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briantrice.bsky.social
Mad computer scientist; electric motorcycle hacker; software architect; data viz whatever? Former nuclear tech, always NB. They/them. https://signal.me/#eu/5U6AQo_peWVxKPh5raxwBKUp8UxZm4iwfIb-21fgVSVQFRgfXn1DF42nvXiWSNfu
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Life is precious, temporary, and confusing. And no, growing up doesn’t really make it make more sense. #CalvinandHobbes40 #DeepThoughts

basically yeah. my theory is that "knowing things" basically peaked in perceived coolness somewhere around 1970 and has been steadily declining ever since. being a nerd is definitionally about your relationship to trivia but trivia isn't actually the same as expertise

just another case of BREAM: baudrillard rules everything around me

The Atlantic should be ashamed of publishing this nightmare piece from Liz Bruenig, whose callous dismissal of Adriana Smith's dignity is one of the most shocking things I've ever read.

thread. there's a lot going on right now that has more immediate harm to people, but selling our public lands will have really rotten effects on climate change, shared experiences, & public wealth

Ok here's one for the real haters: C is virtually impossible to make memory-safe, but C++ genuinely isn't, and the STL is sufficiently badly designed that it makes that transition /harder/ rather than easier

My local numbers at wastewaterSCAN. For context, in two weeks we’ve gone from one of our lowest points ever to near the peak of last year’s winter wave.

The accused assassin allegedly used data brokers to track down the Democratic lawmakers he murdered. Congress doesn't need any more proof that selling data to anyone with a credit card is deadly. Every American's safety is at risk until Congress cracks down on data brokers.

Sure would be cool if the Pentagon was run by somebody who isn’t a constantly lying piece of shit.

What is common knowledge in your field, but shocks outsiders? Most of the protocols that tie the Internet together are at least forty years old and were designed without any security controls in mind. It's a miracle that this stuff works at all.

One of the quietly great Bluesky accounts is a field botanist who posts pictures of Iran's alpine wildflowers. The beauty is stunning, especially since these kinds of images are rarely shown in western media.

OH "large language model the size of a small language model"

“The bill’s process for selling off lands runs at breakneck speed, demanding the nomination of tracts within 30 days, then every 60 days until the arbitrary multi-million-acre goal is met, all without hearings, debate or public input.”

Oh... www.wired.com/story/cfpb-q...

from the article "Nucular"

IF HE WANTED TO HE WOULD HOT DOG ME

Gazelle 1921 Vittorio Zecchin

Typology of TV Test Screens. All images from Wiki.

Jules Verne novels: Here is a brief yet up-to-date discourse on the feasibility of small-scale saltpeter production on a remote island Jules Verne film adaptations:

A lesson in not making your PIDs and controls and physics too "good". I'm on the fence for allowing the player direct control of the main engines while in the landing mode because of one big reason critical to the whole purpose behind this: It looks bad.

Growing up just means your toys get more expensive and way more complicated. #CalvinandHobbes40 #AdulthoodRealities

just clocked they’re called heathens bc they live in the heath

The Italian (1915) Directed by Reginald Barker

Trump’s cuts to DEI-related equity research grants at the National Institutes of Health have been found both discriminatory and illegal. Even with the judge's spirited proclamation (an 84-year-old Reagan appointee, no less), there is no indication that Trump will abide. https://trib.al/KJe69GD

The bane of my existence is the so-called "Modern" Search Engines that are incapable of finding a fucking substring in a string.

Which Button produces more maintainable code?

Submarines do not swim. Automobiles do not gallop. Telephones do not speak. Cameras do not paint. Computers do not think.

for strange, unknowable reasons much of this country seems incapable of granting revolutionary agency to a band of dedicated evangelical Christians - we are determined to see them as rubes and, thus, it can't possibly be true they outwitted us and now run the Pentagon and the entire US fedl govt

Spitting FIRE holy shit 🔥

I wrote about Democrats' obsession with calling Trump's actions a "distraction," and how it reflects their failure to understand the modern media ecosystem.

“Does the US President’s social media post mean people should evacuate Tehran in a serious, bombs-are-imminent sort of way or a silly, he’ll forget about it in the morning sort of way?” is an insane, nightmarish situation to be in

"Attacks forcing ‘gays’ back in the closet" [New Zealand] Press, 10 February 1988. 'New legislation to ban the “promotion of homosexuality” [..] fears about a threat to the arts or civil rights are groundless and that the legislation aims only to protect young people.' This was of course Section 28.

as someone prone to directly confronting people for stuff they say online, that from lee is the face of someone who did not expect to be confronted for something he said online

The Minnesota shooter apparently used data broker websites to find the home addresses of the people he shot and murdered. Congress has had years to do something about data brokers and they've sided with the tech lobby over and over again. Their inaction is deadly.

This is legitimately terrifying. Almost 10 million people live within the city limits of Tehran with another almost 7 million additional people in the metro area. There are 8 million people in NYC. How the FUCK would we all be able to "evacuate" with no notice??? THIS IS EVIL. PERIOD.

gotta assume/hope it's just the usual Trumpian hyperbole, but man, we should not have the fucking President of the United States tossing out off the cuff "everyone should evacuate Tehran" on social media "Donald the Dove" jesus fucking christ

Murray Leinster was born on this day in 1896. Leinster, a pen name for William F. Jenkins, wrote over 1,500 stories before passing in 1975.

The advice in this article simply isn’t true in our current environment. The expert quoted here: “And there’s nothing wrong with asking for some identification. A real-life police officer is going to be more than willing to take that extra step to identify themselves.”

please do this for your trans friends.

POV you live in the imperial core

Omg did The Atlantic publish a horrible outrage farming piece by a careerist cryptofascist that you just have to share a link to? Tell me more this is so unexpected and shocking. How could this happen.

People will deadass try to say hating queers to death and believing your religion condones any willful violence "isn't political"

This Boelter guy is an absolutely *textbook* violent right-wing Christian extremist. Anyone who implies there's anything at all off-type about him, as a specimen, is being either lazy or disingenuous. The most unusual thing about him is that he did targeted assassinations instead of a mass murder!