Now is a good time for doing crime
Eons ago, in 2012, I had a weird experience.
My iPhone suddenly shut down.
When I restarted it, I found it was totally reset—clean, like a new device.
This was the early days of iOS, so I wasn’t too concerned until I went to connect it to my computer to restore it from a backup.
But when I flipped open the lid of my laptop, it too was mid-restart.
And then, suddenly, the screen went gray. It was being remotely wiped.

Now is a good time for doing crime
New technology always means new kinds of crime—and new ways to fight it.

From time to time I need to lookup some rarely used vi commands. Good to have a vi reference card laying around at my desk 😀 #vintagecomputing #cray #vi

“Welcome to the first Long Links of this so-far-pretty-lousy 2026. I can’t imagine that anyone will have time to take in all of these, but there’s a good chance one or two might brighten your day.” https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2026/02/03/Long-Links
This ti…

Long Links

OK, I was being sarcastic with “that’s nice,” but seriously, the good news here is that the last few days they’ve been viciously threatening legal observers, sometimes at gunpoint, at levels about as high as any time in Jan and •far• higher than Dec
oh wait
That was bad news too, nm

Calling all Nordic meteorologists:
Nordic Meteorology Meeting #NMM26 will be held for first time ever in Faroe Islands.
They have negotiated some good transport deals reductions for ECRs.
It's a fun crowd and some nice excursions. Come join us
https://www.greengate.fo/events/nordic-meteorological-meeting

IME, a lot of good information on how to achieve things with the #OpenHAB Rules DSL requires good searching on the OpenHAB forums or mining through the Javadoc.
I thought I'd use Claude over the weekend/last night to help generify some stuff in my config, and it suggested a cool approach whereby I could put metadata against items and then use that metadata in my rules to customise b…

Having a turntable for the first time in 25 years means I get to listen to music I've only thought of in passing since the 20th century. Some of it's not so good. This one really stands up, though.

Some non-news, but good to raise awareness.
TL;DR "structural waste amplified by CI/CD pipelines, security scanners, and AI-driven code generation"
... just cache your stuff or pay for hosting, thanks.
https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/28/open_source_opinio…

Open source devs consider making hogs pay for every Git pull
Opinion: Careless big-time users are treating FOSS repos like content delivery networks

Why is it the case that we can't copy text anymore on the phone? You used to be able to hold and select to copy, but "hold" doesn't do anything now, half of the time. I think this mostly happens in apps, like Rightmove or Outlook. Is this just me? Is there a trick to make it good again?
#PhoneProblems

Terence, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well the horned head:
We poor lads, 'tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time.

Had a fun time talking about my tiny CM system at @…. Lots of good questions and discussion.
It’s pretty well baked now, as ever more to do but keen to find more users for feedback and discussion.
Check out its revamped website:

Seems like both my iPad-with-pencil input apps have been bought by other companies so that’s probably Not Good (TM) Does anyone have recommendations for either handwriting input or sketchnoting ipad apps that are one-time payment and don’t require internet connection at all times? Bonus points for supporting NextCloud for sync!

signs you're having a good time: you have some rust code. it is panicking. this is the only debug information you are provided with:

It's that time of year... Cold, dry, washing your hands a lot from holiday travels and cooking.
If you're not a fan of greasy stinky lotions I can recommend this. You know it's the good stuff when it comes in a featureless white gallon jug with barely any branding.

Twilight of the Big Bang
Good evening. Twilight started at 12:00:01 Coordinated Universal Time, yesterday. It's been nice seeing you!
#Civilization #SlipperySlope #Physics

If you're stuck in a doom loop, stop here for a moment.
Doom scrolling to see the exact moment we're all gonna die in nuclear hellfire isn't a good use of time. Choose something with longer term impact and focus on that. If we all die, you won't know the difference. If we live, you won't have wasted your time doom scrolling.
Good luck. I hope you do something cool.
#Iran

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #HuwStephens
Kim Deal:
🎵 A Good Time Pushed
#KimDeal
https://kimdeal.bandcamp.com/track/a-good-time-pushed
https://open.spotify.com/track/7mafJGWvI8JfsZlrMvfifX

Very good talk at #fosdem by @…
We (open-source developers) are now in a position to decide. If you work in an organization that decides to change direction, this matters to you and your open source project.
This is why …

We are watching The Sound of Music, for the 1000th time. It's always moving, but now the anschluss feels more relevant than it has ever been since 1938, when I was 2 years old. There is now a real danger of fascism taking over again. I'm too old to do much about it. Good luck to next generation.

I don't mind a Misha as the new Melvin at all. This is good stuff.
[In Our Time] On Liberty #inOurTime
https://podcastaddict.com/in-our-time/episode/216969316 via…

In Our Time - On Liberty
Listen to In Our Time - On Liberty by BBC Radio 4 on Podcast Addict. Journalist, author and historian Misha Glenny presents his first edition of In Our Time, succeeding Melvyn Bragg who retired from this role last summer. Misha and his guests discuss the landmark work On Liberty by John Stuart Mill, published in 1859 and the increasing recognition for his wife Harriet Taylor Mill's contribution. The subject matter of the essay is ‘civil or social

Be careful when you use the phrase "It's Good Enough" the next time: #publicvoit

Matthew Stafford, Rams prepare to play Seahawks for 3rd time: 'As good a defense as we faced all year' https://www.nfl.com/news/matthew-stafford-rams-prepare-to-play-seahawks-third-time-as-good-a-defense

Europeans are dangerously reliant on US tech. Now is a good time to build our own | Johnny Ryan | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/17/europeans-are-dangerously-reliant-on-us-t…

Friday Links 26-04
It is a bit sad that he is leaving In Our Time, but I enjoyed the interview with Melvyn Bragg.
The blog post about curiosity as a leader is short and great.
https://christof.damian.net…

Well I hope Novak and Carlos give their absolute best not only for the good of tennis but also so they are still playing by the time I wake up 😅 #AustralianOpen

1. Plan going to Opole, via Kościan.
2. When you enter the train to Kościan, you discover that the change to Opole is delayed 15 minutes already. Consider changing in Leszno instead; if the delay increases, you'd have more options there.
3. Discover that there aren't any more options in Leszno today. Your change is delayed 30 minutes already. Return the reservations, and take one the other way, to Poznań instead.
4. Train station in Kościan. The displays aren't showing any delays, trains are announced normally. Tell people about the delays, so they won't stand in the -10°C waiting for the train to arrive.
5. Take the train to Poznań, and try to figure out what to do next.
6. Discover that the only reasonable choice going forward is Inowrocław: no delays and good return connection. It's the same train, so take another reservation. Your current seat is already taken there, so move elsewhere.
7. Your train should be followed by another one in the same direction, that departs from Poznań 6 minutes later. However, your train ends up waiting for another delayed train, so the other train goes first. The delay further increases as your train needs to slow down after the other train.
8. Reach Inowrocław 10 minutes later. That's not a problem, since you didn't have enough to see for all the time there anyway.
9. Discover that the town is more interesting than you thought, and you'd use more time.
10. When you almost get to the station, discover that your train is 10 minutes late. Not that you have any use for that time at this point.
11. When you're at the station, the train keeps increasing delay while waiting at the previous station, in Bydgoszcz. The station displays are completely useless, as they show only a random subset of regional trains, for no apparent reason. The announcements include all trains, but are rarely given.
12. The delay keeps increasing. Start thinking about getting a reservation for the next train to Poznań, in case it arrived first. You can't return the reservation after the planned departure time, and you can't have two reservations simultaneously, so reserve the seat from Mogilno, the next station.
13. The next train arrives first. While on board, you discover that you're not going to have any train home for 1.5 hr. Take another seat reservation to Leszno, where you can change into a suburban train and get home 15 minutes earlier than from Poznań. This time, your seat is still free.
14. The train departs 15 minutes delayed from Poznań. After all, you're changing trains in Kościan.
So I was going to go south, to Opole, via Kościan. Instead, I've ended up slingshotting north to Inowrocław, and getting back home via the same train as if I were in Opole.
#rail

"Living in Europe is no protection against Donald #Trump bricking your digital life."
#DigitalSovereignty

At work we are part of a EU funded research project. These days it's actually expected to track your social media presence for "impact". So I have to listen to a 10 minute report by someone counting the amounts of likes some meaningless post got on instagram. This is a good investment of everyone's time and money.

Did Performance

Played two Loopy gigs

Just a tiny birthday party and in a camping field with friends.
This is probably about the target number really.
It's nice to play now and then but couldn't be monthly or anything even more frequent.
Didn't feel like either went great. Health issues affecting performance plus nerves
Just one with video of any kind.
Added a couple of great songs to the playlists, need to practise more really.
At the end of a Hoopla class and the end of
a self-organised group class.
They were good fun.
But having to book a course every eight weeks means constantly churning co-players and long gaps where I don't get around to it or it was all booked up.
Tried to get a more permanent group going...
Trying to get some sort of indie-group off
the group rather than just short runs of
classes with new people all the time.
We found a group an booked the room but didn't get most of the actual people to turn up. Need to presumably meet more people up for that sort of thing.
So there will be new improv class starting
in Jan.
A new show in March at least.

Peter Dinklage recites poem for Renee Good who was murdered by fascist pramilitary invaders. (unknown place and time)
Source:
#politics

Cowboys release 2-time Pro Bowler Trevon Diggs with one game remaining https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6929799/2025/12/30/trevon-diggs-released-cowboys/

Matt Yglesias on X:
I hope that it all works out. Sincerely. The Iranian regime is genuinely bad and so is nuclear proliferation.
Years ago, there was a deal in place
— the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
— that had a lot of downsides from the standpoint of Iran’s regional adversaries
but which did a good job of ensuring a non-nuclear Iran.
A set of hawks in the United States did not like JCPOA, criticized it at the time, worked to undermine its imple…

Haven't blogged about #photography for about 3 weeks! I felt it was time to change that and write about our walk near #murnau .
It was a really good day for experimenting and practicing my photography skills. Enjoy!

I was wondering why I hadn't seen any announcement of today's local general strike. So I searched.
It's on Instagram, and I left ALL Meta services at the time of the Cambridge Analytical scandal.
Why are so many good youth activists still supporting Zuckerberg's empire? Supporting a business that cozies up to the tangerine tyrant?
Surely they can do better.
#QuitMetaNow

I was wondering why I hadn't seen any announcement of today's local general strike. So I searched.
It's on Instagram, and I left ALL Meta services at the time of the Cambridge Analytical scandal.
Why are so many good youth activists still supporting Zuckerberg's empire? Supporting a business that cozies up to the tangerine tyrant?
Surely they can do better.
#QuitMetaNow

Galway City Tribune article announcing my run for the Galway West bye-election.
As most working people know, the current way society is structured is driving us to working long hours often for little pay. It's time that working hard meant having a good life with a secure home.
The successive governments of Fine Gael & Fianna Fšil have put the interests & profits of landlords and investment funds over the needs and housing security of ordinary people.
I've …

A 14th century parable about agentic #AI transformation:
Tamerlane was looking for someone to teach his donkey to talk. Nobody wanted the job. Finally the wise man of the dunes, Hodja Nasreddin, took the position and promised to teach the donkey to talk in 10 years time.
- Are you crazy? his friends asked him.
- Not really, Nasreddin answered. The money is good the job is not hard and…

So I’m cooling my heels in my Dr. office waiting for my shingles booster (45m past my appointment time & counting!) - this woman who works here just walked by dressed like she’s going straight clubbing after work & I am here for it, looks good. 😂
She’s also one of the few staff masking so 🤘

Good Morning #Canada
Tomorrow one of Canada’s largest winter events kicks off in Ottawa. #Winterlude2026 runs from January 30th to February 16th, and may be considered in the top 2 winter festivals in Canada. Somewhere to the east, Bonhomme looks on dismissively.
A million plus attendees are expected to attend, assisted and pointed in the right direction by several hundred volunteers. The full 7.8 km length of the Rideau Canal Skateway, the equivalent of 90 ice rinks, is open for skating. The festival's mascots, the Ice Hogs family of Mama, Papa, Numa, and Numei, are opening their home in the Snowflake Kingdom and are ready to give hugs to all Winterlude visitors. Ice sculptors from around the world will compete in (checks notes) ice sculpting.
I think it's time for a #MercerMemories ...
https://youtu.be/GYgNY3xywCA

High-bandwidth frequency domain multiplexed readout of transition-edge sensors for neutrinoless double beta decay searches
M. Adami\v{c} (McGill,LBNL), M. Beretta (UCB,INFN), J. Camilleri (LBNL,Virginia Tech), C. Capelli (LBNL,Zurich U.), M. A. Dobbs (McGill), T. Elleflot (LBNL), B. K. Fujikawa (LBNL), Yu. G. Kolomensky (LBNL,UCB), D. Mayer (MIT), J. Montgomery (McGill), V. Novosad (ANL), A. M. Sindhwad (UCB), V. Singh (UCB), G. Smecher (t0.technology), A. Suzuki (LBNL), B. Welliver (UCB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.23106 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.23106 https://arxiv.org/html/2601.23106
arXiv:2601.23106v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: The next-generation of cryogenic neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments require increasingly fast readout in order to improve background discrimination. These experiments, operated as cryogenic calorimeters at $\sim$10 mK, are usually read out by high-impedance neutron transmutation doped (NTD) thermistors, which provide good energy resolution, but are limited by $\sim$1 ms response times. Superconducting detectors, such as transition-edge sensors (TESs) with a time resolution of $\sim$100 $\mu$s, offer superior timing performance over NTD semiconductor bolometers. To make this technology viable for an application to a thousand or more channels, multiplexed readout is necessary in order to minimize the thermal load and radioactive contamination induced by the readout. Frequency-domain multiplexing readout (fMux) for TESs, previously developed at Berkeley Lab and McGill University, is currently in use for mm-wave telescopes with detector sampling rates in the order of 100 Hz. We demonstrate a new readout system, based on the McGill/Berkeley digital fMux readout, to satisfy the higher bandwidth and noise requirements of the next generation of TES-instrumented cryogenic calorimeters. The new readout samples detectors at 156 kHz, three orders of magnitude faster than its cosmology-oriented predecessor. Each multiplexing readout module comprises ten superconducting resonators in the MHz range and a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID), interfaced to high-bandwidth field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based electronics for digital signal processing and low-latency feedback.
toXiv_bot_toot

"Denmark is not doing it's job and not being a good ally" , according to Vance. Offensive and provocative. Also speaks openly about "acquiring" Greenland.
It is time for the EU to stop playing "nice" with this explicit agressive behaviour by the US.
https://bsk…

Olga Nesterova (@onestpress.onestnetwork.com)
They’re again advocating against Denmark when it comes to Greenland

Niners GM John Lynch: We've had 'good and substantive meetings' regarding Trent Williams' contract https://www.nfl.com/news/niners-gm-john-lynch-we-ve-had-good-and-substantive-meetings-regarding-trent-williams-…

The state of the Cascadia bioregion
https://www.cascadia-journal.com/the-state-of-the-cascadia-bioregion/
Andrew Engelson makes a very clear case for taking Washington State and Oregon out of the US
BC now seems to be convinced that we should incr…

The state of the Cascadia bioregion
The day after the US emperor gave his annual speech full of lies, I thought it might be good time to review the state of the Cascadia bioregion. The Cascadia bioregion is strong, but it is also under threat. The combined economic output of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia is

I'm really impressed by the accuracy of the CASIO watches. My new A168WA didn't drift a second in the last month. There were good back in the 90s already. But seem to have improved on that front since. @…

"strncpy() is a weird function with a crappy API."
good thing I don't do C 🙃
Seriously though - projects defining their own strc(o)py do mean flaws in a standard library.
https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2025/12/29/no-strcpy-either/

no strcpy either
Some time ago I mentioned that we went through the curl source code and eventually got rid of all strncpy() calls. strncpy() is a weird function with a crappy API. It might not null terminate the destination and it pads the target buffer with zeroes. Quite frankly, most code bases are probably better off completely … Continue reading no strcpy either →

For the last few weeks we have been (repeatedly) checking out a newly found pizza near our house.
Bookie’s Pizza in Santa Cruz.
It's really good!!! (But next time I get the BBQ chicken pizza I'll have 'em elide the cilantro - I am not a fan of cilantro.) Tonight I had the sausage pizza - that the the BBQ chicken (sans cilantro) are my favorites so far.

Mac Allister with a header that crossed the line before the keeper could parry it back out.
Good flick on from Ekitike, but a bit of box slop. About time that happend FOR #LFC
Is that two set piece goals in two games?
#LFC

Would be a good time for that guy to snitch on his fellow criminals

What's the last book you read where, if asked whether you thought reading it had been a good way to spend your time, you would not just say "Sure, I think so," but "Hell yeah!"?

Giants, Lions, Raiders get good news from latest Ravens free-agent rumor https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/detroit-lions/news/giants-lions-raiders-good-news-latest-ravens-free-agent-rumor/14bd00e7fb45af…

A good friend of mine has the Muppet character "Beaker" as his avatar. For reasons.
He offers me advice. I offer him advice. We chat. These are #ChatsWithBeaker

Once upon a time there was a DOS user who saw Unix, and saw that it was
good. After typing cp on his DOS machine at home, he downloaded GNU's
unix tools ported to DOS and installed them. He rm'd, cp'd, and mv'd
happily for many days, and upon finding elvis, he vi'd and was happy. After
a long day at work (on a Unix box) he came home, started editing a file,
and couldn't figure out why he couldn't suspend vi (w/ ctrl-z) to do
a comp…

> for a large share of actual product work, the person who can say "here is what done looks like, prove it without seeing my rubric" is more valuable than the person who can write the code.
> Implementation is what AI is getting good at. Knowing whether the result actually solves the real problem is not an engineering judgment call, it is a domain judgment call.
Reposting to call out those two quotes and agree that this matches my experience as a staff developer…

I’m London ON for some family health stuff.
We ended up at The Bombay Vibes https://thebombayvibes.ca - in a little strip mall next to / inside of an indian grocery store.
I had panj puri for the first time, aloo tikki chaat, samosas, and paneer tikka masala with rice and garlic naan.
Very good!

“16 Republican electeds could stop this. Tonight. If they wanted to.”
(Perhaps one of them is one of yours. This would be a good time to let them know what you expect of them.)
It’s Too Late to Say You Didn’t Know - https://youtube.com/shorts/DekIPuM-41o?si=frKHN5RIT3xOPiVU

This might be a good time for Minnesotans to read up on what the United States does to places it invades.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/justice-department-investigating-tim-walz-jacob-frey-minnesota/

I love it when @… is comfortable in her job and has time to scroll Mastodon AND BOOST the good stuff. My timeline is better for it.

Perhaps the main difference between myself and vibe coders is that we have completely different backgrounds.
I've learned coding as a kid, with no friends and no Internet. I didn't do it because it was cool; nerdy stuff was the exact opposite of cool and was likely to get you bullied. I didn't do it because it promised good salary; as a 10-year old, I didn't ponder much about my future, let alone salary. I did it because I was bored, and it was something interesting to do.
I didn't do specific exercises, but rather created whatever I've found interesting. I wasn't graded, I had all the time in the world, and I've enjoyed solving problems. Even if I had access to the Internet, I doubt I would start looking for ready solutions and copy-pasting them. My code was always mine, and I was proud of it; at least at the time.
Of course, nowadays I do stuff I don't enjoy as well. But I'm a grown man who takes responsibility for what I do. And even if my code is shit, it is my shit, and 100% eco.
#NoAI #NoLLM

I do not want to talk about what companies want. Why they want to push for AI (even if I had a pretty good intuition and understanding of why).
I do care about my career and I am probably quickly tempted to generalize my thoughts on this.
I wouldn’t really enjoy spending my time reviewing, debugging, correcting, and fixing, and most importantly carrying the responsibility, for a statistical engine. I don't see what the career progression is either. Is it “push as fast as possible to get a promotion and get out of this area before the 💩 starts breaking and you end up spending 1000% of your time in incidents?”

I made Chicken Tikka masala at home for the first time ever, and ordered take out as a backup for the family.
It was very good, and hit the flavor ballpark - but comparing notes, it had like half the spice power.

In the time I've been offline, I've been doing a lot and feeling a lot more mentally healthy. I've been exploring nomadnet a bit, looking at reticulum. I'm definitely going to go back to my break and being online much less regularly.
I actually totally forgot about the anniversary of the shooting, which is the first time that's happened since... uh... the shooting, I think.
I've definitely realized that, on some level, I've definitely used Mastodon (and formerly Twitter) as a coping mechanism, often in order to deal with the stressful things that I've found out about on Mastodon or Twitter.
But, again, none of those things really change our core job: build community. And that's part of what I've been neglecting, and what I can focus on more when I'm not spending as much time talking to people all over the world indirectly. Like, I can just chat directly with folks and talk about this shit.
Yeah, I do think there's value in this community. I don't think it's really screaming into the void (at least, not most of the time). But I know that I need the balance to be way farther on the side of direct engagement with comrades doing and building.
So that's what I'm gonna go back to. I feel as though it's a good sign that with all the writing about getting shot that I've been doing, and all the thinking about that, that the actual anniversary of the shooting I'm actually just thinking about bread.
And that seems like a good note to leave on. I'm gonna go back to some hacker shit.

Every time I see that mural showing what Scheels is going to have, I think that it is going to be a good addition to Mayfair.
"The city's Community Development Authority closed on a land transfer agreement on the parcel with the mall property owner Brookfield Properties, which will subsequently transfer the property to Scheels, the city said in a news release Dec. 19."
#Mayfair #Milwaukee #Tosa

I was in Barton Hall for the third weekend in a row, this time for Cornell's club fair: here's the music group Mediocre Melodies
#cornell

I post a lot here and on Maker Forums Discourse, and have kind of not gotten around to blogging for a while. But today I had time to reflect on my first full year of #HamRadio — this new hobby has surprised me in a lot of (good) ways.

"Austria’s military has already dumped Microsoft and moved to open-source services hosted in Europe, and some German regional governments have done the same. Danish schools were told to abandon Google laptops by the Danish data protection authority in 2024. The new Dutch government says digital sovereignty will be a national priority"
#DigitalSovereignty

This is a Good Thing™ for Oklahoma Death Row inmates. Incarcerated people, even those under a death sentence, are still human beings. The definition of "custody" includes the concept of caring for the inmate, including their mental health.
https://reason.com/2026/02/23/okl…

Oklahoma ends indefinite solitary confinement for most death row prisoners
“These men have not been able to touch grass and feel the warmth of the sun for the first time in ten years.”

VRCX is a way better tool than I ever imagined. Back when I heard about it for the first time, it just sounded like one of those lowkey stalker tools. But it's actually so good. Being able to see things like when I met a person and where, how much time we've been together, etc. is really helpful. I often struggle remembering stuff like this and VRCX gives me just the right amount of context I need to remember.

Just like others keep saying, at any time you are allowed to say, "I cannot support this." You don't have to double down on an earlier position. You can change your mind based on new information.
#Minneapolis #alexpretti

Cowboys release 2-time Pro Bowler Trevon Diggs with one game remaining https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6929799/2025/12/30/trevon-diggs-released-cowboys/

Kyiv weather not looking good, now Russia is attacking its energy system all the time. Support Ukraine where you can!

- For those with severe tinnitus -
I'm really not very good at speaking into a camera, and this is far from an excellent presentation. At the same time, when I was in the throes of severe tinnitus, I longed to find accounts of people who had experienced a type as intense and reactive as mine, yet had learned, to some degree, to live with it. So I offer this spontaneous testimony just in case it helps anyone else…🙏

Good Morning #Canada
#HappyBirthday to the Honourable Cairine Reay Mackay Wilson who the first woman to be appointed to the Senate in Canada. Her appointment in 1930 marked the end of an era during which women in Canada were denied civil rights. Born in Montréal on February 4, 1885, into a wealthy Scottish-Canadian family, Cairine Reay Mackay married Norman F. Wilson, the Liberal Member of Parliament for Russell, Ontario, in 1909. In 1919, the Wilson family moved to Ottawa, where Mrs. Wilson soon became heavily involved in politics. Her privileged background did not stop her from publicly denouncing appeasement of Hitler, defying her own government to bring in #WWII Jewish refugees, or a lifetime commitment to child poverty and refugees. And she had time to fight for women's rights to be in government by founding the National Federation of Liberal Women of Canada in 1928 and the Twentieth Century Liberal Association in 1930.
#CanadaIsAwesome #CanadianHeroes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairine_Wilson

Cowboys' Matt Eberflus on borrowed time as defensive coordinator https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/dallas-cowboys/news/cowboys-matt-eberflus-borrowed-time-defensive-coordinator/d71c3b1ad55af4fd4f8bc6e1…

We did some cycling again. Very slow, but under clear blue sky! This time I tested recording when the camera was mounted on my new chest strap.
I think I like it! I remember when I once said that I'd feel stupid wearing such a chest strap with the camera mounted, but - to be honest: I don't care any more.
The result seems to be good. If I still like it in summer when I'm sweating? I don't know. But that's a problem for in a couple of months.

Senate Democrats are considering a deal that would head off a partial government shutdown
and give the party time to negotiate new restrictions on immigration operations
in response to the killings of US citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis.
The talks, confirmed to the Guardian by a Senate aide, come after Senate Democrats demanded a series of reforms on federal agents involved in Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign,
including a prohibition on weari…

The Paris agreement is 10 years old today.
How time flies. But how little really has changed.
"Paris Climate Change Agreement, 2015: the good, the bad and the ugly."
https://steadystatemanchester.net/2015/12/1…

Paris Climate Change Agreement, 2015: the good, the bad and the ugly.
A lot has been written on the Paris international agreement on climate change.  To try and cut through all those words to the essential issues, here is our very brief analytic summary. The good Asp…

I really need to develop a more proper complete understanding of OFDM at some point... Anyone have good readable explanations to suggest?
I get that the high level is to work around the challenges of broadband flatness and channel dispersion by using many narrowband streams rather than one broadband one, and there's some magic done with the sub carriers so they don't interfere, and FFT is involved at some point.
But last time I tried to actually make sense of it, it didn&…

This is as good a time as any for a thought experiment.
You're in Nazi Germany. You know about the camps, you know what they do, you see the ash fall, you smell it. People who resist alone are killed, some are sent to the camps too. You're afraid to even talk to people about it for fear that they'll turn you in.
You think back to when the camps were being built. You had all the warning signs, but you didn't know how to interpret them. You could believe it would happen. You thought you'd have a chance to vote him out. You thought there might be another way. You thought maybe things would turn out differently if you just sat tight, kept your head down, kept yourself safe.
You see a family being dragged from their home. You know they will be killed. You want to fight, not just for them but for yourself. You opposed Hitler, and at any point you know you could be on the list... Even if you do nothing.
You wish you could rise up, shoot the SS, open the gates, fight it all. You know you aren't alone, but you don't know how to connect with the people who want the same thing.
Using the knowledge we have now, what should you have done in the preceding months and years to connect, to build a community that would open up all paths of resistance?
There were people who resisted. We know it wasn't enough.
Gun laws in Nazi Germany were very similar to US laws in that Nazis were largely free to own guns and everyone else was not. Unlike the US, where "others" have historically controlled using the fear that they might be randomly executed, Germany did codify it. Red flag laws were one more step in the US towards that codification, and there will be more.
When Nazis were taking away those guns, the social networks didn't exist to make resistance possible for most folks. But some Jews were able to resist.
It wasn't the guns that made the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising possible, though they definitely helped. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising was made possible by labor organizing in the precessing years.
If there were more uprisings like that, the Holocaust could have been stopped if not prevented. Social networks make resistance possible. Guns are only useful tools to resist authoritarianism *after* you build a community able to support that resistance, and they are only one of many tools made useful by that community.
Getting guns is easy, and not always necessary. Building community is hard. Guns won't keep you safe. Community will.
Single acts of resistance may slow the machine down, but to actually bring down a monster you need to be able to attack more than once. You need a society of resistance. If you are afraid now, build that. Talk to people while it's still safe to do so. Ask them where their red line is. Talk to neighbors. Figure out your network.
Take the steps you need now to keep your neighbors safe, to keep yourself safe.
#USPol

“I can easily imagine a situation where the USA will demand #Greenland from Denmark and will threaten to deactivate our weapons and let #Russia attack us when we refuse. Buying American weapons is a security risk that we can not run.” -- Rasmus Jarlov. Chair, Danish parliament’s defence committee.

Well that’s not good. Was taking advantage of the mild weather to use the 3” chipper/shredder on a bunch of downed branches on the hill in the back yard.
Not ten minutes in and a 2.5” branch jammed it. I had to disassemble half the housing to clear it. Then it still wouldn’t start, upon which time I noticed that the jam must have pushed the moving blade into the housing with force enough to shear off a piece of the housing.
Obviously not safe to continue. Warranty support initia…

"Strip away the rhetoric and what remains is simple: there is no military option that delivers what Trump has promised. The symbolic strike is too weak to matter. Decapitation risks installing a junta. The sustained campaign courts state collapse and regional conflagration"
https://time.com/7345293/…

Trump Has No Good Options On Iran
"As brave Iranians challenge the repressive regime in Tehran, the U.S leader faces three paths, each worse than the last," writes Bobby Ghosh

RE: https://vis.social/@infobeautiful/116092915176228917
Last time I posted this, I got a little spate of exceptionally low-quality replies about how it’s actually a good thing to misrepresent risk and old people will die anyway and who cares if they do.
I hope those people see this again and get even angrier.

There goes the good time that was had by all.
-- Bette Davis, remarking on a passing starlet

Carefully craft some code I am proud of
Prompt Claude “review for correctness and security”
Feel embarrassed 100% of the time. Because it always finds legit issues.
Good is good, and in many cases better than I did on my own.

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #NewMusicFix
Harmony:
🎵 Good Things Take Time
#Harmony
https://harmonyfantasy.bandcamp.com/track/good-things-take-time
https://open.spotify.com/track/2osU4WkxDWd6ME9qdZ92S2

The US supreme court has decided to hear arguments in a
climate accountability lawsuit,
marking the first time the high court has weighed in on such a case.
The decision could potentially hinder the wave of climate litigation the US has seen in recent years.
“It’s not a good sign,”
said Pat Parenteau, a professor of environmental law at Vermont Law and Graduate School.
The lawsuit in question was filed by the city of Boulder, Colorado, against two major o…

Warning: kissing fascist ass may result in liquid glass.
So my phone tricked me into updating to iOS 26 (nice one, asshats). And wow: it really is a case study in form over function. Gratuitous, meaningless aesthetics and motion. Decoration, not design. “Look what I can do!”
Oh well, if it gets me using my phone less, that’s a good thing, I guess.
But the next time you hear someone from Apple talking about design, please feel free to laugh in their damn faces. What a sad j…

I love that so many Americans turned out to not just protest policies that hit personally,
but to rally in support of democracy writ large.
For many, it was their first time taking this kind of action,
and they were doing it in a way that expressed optimism and possibility rather than giving in to anger or despair

Commentary: America tried something new in 2025. It's not going well
Glow up or grow up? Times columnists Anita Chabria and Mark Z. Barabak look back and assess whether 2025 was good for America or an unmitigated disaster.

Good evening!
Here's a photo similar to one of my last - but this time without the stranger in the photo.
this spot was really pretty cool that day! with the fog and frost. Sometimes a person walking by ... there so many different .. hm moods/motives/situations to capture - just in a single spot.
Anyways, I hope you like it and don't see it as .. intimidating/strange as the one with the stranger in it ;)

One more thought...
One of the more toxic elements of the whole "manosphere" thing relative to dating is the application of game theory to relationships. They've got people trying to "maximize their dating potential" or whatever, trying to find the "most attractive march" (which is it's own fucked up thing I'm not even going to dig in to). But that whole mindset is basically going to always leave you miserable.
Oh, you're single? You need a partner. Oh you have a partner? Could you get a "better" one?
It turns relationships into the endless pointless grind of capitalism. Fuck that. None of that shit makes sense. No matter how "well" you do in that game, you always feel like a loser. Everyone does. Fuck that game. Quit.
The constant desire makes you miserable and your misery makes you unlikable. When you let go of it, you leave room to experience what is instead of constantly imagining what could be.
You will always be able to imagine a better "could be" than what is now. By comparing your situation now to that "could be" you will always see your situation as bad because it's worse than your yardstick.
Is your situation good for you? Is it serving you? It can be good and it can also be possible to make it better. When was the last time you just experience your life instead of trying to strategize your way into "something better."
Throw away the yardstick. Something something Buddha.
Edit: all this is of course aside from the whole objectification thing, which is it's own whole set of fucked up. But yeah... All that shit is real bad news.

Authoritarian governments don't build surveillance systems from scratch—they weaponize existing infrastructure.
The US has a history of illegal surveillance: COINTELPRO, Carnivore, PRISM, warrantless wiretapping. Tech companies too willingly comply with government data requests.
Once your data leaves your control, it can be accessed by any administration with enough legal pressure—or disregard for it.
Now is a good time to rethink smart home devices and reduce your digi…

A this photo from yesterday's location scouting could fit for #thickTrunkTuesday , right?
It's been quite a time since I went to a new location with the clear intent of location scouting. - It took me a while until I was able to "see" something as I was so much in walking/hiking-mode.
But it was a good experience to do it again.

I've listened to enough episodes of Revolutions to have a rough idea of what's coming next. If you're in the US, now is a good time to do some more long-term (the system will be down for months or years) kind of disaster planning.
That means building connections with your community, because you can't do everything yourself and you may have to figure out how to get things without state/capital functioning to facilitate that.

Now this was a gorgeous cycling loop. Temperature was around freezing but luckily just few wind. As you see, the weather was ace. Clouds and fog stayed in the north 🌞
Also tried Knee warmers, which was just right! A very good buy!
I just need a solution against freezing toes. @… ,I bought neoprene toe warmer! The shoes are just a bit tight then, …

After the whole Adam Something "dating advice for leftist men" thing, I realized I should probably write something about that. I didn't, but I realized I should. Here I am sort of getting around to it.
I had a friend call me an "elder" at one point. I was like 35 at that time, but like... a lot of old leftists are just dead or in prison, so we take what we can get I guess. Being also an elder in the sense that I'm an elder millennial, who is also a parent and married for almost 10 years and all that, I guess I'm technically qualified.
So here it is, dating advice for (straight cis) leftist men:
1. Don't.
That's it, actually. That's the whole thing. Let me explain a bit.
First of all, this is dating advice for neuroatypical folks. We're way overrepresented in both extremes because this system wasn't built for us. And that's who is *the most* confused by all the relationship stuff, and most likely to try to apply all this masculinity/manosphere bullshit. I'm also talking a bit from experience here, as a neruo-spicy trying to "figure out" how to date within a paradigm entirely built around neurotypicals and their relationships. It's garbage. Throw it out. There's nothing worth saving.
His video had some line comparing not having sex to your house being on fire. I'm not gonna bother to quote it because I'm busy with actual life. But like, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I recognize that and it's horribly destructive. Men who buy in to patriarchy actually believe this, because those men value themselves based on (hetro) sex. Yeah, if you think you're worthless because you aren't "getting laid" then yeah, you're gonna feel like that's an emergency.
"Dating" as a paradigm turns humans into roles. It dehumanizes us all, and thus makes human connection much harder. It is a game that, like thermonuclear war, can only be won by not playing.
When you abandon "dating" and just act like a human, everything starts to be easier. There's no such thing as being "friend zoned" because you're just friends. Sometimes friendships become other things, sometimes they don't. It doesn't actually matter, because if you're actually there for friendship then you don't *need* anything else.
My grandma, at 98 I think, gave me some advice. My grandparents always got along well, and were married for enough decades that I listened really closely. She told me I should just do things I loved to do and everything else would work itself out.
And it kind of did.
I understand the fear, the idea that you'll die alone. I get that. I get the loneliness. It all hits a lot harder when you have ADHD emotions and past trauma. I get that. But that fear is self-manifesting. When you build your confidence, when you don't *need* to be "in a relationship," you have more room to actually build relationships. For me, dating was dehumanizing. When I abandoned that, I was able to actually be a good partner, and I was able to find my partner.
I would advise against marriage as well, but we did get married for legal reasons. It can still be hard to maintain that, to see each other as people rather than roles. That becomes extra hard as parents. But the times that we cut through that are the times we're closest. Those are the times when it becomes easier to remember that we're both humans and all human relationships need tending.
Roles don't need to be tended because they are classifications. Classifications are static. But relationships between humans are not. Humans are messy and chaotic. Humans have all kinds of complex needs and desires.
So yeah, don't date. Just be a human and see what happens. Maybe google "relationship anarchy" and see where it takes you.
If you have ADHD, it can be especially useful to understand that relationships with neurotypical folks can be especially difficult. Assume you're incompatible with 90% of the population as your baseline, and you'll start to understand why the standard "dating" thing has made you feel so alienated and miserable.
Neurotypical folks generally have no idea that atypicality exists, much less how it impacts relationships. Having to conform to a neurotypical relationship just adds additional mental strain unless you find someone (really special) who can do at least some of the work.
The ADHD thing was especially important for me. There were so many things I was told to do in specific ways by neurotypicals that never worked for me. Their advice always made me feel like a failure. When I was finally diagnosed, I realized they were just giving advice for the wrong type of brain. It was advice I could never use. Basically all dating advice I ever got fell into this same category.
That's my braindump. Maybe I'll develop it more in the future, but I'm busy so maybe not. I hope it helps someone who is struggling like I was.