Remote

James

@JHB17@mastodon.online

mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-06

Electrical engineer and software writer, retired. Nature lover; hiking, birds - crows! Avid reader; scifi, technical. Massachusetts, USA.

99 Followers

46 Following

31 Posts

Joined November 06, 2022

James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@gsymon@mstdn.social @fabio@manganiello.eu "This leaves Britain as a rare modern case study: a rich country that deliberately raised barriers to trade and cooperation and paid the price. " And now we have the States: a rich country that deliberately raised barriers to trade and cooperation and paid the price.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 5mo ago

RE: @grrlscientist@mastodon.social

mastodon.social

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@ploum I remember 20 years ago writing code to run in debug windows and I added spinners and progress bars and the folks with OOP responsibilities would ask, "How did you do that?" I did that from writing DOS programs. Every step forward we lose a little bit of knowledge. I see LLM as killing off working algorithms for New, 'improved', and untried stuff.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@addressforbots@social.apcn.nz @cstross@wandering.shop @dryak@mstdn.science @whybird@aus.social It would be nice if the operating system would disclose folders, as in, "Where did you just stash my file?" Finding a file on Android ... not trivial.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@toddz @davidgerard @eldersea @firefoxwebdevs @josh @jaffathecake And the terms of use {for the AI material} can be found as an acrostic on the Spanish language help file.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@adrianhon@mastodon.social As an ex-member of a fundamental Christian group somewhere between the Pennsylvania Dutch and the Quakers, it has always amazed me how many Christians behave in an un-Christian manner. As a child I learned: Be kind to others. Give to others in need (the church was known for welcoming and supporting Cambodians and Vietnamese and oppressed seeking asylum.) Other people have other beliefs and that's okay. We don't preach to them or argue our religion vs. theirs.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 7mo ago

Replying to on tech.lgbt

@nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt I joined Discord because a blog suggested it would be great for meeting others doing research on genealogy. It's been noisy and useless and I haven't used it for years. It's a good time to delete the account.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@BinChicken@rants.au @pndc@social.treehouse.systems @cstross@wandering.shop Melania just surpassed Plan 9 from Outer Space as worst movie ever.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@monkeyben Search Google: Microslop => 82,000 hits Can we reach 1 million?

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@WGAvanDijk@mastodon.social I'm good with this. Maybe NATO can have some naval exercises off the Greenland coast? Make DC squeal like Korea.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@chu In my lifetime the USA has gone from one of the most influential and emulated nations to a third-world banana republic that is reviled and shunned. Yay, us?

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 26mo ago

Replying to

@stux@mstdn.social It's not so much that the cat does it as the fact that the cat figures out that it can do it. I appreciate genius where I find it.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@bsm @pheonix Notepad++ is my go-to choice for most everything. Simple, multi-tab app with good cleanup, find-n-replace, and macro tools.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 12mo ago

Replying to

@likelyjanlukas @oatmeal There was this thing where companies wrote their own positive, motivating mission statement. The company I was at wrote something on the line of, "We do the best we can." Corporate slapped them down - hard. A few years later I'm at a company that wrote advertising copy about life-saving equipment with the line, "we do the best possible." I told the writer I found it somewhat weak. I got reported to their boss, my boss, HR ... I still find it a wimpy statement.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 14mo ago

Replying to

@zanchey@aus.social Unfortunately, I think this post has nailed it. Microsoft. I remember when adding programming to Office would make the world a Better Place. Programming, without a manual. Object Oriented Programming, where everything is a method; printing is Inherited by Range and Sheet but not Workbook or Doc. Subject to change with each update.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 33mo ago

Replying to

@masukomi@connectified.com @julia@mathstodon.xyz Sounds good to me. I can't remember names. Just can't. Faces are difficult too. And my college had a cognitive psych course and I did the memorize 50 items, etc. Still can't memorize names quickly. But my visual memory is fine. I can take a walk through an OR and two days later tell you what was where and how many of each were there. We are each wired different.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 46mo ago

Replying to

@nzlemming@mastodon.nz @nixCraft@mastodon.social I can't top the backup stories but I have one as an end-user. I worked for a small company associated with the remainder of the RCA military div and IT insisted on maintaining the same security for both firms although 99.9% of our work was commercial. My work updated files and I had to check older copies. I knew our system worked from prior projects. So I'm checking an active project: last file version 6 months. Our daily backup failed 6 months ago. No one noticed.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@cstross I like that description. I just finished reading a 400 page fantasy novel where the female MC hated a male character for an undisclosed reason until the last 50 pages when she explains to him - and the reader - and he apologizes. For 350 pages I was muttering, "What's the issue here? Get it out in the open".

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 5mo ago

I’ve fired one of America’s most powerful lasers – here’s what a shot day looks like

It's a good read but my take-away was: "...which is currently closed due to funding cuts..."

https://theconversation.com/ive-fired-one-of-americas-most-powerful-lasers-heres-what-a-shot-day-looks-like-279520

I’ve fired one of America’s most powerful lasers – here’s what a shot day looks like

The Conversation

I’ve fired one of America’s most powerful lasers – here’s what a shot day looks like

It would take hours to set up the perfect shot at the Texas Petawatt Laser facility. Once it fired, the beam released an incredible amount of energy.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 6mo ago

Everything is fine ...

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 6mo ago

Seen while scrolling ...

Quebec FACiL

FACIL, for the collective appropriation of free computing (FACIL) is a non-profit organization whose mandate is to promote the adoption, use and democratization of free computing .

Become a member of FACiL
Joining FACiL is a sign of commitment to our association and the free software community.

https://facil.services/

Services FACiLes

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 6mo ago

Ah, great! I open this an hour before bedtime and now I want bacon!

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@david I'm not happy unless there is a "Nothing; go away!" option.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@lockelyfox Beautiful. How did I not know I need that?

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@nwhyte Ah, la; people never learn from history. Remember the Falklands' war? One French-made missile, one destroyer sunk. One defective missile. It didn't even explode; the damage was from the unspent missile fuel cooking-off inside the destroyer.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@masukomi@connectified.com @julia@mathstodon.xyz I think maybe it is because our parents and society spend so much time telling us we are all alike so that we aren't cruel or unkind to others ... but they don't put any rails on this; they don't explain what they mean. Do you like animals? Believe they are deserving of kindness and have a right to life? I do. But you don't treat a cat the same way you treat a horse and you likely realize that there are smart dogs and stupid dogs, but they are all dogs that we can love.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@Tutanota@mastodon.social @Tutanota@mastodon.social You got an online password vault? A 28 character password is easy (and fun to brag about).

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@paninid@mastodon.world It would be an interesting Venn diagram. 'Masked Federal Agents' always made me think of 'Third-World Banana Republics' which may or may not be Communists.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 35mo ago

Replying to

@h5e@tech.lgbt Especially MS Word. Paste, click, right-click, click plain-text, every time.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@shawnak@tweesecake.social @munchkinbear@mastodon.stickbear.me United Airlines flight to Spain pulls U-turn, apparently over Bluetooth device name "There is an active Bluetooth network labeled 'BOMB,' " one self-identified passenger wrote on TikTok. Recent news https://www.npr.org/2026/05/31/nx-s1-5841913/united-airlines-flight-diversion-bluetooth

United Airlines flight to Spain pulls U-turn, apparently over Bluetooth device name

United Airlines flight to Spain pulls U-turn, apparently over Bluetooth device name

The flight to Palma de Mallorca diverted back to Newark late on Saturday. Air traffic audio and social media posts indicate an onboard Bluetooth device raised security concerns.

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James @JHB17@mastodon.online

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@cstross@wandering.shop Hello World! Please realize that you are in a war with the United States of Trump. You cannot appease the(him). You cannot look for reasonable responses. You Should shun the USA, do whatever needs done, and accept the opprobrium that will result regardless of what you do. Thank you.

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