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[SallyM]

Site Bugs?

This happens everywhere and I used to call it the “academics vs reality” fight. Before everyone settled on Ansible or saltstack (or terraform) for config management/IaC, there was a holy war between config system that were prescriptive- that is, you write how things should be, the tool makes reality match your definition, full stop, vs tools that can examine how the world is and then convert that into a definition. Many of those tools that came from large university networks or early supercomp…

[SallyM]

Enshittification

I don’t want to connect my coffee machine to the wifi network. I don’t want to share the file with OneDrive. I don’t want to download an app to check my car’s fluid levels. I don’t want to scan a QR code to view the restaurant menu. I don’t want to let Google know my location before showing me the search results. I don’t want to include a Teams link on the calendar invite. I don’t want to pay 50 different monthly subscription fees for all my software. I don’t want to upgrade to TurboTax …

[MerelyGifted]

About Languages

The only parts of speech they believe needs to be absolutely exact every single time is pronouns.

[Dogbutler]

The goddamn Trump Administration

Real life is too much like the Onion these days.

[SallyM]

The goddamn Trump Administration

A metaphor is also supposed to, you know, represent something in a way that humans can understand. I feel like a lot of right wing types think it means “something that isn’t true but you don’t want called a lie”.

[Murgatroyd]

Healthcare PSAs and BSAs

Roald Dahl on Measles (in 1986): "Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working…

[Millie_Fink]

[SallyM]

Follow up news

There’s basic history, where you don’t have to know more than the patriotic narrative learned in school and how dare you suggest it’s misleading. Also, it’s not really the same thing, but something was happening when scientists argued it made more sense not to treat Pluto as a planet and started getting death threats from the general public. Apparently a lot of people are happy to respond to “turns out reality isn’t like that” with “I hope you die” even in cases where it can’t possibly affect t…

[SallyM]

Google, Meta, X and all the Tech Bros

Favorite line from the article: “The vibe shift is clear: DEI is out and merit is in,” Padfield said in the presentation. Uh… that is exactly what DEI is: opening up the meritocracy to more people. Sorry if you find it hard to compete on the merits.

[Murgatroyd]

Archaeology Today

Before stonehenge there was woodhenge, and before that strawhenge. But the big bad wolf blew down strawhenge and woodhenge, leaving stonehenge in England. The big bad wolf couldn’t cross the English channel because the boatsman couldn’t figure out the sheep-wolf-cabbages problem. This also explains why there is so much mutton and cabbage in anglican cuisine. QED

[Millie_Fink]

Heather Cox Richardson's "Letters from an American"

Not sure if this is the right topic or not but reading this just keeps bringing me back to the unstoppable “shower thoughts” that started going through my head this morning about the constant and blatantly obvious rhetorical traps I’ve been seeing used lately throughout MSM. Someone complains about what Musk/DOGE is doing. “So, what you’re saying you don’t want to find waste, fraud, and abuse in government? No wonder you guys lost! What about George Soros?” Someone complains how Musk is usurpi…

[MerelyGifted]

Elon Musk Destroys Everything

What does this headline even is supposed to mean, incendiary devices “discovered” at Tesla dealership? They openly display and sell them to the public.

[SallyM]

Whatchya Workin' On, O Creatives?

I usually get help from a friendly neighborhood woodpecker, but then again I’m basically a Disney princess.

[Catsidhe]

Elon Musk Destroys Everything

It’s a classic supervillain thing is to have a game in your office so that you can use it as a metaphor to talk about your evil plans. Chess, go, poker. But Musk knows those games are stupid because they’re so simple that there’s no way to win except by being better than the other player. Diablo matches his style much better because you can pay someone else to level up your character and then pretend their achievements are your own.

[SallyM]

Fall of the Fourth Estate: A Critique of Mass Media

I remember in school when first learning about WWII, thinking, “How could the people of Germany have let this happen?” I no longer wonder about that. I wish I still lived in a world where I wondered about that. I didn’t really need that question answered in such a first hand way.

[MerelyGifted]

Random Silly Grins

“Knock, knock” “Who’s there?” “Ah” “Ah who?” “Werewolves of London”

[SallyM]

Election Fallout

It’s not a change that’s worth thousands of innocent people dying an tens of thousands suffering needlessly. I agree, but to say so in response to that article is to ignore the author’s main point — that there’s more to western aid than helping to alleviate the suffering and prevent the deaths of people in “underdeveloped” countries. The author does not say that that western aid should end as abruptly as Tramp is ending USAID efforts, salutary and otherwise. He does say that the demise of th…

[SallyM]

The goddamn Trump Administration

Here’s a website which generates musk-oid demanded “five things last week” office-speak for federal workers linky; Here’s the result for “Quantity Surveying”: • Conducted cost analysis and prepared detailed estimates for ongoing projects. • Reviewed and validated contractor invoices and progress claims. • Monitored project budgets and identified potential cost-saving opportunities. • Collaborated with project teams to ensure compliance with financial and contractual requirements. • Updated…

[SallyM]

Possibly untrue science news

Interesting research, but there’s a huge difference in being able to predict a slight seasonal or cyclical variation in earthquake activity and being able to predict any given specific earthquake. My wife (a geophysicist who specializes in this kind of thing) has convinced me that will never be possible. Teeny tiny earthquakes are happening constantly, and they’re initiated at very small points on a fault miles underground. Even if you could magically accurately predict each one of those that w…

[Millie_Fink]

The goddamn Trump Administration

Alito is stunned the USSC won’t let his mad king do whatever the fuck he wants. Alito is so full of shit he doesn’t need bribes; he can just sell it to farmers and be richer than Musk. The very, very first principle of this case is: the contractors legally spent the funds in accordance with the terms of the contract. Legally, (and per the 14th Amendment), the government is obligated to pay these expenses. Second, and Alito well knows, is that there is a procedure for recovering misspent funds…