Notices by Dan Ports (dan@discuss.systems)

Last week, our new cat Miso managed to escape he house -- only a day after he was adopted. Over the next 54 hours, we and volunteers from a cat rescue organization set up a variety of traps around the house to get him back in, but he was too smart to fall for them.

We finally got him back by leaving the basement door ajar and rigging a pulley system so we could remotely close it without scaring him away.

Please enjoy this video of his return with narration from (GPT-4 as) David Attenborough.

#cats #catsofmastodon

Well, this raises more questions than it answers.

@abstractcow @cwebber I’m pretty sure a trap for mansplainers is called a well actually

Nowadays, when a post goes viral and escapes the cozy confines of Academic Twitter, it starts making the rounds on Incel Twitter, a true hellhole.

Meanwhile, when a post goes viral and escapes Academic Mastodon, it circulates on Trans Catgirl Mastodon.

I know which one I prefer...

Breaking out some emergency kitten photos for anyone who needs them tonight…

#cats #catsofmastodon

I took a look at the annual reports of the ACM's Diversity and Inclusion Council going back to its founding. Let's see how much ACM, an organization with $211,000,000 in assets and $10,000,000 in annual income is spending on this:

- FY24: $0
- FY23: $50,000
- FY22: $50,000
- FY21: $0
- FY20: $0

And where did those $50,000 budgets go? Marketing. To add diverse stock photos to "embed a DEI lens within current ACM communications", to "build ACM DEI Marketing Website Content Strategy" and "for targeting diverse nominations" for ACM's existing awards.

Hope everyone is having a floofy #caturday.

#cats #catsofmastodon

Does Max fit into this bed? Not really. Is he going to let that stop him?

#cats #catsofmastodon

such a compelling offer from the utility company

realized that my knowledge of Japanese is not just extremely limited but also extremely specialized when I could say "I would like some grilled squid tentacles please" but had no idea how to ask for a glass of water

Please congratulate @irene on a new senior researcher accomplishment: forgetting to register for the conference that she’s chairing.

(I also forgot to register for the conference, but everyone already expected that so someone actually registered on my behalf already!)

mathematically perfect

#cats #catsofmastodon

90% of the reason I buy this wine is to give it to my friends who teach intro CS.

@lina you could say that

@lina my employer seems particularly attached to it...

For the first time ever, I saw someone use Outlook flags to mark their email as "low priority"

When I was in New Mexico a few months ago, I was so excited to have some flavorful chiles (peppers in Seattle are inexplicably bland) that I immediately ordered some to be shipped to me.

“Hey, it’s only slightly more expensive if I order 50lbs,” I thought, “that’d be a great deal!”

They just arrived and now I am coming to terms with how many green chiles 50lbs is.

example card

@jpsays yup! I have an awful lot of stuff to pick up there...

@jpsays I have possibly an even larger set of pending orders at Full Pull but there's no way I can pick up both in the same day... unless I actually had a shipping container...