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• Post #4360715

  I've usually relied on K3b for burning data and music CDs, but it's been a few years since I looked for any alternatives. This is probably not a task that's receiving a lot of attention these days, though maybe discontent with streaming services has encouraged people to think more about it lately. I haven't been doing much of it myself, but my daughter asked me recently to show her how to burn music CDs* and I've been poking at it again. Does anybody have a better sugge...

• Post #4352740

  “Are you awake? Good. There’s an emergency. I can see the bottom of my food bowl.” - Willow #catsofmastodon

• Post #4256028

  I don’t think people are taking enough about Big Raisin and its evil work infesting perfectly good foods with raisins like oatmeal cookies and cinnamon bagels.

• Post #4206808

  Just a random "thank you" to all the folks who post random pet pictures, scenery, crafts, musings on music or entertainment, and all other manner of creative wonderfulness that pops up in my timeline in between all the (necessary!) discussions of everything going wrong. It's so important. It's the flowers growing in the pavement cracks. Reminds me of what's good.

• Post #4203468

  RE: https://mastodon.social/@gvwilson/116997366488785600 If you accept something is unethical, its usefulness is irrelevant, isn't it? Unrestrained medical testing on humans would be useful* -- but we oppose that because it's wildly unethical. We may have learned more from the Tuskegee Syphilis Study than we could have any other way; you can argue that it was "useful" but it was not ethical. Nobody should have to weigh its usefulness in saying, "We should not conduct m...

• Post #4122430

  Additional views from the #catio. My mothers in law and daughter came over to see it this afternoon. Meg’s mom said it reminded her of a treehouse and I think that’s about right. Great space to just hang out and enjoy nature. Going to be doing a lot of reading out here.

• Post #4101681

  My current theory is that the pharmacy business is just a sideline for CVS and its primary mission is wasting paper...

• Post #4086630

  It’s Friday, and our deck replacement/catio is now fully operational. Took about ten days from demolition of the old deck to finishing the new one (minus staining it, which has to wait, apparently). It would seem that the cats approve. Hope they really enjoy the outdoors. #catsofmastodon #catio

• Post #4069489

  What are you thinking about that's interesting and not about AI/LLMs or politics these days?

• Post #4065767

  It continues to suck that the people at the top who pursue these follies just keep on collecting obscene paychecks while the folks who do the work get kicked to the curb. 21,000 people. They didn't decide that Oracle should fund AI crap. 21,000 people whose families are going to, at best, feel the pinch on their finances while somebody in the house has to look for another job. Many of those families, if based in the U.S., are going to either pay out the nose for health insurance via COBRA...

• Post #4012296

  My wake-up call today was Willow deciding to leave her bed and curl up next to my head to purr at top volume at about 6 a.m. Since she's about 40% subwoofer by weight and has a window-rattling purr, it was impossible to sleep through but not a terrible way to wake up. #catsofmastodon #Cat

• Post #3949097

  RE: https://beige.party/@maxleibman/116948585713420593 Until we get the all-clear on lettuce again, I'm just substituting french fries for salad. OK, I was doing that before too, but.

• Post #3887787

  I have many thoughts about Linus' recent comments on LLM/AI use for the Linux kernel. Few of them are really interesting or original, at least not currently. My tiny brain needs a while to churn over things. One thought keeps coming to the fore, though: I really wish that this discussion was a lot kinder all the way around and less "everybody who disagrees with me is not only wrong, but malicious and evil and dresses funny too". There are, for reals, some players in the whole A...

• Post #3796393

  The upstairs trio have become, shall we say, accustomed to receiving treats when I’m in the kitchen. Here they are, just watching me expectantly until I do the right thing… #catsofmastodon #cats

• Post #3751039

  Sir Wobbles helping me recuperate. #catsofmastodon #caturday

• Post #3699583

  RE: https://mas.to/@carnage4life/116890429736816268 I’ve made a few VPs unhappy in my corporate days by refusing to cater to their self-induced frenzies. “But my boss wants this tomorrow, you have to drop everything! They’re a VP!” “They’re not my VP and their lack of planning isn’t my team’s responsibility.” To be clear, I tried to be a team player and to respond quickly for real urgent situations. Need to respond to a zero-day announcement? Yes, we’ll jump for that. Sure! The VP just has...

• Post #3515872

  It looks like the subscriber link for the xsnow story has broken containment, so might as well boost it here too: "The xsnow application, which generates an animated snowfall effect (and other pleasant diversions) for X11 desktops, does not seem like an obvious channel for political statements. Nevertheless, xsnow's maintainer seems to have included a political protest in the program: an Easter egg that is triggered when the program's language is set to Russia ('ru'). One u...

• Post #3470329

  RE: https://social.wildeboer.net/@jwildeboer/116832387648136125 I'll say this again, louder for the folks in back: When you use commercial LLM tools, including freely available "open weight" models trained by assorted companies on God-knows-what data sets, this is the kind of industry you support. The commercial LLM providers do not care about the damage they inflict on anyone or anything else. They don't care about the impact that LLM usage has had on FOSS community develo...

• Post #3454633

  I really, truly hate how accurate this is. #politics #democrats

• Post #3426995

  Sir and Cupcake doing their Statler and Waldorf impression. Then Sir decides it’s time to sprawl out. “Personal space? Never heard of it.” #catsofmastodon #caturday

• Post #3360567

  “We’re posting bail right now. Don’t say anything. It’s the dog’s word against yours, the charges will never stick.” #catsofmastodon #caturday #clawandorder

• Post #3319872

  "I created my first web site in 1995. I hosted the site with my ISP, a local provider in Kirksville, MO. The ISP generously gave its customers a few megabytes of space if they wanted to host a site. The term "static" site didn't really exist then, because most if not all sites were static sites. Just HTML and a few images. No CSS, and certainly no JavaScript—which had not yet been invented." #Indieweb #smolweb https://dissociatedpress.net/blog/smolweb.html

• Post #3313362

  Sir wonders if I might have something tasty. #catsofmastodon #caturday

• Post #2062548

  May the Fourth be with you. #maythe4th

• Post #1882274

  Found Sam in his favorite hidey spot again yesterday: perched on blankets at the top of the closet. He loves nesting up there and napping where nobody, especially the dog, will bother him. He has the best facial expressions. #catsofmastodon #caturday

• Post #1777185

  I keep trying to get a selfie with Sam on my shoulder. The results are mixed… #CatsOfMastodon

• Post #1742565

• Post #1698165

  RE: https://mastodon.social/@pallenberg/116363771840357356 This is rank insanity. He needs to be removed now. Even if Trump does not carry through whatever threat he is implying here; we cannot tolerate this sort of malignant narcissist destabilizing the world. I have called my senators. I remember when you could actually speak to a human when calling Congress; those days are over. Guess the GOP long ago decided things are rigged here enough that they don't even need to pretend to act...

• Post #1667912

  The council of cats considering the dog’s request to come back inside. His chances aren’t looking good. #catsofmastodon #caturday

• Post #1565896

  RE: https://mas.to/@stevegis_ssg/116438107437415663 If you're managing people, it's always a good idea to give them a regular stream of feedback whether that's "this can improve" or "this is going great" -- probably a bit of both. 1) If you let people know what they're doing right, telling them when something hasn't gone great is usually less stressful in both directions. 2) The world is as uncertain as ever -- you...