em-dash's recent activity
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: Week 1 Updates in ~creative.timasomo
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: Roll Call in ~creative.timasomo
em-dash LinkI will be getting my workshop into a usable state so I can do real projects again. I've been doing some basic woodworking for other house projects in the space already, so first task is to clean...I will be getting my workshop into a usable state so I can do real projects again.
I've been doing some basic woodworking for other house projects in the space already, so first task is to clean up the massive mess I've made there over the past couple of months. That (and the requisite yak shaving for it) is what I've been up to the past couple of nights. I might get to start on flooring this weekend?
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: Roll Call in ~creative.timasomo
em-dash Link ParentI love this, and as an electronics nerd I'm happy to provide whatever help I can, should you need it. The world needs more unashamedly made-for-a-specific-kind-of-person tools. (After a recent...I love this, and as an electronics nerd I'm happy to provide whatever help I can, should you need it. The world needs more unashamedly made-for-a-specific-kind-of-person tools.
(After a recent incident where I had to install four different calculator apps on my phone to find something that could calculate
atan(10°), I picked up my first Real Calculator since school this week, a used HP Prime G2. I've only ever used a TI-8x, but it's been long enough to forget how to use those too. I'm unreasonably excited about having a physical calculator again.) -
Comment on OpenAI enables shopping directly from ChatGPT in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentSo like most nice things, this is a USian complaining we can't have nice things because she doesn't realize everyone else already has the nice things. (We do have shopping.google.com, which has...I'm aware of such platforms in the Netherlands, Czechia, Poland, Germany, Belgium, and Greece, with some of them even having solid usage across multiple EU countries.
So like most nice things, this is a USian complaining we can't have nice things because she doesn't realize everyone else already has the nice things.
(We do have shopping.google.com, which has all the frustration of Google's main search engine in 2025 but with even more of a financial incentive to screw with the results)
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Comment on OpenAI enables shopping directly from ChatGPT in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentI would legitimately love to have this outside the context of AI. It would enable replacing bad retailer sites with a better frontend over them. I'm sure in practice it'll be something OpenAI gets...Looking at the documentation for the "Agentic Commerce Protocol", the seller provides a product feed describing the product catalog, prices, and availability.
I would legitimately love to have this outside the context of AI. It would enable replacing bad retailer sites with a better frontend over them.
I'm sure in practice it'll be something OpenAI gets access to and the public doesn't.
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Comment on Announcing the seventh annual Tildes' Make Something Month (Timasomo)! in ~tildes
em-dash Link ParentI have decided to categorize my workshop as clandestine for no particular reason.I have decided to categorize my workshop as clandestine for no particular reason.
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Comment on Announcing the seventh annual Tildes' Make Something Month (Timasomo)! in ~tildes
em-dash LinkI will once again say I'm going to participate and then maybe actually post an update or two. I've moved across the country and now I have a workshop, but it needs some work before I can actually...I will once again say I'm going to participate and then maybe actually post an update or two.
I've moved across the country and now I have a workshop, but it needs some work before I can actually do normal workshop things in it. My goal this time is to finish doing workshop setup so I can make things again without extensive "do I have the space/have I unpacked the tools I need for this yet" pre-pondering: flooring, storage, organization, replacements for a few tools I sold before moving, that sort of thing.
Flooring is probably the biggest priority right now. We have plans for a bunch of rolling tables, modular-workbench style, but the floor as it currently exists isn't a uniform height, so I've been researching self-leveling concrete.
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Comment on Subvert - The collectively owned music marketplace in ~music
em-dash LinkI would like to read more about this, but all the concrete information is locked away in a zine, for which you have to sign up for a mailing list. (I was curious enough to try; it doesn't...I would like to read more about this, but all the concrete information is locked away in a zine, for which you have to sign up for a mailing list. (I was curious enough to try; it doesn't immediately send you anything, which is why I'm complaining about it on the internet right now instead of reading.)
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Comment on What is a business/org that is great and ethical in so many aspects that everyone should consider using? in ~life
em-dash Link ParentThat's more sensical than my version, but... ugh, I hate it, in a way I don't hate "we don't take credit cards at all". It feels some sort of anticompetitive-adjacent.It's all just bargaining for a better rate via exclusivity.
That's more sensical than my version, but... ugh, I hate it, in a way I don't hate "we don't take credit cards at all". It feels some sort of anticompetitive-adjacent.
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Comment on What is a business/org that is great and ethical in so many aspects that everyone should consider using? in ~life
em-dash Link ParentCostco seems alright as big businesses go, but I cannot shop there because they have inexplicably decided to only take Visa cards and I don't have any of those. (Yes, I could go to an ATM first...Costco seems alright as big businesses go, but I cannot shop there because they have inexplicably decided to only take Visa cards and I don't have any of those. (Yes, I could go to an ATM first and pay in cash, but that is too much friction for my taste.)
I assume there are entirely sensical reasons for this, but I choose to believe the MasterCard and Costco CEOs are lifelong archrivals.
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Comment on Why do you like your job? in ~life
em-dash LinkI get paid entirely too much. Silicon Valley company salaries are wild. But also, the company I work at is fully remote and heavily asynchronous, which means I can do things like sleeping until...I get paid entirely too much. Silicon Valley company salaries are wild.
But also, the company I work at is fully remote and heavily asynchronous, which means I can do things like sleeping until after noon, or wandering off to appointments without having to schedule them around meetings, or if I get frustrated with work I can just go do something else for a while instead.
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Comment on Wikipedia is resilient because it’s boring in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentFWIW they're not really as short on cash as they claim to be. We editors have had to tell them several times to stop running fundraising banners implying they're going to run out of funds. One...FWIW they're not really as short on cash as they claim to be. We editors have had to tell them several times to stop running fundraising banners implying they're going to run out of funds.
One could argue that the other causes they spend the excess on are worthy thereof, but ugh, I wish they'd be more transparent about it.
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Comment on Should C be mandatory learning for career developers? in ~comp
em-dash LinkI do agree that people should conceptually understand memory allocation and references vs values before calling themselves skilled developers, but why C specifically? Is it the best avenue toward...I do agree that people should conceptually understand memory allocation and references vs values before calling themselves skilled developers, but why C specifically? Is it the best avenue toward that understanding, or is it just the one you're familiar with? C is an abstraction over 1970s-era computers, and has held back progress in some significant ways by remaining the standard low-level language for so long. (It's why so many things are single-threaded even in these days when we regularly have tens of cores in a machine, for instance. Multithreading is just that unnatural in C and languages with similar execution models, which is most of them.)
Separately, how many layers do you need to go down before you consider yourself to have understood a system? Does it make sense to teach C without assembly, or assembly without raw machine code? Does this keep recursing down to individual logic gates and beyond?
(I hope not too far beyond; transistors are the level where my understanding becomes "idk, cursed dark magicks probably, just trust that they behave as advertised".)
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Comment on MIT report: 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentOne of the hardest things for me to internalize in the world of business has been that businesses actually care much more about being able to blame failures on someone else than about not having...One of the hardest things for me to internalize in the world of business has been that businesses actually care much more about being able to blame failures on someone else than about not having failures. It's an alien mindset to me, but realizing that it's a mindset businesses have explains so many weird decisions.
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Comment on Question - how would you best explain how an LLM functions to someone who has never taken a statistics class? in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentBecause it's read a lot of text written by super smart and caring people, and it's imitating the way those people talk. The companies making these LLMs also want them to seem smarter and nicer, so...Can you explain why it feels like a super smart and caring person sometimes?
Because it's read a lot of text written by super smart and caring people, and it's imitating the way those people talk. The companies making these LLMs also want them to seem smarter and nicer, so they tweak the numbers a bit to make it more likely to pick words that smart and nice people use.
And why is it bad at some things and just makes stuff up?
You know how smart people who know a lot of things tend to sound really confident while explaining them, and seem to have an answer for every question you could ask? That tone is what they're picking up on and imitating. But talking like a smart person doesn't mean you actually are a smart person. If it's talking about something that it hasn't read much about, it'll still try really hard to sound confident and knowledgeable, but everything it's saying will be a complete guess.
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Comment on I am very privacy-oriented, but my recent Pixel phone somehow obtained all my pictures from my Linux computer in ~comp
em-dash LinkI don't know what's going on with the rest, but since I happen to know about this: NuGet is a package manager used for downloading libraries while building .net (C# and the other programming...I don't know what's going on with the rest, but since I happen to know about this:
And I just was looking around my ~/ directory, and I saw a directory titled .nuget... I checked pacman (I'm on Arch, so that's my package manager), and it's not installed, but I deleted it because it had a lot of sketch files that ... okay, so I deleted the directory and honestly I don't have it anymore to state what exactly was in it.
NuGet is a package manager used for downloading libraries while building .net (C# and the other programming languages in that family) applications. ~/.nuget would've been a cache of packages downloaded while you (or something running as your user, possibly
makepkg) were compiling something. It's both harmless and safe to delete, since if you do need any of it in the future to build something else it'll just get re-downloaded. -
Comment on Victories and challenges: An A[u]DHD community and support fortnightly thread #5 in ~health.mental
em-dash Link ParentAs someone who has a lot of that symptom and refers to it as "no object permanence", I don't really see the problem with it. It's figurative language. I don't literally believe I lack object...As someone who has a lot of that symptom and refers to it as "no object permanence", I don't really see the problem with it. It's figurative language. I don't literally believe I lack object permanence. I'm happy to avoid using it for other people who find it bothersome, though.
But I also seem to be somewhat less far up the language pedantry axis than most autistic people are. As another example, I consider "I am autistic" and "I have autism" to both be valid and equivalent ways to refer to myself, and don't understand the strong preferences others have between the two.
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Comment on What useful licenses or certifications are surprisingly cheap and easy to get? in ~talk
em-dash Link ParentBoth of those things can be true! Very few things are 100% good or 100% bad. I certainly don't think the solution is to abolish ham radio in any capacity. But the vibes remain, and they're far...OTOH, the old hats have, time and time again, proven immensely helpful for emergency comms.
Both of those things can be true! Very few things are 100% good or 100% bad. I certainly don't think the solution is to abolish ham radio in any capacity.
But the vibes remain, and they're far enough from my and @pallas's values to discourage us from participating. “Yeah, but it could be better" is not a particularly compelling response to that.
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Comment on What useful licenses or certifications are surprisingly cheap and easy to get? in ~talk
em-dash Link ParentI don't have much of one, but: mostly I did manual pseudo-spaced-repetition on the skillcat practice tests (they also have videos, which I did not watch because I know I would not retain much...I don't have much of one, but:
- mostly I did manual pseudo-spaced-repetition on the skillcat practice tests (they also have videos, which I did not watch because I know I would not retain much information that way, so idk if they're good)
- literally the wikipedia article on section 608
- this doc, on how refrigerant numbering actually works, and this doc, on quickly faking refrigerant memorization just well enough to get through the exam's weird focus on refrigerant memorization
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Comment on What useful licenses or certifications are surprisingly cheap and easy to get? in ~talk
em-dash Link ParentThe other things you said too, but this is most of it for me. I grew up on the internet, where pseudonyms and anonymity were the norm (and still are the norm, in the spaces I care to hang out in)....refusal of the community to accept that standards of privacy and safety have changed in the modern world make the hobby unsettling at best and dangerous at worst.
The other things you said too, but this is most of it for me. I grew up on the internet, where pseudonyms and anonymity were the norm (and still are the norm, in the spaces I care to hang out in). I don't usually use that option to its full extent (it's not hard to find my full name from what I've posted here) but it's comforting and normal to have the ability to choose how much I share.
And then I wander into this weird alternate universe, where there's a law saying that when in a chat room I must periodically post my full legal name and home address. On the internet, that would be a level of absurdity that even the most ridiculous of governments would not attempt, but... that's exactly the effect of having it all easily searchable by callsign in a public database and requiring people to explicitly identify with that callsign. Somehow, as far as I can tell, this isn't controversial.
I've made less progress on my workshop than I hoped because last weekend was hijacked by Surprise Other Project, but progress is happening!
I bought a single bag of concrete to practice with, and validate that it would work fcr what I'm doing. Then I mixed half of it, and proceeded to make an ugly mess. I expected that, though, which is why I didn't pour to full depth on my first try, so I could cover up my mistakes. Assuming this remains reasonably flat tomorrow after it finishes curing, I feel good enough about this now to go buy the other eleven bags I need.
I also installed the remaining lights on the ceiling, getting entirely too far into it before realizing I was out of conduit corner pieces, which is why I have bare wires stapled to the ceiling for now. I'll pick up what I need to fix this when I go to get the rest of the concrete, but at least I have full lighting now.