Notices by Flock of Nazguls (flockofnazguls@mastodon.flockofnazguls.com)

@SamanthaJaneSmith I've been burned so many times re: software licenses that I legitimately bought that have now 'decayed' due to scummy license upgrade practices. OS upgrades can also 'break' software (apparently, the latest Mac OS version doesn't play well with Logic Pro - imagine!).

And then there's the issue of quality control. As I mentioned previously, the USB-C ports on both of my iPad Pro tablets no longer transmit data (a known issue), which severely limits their usefulness for me.

Dear fellow Mastodonians: I never post paywalled links. Everything I post works on my end.

If you can't read it on your end, that's on you.

#PSA #sorrynotsorry

Damn right. #GenX #punksnotdead

@botvolution Crap.

Anyone know how #MakeNoise is doing?

Is GnuPlot still the best open source alternative for scientific data plotting? I have a license for Kaleidagraph, but the bastards want to charge me $15 just to download the software to my new laptop. Fuck that.

Anything other than GnuPlot I should look at? I'm pretty conversant in Python, so maybe just diving straight into SciPy, etc?

Yup.

Then there was that time I went on about how much I liked Giancarlo Stanton in The Mandalorian....

That was fun. 😁

#AI #ChatGPT

I’ve been ruminating on this exchange, and it reveals something that goes contrary to the #AI narrative: that is, that AI only ‘hallucinates’ when it doesn’t have an answer yet is compelled to provide one. Here, ChatGPT had *zero reason* to state that ELIZA passed the Turing Test. It lied, pure and simple, and even admitted it.

This stochastic parroting tech is fun for generating goofy images and stuff, but it sure isn’t appropriate for mission-critical purposes yet (if ever).

It's still fun. I've been hearing some really weird stuff on there lately.

Is Shortwave On Life Support?

https://hackaday.com/2024/07/26/ask-hackaday-is-shortwave-on-life-support/

@botvolution I love the Squid. Really need to get mine repaired!

Welcome to the fediverse: Your guide to Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky and more | TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/25/welcome-to-the-fediverse-your-guide-to-mastodon-threads-bluesky-and-more/

Just watched Carpenter's "The Thing" (1982) for the first time.

Came for the jump scares. Stayed for the disturbingly bang-on allegory for how in 2024 AI is devouring everything in its sight in order to project grotesque replicas of what it's devoured. Holy shit.

I still remember back in 1984, when talking about the same-titled Orwell novel, pundits were confidently declaring that such a surveillance state couldn't happen simply due to the sheer manpower required to monitor everyone in real-time.

LOL

@Ilaria @botvolution @Number1SummerJam Thanks all, this is really great info. Much appreciated!!

Dear #synthdiy Mastodon: I have an NLC Squid Axon with a burnt component (I’m guessing a capacitor from the shape). I really want to get this fixed, but have never picked up a soldering iron.

Is it doable for me to fix this myself given my lack of electronics experience? What’s the minimum I would need to know?

I’d like to be able to attain a sufficient skill set to repair my modules, but not sure what the most efficient way to go about that.

Any suggestions are welcome. I’m missing my 🦑.

@Number1SummerJam

Here's the rear face. The burnt part is in the upper left quadrant, unsurprisingly near the 10-pin cable connector. Although I'm usually assiduous about aligning the red stripe on the cable properly, it looks like that time I got it wrong, hence the damage.

Unlike some of my other modules, prying this one apart appears to be non-trivial, so I don't have a pic of the back of this PCB

@Number1SummerJam And here I'm tilting the module to give a better view of the fried component in question.

@BeAware Good point.