I'll be honest, sometimes I like the #AltText more than the picture. Like, it'll be some picture of the woods or something, and I'm like "okay woods.." and then I read the alt text and it describes lots of amazing details that I didn't even notice and I'm like, "wow this picture is great!"
But really it's the alt text that's great. It…

Computer programmers be like:
1. LLMs generate code for me and sometimes it even works
2. This is also true when I write code manually
3. Computer programming is clearly the hardest of all possible human endeavors, you have to be a complete genius like I am to it because it is really, really hard
4. Therefore LLMs are geniuses
5. They will certainly work really well for all these lesser fields you don’t have to be genius for like I am, like writing summaries of text or medical research or making art or…

So I tested a split keyboard last week, and there were a few things that bothered me about it (more on that later) so I figured I would look for other keyboards...
Oh shit, rabbit hole!
I didn't find any split keyboard that I liked, and besides that they are super expensive! Like, I've paid less for computers than some of those keyboards cost.
So then I thought about building one, but that gets expensive as well, and...
1/n

Had Fun

Bought a car/micro-camper

Bought a van to do up as a micro-camper, and did a temporary rush job of that conversion myself while waiting in the list for the pro to do it.
Then the pro gave himself a health criss the week it was booked so I took apart my temp job and only got another temp kit-job in it's place.
Went out in it like four times during that and then broke my wrist and couldn't really use it or improve it.
Then had to take it apart even more to try
and figure out where the ad-blue hole was.
I will do a proper permanent job of the
floor and walls and ceiling and adjustments to the kit-job to make it the nicest it's been so far during the spring next year.
My assumption that the prior conversion
into a van and for wheelchair-access meant the microcamper conversion was half-done already turned out to be false.
If I buy a new one, it'll be one that has never been wheelchair adapted.
But it's going okay. Only scraped it once so far.
Fewer than aimed for or booked, but I broke my wrist and had to cancel the second half of the summer.
Went to a conference about money and computers and fringe decentralized social media and it wasn't as boring as you might expect and felt pretty much like a festival.
Exactly the target number! It's lovely.
Took 3 times longer than I'd hoped and
50% more money than I'd planned for really.
Still improvements to make but they will
be incremental and gradual over the coming year or two now.
It's been interest-only for 20 years so a big old lump sum payment that I never really expected to be able to make. Expected to have to sell and move at the end of the mortgage term.
But surprisingly the stocks ISA got high enough to pay it off after all, so I did that.
Cash-flow ruined by that and the bedroom but should start to feel a bit richer next year.

"I want to establish a wide range and play all kinds of parts. It's that sort of acting career I really respect. I like to turn a sharp left from whatever I've done before because that keeps me awake. That's why I want to be an actor - I don't want to play endless variations on one character."
—Tim Curry
#acting

I probably shouldn't go pub for derby day tomorrow morning
I really want to but my money is fucked up and my head hurts and I'd have to get the bus at 7:20am
aauugghhh i guess we'll see if I somehow feel up to it
otherwise next one I can go for is February and ofc I can go for other games but I really feel like concentrated 8am hater energy will be so powerful
#fedifc

I had over three hundred accounts following me that I didn't follow back, mostly because I lost track of all the new followers.
So I did the unthinkable thing:
I asked Perplexity to write me a python script to follow everyone back. I will just unfollow some of them later, if I don't like them enough. But for now, everyone gets the benefit of the doubt.😉
The script needed some adjustments, but it worked.
Here's the script if you need it:

Vikings WR Justin Jefferson: 'I definitely felt like we would've done better' if Sam Darnold returned https://www.nfl.com/news/vikings-wr-justin-jefferson-i-definitely-felt-like-we-would-ve-done-better-if-sam-d…

My amazing niece flying solo. I took this still* from a video of her getting ATC clearance, taking off, and flying. Solo. She’s not yet 20.
I rly don’t have the words to describe my feelings as I watched the video. I cried like a baby—I can say that much.
Yesterday, I bought her a pair of Ray-Ban aviator shades for Xmas. Because she’s an aviator. ❤️
* I chose to share a pic w/ her face obscured for social media, but she’s as beautiful as she is brilliant.

Nice bit of music history here
https://www.musicradar.com/artists/i-turned-…

Just read an article by @… and stumbles across this question:
> "...if Clawdbot can create a virtual remote for my LG television (something I did) or give me a personalized report with voice every morning (another cron job I set up) that work exactly the way I want, why should I even bother going to the App Store to look for pre-built solut…

Americans express fear and negativity toward AI, often relying on bad arguments like water usage, a stark contrast with Asia and Europe's relative positivity (Noah Smith/Noahpinion)
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/i-love-ai-why-doesnt-everyone

One reason why La Terminal doesn’t encourage tmux for session preservation or mosh is their low fidelity terminal rendering, so I use a tiny “keep the session open” instead. It is a small binary I bundle with LaTerminal.
To get the best of both worlds, I cooked my own “tmux” built on top of headless SwiftTerm, so I get high fidelity rendering - but deploying it seems like an uphill battle:

@… oh, they're all at it.
I blame Trident for setting the trend. How dare any project use Linux? The audacity! Where, oh where, is the operating system monoculture that I deserve? That I demand, no less. I demand and you, the minion reader, agree. Ja. After the months―the years―that I spent acting like I own the business. Injustice, I'll have you…

As we move into 2026, I want to be clear about where I stand. I support classic psychedelics like psilocybin, psilocin, Mescaline, LSD, and also cannabis, not because I think everyone should use them, but because I believe in the freedom of consciousness.
This isn’t a war on drugs; it’s a war on consciousness itself. The stigma surrounding psychedelics has been built and reinforced by decades of fear-based media and institutional control. Simply talking about these substances bout to s…

In 2012, I bought the least expensive house (in a reasonable condition) that I could find in the most expensive zip code in the area. I like the neighborhood and the house is comfortable but this is my front yard. Over the years, I have thought about upgrading to something more. I have also thought about buying a condo in Mexico and spending part of the year there in hopes of eventually getting dual citizenship. After all, Mexico City is in the same time zone as Milwaukee. ...

I donated a bit to Gary McCoy's campaign for District 8 supervisor in SF.
I'm hesitant to support merely "progressive" candidates since so many veer rightward after getting elected, like D8's current supe Mandelman, and recently D7 supe Melgar to a lesser degree.
But I really like Gary's platform, emphasizing non-police public safety programs; traffic calming as part of public safety; and pro-housing with emphasis on public investment, not just upzone an…

I think I never subscribed to as many RSS feeds from small blogs as I did recently since I got myself my own #microsub reader integrated into my blog engine powered by #indiekit
it’s just very comfortable to use, you read the blog post and you can reply, like or repost right from the integrated Re…

Every time I interact with one of these AI-enhaced user interfaces I feel like I'm conversing with a moron who's just huffed a bag of airplane glue. I'm looking at you, Google TV.
Show me the damned ballgame.

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #MiddayShow
The Waitresses:
🎵 I Know What Boys Like
#TheWaitresses
https://lechatetlafille.bandcamp.com/track/the-waitresses-i-know-what-boys-like-le-chat-et-la-fille-cover
https://open.spotify.com/track/6x367ass0NQZOc8j0z0eot
Please 🔁 BOOST to share what you like
- your followers don't see if you ⭐ favourite a post

Starting the year with a drive-by contribution to the hamster time tracker.
I find that noteworthy because I'm going back to the time tracker I enjoyed using until 2018, when due to the project announcing EoL (IIRC) I switched to charmtimetracker.
Now that too is EoL since 2023, but hamster development did continue after 2018, so hey, could have saved myself a lot of annoyance by sticking with the software I like and patching it up where needed.

Series C, Episode 02 - Powerplay
DAYNA: No, Avon!
KLEGG: Very neat. I don't think I'd like you as a friend, Avon.
AVON: Let's get it over with. [shot]
AVON: Tarrant! I've got them Tarrant! [Tarrant enters and is captured.]
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/302/506

I think this may be the thing that truly kills the last embers of any passion I had for tech. I knew it was coming when I coined WYSIAYG (what you see is ALL you get) and here it is, only 40 some years later, and while services halting inexplicably is is a fact of computing, WYSIAYG means the software won't even try to explain, intelligent logging and troubleshooting wasn't in the Business Requirements because we all know software only ever works perfectly. If you really must know, use gdb.
It's like the old joke, spouse buys a parrot, leaves it as a surprise, arrives home to find it cooked for dinner; how could you, it spoke 12 languages! then it should have said something.

What It Was Like
Conversations with people who have lived through extreme events...
Great Australian Pods Podcast Directory: https://www.greataustralianpods.com/what-it-was-like/

I think I got uninvited to be a guest on a podcast run by an expat in #Japan because she didn't like a post where I called convenience store #food #unhealthy & the same as eating fast food.

I made this pizza the other night. It's a "Grandma Pie" or whatever you call it. The results were much better than the last two times I tried it, though it could have used a few more minutes under the broiler. (Burned it last time, so I was overly cautious.)
I think I'm good for this style but... I just don't like this style. Too much dough and not enough flavor.
I may try it again but use the same amount of dough to make two pizzas, which will thin out the …

I just discovered that the "prefix group name" option for #FreeCAD VarSet properties was removed a couple months ago. That feature was such a wonderful affordance for reducing typing and now it's gone. I missed the discussion when it was being axed and it makes me very sad. It looks like "I don't like the aesthetics so you shouldn't have it" won the day. ☹

#HappyNewYear I just went through the refrigerator and pantry and threw out the remaining Christmas candy that I was eating “because it’s Christmas”, and anything that was never going to be eaten (why do I have a bottle of “black and raspberry” vinegar?) or well past its best by date. The trash bin now smells like 2022 pickles….

Call me a cynic but it probably would be easier and more broadly effective to pass an ordinance requiring property owners clear the sidewalks crossing their property.
I don’t particularly *like* #Eastpointe”s mowing & shoveling rules but I recognize that they’re effective. I hate my yard care responsibilities, since my back decided to flake out a few years ago, but I make sure they get …

Typical Bell fuckery
Our business contract ends on Jan 6. If I want to cancel and prevent renewal, I'm told in my contract I need to cancel 30 days before.
So, December 1st seems like a good time to cancel before the 30 days notice.
Calling to cancel.
"You will be charged an early cancellation fee"
So... when exactly can I cancel?
#bell

Conversation today...
Wife - where did my clothes I had hanging go?
Me - I washed them like you asked me to do.
Wife - well, where are they
Me - washed and put away
Wife - I need them.
Me - You didn't ask me when I washed them and put them away.
Wife - OH, can you get them for me?
Me - staying silent while I fetch them for her.

Morning!
I discovered yesterday that the community coffee shop that I occasionally work from supports Pay-It-Forward. They even have a donation page on their site for it.
Awesome! I love stuff like that ♥️
#Freelance #PayItForward

I find it harder and harder to lose myself in the computer like I used to. I used to have a glass of wine and compute until 4AM every night of the week. There's just nothing good on the computer anymore, or maybe it's that I've already experienced most of the stuff my capabilities will allow me to access. I might need a new tangent, or else a new thing.

Thinking of reinstalling my computer from scratch to iron out all its kinks and tardiness from years of software experiments and trials. Just need to make sure all files are backed up... as I don't want to reinstall the computer from a backup – which would defeat the purpose.

My other task is I want to turn my old Mac mini into a home server. But that needs many hours of focus... haven't done something like that before.

I think my main concern is getting tech issues ou…

When I see people arguing that fireworks are fine because it's "tradition" and "just one day a year" (yeah, sure), I feel like asking: if shooting people were a "tradition" and happened only "one day a year", would that be okay too? But then I recall that hunters do precisely that, and apparently "we can't" impose stricter regulations on them.
#Poland

I don't speak nor understand Spanish but I know a ton of loanwords in Tagalog. This video by #Langfocus is very interesting and I learned several new things. Like the fact that the Tagalog word for peanut 🥜 (“manî”) comes from Taíno and not Spanish or Nahuatl, and that “barkada” (group of friends) comes from the Spanish for “boatload”.

@… I would start with using Dragon's tools to make its vocabulary and word usage as much like what I intended to write as possible. If I were an established author such as you, I would feed it my most recent work. I would add as many specialized words as I needed. (I had to do these things in my niche legal practice.)
Then, I would think about ways to us…

RE: https://mastodon.social/@staff/115816509757147623
I guess I should point out that my many catsalad accounts on Mastodon are chain verified to each other (usually alphabetical) with ties to main (catsalad@infosec.exchange) to avoid impersonation like this…

I made an experimental flan, where instead of using sugar in the custard mix, I converted that sugar to caramel (in addition to the caramel coating the bowl) and then dissolved that caramel into the cooling scalded milk.
The experiment was a success, if you like caramel.
I did this one from memory. 1.5c sucrose split into two parts, 4 cups milk, 4 large eggs, 1 yolk, 1/4 t salt, 1 T vanilla, 350-375F, 1 hour in a baño maria, lay a sheet of aluminum foil on it for most of that ti…

While I'm settling now at home and think about having a walk in the dark to prevent just falling asleep right now - I enjoy the memories from a recent hike.
As you can see at the frosty cross, it was a bit chill. -- Actually .. I'm quite undecicive whether I like summer or winter more? Summer is green and all, but in winter I like the chill and the cold ...
Maybe I don't have to prefer a season? Yes, I guess I just call myself lucky that I can enjoy every season.

…

I may still feel like crap and not have gotten enough sleep due to coughing, but that doesn't mean I'm not gonna relax and play some quality* games this weekend. The MiSTer is running perfectly and the PVM is still working like a champ.
* - for various definitions of quality
#retrogaming #psx

I want a #Mastodon client that drip-feeds me posts from prolific posters. I've followed two accounts that boost cool stuff but they are doing 40 posts a day. After finishing up my timeline I refresh and there are a dozen more posts. That's not sustainable for a healthy social media diet (for me - YMMV!). I'd like something that would hold back posts for 2 hours and then only show me…

Slammed a dumbell into my thigh and now I feel like I have the world's worst charlie-horse.

Is there a concept of attaching the exact program used to create a file to the file? Like: I created this 3D model with this #SolveSpace or #FreeCAD version, with these patches applied, I want to do something so I can re-open this exact model with that exact version , without glitches, 5 years later.…

Hi, it’s Al Franken.
I don’t usually send messages like this, so I’m hoping you’ll read to the end for a GREAT story. 
Before that, though, I want to tell you about Peggy Flanagan.
She is unbelievably great and she’s running to keep Minnesota’s Senate seat blue. 
Her end-of-month fundraising deadline is tonight so I’ll get to the point: Please donate now. 

Does anyone know how (I assume this requires a greasemonkey script or similar since I haven't seen a config options for it) to make the Ubiquiti UniFi admin console show proper PHY standard names like "802.11ac" instead of "wi-fi 5" or whatever?

Just finished "It's Lonely at the Center of the Earth" by Zoe Thorogood.
CW: Frank/graphic discussion of suicide and depression (not in this post but in the book).
It feels a bit wrong to simply give it my review here as I would another graphic memoir, because it's much more personal and less consensual than the usual. It feels less like Thorogood has invited us into her life than like she was forced to put her life on display in order to survive, and while I selfishly like to read into the book that she benefited in some way from the process, she's honest about how tenuous and sometimes false that claim can be. Knowing what I've learned from this book about Thorogood's life and demons, I don't want her to feel the mortification of being perceived by me, and so perhaps the best thing I could do is to simply unread the book and pull it back out of my memories.
I did not find Thorogood's life relatable, nor pitiable (although my instinct bends in that direction), but instead sacred and unknowable. I suspect that her writing and drawing has helped others in similar circumstances, but she leaves me with no illusion that this fact brings her any form of peace or joy. I wonder what she would feel reading "Lab Girl" or "The Deep Dark," but she has been honest enough to convey that such speculation on my part is a bit intrusive.
I guess the one other thing I have to say: Zoe Thorogood has through artistic perseverance developed an awe-inspiring mastery of the comic medium, from panel composition, through to page layout and writing. This book wields both Truth and Beauty.
#AmReading #ReadingNow

📣 My favourite app of 2025 was BorrowBox and I'd like to encourage you all to use it. Sign up with your library card and you can get access FOR FREE to a mind-boggling array of magazines inc New Scientist, History Extra, The Rugby Paper and loads loads more across every area of interest, plus ebooks and my new discovery, audiobooks. I love audiobooks when I'm at work and am currently majoring on #TheRiversOfLondon

even the eagles documentary made me like the eagles' music a little more, but this billy j**l documentary (which is as charming as advertised) might be the 1st music doc to make me like someone's music even less, which i didn't think was possible. but holy shit this is insufferable. wowie zowie.

So where’s actually the correct place to send a feature request to #KDE Plasma Addons?
Its GitLab readme says that I should “report bugs and feature requests in KDE's bugtracker under the plasmashell category”, but that requires me to choose a Component and there’s no “Plasma Addons” component or anything like that.
The bugs.kde page also says that I should, if I’m “not sure this is actually a bug, instead post about it at https://discuss.kde.org”.
So if each place tells me to post it somewhere different, where should I post it?

Speaking to someone mentioning about a company wanting to put AI data centres in space.
"Why would you put them in space? They're hard enough to manage on earth!"
"I guess to deal with the heat?"
"I've some experience in thermal management of servers in the past, and I feel like I had a distinct advantage in not attempting to do it in *a bloody vacuum*."

I keep thinking about trying mint or kubuntu but I have ubuntu working and I don't really care about what the UI looking like too much. As long as it works. I like the basics which tend to be best supported.

If you have Amazon Prime, you also have Luna Standard for gaming which includes Hogwarts Legacy for free, an excellent game. I see what Amazon is doing here, making gaming without a game console cheap and lock people in…
For a casual gamer like me, Luna is great, cheap, I can play on my large television or PC etc. Always good performance, no hardware necessary (besides a controller).
#amazon

Comedian Sean Collins describing some common Canadian linguistic subtleties.
@StandUpComedy #SeanCollins
https://www.biglaughboutique.com/talent/sean-collins-bio…

Sound-wise, I really enjoy #DoomerMusic, but I don't speak Russian and I'd rather like to know more about the lyrics/political implications. Does anyone have reviews/criticisms/resources etc in English?

I like #StarTrek: #StarfleetAcademy & its take on school children in the 32nd century, but y'know what I love even more?
The white hot RAGE from far right incels over this show, posting their non-stop furious rants on YouTube!
Isn't it nice when losers wear a sign …

Hey everyone,
@… and I had the honour of speaking to three families from Gaza today and we’d like to welcome them to Gaza Verified.
They are:
• eslam94 (@…)
• Hassan From Gaza 🍉🇵🇸 (

A Building Full of Cats: up on the roof
I like cats. I like Little Kitty Big City, I like Pix the Cat, I even liked Blinx. If I like games with a few cats in, then I am almost certain to love games with hundreds of cats in, right? In this case, yes. A Building Full of Cats is a hidden object game where the objects are cats. Lots of cats.
…

Much like how I don’t celebrate my son’s birthday on the day my wife and I conceived him, the Declaration of Independence was important, but it does not mark the birth of the nation.

Listening to Eurythimics at way too mischievous volume. I reminisce to being at a friends who had “proper speakers” given by a neighbour when we were teenagers and how good this sounded. Thinking back to how dodgy that was. Like, he was way too friendly to us. But fuck it, better Eurythimics.
Track is I Remember You off Revenge, if it matters.

On (generative) AI:
"So it's sort of like when we fed cows with cows and got mad cow disease."
https://framapiaf.org/@bbbhltz/115646412773089943

🇺🇦 Auf radioeins läuft...
The Kinks:
🎵 I'm Not Like Everybody Else
#NowPlaying #TheKinks
https://paul-roland.bandcamp.com/track/im-not-like-everybody-else-the-kinks-cover
https://open.spotify.com/track/0VM9qKjMreNHKdyBG3dpV7

RE: https://ohai.social/@redsad/115973864873497398
I'm in this post, and I don't like it.
@…

Updating the list of CLI apps I use regularly:
- castero: client for listening to podcasts.
- calcurse: personal calendar compatible with CalDAV servers.
- kew: music player.
- micro: text editor.
- toot: Mastodon client.
- newsboat: feed reader.
- w3m: web browser (and newsboat add-on, in my case).
- bat: like cat, but cooler.
- exa: like ls, but cooler.
- ncdu: tool for analyzing folder space usage.
- atool: tool for managing compress…

Health Stuff

Recovered somewhat from whatever that weird fit was at the end of last year.

NHS still has me on some sort of list I think, appointment might turn up next year. Last contact with them they were suggesting maybe November.
But the private treatment gave me the
MRI which
showed nothing weird and post-fit symptoms have been reducing.
Experimented with eating meat to see if that helped.
Tried eating meat for a month to see if it reduced the post-fit symptoms. Maybe it did? Tried vegetarian again and maybe it got worse?
Hard to tell with intermittent symptoms and a terrible memory.
Decided it's more likely to do good than harm (to me, entirely harm to the animals obviously), and eat meat till the end of the year.
While I'm better, I don't really feel fully recovered enough to want to change things so more meat next year I think.
One of those symptoms is that booze tolerance dropped to like zero. Very rarely had more than four pints in a day this year and very rarely more than one night a
week.
Much high number than the target there really.
Tripped over a guy-rope and fell onto the wrist.
Did two days of the festival and the drive home thinking it almost certainly wasn't broken and only confirmed it was when I got home and the hospital put it in a cast.

With her permission, I'm sharing some more art Wan Leen Siow did for the album - just because I really like her work and want others to see it! =)

I really do like the "Stop #Hacklore!" recommendations from https://www.hacklore.org/
However, in my opinion, they do ignore the gigantic

I heard there was a secret tool
That you could use if you were a fool
But you don't care for PDF files, do ya?
It goes like this: you click "log in"
A chatbot bubble blocks the screen
Investors thought this feature was a shoo-in
#ai #llm

RE: https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/115992074809694763
Like really. If you take this Moltbook thing very seriously I no longer can do that with you.

I'm #ActuallyAutistic, and I love this woman deeply. I have been a huge fan of her music, especially my special interest in her song “Loin d’ici” (ESC Version) since May 14, 2016.
But now, watching Taylor Swift, Cœur de Pirate, and other artists slowly take her place feels like an unspoken farewell, like a song fading softly into the distance. It’s as if she herself is tell…

8yo: "If I don't like [what I ordered], I can just take my dad's!"
🙄

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #AfternoonShow
Mister Rogers:
🎵 It's You I Like
#MisterRogers
https://pingvoices.bandcamp.com/track/three-songs-from-mister-rogers-neighborhood-its-you-i-like
https://open.spotify.com/track/7rUDn1kP3LeqfRcgjZbzgG

after watching so many Zohran videos, I'm baffled that other candidates for office will share videos where they don't say why they're running or mention a single campaign plank.
an SF candidate for office (who I like!) just shared a video on Instagram asking for donations and saying tonight is an important deadline and that SF matches donations from residents 6:1.
that's it. no platform plank mentioned. no reminder of why I care about their campaign to begin with.…

... That would make working remotely pretty easy. With my house at the back of the lot and the neighbor's house at the front of the lot, I have started thinking about the idea of building a new house in the front yard and then having the current house declared an ADU by the city. I could build the house of my dreams in a neighbourhood that I like, rent the old house out to offset the cost, and hopefully come out the other end without too much pain. ...

Bijan Robinson soars to 93-yard TD in stellar showing vs. Rams: I was like, 'I've got to take off' https://www.nfl.com/news/bijan-robinson-soars-to-93-yard-td-in-stellar-showing-vs-rams-i-was-like-i-ve-got-to-take-o…

Wishing C had the ability to do compile-time polymorphism.
Like, I have base class Foo with Bar/Baz derived from it.
I want to be able to put a method DoSomething() in Foo and call it on a Bar or Baz object in a template, without putting a vtable in Foo or incurring the overhead of a virtual method call.
You can sort of get this effect by having Bar/Baz be separate classes with no common base and make the template just call T.Foo() for parameter T, but this eliminates som…

I like cats :3

Senator Chuck Schumer,
the New York Democrat and minority leader,
knew things were moving in his direction in the spending showdown on Wednesday afternoon when he got a surprise phone call in his Capitol office suite.
It was Donald Trump, not a frequent contact in these days of hyper-polarized politics.
“He says, ‘Chuck, I hate shutdowns. I don’t like shutdowns. We’ve got to stop them,’”
Mr. Schumer said in an interview as he recalled his conversation with Mr. T…

And just like that, I have graduated to “better host the teens at home so at least we know where they are” years old.

I miss the days when you would write a blog post and there would be a whole bunch of comments...
https://rasterweb.net/raster/2012/09/26/laser-kaleidoscope/

I love long-form essays on YouTube but it's funny when you follow people who make like 1 video every 3 years

I don't think I'm ever going to enjoy gifts.
I can get why people would give them to children. After all, children don't have their own budget. However, I'm talking about occasional gifts, not a new toy every second week, because "we must outcompete the other grandparents". But to adults?
Once I've heard that you should gift people with what they won't buy themselves. Well, that's won't work for me. I'm a minimalist. If I don't need something, I don't want to have it. Unnecessary junk is only emotional burden to me.
I can get why you'd enjoy something handmade. But something people bought? If I need something, I can buy it myself, when I need it. And I definitely don't need people to prove to me that they never cared to learn who I am, and just buy whatever they like or whatever is "fashionable"; which usually means exactly the opposite of what I'd prefer (i.e. something minimalistic). Or even worse, I don't need people manipulating me through gifts.
Sweets? Besides my diabetes, I don't really enjoy expensive shit that people generally buy because it's what's advertised. For the money they waste on it, I'd buy three times as much sweets I'd actually enjoy.
Gift cards? Oh yes, "you aren't supposed to give money, so let's just give the equivalent of money that's actually worth less than money". Actual money? And here we reach the true nonsense; we exchange the same amount of money, so it's just pointless gesture. Unless one of us gives less money…
What I'd really like, as a gift? Maybe that people would finally bother accepting me as who I am. The absolute minimum of caring that I hate consumerism, and not fueling it "for me".
#AntiCapitalism #minimalism #ActuallyAutistic

Made Stuff

Made 11 Wordcloud Tarot shows.

See them here
The target is like 25. So about half as many as target.
Some good, some great.
See them here
Not enough. The target is like 6.
Meh.
Target is for 2026 to be the next one anyway really.
I do have a script and all the assets needed to animate it, but I have become unhappy with the script and failed so far at rewrites.
Should get it done next year at some point I'd hope.
Overshooting the target of zero there. surprise new entry in the projects list

I wasn't terribly hungry tonight so dinner was cheese, crackers, and chilli jam. Pretty tasty. Oh, and a glass of pink moscato just because I felt like it.
#DinnerSnack

idk why I find it so amusing to say like "I paid ten of God's own American dollars for that"

Just had my second interview with an AI interviewer.
I fully expect every single co-worker to be a clanker at these companies. Just me and like 250 bots and one other human (who put up the money).
Like there's a medieval lord in a keep, and I'm riding around the digital countryside boppin' all the machine field mice (who in their spare time try to hack the world's nuclear arsenals) on the head like a dystopian little bunny foo foo.

Ukraine has become a live-fire test range for AI drones like the Bumblebee, provided by a secretive Eric Schmidt-led venture, raising alarms in Kremlin circles (C.J. Chivers/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/magazine/ukraine-ai-drones-war-russia…

Anybody know if I have anything in my mountain of crap that will connect to a Molex PicoBlade 1.25mm (P/N 510210400)? I don't feel like spending €10 on another attempt to save €15 by hoping that the particular flavor of "JST-1.25" I order from AliExpress is actually the right one this time.

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.

Justin Jefferson: 'I definitely feel like we would have done better' if Vikings kept Sam Darnold

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/justin-jefferson-sam-darnold-vikings/

I have been using Codex extensively to fix crashes. Usually when I get an obscure crash I go “well there goes my afternoon”. These days, I paste the stack trace into codex and go “fix this”, and it does a remarkable job at finding clues I miss, and to find the root causes.
It doesn’t always work, but it has a very solid hit rate. What seemed like a daunting uphill mountain of despair is now a quick sweeping job.

If you're running a conference, please have a COVID policy that includes mandatory indoor masking for everyone but active presenters.
I, and many people like me, cannot participate in indoor events without _everyone_ masking.
Thank you.

Google, with its structural advantages, is a threat for both OpenAI and Nvidia; OpenAI has a real moat with 800M ChatGPT users, but needs an advertising model (Ben Thompson/Stratechery)
https://stratechery.com/2025/google-nvidia-and-openai/

I want to sell scented candles that are topical to the times 🕯️
Like “AI infused nightmare” and “autocratic breakthrough” and let’s not forget “soupçon of human rights lost.”
I’ll call them Zeitgeist Scented Candles.
And in future years, their scents can really take you back to the halcyon days of 2025 😳
#HappyNewYear

If you’re rich, I don’t like you. If you’re rich and help the poor, I still don’t like you. If you’re rich and wish you weren’t, I can understand that, but it doesn’t change anything. Giving to the poor doesn’t undo the system that made you rich in the first place. It’s charity dressed up as justice, and it only makes you look generous while the structure that feeds your power stays firm.
If you really wanted to help, you’d walk away from the corporations, the profit, and the comfort b…

I've been in pain (of various states) for over a month now, and I'm trying different techniques to deal with it.
Since it's not an injury I am now trying to "push through the pain" and by that I mean instead of lying on a heating pad trying to relieve the pain I get up, get moving, and do things.
And... it hurts like hell. But yesterday it only hurt like hell for like 90 minutes, so I could deal with that.
Contrast to 6 hours lying in bed the day befor…

It's still amazing to me what's possible with modest equipment purely due to the availability of extremely sophisticated personal computers.
To make an image like this, I combine often dozens of hours of total exposure time in hundreds of images to average them out (this reduces noise and improves visibility of faint structures).