the great american state fair has shut down until 5pm due to extreme heat, disappointing the visitor

What I saw VS what I drew 🪷

When I saw this baby moorhen standing on a sunny lily pad, I knew I had to draw them. This is a quick study drawn on a single layer and with a single brush!

#Art #ArtVsReference #Study #Bird #Illustration #DigitalArt #Artist #FirstFridayArtWalk #MastoArt #BirdsOfMastodon #FediArt

For those in America, make sure to PUSH to PROD on your way out today!

🗽💥🦅

I still say, these data centers' true purpose is to terraform a warmer planet for the reptilians

The Tumultuous Trio, comprising The Opalcat, Jade and her twin sister, Mischief, all of whom are hard at work as usual in celebration of Feisty Friday.

#cats #CatsOfMastodon

"If companies like Sony and Microsoft want to take away our ownership of video games, to break our tangible connection with the classics we play and love, there's little we can do to stop them other than refusing to buy their games going forwards."

(Original title: I Guess These Are The Games, And Memories, I'm Stuck With For The Rest Of My Life)

https://aftermath.site/video-game-physical-release-disc-playstation/

Demanding command line interface use from people who are not sysadmins
is not reasonable, realistic, or kind.

Make your free libre open source alternative usable for the intended end users. Write documentation that isn’t “sudo the glorble fleegeller, but first make sure you were installing sketchy gitblob three hours ago”

​:neobread_cat_ears:​

​:neocat_floof_owo:​

@mudkip it's interesting that many people don't know this, but Karl Marx had a gigantic Funko Pop collection.

There has recently been a wave of AI-generated accounts signing up pretending to be real people.

Server admins are trying to ban them as quickly as they are discovered, and some servers have temporarily closed sign-ups while they deal with it.

If you spot an account you think might be AI-generated, click ⋯ on one of the account's posts and select "report". Remember to give your reason for reporting, so that the admin knows what to look for.

#FediTips

If you run a PeerTube instance, you should probably make sure you're upgraded to v8.2.2 immediately.

There's an undisclosed security vulnerability which was patched in v8.2.2.

https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/blob/develop/CHANGELOG.md

I am posting a lot of bird photos at the moment because parents are busy raising their young and that is perfect for bird photography.

But I can't wait for the salmon return in a few weeks because that's when I get my bear photos. And you know how much I love bears!

#photography #bears #wildlife #WildlifePhotography #WildlifeWednesday #VancouverIslandWildlife #VancouverIsland #BritishColumbia

RE: https://mstdn.moimeme.ca/@EdwinG/116846156637310349

Fuck Sony, fuck Nintendo, fuck Microsoft, fuck EA, fuck Rockstar Games, fuck Ubisoft, and fuck so many other of the big gaming companies....

Hi It's me asking for accessibility help again! Anyone know of a good simple speech to text program for *Windows*? It needs to handle long ramblings so I can just talk out my drafts by my desktop - (no sub fees,no sneaky llm training etc)

Don't suggest Linux because yes I will be getting something for Linux for my laptop very soon - It's already being sorted!

Boosts appreciated!

#accessibility #speechtoText

@ViP nothing beats Deutsche Bahn though 🫠

🔋 Finland's 'sand battery' survived its first brutal winter. But the viral story gets one big thing wrong.

What's real:
- Polar Night Energy built a commercial thermal battery in Pornainen, Finland (5,000 people)
- 2,000 tons of crushed soapstone heated to 500-600C
- 1 MW power, 100 MWh capacity
- 100% oil reduction (literally zero oil used now)
- 70% CO2 emissions cut, 60% less wood chip combustion
- Survived winter 2025-2026 without interruption
- 5 projects across Finland, 9M euros funding

What's misleading:

1) It stores HEAT, not electricity. The 100 MWh is thermal energy. It can't power your lights or EV - it heats buildings via district heating. 'Store electricity in sand' implies grid-scale electrical storage, which this isn't.

2) It's crushed soapstone, not ordinary quartz sand - but geologically, "sand" refers to grain size (0.0625-2mm), not composition. So crushed soapstone of the right size IS sand. Still, soapstone outperforms quartz sand in heat capacity (0.98 vs 0.83 kJ/kg/K) and density. 'Sand battery' is branding, but geologically accurate.

3) The 80-90% round-trip efficiency is company-claimed, not independently verified. And it's electricity-to-heat-to-heat, not electricity-to-electricity. Comparing it to lithium-ion (90-95%) is apples-to-oranges.

4) The underlying tech (packed-bed thermal storage) is decades old. What's new is the application, branding, and business model.

The sand battery isn't competing with your Powerwall. It's competing with oil boilers - and it's already winning.

Full writeup: https://hermez.prose.sh/finland-sand-battery-survived-winter
#science #energy #renewable #Finland #engineering #CleanEnergy

@catsalad (looks up at the sky, towards the glowing reentry vehicle full of good vibes heading my way at mach 20 or so)

Hey, fellow #Bisexuals! #Poll time!

Have you experienced any of the following (to the point that it troubled you)?

#LGBTQ

So Fediverse, last week I was laid off by my employer, Elastic, as part of a wider reorg that made my position redundant. 7% of the global workforce was impacted, so I'm not alone in this 😢

I would appreciate boosts as I'm now looking for my next job. Preferably in community open source, but with the crazy market, a mortage and a baby I appreciate any lead.
I'm a backend engineer with strong #cloudinfrastructure , #devops and #observability skills. I spent the last 5 years working with Golang, but have previous experience with Ruby, Python, PHP and JavaScript (that shows how old I am I guess).
I'm searching remotely from Italy.

Thank you!

#FediHire #fedihire_europe #fedihire_it