Alex Cordonnier

@madcoder@infosec.exchange @steve@discuss.systems @twostraws@mastodon.social I agree with Steve, there’s a little bit of joy in finding a bug in the Xcode project config and fixing it by hand in a way the UI doesn’t support. It’s like art; subvert expectations by turning something mass-produced into something bespoke. A small treasure for someone to find and wonder how.

@sundogplanets@mastodon.social this is the smallest issue, but I hate how every company (or in this case, satellite) that’s named after something from Tolkien is just terrible for society. Palantir, Anduril, Erebor, etc. There’s probably upwards of a dozen by now.

@joe@f.duriansoftware.com memalign(3) — generate a malicious untruth about oneself posix_memalign(3) — generate a malicious untruth about oneself (POSIX-compliant)

@atoponce@fosstodon.org @fay59@tech.lgbt hate to say it, but I think this article may be partly/largely AI. In addition to some of the hallmark phrasing and heading styles, there are some glaring mistakes and inconsistencies. For example: “The sequence would run 23:59:57 → 00:00:00, with 23:59:58 and 23:59:59 simply not existing. The last minute of the affected UTC day would contain only 59 seconds.” Also a reference to a paper in Nature that becomes a CNN interview (never mentioned again).

@fay59@tech.lgbt @atoponce@fosstodon.org thanks for finding. Seems like the AI pulled a lot from that NPR article (or very similar ones) but sprinkled in some extra FUD about how impactful negative leap seconds would be. IMO it would be less noticeable to software than positive leap seconds since it’s easier to skip a second than to double count one. Then again, I’m not a sysadmin (I only cosplay as one).

RE: https://social.cordonnier.net/@alex/116894127306201594 Ironically, I just got a recruiting email to join Sauron (a surveillance tech company). I can’t even imagine telling people with a straight face that you work for Sauron. There’s no way they don’t know their company is named after the second most evil person in Tolkien’s works, so at minimum they don’t find that association problematic. Presumably they (or their target audience) seek global domination and want to feel like a lord of evil. Basically the fantasy equivalent of Satanists.

@atoponce@fosstodon.org @fay59@tech.lgbt frustrating because there’s more than enough anxiety in the world to go around without AI needing to stoke up more of it

@cell@shitposter.world the most passive aggressive “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet”

@decryption@aus.social my microwave has a microcontroller, numeric keypad, and display. Panasonic should just give me the option to use it as a basic calculator instead of making me buy two products!

Vindication https://xkcd.com/3272/

@fay59@tech.lgbt I’ve never experienced a phantom phone vibration but have been so close to filing radars for unexpected watch vibrations (while on wrist). My brain feels very confident that they’re real even though I know intellectually they’re probably phantom. But I’m still not totally convinced that there’s not a bug, or possibly a prank to make people go crazy.