Posts by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
(DIR) Post #AykujnXD92RPMuOVeK by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-10-01T05:40:49Z
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@foone Doom #1 and Doom #2 … this must be a really dark version of The Cat in the Hat?
(DIR) Post #Az1Qif5bMfCHwsLDCi by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-10-09T04:54:57Z
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@futurebird I once built a water dispenser for dogs and cats (winter dehydration of feral or “neighborhood” dogs in northern MN is a real issue) that worked with capacitive touch sensing—like phone screens but using a metal bowl as the sensing element. But it seems to me that designing a water station for bees might be even easier if they will just walk through a tunnel!
(DIR) Post #AzqbeL9EfWr6dBIEEa by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-11-02T14:47:07Z
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@cstross @jef are there any numbers on horse related deaths from the late 1800’s before the car started to become common?
(DIR) Post #AzqbeQaiQmo9VrBkGG by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-11-02T14:57:10Z
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@cstross @jef ok this isn’t much of a reference but the claim is the horse related fatalities in 1916 were 7x the car related ones in 1997. The links to the paper are dead unfortunately. https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/03/29/the-horse-manure-problem/
(DIR) Post #AzqbeW8ZoJreiK4MEa by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-11-02T15:00:26Z
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@cstross @jef It seems that what we did was invent a horse with gaseous waste instead of solid.. while continuing to ignore the waste problem until it threatens to destroy the ecosphere 😕
(DIR) Post #Azqbebh99DUJwzHXJQ by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-11-02T16:28:50Z
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@cstross @jef We hit the problem from the opposite direction in the 1960’s when attempting to develop high energy boron-based jet fuel. Problem is, oxides of boron are solid at those temperatures… something that does not play well with the internals of a jet engine.
(DIR) Post #Azqbebm6qlSSCNbV32 by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-11-02T15:01:36Z
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@cstross @jef Horse manure is an externality you really can’t ignore.
(DIR) Post #AzqfmkaAO77JeD9hlg by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-11-02T22:14:05Z
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@tomjennings @cstross @jef I would weep if I dwelled too much on that. In an early occurrence of “maximizing shareholder value” it was the practice to work a small number of city horses to death as it was cheaper than having a larger stable so they could get adequate rest.
(DIR) Post #Azs9T4ueHY3EgzEPxo by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-11-03T15:21:21Z
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@futurebird The law protects but does not bind Joe Rogan and his ilk, everybody else gets a copyright strike for using public domain NASA footage 😡
(DIR) Post #AztBhvPEIvYycMhcwK by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-11-04T03:20:46Z
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@foone I’m thinking of the 433MHz pulse transmission systems .. the bit rate is pretty high but the signal is extremely short. My weather station on the roof runs for many many years on 4x lithium primary AA cells. At some point you spend more power transmitting the carrier than the bits. There must be an optimal bit rate for minimum power.
(DIR) Post #B0CdWbw3CZcZW1GPYG by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-11-13T12:32:21Z
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@futurebird Tall person Julia Child tried to start a trend of kitchen cabinets being on legs so you could adjust them. Sadly, she did not succeed so many kitchens have counters that make tall people’s backs hurt while also being too high for others. The tyranny of the middle of the bell curve must be stopped!
(DIR) Post #B0WnybuKD5ob9bnqcK by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-11-23T06:03:38Z
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@ricci strangely this made me think of @MASTERBOOTRECORD but I don’t think you’d call them punk
(DIR) Post #B0ZNp9NACsJIo0sVEG by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-11-23T19:21:13Z
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@buherator we need a new internet for the people who just want to do useful stuff.Do I recall that the issue was ffmpeg maintainers tired of endless issues filed by giant corps who are using it but not actually helping?
(DIR) Post #B1brCzKulxU3ssjexU by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2024-01-22T18:00:07Z
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@selea I feel like the picture should have been someone reading a book, not holding a phone?
(DIR) Post #B1kFmMRenaR7r2y6XA by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-12-29T15:38:33Z
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@stux let’s point out that only “assist people with disabilities” is possibly something an LLM can help with.. the rest are more probably general neural net technology enabled by the hardware developed to run LLMs .. which thankfully can do other useful things. Because I think there’s going to be a big surplus.
(DIR) Post #B1swzY5melDB2Hx42y by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2026-01-01T19:17:30Z
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@coucouf @somedude @pluralistic The 1990s equivalent of Mastodon is some combination of gopher server, public domain/shareware based bbs system (FidoNet et. al.), and uucp 😂So if I think of it in those terms I can see his point. It’s the space outside the walled gardens.
(DIR) Post #B1sxAtJa5kxU2eoVea by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2026-01-02T20:22:33Z
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@tomjennings @coucouf @somedude @pluralistic living as I did near UIUC, for a while I had access to a Unix port of the PLATO “notes” system, which got a feed of Usenet newsgroups over uucp. There was lots of interoperability back then.
(DIR) Post #B23AjmaZ0l5jM2dl5c by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2026-01-07T17:17:05Z
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@thomasfuchs You could arguably add The Art of Computer Programming and other similar references to that ... as the algorithmic design of software has just as long a history and is also completely NOT just vibes.I'm also thinking that if cryptography is used in the software at all, Bruce Schneier et. al. would tell you that's not vibes either, it's well studied in terms of the algorithms and also how you design and validate their use.
(DIR) Post #B25hjJtfNA27AhslFY by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2026-01-08T22:30:51Z
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@nblr Definitely this one for me ...
(DIR) Post #B2mrUhadnCfohe1aca by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2026-01-29T19:36:52Z
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@azonenberg @niconiconi but we never got "very fast" or "ultra fast" ethernet -- I feel cheated.