how much does something being "i have to X" instead of "i can choose to X" change your mental overhead with that task, obligation, or even regularly scheduled hobby activity?

because for me it's "enormously." as a kid i was like "wait so if i sign up for this sport i have to do it twice a week at these days and times every week?" and then i'd, yanno, quit. because that was too awful for me

now that i'm an adult deadlines are murder on my productivity

#notesArt #mastoArt #art #illustration #fediArt

Alt...

A dark mountain under a dark, starless sky. On the left side of the mountain is an orange moon, casting a silvery glow on the side of the mountain. On the right side, as though hiding from the moon, a person is sitting. There's a light fog around the base of the mountain. The painting is signed "Chris Silverman".

Which retro hardware curse have you suffered most?

#RetroComputing #VintageComputing #RetroTech #RetroComputers #ClassicComputing #OldComputers

What a guy

Alt...

4 panel comic Panel 1: a wizard in blue robe and white beard sitting with small forg at a desk behind the computer. “Click, click” is the sound of the mouse to be heard Panel 2: close up on the computer screen. There’s a green check mark and a full loading bar on it. From off screen someone, probably the wizard, says “boom, there it is”. Panel 3: forg is left behind alone at his desk. There’s an open door in the background. Forg says “thanks installation wizard” and a little pink heart appears, showing his affection. Panel 4: we see now that the wizard has already left the house after a job well done. He replies to forg watching him go from his window: “it’s what I do”

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@catsalad/116716337676744802

as a single user instance, i can confirm.

Time well spent. #grickledoodle #cat #walkman #music #cartoon #art #drawing #funny #humor

Alt...

A cartoon illustration of a cat laying on a carpet on the floor of a living room listening to a walkman as they stare at the ceiling. Caption reads "He would spend entire afternoons going from side A to side B, and then just starting all over again with side A."

I hope this email finds you in good spirits and health.

@spacehobo That is clearly just a modular synth studio, why do you hate minimal techno?

it lacks "disable retwoot from this person" features

@foone A tech analyst of my acquaintance who knew Steve Balmer and Steve Jobs once told me:

Microsoft and Apple each have one target customer.

MSFT's customer is a multinational software company with 87,000 employees. If that corp needs something, MSFT will work out how to make it for them. (The corp in question is MSFT.)

Apple … Apple has one customer, an irascible guy in a black turtleneck called Steve. If Steve likes it, Apple will make it. If not, not.

(Apple today runs Emulation Steve.)

When the interviewer says "Where do you see yourself in five years?" It turns out you're not supposed to say "Living in a bog, handing out quests."

It occurs to me that Muppets are the anti-AI.

AI personas look real, but have no soul. And, despite being made of complex technology, they generate uncanny valley reactions, when they’re visual and not just chatbots.

Whereas Muppets look fake, but they have all the soul. They’re made of simple materials, animated just by human hands, and are immediately attractive. They’re people you want to know, despite never forgetting they’re artifice.

Henson & Co ftw. ❤️

Like this is a luminary in the field, mocking his critics for making a prediction he finds risible when that prediction HAS ALREADY COME TRUE. He did the thing, and it went badly, in the way that everyone who is mad at him was saying all along that it would go badly. But he still thinks that he's right! This is not an unrepentant dumb guy being dumb, this is one of the smartest engineers in the field BECOMING dumb right before our eyes. That ought to scare you!

what is keygen music if not the software pirate's sea shanty

#notesArt #mastoArt #art #illustration #fediArt

Alt...

A tenement building against a bright blue night. A white crescent moon sits in the top right of the sky. On closer inspection, the tenement is actually a book, with two greenish bars on the spine. There are multiple windows on the cover of the book, with different colored light. Some of the windows are dark or have curtains or blinds drawn. In the windows are various entities: a person, a cat, a monster, a teacup. The painting is signed "Chris Silverman".

I wrote this yesterday in email to a student I've been tutoring:

If you can turn your geometry problem into an algebra problem, that's a step in the right direction. To solve geometry problems you have to know something about geometry, but to solve algebra problems you don't have to know anything, you just have to push around the symbols.

That's why algebra is one of the greatest achievements of human science, because it lets you discover all kinds of surprising relations just by moving letters and numbers around according to some rules.

i want smaller applications with fewer updates made by people who are paid more to produce less code and i'm not kidding

Tonight a friend tried to talk to me about "AI" and I became the physical, loud manifestation of the Bugs Bunny "NOOOOOOOOO" meme and walked away mid sentence. They were offended; I was practicing self care.

@landelare friction, friction, friction works. maybe not right away, maybe not every time, but friction wears down the will and bad actors exploit that all the time; so can we

I've been microdosing "thinking" lately. Every hour for one minute I "use my brain to think about stuff.".

I believe this will put me at a competitive edge over 99.6% of the human population, if my calculations are correct.

it's especially funny seeing the "aren't you worried about getting left behind?" argument about AI, speaking as a retrotech person.

Like, come on. I'm still writing software for DOS and Windows 95. What even is "behind" at this point?