Robert
@robert@cornershop.network
My GenX brain is still processing the fact that the U.S. Army will use XBox and Playstation units to train their soldiers, for better hand/eye co-ordination.
If you would have told me that as a kid in the 80s, I probably wouldn't have believed it.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/u-s-army-bonus-grand-theft-auto-9.7314505?cmp=rss
Ugh, I did updates from the app store on my Mac. One of them was Bitwarden. Since it was open, I got asked if I wanted to close the app to finish updating. Yes please, and so the update was done.
Now I can't view the items in my vault in the app AND in the browser extension. The settings screen, Generate password option do work.
I have to use Bitwarden in the browser in order to get to my passwords.
Maybe a next Mac App update will fix it? Is it a bug? Would clearing cache somewhere help? Probably a reinstall will do the trick, but somehow I have the feeling it won't.
@gruber this is what I got clicking on your BMW/Marvel ad link. The irony of a post about dystopian ads preventing you from reading it unless you allow ads.
@Linusedwards You're slightly ahead of me, but I'm right behind you. Just posted this:
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/08/06/stopthescript-is-a-dickover-killer
@gruber @Linusedwards Some browsers, like Brave, have per-site Javascript blocking built-in.
@shepgo @Linusedwards Quiche Browser has a particularly convenient UI for disabling JS per-website:
@gruber @Linusedwards I remember you mentioning that. But there's no Quiche browser for Mac, and Brave/Mac lets me use Chrome extensions. (And it incorporates uBlock Origin and can load custom blocklists, like ones for specific countries, or video sites.)
Orion’s ability to run most Chrome and Firefox extensions is an unusual feature but it does not implement every WebExtensions API, so compatibility is not 100% and I don’t know of any Firefox plugin functionality unavailable in a Chromium browser anyway. Cool tech/trick though.
With Google deprecating uBo and seemingly soon removing it from its Extensions Store I’m more comfortable with Brave’s hosting it and building the tech into its browser
A new report suggests the money spent on deportations across the United States could be spent on funding over 925,000 schoolteachers or pay for over 5 million veterans' medical care.
The findings from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) showed federal tax dollars being spent down to the state and county levels,
as the Trump administration has drastically ramped up immigration enforcement over the past 18 months with the goal of mass deportations
https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-ice-deportation-costs-every-us-county-12288386#Echobox=1785959925
RE: https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/117039152052900704
Something about a lion and a face? If even Republican Governors are pushing back, that's quite the shift...
Texas halts data center connections to power grid amid overwhelming demand
Governor who touted Texas as AI “epicenter” pauses data center grid connections.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/08/texas-halts-data-center-connections-to-power-grid-amid-overwhelming-demand/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social
My cancellable take is that curl whatever | bash isn't meaningfully worse than all the other awful ways of installing software that are deemed okay by the greybeards
Like wget whatever; ./configure; make; make install is Old Unix and therefore good despite being functionally identical. But it's okay because rather than a *nix newbie installing something without carefully auditing the source code, it's someone who knows what Slackware is
However, your argument is not wrong. Any idiot who doesn't actually read the script they downloaded before running it deserves whatever he'll may be unleashed upon their system.
Counter argument: the people who don't check the script deserves the great lesson they will learn.
The fact that someone is new at something, and trusts what they see as authoritative voices online to fix an issue don't make them idiots. Just new.
The lesson to learn is that too often people skilled in one area are absolute garbage in others: like communication, or understanding how complex issues deserve well thought out fixes, carefully described.
@alex `curl | sh` is seen as worse because it's an escape valve for the usual modus operandi, which is to use the process of installing software as a purity test inflicted on the user:
- build the software yourself, from source, to show you are Good Enough To Be One Of Us
- accept your fate as an Idiot User, who needs the benevolence of the distro provider to build it for you
`curl | sh` is something a non-nerd power user can vaguely follow along with. it lets a user install software _without_ approval from the petty authority of the greybeards. all technical critiques are secondary to this
@pearfalse Get Florpbop today!
Windows [Download]
macOS [Download]
Linux installation guide
First you gotta know if your Linux takes Deborahs or Revolutions Per Minute. Alternatively we're in the flap store but you can't make phone calls with that one because. Ubuntu takes Deborahs but please wear this snapback instead. Arch users get the OAR (Unofficial malware edition). Apt dnf yum yum copr make it stop please ppappa
Every once in a while, the internet delivers sublime joy.
#humor #foundontheinternet #magritte #comewithmeifyoufearthetreacheryofimages
Another reasons to tut at the Mercator Map projection - how a circle with a radius of 5,000km, centred on Paris, looks according the Mercator map
@infobeautiful As a sailor it has a specific use… I guess sailing was the main use for charts back then anyway!
@infobeautiful
Do you have the source of the image ?
I was a little bit disturb by the triangle shape of the cercle and doing my own research i found something like that :
https://www.mapdevelopers.com/draw-circle-tool.php?circles=%5B%5B4978948.47%2C48.8521033%2C2.3298956%2C%22%23AAAAAA%22%2C%22%23000000%22%2C0%5D%5D
That seem to me more realistic for the projection from a globe to a cylinder : the cercle should look like an ellipse
@infobeautiful that's not right, it's it? The Mercator projection is conformal; a circle should not map to a non-circular closed shape. It could be infinitely large.
@infobeautiful The purpose of a Mercator map is to measure correct angles, not correct lengths or areas. For this there are different projections.
@infobeautiful A beautiful representation of people not understanding what Mercator projections are. Also, as others pointed out, the map is cropped and the "circle" is incorrectly drawn.
@infobeautiful This didn't look right to me, and I found this Reddit discussion correcting it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/MQI41JeT1j
If anything the "guitar pick" is understating the distortion.
disney's wish feels like it was written by chatgpt. and I'm not saying it was (I'm sure it wasn't. it was written too early for it for one) but I mean everything about it from the plot to the dialogue to the jokes feels like 'here's the statistically most likely thing to go here'
and I suspect what actually happened is that everything about it just got committeed to death, all the actual creativity got sanded down into the safest version of itself until you have something that just feels like slop
I saw it once, and I recited the lines with the characters.
@mwl turns out you don't need llms to write like llms. cynical studios picking the focus group favored option at every fork can achieve the same effect
If you're a gay man on IG, it's good at showing you hot men -- for some definition of hot. On the fedi that's much harder and I would argue is one of the real but stupid reasons it's harder to get the gays off IG.
Following tags is not practical because many tags have been taken over by the NFSW "content curators" who are posting other people's content -- which is why I don't use any in my selfies.
But there's a way to do curation: dedicated boost accounts.
1/x
A really great NSFW example of this is @Consexual (legit: NSFW) who is boosting NSFW content posted by real, masc-presenting fedi users. They are doing curation the right way and it's lovely (also: hot).
I'm considering creating a fedi account that would consensually *boost* SFW selfies of masc-presenting, real fedi users. It would not post any original content or content of others, just boosts.
Now for poll time.
2/x
If there was a fedi account that was consensually boosting selfies of masc-presenting, real fedi users -- which might include shirtless as well as clothed selfies -- would you follow that account?
3/x
| yes: | 37 |
| no: | 18 |
Closed
If you are a masc-presenting individual who sometimes posts selfies, would you consent to having those boosted to such an account? Your consent would be explicitly obtained beforehand.
4/4
| yes: | 28 |
| no: | 8 |
Closed
@gairdeachas It would depend on how much activity there is. I don't want my feed overtaken by porn. I would like a happy balance in my feed.
Love your idea @gairdeachas I don’t miss all the porn that flooded my IG when I was still on that but I do like NSFW and SFW pictures of hot real men. Real here meaning not AI generated content or edited content by ‘creators’. @Consexual is a good example indeed and to be honest I find it really flattering that account follows me 😱😁
A supportive Yes and Yes from me on your poll. Goodluck 😚
@gairdeachas bluesky has already occupied that ecological niche
@ytetic That may be, but BS can die in a fire for all I care for corp-owned social media.
@gairdeachas it really boggles me but I still keep hearing about how masto is "too difficult to use". 🤷🏻♂️
A good reminder that “originalism” means believing that America was better when only white male property holding Christians could vote and even they couldn’t be trusted to vote for Presidents and Senators. https://www.pennlive.com/news/2026/06/scott-perry-joins-push-to-revoke-17th-amendment-strip-voters-of-electing-senators.html
@SeanCasten The regime likes to throw things to state legislatures they control and act in accordance with the regime’s dictates. When the state legislature in VA and the voters acted to add Dem congressional districts, the MAGA legislators and the MAGA VA Supreme Court blocked them. They are shamelessly disingenuous - playing Calvinball whether the window dressing is “states rights” or “originalism” the goal is the same.
@SeanCasten George Carlin (1937 - 2008) put it rather well:
“America was founded by a group of slaveowners… Who wanted to be free.”
@SeanCasten Without right-wing gerrymandered control of state legislatures, Republicans wouldn't be proposing anything to increase alleged state sovereignty.
It's not 1789. Why should a state have more sovereignty than a county within a state? When 21st century anti-democratic extremists leverage claims of state sovereignty to attack rights, as they did in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, they're attacking the legitimacy of the US.
@SeanCasten the problem is that even THAT frame grants that originalism is an actual THING - that it's got some kind of intellectual validity, even if one based on a racist framework.
it doesn't. it has always been pseudo-intellectual nonsense, a made up excuse for Scalia and his disciples to claim that whatever bullshit they made up this week wasn't just their political preferences dressed up. that somehow he had the unique ability to mind meld with the founders.
@SeanCasten can’t gerrymander a state, so we have to eliminate statewide elections!
They really do want to repeal the 20th century
@SeanCasten it's a PR stun, even if the democrat where to take back both chamber, they would not have enough vote, to change the constitution.
IT's Electoral BS (and i say that without judging is this good or not, i'm not knowledgage enough in the US worst electrorial system of all country, because big elector and etc is an outdated voting mechanism ... and even in 1913 it was already outdated in many other country.
So the US way to vote need to change ... once trump is ousted, so a neutral voting system can be born.
Hmmm. I couldn't help but notice that 'only white male property holding Christians' were not at all Christian-like when they brought tens of thosands of slaves to this country to do their bidding ... or else.
I don't recall anything in the New Testiment about Christ being OK with slavery. So it appears that white male property holders are open to compromising their supposed values when the price is right ....
In that light, maybe they'd be wise to keep their stupid mouths shut.
Why are people on Apple TV shows doing speech to text for messages? Sexting speech to text? Girl
Also, I knew that one guy was going to do something bad because he didn't have an iPhone
@motoridersd Sexting speech to text sounds terrible. Now a sexting voice memo? That can be fun. 😈
Apparently this was in the Boston globe
As per usual. Showing how it can be done and gaining respect everywhere they go.
As they said in #Germany during the last Euros
"No Scotland. No party!"
#Scotland #football #WorldCup #TartanArmy #soccer #NoScotlandNoParty
So my local library doesn't support OverDrive. If I want to check out an eBook, I have to use a Android or iOS app.
That sucks.
My Kobo reader isn't Android. So, this has me looking at Android-based eReaders and wow that's a crapshoot.
@robdaemon Not to disparage the Coachella Valley libraries (because I legit paid for a visitor's PS library card for a year), but you still have access to the KCLS library, yes?
@gairdeachas That's true, I do :)
It's the Riverside County Public Library that's the problem. Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert and Palm Springs have their own library systems that work with OverDrive. 😢
@robdaemon Boo RCPL.
I'm 99% confident that as a CA resident you can get a free PS library card, FWIW. As a non-CA resident I tossed them something like $30 for a library card for a year (mostly because I wanted to support the local library -- I still got most of my books from SPL or KCLS).
@robdaemon It was actually quite funny when I went into get my PS library card the first time. The woman was desperately trying to find some way to get me one for free -- asking about where I lived, library reciprocity, etc.
And I just wanted to give her money to support the library and bonus be able to get books out easily.
@robert @gairdeachas I did email the Riverside County Public Library to ask for OverDrive in the future.
Try Fontana or Claremont or the SB County library, I guess
RE: https://woof.group/@dkub/116751263913141847
The Atari game should've been ET. It was so bad they destroyed every copy of it.
I came across a problem in #ed where I couldn't change a url, because it was full of slashes, which made the substitution command fail. I popped into vi to make that change, but then thought about how I might do it in ed in the future.
What I realized is that I could split the lines where the URL stops and ends, replace the line that had just the URL itself (pasting in the new URL without having to backslash-escape the slashes), and then re-join the lines.
Of course, NOW I just realized I could've done s,([^)]*),(new_url), instead, but whatevs, lol
rld@Intrepid:~$ ed
a
Here is some text
I need to change [this link](https://example.com/some/stuff/here), ok?
some more text
.
,n
1 Here is some text
2 I need to change [this link](https://example.com/some/stuff/here), ok?
3 some more text
2s/(/(\
/
,n
1 Here is some text
2 I need to change [this link](
3 https://example.com/some/stuff/here), ok?
4 some more text
3s/)/\
)/
,n
1 Here is some text
2 I need to change [this link](
3 https://example.com/some/stuff/here
4 ), ok?
5 some more text
2a
https://archive.org/details/plan9designintro/mode/2up
.
,n
1 Here is some text
2 I need to change [this link](
3 https://archive.org/details/plan9designintro/mode/2up
4 https://example.com/some/stuff/here
5 ), ok?
6 some more text
4d
,n
1 Here is some text
2 I need to change [this link](
3 https://archive.org/details/plan9designintro/mode/2up
4 ), ok?
5 some more text
2,4j
,n
1 Here is some text
2 I need to change [this link](https://archive.org/details/plan9designintro/mode/2up), ok?
3 some more text
In case you need it, the s command also takes a count as a flag, allowing you to do the Nth replacement without touching the other matches:
$ ed
a
xxxxx
.
s/x/X/4p
xxxXx
@rl_dane @ed1conf
It makes me so excited that you've been genuinely using ed(1) lately! The better you understand it, the better you'll understand it's descendents and relatives.
I'd like to plug @mwl's "Ed Mastery" if you aren't aware of it: https://www.tiltedwindmillpress.com/product/ed/
Even if you're already an ed(1) master, it's a fun, quick read and supports one of the greatest Unix authors around.
Just FYI, I can't seem to do any highlighting on the .kepub version of the book on my Kobo Clara Color. It lets me select text, even pick a color, and then it just goes *poof*
Even when trying to create a note, the same thing happens. Nothing listed in the annotations section, either.
I don't know if that's something you can look into, might be an issue with the conversion pipeline? 
The regular epub version does, but for some reason, the font is abnormally large on that. Don't know if that's just a Kobo thing.
thank you for buying direct, first of all.
and that eliminates my ability to blame it on the kobo store, dang it.
Truth is, I have no idea what's wrong? Annotation should be a function of the device, not the file? The books are DRM-free and as unlocked as I know how to make them.
You're welcome!
Yeah, I'm guessing it's some kobo EPUB (not DRM) black magick... some kind of metadata their reader doesn't like or something. Not a big deal. ;)
I wish I knew why the Kobo was interpreting the font size of the regular .EPUB as so huge. It looks fine when I view it in zathura (uses mupdf to render epubs) :D
.kepub format use their own better renderer/software.Even if reading regular books, always try to put them through something like kepubify (or use something like Calibre) to make sure you get a better experience.
It is on there, and they even have a print/epub combo. ;)
https://www.tiltedwindmillpress.com/product/ed/
P.S. love the snark on the Manly McManface edition, Michael. XD
(I almost bought that version ;)
Today’s lesson in unfortunate font use comes courtesy of Portugal’s Federação Académica do Desporto Universitário.
(1/2)
Love Language
The undying dream of Esperanto
by Katie Thornton
Books in Esperanto at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/bookshelf/34
Watching Designing Women is funny because it's very mid 80s in the US. A lot of these jokes wouldn't land with many people, especially younger ones.
Would you understand a joke around "Imelda Marcos"?
| of course! 👠: | 54 |
| who?: | 9 |
Closed
@motoridersd I feel the same about the OG Will and Grace. So many references we have to explain to the boyfriend when we watch together.
@motoridersd
I think the poll results are just reflecting the rather, er, mature demographic of the fediverse.
Because of the unusually warm season, they may open early. Traditionally, the owner would close for winter and take the employees on vacation. I imagine when they open will be tied to opening the pass into Yosemite.
Take it as a sign, and abandon the data-harvesters.
Fun fact for Seattleites:
Privately owned parking lots with predatory parking fees can't actually enforce any "parking fines" that they send to you. If it's not a ticket from the city, you can literally just ignore it. (Looking at you, Black Diamond and AirGarage).
The worst they can ever do is try to send it to collections, and if they do that, you can easily request that they provide validation of the debt in writing within 30 days. Once you make that request, the collection agency can't do ANYTHING. They can't contact you, they can't contact anyone you know, and they can't report it to a credit agency. It also immediately puts the burden of proof on them. How do they know it was you? They can't possibly know without security footage (which they don't have). Even if they do, there's a bunch of other things they have to prove to link you to the debt, and then prove that in court and it is absolutely not worth their time or money to do so. They will drop the debt immediately and you will never hear from them again.
"Operations Help Desk, can I have your customer number?"
Evil.
I like it.
My favourite is (works best with a heavy accent): "Russian embassy, how may I help you?"
@mwl Thank yoink.
@mwl you can then end the conversation with "Many tanks to you!" and immediately hang up.
In the past I have used:
Forces of Evil PLC, how may we assist you?
Gnome Central, Junior Gnome speaking, how may I help you?
The one that is the current favourite is "Alligator Control", which does seem to distract some of the cold callers, but was what I used when doing Tech Support for $Dayjob on my personal mobile. Ops got used to it. It's now force of habit I'm afraid.
@mwl 1
On the same theory as "if someone asks if you're a god..."
@mwl "Feuerwehrleitzentralemünsterlandost?"
If you say this as if it is one word - fast and aggressive - 90% of callers hang up immediately.
@mwl
I've found great benefit in answering as my own answering-service. "How may I direct your call? Oh, you'd like to speak with Tim? Yes, please leave your name, business name, and a good callback number in case he's interested. If you can't provide a callback number, it generally indicates you're a spammer or scammer and not worth his time."
If they're dumb enough to leave an actual callback number ("no, I'm afraid your number isn't showing up on my caller-ID, so I'll need you to provide a callback number"), I can trot off to the FTC Do Not Call page to report a complaint against the number.
Most get flustered until they hang up.
@mwl A long time ago, while running their Ottawa call center, I simply couldn’t stop myself from answering phone calls with « Pizza Pizza, may I have your phone number please? » when I was tired
I am... really tempted to pin this to the top of my account... Print it and put it on my office door... send it as my email signature... wear it around my neck at conferences....
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180727-mansplaining-explained-in-one-chart
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