All this because The Pitt, spiritual sequel to my beloved ER, is caught up in a legal nightmare and may never see a UK release.
I’ve been setting up a curiously large amount of software for acquiring Linux ISOs the last couple of evenings. Think I’ve got it down now, it can automatically find ISOs of interest and then make them available via the ISO viewing software on my TV for ease of browsing.
the biggest problem we *already have* in open source right now, which we have oversimplified into the term "supply chain security", is the lack of understanding that putting a dependency in your project's dependency set (package.json, pyproject.toml, requirements.txt, cargo.toml, etc) is not just "downloading some code", it is *establishing an ongoing trust relationship with a set of human beings*. this fact is *way* too obscured in all the tools we use.
I know Alexa Skills were largely not a thing because at one point Amazon decided to pay me £80 a month out of the blue, apparently a skill I’d spent half an afternoon throwing together, and that was almost literally a random phrase generator, was one of the most engaged with skills at the time. They only stopped because I didn’t update it to use a new API so it got delisted.
My prediction is that these will be about as successful as Alexa Skills turned out to be, because very few processes are enhanced by playing a guessing game to work out what some software can do.
I see OpenAI have invented Alexa Skills. Lots of copy in this documentation saying how they shouldn’t be used for ads, or promoting users to come back to your company’s app, while these will absolutely be used for ads and feature prompts to come back. https://developers.openai.com/apps-sdk/concepts/design-guidelines/
I introduced the boy to git today (with a UI in VS Code, I’m not a monster), leading to the wonderful question “shall I make a commitment” when a change seemed like it was done. Took me a minute to work out what he meant.
The boy dropped “I want to make a Peak mod” on me this morning. Our history with “I want you to make an X mod” is that we attempt it, everything is terribly documented, and after several hours of getting gradually more annoyed we both lose interest (generally I lose interest a bit after he does).
Shout out to the Peak/Unity games modding community for making it not hateful. He’s added actual code that does something already, even said he enjoyed the process!
@solderandchaos @jackeric I did half that in 5 recently so it’s technically doable. Definitely wasn’t in any state to do it again by the time I was done though.
Critically this is different software (undecided which yet) running on the same hostname, so I don’t think I can just send out an “I’ve moved instances” message.
I think I need to switch software I’m using for my Fedi instance. Does anyone have a reasonable reference on what needs to happen for followers to stay following me?
Because of this I’ve found myself trying to explain to people outside the hacker camp scene why I have a sticker that says SPIDER in the CYBER font on my laptop.
I’ve been reminded again of Swatch Internet Time, which has a (still online!) powerfully 90s web page including the mention of someone meeting their cyberfriend.
I think I’ll adopt cyberfriend, it’s better than “the people who live in my phone”, so hello cyberfriends!
@q “so if your Mum could kindly disembark the train we can be on our way”.
@alice @alice_watson I think you owe the dog an apology for all those times they got the blame when it was Trump all along.
@floehopper @issyl0 I increasingly believe most people are cargo culting their git usage and don’t really understand what it’s for and how to use it. See also: commit histories riddled with “changed file.py”… yeah, I know, it’s right there in the diff. Why did you change it?
@Edent I’m not sure that is the answer because the user could later change their public key. Feels like an implementation error in the other side of this exchange to me.
Let's talk about mediocre hobbies. When we're very young it's easy to try anything and have fun doing so. Making funny sounds on a xylophone or drawing pictures with charcoal don't rely on the output for enjoyment.
Then we get older and the people who really excel at those skills make us feel like we're not good at things. Why draw as an adult if you're not able to get a face proportions correct?
Because it's still fun! I have a million hobbies. And my skill level is middling at most of them. Still fun! Still feels good to draw a dinosaur.
Today in needy companies: South Western Railway would like me to spend *10 minutes* answering a survey about a recent train journey. That would mean I’d spent longer answering a survey than I did on the journey itself, so I think I’ll decline.
Salesperson: This car will seat six people without any issues.
Me: I don’t think I know six people without any issues.
“We and our 937 partners”. Polyamory is really starting to get out of hand, even websites are at it.
@glyph @PastaThief someone was in our local paper for that sort of thing. She broke into an ex’s flat, stole all his lightbulbs, then called him from his own phone to let him know. Truly unhinged behaviour which would put you off crossing someone.
In a recent episode of Star Trek: “Computer, discontinue radiation warnings until further notice”.
If they weren’t cowards the script writers would have unceremoniously ended the crew of the Enterprise three seasons later with everyone dying of surprise radiation poisoning because no one remembered to turn them back on.
New from 404 Media: landlords are demanding potential tenants hand over employer login credentials so a tool can verify their income. I was sent screenshot of the tool, Argyle, downloading much more data than necessary to approve the renter. Opt-out means no housing
https://www.404media.co/landlords-demand-tenants-workplace-logins-to-scrape-their-paystubs/