Posts by sysop408@sfba.social
(DIR) Post #AmSE5ubKvCTR84yulU by sysop408@sfba.social
2024-09-28T01:52:20Z
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@ColesStreetPothole the closest I came to starting back up again was when I met some guy whose brother made gorgeous artisan wood compound target bows. I instantly wanted one, but knew I’d have no time to indulge.
(DIR) Post #AmSE5whR7UXddZqoYC by sysop408@sfba.social
2024-09-28T03:46:30Z
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@ColesStreetPothole Wow! Let's see some photos of your homemade bows! How long did it take you to make one and what kind of equipment did you need to do it? Were you already handy in woodworking? I couldn't even imagine making a flat spatula let alone a recurve bow.
(DIR) Post #AoSzG0ag32yfHPY5Hk by sysop408@sfba.social
2024-11-27T11:26:00Z
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@futurebird I'm close to the ground with small businesses and I don't think most people realize the amount of chaos that was wrought upon the community via mom and pop shops.The economy was fine for larger businesses that could adapt, but the shops that were the foundations of communities could not deal. Even in deep blue areas where people were supportive, they were only performative in support by the end. I stepped up as a last mile communicator to help the general public understand mandates and the reasons for them in several communities. I was initially effective, but by the end even very receptive people were ignoring me.It was a lose-lose. Impose controls and the underbelly of the local economy collapses, yet not enough people follow public health for it to matter. Impose a strong mandate and get similar results just in a different order, both leading to municipal chaos when cities lose the tax revenue they need for everything from emergency services to road repair.#covid
(DIR) Post #ApZTkiOH1DNHejLpQ0 by sysop408@sfba.social
2024-12-28T04:26:34Z
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@billyjoebowers I once had a sparrow chirp frantically at a group of people I was with. At first I thought it was trying to shoo us away from its nest. After a while I realized it wasn't behaving aggressively, but urgently. It was trying to get our attention so we approached it and it led us to another sparrow that was upside down and tangled up in dense ivy-like brush.One of us managed to get up to the tangled bird to get it freed. It took a while and the whole time the bird that got our attention just hovered nearby watching us free its friend. It was making no effort to keep its distance from us. When we finally got the trapped bird free, the two of them flew off together.I was astonished that an animal with such a tiny brain had the wherewithal to understand how to summon help and who to summon help from.(Updated to include a photo of the incident that I found after I posted.)@stux
(DIR) Post #Aq8rQnDy3G3J4mzKSG by sysop408@sfba.social
2025-01-04T10:51:43Z
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@cobalt this is funny, but it's not necessarily an AI content issue. Google is just shitty at spotlighting good content now. I had a site that benefited from that. For over a year, an event page I setup to promote a performance for the 80's band "Flock of Seagulls" kept showing up in Google's highlighted results leading us to get a puzzling amount of traffic for a topic that was barely relevant to our site.We weren't using AI content at all. We didn't do much more than post a stock press kit bio about the band plus a publicity photo they provided. I'm sure there were dozens of almost identical pages.I guess I should pat myself on the back for nailing the SEO so that this could happen, but there's no way a page on a regional website using boilerplate content should have been ranking anywhere near the top 5 in North America on a search like this.@TheBreadmonkey
(DIR) Post #AraYOSOwVWy0thjCgy by sysop408@sfba.social
2025-02-28T20:09:47Z
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Today would be a good day to donate to #Ukraine. There is an official government website that allows you to donate to one of several funds including defense, reconstruction, medical, and de-mining.I have a standing $25/month donation to their medical fund and periodically drop more money in on one of the other funds if there aren't boots on the ground kind of fundraisers that I'm backing at the time.As I don't have the time and attention lately to feel confident in donating to the front line fundraisers, I donate through the Ukraine government's donation site:https://u24.gov.ua/I'll be showing them a little love later today. Slava Ukraini.#NAFO
(DIR) Post #Asl5vzG9HQETRLfGWO by sysop408@sfba.social
2025-04-04T20:33:59Z
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@futurebird this is clearly for people who want to be far away enough to avoid second hand smoke, but don’t want to give up smoking.
(DIR) Post #AspChMM2slw5TAJ90q by sysop408@sfba.social
2025-04-06T20:08:38Z
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@futurebird strangest thing I've found for sale online? I knew I had been waving up this screenshot of this most unusual waffle iron that came up when I tried searching for one of those weird brand Aliexpress-type brand names.
(DIR) Post #AtsSL8UV4of9OVj3B2 by sysop408@sfba.social
2025-05-08T07:40:10Z
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@futurebird the Cautionary Tales podcast recently did a three part piece on Harry Houdini and his intense hatred of the industrial complex of psychics and mediums that he as a magician could have appropriated to elevate his own fame even further.https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/cautionary-tales/houdini-a-message-from-the-spirits-part-1
(DIR) Post #AuxtqmdmAeEfytLEoa by sysop408@sfba.social
2025-06-09T19:11:12Z
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@bazkie also makes me think that they don't actually use their own AI tainted products. My every experience with AI going all the way back 25 years to a time when I was a project manager on an AI related project is that it's magical until you actually try to do something serious with it and then it's nothing but frustration.@nixCraft
(DIR) Post #Av1rM4LuF1tuTmm16e by sysop408@sfba.social
2025-06-11T18:10:05Z
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Last year was the first time I heard the entire Beach Boys song, Good Vibrations from beginning to end. I had never felt the need to listen to it. The chorus from that song has been overused as universal backing music and applied in the service of advertising to sell anything and everything. I certainly felt like I knew that song from incidental exposure to it.If this describes you, go listen to that song all the way through. It's not the saccarine bubblegum pop song that it masquerades as. In its own way, the full song is as wild and weird as Bohemian Rhapsody.#BrianWilson
(DIR) Post #Av1rM5vkNGAFNEY9bs by sysop408@sfba.social
2025-06-11T18:16:07Z
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@moira I know right? I was like "Wait... THIS is the same song as that bum-bum-bum-doo-waah-waah-wooo" tune that was constantly coming out of my analog TV for a solid 2 decades?
(DIR) Post #Av77qkEleIYs7xsp2O by sysop408@sfba.social
2025-06-14T03:39:59Z
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Tomorrow, I've chosen to walk with the military burial flag of my father-in-law, who was a WWII veteran. I was there as upon this flag, William Edward Stiles Jr. received his final salute: three volleys from the rifles of the honor guard before it was folded and presented to my mother-in-law by two Navy men. Later, at his memorial, I was astonished to discover that a white man of his era had so many Black friends.You see my father-in-law's fight against injustice did not end when he returned from the second World War. His fight continued in the civil rights movement negotiating for teachers unions in the shadow of Brown v. Board of Education America. Out of prejudice or fear of the Klu Klux Klan, few white people were willing to do what he did because it meant also representing Black teachers unions.#NoKingsDay 🧵 1/2
(DIR) Post #Av77qpIqoXnZq4peb2 by sysop408@sfba.social
2025-06-14T03:40:36Z
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But Bill Stiles was no racist and (bless his stubborn Irish heart) would sooner risk his life than give an inch to the KKK. When he marched for equal rights with his Black compatriots, he stood at the front. In 1963 Birmingham, Alabama the Klan infamously bombed a Black church. He knew that building.Were he alive today, William Edward Stiles Jr., would be out there with me. This man, who spent his life standing up for what he knew was right, would have been so proud to know that because of his lived example, one day his Asian-American son-in-law, would choose the flag of his final honor as a symbol of power in distressing times. Tomorrow, I will proudly bear the colors in his name and it is upon this flag that I say to all Americans of privilege, that we are being called to stand up together and peacefully meet the moment.#NoKingsDay 🧵 2/2
(DIR) Post #AwCflUUpYli2y1f7js by sysop408@sfba.social
2025-07-16T18:40:11Z
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@paul_ipv6 that status message when you login to your root account letting you know there have been 2817 failed login attempts since the last time you signed in is absolutely lit! @Viss
(DIR) Post #Az7kiyovAYS1AtjAv2 by sysop408@sfba.social
2025-10-11T15:59:29Z
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Happy #Caturday from my very polite boy, Lu!
(DIR) Post #Az7kj4JwidEsEZHWTI by sysop408@sfba.social
2025-10-12T02:35:10Z
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Why is Lu so polite? He mostly avoids things we ask him not to do and he often won’t jump in bed unless you invite him first. Last night I was working on my laptop from the bed in our guest bedroom as I often do. He loves to curl up next to me when I’m there.I usually invite him to join me. I forgot last night because I was working. Meanwhile Lu is pacing around in front of me and making disgruntled noises. Then he starts scratching furiously on the carpet while staring at me.I say "No" to get him to stop, but he makes a grumbling sound and persists. Then I realize that he wants to jump in bed so I ask “Do you want blankie?”He immediately stops scratching, makes a happy trilling sound, leaps into bed, makes biscuits, and curls up to sleep.#Caturday
(DIR) Post #AzEO6HeWNb9TP3j3hY by sysop408@sfba.social
2025-10-15T10:56:51Z
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@futurebird it's like the reason why micro-transactions don't work for content.It will cost you $.04 cents to read this article.Hmmm, do I feel like doing $5 worth of decisions in my head to approve this $.04 article? Naah... I was just being impulsive.@baldur
(DIR) Post #B18gZNk1iNeEOjMdiS by sysop408@sfba.social
2025-12-11T12:39:41Z
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@futurebird well, we can always wink wink and be clever with pronunciation.No, class, it's pronounced "Ens-hit-tification."
(DIR) Post #B1sOGtwZAbrhKlBAES by sysop408@sfba.social
2026-01-02T13:51:25Z
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@futurebird every time I'm forced to be a normal everyday person, I realize how "chronically Mastodon online" I am. Almost nobody has a clue about the things I'm referring to without me explaining it to them first. Being online here feels like being a superfan of a celebrity when you're a teenager and knowing way too much about a narrow silo of information.