Tootfinder

Floppy Disk Christmas
Sony Mavica MVC-FD85 (1.3MP, 2000)
#ShittyCameraChallenge

This is what happened to the web when the software industry never spent a moment thinking about long term stability. About users. About usability. About anything other than features and a fast buck.
Among many other failings.
Would be nice to some professionalism in future. One can hope, but I despair.
https://jimsbutchery.com.au

Once again leaving my best shitposts in the replies https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/115421003570621247

I struggle to process the fact that Todd Blanche gave my husband his very first job offer in law.
(Yes, THAT Todd Blanche from the DoJ, deputy attorney general, the one who has been in the news for all kinds of terrible things he’s up to)
I went to a party with that guy 3 years ago! And now he’s doing increasingly cartoonish villain things every other week.
He seemed normal. Fun, actually.
And then months after he went to defend Trump as his personal lawyer and since then we’ve continued to be confused and disturbed.
We haven’t had any contact with him after he went to work for Trump, of course. But I can’t stop wondering how the fuck the person my husband worked with is the same person defending pedophiles. (Allegedly)
#USPol #ToddBlanche

When the classroom microphone system fails and you have to go old school

if you are of a certain age, this might carry the same memories of the holidays for you as it does for me (just in different packaging)

Two rights make a detour.
#ProverbsGoneWrong
#HashTagGames

Tak było.

Shadow is not impressed by the first snow!
#caturday

30 years ago... wouldn't it be nostalgic to play Commodore 64 games on your PC, asks this German article from PC Player 12/1995.
I love meta-retrocomputing.
#retrocomputing

I’m just happy I’m getting more reputable dev outlets to share my Greatest Of All Time Says Everyone image:
https://hachyderm.io/@fridayfrontend/115588994032231989

What's wrong with this #macOS launch plist?
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>KeepAlive</key>
<true />
<key>Label</key>
<string>org.gnu.Emacs</string>
<key>AssociatedBundleIdentifiers</key>
<string>org.gnu.Emacs</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/Application/Emacs30.2.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs</string>
</array>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
<key>ProcessType</key>
<string>Interactive</string>
<key>StandardErrorPath</key>
<string>/Users/alexandp/Library/Logs/org.gnu.Emacs.stderr.log</string>
<key>StandardOutPath</key>
<string>/Users/alexandp/Library/Logs/org.gnu.Emacs.stdout.log</string>
</dict>
</plist>

How I feel after trying to configure a mail server for the first time and debugging it for hours... unsuccessfully.

Just posted this reply on Reddit because it saddens me to think that someone might not understand the beauty of the Fourier transform:
https://old.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/1obz3sz/gofft_a_pretty_performant_fastfourier_transform/nko8lot/
Another way I like to think of it: A lens does it in 2D, converting an incoming light beam into an image, or an image into a light beam. Plane wave <-> delta function.

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/115593676006548373
The interesting thing about this is I can play a fully voiced version of this now directly in DOS, thanks to efforts here: https://gratissaugen.de/ultimatetalkies/monkey1.html

All that litters is not old.
#ProverbsGoneWrong
#HashTagGames

Dzisiejsza demonstracja pod Ministerstwem Aktywów Państwowych ws. embarga na dostawy materiałów wybuchowych do USA.
18 listopada br. organizacja Palestinian Youth Movement opublikowała opracowanie, które opisało rolę naszego kraju - a konkretniej firmy Nitro-Chem z Bydgoszczy - w dostawach trotylu do produkcji broni wykorzystywanej przez Izrael w Gazie. Od ponad dekady firma ta jest czołowym producentem i eksporterem TNT w NATO i UE i odpowiada za 90% eksportu tego materiału do USA. A ten kraj z kolei wykorzystuje go do produkcji bomb i amunicji dostarczanej izraelskiej armii i wykorzystywanej w Gazie.
Cytując opracowanie: “Bez trotylu (TNT) wyprodukowanego w Polsce niemożliwa byłaby bezprecedensowa skala i intensywność bombardowań z powietrza, które pochłonęły życie dziesiątek tysięcy Palestyńczyków i zniszczyły warunki życia w Strefie Gazy”.
Link do PDFa do poczytania jest gdzieś tutaj:
https://www.embargoforpalestine.com/reports

Rule of thumb: the person yelling at strangers about respect is often the person who most needs to be more respectful.

I’m readin Hiroski Samura “Blade of the Immortal”.
13 volumes in.
Out of 31.
#not_tiktokable

oh no, I'm cooked
https://youtu.be/JbDVqLlLarY?si=bWuZbJX3CTiZI4gr

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/115758382353659734
At least until recently they had to hide their contemptuousness for their fellow human beings.
Gross.

Thanks in part to @… and his investigations, I have replaced a massive space heater called a "Class A audio amplifier" with a tiny Class D whose cost is proportional to its volume, and am very pleased. So much space restored in the cabinet, so much wasted energy recovered, and to my aged ears no diminution in quality. 5 stars.

Don’t get me wrong: I think it is •still• worth haranguing congress to use the powers they have and crank all these legal gears as hard as they can. It’s perhaps worth it now more than ever as the MAGA coalition falters and politicians look to their own post-Trump survival. There are battles to win there.
I’m just saying we shouldn’t pin our primary hopes on the legal system. Massive, relentless popular opposition is the bedrock here.

The early bird gets to wait.
#ProverbsGoneWrong
#HashTagGames

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/115760342924675748
Yes, this book is 75 years old, and yes it talks about how computers can soon be psychologists.

wiewiórki kokosowe
#słowaNaOpka

Idk what it says about me that my first thought was “this would be terrible for vampires”
(The proposal here is to put satellites that reflect the sun so someone could have custom sunlight over their house at night… very silly)
https://mas.to/@dmacphee/115418055122136038

The only two development environments in the 90s that ever came somewhat close to this dream were Visual Basic and Microsoft Access.
https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/115588696937650065

I appreciate all the legal thoughts laid out here in this piece (via @…), and yes, Congress and all the relevant parties should move in all these fronts.
I find it hard, however, to take completely seriously a legal strategy document of this length that (1) imagines Congress doing any of this and (2) mentions the SCOTUS only twice, and then only in reference to its past upholding of law. I’m not convinced this is a piece that fully appreciates the severity of the current situation and the degree of institutional rot.
https://toad.social/@wdlindsy/115758300023480323

Money can't buy you happiness if you use it wrong.
#ProverbsGoneWrong
#HashTagGames

Went with Windows 98 w/ Office ‘97 on the ThinkPad, works great on it.
Toshiba will be Windows 95 & Office ‘95 and whatever weird Windows 95 productivity apps I can find.
https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/115578256800642377

Od dziś do 4 grudnia wstęp do Zachęty za free.
#warszawa

Folks, do not doubt for one second whether your pushback against Trump and Trumpism matters. It matters a lot. It’s the foundation.
Do not for one second mistake shamelessness for invulnerability. Shamelessness is a con, and you are the target. Don’t fall for it.

going to get a nap in my coffin now

The world took one look at the Trump’s so-called “peace plan” for Ukraine and said, “This is just parroting the Russians! These dingbats aren’t even trying to hide it!”
And now the dingbats are all “oh, totally, we meant to do that.”
From @…: https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/115596148264423492

if you need me, I’m on my private island

Logging On

What’s a great example you love of a technical blog post (or similarly shaped writing) that:
- explains a tool, technique, technical idea
- by trying it to the author’s specific project or experience
- but also illuminates a larger concept, a bigger picture?
I don’t just want tutorials; I want writing that illuminates. I’m thinking of things where you read it and had a reaction like:
“Oh, FINALLY, I get it now!”
“What a nice example of _____!”
“This is great. I’m going to bookmark this for the next time I need to use / explain / teach a colleague to use _____.”
Looking for writing examplars to share with students. I want your favorites.

even this is better than vibe coding

This so-called “Trump plan” was not actually written by the Trump administration. As if the content didn’t already make that obvious, the language does.
From @…: https://journa.host/@timkmak/115589626146929389

ok, pretty happy with my windows 11 desktop now

Desert is trying to come up with sunrise colors that look completely fake

It’s important to put Ukraine’s current situation in the context of history. And it’s important to know that history is still controversial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor The past isn’t even past.
https://social.vivaldi.net/@Ann1944/115590607854450930

This is the only record I have that doesn’t have sides 1 & 2 or A & B.
It has sides 0 and 1.

This really is a good video clip. https://mastodon.social/@benroyce/115590146989319254

Did you know that there’s machines now that can do 5,000 additions per second??!
Automated language translation is just around the corner!
AI bros overestimating computers and underestimating humans, since 1949.

I’d replace the “but” with “and.” Be newly concerned •and• remain oldly concerned.
Otherwise 100% agree with this. https://digipres.club/@misty/115589615528741114

Godspeed, Facebook marketplace seller

making of

Find the bunny!

Ok fine here’s an old computer

My “Ask me questions about my shirt” shirt has people asking me a lot of questions about my shirt

Oh yeah

Wired, October 1995. Why are my fellow Austrians so weird.

I’m mildly skeptical of the claim that Gemini would have been the cause of the sorts of page loading problems the quoted post describes, but I’m glad to know of the existence of this setting regardless. https://wandering.shop/@susankayequinn/115414127922290912

30 years ago, October 1995

(Just to be clear: My implication here is not that tearing down buildings — even historic ones, even the White House — is the same as harming human beings or depriving them of their civil rights. The implication is that it’s the same fascism that drives both those things.)

“The so-called ‘impotence’ of the individual is maybe the most dangerous illusion that a human being can have.”

By the by Ada Lovelace was the first to say AI is bullshit

“the ‘entirety’ of the East Wing, which traditionally ••houses the first lady’s offices••”
Oh, I’d missed that detail. Could this whole thing be out of spite at Melania?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/10/22/east-wing-demolished-ballroom-construction/86841156007/

Some absolute dildo started a second Ruby Discord for people with "differing opinions"

Iger f-ed up. Bad. He knows it. His colleagues know it. His investors know it.
He made the •precisely• the kind of preventable error that we supposedly pay executives the big bucks not to make. He’s unfit for task. He’s unfit for society.
• Make • it • stick •

There have to be consequences. Would-be quislings need to start having vivid pictures of what’s going to happen to them •personally• if they collaborate with fascists. I’d much prefer those consequences not be violent; in fact, harsh consequences now are the very thing that •avoid• violence. Professional and personal ruin will suffice. That means •we• have to make it stick.

For the record:
I cancelled Disney the same evening they kicked Kimmel out, and smoothing things over with Kimmel now will not be sufficient to get me to renew.
I will •start• considering a renewal when Iger is out on his ass, no parachute. (Not holding my breath for that.)

If you wonder what Mamdani is doing, he knows how to speak to narcissists (basically it’s about flattery) to get what he wants for NYC.
Narcissists like Trump do not care about logic or sides or loyalty. They’re not fully formed people.
They care only about being liked, yet they can’t tell if someone genuinely likes them or they just pretend to; it’s also not important as they wouldn’t be able to comprehend the difference.

don't think I need "Control Panel" tho I could use the Windows 2000 icon for it, let's see

hear me out, if you’re a government and want your country to do more science wouldn’t it be better to hire more scientists instead of hiring more statistical text randomizers

You should listen and subscribe to Dr. Fatima
https://youtu.be/YAmzlB40hZs

The N in MINASWAN stands for ██

Matz should step down

Very cool, Ruby launched a redesigned website that prominently features DHH
🤦

Who has two thumbs and just installed Netscape Navigator into a Windows NT 4.0 VM to find out what the <blink> tag timings actually are? Yes, this guy.
0.9s shown followed by 0.73s hidden

Finally some good news from the ACM for once https://fediscience.org/@petersuber/115752439306842650

It’s amazing that it’s almost 2026 and so many otherwise clearly intelligent people do not have the slightest clue what LLMs actually do

"retro-creating"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w6TCOeNUp4

Here's how to reduce risk of getting the Flu during holiday travel season.
(This year's strain is extra aggressive. tl;dr get the vaccine and mask consistently.)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/146389612

Because I’ve see people saying you should be “respectful” to chatbots:
You can’t.
You’re not actually talking to someone and the chatbot doesn’t actually understand what you’re saying.
It’s parsing tokens and uses applied statistics to generate more tokens, that’s it.
If even it could understand you and form meaningful concepts and mental images— there’s no self there that could be disrespected.

It's 2025 and "serious business" people still think you can prevent file-sharing on the Internet
Cute

Bari “Streisand” Weiss

If you really want to know how bad it is, the fucking Republicans won't seat our duly elected representative. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/21/arizona-mike-johnson-adelita-grijalva

Anyway, I've turned 47 years old today and with every day my longing for a more just world with more kindness and fewer Nazis grows.

It needs repeating time and again—the "clash of cultures" isn't about "differing opinions".
One side wants to treat people respectfully and be welcoming and kind and have a fun time.
The other side wants to remove (deny medical care, disenfranchise, lock away, deport, kill, genocide etc.) people they don't like.
This isn't politics, and when someone claims it is and you take them at their word, you've already lost.

Unfortunately for Creative, from there it evolved to people not using sound cards, modems or optical drives anymore.

Can someone good with numbers explain to me how a company with a profit of $6 billion per year wants to pay their CEO $1,000 billion dollars?

amazing https://youtu.be/vNoFHdlMrtI?si=_o7UOkPksRmj2NFV

"AI features have yet to meaningfully influence buying decisions"
YES, BECAUSE NO ONE WANTS THAT SHIT— HOW IS THIS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND FOR THE C-SUITE
Anyone knows someone at Apple? I can offer consulting about how much people want AI, I'm willing to do it for $10,000/day if you pick me up with the company jet; it's just a 2 hour flight or so to Cupertino from where I am.
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/10/22/report-virtually-no-demand-for-iphone-air/

I would like everyone who is calling to ban animal meat to realize that many people have food allergies or reactions—often especially to proteins found in plant-based simulated meat (gluten, corn, soy, etc.).
Can we please keep this all inclusive and not a fight that's done on the backs of disabled people?
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

"But but we also thought animals were pure machines and didn't have sentience!!!!"
This is like a set of nested dolls of logical fallacies:
0. (Preamble) Being wrong before doesn't mean other people are wrong right now.
1. Just because you were wrong about animals not being machines doesn't mean machines aren't being machines.
2. You're actually not talking about machines, but about algorithms (who happen to be running on a machine, but could just as well be calculated manually by a human).
3. LLM models themselves aren't even an algorithm—they're literally just a large number of large numbers.
So what you're really asking is "Can many llarge numbers be concious and sentient?"
This answers itself.

LLMs don't have physicality, they are (and this is a huge inaccurate stretch) a simulation of how maybe a small part of brains might possibly work in a hugely simplified and abstracted way; an algorithm that is executed on a bunch of graphics cards—the same algorithm could be done manually on paper (with enough time).
Because they're not physical they don't exist.
Therefore there's no epistemology to be had about "do they have sentience or consciousness".

Philosophers-stop-asking-if-LLMs-have-sentience challenge 2025

Does anyone have a good playlist for the Rapture?

80/20 rule: 80% of conservatives are projecting (being gay, not wanting children, had an abortion, drinking, etc.) and 20% are just evil

Today's #retrocomputing quiz!
Guess what this 16 lbs laptop from 1991 cost, in today's money.
Solution in a reply.

Honestly his code isn’t even that amazing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/115583672964172193

Inspired design from IBM here

ThinkPad guy has a... bear sitting out there with him