@cdarwin@c.imA giant mirror to create
“sunlight on demand”
was just approved by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC),
despite opposition from astronomers and the public, and real safety concerns.
The FCC approved the company
Reflect Orbital
to test one satellite, named Earendil-1,
as a means of reflecting the sun’s rays back to Earth for extra solar energy
and wide-area lighting.
The light is expected to cover an area about five ki…
@theodric@social.linux.pizzaGot tired of having to disassemble my entire-ass computer to get to the second SSD (it's a Streacom DB4 passive cube; everything is an ordeal), so I implemented an external PCIe disk attachment point around the open rear of the case. Now any SSD on a standard PCIe carrier can be swapped out easily!
Many years ago, I discovered that one of my ASUS 2nd-gen Core i motherboards would let me hotswap PCIe devices, under Linux anyway. I don't think I'm brave/dumb enough to try tha…
@ToneMilazzo@mastodon.cloudI've been plotting a weird west comic with the pitch; Michael Moorcock's Gunsmoke.
I already feel unsafe levels of investment in the property and I can’t afford to finance another passion project.
So I might test the waters with a one-shot featuring Six Gun Gorilla.
https://pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/Six-Gun_G
@neverpanic@chaos.socialHad a bit of an unpleasant surprise on Saturday. Luckily the disk is still in warranty, and UPS picked it up this morning. Let's see how well Toshiba's RMA process performs.
No smart warnings or other signs, though, it just fell off the bus, started making weird noises and never came back. And it's the newest of the 4 disks in my NAS, too. Really glad I bought this model from two different vendors now to avoid clustering risks.
@Kingu@sakurajima.moeUsually when they mix-up the band names like this it means it's not two set one for each band but a one-man live from an actual mix-up of both.
But Pedro exWHYZ is kind or a weird mix...
@cdarwin@c.imAnthropic has been trying to understand how large language models (LLMs) work for a few years now.
Anthropic isn’t the only one looking at this, but I think the company has made it part of its core mission more than most.
Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, has said we won’t be able to control LLMs fully unless we learn more about how they work.
So this new research is very much in that context.
It goes deeper into the weird mechanisms inside LLMs than ever before.
@tiotasram@kolektiva.socialJust finished reading "The Beast Player" by Nahoko Uehashi. I had already watched the anime, but it had been so king I didn't remember all the details. While the anime was great, the book is even better, and it's going to be high on my list of things to recommend to my children when they're old enough to read for fun.
The neurodivergent representation is cool, as is the deep central question of interspecies bonds and the political possibilities and dangers they entail. Uehashi handles the exploration of that question well in my judgment, including appropriate ambiguity without muddying moral clarity. Elin is a truly fantastic protagonist, not without flaws but nevertheless a excellent role model and a very sympathetic figure without being pitiful.
One thing I really love about Uehashi's writing is that she's not shy about using interior narration to tell the reader directly what a variety of characters are feeling, but when she does this she focuses on human contradictions, quirks, and weaknesses that make those characters feel much richer, and that remind the reader of all the ways our weird and sometimes contradictory or inexplicable quirks guide our actions just as much as both logical thought and predictable/expected feelings. None of the characters is an unerring source of wisdom, with every grand principle presented shown to have its weaknesses and biases, and even the wisest characters making mistakes and learning from them.
Overall, a wonderful book, and having also seen the "Seirei no Moribito" anime but not read the books, I'm excited to dig into more of Uehashi's extensive catalog.
#AmReading #ReadingNow #Bookstodon
@memeorandum@universeodon.comOne Weird Trick for Torpedoing Todd Blanche's Hearing (Sarah Longwell/The Bulwark)
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/one-weird-trick-for-torpedoing-todd
http://www.memeorandum.com/260712/p71#a260712p71
@hikingdude@mastodon.socialOften it's really important to question what someone says. Just today someone said:
When I do this, people say it's strange.
Who is "the people"? I'm curious...
Yeah this one neighbour.
Ah it's ONE "people" and this one is known to be weird!
@fanf@mendeddrum.orgfrom my link log —
How I made rustdoc 33% faster in one week.
https://noahlev.org/blog/2026/08/27/making-rustdoc-faster/
saved 2026-08-28 h…
@Jyoti@mas.toJust watched #SheepDetectives and bloody loved it. So I went to add an IMDB rating and I am stunned to find out that #NicholasBraun, who plays the plod, is a YANK!
Sir, full marks to you on nailing a proper English accent so well that I had not one weird thing triggering my Enery Iggins reflex.
@jake4480@c.imBeen digging this one, a new find-- new EP by Berlin's WET DREAM WAR MACHINE. Kinda punk, kinda noise, kinda metal, this one is catchy, weird, ragey, everything good about music like this. Real raw, nasty sound. They have a couple earlier releases I still gotta check out, too.
https://wetdreamwarmachine.b…
@azonenberg@ioc.exchangeHS tariff codes are *weird* sometimes.
Somehow all of these are one HS code.
@qurlyjoe@mstdn.socialI hesitate to post this. The voice of the presenter is obviously generated artificially, but if you can watch and tune out the voice, and read the subtitles, then you can listen to the chickens. In other clips he speaks with an accent similar to what’s on this one, but this one just sounds weird. Never mind, just watch, and be amused. https://
@ELLIOTTCABLE@functional.cafeA really weird side-effect of working on what is, effectively, an optimization engine, is that so, so many algorithmic/analytic/PLT things become .... easy? (or gradual?)
I get to ... say. no.
No matter what, I basically always have the option of *failing*: the engine can always fall back to "drive-to-⊤, decline-to-make-a-firm-statement - this falls towards Run."
No matter how much buried complexity, the tool, at its core, only has one actual job: decide whether t…
@hex@kolektiva.socialTo be clear, I don't think this is a model to emulate but I do think it's an interesting little corner of history worth exploring.
The whole "human sacrifice" thing is a bit much, but I guess it depends on who is being sacrificed. They were going to sacrifice one of their members (which they never did), and that seems a bit silly. Now, if they were gonna sacrifice a Nazi, that might be a bit different.
That said, if you decide to go down *that* path absolutely do not tell me. Do not ask for help. Do not file paperwork. Just keep being your weird self and make sure to write a memoir after all the shit is over... cause I wanna read that crazy shit.
@hynek@mastodon.socialIt's so weird to see people in my TL shitting on GitHub’s “$100 million for open source" victory lap.
Is it a bit cringe and self-aggradizing? Sure!
And YET it has been life-changing to many maintainers including myself!
There're MANY companies that use my stuff that could make me very rich by giving me 10 minutes of their profits, but GitHub is the one getting flak!?
The ones who built a low-friction Patreon for maintainers, made it a first-class feature…
@grumpybozo@toad.socialRE: https://swiss.social/@paulfoerster/116828322923623286
This seems so weird to me…
Email spam is one of the few things that has actually improved over the past decade. If you get more than a handful per week getting through to your Inbox, your ma…
@groupnebula563@mastodon.social@… i have more crusty URLs from my weird websites, check this one out: https://www.furbnet.com/index.iva?i=6&a=midi&id=1
@3sframe@social.linux.pizzaOffice Pokemon Archetypes:
- Dude who has to slam his enter button every time he presses it.
- Person with a chronic cough.
- Stinky funky smell. Is it a person? Or the carpet? Who knows?
- Someone who cooks smelly food in the microwave at all hours of the day.
- The yapper
- The yapper with really weird niche interests
- The snitch
- The silent one who's very active on slack.
- The go getter that's loud about it.
Did I miss any?
@alecsargent@social.linux.pizzaFirefox 154 has decided to make menus very much like MacOS(round corners, dark/light borders and line seperators), the design itself is fine but it is really weird and inconsistent if one is using any other than MacOS.
Does anyone know what exactly are the CSS selectors for userChrome.css for this case?
#firefox
@grumpybozo@toad.socialI hate when I screw up.
I know, it happens every now and then to everyone. It just sucks so bad.
Make sure your programmatically deployed config files don’t have lingering interface details specific to one machine. Weird things happen. Terrible things.
<sigh>
#Sysadminnery
@memeorandum@universeodon.com'Dangerous, radical and frankly weird': How Republicans used their Dallas convention to frame up the midterms (Politico)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/11/america-no-commies-one-t-shirt-explains-the-gops-midterm-attack-plan-01071950
http://www.memeorandum.com/260911/p33#a260911p33
@cdarwin@c.imFederal law enforcement agents were spotted installing AI-powered surveillance towers at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in the latest escalation of Donald Trump’s weird obsession.
In one video shared by TMZ Tuesday, U.S. Marshals escorted an LVT Mobile Security Unit to the edge of the Reflecting Pool.
In another video a day earlier, Daily Mail reporter John Michael Raasch witnessed a surveillance tower being towed in circles around the supposedly embattled landmark by U.S. Pa…
@tiotasram@kolektiva.socialWish inspiration hadn't struck right at 1 a.m. when I have to teach tomorrow, but we'll see if I can get back to sleep now that I'm done with a draft of this story. Glad to have my first entry in my "incredulous young historians of the future" series actually written instead of just imagined. There are surely some typos ahead...
#SciFi #Writing #Technology #ShortStory
"The Age of Progress", a short story by Tiota Sram.
"Your assignment", said the teacher, "is to describe why the progressive vision of technology that gives us the name 'Age of Progress' today failed, and why it was actually a pessimistic view of technology. Your study guides have links to a few sources, but as usual you should synthesize information from at least two knowledge systems, and one of those shouldn't be family-based."
"Ugh", said Ye'xik, "this is gonna be tricky. Wasn't the whole problem with the Age of Progress that they were too optimistic about technology?"
"Well, they did talk a lot about the end of the world and extinction, and I did almost happen, right?" said Finan.
"Yeah, that's gotta count as pessimism, doesn't it?" Gedi chimed in.
"Well..." said Hallavia, with their usual deliberate tone, "I think it's not that simple, or at least it doesn't have to be."
The four of them were walking outside to have lunch, pondering the new assignment from this cycle's history and culture teacher. A brief silence fell as they pondered the Age of Progress.
"Maybe we should look at it through another history system?" offered Finan. "I mean, we've been learning about knowledge systems and lenses, and the 'Ages' lens of just one perspective with its own distortions, right?"
"My mab is working with my omeh on an oral history right now", said Gedi, "maybe I can use that as my second knowledge system? I'll see what they have to say about it!"
"We shouldn't all use the same knowledge systems though", said Ye'xik. "I think there's a bit of a thesis/antithesis thing going on here too? Like we were learning in ideas class?"
"Wait, I missed ideas last week", said Gedi, what's an antithesis?"
"It's just an opposite, really", said Ye'xik. "You take the thesis statement and construct any statement that contradicts it. The two form a pair, and then you can try to find a synthesis that combines both ideas."
"I didn't really get that part", Finan interrupted, "like, if they're contradictory, how could they be expressed together? Wouldn't you need to pick one that's true?... wait I guess maybe if you mixed different knowledge systems? But then would they really be contradictory?"
The group fell silent for a moment in thought.
Hallavi spoke up: "Incommensurate isn't the same as contradictory, I think. That's what it would be if you had two truths from different knowledge systems that didn't fit. Plus... not all knowledge systems have a concept of truth, or of contradiction?"
The group pondered this for a bit more.
"I think maybe there's lots of ways to be contradictory, even in a very logic-hungry knowledge system", said Gedi. "Then if your thesis and antithesis contradict in one way, you could find another sort out 'axis' in which they don't, and state your synthesis from there?"
"Oh, that makes sense", said Ye'xik.
"Anyways what were you saying about the Age of Progress, Ye'xik?" said Gedi.
"Wait", interrupted Hallavi, "Did that mashes sense to you, Finan?"
Finan had been silent, looking down at their feet, but replied "Oh yeah, thanks for checking Hallavi! I think I got the part about synthesis now, thanks Gedi. I was just thinking about optimism and pessimism more. Is that where you were going with this, Ye'xik?"
"Haha, yeah Finan, you got it", said Ye'xik. "Since optimism and pessimism can be opposites, does the teacher actually want us to form a synthesis of them?"
"Oh..." muttered Gedi, "that's a good idea."
"I think..." began Hallavi, pausing to collect their thoughts, "I think the teacher would have told us that, though. Obviously it's not a wrong way to approach this assignment because it incorporates pessimism, but teachers usually aren't too tricky. I think it's okay to be literal about the pessimism thing. And I think I have an idea..."
When Hallavi remained silent for a moment, Ye'xik opened their mouth to speak, but then looked at Hallavi and closed it again. Finan and Gedi were looking at Hallavi too. They pushed through the doors out to the meadow, and settled in their usual place to sit, pulling lunches out of their bags. Hallavi finally spoke up while the others were chewing: "The Age of Progress lasted from the Enlightenment to the Dim Times, and they believed that technology would always get better, no matter what. That's the progressive vision of technology our teacher was talking about. They thought it could solve any problem, and they wouldn't have to worry about weapons or extinctions or the climate or pollution or any of that stuff, because technology would eventually come up with a solution. They looked at the technology that solved problems like diseases or overcame engineering challenges and extrapolated too broadly, basically. That's the idea they had?"
The other three were all nodding their heads, knowing Hallavi needed room to think and put words together.
Hallavi continued: "So it seems like it's optimistic, because they thought it could do anything. But they were thinking about technology like I just talked about it: like an 'it' that could 'do'. That's not what we've been learning in our technology class. Invention is a social phenomenon, and technologies have both material and social bases, not to mention communities of practice and knowledge maintenance. So I think the idea of technological progress divorced from social participation is pessimistic, because it mythologizes technology in a way that makes it seem uncontrollable."
"Huh" said Gedi and Finan while at the same time Ye'xik said "mhmm".
Hallavi looked up shyly at the rest of them, but they were all looking back with admiration.
"I think you're right, Hallavi", said Ye'xik. "Or at least, that's probably what the teacher wanted us to puzzle out. Good thing they asked us to include two knowledge systems so we can each have our own perspectives to contribute, otherwise you'd go first and our presentations would all just be 'What Hallavi said'".
Hallavi blushed but Finan laughed "Hah! You're right and that Ye'xik."
Gedi was looking at their sandwich with some intensity. They looked at Hallavi then back at their sandwich. "It's like they thought they were strapped to an out-of-control rocket, when you put it that way", they said. "It must have been scary, really, to believe that technology was almost an entity, changing in an inevitable way. That word 'inevitable' really takes all the human agency out of it, doesn't it. And even though they kept saying that technology would inevitably solve problems, look at what the technologies they invented actually did!"
Finan shuddered. He added, "Really, it was their dominators who were saying it was inevitable wasn't it? Back then it wasn't like today where historians travel and sample all kinds of ideas, so the primary sources we're reading are almost all from dominators, right?"
Ye'xik responded "Yeah, I keep forgetting to account for that. It was such a weird and horrible time, it's kinda hard to believe everything we read and hear sometimes."
Gedi picked up the thread again "That makes it worse, right? All those dominators saying the stuff they're doing is inevitable, and lying to everyone's faces about it being progress and wonderful stuff, meanwhile two thirds of it is the most awful stuff there's ever been, I mean they could have literally killed everyone and ruined the whole planet, and they almost did."
"They did actually crush a lot of cultures beyond recognition so the survivors had to rebuild with only weak ties to their old traditions", said Hallavi with a quiet intensity.
They all were silent for a moment, pondering the horrors of a bygone age.
Finan broke the silence: "That's a terrible kind of pessimism, to believe that technologcal 'progress' is inevitable, at a time when most people are dominators somewhere in a hierarchy and the ones on top constantly talk about how technologies like medicines will 'save' the world while mostly inventing new technologies of violence. Everyone must have understood what they really meant based on the technologies they were actually developing and investing into. I think I still don't understand how the Age of Progress and the Dim Times could even happen".
"Yeah, and the pessimism is only part of our assignment", signed Ye'xik. "We still have to describe why the progressive vision failed, although I think maybe you just did a lot of that, Finan".
A gloom descended briefly, until Gedi said "Well, this assignment is supposed to take a week or two, right? Thanks to Hallavi we've already cracked the crux, I think, so we don't need to ruminate too much right this moment about ancient history, and we know things turned out okay in the end. Let's finish lunch and go climb a tree!"
@joe@toot.worksI feel weird saying this but the first day after one of these is really, really depressing. I spent 18 months planning and saving for the trip that I just got back from. Now what? I did put down a deposit for a next trip, but still.
@nelson@tech.lgbtBeen dealing with a pinched nerve for the last week since laying back in a dentist chair set it off. Mostly okay but sitting at my desk is very uncomfortable. Weird combination of numb hand and sharp pain in one muscle in my back.
@hacksilon@infosec.exchangeTrying out #Couchsurfing for the first time, and the UX is really weird. I am looking for hosts in a small town in northern Germany, and it will happily tell me that it has 6 hosts there. The only problem is that four of them are in a city in Denmark, and two of them are in other small towns 50 km away from the town I was looking at. Like, cool that there are options, but maybe just straight-up tell me "sorry, no one here, the closest I can do for you is X (42 km away) and Y (48 km away)".
Even weirder: looking at a city with a lot of hosts, it will just randomly throw in a host from some town in Denmark, or Spain (?!), before showing me more people from the city I was actually looking at.
Don't really understand if this is just broken, or if there is some weird reason I don't see behind this, but it doesn't inspire confidence.
