Notices by Shannon Clark (rycaut@mastodon.social)

@inthehands and you sound like someone. Who has gotten past the many many many gatekeepers of the stack overflow communities. My experience was always “find a stack overflow community on a topic I know”. Then try to participate and get basically yelled at for every post/question/answer (questions for being considered too similar to an existing question that was not, in fact the same case and had uselsss answers) etc. I just gave up on the whole site a decade ago - found it unwelcoming

RE: https://cosocial.ca/@timbray/117207765997753962

The only addition / minor correction I would add to @anildash ‘s post is that VC firms also increasingly get their funds from overseas sovereign wealth funds (and who are the LPs funding most VCs these days is if anything more opaque than it has been in the past - it has always less public as private family offices and even many nonprofit foundations don’t always emphasize the portion of their funds allocated to VC firms but it seems more hidden today even as new wrinkles have been happening)

@Gargron Is there a way to see a sample of the feed of the artists (or anyone) in a given collection?

i.e. not just a list of the accounts but view of their feeds? I trust your list but also want to see each artist's feed to see if I would enjoy following them (something I do with most people before I follow) - for stuff like if they boost a lot vs have original posts or if their content if NSFW (I don't mind that - just want it tagged so it doesn't show up on my feed when browsing in public)

@pattykimura @inthehands I seriously tell people that the best technologists I’ve known have not had CS degrees of any form. Most have had Philosophy degrees (some another social science).

Combined with technical skills the combination means they can think deeply about complex issues. Usually can also communicate well and evaluate the edge cases and moral questions a given technology raises

But they have also usually just been rock solid developers (though rarely stay individual contributors)

Has anyone made a browser plug-in that does the following:

1) alert you if the domain was registered after 2023 (especially if it was registered in the last month)

2) tell you if the domain blocks the internet archive from archiving it

3) if it is/was archived give you easy access to that archive (and bonus tells you if the content is similar - in the case of deep links this may be easy

If you guess I want this as a first step to whether a site is likely AI slop - you are the winner

@TinJar another of my favorite books in my collection (which alas is currently in a box somewhere not yet shelved after my move of a few months back) is my well loved and worn copy of Emanuel Lasker’s Manual of Chess.

Which I put in my top 5 favorite/most important books I’ve read in my life (out of thousands). That specific copy I bought in a used bookstore as a precocious young teen. It was stuffed with newspaper clippings and more from a previous owner’s lifelong study of chess

@TinJar th article misses one of the most powerful aspects of books are artifacts. That they can literally contain notes from the past to the future.

For example

The photo is a note written on the front cover of a book I have - the book is a documentation of a gathering 50 years after the battle of Gettysburg

The note is from a soldier who fought at Gettysburg. Preserved in a book over 100 years old. The book it is written in is also a work that doesn’t translated well to digital due to maps

@drahardja @msbellows @blogdiva it is even more corrupt than you imply.

Really rich people don't donate cash to charities (or at least mostly not cash)

Instead they "donate" appreciated assets to most often their own "Donor Advised Fund" - which is technically a charity so the "trick" being they get a credit for a charitable donation in the amount of the value of the asset when donated without having to pay capital gains on the sale of that asset.

Then they may make grants to other charities

A rare case of AI being used correctly - the city of San Jose has been testing a program using AI to automatically detect potholes and obstructions (like garbage or debris dumped on the street) via analyzing images captured by city vehicles while they drive thru the city.

This is a good use of AI - analyzing patterns in a large data set (larger than a human could easily watch and process) for a relatively small set of things. And then feeding into existing systems (311) automating after tests

I'm just going to point out that about a billion Catholics (and billions of non-Catholics) will have about zero issues using Pope Leo XIV's preferred name.

(I was raised Catholic but am not Catholic, my Catholic relatives and some of that side who are also not-Catholic in some cases have problems with my cousin's preferred name - they are non-binary - but will not have any problems with the new Pope's name nor do they have problems with my aunt's names who has been a Catholic nun for 50+ years)

@inthehands if you have a bank account somewhere that also owns a brokerage most have low cost/self managed trading options (for example if you bank with Bank of America you can open an account at Merrill Lynch pretty easily. May not be the most ideologically pure but may be easy if you already have the accounts.

(fewer credit unions or b corp banks have brokerages)

I'm reasonably happy with Charles Schwab but not sure their minimums but generally decent (relatively for their industry)

@DamonWakes @inthehands that’s an infuriating article.

If there is a manual release that isn’t clearly visible or easily discoverable from inside in case of an emergency the blame is entirely in the hands of the car manufacturer. Blaming the person trapped in the car for not reading the manual is blaming the victim.

(Consider a passenger or a child)

And “charging the battery from the outside” is also a crazy solution to “pets or child or anyone trapped in a vehicle”

@inthehands for example this is from 2023 on how to get out of a Tesla in case of power loss.

https://www.carscoops.com/2023/08/how-to-get-out-of-a-tesla-if-it-loses-power-and-you-become-trapped-inside/

read this. Then imagine asking a kid to remember the steps (and in many of the Teslas it requires rear seat passengers to climb to the front seats first)

(not sure if there are - as is likely - any changes in 2024 or 2025 models)

@inthehands highlight again and again how risky Teslas are if you have kids. I know one big reason I will never buy one (even before the past few years) is how hard they are to exit if the power doors fail (due to loss of power - like in case of an accident).

I've looked up the process to open their doors in the case of power loss - it is hard for adults to do and remember when not in an emergency - it seems implausible for kids

@nazgul whenever I’ve crunched the numbers dental insurance that I pay for out of pocket hasn’t been worth it - the copays/deductibles plus monthly costs have almost always ended up higher than paying out of pocket for my wife and I (kids are covered under the ACA)my dentist gives a discount if you pay her directly. Crowns are tricky - I’ve seen a wide range of costs for them from various dentists

Which is to say it’s worth asking your dentists office if they offer any discounts for uninsured

@Christo_459 @pezmico not true in the US. Where the majority of fridges and other appliances sold in major stores now have “smart” features and digital screens

Unless you go up market to the higher end brands where you can, in fact, buy far simpler machines without all the screens (but these cost 2-3x or much much more)

(Speaking from direct experience buying a new fridge a few years ago as well as seeing what friends and family could choose from in renovations this past year)

@skinnylatte it is why rare programs like India’s OCI are so valuable (but also so unusual that few countries offer anything similar)

(The OCI - “overseas citizen of India” is a lifelong permanent visa to work or live in India that children and even grandchildren of Indian Citizens including former citizens who have become citizens of most ofher countries can qualify for. It’s a long, complex and not free application process. I will likely get mine this year as a spouse of someone with it)

@mmasnick @aram @quinn just pledged as well has seen it at launch then forgot I hadn’t backed it yet.

@kfogel hi! And indeed that may be the case. Though I suspect that it might not cost a crazy amount if done well. And that many individuals and companies might pay for it (especially if it was spread over a year but the service was mostly upfront)

Ie all my various domains and existing but poorly/little used hosting plans etc like are a few hundred a year (probably more but I’m in denial).

But a few hours or even one hour might be enough to get me setup and started over my roadblocks

idea (and yes I'm serious, would love to have this for myself and would help start a company to offer this)

Self-hosted services for individuals and small businesses that takes a service FIRST approach - where they don't assume the customer knows what they need (or even what is possible/available as options) but instead starts from a NON technical perspective and then helps identify & configure a solution

With lots of handholding not just before the sale but ongoing