Notices by Quixoticgeek (quixoticgeek@social.v.st)

Continuing the tour of hermaphroditic genitalia that my balcony has to offer.

When I posted the photos of my snow drops last week, I mentioned that I planted bulbs for successional flowering from February through to hopefully may.

After the snow drops. Come the crocuses. I planted a mix, and it seems these purple ones are the first to bloom. With a vibrant purple petals contrasting with the vivid yellow inner flower parts.

#BloomScrolling
#Florespondence

"you keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means" me, replying to an American friend who just used the word freedom. As a European, to me freedom is much more about "freedom from" not "freedom to". I want freedom from persecution because of who I am. I want freedom from surveillance by the state, from corporate entities, and from individuals. I want freedom from harm caused by others.

This is a fundamentally different way of thinking.
1/n

https://social.marxist.network/@yogthos/114070829915547830

Dear Germany,

Please don't fuck up.

Love,

The rest of Europe.

I wish when people post about "don't use $word, it's ableist" they would also include suggestions about what to use instead. We can't be better people if we don't know how.

I may have achieved my goal. I think this is the best shot I've got this year. Almost all the flower head is in focus. The subject is properly detached from the background. And the background isn't detracting from the subject.

I may have to print this one.

#Floraspondance #BloomScrolling

Wanted to work out wtf 2000F was in metric, so I googled it, and apparently 2000˚F is just over 600meters in metric...

thanks google...

I see a lot of media stories about people talking about reducing regulations. People clearly failing to understand what lack of regulation results in.

It was a lack of proper regulation that allows cows to be fed cows, causing BSE & vCJD.

It was a lack of regulation requiring seat belts that caused so many people to die in car accidents.

It was lack of regulation about tamper evident medicine packaging that allowed 7 people to die from poisoned Tylenol.

Regulation is there to protect us.

How the fuck do you type a ° on a mac if there's no compose key ?

A conversation from this week.
"Eggs are getting too expensive to throw at Nazis"
"Have you tried bricks? They may cost less and have more impact " I reply.

This weekend is FOSDEM, in Brussels. This is the FOSS community's biggest superspreader event.

Many of us are not going. If you are feeling some FOMO at not being at ULB this weekend. Remember you can get the same experience at home.

Print out a sheet of paper with "This room is full" on it, stick it on your front door. Then sit outside in the hallway on the floor, and livestream the talks on your laptop.

It's just like the real thing, just with less plagues.

Enjoy!

#FOSDEM

Deepseek is at least making it very very clear that these models merely encode the biases of the cultures that make them.

Deepseek doesn't want to know about Tiananmen Square or Taiwan.

Gitlabs copilot won't let you talk about trans people, or gender (or transactions...)

The software systems we use implement the biases of those who make them.

Think about that and remember the techbros making the software we all use and rely on.

What will OSM and Wikipedia do about the names of the Gulf of fragile masculinity, and the mountain named after some Republican politician... Will it stick with the proper name, or change to be wrong...

Remember. Today is an excellent day to post pictures of your adorable furry pets.

Possibly one of the most important machines you've never heard of. This is Vaucanson's metal cutting lathe in the Musée des arts et métiers in Paris.

This is credited as the first precision metal cutting lathe. From this device every modern metal cutting lathe can trace its history back. From the prismatic ways, to get carriage, lead screw, and cross slide. Even the interchangeable cutter on the end of the cross slide.

From this lathe, modern precision mechanisation began.

Not only do I have the incredibly radical view that every station should have a service in each direction at least every 15 minutes (yes including those tiny rural village stations) from very early in the morning until very late at night. But I'm also of the view that these stations should be staffed during all their opening hours.

@dalias oh of course. That's kinda what I'm expecting.

On the plus side. If there's one community of users you can guarantee to work out how to hack your product to remove your cloud dependency and related evils, it's the 3d printing community.

Here's hoping an unlocked firmware for bambu labs printers comes out soon.

A friend who has worked in the computer industry for 40+ years has just had an automated rejection from a job application.

The reason? The company doesn't have the capacity to mentor people at the start of their career...

Said friend has been a UNIX developer since before I started school...

@cstross that's a lot of downsides to avoid some mail...

"sorry officer, I can't show you my driver's license as my phone battery is dead"

"Due to a misformated command from the DVLA, all licences issued on the digital license app got accidentally revoked. Oops".

The failure modes for things like electronic driving licenses are horrible. And I'm not even sure what the problem is they are trying to solve.