Richard Rathe

@cstross@wandering.shop @j2bryson@mastodon.social @newtontalk@bitbang.social While we're on the #iOS #keyboard topic, here is a lifesaver for anyone who hasn't discovered it... Press and hold over the spacebar.... the entire keyboard goes blank as show here and becomes the equivalent of a trackpad so you can precisely place the cursor for corrections or insertions. This hidden iOS feature has saved me time and much frustration over the years. 🙂

@cstross@wandering.shop @j2bryson@mastodon.social @newtontalk@bitbang.social I respectfully disagree. I could write up to 20-30 words per minute on my #Palm. I even started writing that way on paper. I'm a total klutz with on screen keyboards. Barely get ten words a minute and usually have to go back to correct something--errors often caused by auto-correct. Aside: I have a perennial problem with auto-correct word confusion. Big ones are "think" vs "thing" and "text" vs "test". The #Graffiti strokes are designed to disambiguate input so I had no mistakes of that kind back in the day. Much better to write what I mean rather than allow the device to guess. #StrokeInput for #iOS is a nice attempt to bring #Graffiti into our tiny keyboard worlds. It doesn't feel as "natural" as it did on the Palm (or my hands and eyes got older 😉 ). Unfortunately I don't have a functioning Palm device for comparison... but a stylus-based short hand makes much more sense than an on-screen keyboard to me. PS: "...only instead of a limited alphabet they recognize an entire dictionary full of words" StrokeInput appears to be hooked up to the iOS word-completion engine. So in that sense it has been modernized.

@VeroniqueB99@mastodon.social This one graphic is an indictment of American Health Care... "The U.S. stands alone, far from its peers. We spend roughly twice as much as other western countries for mediocre results. We seem to be exceptionally bad at living longer lives by spending more on healthcare." (from the book I'm writing) This is because we don't have an actual system. Just a cobbled together collection of public and private silos with lots of holes in between. Such a non-system is an invitation for waste, abuse, and outright fraud. "American Exceptionalism" indeed! #Healthcare #USA #Waste #Fraud #Abuse #AmericanExceptionalism #Data

@MissConstrue@mefi.social I could not agree more! I found more photos from that event: https://historycollection.com/26-photographs-americas-1976-bicentennial-celebration/ It was good to scroll thru them. I was about five years older than the kid at the top of this photo. You can tell that they were glad to be part of a whole. And it was a hopeful time... we were getting our act together. We were righting wrongs. For context, these are the things that were on my mind at that time... The first #Oil #Crisis 🛢️ #Watergate 🕵️ #Racism and the #CivilRights Movement ✊🏾 The #VietnamWar (I was subject to the draft.) 🪖 The #ColdWar with its attendant #Nuclear Dread 🤯 My friends and I were particularly concerned about protecting the #Environment 🌲 , tried to avoid cars, and rode our #bicycles everywhere. 🚴 So what about the #Semiquincentennial? Let's say it's a celebration deferred. We need to get our act together, we need to right some wrongs, we need to start feeling AND acting like a whole again. We've made a start, we can do it, and when we're on the right track again I'll be there with you all to celebrate! 💕 🇺🇸

Brilliant! #AI vs #Books The latest form of #BookBurning and #Censorship So much truth here...

@ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org Just have to share one little push-back against #entropy ... I recently laundered a beloved old fleece jacket and the zipper-pull mysteriously broke. I was able to "sew" it back on using a series of figure-eight stitches locked in with a few knots. So satisfying! 🙂 #Repair #Sewing

"The biggest bird killer in the US (and likely, the world) is #Cats. Outdoor cats kill somewhere between 1.3 billion and 4 billion birds a year in the US alone. Let’s put it this way: for every one bird that dies in the blades of a turbine, domestic cats are dragging roughly 4,000 back to the porch." Article: The harm caused by wind turbines isn't nearly as bad as you think... https://www.zmescience.com/feature-post/technology-articles/sustainability/renewable-energy/birds-and-wind-turbines/ #Birds #Windmills

Consider the Black-Bellied Whistling Duck! (One of the better bird names IMO.) Larger than average ducks, longer neck, pink bill & feet, used to be called "tree ducks". I see these very early in the morning and occasionally a pair on a nearby dock. Only learned recently that they are mostly active at night, which is why I wasn't aware they were around. And the best part, they actually whistle, no quacking here! https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-bellied_Whistling-Duck #Florida #Birds #Ducks #NaturePhotography

Amazing little historical fact... As a kid I followed all of the #Apollo #Moon missions with great interest, especially the drama and heroism of #Apollo13. But I missed this bit of "life-saving, on-the-fly, found object #engineering to save your life". "Aldrin said the pen used to fix a broken circuit-breaker helped him and Neil Armstrong to return to the Earth." #History #Artifacts #NASA

@davep@infosec.exchange When I was a little boy there was a product called "Six Finger" that would fit the bill. Reading the old advertisement is a hoot! 😆 I can even remember the jingle: "Six finger, six finger... man alive, how did I every get along with five." UGH! #History #Toys #Guns

@aral Tough words, but fair I think. We have to start somewhere.

@catsalad@infosec.exchange Minecraft? 😉

@wonderofscience@mastodon.social By Jove, you've invented the fuel we need to get to Mars! 😉

@Teri_Kanefield@mastodon.social >Iran is empowered and, because a school was hit, has an argument that it is entitled to reparations. I agree, but more likely general reparations will take the form of "tolls" for passage of the Straight of Hormuz, yes? >The political situation is lose-lose as well. >If Congress steps in, the war can be framed as "thwarted success." Trump. blames Congress for not letting him finish and “win.” >If Congress ties Trump’s hands, it owns the resulting mess. >If Congress refuses to step in, the war continues and the power of the Executive Branch continues to expand at the expense of the Legislative Branch. Not sure I'd call this "lose-lose". The first two items are matters of "perception" only. This would be a major "stand up to #Trump moment", at least for #Dems. The perception of Dems as a party is already way down. It could help IMO. Second, a more obvious issue is hinted in your third point. We have a #Constitution & #Laws for a reason. While there is some ambiguity, there is actually a Right Way to do things in the US most of the time. Shutting down an illegal #war is the right thing to do. It will save both $$ and lives in the long run. If this is perceived as "losing" then so be it!

@simontatham This from Larry Wall (of Perl fame) seems relevant... The Three Virtues [Paraphrased] 1) #Laziness - The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. 2) #Impatience - Because you are impatient, you will build systems and shortcuts for your daily work. 3) #Hubris - You have the confidence that you can do better than the status quo. #LarryWall #Perl #TheThreeVirtues

@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us @AnnPettifor@econtwitter.net All of her books look interesting! Thanks. Susan George Bibliography How the Other Half Dies: The Real Reasons for World Hunger (Penguin), 1976. Reprinted 1986, 1991, ISBN 0-14-013569-3. (An analysis of the real reasons for world hunger.) Ill Fares the Land (Penguin), 1984. Revised and expanded 1990 ISBN 0-14-012790-9. (Essays on food, hunger and power.) A Fate Worse Than Debt (Penguin), 1988, ISBN 0-14-022789-X. (An analysis of the reasons for Third World debt.) The Debt Boomerang (Pluto Press), 1992, ISBN 0-7453-0594-6. (Continuing the theme of Third World debt and its harmful effects.) Faith and Credit: The World Bank's Secular Empire (with Fabrizio Sabelli) (Westview Press), 1994, ISBN 978-0-8133-2607-8 The Lugano Report: On Preserving Capitalism in the 21st Century, 1999, ISBN 0-7453-1532-1 Another World Is Possible If (Verso Books), 2004, ISBN 1-84467-510-6 Hijacking America: How the Secular and Religious Right Changed What Americans Think (Polity), 2008, ISBN 978-0-7456-4461-5 We the Peoples of Europe, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7453-2633-7 Whose Crisis? Whose Future?, 2010 (Polity), ISBN 978-0-7456-5138-5 How to Win the Class War – The Lugano Report II, 2013, ISBN 978-90-70563-18-9 Les Usurpateurs (The usurpers, in French), 2014, ISBN 978-2-02-121378-2 Shadow Sovereigns: How Global Corporations Are Seizing Power, 2015 (Polity), ISBN 978-0-7456-9782-6

Should be widely read! I heard it on Cory Doctorow's podcast. "Hell Is Other People" "Not everyone feels this way. A subset of humanity is committed to a world where everyone else takes orders from them. We have different names for these people. We call the majority of them “toddlers,” but we call the others “bosses” or “tyrants.” " "These latter two groups ... are also among the people most excited about #AI. What’s more, the more powerful these people are, the more credulous and enthusiastic they are about AI." "Among #bosses, the most enthusiastic boosters are #tech #overlords. These #billionaires will not shut up about AI, and, tellingly, the thing they’re most excited about is the fact that AI might let them fire #programmers and replace them with #chatbots." https://locusmag.com/feature/commentary-cory-doctorow-hell-is-other-people/

@alternativeto My sentiments exactly! Thank you to whoever drew/shared this!

@stux@mstdn.social I wish this were a #metaphor for the second #Trump term. Alas it's narcissistic failures all the way down. No metaphor need. The era of his self-aggrandizement is coming to an end! #Vote Peacefully #Protest #Resist!

@Jgbird Nice photo! I encourage anyone interested to go here… https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Wood_Duck/sounds Click on the third item April 11, NY to hear the bizarre call/song of a male wood duck. I’ve only heard it twice in the wild. Not very loud and very unducklike. 🙂

@rodbotic@kind.social Love it! 💕 Thanks! 👍

@joewo Never gets old... (not my graphic) "NRA - C'mon, do a Resist Tyranny"

@chu Don't use #Google anything!

@dillyd Nice! White Cedar I think. 🌲 🙂

@frenchtoast@better.boston Ah! The weather channel, not NOAA. That's why I never heard of those names. Thanks!

@bruces Always remember the #Luddites were mostly not against #progress per se, but resisting the loss of their livelihood.

@adhdeanasl@beige.party I hope it settles out in your favor. And thanks for making me aware of “deadnaming”. Sounds very cruel.

@paninid@mastodon.world Thanks for this summary!

@georgetakei Everything #Trump built during his second term should be demolished the day after he leaves office! The #Arch should never be built. The #EastWing should be restored with modern bunkers, etc. underneath. #TrumpOut

@VeroniqueB99 I think that is from the "W" Bush era. W and even Dick Cheney are looking better and better all the time! The Orange Man is clearly unstable.

@markmccaughrean I thought to myself... Duh! Thanks for the insight. Photo is much more impressive now.

@aral "What’s never been easy, and what remains difficult, is figuring out the right problem to solve, solving it elegantly, and doing so in a way that’s maintainable and sustainable given your means." Well put! 👍 Reminds me of this quote from the #book "Are Your Lights On?" by Donald Gause & Gerald Weinberg way back in the 1990s... "You can never be sure you have a correct problem definition, but don't ever stop trying to get one." #ProblemSolving #ProblemDefinition #Quote

@elizayer Devastating, but also plausibly true. 🙄

@jenniferplusplus@hachyderm.io You stated: <> Way back in the early 2000s, there was a system called "Dragon Dictate". The goal was to eliminate #human #transcriptionists with automated speech-to-text (sound familiar?) The system had to be trained on your voice and vocabulary. Once properly trained it could do a pretty good job, I'll guess 95-98%. It was better suited to output that was stereotyped (mostly the same), and structured (such as radiology reports and operative notes). Regardless of how the note/report was generated, the professional who spoke the words had a obligation to at least scan the output and sign it (yes, with an ink pen!). Once signed it became part of the "legal medical record" open to misinterpretation, copying, lawsuits, etc. etc. Once Dragon Dictate became routine (and they fired all the transcriptionists) I started to notice this little #disclaimer at the bottom: "If portions of this note are confusing or indecipherable please feel free to call me with questions or concerns." Sounds a lot like #AI to me! I polite way to summarize this is: 👉 They were trying to force me to be their copy-editor. 👈 It cast the entire content in doubt. Consider for a moment the difference between saying "The scan does not show cancer." and "The scan does show cancer." That "not" is doing a lot of work, and is very easy to miss when you're talking fast and never intend to read your own note ever again. More subtle is the grammatical error in the first sentence. "This note was #dictated using Dragon text to speech recognition software." Either they changed their product name to "Dragon Text", in which case the capitalization is off. Or they transposed words and it should read "speech to text" or "speech recognition" with no text. 👉 In other words, they didn't even proof-read their own disclaimer! 😱 #MedicalRecords #Medicine #SpeechToText #Liability #Risk #SignalToNoise

@godot@muenchen.social @davep@infosec.exchange Agreed. So many things wrong with it, staring with shooting into someone's eye. I have a vague recollection of how strong the pull of "gun-like toys" was when I was eleven.

@simonbs And so the snake starts eating itself... the #Ouroboros! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros #AI #LLM #SnakeOil #SyntheticData

@frenchtoast@better.boston A "Non-Tropical Cyclone" perhaps? That's what they called the "Storm of the Century" here in #Florida in the 1990s. Killed 32 if my memory serves. Also, I recently found out they name #winter #storms just like hurricanes. #Weather

@ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org My Sister got my Mom's old Singer. I'm not jealous at all... 😉

@ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org Not at all. All new to me in the last year. I mostly experiment with "gear" and have been thinking of getting a more heavy duty sewing machine. Mine is too "dainty" for what I like to do. One very odd thing (to me at least) is lightweight webbing (like that on ID badges). All the webbing I order is heavy and not supple. I've actually collected "extra" badge holders to cannibalize the webbing on small projects... like putting a button loop on a hammock.

@ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org Makes sense that the 'pull' is replaceable (with a bit of effort). 🙂 I have some larger zipper's that came on a roll with 10-12 pulls. You just cut the zipper part to length and then sew it in (after adding a pull to that segment). Pretty flexible. Thanks!

@greenpeace@mastodon.social "No wars are fought over sunlight." Until countries start either opaquing the sky or putting up huge mirrors! 🙄

@cstross@wandering.shop @j2bryson@mastodon.social @newtontalk@bitbang.social Unfortunately... most of my problem comes from large fingers on tiny screens. 🙁 Perhaps some tuning would help. But I took to the #Palm and developed fluent stylus-based text input within days. I've been using #iOS devices for more than ten years with little progress beyond typing with thumbs and going back to make corrections. I realized that many of you who are reading this might not even know what the #Palm user interface looked like. So here are some photos. Note the #Graffiti cheat sheet--all basic A-Z and 0-9 gestures were single strokes, with the exception of 'X'. Graffiti was (and remains) a robust idea. 👍

@octothorpe@mastodon.online A #WTF moment! We'll have simulated voters next! 👎

@amostart Great photos! Thanks for sharing. I get the distinct impression of a "we are not amused" vibe from your subject. 😉

@aral@mastodon.ar.al @greenpeace@mastodon.social I like to think of myself as PRO-social -- as in the opposite of the current man-child who currently controls our country. 🙂

@Jgbird Nice photo! I agree with the other poster. Somehow much of this bird's torso looks seamless with no individual feathers. Beautiful! In a #Mulberry Tree BTW. 🌳

@edavies@functional.cafe I agree. One reason I left MacOS and will leave iOS once my current phone dies. "B) a perfect illustration of what an utter mess Apple (and others) have made of creating “intuitive” user interfaces; like quite a few iOS features it's totally undiscoverable if you're not told about it." Apple recently got rid of the "hidden search bar floating just above the column you're looking at but you have to know to pull it down" non-feature on #iOS. I don't have a recent Mac so I can't check it there. Good riddance. They also introduced a UI "feature" called Glass that makes everything partially transparent. It is hideous and I've taken steps to turn it off. Most recent update got rid of the big friendly clock on the idle screen and replaced it with my current audio source image. Any controls (like unlock keyboard) that appear over it are visually confusing with all the other stuff underneath showing thru. It's a shit-show! 🙁

@cpay Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher? https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Blue-gray_Gnatcatcher/

@th Based on the apparent size, shape, and outstretched necks they might be #SandhillCranes. My best guess.