Notices by 🆘Bill Cole 🇺🇦 (grumpybozo@toad.social)

@inthehands @lisamelton It’s kayfabe. Distraction from the ongoing coup being run by Musk and to make the remnant Chinese tariffs that don’t get cancelled seem less terrible.

@dalias @GossiTheDog The royal decree was notionally aimed at all organizations receiving Federal funds.
Never mind that to actually impose such a condition on funds for educational institutions would demand a formal rulemaking process.

Best way to avoid FB phishing: don't have a FB account.

If that's not an option, it is imperative that you use a unique email address for communication from FB which you do not share with anyone else, human or corporate. https://infosec.exchange/@happygeek/113787777146227848

@JessTheUnstill @dalias I'd argue that what the fash transphobes actually want is for people like you to suffer and/or repent and/or die. Moving makes you resistant to their attempts to make those happen.

JFC, I just heard mass screaming from at least 2 different neighbors.

I gather a local sportsball team won...
#Detroit #Michigan

The scholar-athletes of Univ. of Mich. apparently have defeated those of some college in #Ohio, in Ohio, unexpectedly. Given my proximity to that institution, my status as a taxpayer, and the multiple alums and faculty in my immediate family, I am obligated to say: #GoBlue

Alvin Toffler and Paul Ehrlich were guilty of being mostly right ~40 years early.
We're starting to understand that the threat of "over-"population isn't fundamentally Malthusian (food) but rather the fragility of the large complex systems that have so far sustained growing populations to the point of 'demographic transition' and the diverse resource demands of transitioned societies.
Meanwhile, "developed" nations have OD'd on mis/dis/infotainment to the point of rejecting objective reality.

The smartest people in the richest states on Earth know that our current trajectory is towards a hard crash of civilization due to climate change. We should be able to effect the necessary changes to minimize the catastrophe and to push for demographic transition in ways that don't threaten to make the climate problem worse.
That's been true for 30 years.
We are not doing it because of various delusions including the one that we can just push through by juicing AI, biotech, and space.

Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from a state-sponsored attack https://kolektiva.social/@mxy/113510960921049998

We all know it's going to be President Vance at whatever time that becomes convenient for them, right? Early 2027 at the latest, maybe early 2025.
Thiel et al. won't hesitate for an instant to close out Trump's presidency-for-life.

It really is amazing.
I wonder how well we will cope when there are a half-dozen disaster zones in need simultaneously instead of 2. It’s coming. https://mastodon.social/@avlcharlie/113316613445109292

@lilithsaintcrow @cstross It is actually being dispersed quite a bit. Data center landlords, utilities, Nvidia, Seagate, Cisco, etc. Also to the humans doing the grunt work of classifying and tagging all the input data. Data center ops staff. Janitors. Sysadmins.
It’s one upside of truly hopeless tech investments: that money gets USED, it’s not just funneling into a few hands. Usually.

I can’t recommend the particular mail service, but the practice is sound. I’ve got a whole subdomain dedicated to the addresses I use to subscribe to stuff and talk to companies. I get almost no spam ever to those addresses (and burn them when they do) https://me.dm/@thetechtutor/113251884203032910

It’s the second time I’ve had a random solicitation for work around the house this Summer and the second time I’ve said/done *something* I don’t recognize as problematic but which has generated a negative attitude.
I guess maybe my bewilderment (and mild annoyance) at the pitch and its unexpectedness is evident? Is it so obvious that I’m not going to sign a contract at the moment? Or do a handshake agreement? Or engage in any sort of affirmative executive function?

Well, there’s the day ruined for me.
Dude came to the door offering tree trimming, which, yes, we do visibly need.
It was not a thing I was thinking about today.
I failed the masking test. Not sure exactly why or how, but he seemed put off by… something. I didn’t think I said/did anything rude, but he got a bit huffy…

And it’s bugging me like crazy.

This is why SWMBO handles this shit. She manages dealing with humans much better than I do. I passed her his card. She was busy.
My deeply instinctual distrust of everything is not consistent with independent living. If I wasn’t married, I’d need an inpatient accommodation.

Something about this reminded me of the time I was mystified about why my boss had bought a 2GB Barracuda hard drive and 10Mbps SCSI interface for the BBS. How could we ever fill such a beast?
I don't think all y’all young’uns appreciate the scaling that has happened in 30y.

#IAmOld https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/112989429555089751

@thomasfuchs ICBW, but I’m pretty sure that’s just an elaborate CyberTruck joke. See the “customer images”

@GossiTheDog FWIW, archive download was always flaky. I think they must have staged all of the pending archives on low-performance systems.

@GossiTheDog @RonnyTNL Sure, but I stay in touch and they’re still handling it well despite moving my job to admins in Mexico, and changes in how work gets done has made the PC component *easier.*

The basics of DR can scale well if an org puts the resources into it. Delta has a much more complex environment with many machines that need to be working in specific places but it is notable that similar major carriers had essential recovery much faster.