Giflian

@catsalad@infosec.exchange here's my lap with two layers of cat on it, while we were watching Lanterns on Sunday

Wish I had cleaned up the stack of clothes in the background but I didn't know the cats were going to make such distinguished poses

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz @jrdepriest@infosec.exchange AI doomers and AI boosters are on the same team. They're often paid by the same people. Both believe the story that AI is sentient or about to become so. LLMs can't be hostile or callous, they can't even hold state. The danger is in the grift, the big tech companies building out data centres with no purpose, the environmental damage, the abuse of workers in the global south for training, the forced AI on workers and students, the stealing of IP and art, the excuse used to fire, underpay and overwork workers, and the siphoning of wealth from regular people to the 1%. And probably some others I've forgotten. Pretending AI has feelings and becoming more powerful is just fluffing up the grift.

RE: https://kind.social/@azteclady/116982463867822908

On the wisdom of "RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE" (shared in the quote toot, but it first made the rounds years ago):

I'm curious if anyone has examples of things they changed in their life, or home, that seemed to be against the rules, or frivolous, but really helped when they were depressed or unwell or overwhelmed. I have a few:

1. Lukewarm showers. For decades I took the hottest showers, and I suffered post-shower exhaustion for months until it occurred to me I could just lower the temperature.

2. Switching from a queen duvet to two twins. I got them to be easier to clean, but I now have more control over the warmth of my bedding (one is warmer than the other), the covers don't get as shredded by the cats' antics, and they don't put pressure on my bad ankle when I'm trying to sleep.

3. Single-purpose kitchen devices, which go against the wisdom to never "clutter" your space with these things. 3-in-1 egg cooker, waffle maker, rice cooker, hot water dispenser. Anything to make it easier, physically or mentally, to feed myself.

4. Buying duplicates. If I have one of something and it's a lot of effort to change rooms to use it, or I have to wait for it to be charged or cleaned, I get a second one. It's already "normal" to have pens or Kleenex boxes in multiple rooms, so I do the same with snacks, hand lotion, reading glasses, chargers... I also have multiple earbuds for listening to music or audiobooks so that I don't have to stop listening when one runs out of battery.

None of these are profound, but with each I had to give myself permission to do it. Anyone else?

RE: https://bclocal.news/@bcnews/117273631404062627 There were a few years in the early 2000s where many Canadian universities changed their computer science curriculum to being 4 years of Java job training. This got dropped when students were graduating without knowing the basics of algorithms, data structures, or how computers generally worked. I can't remember why I'm suddenly thinking about this now

They asked ChatGPT for the safest time to go kayaking in Howe Sound 🤦‍♀️ https://youtu.be/hrdV58Ebfpc

@catsalad@infosec.exchange the one who likes to give me a jump scare (because with his eyes closed he blends in with the navy housecoat)

/me googling best Star Trek uniform for big tits

Ah, the concierge said they're looking into finding who the bike owner is. That's a change from when I last asked about this a few years ago and was told they couldn't do anything.

I think it's time I wrote a note to the motorbike owner saying hey, you've been using my spot for at least 13 months that I noticed, maybe you should pay me rent? I did do that once before and the person then shifted to a different spot in the parkade.

"Property investors have discovered that getting rid of tenants is very good business" https://thewalrus.ca/the-corporate-takeover-of-canadas-apartments-is-worse-than-you-think/

@zazzoo@mstdn.ca "synthetic actors" ewwwww I try to dissociate during Gem commercials tbh

@MaryAustinBooks@mstdn.social headline so funny I'm surprised it's not from The Onion

@zazzoo@mstdn.ca I vaguely remember a repeated fabric softener one. Or maybe it's something that scents laundry? Vancouver has soft water so the former would be redundant

I never bothered offering my spot to rent because the building seemed to have more parking spots than it needed

@ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org @jbowen@mast.hpc.social I do own the Thinkgeek Unix clock which I could move to the kitchen….

@dabertime@mstdn.ca US booze sales in Alberta are pretty sad (I don’t know about Saskatchewan), so I would assume it would be even worse in other provinces

@ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org @jbowen@mast.hpc.social now I'm curious what date format you write on the tape (crossing fingers it's ISO 8601)

@dyckron@cosocial.ca I have no idea how one would balance between capitulating (and then letting Trump move the goalposts) and being too aggressive and triggering a hissy fit (along with new "joke-threats"). I did learn from a podcast last week that those 50% tariffs don't impact Alberta and Saskatchewan as much as other provinces. And AB and SK are the two provinces that sell US booze. Just something I wouldn't have otherwise noticed.

@dyckron@cosocial.ca only 24% of polled Canadians think Trump is too unpredictable to negotiate with reliably. I mean, he's predictably unpredictable, and it's all in bad faith so there's not going to be anything like a fair negotiation. I expect rug pulls. I'm surprised at the low number, are people not paying attention?

@ErikUden@mastodon.de it's all so incredibly nihilistic. I've been thinking lately how I'm not hearing of any big companies (tech or otherwise) promoting upcoming innovations or future facing vision that isn't hand-wavy "AI". I'm more often hearing of already-announced products that are more of the same, but being delayed. I've noticed all the excitement over watching Nolan's Odyssey on IMAX, which is a technology from the 1970s. Hard not to see we're being conditioned to only look backwards in faux-nostalgia. Not that we need more of the same old capitalist buy-new-thing, but it's notable that companies aren't even trying anymore. Like they think the world's going to end by 2028.

@dyckron@cosocial.ca yeah, I think you're right. If all we can control is our reaction, best to pretend to chill

@glassbottommeg@mastodon.gamedev.place this got me to check: my local library system has board games but only to be played at the branches. Still, cool. This does tell me I don't know all the services my local libraries have, when I'm already telling others about the stuff they do have, like movies and tv shows on dvd, or the lab where you can digitize your old cassettes and VHS tapes (among other things). Thanks for the reminder to read through the website.

@MatWright@mastodon.social did you confront them at all? That's nuts.

@dyckron@cosocial.ca

Canada would concede on... the return of American alcohol to shelves; removing provincial procurement restrictions...

The federal government doesn't have control over this though?

@CelloMomOnCars@mastodon.social I just switched to time-based electricity billing, where 4-9 pm has the most expensive rate. Trying to run my dishwasher and washer/dryer after 11 pm and charge my devices when I go to bed. Will see in a month how my bill is affected (before it was different rates based on the total for the month).

@jared@spookykitties.com SP does behave like my cats do, like your yard is a living room. Which is sweet to see. These cats are lucky to have you

@MatWright@mastodon.social I don't understand people. If I mistook private land for public and did this, I'd be embarrassed and apologize.

@mxchara@seattle.pink I wish X would finish him off already

@mxchara@seattle.pink it truly sucks that indexed funds are systemically forced to purchase SPCX. Socializing the losses, etc.

@Erased_Citizen@cupoftea.social older generations tried to brush opportunities for diagnoses under the rug for fear of stigma. I certainly saw my mom do that with me growing up (and she was allowed because my grades were excellent). I don't know your mom's reasons, just noting a pattern.

@dyckron@cosocial.ca oh COME ON

@CelloMomOnCars@mastodon.social I’ve been wondering about this. I get the sense it would be hard to use in my condo as power storage for everything. If I lived in a house, I’d want solar panels and batteries.

@commonst@social.vivaldi.net Back in 2020 I was trying out different ingredients for chicken soup, and a friend bugged me that using store-bought chicken broth was wrong and I needed to make my own with the bones of a roast chicken. So I followed the instructions he gave me, bought a bunch of vegetables and a roast chicken and cooked them for hours and… like, it definitely tasted better than the carton, but it was exhausting and expensive. It would maybe make sense to do some modified version of this if I normally bought roast chickens, but I don’t.

@commonst@social.vivaldi.net I remember back in the 90s baking a birthday cake for a friend from a 1960s recipe and everyone assuming the cake would taste boring, and then being surprised at how good it was. Like the 90s invented good food? It was a "spice cake" and had basic ingredients.

@davidgerard@circumstances.run since you were mentioned in the book acknowledgements in "Easy Money" (crypto), I assume you'll be early to whatever the next grifts are. Like some other commenters I'm assuming one of those is quantum (or magical quantum-AI hybrid technology, whee!), but I know you're already paying attention to that. I still wonder about the idea of Big Tech making everything Cloud, and making it so consumers can only buy dumb terminals and a subscription. I know that is one hope they have for post-AI, but I don't know whether it'll actually be implemented at scale.

@bigvimto is that an old-man crow? The top of its head is grey. Is it telling you to get off its lawn?

Why are they turning the fifa final into the Super Bowl with a halftime show

@curiousrobot@infosec.exchange I... don't know if I believe everything I'm reading here.

@dtauvdiodr@c.im oh god, was it going to be something where you took photos or video of your home, and that gets stored on some corporate cloud somewhere?

For the context: https://youtu.be/uJ2cEc_TCH8

@Erased_Citizen@cupoftea.social as someone whose home province is currently on fire, I am unamused at whoever that was. I don't know the stats these days but some number of forest fires over the years were from people tossing cigs or not fully putting out campfires

@ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org oh wow, and a track arranged by Mort Garson. Some good names in that list

@Erased_Citizen@cupoftea.social I understand this... the one car I owned used to be my dad's (he gave it to me in his last year)

@jared@spookykitties.com I wonder if Soda Pop started out as a house cat, since I convinced my shitheads that bellies aren't traps.