Skip to main content




A bunch of people around here saw a nice fireball yesterday morning, and I just talked to a local radio show about it. From what I can tell, this fireball wasn't anything particularly weird, perhaps on the brighter side of "normal" fireball range, and I think a lot of people saw it because of the time of day (~7:30am local), visible from Utah to mid-latitude Sask!

Great info (and videos!) on the American Meteor Society website: fireball.amsmeteors.org/member…

This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler

In case you ever see a fireball (a *very* bright shooting star), the American Meteor Society has a great reporting tool and tutorial. Just like "did you feel it" reports for earthquakes, this is very scientifically valuable crowd-source info!

fireball.amsmeteors.org/member…

(Also, I hate hate hate that they now have Starlink in their list of "this is not a fireball, please don't report this")

This entry was edited (4 days ago)


I have just canceled my subscription to #Tinder due to my inability to complete their photo verification process which is, despite appearing accessible, actually inaccessible to #blind people. One wonders whether they tested their so-called accessibility with real blind users. I tried contacting them about this issue, but only got a boilerplate response that really did not help me followed by radio silence when I said as much. (1/2)

reshared this



Work on Sliding Sync – which provides a significantly faster and more scalable sync experience in Matrix clients – has moved to focus on native support, and away from the proxy.

The Sliding Sync Proxy on the Matrix.org homeserver will be decommissioned on November 21st.

More details for users as well as server and client developers in our latest blog post: matrix.org/blog/2024/11/14/mov…

#Matrix

This entry was edited (3 days ago)


iOS 18.2’s Genmoji and Image Playground have three key guardrails you should know 9to5mac.com/2024/11/14/ios-182…


Big Foot has officially been spotted … among other new emoji proposals 9to5mac.com/2024/11/14/big-foo…


Regardless of how many people use the fediverse I think we should still be pushing for increased user safety features which remain comically and dangerously lacking


Oh this is new. Amazon says, 'You saved $9.99 on shipping fees by using Prime.' Well thanks for letting me know. I mean it is one-day delivery. But I wasn't expecting shipping on a $25 item to be that much. Okay, 24.99, if you want to get technical. I ordered a pocket keyboard after Fred showed me his. I was feeling a bit nostalgic.
in reply to Rosalin Kellyanna

Oh yeah, I had a package that was, 22Eur, and my shipping was 11. Multiply that by two, and... Well, it's a lot. It's gotten super expensive. Heh, when 10years ago I could buy two coffees for a Euro here... No longer a thing, sadly. Also, have you ever considered that Hable keyboard. I heard it's good, or not, or... I haven't actually asked people, but, I thought it was supposed to be a pocket-sized thingy.
in reply to Winter blue tardis🇧🇬🇭🇺

@tardis I have the Habble. But sometimes I like to use a qwerty model. I had a keyboard like the one I'm buying, but the battery stopped working on it. I used it that much. Lol.
in reply to Rosalin Kellyanna

I usually just use BSI, But for the computer nowadays I need mechanical, not strong as I used to be. So don't have the wish to mash laptop keys, despite Mac's keys being awesome, I make lots of mistakes and I can't exactly do that at work.


Train derails in Longueuil, Que., raising concerns about chemical spill

cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/tr…

Probably a testimonial of the safety and the track maintenance. Remember it's the same railroads that want to increase the workload and reduce safety. Because the Oligarchs love the cheap and expendable labour.



Je čtvrtek. Vyhlašuje se víkend @archos'ovi a všem mamutům se čtyřdenním pracovním týdnem. 😇
in reply to Robin Bedrunka 🐞

Óoooo děkuji moc, velký vyhlašovateli. Sice jsem měl v práci dneska takový veget, že mi je skoro trapný za to brát peníze, ale co už. 😃
in reply to Zechy

@zechy To jsem si říkal, tak jsem vydržel do konce šichty.. Nabíječku na telefon jsem měl, tak to utíkalo docela rychle. @fabia_man


Maybe I'm thinking too hard, but I can't get the idea "all communication is inherently manipulative and absent consent" out of my head.

The idea being, that just by communicating something to someone, you are inherently influencing their mind to interpret and process your ideas.

And you can't seek someone's permission to share an idea with them without sharing an idea. And you certainly can't seek someone's informed consent to share an idea without sharing at least some details about the idea itself.

messy messy

in reply to Chrisshy Keygen

We're social beings though; we can't require or expect consent to live in society anymore than a cell with an adrenergic receptor has to consent for the adrenal glands to work.


A colleague has asked me for examples of PDF accessibility done right, and I'm drawing a blank.
Links to any publicly available PDF with good semantic structure, tagging, and accessibility to elements like tables and images would be very helpful
although of course you may also use this thread to dunk on the format, if you wish
in reply to ChanceyFleet

For anybody who wants to inspect the structure of a PDF’s tags before recommending it as an example, I cannot recommend pdfplumber enough. It’s a library and CLI utility to inspect, scrape, and debug PDFs. It works well for showing the (lack of) structure of tagged PDFs, and is less finicky than pdfinfo.
This entry was edited (3 days ago)


What to do at 11 o’clock at night when you still got a bit of energy? Answer, write a whole bunch of ridiculous gibberish lyrics by mashing letters on the keyboard with a few invented words, chuck the whole thing into suno AI, tell the engine that you want comedy as a musical style and sit back and see what it does.
This is the result.

reshared this



Nous, ma femme et moi, avons reçu la protection subsidiaire en #France ! Il est temps de chercher un job.


Why is the first Windows drive always called C:? Here’s the answer pcworld.com/article/2518241/wh…
in reply to David Goldfield

@Bruce_Toews I never thought about it, but there must be a lot of people who've never seen those, lol


There's a piece of construction equipment outside droning a perfect C-sharp, and Guns And Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine is on. LOL.


The Incredible Story Behind the First Transistor Radio spectrum.ieee.org/transistor-r…

Tamas G reshared this.


in reply to David Goldfield

I want to hear this info, as I have a SensePlayer, on which Bard keeps crashing when attempting to play certain magazines, but have another commitment during that time. Where are recordings kept, so I can go listen after the fact?
in reply to Jessica Dail

@KE8UPE I don't have the URL but I believe NLS archives those calls. Have you done a search for it?




Wife was convinced she'd loaded her phone into the washing machine along with a handful of blankets.

She'd left it upstairs, but the few minutes of worry were an interesting adrenaline hit.
Right now, even a few hundred pounds to replace a phone would be hard to swallow, yet we can't live without it.

perhaps my New Year's resolution will be to keep an emergency fund to replace a phone or computer, now I finally have a better paying job.

in reply to Sean Randall

Depending on the model of phone, it may've come out unscathed!
This entry was edited (3 days ago)


Wishing a very happy birthday to the Eighth Doctor, Paul McGann. #DoctorWho
in reply to Paul Bowler

I'm so glad we've had so many great Eight Doctor audios, thanks to Big Finish. I haven't yet read any of the Eight Doctor adventures from BBC Books but they're definitely on my list and I have "the Eight Doctors" ready to read in my book player app. I'm one of those people who also feels that Mcgann should now be considered the ninth Doctor; it bugs me that the War Doctor never gets counted. Then again, with what we now know about the Timeless Child, Mcgann could well be the 87th Doctor, for all we know. #DoctorWho
in reply to David Goldfield

@DavidGoldfield I agree. I've listened to some of the Big Finish 8th Doctor stories and enjoyed those. I really liked the 8th Doctor BBC Novels though, there were some fantastic stories there. I'm sure you'll enjoy as well, the 8 Doctor's is a great place to start and you've got a wealth of adventures to discover in that range as well.
in reply to David Goldfield

@DavidGoldfield
Even if you count the War Doctor, Paul McGann is still the Eighth Doctor, as he comes before John Hurt's War Doctor, who is technically the ninth incarnation of the Doctor, not counting the Timeless Children Doctors.
in reply to Konrad Dumo

@konradical_dumo You're absolutely right about the numbering of the Doctors. Thanks for setting me straight. 😊


any way to get a list of keyboard shortcuts for tweesecake?
in reply to J3317

If you press f1 from within Tweesecake, it will open the TC documentation. This includes a heading containing Mastodon keyboard shortcuts.

in reply to CBC News

meanwhile the Deux-Montagnes users have been fucked for years...


In other news, my Canon G7X MkII is back into non working state. And of course Canon can't repair anything since they don't repair but replace, with inexistant stock.

I might attempt the procedure. It feels like a broken sensor/switch/connector of some sort.

This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Ludovic :Firefox: :FreeBSD:

A G7X Mark II ? Not all cameras are equal. On these they charge you a flat fee for a replacement. But then you read people wait month because there is no stock. And Canon doesn't give a shit.
This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Ludovic :Firefox: :FreeBSD:

@usul as I said, not the same category. If it was one of these plastic EOS digital then they'd probably not repair either.


Ah finished work for the day and the week, got to go to the hospital tomorrow giving blood.
in reply to Derry Lawlor

I went away for lunch and had a mountain to come back to! Gonna be a long day tomorrow, too, I imagine. Hope the blood goes smoothly!
in reply to Sean Randall

@cachondo Thanks Sean yep sure it will I managed to finish Pheonix Intuition The potter Fan book found it not the easyest one to finish.



Winter - The season when we try to keep the house as hot as it was in the summer, when we complained about the heat.


Two things that they don’t tell you about the Trolley Problem

1: it’s a shopping trolley
2: you’re playing it every time that you purchase something


in reply to BohwaZ

aussi c'est rigolo de voir qu'ils financent leur competition (Google, Microsoft)


My whole life, I've lived in New England: the land of blizzards and ice storms. When there's a storm on the forecast, we prepare. Stock up on bottled water and nonperishables, refill prescriptions that are running low, charge the flashlights and electronic devices, have a stack of blankets on hand, make sure there's fuel in the car and (if you're lucky) generator, restack the indoor wood pile. 1/3

#USpolitics #USpol

This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Molly White

If the worst does not actually come to pass, I don't think I'm going to be sitting here going "oh noooo I can't believe I strengthened my communities, made sure I'm up to date on my healthcare needs, and volunteered for causes I believe in"

3/3

#USpolitics #USpol

This entry was edited (4 days ago)


#XMPP has continued to evolve and improve over the many years I've been using it. But despite the development effort going into it, there aren't as many people joining it as there should.

We can thank hype and neomania for that. These factors ensure that proprietary/centralized networks (the latter includes #Matrix) receive more funding and more code contributors. More funding results in better marketing and stronger network effect.

1/



Dear #Jabber, #XMPP, #Snikket, #Prav (insert your favourite branding) users,

I have this #MOTO (#MUC of the day) for you:

xmpp:trains@conference.jabjab.…

The room subject says, it's for trainees, trainspotters, trainsexuals, traingenders, and trainists, but I'ld say, it for everyone who likes or has to travel by #train or is interested in #railway.

Btw. I'll go by #nighttrain #EuropeanSleeper to #miniDebConf #Toulouse, soon.

#transport #publicTransport #chatRoom #chat #Debian #DebConf



Today's gear-grinder. People who boost multiple messages from the same account regularly. I'm talking more than twice or 3 times an hour. If I wanted to follow the account, I get the memo after the first thousand times you boosted it, thanks!


Someone asked Grok, Twitter's built-in AI, who was the person most responsible for spreading misinformation on the platform...

reshared this



Finally some good news:

The fate of #FarRight website #Infowars will be controlled by #theOnion after the satirical news site emerged as the winning bidder of Wednesday’s private auction of the #media company founded by #conspiracy theorist #AlexJones.

#justice #law
washingtonpost.com/nation/2024…

in reply to Nonilex

a long time ago, you could tell the difference between satire and conspiracy theory

satire was zany and conspiracy theory was quaint and harmless: "UFOs? ok, mmm"

then you couldn't tell the difference, they were equally absurd. "they're making the frogs gay!" "da fuq?"

then you could, conspiracy theory was vicious disinfo agendas (sandy hook lies)

then you couldn't, conspiracy theory *literally purchased by satire*

this is one weird story arc

worthy of... the onion



Emergency - CWed begpost after robberies and medical-related fees in foreign country, boost appreciated

Sensitive content




How to remove Linux from a dual boot with Windows lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_l…


Olaa xente do fediverso! Sei que non teño moitos seguidores aquí pero como é algo importante, publícoo.

Organicei un evento de recadación de fondos en Ourense para o meu colega palestino e a súa familia.

Pasádevos porque vai haber moi bo ambiente e música incrible! No bar Antigua o'Renque a partir das 8 da tarde!