I refuse to purchase things from lockup. I will do completely irrational things to avoid it. I'm **thrilled** that they're feeling it. Walgreens has closed up two or three locations near me, and the remaining one looks to be on life-support.
Meanwhile, a few blocks away, Safeway has torn down their baby-jail. You no longer need to go through security to be near diapers.
See? Alice knows what I'm talking about.
Macintosh's Hypercard and it's style of triggering OnMouseup explained a subtle trick that has saved my ass a number of times:
UI elements usually activate when you let UP on the mouse, not when you push down.
Have you ever clicked on something you shouldn't have? Well, if your brain catches up with your fingers fast enough, you can usually keep holding the mouse button down, push the pointer off to a safe place, then safely release the mouse button.
My little greasy-spoon restaurant has a switch of immense power just casually out in the open.
The "STOP TIME" button on my mom's stove is still probably a bit more catastrophic, though.
Hey chooms, it's Friday!
You know what that means. The Ramsimobil is rolling again to hand out free coffee!
Here you can see where the Ramsimobil is currently located (live!): https://ramses.coffee/ramsimobile/
A large wildfire is bearing down on my hometown, and the county office of emergency management's only information outlet is a Facebook page that requires a Facebook account to view.
Let me say that another way: access to vital life safety information is gated on selling your PII to Meta.
Edit: https://app.watchduty.org is a very good alternative.
we're always finding lovely little textual gifts in the typewriters, but this one from @mdwyer was especially sweet
I'm finally catching up on Ask Hank Anything, and this question comes up:
"What is a floppy disk?"
I'm thinking fondly of my friends at the Media Archaeology Lab @mediaarchaeologylab , the SDF's Interim Computer Museum @icm , and the Connections Museum @connections
I'm surprised at how quickly knowledge can pass away and I'm valuing what these organizations are doing for us today.
https://youtu.be/39KyWSyGfjY?t=2804
But also, gawd, I feel old.
WFT is the point of a customer feedback form, If all of the questions are about how well the call was handled by "name" and not why you contacted them in the first place.
She was brilliant, but you don't let her deal with any of my complaints, or take them on board.
This stance characterised by the "We are unable to respond directly back to you or your comment" in your feedback form.
This really sends out mixed messages.
Normally, I'm very positive on devices that let us see the invisible. I think everyone should have access to an IR imager. If nothing else, people can see where their energy is leaking in their homes.
But I'm less certain anyone needs to see UV.
If you aren't a clean-freak before you've swung around a UV source, you might be after. Nobody needs to pile that anxiety on themselves.
By the way, if you think I'm overreacting then you might not have used a very capable UV flashlight. If it had a clear lens, it probably output far too much visible light, which swamps the fluorescence. A GOOD LED UV light has a purpleish-black passband filter that only passes light near 365nm.
My friend gifted me a very capable UV flashlight.
We were talking about fixing up my old Dreamcast, and I mentioned that I didn't have "Soup Calibur".
Mmmm... now I want Pho.
I was explaining to my friend that I wasn't letting myself do something fun.
"Do you hate hapiness?"
"I was raised Catholic, so ... yeah."
Just like in my car, give me tactile buttons, not pointless touchscreens!
GIVE ME A BUTTON DAMNIT!!
I've been a critic of the CocaCola Freestyle machines. They're incredible pieces of tech, but their slow 2009 UI was only slightly improved in 2019.
Their new "equinox" machines are so much better! A bright, responsive screen and a zippy well-designed UI.
But they're a god damned mess. The original push button that could be activated with a knuckle or the back of a hand has been replaced with this big bright pointless touchscreen that is constantly smudged with God knows what. Gross!!
My seat inside the restaurant is right in the eyeline of people ordering from the drive-thru speaker. I keep looking up to find people seemingly looking at me and talking to me.
I feel so seen. 😛
Here’s an easter egg in the new Lego Batman that I think all of yourwill REALLY appreciate.
It’s so good, I had to make a video.
I only noticed the typo on the sign a day later...
I wonder if Mastodon lets me edit the alt text on an image?
"How do you unlock your phone?"
"Oh, I just take my hand off."
Sort of a disturbing exchange until you realize I was talking to someone in a fursuit.
