Notices by Timothy Clark (tclark@mstdn.social)

@mattly that new trend is pure idiocy and I cannot be convinced otherwise.

@mattly Yeah I'm heavily leaning toward flat files that pull in text and no database. I don't need a full-up "publishing" system.

@mattly thanks! i know most slightly techier folks use stuff like Ghost, but I'm not sure I want to wade that deeply into adminning the server. i might just end up going with Wordpress or update my "PHP pulls in text files" and that'll *work* for what I need but I'd also like to add RSS.

@mattly tangentially related -- it's time for me to blow the dust off my website and rebuild my blog. It used to be totally roll-by hand with PHP reading in text files. I'm not super convinced I want to go with Wordpress but I'm looking for something with minimal futzing on the command line. What do you use on lyonheart.us ?

@mattly I don't think this is right -- Cicero was around in the late days of the Republic.

Pay attention and remember who the quislings are. I'm not talking about people who go silent or otherwise don't speak on the pending clusterfuck or even who say vague "congratulations", I'm talking about the people and especially companies actively trying to normalize the pathology and justify it.

@mattly Stupid management has those feels. Smart management understands that silos are artificial, sometimes necessary evils, but should not just be accepted as "the way things are done." Cargo cult management is everywhere, though. I'm not saying I'm a great manager but a more philosophical approach beats dogmatism nine times out of ten.

@cstross Advertisement doesn't just enshittify products, it enshittifies culture.

@mattly CSS finally caught up to <table> in 2023.

@mattly minesweeper pay to win now? i'm outta that loop.

@cstross Congrats, Charlie! It's been a heck of a ride so far, and I'm looking forward to the last installment.

@kneath @mattly I think it's also not necessarily about dealing with knowable, objective things (there's a lot we don't know about the places we send our spacecraft).

The whole delineation between project structure and management approach is rooted in something that, generally, non-aerospace tech people probably talk way too little about: risk tolerance. An honest, forthright discussion of the failure modes of each approach often doesn't happen enough because people get dogmatic.

@mattly The kids are alright. The parents are fucking horrible.

I think the most revealing aspect of the Windows Recall thing is that they promise not to screenshot any DRM-protected content. They're MAKING SURE not to screenshot the latest extruded Marvel Cinematic Product, but gay or trans young people searching for support resources on a shared computer will be happily ratted out if they've been cursed with lynch-the-gays parents.

@mattly yeah wtf is that about

@mattly To the extent I'm aware, I'm more on the NT end of the spectrum perhaps with some mild atypicality,, but my personal experience of "flow" isn't quite either of those things. I seem to go into a dreamlike state (in terms of "just going with it"). I feel like the part of my brain that inhibits freeform thought and connection drops into "suspension of disbelief" mode. I've only really ever entered flow state while writing prose/poetry or writing/playing music, though.

@mattly Put a big "THIS IS BULLSHIT GROWTH HACKING" watermark on it

@mattly Value seeks its own abstraction like water goes downhill. So long as there's scarcity of anything valuable to people, even if you don't have money, there'll still be money. A tax system that acknowledges decreasing marginal utility and prevents anyone from inheriting or accumulating wealth beyond what they can reasonably spend in a lifetime (which has never been tried before) is worth trying before abolishing money.

@mattly Once I voted there's a "See previous results" which is actually.... see current results.

@mattly No algorithms. Recommendations can be "dumb" and still work.