the four crystals of trazere, screenshot, amiga (1992) https://www.mobygames.com/game/2073/the-four-crystals-of-trazere/screenshots/amiga/234034/

thinking about how impossible it is to separate "AI causes problems" from "AI is used as a reason to stop paying people, which causes problems"

I'm not *really* complaining; I've heard of *much* more frustrating holes in localization configuration caused by "I am French Canadian and living in California".

I begin searching for "eyes of laura mars" (apparently a movie released in 1978). As I am typing, for 1/10th of a second Firefox briefly prompts me to "Pick a colour", the prompt then disappears. I am immediately torn between 3 thoughts.

1. Why is Firefox prompting me to "pick a colour"?

2. I really don't want to know why Firefox prompted me to "pick a colour".

3. Wow, it sure is frustrating that there's literally no good way to communicate "My location is Canada but I use American spelling"

@mcc (there's a similar thing where you plan ahead and spend a bunch of time making a whole generalizable system for N things and it's super-awesome and neat, but then you never get past 2 things 🥲)

@whitequark In other news, I'm writing C# and getting completely fucked over by a decision James Gosling made back in 1991 that would have made sense at the time.

And doing the "make this work for a generalizable N things" refactor is easier when going directly from 1 to N than it is when you're going from 3 things to N things

Here is an observation about writing software that may be so general as to be incomprehensible.

When you go from having one of a thing to having two of a thing, it is easier and possibly even more readable to just duplicate the thing instead of creating a generalized system that can handle N things.

Once you get to having three of a thing, it is better in all ways to simply have a generalized system that can handle N things.

But you don't *do* this when N reaches 3. You wait until N reaches 4

There is this app I use to extract thumbnails from youtube videos. It's:

https://www.get-youtube-thumbnail.com/

It seems to just be like, javascript. It doesn't go on the Internet. I think it runs a regex on the URL.

Recently, YouTube started letting posters A/B test thumbnails. So on the left (CW: depicts plane crash) you see how a video looked in my recs, and on the right you see the get-youtube-thumbnail thumbnail extracted. Right is "A". Left is "B".

Does anyone know (App? Process?) how to extract "B"?

freeze dry

one more pic showing the back cover!

capitalism: everyone needs to be productive

me: I would be the most productive with access to these two drugs

capitalism: not like that

What I'm listening to today: "Kaleidoscope"

This is another "substan" track. It's made entirely on the Digitone, Elektron's FM groovebox, and the youtube title claims it is "downbeat psybient". Okay. Anyway lovely little piece of electronic pop, I really like the progression on this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvjHRdUQgdE

a baker's decibel

@mcc Cruel Economist’s Thesis

Sometimes I forget a word, or a name, and I'm really worried, I'm worried about getting old, I'm worried about losing what makes me sharp and accurate, I'm worried about losing what makes me me. I worry about losing an accurate sense of the universe.

Earlier today I forgot Brendan Eich's name and had to look it up. And that one moment, during which I couldn't remember Brendan Eich's name, was kind of pleasant, like cool water when you've been baking in the sun

“Trans children are no longer safe in UK schools”: New report highlights the urgent need for change

“Trans children are no longer ...

Queer kids can't use nicknames at the queer club in school because JK Rowling hates trans people so much.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:iniljto6o7z667rqvphp47km/post/3n22cdz5phc2z