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• Post #4488894

  RE: https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/117066509290131562 In 1986 I went to Australia with my big folding telescope to see Halley's Comet, which I'd been dreaming about since I was a kid. It turned out less exciting than other comets I had seen. But one night, camping in the middle of the continent, the sky was so dark there was no visible artificial light. The entire horizon was dark. The nearest building was 150km away. A weak, scratchy radio signal was playing Bach. I just lay b...

• Post #4446936

  Good thing climate change isn't causing any trouble or this could be an issue. Words fail, again. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/08/climate/amazon-data-center-texas-pollution.html?unlocked_article_code=1.31A.BKnE.5DhN0aBPzpDP&smid=url-share

• Post #4386011

  We don't know for sure yet whether the AI business model will lead to consciousness, but we know for a fact that it creates insanity.

• Post #4344139

  Does anyone know a source of fine pitch metric bolts in Australia? I'm looking for M5 fine, which have 0.5mm thread pitch. The standard, widely available is called coarse and has 0.8mm thread pitch. They are as rare as lorikeet teeth around here, as far as I can tell, and I don't want to order from overseas. Thanks. P.S. The threaded hole already exists. This is not a choice I made.

• Post #4338671

  Computers don't even work in my dreams. Last night, trying to use Google maps to find a way to the airport, every time I scrolled it jumped to Europe. Nightmare stuff taken right from real life. Calendar and messages also screwing up. Away, foul beast!

• Post #4330695

  Remember this? Man Very Early Made Jars Stand Up Nearly but it feels incomplete.

• Post #4261512

  Renee has a favorite knife but it's hard to distinguish from the others when stored in the knife rack. I decided to put a nice red end on the handle using dip rubber, aka liquid electrical tape. It's often used to put a grippy rubber overcoat on a tool handle, but works well for smaller things too, like the knob of a violin bow so it's not got sharp corners. The problem is that the stuff is in a tube and always separates, like peanut butter in a jar, so I did what any normal person...

• Post #4254100

  RE: https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/117010755608045166 Also this: I recently had an hours-long Internet outage and my PS5 game (Ghost of Tsushima) failed to start, even though it had been running fine a few hours earlier. Worse, the console hung and eventually crashed, then later when rebooting yelled at me for not shutting it down safely. Networking is not reliable, so don't depend on it being so! Or at least fail gracefully. Fail. 0/10. Do better.

• Post #3897053

  YouTube Studio is succumbing to fashion trends. Bermuda shorts are next.

• Post #3876851

  I'm worried. Is something wrong? It's almost 10AM and I have zero requests today to update software versions or firmware.

• Post #3869434

  RE: https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/116930245213443949 This is exactly how I feel.

• Post #3854526

  Nolan's "The Odyssey" is totally wrong. The real Polyphemus didn't look like that. The nerve of that man, I tell you!

• Post #3683305

  The gap between hype and reality for AI is vast. https://karlbode.com/the-ai-hype-reckoning-is-upon-us/

• Post #3531788

  Hey, guys, when you ask me for my cookie choice and I say "reject", you're still allowed to remember that I said "reject" and not ask me again every damn visit.

• Post #3405213

  Long ago, I was an angry young man who railed against all the injustices of the world, but time has passed, I have matured and learned so much more about things, and now I am an angrier old man. (Importing from my old account my pinned post, which seems even more apt (apter?) now than when first expressed.)