An attempt to disconnect a gas connection earlier today, seen on BSky

"SSE Airtricity’s AI chatbot is going a little out of scope 😬"

Recommend to get yourself a hobby that uses a 20-year old phpBB installation as the main online place for meeting other people and learning

@mhoye @jimfl Just a guess - at some point you worked in a commercial kitchen or lived with someone who did. For me, it was my brother the chef. It's ine of those ideas that seems simple and brilliant but it's also absolutely necessary for food safety in a commercial setting. "What is this?/how old is this?" are questions that need to be answered in a split-second. Tape and a Sharpie make it easy and training & habit do the rest.

I threw this up on Metafilter too, but why not here? Lazyweb, a question:

On a whim, I've added zipper pulls to a bunch of my clothes and coats. It's such a small, inexpensive thing but it's an improvement I notice dozens of times a day, especially wearing winter gloves.

So I'm thinking about aggregating marginal gains now, and wondering what other options like this I have. What is the _smallest_ thing - in terms of size, cost, effort, whatever - that has made your life better in some way?

Happy #BlackHistoryMonth !

Not ready to talk about Black History. Still talking about white US history.

Q: Why are Black neighborhoods so often high crime neighborhoods? Must be a lawless people! Violent! Thieves! Predators!

A: There is no such thing as a "high crime neighborhood." The whole concept is entirely made up based on our notion of what we consider a crime.

You may be thinking:🤔 Wait... What?! Not true! A high crime neighborhood has more drug use and sales, theft, and even murder!

1/N

@kilpatds my understanding of crime, violence, why I am mistreated by cops, and the difference between systemic and interpersonal racism changed, when I worked on a criminal justice reform project with Demma Rosa. She gave us a list of books and papers to read. She stopped SWEs from writing code until we'd all done the reading. Brilliant decision.

One of the books was this one by David Kennedy.
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/141803766

Others on her reading list:
Sam Sinyangwe
Phil Goff
Mariam Kaba
Tracy Meares

@scanlime in a dark alley?...

When I saw the other journalists that were nominated, I didn't think there was a chance (e.g. ProPublica was nominated for their excellent investigative reporting uncovering the Pentagon's reliance on Chinese contractors for cloud work). I'm very flattered to be in such great company. Thank you to the Institute for Security and Technology (IST) for this award.

Last night's IST gala at the National Press Club was a stroll down memory lane in many ways. Ran into people I haven't seen in person for ages, and most of them have been involved in shaping cybersecurity policy for 25+ years.

It was also bittersweet because I spent a lot of time at the Press Club as a reporter at The Washington Post, and I'm still livid about the insanity of the 300 or so WaPo journalists who lost their jobs this week.

I'm particularly mystified by the decimation of the Post's Metro staff; despite its stature as a top source of national and international news, The Washington Post has always maintained a strong focus on what's going on in the DC area. When they merged washingtonpost.com with the dead tree edition in 2009 and eliminated my job, the mantra of the company was they wanted to be THE source of news about what's happening in the Nation's Capital, and how policy being made in DC affects the rest of the world. Here's part of what I told the audience last night:

"I was horrified this week to see The Washington Post lay off 300 of its 800 remaining journalists -- the third major staff reduction in as many years. A lot of the cuts are deeply affecting the foreign and local metro staff; it's easy to forget the Watergate scandal started as a metro story. Probably we need several hundred more reporters digging into what this administration is doing, because Watergate frankly can't hold a candle to it all."

"I'm hoping all of the post-Posties will land in a better place soon, but I also hope they can keep doing their important work regardless of where it comes from. And I will continue to advocate for, support and encourage anyone who wants to go the independent route. I think journalism is going to be just fine for now, but I'm not sure I share the same view about many traditional news organizations. I hear from a lot of reporters considering the going out on their own worry about not having a big publication name to automatically open doors for them, or watch their backs legally, and those are certainly big adjustments of going solo. But you know what makes all that worth it? When you're breaking news that forces important people to answer hard questions, and the gatekeepers go, wait, who are you with again?"

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7425373027145752577/?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A(activity%3A7425373027145752577%2C7425575747831947264)&dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_comment%3A(7425575747831947264%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7425373027145752577)

@vkc @veronica /me waves

@linuxiac @amoroso It sidestep the fact that many or most of the GNU tools that make Linux a full operating system are derivatives or reimplememtarions of older AT&T and Berkeley tools, many formalized under POSIX. GNU was writing their own kernel (Hurd) but did not succeed nearly as thoroughly or quickly as Torvalds did. Credit is due for the work they did building a toolset but given the whole history and context it really seems like coattail riding.

It doesnt help that the zealots are irritating AF, Stallman is an unrecoverable documented creep, and the FSF has spent decades enabling and covering for him. Ad hominem maybe but it shouldn't be ignored; maybe this whole naming issue is just a distraction from decades of awfulness by the FSF.

@axbom @Intaglio_Dragon I don't do mechanical design but I work in safety analysis; I'm more familiar with how & why the B&PV Code came about than actually using it. It's a bit pricy but ASME's history of the Code is pretty interesting and detailed - it's a good read for understanding how engineering got better at understanding and managing risk and not killing people https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ebooks/book/246/The-Code-An-Authorized-History-of-the-ASME-Boiler

@ariadne @dalias That has not been my experience but I haven't run my own mail in a decade. I found graylisting to be slightly more effective but that's really only applicable to mail.

@aphyr @wohali Or they can't afford to lose their health insurance and will do whatever it takes to keep it.

@whitequark @nanographs Combustible dust is a serious hazard - see also CSB's video on tge explosion at West Pharmaceuticals. Dust explosions often follow that two-stage pattern: a small initial explosion knocks accumulated dust off overhead structures leading to a big addition of aerosolized fuel and a devastating blast. The blast in the most recent video is similar to what happened at Fukushima - fire passed through the common piping to the air cleaning system which put fuel and fire in areas that were not originally on fire (hydrogen migrated among multiple Fukushima reactor buildings via the common Standby Gas Treatment System - SGTS - which would normally suck gas from all the buildings for cleaning and holdup.)

what a fucking shitshow.

@peter While I stay away from OpenClaw (aka AutoGPT) or any such invasive tools, I can't help but shake my head at some of the comments in the screenshot.

"I made a knife. It cuts things."
"OMFG I just cut off my own pinky finger with your invention!!!11elf!1!!!1 Make it safe!"

Sorry, but have some of these people been potty-trained yet?!