I suspect for a long time, you saw a lot of #neurodivergent people who were Very Computer because the computer avoided a lot of the friction of human social interactions-- it was predictable and no-nonsense.

So now we're creating computers that are unpredictable and full of nonsense. The #slop industry is taking away a safe space for a marginalized community.

I wonder if eventually you'll see people asking for removal of chatbots as an accessibility affordance?

For all the smack #php gets, especially today, nobody has ever really built a better pick-up-and-go web development experience.

Changes are a FTP upload and press F5 to see the changes. No build process or caching abstraction horror. Frameworks and dependencies are optional, since most of the basics are built into the standard library. The HTTP infra is industrial strength and no-surprises Apache or Nginx.

Why can't the "better" languages provide an environment that works the same way?

:ablobcatheart: PLUMP. :ablobcatheart:

I didn't see Matilda in her usual spot on Thursday evening, and then she was back yesterday, and way fatter than I remember.

She seems unperterbed by the rare rain or by my presence. She has largely stopped anchoring her web to our front door so she doesn't get alerted every time we open it.

#arachtober #spider #blackwidow

Just because #cow is "#fvwm but for #wayland", doesn't mean it's not capable of plenty of looks that don't shamelessly ape the Motif aesthetic.

Now, the programs it composits, that's another story entirely :blobcatblep2:

#ai companies crow about the risky power of their products to sell the public (and investors) that they're indispensible.

I wonder if they're now also trying to overtly court regulators.

If they could get legislation saying "any model bigger than current ones is too scary" it freezes the unsustainably costly dev treadmill and hobbles new or foreign entrants to the market.

Like how Meta went all in on age verification once they could comply more easily than the next upstart competitor.

The Metcalfe Mysteries

#ModelHobbyToyShows
#HashTagGames

One particularly bizarre facet of business's current fixation with #ai is how it ignores everything they know about pricing.

Almost any human, and some gifted species of trout, can see it's in "loss leader" mode. Fine, exploit the below-cost pricing now, but don't hollow out your organization and become dependent until you've seen the final price card.

It smacks of watching a co-worker roll up in a new $1200 per month car, despite his $30k salary, because "hey, no payments til September!"

Replaced the battery in my #powercomputing PowerTower 180e.

The old one tested at ~17mv, but had not leaked. I wonder if it was a replacement because it looked like new ones for sale, and I doubt they've used the same label for 25 years.

Now I learn that the System 7.6 date control panel doesn't go past 2020... #vintagemac

Do people who are old enough to remember the US Bicentennial get the feeling the 250th celebratory stuff just seems low-effort by comparison?

I only know of it from old advertising and paraphernalia, but it seemed like there was a lot more buy-in for a lot longer, rather than a handful of brands that had little no other compelling message to trade under. (Stellantis, I'm looking in your direction)

They didn't even reassemble the American Freedom Train.

More custom #mechanicalkeyboard keycaps. I expect a native #chinese speaker will butt in and say that machine translation missed "#Dragon Blood" entirely.

At work they keep saying "I'm one of the best devs" but also harping on how we should all be using the #ai slopamatron much more.

I keep thinking of the legend of Jawn Henry. How many talented people are going to compromise quality, burn out, or worse, when management sets the bar based on a machine that offers infinite instant garbage?

A lot of the toxicity around #ai / #LLM is because it was delivered as capitalism distillate.

Normal people don't start gobbling down every piece of content to try to manufacture God.

They don't bolt features people don't want onto products and ignore consent.

They don't write blank cheques based solely on the narrative of firing white-collar workers.

Only the trillion-dollar babies could come up with that.

If the CS geeks and hobbyists had delivered LLMs first, would it look different?

In the last few years, the #linux hobbyists introduced a galaxy of modernized terminal emulators with features like "tabs" and "uses a modern toolkit that matches the rest of your desktop".

Apparently 90% of them can't actually emit the bell noise. They either use defunct tools like libcanberra, or they're waiting for a Wayland extension to delegate the task to a compositor. Is this not a day-2 feature for a terminal?

Meanwhile, freaking Xterm spruced up with libXaw3d in Xwayland just works.

Leading industrialist Scrooge McDuck "wiped out" after bold investment in NFTs undermined by Flintheart Glomgold acquiring access to a web browser with "save image" menu option.

#CharacterOnTheNews
#HashTagGames

I retired by #tl866 -- the socket's too loose. Somehow, the new #t48 that replaced it lacks the same charm.

It's no longer a 1980s-looking beige box, it's black with rounded curves and a needlessly blue LED, and it's finickier (doesn't like being on the USB 2.0 under-desk hub with the HID devices)

I suppose it's mostly nostalgia-- the 866 is where I built my most successful hobby project (a CH375/6 option ROM).

Still, do I need strong feelings about ROM programmers? #vintagecomputing

The cheapest #mechanicalkeyboard keycaps available now seem to be the random ANSI sets with a "clear shine through" lettering shot.

I guess the diversity of KWJIBO Amazon-brand $25 RGB keyboards with MX-alike switches drives the market.

Surprisingly, you have to pay MORE for featureless solid-colour caps to laser to a desired legend.

The manufacturers making generic non-LED keyboards are probably making rubber domes, and/or are probably firms with captive tooling not selling on Aliexpress.

Big "I want a #flp02 but there's no way I'm spending USD250 for a case" energy

The base chassis is a Gamemax Titan Silent. The intake bezel and top panel are 3D-printed. The side trim is stripwood (should have used plastic stock). The display module is a Digole serial unit, being fed system stats with custom code. A sticker covers the original top-mounted port openings.

#casemod #pccase #pcmr

I find it interesting how many #hamradio enthusiasts have their callsign in in their display name.

In the US, at least, the real name associated with a callsign is a trivially searchable public record. I never mention mine because I feel like it's an invite to being doxxed.

The Fediverse in general feels less like a "real names mandatory" space and more of a "we use pseudonyms to siloize our identity and protect our privacy" one, but :blobcatshrug: conversely, even that isn't obligatory.

A few years ago, I saw a guide using a whole bunch of software tools and intercepting GPU stuff to export your #guiildwars2 character to a mesh and 3-D print it.

I'm surprised no #mmorpg vendor has taken the idea and turned it into an explicit retail product. I'd bet plenty of people who have devoted 200 hours into their Orcish or Sylvari proxies would probably happily drop a hundred bucks for even an unpainted 20cm tall resin figure, or they could award them as event prizes.

I wonder if the guys who get the solid coloured band tattoos on their forearms answer if you read the bands and try to address them as "Hey, 470 ohms!"

#electronics