em-dash's recent activity
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Comment on Draw an iceberg and see how it will float in ~science
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Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society
em-dash Link ParentYeah, what @CannibalisticApple said. Everyone involved, including me, was on board with the name change itself. I include it only as backstory for the actually bad part after it. I've edited an...Yeah, what @CannibalisticApple said. Everyone involved, including me, was on board with the name change itself. I include it only as backstory for the actually bad part after it.
I've edited an extra sentence into that paragraph to hopefully make it more clear.
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Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society
em-dash (edited )LinkI've told this story before elsenet, but this question reminds me of it, so I'm reposting it here: So [the company I previously worked for] was loudly pro-queer. I've applied to several places...- Exemplary
I've told this story before elsenet, but this question reminds me of it, so I'm reposting it here:
So [the company I previously worked for] was loudly pro-queer. I've applied to several places that weren't transphobic, but this is the only one I've applied to where it wasn't even a question I had to consider. In the end I started to find it actively exhausting, and when job searching after that I looked more for companies who were more quietly supportive, like "just consistently call me Emily and move the fuck on please".
We had a group called something like "the future is female", open to non-men generally. One day the person running that group decides she'd like the name to be explicitly nonbinary-inclusive, and proposes some new names, and in explaining her reasoning, says something about "female" being unnecessarily exclusive, and that some transphobes use it in an exclusive way and it'd be nice if someone looking at just the name could see that it's explicitly inclusive. We all agree this change is good, the group is renamed, and everything is fine.
Later, another person (often privately ridiculed for being over-the-top supportive of us while clearly not having done the research), who writes a lot of our company announcements, is writing a company announcement about this change. She latches onto that last part, horribly misinterprets it, and writes something to the effect of "we're abandoning 'female' because it's a biological term and we want to include people who identify as women but aren't biologically female".
So I reply-all, and call this out as a very weird thing to say, and explicitly state that Well Actually, As A Trans Woman, I am cool with being called female and do not consider it to exclude me. She quickly backpedals and apologizes, and we all move on.
But that incident has stuck with me, because it's a demonstration of how easily a morally neutral term like "female" can accidentally become demonized. Nearly everyone else at that company was ready to go along with this surprise redefinition, and probably start calling out their friends for using the word "female", because they are all Loudly Supportive and actively want to avoid even the appearance of being on The Bad People Side of any issue.
And then we lose another perfectly valid word to fear, and also label a bunch of people as transphobes for no reason, and alienate a bunch of people who otherwise would've supported us, and everything gets worse for everyone involved. (Except the bigots. They just had language normalized in their favor again.)
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Comment on Scalable oral exams with an ElevenLabs voice AI agent in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentWhy, though? Writing a paper given a bunch of information one can consult as needed, and then editing it into the final result that people read, is an entirely different skill from answering...it seems like you should be able to have a conversation with someone who wrote a paper and they should be able to answer questions about it.
Why, though? Writing a paper given a bunch of information one can consult as needed, and then editing it into the final result that people read, is an entirely different skill from answering questions off the top of one's head.
... in much the same way as playing music, actually, though not in the way you describe: would you expect a great songwriter or composer to automatically be a great performer? I'd argue that writing a paper is analogous to writing a song, and answering live questions to playing arbitrary songs on request.
In the world of research, where the whole goal is figuring stuff out and writing the results down for future people to reference, I would greatly prefer to directly optimize for that and not for live performance.
(And yeah, same, re: interviews. I've started explicitly telling my employers that I am irreconcilably bad at it, citing vague handwavey neurospicy reasons, and they should prefer literally anyone else if possible.)
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Comment on Scalable oral exams with an ElevenLabs voice AI agent in ~tech
em-dash LinkSo, setting aside the utterly disrespectful absurdity of an LLM calling me on the phone: I would completely agree with this if not for "live". Instead, I find myself wanting to say many impolite...So, setting aside the utterly disrespectful absurdity of an LLM calling me on the phone:
If you cannot defend your own work live, then the written artifact is not measuring what you think it is measuring.
I would completely agree with this if not for "live". Instead, I find myself wanting to say many impolite things to this person.
It is a good thing to take time to think about what you're going to say before you say it. That is a skill more people should have and use. That's why I spend more time hanging out here and other text-based places than talking to people in person. (Yes, even at work. We send emails. It's great, more companies should try it.)
For example, over the few minutes I took to write and edit this comment, I had an additional realization, which would have come too late to say out loud in a verbal conversation: this is another instance of that thing where we're not sure anymore, as a society, whether the purpose of education is to prepare students for jobs, or to educate them more broadly. I would believe that this more accurately reflects the dystopia we're likely heading toward. I do not believe for a second that it is better at measuring actual in-depth understanding.
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Comment on What's something you're "in too deep" on? in ~talk
em-dash Link ParentIf they own the place, you may be able to find their names from property ownership records. this is how I knew a neighbor's name months before meeting them, and then when I met them I had to...If they own the place, you may be able to find their names from property ownership records.
this is how I knew a neighbor's name months before meeting them, and then when I met them I had to consciously avoid calling them that name before they told me
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Comment on Statement from Mozilla's new CEO in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentI copy my profile directory around when setting up new machines instead of using sync services, and I've never had anything get automatically turned back on by an update. It is indeed really weird...I copy my profile directory around when setting up new machines instead of using sync services, and I've never had anything get automatically turned back on by an update.
It is indeed really weird if sync ignores a few particular settings like that. Curiosity: what's the default value of services.sync,prefs.sync for those settings?
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Comment on Whatever happened to _____? in ~talk
em-dash Link ParentCompanies known to the public for one thing often have entire tangentially related product lines! Texas Instruments makes calculators and non-electronics people think they're a calculator company,...Companies known to the public for one thing often have entire tangentially related product lines!
Texas Instruments makes calculators and non-electronics people think they're a calculator company, but among electronics people they're more known for their chips made to be used in your own products. I use their power management bits a lot.
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Comment on Markdown/inline links don't work unless URL starts with http(s) in ~tildes
em-dash LinkTrivia: you actually can omit the protocol in an absolute URL, it just has syntax that'll look really weird to most people: //tildes.net for example It uses the protocol of the page you're already on.Trivia: you actually can omit the protocol in an absolute URL, it just has syntax that'll look really weird to most people:
//tildes.netIt uses the protocol of the page you're already on.
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Comment on Weathering software winter (2022) in ~tech
em-dash LinkI have always been fascinated by how different my computing preferences are from 100r's despite starting from what seems like the same principles. I seem to value all of the same things -...I have always been fascinated by how different my computing preferences are from 100r's despite starting from what seems like the same principles. I seem to value all of the same things - efficiency, fun, platforms that can be held entirely in one person's head, not actually liking computer-touching so much as just making stuff.
But then I follow where that takes me and I arrive at a totally different place, one with register machines, type systems, memory safety, and structured control flow. The computer can handle all of these things with minimal effort on its part; why not let it, so I can focus on making the thing I want to make?
The affinity for live coding systems (both the modern kind and the lisp/smalltalk image-based kind) among permacomputing people is also pretty weird to me. I want to make things and know that they will persist as I made them. That's a big part of the point of permacomputing to me. Editing a running application makes me instantly worried that I am creating a state that I will not be able to easily reproduce later.
I suspect a large part of the difference is that last value I ascribed to them: perhaps they're far less jaded on computing than I am, and still enjoy it for its own sake. I'm glad they're doing what they do, regardless. The world needs more of this weird stuff that doesn't scale.
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Comment on Library exhibit brainstorming in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentYou could cover the gears with clear sheets of something (polycarbonate?)You could cover the gears with clear sheets of something (polycarbonate?)
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Comment on Library exhibit brainstorming in ~tech
em-dash Link Parentokay, hear me out (I've always wanted an excuse to build one)Have you considered other ways of making the display interactive?
(I've always wanted an excuse to build one)
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Comment on Any chance we can get a shorthand for the <details> tag? in ~tildes
em-dash Link ParentThis reminds me of that time I had a laptop's W key die, so I added compose-v-v as a binding to type w. But then that was too inconvenient to use while typing fast, so for a vhile I vas typing...This reminds me of that time I had a laptop's W key die, so I added compose-v-v as a binding to type w.
But then that was too inconvenient to use while typing fast, so for a vhile I vas typing vith a silly fake German accent.
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: The Showcase in ~creative.timasomo
em-dash Link ParentSo far the curtain seems to be doing fine as it is. I have also installed magnets along the edges of the doorway for extra assurance, but I have not yet attached matching metal bits to the curtain...So far the curtain seems to be doing fine as it is. I have also installed magnets along the edges of the doorway for extra assurance, but I have not yet attached matching metal bits to the curtain because gestures at the stack of boxes of my partner's sewing stuff.
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Comment on What are some of your favorite stews/soups? in ~food
em-dash LinkRecently, I've made chili, and a Lebanese lentil soup called shorbet adas. I should start writing down recipes. I cook mostly based on vibes, so when I tried to provide recipes here, most of my...Recently, I've made chili, and a Lebanese lentil soup called shorbet adas.
I should start writing down recipes. I cook mostly based on vibes, so when I tried to provide recipes here, most of my measurements were incredibly precise numbers like "idk, some cumin I guess".
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: The Showcase in ~creative.timasomo
em-dash Link ParentSkirts are comfy as fuck and should not be arbitrarily limited to ~ half the population. I'm glad you're doing something that makes you happy. <3Skirts are comfy as fuck and should not be arbitrarily limited to ~ half the population. I'm glad you're doing something that makes you happy. <3
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: The Showcase in ~creative.timasomo
em-dash LinkI made some progress on workshop setup. Not 100% done, but not nothing. It's in a three-room building, with one big room in the middle (which we think used to be a garage, used for some sort of...I made some progress on workshop setup. Not 100% done, but not nothing.
It's in a three-room building, with one big room in the middle (which we think used to be a garage, used for some sort of shady car repair business) and two smaller rooms on either side. I'm using one of the smaller rooms as my office, and "the workshop" is the remainder of the building.
The big room is our main workspace for my electronics stuff and my partner's sewing stuff. I hung French cleats and power strips everywhere, poured a bunch of self-leveling concrete (badly), installed carpet, and built a long workbench on one wall for electronics work (my partner wants a bunch of movable tables instead). My main 3D printer is now enclosed under my electronics workbench, to the relief of all my friends who have been yelling at me for years to stop breathing ABS fumes.
My woodworking tools have been moved into the other small room. It's separated by a curtain in the doorway (there's no door installed there and I decided it wasn't worth the effort to add one) and has dust collection stuff set up. I've started building the rest of our shop furniture there. I also painted that room's floor with a paint made for garage floors, which I've already scratched off in several places, but still looks better than the heavily stained concrete under it.
This does mean the main workshop is filled with boxes again, because that was also the storage room for all the stuff we haven't unpacked yet since moving (mostly workshop stuff, since we've had nowhere to put it). So we haven't been able to do much in there yet. Soon, though.
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Comment on Supermarket rewards card- yes or no? in ~finance
em-dash (edited )Link ParentOkay, so first of all, oh gods I'm old now apparently. But I remember using phones in the mid to late 1990s: Area codes and long distance calling definitely existed by the time the song came out...Okay, so first of all, oh gods I'm old now apparently. But I remember using phones in the mid to late 1990s:
Area codes and long distance calling definitely existed by the time the song came out (1981). But you could (maybe still can?) omit the area code when dialing, if it's the same as your own. Since this was before mobile phones were common, approximately everyone's phone number matched the area they lived in, because that's how landlines work. Most phone calls are placed to people in the same area, so this means you'd almost always omit it in practice, so when giving your phone number to local people (or, for example, writing a local person's phone number on a bathroom wall) you'd also omit it.
edit: that other reply was definitely not there when I wrote this. Please enjoy some additional weird 1990s US phone stuff:
- Long-distance calling used to be expensive. There were TV ads for discount long-distance calling services. A lot of them.
- Internet service wasn't universal yet. Need to look up someone's phone number and don't have a physical phone book? Just call the phone company and ask them. (411 is still a thing, but I cannot remember anyone using it this century.)
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: Week 3 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
em-dash LinkMy project for Tildes Make The Prerequisites For Making Something Month (TiMaThPrFoMaSoMo) continues. I haven't heard anything from the people I accidentally mailed a bunch of carpet tiles to. The...My project for Tildes Make The Prerequisites For Making Something Month (TiMaThPrFoMaSoMo) continues.
I haven't heard anything from the people I accidentally mailed a bunch of carpet tiles to. The seller was insistent that I should just go to my old house and pick them up, apparently unaware that 2400 miles is a lot of miles. But I did get them to give me a partial refund, and ordered more (obsessively checking the shipping address this time). They arrived today and my partner and I spent the evening installing most of them.
I also caulked up the remaining seams along the bottom of the walls because spiders love it there more than I am comfortable with, bringing me to a total of twelve tubes of silicone I've put into this building. I'll finish the flooring up tomorrow after that's cured, and then this cursed phase of the project will finally be behind me.
Besides that, I built a 3D printer enclosure, and made another batch of French cleats to put on my partner's side of the workshop.
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: Week 2 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
em-dash Link ParentUpdate: they were delivered... to my old house in Ohio, 2400 miles away. If any of you happen to have bought a house in Ohio earlier this year, and come home today to an unexpected stack of boxes...carpet tiles: ordered (should be here tomorrow)
Update: they were delivered... to my old house in Ohio, 2400 miles away.
If any of you happen to have bought a house in Ohio earlier this year, and come home today to an unexpected stack of boxes dropped in the middle of your patio, please accept my apologies.
In my defense, I wasn't trying to draw phallic shapes, I was trying to see how much of the sun I could block with an implausbly shaped but stable iceberg, and giant erect ice dicks happen to be a good strategy.
my high score is more of a weird whale-adjacent creature though