Notices by Tim 🎮 (timixretroplays@digipres.club)

The conversation:

Cat: meow
Me: Wow, really?
Cat: meow
Me: This is incredible stuff
Cat: meow
Me: First I've ever heard of it
Cat: meow

The conversation from her viewpoint:

Cat: I'm hungry.
Human: hønk
Cat: Feed me, you big dumb kitten.
Human: hønk
Cat: Look here you dumb shit, I'm a regal predator and I deserve your respect!
Human: hønk
Cat: Your curtains will hear about this

#CatsOfMastodon

Website on mobile: oh, you want to track that order? You'll have to install our app. Tracking information is only available in the app. (Under its breath) you captive audience scum.

Website on mobile in desktop mode: certainly sir! Here's the tracking number and a hyperlink to the post service we used, would you like a coffee while the rest of the page loads?

Whenever a website tells you to install an app for basic functionality, switch your browser to desktop view. Don't accept their lies.

@SuperDicq @kalleboo does it!? The last time I saw an O2, about the only thing that could run on it other than irix was BSD, and not with graphics.

I left my work mouse at the office yesterday and will be WFH most of this week, so once again I'm completely unironically using the IntelliMouse Optical USB and PS/2 Compatible for serious stuff.

It tracks slower than a modern optical, but that can be adjusted in software, and it's got more than enough buttons for what I need day-to-day.

Adopt, don't shop - there's a lovely senior mouse in an op shop near you that will give you boundless love, if only you'll give it a chance. #retrocomputing

He considered it his sphagnum opus

@pimento does it? That makes me even more pissed off. How disingenuous can you get?

Have you had that "Upcoming price change for your Microsoft 365 subscription" email yet? They want to charge you an extra 50%ish for AI features, and they do *not* make it easy to find the way to turn it off. It took me minutes of searching - this is a particularly evil dark pattern.

"Switch plan" just lets you pick between annual and monthly billing. You want "Turn off recurring billing" and then "Current subscription without AI".

You're welcome. Please boost for others.

@clusterfcku @arisummerland @akamran it's 100% about breadknife handles for me, I promise!

Uhhh, I have a strange request. If you own a bread knife with a flat-sided handle in your kitchen, and calipers or something else that will measure to the nearest millimetre or so, and want something to do for 30 seconds, could you tell me how thick the handle is?

Yes, I'd like to collect some random samples of bread knife handle widths. Doesn't matter what brand, what it looks like, how long the blade is or where in the world you are.

I will explain later. Boosts appreciated.

#AskFedi

A reboot fixed it, but RIP my open tabs.

Reason #5,367 that Bluetooth is just shit: My headphones won't connect to my PC tonight, nor can I remove the pairing so I can re-pair them.

I'm familiar with the analogy that deleting a print job in progress is hard because it's like deleting a locked file, and there's big considerations given you're moving data from the virtual to the real world, but... there is no hardware involved in deleting a Bluetooth pairing, is there?

Also these error messages are shit.

Hey. Has someone made your work life a bit easier this week? Wrote a tool you found useful, invited you along for coffee, managed an office disruption, emptied your bin, shown you a cool keyboard shortcut, caught an embarassing egg that you dropped?

Take a moment today to thank them for it. Give them a reason to end their week on a high. Even a one-sentence email could absolutely make their day.

Boost this so others can think to do the same.

Today's Old Mouse At Work is a proper #IntelliMouse. I never actually had one of these back in the day - I was a bit of a Logitech fanboy, if that's a thing - and the shape feels pretty unfamiliar, but it is lightweight and comfortable, and the button clicks sound exactly as good as you think they do. Remember when optical mice would light up red this brightly? #retrocomputing

Hey, anyone with a smartphone handy - what does your QR code reading app do with this code and the incomplete URL in it? It's a mobile link to a YouTube video without the https:// at the start (it's just the text "youtu.be/GPTY6l_PX5k", which I promise is not a rickroll, it's a cover of a different song entirely), and I'm curious if your phone adds it back automatically and makes it a clickable link. Would also be interesting to know what app you're using that gives the result you get. #AskFedi

@tomwor @HauntedOwlbear mainly I wanted to try out the gen2 controller, because I'd heard whispers that it was a bit better in some ways than the gen1. I collect controllers, and happen to really like the way the Ouya pad feels, so I'm hoping this one survives its ordeal this weekend and I can give it a proper go.

Time to rescue this Ouya controller from its own alkaline hubris. The good news is that it doesn't appear to have gotten into the internals, so stripping it down and cleaning the plastic parts ought to leave it good as new.

Only one battery appears to have popped, so for peace of mind I might pop the other into a more secure container. The box I'll tackle later.

So I ran into one of my old high school teachers this week, who recognised me immediately and, after a bit of a catch-up chat, suggested I should come back some time soon and speak to the current crop of soon-to-be school finishers about life after school and how things are going.

The script in my head is already very "wear sunscreen", but: what advice would you give to 18-year-old yourself? What would you or your kids *want* to hear from future-you?

Boosts and serious comments appreciated.

Especially appreciated: do you have high school age kids? Could you ask them what they'd want to hear from someone who finished school 20 years ahead of them? That'd be pretty awesome too.

Ah yes, the three genders:

Here's why I'm learning Inkscape this week: I'm making super-legible pinout labels for the Raspberry Pi Pico (and other boards, later), using a combination of 3D and 2D printing - these paper slips will be glued to a little PLA frame you just drop over the top of your Pi Pico for breadboarding purposes.

Comments and suggestions highly welcome, so far I've designed to "what works for me" but it'd be great to include features that would be useful to others.