling Dunning-Kruger, even by his standards.

Musk is basically a walking heart attack waiting to happen. Zuckerberg will absolutely beat the crap out of him in pretty short order.

I hate them both, but I think I hate Musk more, and it’s a shame this thing isn’t actually going to happen, because I would dearly love to see him meet the limits of his own hubris.

reshared this

in reply to Sarah Brown

today I found out two things:

that Mark Zuckerberg explained that he’s recieved martial arts training from a young age on Joe Rogan’s podcast

and that a coworker apparently listen’s to Joe Rogan’s podcast

in reply to Sarah Brown

i added the information to the dossier of other suspect behavior I have noted from him
in reply to Luci Scissors

(he acts very very uncomfortable around me. but otherwise acts… mostly professional aside from
the conspicuously avoiding me and ghosting me)
in reply to Luci Scissors

this one is just kind of funny but he is also the only person in the whole department who refuses to say the cute catchphrase I coined
in reply to Luci Scissors

not that i expected *anyone* to copy me at all. but again, conspicuous
in reply to Luci Scissors

@bri_seven
It would of course be poor ifnormation hygeine for you to tell us that catchphrase, though that won't stop any of us from wanting to know.
@goatsarah
Unknown parent

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
Sarah Brown

@David I’m reminded of the time when I was a preteen. I was bullied a lot. My friend’s brother thought he could get in on the action. He positioned himself and a crowd of about 20-30 kids on a bit of green space on the route between our homes and challenged me to a fight, effectively blocking my way unless I agreed.

I didn’t want to, but he made it very clear that I wasn’t getting past without.

I was a year older. I was taller. I walked up to him, knocked him down, sat on him before he could get up, then put my arm across his neck until has face turned purple and he started crying.

Then I got up and walked away.

He went home and cried to his mum. She effectively game him the “fuck around and find out” lecture.

Don’t challenge bullied kids to fights. They have likely learned through experience. Zuckerberg looks like he was bullied a lot more than Musk was.



Flight today had a lady who was clearly a nervous flyer. We hit some moderately serious clear air turbulence over Normandy and she screamed and had a panic attack, and then as we were descending over London, same again in the thermals making the big clouds that are currently blanketing SE England.

She was having a very very bad time, and everyone else being calm around her didn't seem to help. I felt pretty bad for her. She was clearly terrified.

[empty] reshared this.



Well, it’s been nice knowing you all. Better text my login password to next of kin.
in reply to Sarah Brown

it's fine, they added a fix from a fighter jet so it can deal with being aerodynamically unstable...


The staff at Costa Coffee in Faro AirPort departure lounge now greet me as a regular. Wow!

(I would take the train if it existed. I buy a fuckton of carbon offsets)


Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source
FeralRobots
@Buster
For some reason this reminds me in part of Neil Young getting sued by his label for (among other things) using a vocoder on _Transformer_. (Framed by the label as 'not sounding like Neil Young. Which is hilarious to me because as a high school kid at the time it felt like a rare example of a middle-aged rocker actually doing something interesting instead of pandering to the kids.)
@goatsarah
Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source
Gen X-Wing

@Buster As an effect it’s pretty obvious, but when trying to sound natural it is still possible to hear it, but the number of people who can are quite few (as in you have to learn, not as in you have to be a super human).

Also depends on how bad the original is, and how willing they are to do retakes.

Also the people who can sing will burst out in song randomly. Jack Black can sing for sure. 😀



So apparently Facebook are naming their activitypub compatible network, “Threads”.

Interesting choice.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread…

Jack Allnutt reshared this.



Just discovered "Let The Right One In" on SkyShowtime and enjoying it a lot. Apparently they cancelled it after one season tho, which is a pity.
in reply to Sarah Brown

I'm glad you're...um...appreciating?...it. It's EXTREMELY Scandinavian & that doesn't appeal to everyone.
@mattb


Apparently I have been “rubbing people up the wrong way”, but in a plot twist, the “people” in question are pretty much universally arseholes.

Good.

reshared this

in reply to Sarah Brown

@ailbhe and what do they think will happen when they do kill and eat some poor bastard?

The entire pod and every other one they ever went near is getting depthcharged to make sure that doesn't stick and get passed on...

in reply to Kincaid

@Kincaid @Ailbhe yeah. If this doesn’t deescalate soon, it possibly ends in the extinction of the Iberian orca.

The Spanish marine authorities could have nipped this in the bud 3 years ago by culling 3 individuals, but decided malign indifference was a better approach because of the reason.



A common complaint about “disruptor” types is that they are entirely cavalier about tossing aside established practice without establishing whether or not it’s established for a bloody good reason.

A phrase often used by critics of these people is that safety standards and engineering regulations are “written in blood”.

I understand one of the people currently trapped in the “Fred in a very expensive shed” submarine is the man responsible for building the thing with obvious disdain for safety and engineering regs.

Tl;dr: fuck around and find out.

in reply to Sarah Brown

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

- Dr. Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

in reply to Sarah Brown

Didn't the captain of the Titanic have a "full steam ahead and damn the icebergs" mentality?


Once more for those at the back, because a lot of people seem kinda slow on the uptake. This is the sort of boat that Iberian orcas attack:

reshared this

in reply to Sarah Brown

Oh I see. So even your own replies to yourself are shown as comments?
in reply to Hughster

@Hughster Yes. It’s like Facebook. A top level post on my wall, with people commenting on it.

Which is why the insufferable wanker thing is annoying me. It feels intrusive.

And so they get blocked with extreme prejudice.



I run my own instance because I've seen trans people driven from social media sites one too many times, and I want to control my own destiny.

reshared this

in reply to Sarah Brown

What do you need to do that (over and above a basic laptop)?
in reply to Susan Lewis

@SusanLewis My Friendica server is running on this Mac Mini M2, in Docker. Ignore all the other crap in there.
in reply to Sarah Brown

Oh, lordy... I bet it's cozy in there! My Akkoma server (as of yesterday) is up on a shelf next to the UPS. 😀 @SusanLewis
All my 'gear' organised.... finally! Router, Firewall, Switch, Telecom, IPCamera and Wi-Fi wall mounted.  UPS and Akkoma server (and old Lenovo Thinkcentre) on the shelf above.
in reply to Sarah Brown

I'll see what happens. I'm not the most technologically minded, so I'll take it slowly
in reply to Susan Lewis

@SusanLewis If you aren’t comfortable with the Unix command line and editing system files on Linux, it’s going to be a very steep learning curve. Hosting fediverse servers is not something that has been packaged up in a “plug and go” way yet. You need to have a domain name, set up an HTTPS reverse proxy, an email server, database, etc.
in reply to Susan Lewis

@SusanLewis OK. You are gonna struggle to get it working then. Maybe someone will build a "home fediverse server" package that can run easily on a Mac or Windows machine, but they haven't yet, to my knowledge. It's currently a bit arcane.




Silo SPOILERS. DO NOT OPEN THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE READ AT LEAST THE SECOND BOOK
So the people down there are all descended from the US Democratic National Congress. Things would look a bit different if it had been the RNC instead.
in reply to Sarah Brown

Silo SPOILERS. DO NOT OPEN THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE READ AT LEAST THE SECOND BOOK

My brain won’t let nightmare go. Just imagining the RNC “longtermist” approach to silos is terrifying. Like schools: how would they combine vouchers and book bans?

At least the anti-union, “just work harder to get advancement” sentiment would go over great.

But then again, every hard right post-apocalyptic fiction ends up with collective ownership by the “good guys”.

in reply to : j@fabrica:~/src;

Silo SPOILERS. DO NOT OPEN THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE READ AT LEAST THE SECOND BOOK
@Joseph Holsten I mean, what’s actually going on is kinda more horrific anyway.