@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

Steveg58

@Steveg58@aus.social

Retired Configuration Manager, Game Player, Fountain Pen collector, Garden Railway afficionado.

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nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

Derek Lowe's "Things I Will Not Work With", a series about insanely dangerous chemical compounds.

In this episode, The Higher States of Bromine.

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/higher-states-bromine

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@nyrath
FOOF!

rivetgeek, to random
@rivetgeek@dice.camp avatar

This comment I put in a script is going on my gravestone.

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@rivetgeek
Regular expressions are fine but there a some nightmare irregular expressions out there.

Steveg58, to random
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

Hi @lumpley
I just picked up Under Hollow Hills from your shop today and I have been working through the rules.
I have questions about the Summer / Winter transition. The whole wording of the Step Towards Winter mechanism seems portentous but there doesn't seem to be any outcome.
What happens when a Fae steps all the way to winter?
Do they loose the ability to chose that outcome?
Are there any other consequences?
Does the Summer / Winter balance interact with the season at all?
Does the human version have any similar consequences?
Thanks!

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@neilnjae @lumpley
Thankyou ... I thought I might have been missing something important.

timrichards, to random
@timrichards@aus.social avatar

Taking a break from trains, via a cruise on the Thomson River. #Longreach

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@timrichards
Geologist have been saying we might get speccy sunsets as a result of the SO2 from the Mt Ruang eruptions.

gregeganSF, to random
@gregeganSF@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Heard on the radio this morning: “M*sk is a free speech absolutionist.” [sic] I guess that entails an absolute right to be absolutely forgiven for saying absolutely anything.

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@gregeganSF
Hmm, X is missing a trick there. They should have kept their old moderators but then sold indulgences to their trolls to allow them a free pass.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

If I had more energy I'd be tempted to write a snarky, satirical, 21st century Jetson's style short story set in a future where all the dot-com 1.0-3.0 hype turned out to be true and faithful predictions of our lives in 2025. Just so I could explore the unanticipated drawbacks ("oops, the Amazon drone delivering your neighbour's new dishwasher just fell through your roof; meanwhile trades.com only shows you roofers who live in Boston, England, not Boston, MA").
https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112317411058906212

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@cstross
And GNU Hurd?

Steveg58, to random
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

Never make a pattern mistake when Tablet Weaving:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLA33Hp7OmE
#SCA #TabletWeaving

mystickal, to fountainpens
@mystickal@weirdo.network avatar

Have any of my fountain pen friends seen this infinite pencil thing that looks an awful lot like a lamy safari? Is this like a thing that pen companies do, use the same bodies? I use the lamy safari exclusively right now so this was a noticeable strangeness

#FountainPens

https://theinfinitepencil.com/

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@mystickal
One of the Chinese pen manufacturers has been selling a direct copy of the Lamy Safari for a long time. This is probably some of those bodies re-purposed.
In Japan a similar product is marketed as the Coke Pencil. They also have coloured tips . In all cases as pencils they are mediocre.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Looks at murder of aid workers in Gaza

Checks principles

"Axiom: Killing civilians is always wrong. (Doesn't matter why, or who: no exceptions, it's always wrong.)"

Fuck Netanyahu. (The end.)

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@shekinahcancook @cstross
I think you need to dive a bit deeper in WW2 military history.
The invasion was off the cards well before the big bombing raids got under way. Once Stalingrad happened and the siege of Leningrad was broken the fate of Germany was sealed. It was just a case of how long. While the massed bombing raids hastened the end of the war they were never instrumental. Germany never had the manpower or resources to win unless it could deal with it's enemies one at a time and quickly.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

I got about halfway through skim-reading this before my eyes glazed over and my prefrontal lobe crashed to displaying a scrolling marquee saying THEY HAVE PLAYED US FOR ABSOLUTE FOOLS
https://hachyderm.io/@rsc/112200603337903320

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@cstross
As someone else pointed out this is an exploit of the GNU autoconf suite not an exploit of xz.

rivetgeek, to random
@rivetgeek@dice.camp avatar

I love the passion and interest that some people have in I also love. At the same time, I find it very exhausting. Yes, I agree it would be great if more material were produced for this game. No, I don't think the lack of a single page's worth of errata means the game has been abandoned.

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@rivetgeek
There is a modern affection, especially among DnD players, that the rules must be absolute and anything that tampers with that is a crime against humanity. Anything less will interfere with their favourite pastime of spelunking through the rules looking for ambiguities and edgecases to exploit. Or on the GM side having absolutely correct, unambiguous, rules to prevent such activities.
Such is the modern world. I count it as a symptom of the current descent into fascism. I am also reminded of the AA Gilliland cartoon where the demon tells Wizenbeak "Of COURSE the rules are immutable if that is the way you want them".

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

Yes, but it would be cool though!

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@RickiTarr
You fail to account for the vastly higher success rate of steam engine restoration.

ajsadauskas, to car
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

A rising road toll in the US. A rising road toll in Australia. Journalists give 1000 reasons why it could be happening.

And they studiously avoid mentioning the growing proportion of massive SUVs and pickup trucks on the roads. If they mention it at all, it's only in passing: https://youtu.be/Hb5_RUNeC0g?si=uuns6D1I6fGINdpU

But.

If you have larger and heavier cars, with larger blind spots, of course you're going to have more fatalities!

Remember kids: Every 10cm a vehicle's hood height increases, the risk of fatalities grows by 22%: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212012224000017

@fuck_cars

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@ajsadauskas @Godfrey642 @fuck_cars
There s some really old research out there originality focused around Volvo cars that came to the conclusion that people drive to a constant level of personal risk. Put them in a safer car and their driving will be riskier. This lead to memes about spikes on steering wheels that threaten drivers.
Also many younger people have never seen a police patrol on the roads so they feel that their behaviour carries no risk.

stefan, (edited ) to til
@stefan@stefanbohacek.online avatar

So apparently the term "patch" in software development comes from punched paper tape.

"Small corrections to the programmed sequence could be done by patching over portions of the paper tape and re-punching the holes in that section."

https://chsi.harvard.edu/harvard-ibm-mark-1-language

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@stefan
Punch Cards != Paper Tape.
Because paper tape is spliceable you can cut out an un-wanted section and patch in a replacement section which need not be the same length.
With punch cards you would just replace one or more cards. However some languages used sequence numbers on the cards (so a deck could be restored if dropped)(almost never worth the time) which made adding or removing cards problematic. Quickly there were tools to renumber programs so a "patch" could be inserted. And so the terminology migrated.

LeviKornelsen, to random
@LeviKornelsen@dice.camp avatar

My other half is catching me up on BookTube and how there are now video essays by "Serious Fantasy Readers" being cranky at "Book Girlies" who like what's functionally pulp romance mashed with fantasy - "Romantasy".

(Aside: Everyone involved in this that she's watched is women. Both sides.)

The "Serious Readers" think the "Book Girlies" are cheapening the resurgence of reading by promoting mindless pap.

So in case you were wondering if other interest groups fight like gamers do:

Yes.

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@LeviKornelsen
Heh, Anne McCaffrey would definitely have weighed in on the side of Romantasy. She was a big believer in that kind of thing.

sjvn, to random
@sjvn@mastodon.social avatar

I love Elle Cordova and her clever, funny videos. This one is for all my writer and editor friends.

video/mp4

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@sjvn
People, if you are going to ever throw off your corporate overlords you are going to need to use more Comic Sans.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

It turns out cassowaries have been domesticated—as guard-fowl.

I figure some brave soul grabbed one of the GIANT LUMINOUS NEON MARKER GREEN eggs (the colour of "do not fuck with me for I am deadly" in nature) and ran away with it. Then it hatched, and they fed the giant murder chicken that kept following them around.

<supervillain>
When I get my island volcano base the inland jungle will be patrolled by giant murder chickens LOYAL ONLY TO ME! Take that, laser-sharks!
</supervillain>

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@cstross
While looking for more information I found this: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/14/us/cassowary-bird-kills-florida-man/index.html

melissabeartrix, to random
@melissabeartrix@aus.social avatar

I have just been reminded that it was Australia that gave the world Murdoch ... I am sorry on behalf of all Australians

Hugz & xXx

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@melissabeartrix
Close ... "it was South Australia that gave ...". There fixed it for you.

LucaManciniDrummer, to fediverse
@LucaManciniDrummer@vivaldi.net avatar

Ok ladies and gentlemen, genuine question: what's going on with this fountain pen surge? :D

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@LucaManciniDrummer
What fountain pen surge?

thomasfuchs, to random
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io avatar

𝓖𝓵𝓸𝓼𝓼𝓪𝓻𝔂

Blockchain: a slow database

Crypto: an expensive slow database

NFT: an expensive slow database to store URLs

AI: a way to write slow and inefficient algorithms

LLM: a database that stores text in a slow and inefficient way

Chat GPT: an expensive imprecise query language for slow and inefficient text databases that often returns wrong results

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@thomasfuchs
Also,
Database: a slow file system.

foone, to random
@foone@digipres.club avatar

I'm always kinda surprised that Factorio is so popular with developers, given that it's basically "technical debt, the game!"

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@foone
Yeah developers, create the most awfully masochistic but ineffectual configuration management and change control systems and they are wiling to argue to the death with actual trained and experienced Defence/Aerospace grade Configuration Manager who are telling them they going overboard. Yeah, you've done an ITIL course, nah you have no clues.

sortius, to random
@sortius@mstdn.social avatar

Having dumplings, watching a white dude struggle with chopsticks and noodles.

It's amusing, but at the same time, good on you. The rest asked for western cutlery

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@sortius
A couple of decades ago I was driving back to Perth from Sydney and stopped for the night at Port Augusta. For dinner I went to a local Chinese restaurant and ordered something and steamed rice. An old guy brought out a rice bucket and a plate of food with a knife and fork. As he put it down I asked if it was possible to get a rice bowl and chopsticks. Immediately his face lit up and he said something like "oh, yes, yes" and scurried off to the kitchen. I went home feeling like a had done a good deed bringing a little extra joy to him.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Shockingly, Royal Mail FINALLY DELIVERED the portable USB monitor they've been sitting on for a week since it arrived in the UK. So now all I need is some free desk space and two mains sockets and I can try out my new Spectrum Next rig!

(I am too old to get down on my knees in front of the living room telly and play with the speccy there.)

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@cstross
My best Royal Mail story was from when my wife ordered some metal dollshouse miniature appliances from England.
After an inordinate wait the parcel arrived by sea mail with an official Royal Mail sticker saying "Dangerous Goods, not to be sent by air freight".Tthe reason? A 1/12 scale model of a kerosene fridge.

nyrath, (edited ) to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

The Dungeon Master cackles sinisterly, and tells the players "When you regain consciousness, this is what you see..."

Steveg58,
@Steveg58@aus.social avatar

@nyrath
It showed up for me giving the artist and origin of
the image.

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