Notices by Mike J👹🐀 🤘🏻 (mikej@mastodon.online)

Anybody remember when the US Embassy in Moscow had a listening device built into a gift carving of the great seal of the US? Just thinking about it for no reason today.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/06/19/new-air-force-one-gift-qatar-arrives-will-soon-fly-trump/

@jwz @mjg59 @glyph I hang out with three guys who use AI.

Guy 1 works at a rocket company and says he'd never use AI to design the part he works on, but uses it for little bits of code. Guy 2 works for a social media company and won't use AI for code, but uses it to write email reports to VPs. Guy 3 works at Microsoft and says AI is great as long as you don't use copilot.

They all think AI is good at stuff they don't understand and sucks at things they do.

@thomasfuchs Maybe it would help if people didn't pretend that lukewarm meh center government is functionally identical to actual, factual, no joking nazis.

@jwz @me Perl's motto is "there's more than one way to do it." Python's motto is, "There's only one RIGHT way to do it, and we'll change it every 37 minutes."

@thomasfuchs "Lies" is obviously the wrong word, but it seems to be the way he sees it.

What would he do with a flesh and blood employee who lied like his AI does?

@mattl jwz does something similar. A link that is 1) invisible to regular users and b) in robots.txt file saying don't follow it. Anyone who follows the invisible link is ignoring his express wishes and gets fail2ban'ed

@wxcafe In Seattle they put batteries in the trolleybuses so they can leave the wired area and recharge when they return to it. It allows for more flexibility. It lets you to try various routes with being forced to expand the pantograph wires before you do it.

@inthehands https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykm3GI1oTnQ

@neauoire My preferred style is two carriage returns and a bell.

Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael

@Binder

@inthehands Just stole this one:

@inthehands We need to repurpose Pinto jokes. In honor of Val Kilmer:

https://youtu.be/4-Qj58o87sY

@feld @dch @tofugolem Yeah, I want to believe, which is why I don't

@inthehands Please tag and CW all this talk about YOUR building being on fire for those of us who don't want to hear about it. [continues to sit there, burns to death]

@inthehands BBC Hitchhikers Guide, or does scifi not count as fantasy? Which brings up not explicitly YA, but https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/category/drama-scifiandfantasy

@kenshirriff Your cite is 4 years earlier than the first in OED (a programming manual for the 704). You ought to pass it on to them.

@jwz Oh yeah, my 9/11 NRO post: https://mastodon.online/@mikej/111047913726440196

@jwz I was doing a consulting gig where I met a guy who, upon learning that I lived in DC, said he'd worked for a place he couldn't name when he got out of college. When I said, "Oh, must be NRO, they have this weird belief that they're a lot more secret than they really are" he just stuttered for 5 minutes.

Traffic was better around there before their cover got broken though. Hundreds of acres of empty fields surrounded it and are now filled with SAIC office buildings.

Today's ride