@RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

RoyBrander

@RoyBrander@urbanists.social

Retired civil engineer and GIS programmer.
http://brander.ca - which has all my contact info.

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

Sheril, to random
@Sheril@mastodon.social avatar

Wow.

RoyBrander,
@RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

@Sheril

By a freakish coincidence, this Doonesbury comic about Nixon, the first one dropped from the Post in many years (but not Doonesbury's last) came out on May 31, 1973 - fifty-one years ago today, less one day.

Actually, Garry Trudeau can run it tomorrow morning, the exact 51st anniversary.

Just an advisory to all American friends:

His new first name is "Convicted Felon", the full name must be used henceforth:

Convicted Felon Donald Trump.

shoq, to random
@shoq@mastodon.social avatar

“SNAPPED” The Biden-Harris ad that Robert De Niro made, and which is WHY he was in NYC at the Trump trial in the first place. YouTube, Google and most searches have buried it.

Please watch and pass it on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiwJ3kTMX60&t=1s

RoyBrander,
@RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

@shoq

I thought you had to be kidding, but you can literally use "snapped biden harris 2024 advertisement" as your YouTube search, and STILL not be given this actual ad. You get MSNBC (paid?) links where the story quotes about 20 seconds of the 30-second ad.

RoyBrander,
@RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

@Jos_B @danherbert @shoq

I use DDG and got the same screen you did. Which does not include a YouTube link to the video itself, but to news stories noting the video exists and "quoting" it with excerpts.

I clicked the "videos" link on DDG, and saw many YouTube links, but none to just-the-ad-itself, all were to news stories discussing it.

popchicken, to random
@popchicken@mstdn.social avatar

It’s been a couple of years since I last read the Merchant Princes series by @cstross, which I revisit every so often - I’ve just finished re-reading The Bloodline Feud, which I loved and would highly recommend if you want a different take on parallel worlds, industrial development, culture clash and much, much more. I’m straight onto the next book now!

RoyBrander,
@RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

@popchicken @cstross

I had to tap out after Cheney got to nuclear carpet-bomb a nation. My imagination is too good, and the state of Iraq at the time, too horrifying.

justinling, to sweden
@justinling@mastodon.online avatar

In , a far-right trollfarm exposes how outraged gets manufactured and weaponized online. Exposing it has never been more crucial. https://www.bugeyedandshameless.com/p/inside-the-swedish-trollfabrik

RoyBrander,
@RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

@justinling

Schooling. Should start around age 11, I figure.

Kids should start getting exposed to social-media warnings, gambling warnings, all mental-health issues.

My generation was the first to get sex and drug lectures starting at 12. We need to add mental health:

  • people out there will try to addict you to media;

  • to gambling;

-AND to drugs.

We only got their third one in 1970...

The social-harms studies allow us to propose just lecturing to kids that Facebook is Bad.

By name

angiebaby, to Excel
@angiebaby@mas.to avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @angiebaby

    From superuser .com question (never heard of the site, i just searched)

    "
    In addition to "Adjust Column Width", it might help to set in the table properties "Preserve Column Sort/Filter/Layout".

    ...never run into this, myself, and the searching on it indicated that excel can get quite puzzling in its behaviour with refreshed pivot tables - but the above was about the only complaint about regular tables, all resizing to "current-data-size" when refreshed.

    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @angiebaby

    Something to love about social media. Follow you for your crazed political opinions, discovered another Serious Excel Nerd!

    I suppose my SEN status is degrading by the day since I have no version later than 2013 - and hate THAT. Peaked with Excel2007.

    adapalmer, to random
    @adapalmer@wandering.shop avatar

    Prototype sustainable, biodegradable wind turbine blades have been installed on a turbine. https://reneweconomy.com.au/worlds-first-wooden-wind-turbine-blades-installed-in-germany/?ref=sparkofgenius.org

    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @cstross @adapalmer

    If you're having trouble distinguishing between a "mill" and a "turbine", Charlie, the giant round stone with no wiring anywhere near it, is the mill.

    I mean, the two very different words are both right there in your own post.

    grivettcarnac, to Canada
    @grivettcarnac@mstdn.social avatar

    Fuck no. There should be well-paid career trajectories for this type of work and it should be incorporated into a Climate Corp structure . It’s highly skilled work, dangerous and there’s huge value in expertise retention. It’s great that university students feel drawn to this but 12 hr days for up to 14 days in a row is brutal, regardless of what Alpha Male chumps whine about

    https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whatonearth/wildfire-fighters-alberta-pay-1.7206766

    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @grivettcarnac

    Canadaland did a podcast about how it's also this stupid in Ontario.

    In BC it is not. It is a plausible career here.

    Move.

    RoyBrander, to random
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @justinling

    You've done good Convoy coverage - but has it ever been released, exactly how much bank-account-locking was done?

    • How many for more than 3 days?

    • How many lost access to not just small-biz account but personal, grocery account?

    Pat King trial has me wondering, don't know those numbers, just that THEY thought it horrendous.

    A story comparing olden-days, Occupy, and encampment arrests to the bank accounts frozen, (and the one cracked collarbone) would be a dramatic contrast..

    GrimmReality, to random
    @GrimmReality@beige.party avatar

    What the entire bloody fuck is wrong with literally EVERYone at The New York Times?

    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @GrimmReality

    I thought that kind of characterization over-the-top until I read "Thinking the 20th Century" by historian Tony Judt.

    He writes of being at some Hamptons-like salon and speaking against war in Iraq. He was then dressed down for his ivory-tower cluelessness by somebody with direct information from the field that contradicted him, that there was real danger in not acting against WMDs.

    While most of the NYT brass watched and nodded.

    The dressing-down was from Judy Miller.

    JamesGleick, to random
    @JamesGleick@zirk.us avatar

    If the bribe you’re soliciting is $1,000 in a paper bag, the FBI will arrest you. If it’s $1 billion in dark money, does that make it legal?

    https://wapo.st/3UBf4Fy

    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @JamesGleick

    I don't understand why the executives were "stunned".

    Was anybody reading this "stunned"?

    How come we're better informed than a bunch of CEOs?

    Or...just a thought...was a journalist being nice to CEOs? Does that happen?

    RoyBrander, to random
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @justinling

    https://kafeneio.social/@foufoutos/112399409691034629

    ...you mentioned chanting support for Ho Chi Minh in 1968 as something that might shock modern sensibility, since he was a repressive autocrat when in power.

    Thing is, he didn't strike Boomers as worse than the ones our nations supported, like Marcos or Pinochet.

    If your only choice is between autocrats, I'm back to picking the "power-to-the-people" ones, not the "400 families" autocrats.

    https://www.historynet.com/south-vietnam-corruption/

    GottaLaff, to random
    @GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

    : Thanks to my bipartisan infrastructure law, we’ve announced 51 thousand new infrastructure projects all across America so far. My predecessor promised infrastructure week after week after week for four years and never built a damn thing. Nothing.

    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @GottaLaff

    The ONE announcement where he could have had some fun and made it: "never built a dam thing"...and he blew it.

    shoq, to random
    @shoq@mastodon.social avatar

    So basically Trump, Nunes, and these other shitbag grifters gets to cash out the money raised and will never spend a nickel on the supposed business the shareholders were buying into. Why is this legal, again?

    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @shoq

    1. The shareholders were warned

    2. By Everybody

    3. Which, c'mon, you have to admit, makes this pretty funny.

    cstross, to random
    @cstross@wandering.shop avatar

    I've been using one flavour or another of UNIX (including Linux) for 35 years and I still have this problem. (Not aided because the order of operands for ln and ln -s are mirrored: it's as infuriating as the meaning of || and && in csh compared to sh/bash, except csh is really of historic interest rather than in day to day use these days.)

    https://social.kernel.org/objects/b48cb5ed-e156-40f6-93c6-506a1cb6ae17

    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @cstross

    It's the USB plug of commands. For a little over 35 years, I just keep typing the command each way until it stops giving error messages.

    Yes, I could look it up every time.

    And that same kid can still go away.

    CatherineFlick, to random
    @CatherineFlick@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    I'm really hoping you don't need me to tell you that using machine learning ("AI") systems to identify potential targets and then to suggest that they be targeted when at home with their family members, including children, is one of the most abhorrent, unethical, inhumane things I've ever seen. There is absolutely no excuse for developing these systems. Technology is never neutral. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai-database-hamas-airstrikes

    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @CatherineFlick

    I think I can top it. The Tet Offensive in Vietnam.

    During Tet, they were taking fire from people all over Saigon, didn't know which were bad guys...

    ...so they bombed large parts of Saigon that they themselves had built. And Hue - 80% of buildings destroyed. 14,000 civilians dead.

    What's worse than targeting thousands of people in their homes with their families? Bombing the whole neighbourhood and killing their neighbours, too.

    Hail, victory.

    NickEast, to scifi
    @NickEast@geekdom.social avatar

    I didn't realise this was a thing, do people really think Mary Shelly wasn't the first SciFi author? 🤔

    @sciencefiction @writers @writingcommunity @writing

    #MaryShelly #Frankenstein #Monster #SciFi #Author #Writerdons #Writers #Writer #Writing #WritingCommunity #Writinglife #WritersOfMastodon
    #BoostingIsSharing

    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @NickEast @sciencefiction @writers @writingcommunity @writing

    Ahhh, come onnnnn.... when U.Calgary EngLit dept decided to have an SF novel course in 1978, the first thing the prof taught was Frankenstein, I had to write a paper on Shelley.

    And Gulliver's Travels invented Star Trek - every story, a new island with a new variant on humanity, exaggerated. Just like Kirk visiting exaggerated-problem planets that comment on our race wars or whatever.

    pvonhellermannn, to random
    @pvonhellermannn@mastodon.green avatar

    Hope you enjoy these beautiful buildings and their stories in Burkina Faso as much as I did. These are the kinds of positive, healing stories I crave, I think we all crave so much at the moment amongst all the cruelty: beauty, simplicity, sustainability, justice, from the Global South.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/29/we-dont-need-air-con-how-burkina-faso-builds-schools-that-stay-cool-in-40c-heat?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @pvonhellermannn

    Had to shrug. I read it carefully and they never mentioned the temperature inside the school when it is 40C outside.

    I strongly suspect it's 39C. What the design is doing is making it not hotter in the school than it is outside.

    clive, to random
    @clive@saturation.social avatar

    I'm reading Janette Sadik-Khan's "Street Fight" -- her book about her time as transportation head of NYC, building bike lanes, bikeshare, and pedestrian avenues

    She prints this "city of the future" model from the 1939 World's Fair

    Massive highways circling mammoth buildings; virtually no non-car routes; hilariously few trees

    I'd love to read about: How did this become the vision of "the future" back in 1939?

    What are some good books on that? Any recommendations, I'm all ears!

    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @clive

    I recall a short-story by Gibson, "The Gernsback Continuum", where the future imagined by SF pioneer Hugo Gernback kept appearing, nothing but those towers and people in white robes.

    Check out the movie of Wells' "Things to Come" for an early view of the towers-and-white-cities future.

    StableGeniusLib, to random
    @StableGeniusLib@mastodon.cloud avatar

    The Republican Party is an easy target for Russian misinformation spread by Russian spies because the Republican Party is full of conspiracy theorists. And conspiracy theorists are not Skeptics-they are in fact-very gullible. They will believe everything you tell them as long as it confirms their conspiracy theory.

    This is Russian Spy Maria Butina who was caught by the FBI and then prisoner swapped back to Russia. The same will happen to Alexander Smirnov.

    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @StableGeniusLib

    The conspiracy theories go back in the GOP well before Trump.

    Saddam Hussein loathed Islamists, had captured and killed many; they all wanted him deposed and dead, like all Arab dictators, to be replaced by an Islamic State.

    So claiming that he was going to, ahem conspire with Islamists by giving his most-hated enemies an atomic bomb, of all things, was a crazy conspiracy theory.

    The Bush Admin promoted it, the News bought it, a war was sold with a conspiracy theory.

    vga256, (edited ) to Canada
    @vga256@dialup.cafe avatar

    if you grew up in canada, you probably had these in your pencil case 😆

    i can practically smell them

    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @vga256

    Some kids had 48 or 72 different colours.

    They were the Laurentian Elites.

    justinling, to random
    @justinling@mastodon.online avatar

    Ukraine is the world's largest minefield. If it can win this war, Kyiv needs to figure out how to clear this deadly threat — and fast. https://www.wired.com/story/ukraine-mine-problem/

    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @justinling

    If Harry wants to buy some credibility, he should take up his Mom's anti-mine activism.

    It's an underserved issue, to put it mildly, could use some visibility. Talk about "out of sight"...

    Congrats on the WIRED sale.

    GottaLaff, to random
    @GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

    Via Kurt Eichenwald:

    Nothing more fun than tracking down 's latest grift. For his sneakers, he's getting a fee paid to CIC Ventures, which he owns, by 45Footwear LLC, which is purportedly the shoe manufacturer. That is based in Sheridan Wyoming, in this rundown house in a grimy shopping mall.

    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @GottaLaff

    Kurt Eichenwald is the hard-working journalist who couldn't catch a break when he revealed that the GW Bush team had sent thousands of emails on the RNC private server in the runup tothe Iraq War, all the "lie planning", presumably. And we'll never know because the RNC deleted the ENTIRE server, 2 million emails. >>>33,000!

    The story ran in Newsweek...and died. Tried to revive it during Her Emails, years later, died again. Bush Emails just not "news"!

    https://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-emailgate-312784

    CatherineFlick, to random
    @CatherineFlick@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    "Sora serves as a foundation for models that can understand and simulate the real world, a capability we believe will be an important milestone for achieving AGI." I can't believe they're still claiming that generative models can "understand" the world. They can't understand anything. They are just a fancy statistical model for correctness probability against previous known good outputs. You don't get AGI from that. You can't get AGI from that. Irresponsible claims.

    https://openai.com/sora

    RoyBrander,
    @RoyBrander@urbanists.social avatar

    @CatherineFlick

    Which is why I had my brainstorm today:

    http://brander.ca/stackback#aworkers

    ...that we must drop the entire term "AI" because they perform nothing like "intelligence" does, not even the intelligence of a mouse.

    Call them "Artificial Workers" to emphasize their social role: taking over work from humans.

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