Posts by bzdev@fosstodon.org
(DIR) Post #AuwsjTRgqQ2TJGgAgS by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-06-08T03:15:00Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@FantasticalEconomics My guess is that they'll use the reaction in LA (or something else if that doesn't work) as an excuse to declare martial law and completely end any semblance to a democracy. There's a precedent - the Reichstag fire(Reichtagsbrand in German).
(DIR) Post #AuwsjWDcXBZDuV7Tfc by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-06-09T05:15:23Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@Greengordon @FantasticalEconomics It is useful to remind people, especially in the U.S.., of what happened historically. There's another reason the Trumpistas don't like immigrants - some of them have seen (first hand) how an autocracy takes over, and the Trumpistas don''t want the average U.S. citizen to know what they know.
(DIR) Post #AuwsxPh9aNmXjQYijw by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-06-06T18:11:44Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@rbreich Normally, the only way you see the level of drama we are seeing in the Musk/Trump breakup is at an opera (in the video clip, two guys fighting over a woman):https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=jTsHJs532-s
(DIR) Post #AuwsxlVuSrrNOvT3Gi by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-06-04T00:24:38Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@danirabbit Look at the bright side 🙂. If Donnie's "Biological Male" in "California Girls State Finals" is a transsexual, Trump's use of "they" could be read as an indication that he is finally respecting people's choice of pronouns.(Probably not, but you can sometimes have fun with sloppy wording.)
(DIR) Post #Av8pIyHjVGh4zWw67c by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-06-15T03:05:00Z
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@stux I've been around long enough (i.e., I'm old enough) to have lived through a number of events that generated large protests. It typically takes a while for these to get started. It is kind of like an immune response to a virus - it takes some time to ramp up. Another analogy would be the algorithms used in distributed systems to elect a leader (some entity coordinating a task): it is a process that doesn't happen instantly.
(DIR) Post #AvZLg9RP4u0OGfKxH6 by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-06-27T22:10:09Z
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@stux I have a small flash drive with me that stores critical files. If contains a large file that contains a LUKS file system that can be mounted using the loopback device. The LUKS password (randomly generated) is on it too, but that is GPG encrypted, and the key ring is not with me. I've no idea as to how I could comply with a request to show them what is on it, whether there is "something to hide" or not.
(DIR) Post #AvpacUzF7jvTXTb0iG by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-07-05T18:13:03Z
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@stux Here's why you have different countries:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzQuuoKXVq0
(DIR) Post #Avxgplh4TOFC6nUCzg by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-07-09T16:00:20Z
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@stux Sometimes placing solar panels on farms actually helps. You may need less irrigation and the optimal amount of sunlight is different for various crops. This may, of course, depend on your climate: it is not "one size fits all."https://www.nrdc.org/stories/made-shade-promise-farming-solar-panels
(DIR) Post #AwPLcR3tUHKLgGwkbY by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-07-23T00:14:33Z
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@stux Funny. I've been suggesting the following flag (after renaming the U.S. after the fictitious country Freedonia from the Marx Brother's film Duck Soup, where the newly appointed president, Rufus T Firefly, continually insults the ambassador of the neighboring country, getting Freedonia into a war).https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/f/fic-fred.gif
(DIR) Post #AxCxFlLzO21WxUshvs by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-08-15T22:37:05Z
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@stux Guess things have changed. I once described the start of a fictitious screenplay for a movie set during World War II. It starts with some Japanese generals standing around a map arguing (in Japanese, no subtitles). Then one pulls out a knife and stabs the map. The camera pans in - the knife shows the location of Yakutat Alaska. The next scene has a title, "Yakutat" ,and shows an inebriated local sitting on the porch of a shack.https://imgs.search.brave.com/UMzZ-Mu6S_SEHGnJWbJm1mZts7IUuBlBEPnAgFrympQ/rs:fit:860:0:0:0/g:ce/aHR0cHM6Ly9iMjc0/NDMwNC5zbXVzaGNk/bi5jb20vMjc0NDMw/NC93cC1jb250ZW50/L3VwbG9hZHMvc2l0/ZXMvMTYvMjAyMS8x/MC9hbWwtbG9jYXRp/b25zLXlha3V0YXQt/MTAyNHg2NDAuanBn/P2xvc3N5PTImc3Ry/aXA9MSZ3ZWJwPTE
(DIR) Post #AxogWtbBfYzaEu3Eq8 by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-09-03T03:28:41Z
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@art Not sure about VIM, but here is one that emacs can do that might save the U.S. All we have to do is to get Trump to (a) start emacs, (b) run the command ESC 32 META-X hanoi, and (c) wait for it to run to completion before doing anything else.
(DIR) Post #Ay3GvOzguY5P7fw812 by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-09-09T16:02:39Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@GossiTheDog @microsoft It is not just Microsoft. I once read that McDonald's filed a trademark-infringement suit/complaint/whatever against a small shop in Scotland named McDonald's Bakery, which had been own by a McDonald family for generations. I don't remember how it was resolved, but it apparently got a lot of people mad regarding the fast-food chain if only for being so petty.This is all from memory, so allow for some confusion on my part.
(DIR) Post #AyZqOG4Jq3LgwGnKd6 by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-09-25T21:30:38Z
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@stux From a U.S. perspective, Trump's U.N. speech didn't sound like "a delusional old grandpa who was in the wrong building." Rather, he sounded like one of those crazy people we see on the streets screaming about who knows what (due to inadequate mental health care, etc.).
(DIR) Post #AyqaZZvG4EB07XFdoG by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-10-03T23:23:29Z
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@stux While it is more a protest against sending in the national guard than a protest of ICE, there's an event being planned in Portland Oregon that Trump would be too scared to attend as we'd find out what else might be small besides his hands.https://www.oregonlive.com/nation/2025/10/suiting-up-for-portlands-emergency-naked-bide-ride-heres-what-to-expect.html
(DIR) Post #Azm6q2MiSAwudpr9Pc by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-10-31T17:23:07Z
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@bortzmeyer @GossiTheDog I suspect what happened in the translation is that it was roughly word to word or short phrase to short phrase without considering how German word order differs from English word order.I can't check the original - there seems to be a paywall or something.
(DIR) Post #B05nVpo9mEs7gc7Wr2 by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-11-08T22:18:17Z
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@stux Curiously, Richard Feynman's biography describes meeting a character known as Nick the Greek, who made money at casinos not be owning one, but by making side bets. He only bet when the odds were in his favor. Sometimes people would bet against him when they knew the odds because Nick the Greek had a reputation, and after going home, someone could brag about betting with him, or better yet, beating him.https://wiki.phantis.com/index.php/Nick_the_Greek
(DIR) Post #B0U69sLmdEDH2LHuvA by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-11-21T22:43:14Z
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@stux Instead of his AI thing, he should have commissioned Mozart to write music praising him, as in singt dem grossen Bassa Lieder (sing songs to the great Pasha) fromDie Entführung aus dem Serail (The abduction from the harem):.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsihbr9y96Q
(DIR) Post #B1aYkIGHKyipqgm5lg by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2025-12-24T23:23:57Z
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@stux I read about a related mistake years ago. Some other politicians tried to get rid of embarrassing email by deleting the offending messages, not realizing that "delete" really meant "mark for deletion and don't show it unless you ask to see deleted messages." You had to "empty the trash" to actually get rid of it(ignoring of course system backups, etc.)
(DIR) Post #B1rWibWDs7ZUm1cMuu by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2026-01-02T03:51:21Z
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@futurebird @GossiTheDog It's just a guess - what might have happened is that a user asked for an image of a child wearing some sort of outfit such as a "fetish corset", which was treated the same as specifying clothing. Then the "safeguard" software classified the outfit as a swimsuit, and let it by.I don't know how you use a neural net to provide such "safeguards" as the images needed to train it are illegal to possess.
(DIR) Post #B23wvUIddBvluGu2d6 by bzdev@fosstodon.org
2026-01-08T03:41:30Z
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@stux I just hope Trump doesn't invade just to make you take something down! We could use some help. A tour guide told us that the Nemo Museum in Amsterdam has a sloping roof to double as a town square, with the architect imaging the bow of a ship cresting the waves. Locals thought it looked more like the stern and nicknamed the building "The Titanic". Can our Dutch friends, who seem to be better at it than we are, suggest a nickname for Trump's White House? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Armsterdam_-_panoramio.jpg