mastodon - Link to source
A good distraction for now from all the nervousness and dismay: Making Suno do covers of tracks from Sims4 in Celtic form. Quite fun. Now I have over 30 tracks re-covered this way, spent a good chunk of the day just doing that and forgetting about not having the duet display. I will temporarily steal my partner's right one though to answer questions about duet mode people have asked. Just don't have answers without my own set, LOL. (They got right when they paid for theirs, I got left.)
This entry was edited (1 month ago)

mastodon - Link to source

Here are some baby birds I've seen this week, all in and around Ōtautahi-Christchurch city, NZ.

There's baby Canada geese along Sparks Road (the first time I've seen baby geese in this area of the city): inaturalist.nz/observations/32…

There's teeny baby ring-necked pheasants running across McDrurys Road: inaturalist.nz/observations/32…

There's grey teal ducklings with parents on an emphemeral creek along Robinsons Road (the first time I've seen baby grey teal here in the 22 years I've been biking this road to work): inaturalist.nz/observations/32…

And, there's teeny baby California quail running across Latters Spur track: inaturalist.nz/observations/32…

Of these, only the grey teal are NZ natives.

#birds #nz #Ōtautahi #Christchurch #iNaturalist

A photo of young yellow goslings of Canada geese, next to two adult birds.
A photo of three tiny little baby birds with long legs dashing across a road. These are ring-necked pheasants and a car saw them and stopped to wait for them to cross (following their mother).
Two grey-brown adult ducks with red eyes, on a pond, with a group of young grey-brown ducklings. These are NZ grey teal.
A photo of two tiny speckled baby birds running across a gravel path. These are California quails.

Ring-necked Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) observed by Jon Sullivan

Ring-necked Pheasant from Selwyn, Canterbury, New Zealand on November 20, 2025 at 09:47 AM by Jon Sullivan. They followed their mother across the road.
iNaturalist NZ
#birds #nz #inaturalist #otautahi #christchurch
in reply to Jon Sullivan

mastodon - Link to source

Jon Sullivan

Here's another family of baby birds from my travels this week. It's a female Pāpango / NZ scaup with seven ducklings (scauplings?).

I saw them on the Ōpāwaho / Heathcote River on my bike ride home from work yesterday.

I briefly stopped to get better photos and the longer I stayed the fewer scauplings there were to see. They're diving ducks, after all. 😀

inaturalist.nz/observations/32…

#birds #nz #ducks #iNaturalistNZ

The first in a sequence of photos I took of a female scaup (a small brown diving duck) with her seven smaller mottled brown ducklings, all swimming on the river.
The second of my photos of a female scaup (a small brown diving duck) with her smaller mottled brown ducklings, all swimming on the river. Now there are six ducklings, as one has dived underwater.
The third of my photos of a female scaup (a small brown diving duck) with her smaller mottled brown ducklings, all swimming on the river. Now there are only four ducklings, as the other three have dived underwater.
The fourth of my photos of a female scaup (a small brown diving duck) with her smaller mottled brown ducklings, all swimming on the river. Now there are only three ducklings, as the other four have dived underwater. The mother stayed on the water watching me. I let them be after this.

Pāpango (New Zealand Scaup) (Aythya novaeseelandiae) observed by Jon Sullivan

New Zealand Scaup from Christchurch including Banks Peninsula, Canterbury, New Zealand on November 21, 2025 at 06:36 PM by Jon Sullivan. Mother scaup with seven ducklings.
iNaturalist NZ
#birds #nz #ducks #iNaturalistNZ
This entry was edited (1 month ago)

mastodon - Link to source

This irrational fear of socialism from some politicians in the US looks so bizarre from Canada, a country with universal healthcare and some kind of social net that is still sadly very much under the grasp of destructive capitalism.

Are those politicians terrified the people could be healthy, fed, safe, and happy? What exactly terrifies them here?

gotosocial - Link to source

Ok, am I living in an absurd universe, or what...

The iOS Weather app is not properly accessible, flicks with VoiceOver jump backward on the list of hours and temperatures, then jump forwards over the wind/atmospheric pressure etc.

I mean... I don't think I'm demanding a lot.

It's a built-in app, on an OS one single company controls, which presents a list. And the commands to navigate the list don't work.

There are times when all I have left to say is:

What, the actual, fuck.

glitchsoc - Link to source

My friend seems genuinely baffled that I am an AI researcher who refuses to use AI! Not only that, but I argue against it from theory, not experience. Why don't I just give it a try for a while, and see what it's really about before I judge it?

I guess I see where he's coming from. Part of the problem is the word "AI." LLMs are not my research focus, so it's less of a contradiction than it sounds. But I admit, being a non-user makes my arguments against LLMs less credible.

I just don't understand why I owe it to anybody to give AI a shot. I know how LLMs work in gory detail, and I don't trust them. I've seen the mediocre work they produce. I've read studies about the seductive illusion of competence and caring they create, and how people fall for that. I know it's all built on an incredibly exploitative business model.

I feel entirely justified in not giving them a chance. I guess I'm just as baffled by how badly he wants me to try it, and how sure he seems to be that it would change my mind.

reshared this

in reply to myrmepropagandist

mastodon - Link to source

Daniel Lakeland

@futurebird
My wife is incredibly much more productive if she starts with something on the page and can edit it. Almost all her scientific papers started out with me writing some bullshit about the topic and her then writing an entire paper about how wrong I was 😅 anyway now she outsources that to AI! AI took my job!
@ngaylinn
@myrmepropagandist @Nate Gaylinn
in reply to Daniel Lakeland

mastodon - Link to source

Zach Bennoui

@dlakelan @futurebird You know, this is a great point though. I think LLMs can be useful for some tasks, one of them being just getting a kind of template to start from and do your own thing. I think some of the backlash against these models is absolutely justified, but we miss nuance here. There are many LLMs to pick from, and much of how they sound comes down to what training data they're based on. I've experimented with many of the models out there, and I think some of the most interesting things you can get are actually from local models that you train on your own. I see them as more of a fun toy than anything serious right now, and I don't think it's going to be the AI revolution many are hoping, but you never know. I wonder what's going to happen in the next 5 to 10 years.
@myrmepropagandist @Daniel Lakeland

mastodon - Link to source

That was odd.

After not using it for a couple of weeks, my steam deck wouldn't turn on. Not with a charger connected, not after leaving it to charge for 15 min. Not with the booting into bios combination, not with pressing the power button for 10+s.

reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comment… had the answer that helped, even 3 years later. Opening it up, disconnecting the battery, connecting a charger, and it boots as if nothing was ever wrong. Also after conncting the battery again and re-assembling it.

🤷

This entry was edited (1 month ago)

mastodon - Link to source
The National Federation of the Blind reached out to Facebook the moment members became aware of a serious regression involving the truncation of Facebook posts in the iOS app. It is good to see that Meta has responded, and fixed this bug in the latest release.
If you don’t have it yet, you can visit the App Store, choose the My Account button, swipe down with three fingers to refresh the list of updates, and update the Facebook app manually.

Jason Fayre reshared this.

in reply to Dennis long

mastodon - Link to source

D.Hamlin.Music

When will the #NFB remember not all #Blind people use #Apple products, the #Android users have been complaining about many of the same issues for months, or years without any response when brought to the NFB but as soon as impacts one person on iPhone it's an immediate priority. @mastoblind
#android #apple #blind #NFB @Group 4 Blind & VI people

reshared this

gotosocial - Link to source

In the early days of the COVID pandemic, there was a brief but widespread outburst of solidarity; of people protecting each other, supporting each other through difficult times. In many cases across demographic boundaries. For a brief time, people could experience what widespread solidarity might look like, what it might be able to achieve.

And then suddenly, as if by magic, a disinformation campaign spawned - about masks, vaccines, the severity of the disease, and so on. A disinformation campaign that many (capitalist) governments gleefully participated in, all in name of 'the economy'. A campaign that quickly became explosive and drew lines in the sand, often with violent consequences.

And it seems like by now, almost everyone - including most leftists! - have completely forgotten that this period of solidarity ever existed. It doesn't show up in retrospectives, it doesn't show up in discourse. And everyone now talks about COVID purely in terms of "us versus them". As if there have always been 'teams', always been 'sides'.

I think about this a lot.

#CovidIsNotOver #DivideAndConquer #COVID19

#COVID19 #CovidIsNotOver #divideandconquer

mastodon - Link to source
I dearly wish Apple would condense some of the voiceover feedback into fewer words. "stopping Braille Screen Input" takes 6 syllables when "Braille Screen Input off" although only marginally gker to say is better. Syllables cost time. That being said I'm going to see if I can find the setting to just have it play the noise and not speak going in or out of BSI. And I really wish iPhone wouldn't confuse my rotor gesture as starting up help! #iPhone #VoiceOver #Accessibility
#Accessibility #iphone #voiceover

mastodon - Link to source

#XMPP at #FOSDEM

The XMPP Community is very excited to announce the #Realtime Lounge at the coming FOSDEM 2026! Once again, many members will happily #welcome you!

xmpp.org/2025/11/xmpp-at-fosde…

#jabber #chat #interoperability #rtc #standards #federation #decentralisation #Brussels #Belgium

The XMPP Logo

XMPP at FOSDEM 2026 | XMPP - The universal messaging standard

The XMPP Community is very excited to announce its presence at the coming FOSDEM 2026! Once again, many members of the XMPP community will be attending, and will happily welcome you! Realtime Lounge The XMPP community invites you to the Realtime …
xmpp.org
#xmpp #Jabber #federation #fosdem #chat #interoperability #decentralisation #standards #welcome #belgium #realtime #brussels #rtc

Nicoco reshared this.

glitchsoc - Link to source

They were just sitting looking at each other.

A little #Caturday story about Ping.

Picture this:

Two or three days a week, I have a video chat of about an hour with my father-in-law 3000 miles away in England, who is soon 95, unable to move from his chair or wheelchair without assistance and with no friends or relatives to speak to. His only real contact is us, and his carers who come in four times a day to look after his needs. Sometimes I arrange his grocery shopping for him, sometimes I order him other things he needs, but mostly we just sit and talk and he reminisces. He struggles a little with the technology, but somehow we manage.

When it's my days to talk to him, I sit on a sofa with my tea and it's become a habit for Ping Pong to sit on my lap while I chat and stroke her. When I finish talking, she goes off. On the days when I don't speak to him, and Steven has taken the call somewhere else, she'll come meowing and meowing after me to get me to go and sit there with her. In the end, usually I have to give in, and take my tea and we sit on the sofa together. She doesn't often ask for cuddles, so this is a special time for her.

On Thursday this week, I was talking to my father-in-law when I realized that my bed cover that I had washed was ready to be hung up to dry in front of the fire, to be put back on the bed that night. As this was rather urgent, I asked him to wait and said I'd be right back after I'd hung the cover up. I lifted Ping up and went and got that sorted. After a few minutes when I came back, I was met with the scene of Ping, sitting upright, very proper, in my place on the sofa, just as you see her in this photo unblinking, looking at the phone screen at my father-in-law who was looking back at her. Neither was saying a word. They were just looking at each other. The two of them looked so funny.

It was as if she felt she was taking over from me. My father-in-law said "she's been looking after me". And that's just what it seemed like. She wouldn't move on her own to give me my place, so I had to lift her aside so I could sit down. My father-in-law is not a cat person, so obviously he didn't know what to say to her. And she didn't feel the need to say anything either.

Cats. Who can fathom them?

Have a happy Caturday, everyone! If you don't celebrate, have a great day!

#EllieKPosts #catsOfMastodon #PingPong #Pangolin #CornishRexCats
#catstodon #cornishRex

A cat with tortie Siamese colouring is facing us. It's hard to tell, but she has short wavy fur, as she is a Cornish Rex cat. She has very big ears and her sky blue eyes are open wide looking straight at us.
#caturday #catsofmastodon #catstodon #elliekposts #pingpong #pangolin #cornishrexcats #cornishrex

mastodon - Link to source

Wow. Finally, after 21 years, #Firefox 147 will support the #FreeDesktop XDG basedir specification to store the config/data/etc. in the standard locations in your home directory on #Linux, for fresh installations: bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.…

Unfortunately this only applies to clean installs, existing configs are kept in place and not automatically migrated.

259356 - (xdg-basedir) Support for the Freedesktop.org XDG Base Directory Specification

RESOLVED (lissyx+mozillians) in Core - XPCOM. Last updated 2025-11-21.
bugzilla.mozilla.org
#linux #firefox #freedesktop

mastodon - Link to source

📰 "For years, the EU has taken a leading role in creating standards that protect our rights online. But the winds have now shifted. […] A corporate-backed wave of weakening digital rules is underway that threatens all of our rights - on and offline."

👉 techpolicy.press/why-civil-soc…


Why Civil Society Is Sounding the Alarm on the EU’s Omnibus Rollback

Under the guise of “simplification,” a corporate-backed wave of weakening digital rules is underway that threatens all of our rights, writes Joshua Franco.
Joshua Franco (Tech Policy Press)
in reply to Tuta

mastodon - Link to source

Erwin Rossen 🔸

I am trying to contact you to solve a technical issue where my Premium account is not activated, even though I have paid already. Can you help me out, or let me know how I can reach support?

mas.to/@erwinrossen/1155928330…

Erwin Rossen 🔸 (@erwinrossen@mas.to)

@Tutanota@mastodon.social : I have just selected and paid for the Premium deal, but I don't see anything changing in my Free account, it didn't upgrade yet. I also didn't receive any email with a confirmation that my payment went through.
Erwin Rossen 🔸 (mas.to)

mastodon - Link to source

'Andrew Tate loses everything on Hyperliquid: Inside his leveraged crypto liquidation meltdown

Arkham’s ledger shows $727k in Hyperliquid deposits, $0 withdrawals, and even $75K in referral rewards churned.'
cryptoslate.com/inside-andrew-…

I ❤️ crypto. The worst people on earth are losing money. 🥰


Andrew Tate loses everything on Hyperliquid: Inside his leveraged crypto liquidation meltdown

Arkham’s ledger shows $727k in deposits, $0 withdrawals, and even $75K in referral rewards churned.
Gino Matos (CryptoSlate)
⇧