@MacBalance@mstdn.games

MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Jul 25, 2026

Replying to @pdfarranger@fosstodon.org

@pdfarranger@fosstodon.org @eff@mastodon.social Yeah, most of the ”pdf tools” websites are apparently document-harvesting scams these days. I block 3-4 a week at my day job as our InfoSec team finds them.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Jul 13, 2026

Replying to @VeroniqueB99@mastodon.social

@VeroniqueB99@mastodon.social Was the 4th picture stating a nigh-identical photo being from 2023 been confirmed? I know there’s been efforts to determine if the newspaper was from the right day or not.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · May 18, 2026

Replying to @crankylinuxuser@infosec.exchange

@crankylinuxuser@infosec.exchange @catsalad@infosec.exchange @cstross@wandering.shop I’d argue there’s lots of weird things about cats, not just one. That’s okay, it’s what makes them interesting.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · May 16, 2026

Replying to @renegademinis@dice.camp

@renegademinis@dice.camp We had a regular-ish day for a few locals to play #heavygearblitz in Maryland near Baltimore but like a lot of gaming it sadly stalled. We’re trying to get it back on track but the core group is limited availability due to real life unfortunately.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · May 16, 2026

Replying to @renegademinis@dice.camp

@renegademinis@dice.camp I mostly play #heavygearblitz which is 12mm so different set of problems, but I also have a small box of 28mm terrain for #OnePageRules, #7tv and similar. One of my at least wishlist pieces is either an arcade to fight in and a back alley (which is where I’d hide a Tardis). I’ll definitely take a look at your sets!

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · May 16, 2026

Replying to @MugsysRapSheet@mastodon.social

@MugsysRapSheet@mastodon.social My understanding is it’s a bit more complex, but he did several things many would consider positive (tax on mostly-empty homes, ended contracts with consultants and similar or dubious quality, etc.) combined with some less positive things (I’ve heard he pushed off some payments to city employee pension accounts?) and, importantly negotiated an increased amount of funds from the state to the city. It still sounds like he’s doing a lot of good. Perfection is unobtainable but he seems to want to do the right thing and actually sounds like a human being. (Disclaimer: not a New Yorker.)

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · May 16, 2026

Replying to @renegademinis@dice.camp

@renegademinis@dice.camp Do you by chance have a set with vending machines in it?

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · May 12, 2026

Replying to @NanoRaptor@bitbang.social

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social @BernardSheppard@mastodon.au I’m on a William Gibson kick right now and for all his foresight he often undershot storage capacities by a massive amount in his early works. And then I read the link for this talking about a whole 10 gigs of storage.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · May 12, 2026

Replying to @yon@sakurajima.moe

@yon@sakurajima.moe @NanoRaptor@bitbang.social Cray had something going designing computers that looked like modular furniture.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · May 09, 2026

Replying to @vga256@mastodon.tomodori.net

@vga256@mastodon.tomodori.net I feel like my rough attempts definitely laid some pathways in my head that have helped more recently with trying to learn #blender. I just wish it wasn’t somewhere around 5th or 6th on my “to-do list requiring active intelligence”

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · May 09, 2026

Replying to @vga256@mastodon.tomodori.net

@vga256@mastodon.tomodori.net I was, briefly, semi-competent with Strata 3d! Got an educational version back in the PowerPC era.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · May 08, 2026

Replying to @verymetalsite@mastodon.social

@verymetalsite@mastodon.social @jalefkowit@vmst.io @jwz@mastodon.social I listen to several podcasts, but I don’t think I’d consider any of them the typical “podcast bro” type. I really don’t mention it sometimes because I don’t want people to assume I watch the really low-grade ones.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · May 06, 2026

Replying to @arstechnica@mastodon.social

@arstechnica It’s encouraging me to retreat further from active Reddit use, every time I see a bar like that I ask myself, “could I be doing something better with my time?” Reading a book often wins.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · May 03, 2026

Replying to @cstross@wandering.shop

@cstross Imma gonna steal this for a new D&D monster… Some sort of edible plant matter golem perhaps, “When Edible Arrangements Turn Bad.”

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Apr 27, 2026

Replying to @BasicAppleGuy@mastodon.social

@BasicAppleGuy@mastodon.social Reminds me of the old Control Panel that replaced the Apple Menu icon and did include several alternative fruit options.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Apr 26, 2026

Replying to @gleick@mas.to

@gleick I think he is incapable of most of these. I think it would be difficult for most successors to do most of these, but that’s governing a large country. I think the ICC aspect might require an act of Congress (which I’d approve of) and in general there’s a reluctance for nations to admit mistakes, but we can hope.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Apr 22, 2026

Replying to @panic@social.panic.com

@panic@social.panic.com I’ll have to test when I have a chance.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Apr 21, 2026

Replying to @panic@social.panic.com

@panic@social.panic.com Any fixes to the integrated terminal? I’ve noticed recently it often breaks if characters are deleted not showing spaces correctly. I can try and screen cap a demo of needed.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Apr 18, 2026

Replying to @vga256@mastodon.tomodori.net

@vga256@mastodon.tomodori.net I would certainly be interested. Maybe a way to gauge interest is to do a handful of samples, just dipping a toe into specific elements you’d want to cover?

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Apr 18, 2026

Replying to @golgaloth@writing.exchange

@golgaloth @skinnylatte I always remember these due to a Dragon magazine article in the late 80s.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Apr 18, 2026

Replying to @kjhealy@mastodon.social

@kjhealy SoI watched (part of) a video earlier today of someone doing something similar with an ancient PDP11. (He has it in his garage. I think it’s an eccentric enough old man hobby) Are the “modern” LLMs basically this with a ridiculously larger pool of resources to train on? (Plus, I assume, various shims and rules to try to keep them at least sounding sane.)

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Apr 16, 2026

Replying to @jef@mastodon.social

@jef My wife (with my help) is working on a children’s book. We decided to do collages of physical objects and painted elements to intentionally (hopefully) not look like AI as the market is flooded with AI children’s books.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Apr 14, 2026

Replying to @FrankAuLux@outside.ofa.dog

@FrankAuLux @cstross Without going into spoilers, the series develops and has a bit of mood whiplash, especially in the early books. Don’t skip the short stories in the series as well! They’re some of the favorite parts to me.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Apr 11, 2026

Replying to @CosmicRami@aus.social

@CosmicRami Also the whole project was an example of international collaboration to my understanding.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Apr 06, 2026

Replying to @Zebadiah_Carter@mastodon.social

@Zebadiah_Carter@mastodon.social I see. I notice the mask I. The lower corner now. I was hoping this was a relic of the 60s or 70s that could be pointed to. Good message though.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Apr 06, 2026

Replying to @Zebadiah_Carter@mastodon.social

@Zebadiah_Carter@mastodon.social Nice! Any context on this?

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Apr 03, 2026

Replying to @kenney@mastodon.gamedev.place

@kenney@mastodon.gamedev.place Trying to extract a confession.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Apr 01, 2026

Replying to @andypiper@macaw.social

@andypiper The audience seemed to be on her side. I’d love to see someone sit down with people like Jon Stewart and do a full show explaining the “how” of Mastodon and related tech. He has a podcast (using rss and such) and seems willing to learn, but is also not technical.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Mar 31, 2026

Replying to @kirb@hachyderm.io

@kirb Honestly if they’d kept that base design and just iterated the internals it would have probably been viable for at least 20 years to the Mac Pro market that wants tasteful, but is also buying a tool they intend to use as hard as they can for at least 3 years. I actually miss the older G3 “fold open” case but admit the plastic wouldn’t age as well today as quality metal probably does.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Mar 30, 2026

Replying to @tvaziri@mastodon.social

@tvaziri I enjoy behind-the-scenes featurettes and deleted scenes. But a lot of scenes are deleted for very good reasons, and that’s the ones they put in special features.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Mar 27, 2026

Replying to @deinol@dice.camp

@deinol@dice.camp So what’s the ‘elevator pitch’ for Cepheus? Is it Traveller-descended rules but a more modern setting? Something more extreme?

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Mar 24, 2026

Replying to @tvaziri@mastodon.social

@tvaziri I think I need to do this actually. My main Mac suddenly stopped seeing local applications when I hit cmd-space. For older Mac users there was “Rebuilding the Desktop Database” which was occasionally useful but often a placebo of sorts for somewhat similar issues.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Mar 18, 2026

Replying to @The_Whore_of_Blahbylon__dup_2320@mastodon.social

@The_Whore_of_Blahbylon@mastodon.social I actually wouldn’t mind a city on Mars, but a livable Earth is still higher priority.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Mar 17, 2026

Replying to @SJohnRoss@dice.camp

@SJohnRoss I think growing up some friends had these, mostly leftover relics from the parents or older siblings left in the family game cabinet. From memory most are simplistic at best, which might explain the age range somewhat. In the 90s and 00s it’d be an even simpler skin on a Monopoly set (or themed trivial pursuit) but a lot of these were basic Chutes & Ladders RNG Fests,

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Feb 22, 2026

Replying to @ObsidianUrbex@mstdn.social

@ObsidianUrbex This immediately made me think of a section of the original Bioshock game where there was a catwalk above several rooms where the ‘Little Sisters’ were studied…

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Feb 22, 2026

Replying to @halcyon@bitbang.social

@halcyon It is amazing to remember that there was an era without even the slightest security.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Feb 21, 2026

Replying to @halcyon@bitbang.social

@halcyon Now I’m trying to remember why, circa 1998, i wrote a super basic screensaver for my Mac Classic II. Did macOS not have password protection at that point? I was in a dorm and may have wanted to keep my roommates from messing with my computer.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Feb 08, 2026

Replying to @zoharlee@mastodon.ie

@zoharlee@mastodon.ie @cstross@wandering.shop I’m reading *The Regicide Report* and trying to decide if I should pause to watch two movies that have been rather directly referenced (albeit with slightly different titles) before continuing. Although the in-book review of the movies, albeit in the continuity of the Laundry books, is not exactly positive.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Jan 26, 2026

Replying to @KFears@mstdn.games

@KFears@mstdn.games @whitequark@social.treehouse.systems Itnlooks like IEEE 1394 or “FireWire” among other names. Mostly used for external storage. Many FireWire devices had 2 ports to allow daisy chaining: It essentially replaced external SCSI on Macs for a few years. I’m assuming this implementation was not tested and didn’t handle a possible layout with computer A to Device to Computer B which I don’t think was intended by the standard. MacOS did support networking over FireWire at some point as I remember, but it may have been OS specific.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Jan 06, 2026

Replying to @amirbkhan@mastodon.social

@amirbkhan@mastodon.social I applaud your uncommon willingness to acknowledge you were wrong and try to fix potential misinformation.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Jun 10, 2025

Replying to @TartanLlama@mastodon.social

@TartanLlama@mastodon.social @b0rk@social.jvns.ca Don’t have a cat. Wondering if my dog would have enjoyed it.

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MacBalance @MacBalance@mstdn.games · Dec 14, 2024

Replying to @RogueAmoeba@mastodon.social

@RogueAmoeba this is a great example of how relationships should work with Apple and Developers!

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