@jaystephens@mastodon.social
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

jaystephens

@jaystephens@mastodon.social

Banner: Black, Pirate Party flag on right Avi: 3 Arrows symbol, white on red

Social Media rant: https://is.gd/f4Py80

Writes fiction
Tries to be a good person
CSIRO technical writer, Scientific Compute team
Pirate Party Foreign Relations chair 2021-23
Dad to 2 kids
Personal account, personal views

Born Shetland. Live Bundjalung/Turrbal Country. Always was, always will be.

They/he | pragmatist | reader | atheist | left-ecomodern | recaf | vego | solar+nuclear | 324ppm | TTRPG |
#tfr

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

onelson, to random
@onelson@mastodon.social avatar

Thinking about how history might have curved differently had we settled on "gamesters" rather than "gamers"

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@onelson
who got game
we got game

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@CEOofmyhouse56 @RustyRaven
one a week because I hate fun and life

rechelon, to random
@rechelon@mastodon.social avatar

The bookies currently put Trump's odds of winning the election at 55%.

If Trump wins, it seems clear there's better than even odds of him successfully transforming the US into a fully autocratic state. There's some chance that the "resistance" put up by liberals and the extended state apparatus will have some measure of success, but the greater moderating factor on Trump's success would be as always his ignorance and extremely narrow self-interest.

That combines to at least 1/4th odds overall.

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@rechelon Right now we need to be combative and explicit in reclaiming precision of language where required.

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@Gibsonisafluffybutt @just_kitten

Here's a few, reasonably IT focussed

https://is.gd/aRsIm3
https://is.gd/ti4jwA
https://is.gd/oG7q0o
https://is.gd/HxmIXl
https://is.gd/13afy5
https://is.gd/MoeklL
https://is.gd/QeZB5j

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@RustyRaven @CEOofmyhouse56 I'm 49 and heavily addicted to caffeine but take a few months break every 12-18 months. My time from decaf to more energized is 5 weeks.

ajsadauskas, (edited ) to australia
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

Australia is bigger than some people overseas imagine.

So here's a quick comparison of Australian states to their US counterparts.

Tasmania is Australia's smallest state, with a total area of 68,401 square kilometres.

That's bigger than West Virginia, Maryland, Ha​waii, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, or Rhode Island.

Australia's second smallest state is Victoria, at 227, 444km2.

It's larger than Minnesota, Utah, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Washington, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Missouri, Wisconsin, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, New York, North Carolina, Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Maine, Florida, or Pennsylvania.

Fun fact: Victoria is larger in area than Indiana and South Carolina combined.

Now on to the ones that might surprise you.

You know how Texans love talking up how big Texas is?

New South Wales is bigger than Texas.

And by quite a margin. NSW is 801, 150 sq km compared to 696,241 sq km for Texas.

South Australia is bigger than Texas, and Michigan. Combined.

SA is 984, 321 sq km.

Texas (696,241 km2) plus Michigan (250,493 sq km) is just 946, 734 sq km.

Queensland is bigger than Alaska.

Queensland is 1,729,742 sq km, compared to 1,717,854 sq km for Alaska.

That also means Queensland is bigger than Texas and California. Combined.

Texas (696,241 km2) plus California (423,968 km2) is 1,120,209 sq km.

You can add in Michigan too (250,493 sq km) and it's still only 1,370,702 sq km.

That's right kids. Texas, California, and Michigan combined are 359,040 sq km smaller than Queensland.

That leaves Western Australia. It's 2,527,013 square kilometres.

How big is that? Well, the combined area of Texas and Alaska is 2,414,095 sq km, so pretty bloody big.

Source: https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/national-location-information/dimensions/area-of-australia-states-and-territories

@australia

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@halferect @ajsadauskas yet simultaneously a lot smaller than it looks in Mercator

Teri_Kanefield, to random
@Teri_Kanefield@mastodon.social avatar

BTW, I've been better about blocking and muting the people who keep cluttering my mentions with b.s.

If someone tells me something untrue, which I know came from the misinformation echo chamber I often write about, I offer something to read.

If the person pushes back and keeps lecturing me about how Jack Smith is screwing up (or whatever) I block them.

They can scream into the void.

I'm here for the people who want my perspective.

I cannot wear myself out with people in the echo chamber.

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@Teri_Kanefield It's been a tough adjustment for a lot of us I think (certainly for me), accepting that the status-quo-ante of a shared epistemic view of reality isn't coming back, and that there's a mind virus that's got a fair % of the world to cleave to an alternative set of facts, so that, lacking grounds to base discussion on, we can only refuse to let them waste our time and energy.

Daojoan, to random
@Daojoan@mastodon.social avatar

When I was in my early 20’s, I hustled my ass off. I worked 2 jobs and a side hustle. I drank 8 cups of coffee a day and popped No Doz pills to work at night.

And then I burned the fuck out. And crashed hard.
And it wasn’t worth it.

There’s a lot of folks who will tell you: “grind to the point of exhaustion. Chase wealth and rest later. Make work your only religion.”

That advice is poison. It will leave you broken and hurt and tired and alone.

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@Daojoan
This is truth.
Also the people who'll tell you these things are largely the returning planes.

weatherwest, to random
@weatherwest@mastodon.social avatar

If you're interested in a (candid!) glimpse of what my life is like as a public-facing weather

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@weatherwest even without the end of the sentence, YES

danhon, to random
@danhon@dan.mastohon.com avatar

I think this is what happens when you ask ChatGPT to write your technology consulting website for you and your goal is to out-Deloitte Deloitte or whichever?

https://deeptechia.io

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@danhon
"Phygital Dynamo"
"Cybersecurity Jedi"
"it's more than a tool, it's a team member"
"experience the synergy of AI and human ingenuity"
then I lost the will to live and couldn't go on

snarkysteff, (edited ) to random
@snarkysteff@mastodon.online avatar

A complete stranger took my Kitchenaid mixer home, fixed it, & delivered it back to me, all for a $20 tube of degreaser and some thanks.

Repair Cafes are amazing, & they're all around the world — look in your community for RepairCafe.org by you for things you can't fix.

I'm so thrilled. It was a gift from my stepmom & my brother did an idiotic job of packing it when he shipped it to me, which broke shit.

Dude not only repaired things, but fabricated a new knob for me.

Most humans are good.

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@snarkysteff Fantastic.
There's a bicycle guy one town over from us that does all manner of repairs and improvements, charges about $20, and best of all when you come to pick up the fixed up and improved bike, gives you a big rant about how happy and fulfilled fixing bikes makes him feel.

jaystephens, to random
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

From the department of ursine sylvan defecation: Work wellness programmes don't make people happier

https://csirostaff.org.au/news/2024/01/31/work-wellness-programmes-dont-make-employees-happier/

Sheril, to random
@Sheril@mastodon.social avatar

Guy at conference: Do you have kids?
Me: Yes.
Guy: Wow! So your husband is taking care of them?
Me: Yes. He’s their dad. 🤔

jaystephens, (edited )
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@Sheril One of the few bits of #everydaysexism that's totally exhausting from both sides.
I always seem to come up with snappy replies to the "wow" comments about half an hour later unfortunately.

dangillmor, to random
@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

U.S. car industry is indifferent to the greatest customer need: affordable cars. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/29/us-car-costs-insurance-unaffordable

The result is predictable. It's yet another example of how late-state capitalism serves only the people at the top.

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@dangillmor in a well functioning market, there would be a rush to fill the demand by importing any of the hundreds of models of small, affordable, economical to fuel and repair cars manufactured for many large markets overseas... but this is far, far from a well functioning market.

Daojoan, to random
@Daojoan@mastodon.social avatar

The truth is - while some artists will find a way to produce great work using AI, most of the output is and will continue to be superficial at best and soulless at worst. That doesn’t mean all AI art is bad. But it does mean your AI art probably is.

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@Daojoan well put. I've tied myself in knots before trying to make the distinction between "of course, great art is possible in that medium" and "everything about how the medium is set up, accessed, used, and disseminated militates against the likelihood of producing art that is even original or worthwhile, let alone good".

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@Daojoan
100%.
For me the $2/hour training data staff who knowingly pushed a bunch of watermarks, signatures etc into the dataset are unsung heroes. I'd like to see someone put together a piece that foregrounds those.

timrichards, (edited ) to Israel
@timrichards@aus.social avatar

Agreed. The horrors will never end without a proper (not fake) two-state set-up. The West should lean heavily on Israel to achieve it.

Israel Palestine: Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas need to be removed from power in favour of a two-state solution

#Israel #Palestine #War https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle-east/removing-netanyahu-is-israel-s-only-chance-to-achieve-a-two-state-solution-20231126-p5emvw.html

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@luciedigitalni @timrichards
They've succeeded in gradually making the facts-on-the-ground such that a Palestinian state on remaining territory not under Israeli control is clearly non-viable.
So, before any porogress can be made, we have to wrestle territory off a psychotic nuclear-armed regime whose core support demographic is a million nihilistic Russian immigrants.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Thinking about compiling a playlist of recent (post-2016) new singles by 80s synthpop bands getting all angry about the crisis of capitalism.

Start with the Pet Shop Boys ("What Are We Going To Do About The Rich?"), then Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark ("Kleptocracy").

Suggestions? (NB: must be synthpop or techno, from bands that existed before 1990 and are still releasing new material.)

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@cstross Orbital kicked off in '89, so I reckon their catchy little tune with the Sleaford Mods sneaks in there https://youtu.be/4FM7XeaSO0M?si=1VxdImZ3XzdDOHJh

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@CEOofmyhouse56
Two things can be true at the same time right.
I'll help out whenever and wherever I can to get the sick date that commemorates the start of a genocide shifted to a different day, but whenever my day off work is granted by the powers that be, I'm gonna party on that day.

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@CEOofmyhouse56 I'm not sure.... I quite like having just the one holiday that slaps itself randomly into my calendar... Easter is always Mon/Fri, xmas is always a week off, the rest are Mondays.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Proposal. When you elect a congressperson you get a little program for your phone, or on a dedicated device. It's basically a tamagotchi avatar of your congress person. You can feed them, and they can send you messages and their votes show up like little achievements so you can praise or scold them.

If you neglect them too much they "die" and your vote is withdrawn. If they loose too much confidence (too many let them die) they are out of office and there is a special election.

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@futurebird you've basically reinvented liquid democracy except your version is actually better

Saltssaltgirl, to random
@Saltssaltgirl@mas.to avatar

Last week I noticed a bunch of students without winter gloves

Two days ago I gave my students winter gloves

Today one of those students came in with one glove

I asked him if something happened to the glove

He said he gave one glove to his younger brother so that each of them would have one

Tomorrow I will bring more gloves

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@failedLyndonLaRouchite @patrickgillam @Saltssaltgirl it's such a shock coming to the fediverse and suddenly there's kindness and nice people around.

josh, to random

forcing people to type 6 letters into a box to login every single time is a human rights violation

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@josh I feel like we're this close to a major change in how authentication is executed but I can't see the shape of what's coming...
We can't keep stacking pins and PWs and 2FA challenges and biometrics like this.

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@Gibsonisafluffybutt
Pretty similar in terms of repetitiveness.
Better in that I'm involved in a couple of longer term projects like running a Community of Practice and developing some internal standards for the org.
Work, eh.

pvonhellermannn, to random
@pvonhellermannn@mastodon.green avatar

Half thinking of starting an hashtag here, about the dire, dire state of UK (global?) higher education. Sharing nuggets of senior management decisions, neoliberal language, and overall slow collapse.

Won’t work of course because most of us can’t risk honesty, but honestly: the everyday reality of what is happening deserves recording in all its depressing and damning detail.

jaystephens,
@jaystephens@mastodon.social avatar

@pvonhellermannn
When I was an undergrad in '94 if I bemoaned the trend to see higher ed as being about prepping the youth for the job market rather than about knowledge and culture and building wisdom into society's institutions, the default response was "it's sad but probably inevitable".
When I bemoan the trend now the default response is "you're a naive weirdo, of course we can't prioritise anything other than employability".

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