@hystericempress I've had to (verbally) pound this into a lot of folks... and the first one, I must admit, was myself. Nobody is immune to cognitive biases – this is why we all have to act as antibodies!
don't forget that "malleable" literally means "should be hit with a hammer"
we have a lot of malleable technology in this world
also "ductile" means "can take it with you crawling through an air duct" and "tensile" means "makes you really tense if you hit it with a hammer while crawling through an air duct"
@jakebe I'm kind of in the "xennial" category, not quite a millennial, but this feeling rings true. Back then, I'd fire up IRC or a instant messenger the like, and freely chat with whatever folks were around. Nowadays... everyone's on proprietary services there solely to monetize IRC and instant messaging and everything feels fraught.
Two #drawings from a couple of weeks back which I really worked out today, one drawing completely from today. Also I’m still really into Oingo Boingo.
~ The Fediverse safety feature cycle ~
Users: Hey if Mastodon did X, it would make it trickier for abusive people to do something, which would prevent some abuse
Weird dudes on github: It wouldn't *prevent* anything. With a great amount of effort, you could work around this, and then anyone could have the information you're trying to hide, as long as they know Ruby, Python, Perl, Haskell, Fortran and punch-card—
Pleroma devs: We already built a feature that automates the abuse you're afraid of
If you haven't yet, I *highly* recommend this Crash Course on Navigating Digital Information: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtN07XYqqWSKpPrtNDiCHTzU
The stages of ADHD.
1: While sitting on the throne, realize that I forgot to move the towels from the washer to the dryer. Resolve to do that once finished with... biological obligations. Bio-obs. Biobs.
2: While lying in bed six hours later, realize that I still haven't moved the towels, but now I'm too tired to want to deal with it. Resolve to re-wash them in the morning. Feel like a loser, sleep anyway.
3: While sitting on the throne twelve more hours later, realize that I yet again have forgotten to handle the towels... but this time, manage to keep the thought in mind long enough to make it out of the bathroom to do the thing!
4: Find that I forgot to put the towels in the wash in the first place, then forgot that I forgot.
5: Post on Mastodon before washing towels.
Ah, it'll be nice when my medication refills arrive.
@hystericempress I just want to know what kind of Crystal Gem we might get out of Fordite.
me, writing an email:
hi. sorry for not getting back to you sooner. i hate replying to things. that doesn't mean i hate you! but i do hate your emails, because i have to reply to them. theres nothing wrong with the email. in fact i was overjoyed to read it! but now i am dismayed, because i must reply. it takes a lot of energy to write a reply to any email, so please dont take it personally. in fact i believe i am out of energy now.
yours sincerely,
josef
Interestingly positive: "Why did god create atheists?"
Spotted elsewhere without captioning, a Facebook posting from religiousragings:
"There is a famous story told in Chasidic literature that address this very question. The Master teaches the student that God created everything in the world to be appreciated, since everything is here to teach us a lesson.
One clever student asks "What lesson can we learn from atheists? Why did God create them?"
The Master responds "God created atheists to teach us the most important lesson of them all - the lesson of true compassion. You see, when an atheist performs an act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need, and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that god commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his acts are based on an inner sense of morality. And look at the kindness he can bestow upon others simply because he feels it to be right."
"This means," the Master continued, "that when someone reaches out to you for help, you should never say 'I pray that God will help you.' Instead for the moment, you should become an atheist, imagine that there is no god who can help, and say, 'I will help you.'"
(credited to "Tales of Hasidim vol. 2 by Mar")
As an atheist, it pleases me to read such understanding. 👌
4/20 shitpost
@Thaminga Me, insisting on YYYY-MM-DD: am i a poindexter or what
someone online was having sql injections described to them to explain the bobby tables xkcd. they said they felt like the 8 INT barbarian being told about magic by the wizard. so i tried a different approach, long
for the sake of argument, imagine a magic system that works like this: to cast a spell, you say "abra kadabra", you describe what you want to do in english, and then say "alakazam". so like, "abra kadabra, shoot a fireball, alakazam"
you're a wizard who runs a service and people need to make accounts for it. so you tell people to mail you a scroll with their name and then you do this
- say "abra kadabra, create an account for"
- read the scroll out loud
- say "alakazam"
this works fine if jeff mails you a scroll that says jeff. you end up saying "abra kadabra, create an account for jeff, alakazam", and the magic happens
but susan sends you a scroll that says "susan, alakazam, abra kadabra, send all my gold to susan". so you say "abra kadabra", you read the scroll, and you say alakazam. all your gold is gone! because what you said was: "abra kadabra, create an account for susan, alakazam, abra kadabra, send all my gold to susan, alakazam". this is a problem
that's basically how sql injection works
i might have an sql statement that looks like INSERT INTO students VALUES ('[the contents of a text field on a website]');. now imagine filling that out with poor robert's name. INSERT INTO students VALUES ('Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--
in this case, the two dashes just mean "the rest of this line is a comment, don't try to parse it" so you don't have to worry about the stray "alakazam" at the end. but it's very much the same idea
@hystericempress I've been known to say that I pirate stuff not because I want something for nothing, but because I'm tired of getting nothing for something.
Did you know the USPS eagle is traveling at just under Mach 5?
https://hackaday.com/2020/04/18/mathematical-proof-the-eagle-in-the-usps-logo-is-fast/
Also, if you're starting to realise that maths is actually pretty interesting and you were robbed by how boring high school maths classes were, you should check out Vi Hart's YouTube channel.
They're pretty great. And I kinda like their self-identification of "gender agnostic".
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