@johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 1mo ago

Boosted by @MaryAustinBooks@mstdn.social

I just had an 'early squamous cell carcinoma' site treated because of a toot I saw here just weeks ago. Read this. Remember this. Boost this. I had a tiny red spot on the bridge of my nose. THE SKIN NEVER QUITE HEALED – and that's what I remember from this person's toot (that I can't find, sorry). A scaly bit of skin that never quite heals. A few weeks later, with that toot in my mind, I just saw a dermatologist here in Japan. Early squamous cell carcinoma is the one you want: she froze that bit of skin and hopefully* that's the end of the story. Had I not read that toot, it would have taken me a lot longer to realise something was up. The area was tiny; the 'not healing' slight. But I knew it wasn't right, because of this toot. Treatment was quick and painless. Nothing to worry about. Thank you, whoever that was. And I hope yours is okay as well. (*Not _necessarily_. Requires post-heal monitoring to ensure it was skin-level and hasn't gone deeper.)

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 2mo ago

Using AI to organise your 'knowledge' is like claiming to be smarter because you know what Wikipedia is.

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 2mo ago

Coming soon: the Johnny.Decimal Corporate System. 👔

Sick of not having any clue where anything is? Sick of duplicate documents on Teams, SharePoint, and in your email?

Let us fix that for you.

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

https://johnnydecimal.com/blog/0193-a-new-website-and-focus-on-sbs

We done it again.

johnnydecimal.com

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

ANZ would like me to 'reverify' my personal details for an account that I've held for 22 years. Just in case they're wrong, y'know?

They'd like me to upload my drivers licence and/or passport and/or so on.

1. I don't think I'll bother.
2. I genuinely think this should be illegal. I worked in this industry. I know how good we are at keeping this data secure.

Adorably, their service is called – I'm not making this up – 'TrustMe'.

I. Do. Not.

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 2mo ago

Cheap mobile data hack for Aussies. This is how I use my phone while travelling, and I just realised it'll be cheaper to continue doing this when I'm back home than it will be to get a 'proper' Aussie mobile plan.

1. You need an Aussie mobile service. This is your baseline: this keeps your number active. Get an Aldi mobile PAYG plan, top up with $15, it lasts a year. Turn off mobile data on this line.

2. For data, use an eSIM service. Redteago will give you 1GB valid 30 days for AU$2. That's right, I said two dollars.

That's it. Pay Aldi mobile $15 a year. Pay Redteago $2 a month. Sweet.

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

Received an email from Netlify this morning that I'll quote in its entirety.

> Subject: Describe your app. The database provisions itself.
> Hi Johnny,
> You can now build a full app, with a real database, in one prompt.
> Netlify Database is live. When you describe your app to the Agent Runner, it detects that you need to store data and sets up the database automatically. No setup steps. No infrastructure decisions. You describe what you want; it wires everything up.
> Example: "Create an app that manages my music collection. Each entry needs an artist name, year, genre, and format. I want to search by artist name and edit any entry."
> That's it. The Agent Runner creates the database, sets up the schema, and connects it to your app. You see the tables in your dashboard when it's done.

So that is terrifying. Please don't do that with any important data, my friends.

We are about to enter an age of Tremendous Data Leakage. I'm not anti-AI, I find Claude amazingly useful. But if you have no idea how to secure a database you shouldn't be allowed to use databases.

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 2mo ago

And we're off! Going east?!

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=39a3fb

globe.adsbexchange.com

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 2mo ago

RFC W0192: Use of +, ~, @; clarifying extend-the-end

https://johnnydecimal.com/blog/0234-rfc-w0192-symbols-ete/

johnnydecimal.com

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

As a kid I was fascinated by the paranormal. I got those weekly magazines that you kept in a binder. Bigfoot, UFOs, and the holy grail: telekinesis.

In 1994 I found myself on the network at the University of York. In those days you could `telnet` to any machine on campus – including the nice SGI workstations in the special CompSci room – and `reboot now`. Which we did, cruelly, because we were 18. (There was one girl who would lose her shit in the room when it happened to her. So of course we'd `finger` each box and figure out where she was. I know, I know.)

I still find the power of a `sudo reboot now` – legitimately, today, as I update my VPS software – to be a kind of magic. Here I sit, wirelessly, in a hotel room in Vietnam. And I can reach across to a server in California and just by moving my fingers, cause it to restart.

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 2mo ago

WwJD: This is what Johnny.Decimal was designed for (video)

https://johnnydecimal.com/blog/0232-wwjd-this-is-what-jd-was-designed-for/

johnnydecimal.com

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

Replying to

Half an hour later, I've filed a single 'task' away after figuring out what it really was and creating the right place for it. That feels a bit bonkers, but the alternative was that I look at this thing every week for the next x weeks until finally giving up and deleting it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@trib@aus.social They're un-phishable, unlike even a unique email/password combo. But if you have your password manager fill passwords for you, you're generally pretty safe there. I tend to agree. I have the same setup as you and use a handful of passkeys. When they work well – largely depends on how well the site implemented them – they're really great. But when they don't – PayPal is a shambles – they just get in the way.

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

RE: @publicvoit@graz.social

It's a social network. Anyone who expected privacy there has themselves to blame.

graz.social

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@trib@aus.social See what just happened in the UK though. It was clear that none of the Reform councillors had the first clue what they were doing, administratively, and yet they swept the board. The public are stupid enough to think that some guy with an opinion can do a better job than a career civil servant. Well, let's see. Should be an interesting 20 years.

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@neatnik When does Neatnik develop the chat server to replace Discord? I'd sign up in a heartbeat. For money. Discourse is great. It ain't chat.

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@sarajw@front-end.social I know you shouldn't have to, but this is why I've been really, really enjoying moving over to email-address-per-service handled by Fastmail and 1Password. I haven't had to yet, but it's lovely to know that I can just turn off any address if someone starts to annoy me.

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@ellane@pkm.social Look out, that's 5% plus the ~3.5% payment processor fees.

Do I need to pay PayPal/Stripe fees? Yes, PayPal and Stripe will still charge at their standard rates once they complete a transaction. This applies for all plans.

Would something like Ko-fi work? Or honestly just put up a paypal.me link and email people the product yourself?! ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@daisy@cloudisland.nz I'm not saying this will end well! I have no idea how it'll end. I'm just saying that I understand why people want it.

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

Hey guys I've made [super niche tool for my specific use-case] using [the same LLM you could use if you were so inclined] do you wanna see it and use it and give me feedback and star my GitHub repo?

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

johnnydecimal.com

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@neatnik Iiiiiiinteresting.

I wonder if this is one of those weird behavioural things. I can't see any situation in which my Discord – where we have been discussing getting off Discord – successfully migrates to this. But I don't know why. It ticks all the boxes:

[ ] It's not Discord.
[ ] It is chat.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 31mo ago

Replying to

Sounds like effort! Well yeah. But what else do I expect? That I can just casually ‘store’ all of the world’s knowledge and recall it at will? Forgive me a ‘LOL’ here. Thanks. I am reminded of @keenan’s wonderful post ‘Hot take: It’s okay if we don’t consume all of the world’s information before we die’. https://gkeenan.co/avgb/hot-take-its-okay-if-we-dont-consume-all-of-the-worlds-information-before-we-die It’s okay if you don’t save everything you see. Save the stuff you care about. If you can’t be bothered giving it the due effort, you don’t care enough. 3/3

gkeenan.co

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 11mo ago

Replying to

@nev @anildash I think for a long time now it's been clear that there's going to be a split. Simplistically you could define it as the people who still use Facebook vs. those who don't. The new split is the people who understand what you just said, and love and embrace it, and those who don't. I don't think there's any point trying to bring most of the latter group in to the former. They _never_ cared about 'the web'. They treated it like they treat the free newspaper you get on the station platform, or like the morning show on their local commercial channel. So when it moves from those forms, via 'the web', to this new AI stuff ... they don't care. They don't notice. Why would they? It's not their thing. Easy content is what they're looking for. The delivery mechanism is an implementation detail. The rest of us, especially those who used to sell those people content and/or services via 'our web', just have to get used to this fact.

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 31mo ago

Replying to

Never, of course. I’ll never remember, and I’ll never see it again. So it was a waste of time, and now I have this clutter in my bookmarks. What’s the solution? I think it’s just time, and thought, and conscious effort. I need to have a place — a note, probably — that is dedicated to this sort of thing. That has some sort of commentary, has had some thought put in to it. Is something that I actually care about. Not just ‘a bookmark’ that I casually saved. 2/🧵

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 2mo ago

Indicating levels of Johnny.Decimal complexity

https://johnnydecimal.com/blog/0235-indicating-levels-of-complexity/

johnnydecimal.com

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 2mo ago

Spending time anywhere else in the world makes you particularly sad as to the state of Australian high-speed railway. In that, we don't have any, and we never will.

Until some government has the guts to say, fuck it, and buy a bunch of land, and just push through a bunch of environmental 'concerns', we're just never getting this. In a country as large and with as much land as ours, it's … pathetic. It's truly pathetic.

I say this as someone who has done Canberra↔Sydney a handful of times: a pitiful experience. Truly a shameful journey.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-speed_trains

en.wikipedia.org

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 2mo ago

WwJD: Spend less time doing boring admin (video)

https://johnnydecimal.com/blog/0233-wwjd-less-time-boring-admin/

johnnydecimal.com

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@daisy@cloudisland.nz And then there are people – literal billions of them – who could never, in a million years, have built an app to scratch their particular itch. And now they can. Is that app 'good' by some sensible objective measure? Probably not. Is it secure and robust and so on? Lol. But do they care? Certainly not! Because they have a little app that does just what they want, and they can tweak it and refine it and make it theirs by just talking to their computer. I get that seasoned software developers – I'm not one – are … upset? angsty? pensive? Choose your own emotion. But surely you see the appeal for the common person?

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Johnny ‘Decimal’ Noble @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@felipe@social.treehouse.systems @daisy@cloudisland.nz > but not necessarily actually changed what could be done by them technically I think you radically underestimate what some people are doing with LLMs. These people are obviously a touch more technical than, say, my mam, but they're not people who ever would have been comfortable stitching together Python and SQL. Except now they're hooking their life together in ways that would have been unimaginable before. And this technology is, what, let's say 2 consumer years old? Imagine it in 2 more. 5 more. 10. These people I'm talking about don't 'care about apps' in the same way that we do. They just want their computer to do a thing for them. And, again: that was never possible. Now it is. Everything's changed.

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