Anyone know of a LGBTQ friendly ham radio organization in Massachusetts? I, uh, might need that info.

back when I was in university doing my CS degree, I enjoyed slumming it with humanities people when I had the opportunity. A friend of mine was doing her philosophy degree at the same time, and every now and then I'd sit in on some of their discussions if it was something I found interesting. (Having grown up with a philosophy major mum sort of predisposed me to this, I guess).

And this is perhaps why, when I read all the many discussions about programmer misery at the moment, I feel like there's an important term (with its supporting body of theory) missing. For example, there was a bunch of talk about how a lot of ongoing programmer misery is not *really* burnout, though people certainly are exhausted - it's more about a feeling of loss of meaning. That it's getting harder to care about what we work on, and on our work itself, because we keep being increasingly removed from the purpose of the work; it's hard to feel your work has meaning if you're only abstractly aware of what it's for and what it's about. Perhaps we're all lodged into "administrative sediment" (a term coined by a medical professional; it might well describe life in their discipline) rather than "burnout"?

The word we're grasping for is "alienation". A dead old German guy wrote a bunch about it; he's currently unfashionable, but we'll be hearing about him again soon; his corpse tends to be exhumed every time there's a big financial crisis.

Landlord on the phone: just go on in and take whatever you want, feed on whoever you like

Vampire: trying but I can't get in

Landlord: what, but I invited you in

Vampire: yes but I can't come in, you're sure this is your home? Other people seem to live here

Landlord: yes I own it!

Vampire: you own it, but do you live in it?

Landlord: what does that matter? It's mine

Vampire: it's your *property*, it's not your *home*

Landlord: it's mine! who cares if I live in it?!

Vampire: magic law, why do you want me in anyway

Landlord: the tenants are late on rent, I figure this was a cheaper way to get rid of them...

Vampire: yeah this isn't going to work

Landlord: but don't you need to feed?

Vampire: don't worry, I figured out an alternative, thanks for inviting me in

Data:
- LLMs are killing the planet
- LLMs are raising utility prices
- LLMs are raising computer prices
- LLMs give you teh dums
- LLMs show negligible increases in net productivity
- LLM costs are going up
- LLMs run on stolen content
- LLM companies keep breaking laws and saying, "Oopsie!"

Open Source maintainers for some reason:
- We are debating our AI policy, but it's a tough decision. *whines*

Dudes. WTF is wrong with you?

(Fortunately, by and large people I describe here like this are NOT friends with me on the Fediverse.)

When I’m sweating bullets, frayed nerves, and put in a search request and I get AI feedback, I’ve never seen the AI feedback:

▪️Chide me for being lazy and not “RTFM-ing” and not knowing what I’m doing
▪️Chide me for using an inferior OS or hardware
▪️Chide me for being poor and not having higher-spec equipment
▪️Give me snide joke or “skill issue” answers

It’s a lot like Sarah Connor’s monologue about the Terminator:

“The Terminator would never stop. It would never leave him. It would never hurt him, never shout at him, or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him. It would always be there. And it would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years, this thing, this machine was the only one that measured up.”

People in this space who gleefully act like assholes shouldn’t be surprised when people stop coming to them.

Frankly I think this is an awful situation.

COROLLARY:
People should know how to do basic troubleshooting, and/or know how to as clearly as possible describe the problem they are having.

Restrooms at a new local cocktail bar.

#restrooms #bathrooms #cocktailbars #gender #DnD #funny

Reminder: There is no *physical* shortage of housing anywhere in the United States. We don't actually need more buildings. We need fewer landlords.

Anyone know of any student-led anti-GenAI campaigns in UK schools? My daughter hates the amount it gets used *by the school itself* and wants to do something…

Periodic checkin: who is hiring that doesn't force developers to use AI for writing code?

#NoAI #NoGenAI #Jobs #FediHired #GetFediHired

Here we go again.

If you fire a bullet at a practice dummy and the bullet hits a person instead, the bullet was not “acting on its own.”

When Anthropic's software—designed, programmed, prompted, and activated by humans working for Anthropic—does stuff the humans failed to predict, stop saying the software has "gone rogue.” The software does not have agency. Only the humans do.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/09/technology/anthropic-rogue-ai-agents.html?unlocked_article_code=1.HlE.GIEa.uR_4KOEmJEfi&smid=url-share

In a discussion elsewhere that started and quickly digressed from the definition and start/end dates of the "Boomer" generation, the question was asked: "Which generation invented 'hold my beer'?". And I am dearly hoping that the cuneiform-studying community can bring the goods on this home to ancient Mesopotamia ... Any leads?

Boost for maximum memepact!

#ancientHistory #cuneiform #beer #Mesopotamia

"When I first came up with the term [Software Engineering], no one had heard of it before, at least in our world. It was an ongoing joke for a long time. They liked to kid me about my radical ideas. It was a memorable day when one of the most respected hardware gurus explained to everyone in a meeting that he agreed with me that the process of building software should also be considered an engineering discipline, just like with hardware."

#RIP #margarethamilton

https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/1w5h0mt/comment/p7ge004/

@billyjoebowers

The teams behind #MagicTheGathering, #DuelMasters, and #DungeonsAndDragons are looking to unionize.

https://magicuntapped.com/index.php/news/union-push-at-wizards-of-the-coast-expands

did someone mention that it's #BandcampFriday?
if not, I did it :3

if you wanna support a trans femme artist I would highly appreciate it if you check out my music :3
Also my new EP will release in 2 weeks ^~^

https://oddeys.bandcamp.com/album/bad-apple-ep

#transMusician #furry #furrymusic #furryart

Fun story: When I was traveling home I wore my "Watch Herzog" t-shirt for travel day. It's got a giant picture of Werner's face on it.

This fucked up every single facial recognition program both the Mexican and US passport control areas to the point that agents for both countries had to pull me aside and verify my identity the old fashioned way.

So t-shirts with big faces on them don't work well with AI Facial recognition systems. Figured that would be interesting information around here.

Would any idling software folks have an interest in building a better web search?

While not perfect, YaCy's human-led index seems to get the best search results these days, BUT they have a clunky server for people to run, plus increasing vibe-coding and LLM intrusion.

I have it in my head to re-implement their protocol to use and eventually contribute to their federated index without their software, but that seems more viable/fun with a team.

Curious about Queering Wiki 2026? 👀
🌈 The programme for the Wikimedia movement’s queer conference is finally out! Check out what’s in store for us in Montreal ✨
https://w.wiki/M33u

#Wikipedia #QueeringWiki

📰 How Fairphone built the ethical, repairable Fairphone Gen 6+ 📱

🗒 "There’s also something to be said for knowing that your phone is repairable if something goes wrong, and when the time comes to replace the battery, you can do it yourself in a few minutes."

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/09/nearly-impossible-how-fairphone-built-the-ethical-repairable-fairphone-gen-6/

#phone #fairphone #ethical #repairable #tech #solarpunk