funny how that works

My husband tried a new gym and they have a real, human, person sending follow up messages, and if you reply, the real, human, person replies back. MIND BLOWING!

I'd like to tell businesses - this is how, in 2026, you retain a customer.

He loved the *unique* experience (the bar is so low!) and came to show me the messages.

See? No one needs AI chatbots.

A year ago I made Wellness Ping because someone I care about went silent and it took too long for anyone to notice.

v2.0 is now out.

It now works entirely over Signal, usernames or phone numbers, both for your check-ins and for your emergency contacts. Email isn't safe for everyone to use, but it's still there.

Three new security modules, all optional, stack as many as you want: PIN, authenticator 2FA, and passkeys.

The PIN has a duress option. Enter that one instead and your contacts get alerted immediately, while your screen says everything went fine. (really proud of this one. tweaked to the point of obsession so that response time for a duress PIN matches a normal one. nothing on your screen or in the timing gives it away.)

Also added vacation pause and custom alert messages, both of which people asked for.

v2.0 got a full security review before release. The check-in path is much harder to spoof now. Details in the release PR.

Free forever (as long as I'm alive) and open source.

https://wellness-p.ing

oh and btw, the person who went missing, for whom I made this originally, turned out to be okay. It took a lot of time and a lot of effort to find them, but I did actually find them. I thought you might want to know that.

What is it about small children and dogs that they have to run right out in front of your legs and then abruptly stop?

Anyone in #Portland have a length of 4-inch cast iron pipe? We need to extend our main plumbing stack above the new roof that is going to be 6-inches higher.

Question for any blind person who has successfully passed Introductory Statistics in college. Just how exactly did you do it? Which accommodations have worked for you? Please boost for reach.

I guess it's time for an updated #Introduction: 🥁

Dear Fediverse! 🎶 I am a #composer of #theatre music and #filmmusic, living in the lovely woods of Asker, Norway. I've been lucky enough to make a living from this for 20 years, and constantly want to reinvent myself musically, or else I get bored real quickly. During one year, one project could be scored with a chamber orchestra, but the next one might be banjo punk.

I was a pretty decent drummer once, but too impatient to stay in one band for very long. Today, I might release the occasional solo album or EP, but most of my releases are #soundtrack albums. As a music listener I'm into everything from #Bach to #Dvorak to #Genesis to #RATM, and everything in-between. 🎹

I am #actuallyautistic and #ADHD. I have a four year old kid who I love more than the universe itself. I obsess over #StarWars and #EdvardGrieg more than what is probably considered healthy. I buy lots of CDs at flea markets and organise them all onto my wonderful #Plex server (another obsession!) 💿

Grew up with 90s PC adventure games from the likes of #LucasArts, and wish I had time to complete all those games I never got to finish, and replay all the ones I did. Thank heavens for @scummvm 👾

I detest fascist man-babies and evil tech-bros. In a continuous #degoogle process, one step at a time. Love #OSM and maps in general (seriously, another obsession?)

Coffee needed to soothe brain. ☕

Website ➡️ https://eirikmyhr.no
Bandcamp ➡️ https://eirikmyhr.bandcamp.com/

We've also got a new Kumiai-Ki comic book in the works, and it's looking *good*, but you'll have to wait a few more weeks to see more of that.

In the meantime, I'm sitting in our workshop assembling toys!

Here you can see some of the one-off color-schemes I was working on today.

These three are still waiting on their final assembly step, to join the torso halves together, they each have some swirling or other unique plastic effects that make them entirely one of a kind, isn't that neat?

This is the kind of thing we can do, because our toys are produced and assembled by hand.

RE: https://spore.social/@rewildingmag/117038077541593133

when i was a wee lass in Puerto Rico, one of the first things we learned about our taíno ancestors traditions were conucos

a conuco involves tilling & fertilizing with fish and other composting a block of land, planting sister plants together and staggered, then burning the whole thing down at about 3-5 years. during those 3-5 years, they were prepping another plot for continuity.

the point being: all of the Américas’ lands ―from shores to mountains― were gardened.

genocide stopped that.

It's more important that the person voting for what Trump wants have a D behind their name then a R!
~Democrats

look there's a billion other reasons why people are against AI and all but fundamentally the core of my personal reason is that I've already spent 30 years learning how to teach computers how to do exactly what I tell them to, so I am exceptionally disinterested in having them do things less accurately by talking to them in a sloppier language

We got another safeguarding request, this time about #reddit data:
Since 2015, Pushshift has been collecting public reddit data and made it accessible to researchers via academictorrents. But in late July, they were asked to take them down and complied.
The torrent-metadata is still accessible, so we added it to #SciOp:
https://sciop.net/datasets/reddit

2 torrents (monthly & subreddits), 3.5 & 3.6 TB, from 2005-6 to 2025-12:
https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/7347

If you have storage to spare, please join in seeding

#MedicalFundraiser - help needed for my Mom.

Been busy juggling work/client appointments, Mom's medical appointments, community volunteering tasks & maintaining our gardens. Mom's arthritis has been bad the past week so she's been out of commission. Mom's getting more blood work done tomorrow morning; liver enzymes test. August 4th, we meet with her liver specialist again to go over recent abdominal MRI/discuss her liver disease & possible treatments.
The ophthalmologist office just called about her first cataract surgery. We agreed to use their test evaluation advanced lenses for reduced cost of $600. The hospital fees are covered by Pharmacare but the advanced lens costs aren't. BC Pharmacare only covers basic cataract lenses & Mom needs advanced ones. She will need her 2nd eye done, 3-4 weeks after getting the first - it is same cost of $600.
Dr. Pedago will be doing Mom's cataract surgeries. He's diligent with masking up.

I need some help with public donations to cover the costs of her cataract lenses. I'm taking a week off work, after each of her eye surgeries, to ensure she's safe/recovers well.

If you're able to assist with a donation to help us pay for Mom's cataract lenses, please use my PayPal link in bio or QR code or if you're in Canada, please etransfer donation instead :
quebanhincedar@gmail.com

Total donations needed by August 10th: $600.
Total donations needed by August 31st, an additional $600. $1200 to cover both lenses.

July 29, 9:20am: Total donations = $690.15 received.

Please boost to help us, if you're unable to donate any funds.

#medical #cataracts #fundraiser #EyeSurgery #mutualaid

Happy Skynet-goes-active day to all who celebrate.

Can we survive? Many of us can. The secret lies in building community. Sharing, trusting, caring for one another.

Working together, for survival, not separately, for money.

We can start on that project now.

The Fediverse is overflowing with incredible artists, engineers, designers, photographers, and brilliant minds in academia. With the job market on fire globally, let's make a habit of hiring from within our own community, please 🎨📚

Need a designer for a project? A photographer? A researcher? Post your gigs here. Let's create a close-knit support system to help fellow people weather the storm.

If you are hiring: look here first. Post your short-term gigs, full-time roles, and freelance contracts. Give people here a chance.

If you are looking: share your work, follow the hashtags, and connect. Let's take care of each other.

#FediHire #GetFediHired #Academia #MastoArt #art #Photography #Freelance #SoftwareDevelopment #programming #photography

August is Black Business Month. Here’s a great opportunity to support a Black-owned business…

Do you use Goodreads? If so, you can migrate to @thestorygraph. You can even import all of your Goodreads data.

Nadia Odunayo is the founder and sole developer. Together with her small team, they’re making a great product that’s slowly improving over time.

So go support Nadia and co. instead of a fascist billionaire.

https://thestorygraph.com

#BlackBusinessMonth #BlackMastodon #Books #Reading #TheStoryGraph #Goodreads

My real name is not what it says on the government documents.

My real name is what the villagers refuse to say out loud because they're afraid it will summon me.

I look, as they say, like I've been dragged through hedges backwards.