Posts by mike@sauropods.win
(DIR) Post #AsWiwls3WfdL2yMSX2 by mike@sauropods.win
2025-03-27T23:43:47Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@danstowell The #RoyalSociety is dead in the water. Three hundred and sixty-five years of history, and it's ended it as a beard for a facist. What an utterly utterly shameful end for a once-great society.
(DIR) Post #AsvTeEoxIgOFP8gf2G by mike@sauropods.win
2025-04-04T05:57:15Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
The Royal Society is deadA few months ago, Dorothy Bishop resigned her fellowship in the Royal Society in protest at Elon Musk's continuing fellowship. This was a highly principled stand. Eight weeks ago, Steven Curry wrote an open letter to the President of the Royal Society asking him to explain how Musk's activities and pronouncements can be considered compatible with the Society's code of conduct.http://svpow.com/2025/04/04/the-royal-society-is-dead/
(DIR) Post #AswfvNgazD62Qjg4Tg by mike@sauropods.win
2025-04-10T10:39:11Z
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@john Yet there are people who won't use LibreOffice because the UI isn't the same as the one they've Stockholm Syndrome acclimatized to.
(DIR) Post #AtAAcv7KfmYgmQn6cS by mike@sauropods.win
2025-04-16T08:41:16Z
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@drmambobob @Gurre "We just can’t call them species within our current working framework." <-- That depends on which of the 20 or 30 species concepts we're using.
(DIR) Post #AtBBkMkIdx0lbk5klE by mike@sauropods.win
2025-04-17T10:41:44Z
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@john @drmambobob @Gurre John is correct. This is a fact about mathematics, not about biology: you simply cannot partition a tree into exclusive non-overlapping and exhaustive subtrees.
(DIR) Post #AtCuHpYX8fVTetJdBY by mike@sauropods.win
2025-04-17T11:36:52Z
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I've used wetransfer.com a lot over the last few years, but it's been enshittifying fast in recent months. Does anyone have a better alternative?
(DIR) Post #AtD4LOub8rqVityeZM by mike@sauropods.win
2025-04-18T08:28:10Z
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@john The broad question with every single service is: do we take on the significant workload of running our own (web server, email server, data server, etc.)? Or do we use the extant service with the lowest predicted enshittification rate? I don't want to spend my life doing devops.
(DIR) Post #AtGvM9eZEiv5jZbTMG by mike@sauropods.win
2022-12-02T10:22:35Z
2 likes, 2 repeats
@jwildeboer There's always a dry humour just beneath the surface in Kernighan's book. In Kernighan & Pike's "The UNIX Programming Environment", one set of exercises has you add a sequence of a features to the "cal" program, then finishes with the question: When should you have stopped adding features to `cal'?
(DIR) Post #AtRb3zToSg7AcnC448 by mike@sauropods.win
2025-04-24T07:44:39Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
The headline that, in twelve words, tells you all you need to know about Trump and Russia.(From the Guardian web-site's front page.)
(DIR) Post #AtrKrD0Opkmps4T8Ea by mike@sauropods.win
2025-05-07T14:37:28Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
"I've long maintained that the threat from AI to workers isn't that AI can do your job - it's that an AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that *can't* do your job."— Cory Doctorow at https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/114466666309059661
(DIR) Post #Av1aQOyfnhVuNwO2AC by mike@sauropods.win
2025-06-11T12:46:08Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
It's astonishing that Scientific American is having to publish an article on How Not To Be Killed By The Police, but here it is: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-protect-yourself-during-protests/(Update: as several people have pointed out to me, this article is from 2020. Not that that makes it any better.)
(DIR) Post #Av1awhAbhGc44hMpiC by mike@sauropods.win
2025-06-11T15:21:11Z
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@monarchist I'm not quite following you. Are you saying it would be OK for the police to kill the protesters?
(DIR) Post #AvMBBbOevWlo1YXuoC by mike@sauropods.win
2025-06-21T12:01:45Z
0 likes, 2 repeats
The Met Office (UK) invites you to suggest names for future storms. Make your own suggestions at https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/forms/name-our-storms-call-for-namesHere are mine.
(DIR) Post #Awp58LAMUNqlYHNO7M by mike@sauropods.win
2025-08-04T10:12:22Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@john I'm sorry to hear that. I'll be there; it would have been good to see you.
(DIR) Post #AxdcogmfW4oP9U5jEG by mike@sauropods.win
2025-08-28T10:08:51Z
0 likes, 2 repeats
I was just thinking to myself "It would be good if #Mastodon let you follow someone's original posts without seeing all the stuff they boost, which is not relevant to me".Then it occurred to me to look and see if it does ... and it does! Click on the person's username, then click the three-dots menu near top right of their profile, then choose "Hide boosts from …"This is a game-changer!
(DIR) Post #AzmXAYDqJkcy2m9Fsu by mike@sauropods.win
2025-10-31T21:00:43Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
"Don’t copy-paste something that a chatbot said and send it to someone as if that’s authoritative.When you do that, you’re basically saying “here are a bunch of words that often go together in a sentence”."https://stopcitingai.com/
(DIR) Post #B0EWAMxhfLoF1qhbn6 by mike@sauropods.win
2025-11-13T08:21:02Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
Today I learned that all those pointless collective nouns (a murder of crows, a parliament of owls, a pride of lions), which are only ever used in pub quizzes, were made up by one woman 500 years ago.https://www.themarginalian.org/2024/01/04/brian-wildsmith-birds-company-terms/#TIL #TodayILearned
(DIR) Post #B1HnVoCBrfTRO6Q6XQ by mike@sauropods.win
2025-12-15T18:34:00Z
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@tychotithonus Can't even tell which particular Giant Evil Tech Corp this is about.
(DIR) Post #B2VNHoYkYHacvODLDE by mike@sauropods.win
2026-01-20T20:40:48Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
"I’ve read many historical books on the subject [of Open Source], including [Richard M Stallman]’s biography and many older writings.And something struck me.RMS was right since the very beginning. Every warning, every prophecy realised. And, worst of all, he had the solution since the start. The problem is not RMS or FSF. The problem is us. The problem is that we didn’t listen."https://ploum.net/2023-06-19-more-rms.html
(DIR) Post #B2hwy40j2XVGcNFJGS by mike@sauropods.win
2026-01-27T10:18:33Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
"The collapse of the AI bubble is going to be ugly. Seven AI companies currently account for more than a third of the stock market, and they endlessly pass around the same $100bn IOU."— Cory Doctorow, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/18/tech-ai-bubble-burst-reverse-centaur