@CadeJohnson@toot.cat

Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · 4d ago

Replying to @masek@infosec.exchange

@masek@infosec.exchange Interesting. This reminds me of an interview question I once faced: how do you design a spreadsheet? I had used spreadsheets since Visicalc and then V1 of Lotus123, but in the meanwhile a "right way" to use the tool had arisen and I'd not learned it. Surely any tech tool has some of that aspect; beneficial conventions of use. So far the only one I have heard in popular discussion is "prompt engineering".

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Jul 28, 2026

Replying to @masek@infosec.exchange

@masek@infosec.exchange . . . and yet, there are people titled "software engineer"! Engineering, in my experience, was ever an orderly and logical progression. Errors get through the process, but they are discoverable. If software ever was engineered, which I doubt, it isn't anymore - AI is seeing to that.

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Jul 27, 2026

NYT apparently ran an article speculating on how Trump might meddle with election results after the fact. He could convince Speaker Johnson to fire the House clerk who makes the roster of new members, and replace the clerk with someone who would make a roster conforming to how Trump wished the election had gone. I think the NYT left out an important prior step: considerr that the VP acting as President of the Senate, certifies the vote before the clerk begins his work. Trump could shoot the VP (acting in his capacity as President to appease SCOTUS, or maybe direct someone suitably well-armed to do it), and thus greatly disrupt the vote certification. The Senate could eventually elect a new temporary Senate president, I suppose . . . much as it might be difficult for the House to approve a new clerk. Trump could do BOTH I guess, to drag things out more.

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Jul 05, 2026

Replying to @Pinchy63@ottawa.place

@Pinchy63@ottawa.place @gutenberg_org@mastodon.social Me too, loved algebra and calculus; engineering school was a blast! We are a pitiful minority though.

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Jul 05, 2026

Replying to @gutenberg_org@mastodon.social

@gutenberg_org@mastodon.social All high school students everywhere, don't forget to thank Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi for writing Al-Jabr (Persia, c.a. 820 c.e) wherein he invented algebra.

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · May 08, 2026

Replying to @dramypsyd@ohai.social

@dramypsyd@ohai.social I foresee a very even year, fortunately or unfortunately ending in a really odd one.

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · May 06, 2026

Replying to @laguiri@neopaquita.es

@laguiri The "tang" (part that goes inside handle) is short; meaning handle material must be quite sturdy to resist concentrated forces. Maybe find a short piece of reinforcing rod a bit larger diameter than the tang width and whomever cuts that piece can also cut a slot lengthwise deep enough to accept the tang. Then insert the tang and hammer the slot closed around it (preferably on an anvil). The steel handle will have excellent grip pattern!

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · May 05, 2026

Having been out of the States these past 25 years, and beset by all sorts of weird and exotic place-names; it is comfort to come to a traditional old town like Richmond with place-names like Chickahominy and Chimborazo that sound AMERICAN! /s

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · May 02, 2026

Replying to @Retreival9096@hachyderm.io

@Retreival9096 LOL- I ran into the chatbot a month or so ago: an endless cycle of requests for clarifications which I humoured for a few days, then became bored and ignored. I like most of the proton products well enough, but no way Im going to ever bother support again. If it breaks, it's broke. Simple

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Apr 08, 2026

Damn Uber! I signed up and rode an Uber on March 31, and since have been barraged with spam. First I unsubscribed from marketing emails, then various notifications, but finally I've had to mark them as spam, and block the texting altogether. Do they do this to everyone? Who would tolerate it?!

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Mar 29, 2026

@woozle@toot.cat I really appreciate you hosting toot.cat - surely do not say that often enough.

toot.cat

Woozle Hypertwin (@woozle@toot.cat) - Toot.Cat

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Mar 28, 2026

Yesterday, we sold our house in Puerto Rico(!) and we've been putting a toe into the Venmo cesspool as a result: the place we will rent in our new home accepts rent payment via Venmo.

Due to a minor misunderstanding about the balance due on rent, we overpaid and the landlord _returned_ some money(!) This gave me a positive Venmo balance. I could roll that back onto the debit card for a 3% fee (no, thank you), or return it to a bank balance absolutely free.

FREE, you say? Oh hell no. To return it to the bank, I have to effectively give Venmo's identity-and-credentials-management partner "Plaid", permission to write my entire financial history on any chosen public bathroom wall anywhere in the world (as they see fit). One must read through three tiers of terms-of-use statements to get the full picture of this degree of freedom. It is insane. I will extricate myself from Venmo with due haste, meanwhile scrupulously avoiding further positive balances.

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Mar 21, 2026

Replying to @GeePawHill__dup_17816@mastodon.social

@GeePawHill@mastodon.social . . . but Twain said we can read certain obituaries with great pleasure, right?

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Mar 21, 2026

Replying to @Climatehistories__dup_44950@mastodon.social

@Climatehistories@mastodon.social before Altman can sell us intelligence, he will first have to steal it from the technical journal publishers, I suppose.

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Mar 21, 2026

I too read of the age-verification feature being added to systemd, with some dismay. But although it seems to provide a tool for "age verification" is also seems to be a wonderfully weak tool.

As I understand it, they have added a data field for "BirthDate" for users in a Linux OS (using systemd), which can be entered by the system root user. Someone here pointed out yesterday that a particularly lovely (malicious compliance) date to enter would be 13December 1901 at 20:45:52 - corresponding to the "1" integer for a date field in C, and likely to satisfy any age-screening polling by remote systems.

Whether or not there are regulatory measures afoot to require root users to certify they have age-verified all users of their individual computers, I do not know. Somehow I doubt it. The war is not ended! :D

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Mar 12, 2026

Replying to @brembs@mastodon.social

@brembs@mastodon.social the problem with carbon footprint was "truthiness" - it sounded plausable if you did not think too much about the concept. Assigning emissions to acts of consumption seemed like it could be helpful. But consider the carbon footprint of a lowly carton of ice cream. The emissions from field to factory to refrigerated distribution to grocery, they can all pale beside the emissions if you suddenly decide you deserve a treat, hop in the car, and drive ten miles just to buy that ONE thing.

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Feb 23, 2026

Replying to @Garwboy@ohai.social

@Garwboy I wish it weren't on Substack, so I could read it :(

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Feb 21, 2026

Replying to @paramnesiac@mastodon.social

@paramnesiac@mastodon.social @BlackAzizAnansi@mas.to yes, both shipping options unchecked. I am sure they have to err on the side of caution with sites like this, so any false move or weirdness is going to break them. A feature, not a fault.

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Feb 21, 2026

Replying to @BlackAzizAnansi@mas.to

@BlackAzizAnansi@mas.to I tried a couple of times, but the webpage won't process the order :( No error message, just keeps the PLACE ORDER button grayed out. Maybe it doesn't like a Puerto Rico address (even though I was only donating, not having any shipment)?

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Feb 20, 2026

Replying to @mwt@mastodon.nz

@mwt@mastodon.nz @middleclasstool@phire.place I do still have some squats left in me; about to transition to bicycle-only transportation! So I figure a negilgent auto driver will probably get me before the knees go . . . but I can't really PLAN for that!

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Feb 20, 2026

Replying to @middleclasstool@phire.place

@middleclasstool@phire.place at 65, you start walking the tightrope between "if I do deep-knee bends, will my knees give out?" and "if I don't do deep knee bends, will I be able to get up when I fall down?" I have become a student of knee-popping sounds.

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Feb 16, 2026

Replying to @cstross__dup_483@wandering.shop

@cstross@wandering.shop everything is fine!

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Feb 16, 2026

Replying to @itsfoss@mastodon.social

@itsfoss it may seem funny but linux users prefer to unmount before fsck! safer fsck-ing somehow, they say . . .

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Feb 09, 2026

Replying to @joeroe@archaeo.social

@joeroe There is a tension between the person who accesses content having choices about the presentation and disposition of the content, and the creator retaining control of that content. I think the perspective of separating content from the control of the creator is one of, if not the main inspirations for replacing the corporate model of social media with the fediverse. When I post content, I may choose to broaden its accessability by, say, adding alt text to an image. But I would not be excited about a system where such alt text is added without my consent - certainly not as long as the content is attributed to me. I think that would extend to systems that sought to index or otherwise make my content more searchable than is already the default (where I can remove it from the fediverse, if not from external internet archives).

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Feb 09, 2026

Replying to @joeroe@archaeo.social

@joeroe In a sense, tracking and citing social discourse is the antithesis of fediverse development. I trust my local instance owner's moderation efforts and personal information security, but I am not interested in any overarching repository of my utterances (nor even my citations of papers) being stored for posterity. I think a lot of people would feel the same.

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Feb 05, 2026

Replying to @PedestrianError@towns.gay

@PedestrianError@towns.gay @syhr@social.coop This is precisely correct! Gender was employed as an easy means of verifying identity, but when it no longer serves that function the value of retaining it disappears. How to verify someone's identity is the forest, and gender marker is just a soon-to-be-felled tree.

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Cade @CadeJohnson@toot.cat · Feb 02, 2026

Replying to @aral__dup_4490@mastodon.ar.al

@aral@mastodon.ar.al whenever I turn off my Android TV, it turns itself back on after a few minutes and then turns off again a minute or two later. I presume it is listening because why else turn back on? We don't converse during the "restart" - just observe some moments of quiet reflection on the state of the world. I would not know of the restart interval, except for the unusual way my TV audio is configured - instead of an HDMI connection to a soundbar, I have a bluetooth connection to a separate music system. When the bluetooth connection is made, the sound system announces the connection (not the TV).

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Cade

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