@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

irenes

@irenes@mastodon.social

You are all dreams and we are happy to know you, as you are nice dreams. We are an asexual autistic trans-feminine plural system with a label collection.

We compromise with legibility only so far as to say the following: Technology Director at Internet Safety Labs; ex-Google information privacy expert. 🏳️‍⚧️🍁

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

loren , to random
@loren@flipping.rocks avatar

does anyone have a remix of the bill nye the science guy theme song but it says bees instead of bill? asking for a friend

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@loren is this a thing you know to exist, or you're just hoping it does? :)

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

A single-board command-line computer using the esp32. Look at it! It's cute. Can't buy it yet the creator is starting some kind of online commune for single-board computer freaks. I bet some of you are around here, go say hi at his forum it only has like two posts and its making me sad.

https://a.singleboard.computer/

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@futurebird oh hey wow yes that dovetails with fantasies we had as kids

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I’m very fond of stories in a universe where some advanced, but long vanished, race of enigmatic aliens has left behind strange artifacts: like puzzle boxes or dungeons for our heroes to explore and nearly get killed in. If not aliens let it be a lost human civilization.

I also like to think about those ancient people who built the ‘Temple of Doom’— for all of those traps to work so well after thousands of years they must have been very clever. What was it like to set them up?

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@futurebird right??? how many times did they have to test the big rolling ball to be sure it wouldn't get stuck on a tree root

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

So night terrors, sleep paralysis etc. seem to be a real thing. I've had "bad dreams" but never anything that sounds like these experiences. It sounds like it's scary. Scary like when you are home alone and hear a sound and don't know what it is.

I'm curious if people who can have this are can be aware that it's not real when it's happening.

When I get anxious I can also know "this is just that thing" and I'm sort of detached about it?

Can that happen with fear?

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@futurebird we haven't had this specific phenomenon, but we've had other dream stuff and ... basically, the practice we've had in understanding our fears in the waking world and letting go of them has translated into dreams and other unusual states pretty well.

ElleGray , to random
@ElleGray@mstdn.social avatar

your identity in a capitalist society

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@ElleGray ah, fans of They Might Be Giants

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Sometimes over on formiculture, the premiere ant-keeping discussion forum, parents show up and post because their kid is keeping ants and Something Has Gone Wrong. These are some of the most cryptic and unintentionally hilarious posts on the site.

Title: Random shoots from ant sandwich?
Post: "My son bought an ant farm. It contained a box a tube and a sandwich. He started with lasius Niger ants these died. We bought some fire ants. Now there are shots."

I have SO MANY questions. 1/

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@futurebird and thank you for answering the many questions we had after the first one, lol

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@futurebird it's a relief they're not actual fire ants, then

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

The way the supreme court is acting the chances of me living on the lamb in two years publishing illegal political 'zines on old ditto machines in people's basements is increasing far too quickly.

I like teaching math and having a mailing address and phone number.

:(

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@futurebird we will be reading your posts whatever happens. agreed that it's looking pretty grim, but communication is central to any form of resistance, we'll all just do what we have to do.

jencmars , to random
@jencmars@mastodon.art avatar

Caterpillar, munching on a chestnut leaf.

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@jencmars they match the leaf! how gorgeous

ElleGray , to random
@ElleGray@mstdn.social avatar

my only hope for Joker: the musical is that it is truly, truly terrible. My generation needs its own Rocky Horror Picture Show and this could be it

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@ElleGray what an excellent point

megmac , to random
@megmac@treehouse.systems avatar

https://ohai.social/@Garwboy/112248977573705152

I see a lot of people who really ought to know better repeat this nonsense idea of "people aren't really people until they're 25" and I would very much like you to all stop it, so please read this thread.

It's rooted in eugenecist crap anyways. There's no magical way to know if or when a brain is "finished" and the only reason to give a shit about this idea is to deny people autonomy and identity.

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@megmac right, like, from where we sit it's just OBVIOUSLY fascists saying what they want to be true because it carves out another group of people from whom civil rights could be stripped it if were

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@megmac but "it's obvious" isn't an actual argument, so thank you for pointing out the thread :)

irenes , to random
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

every once in a while there's some big well-known personality in tech circles who we realize is on the fediverse

and it's like, hmm, we're glad that person is on the fediverse. now what do we have to do to make sure we never have to read any of their crap.

hrefna , to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

If your solution to a problem is "everyone works for free until we obtain the glorious utopian vision" then you don't have a solution, you have a second problem.

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@hrefna no, yeah, understood.

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I just read a review of a children's book written in 1911 (the review is from 1913) and the person reviewing the book totally missed the point of the story. The whole thing went right over the reviewer's head.

Tempted to write the latest, least expected bad book review clap-back in the history of humankind.

1/

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@futurebird oh, fascinating

vampiress , to random
@vampiress@eigenmagic.net avatar

I want a custom mechanical keyboard for a modern USB-C/bluetooth system that's designed like this. Complete with the dials and gauges up top, that have to actually work.
https://mastodon.social/@keyboards/112234070586039169

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@vampiress it does seem cool

hrefna , to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

This is a good way to communicate it.
https://social.coop/@jsit/112207392247621081

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@hrefna agreed

irenes , to random
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

you know, it occurs to us also that the social dynamic where somebody with abusive intent shows up and suddenly starts acting like a project owner's new best friend, is in no way unique to software

we doubt we could find it again, but we once read about a confidence scam perpetrated on a restaurant owner which worked the same way

irenes OP ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@Tim_Eagon our sympathies.

hrefna , to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

The things I don't like about the discussion on whether this is a state actor behind the backdoor are:

  • It doesn't change the response for pretty much anyone except a narrow group of professionals. Ultimately I don't know that it matters for most of us if this was a state attacker or some kid who wants a way to get op privileges.

  • It distracts from next steps.

  • Would they think that if the actor were named John? Will this increase suspicion of anyone with a "foreign" sounding name?

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@hrefna damn right. the interesting questions are all in the form, what do we DO about it

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@whereisthespai @hrefna we saw that taxonomy of national interests vs. money as, allegedly, the two possible motivators on Friday... we also do think that it's a mistake to exclude ideology as a motivator for individuals. if somebody really believes that the proper shape of the world is some specific thing, yeah, they will absolutely spend years trying to bring it about. there are in fact people who believe in things, even today.

mcc , to random
@mcc@mastodon.social avatar

Anyway the takeaway you should have from the xz debacle is that none of these problems would have happened if everyone had simply listened to my proposal to rewrite all existing software in Lazy K ( https://tromp.github.io/cl/lazy-k.html ). This is because if we were writing our software in Lazy K, we would be so busy trying to figure out how to get Lazy K to work we would not have any time to write backdoors.

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@mcc no, no, it's the most effective proposal we've heard so far

hrefna , to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

I hate when someone posts "evidence" of something and it is like… the most milquetoast, you-have-to-squint-to-see-it, ship-of-theseus evidence. Then they are shouting "SEE HOW BAD THIS IS?"

No? I don't?

I often see it used as a tactic against transfemmes, though I've seen it used against a variety of other marginalized groups as well.

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@hrefna honestly we make it a point to push back any time we see absolutist rhetoric that isn't warranted by some truly extreme circumstance

because we really do see people going around saying "ALL instances of X are ALWAYS indefensible, no matter what!" in just kind of a generalized way, without any specific issue at hand

and, intentionally or not, that shit paves the way for these pile-ons and exaggerated accusations

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I can see some advantages to knowing if someone has autism if they are in school. But, I don't see the benefit for adults. Provided they are generally happy and coping with life OK.

It does seem to be something that people find valuable and helpful, so I'm missing something I think.

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@futurebird well, advertising that we're autistic helps us find community because it draws other autistic people to us, faster than would happen naturally

it does happen even when nobody knows the label, we flock to each other, but the label speeds it up by acting as a beacon

(by the way, the majority of autistic people consistently prefer identity-first language such as "are autistic" when surveyed, rather than the person-first "with autism" language that neurotypicals keep pushing...)

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Why is anti-vax content so popular. Looking at places like Fox news, Rogan, others who fed into that content (and made it more legitimate seeming to many people) the only reason I can detect to make such content is that it's popular with a segment of the population.

So, that explains why people make it. To make money.

But why is it "popular" ?

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@futurebird it's exploitative. people are, for various reasons, eager to believe things along those lines, or unable to tell the difference between science and nonsense. when we look at the rhetoric for it, yes, there's a lot of promotion of bigotry but there's also a lot of stuff that promises instant emotional gratification, or promotes fear, or otherwise takes advantage of people's weaknesses.

we have a white-hot fury reserved for the people who know what they're doing and promote this crap.

hrefna , to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

Really at some point I should just start selling my services to LARPs for data collection and analysis of post-event surveys.

So many LARPs do this so badly and it is something where a specialist could handle it very effectively.

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@hrefna ooo

hrefna , to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

Really what I want in development is more decoupling.

Separate the web interface from the backend.

Separate the API from the processor.

Separate the queue from the cache.

Doing this properly is damned difficult but it is so so much better than what we mostly have today.

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@hrefna yes please

irenes , to random
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

we think we just put our finger on something we've been struggling for a while to find words for

explaining complex ideas in the form of a video makes them highly accessible to audiences who are already motivated to engage with these ideas. that's great!

it also makes them extremely difficult to critically engage with, compared to most written media.

irenes , to random
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

git request-pull

this feels like it should be more than it is

what it is right now is a thing that prints, essentially, something you can paste into an email that is vaguely machine-readable-maybe though not by any tooling git itself provides

saying, essentially "please pull my thing"

(the generated wording doesn't actually say "please")

irenes OP ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

instead of designing web-based protocols for federated code forges

doesn't it seem like pull requests should be part of the git data model maybe?

hrefna , to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

In honor of people using generative AI to grade papers and out of morbid curiosity, I've run some poems through a generative AI and asked it to analyze them and the results are all sorts of terrible. Like just. Remarkably bad.

It often thinks the poetry is good (which is what I would expect, the poetry is in fact very good), but its analysis of how and why is just out in left field.

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@hrefna oh fascinating

ashedryden , to random
@ashedryden@scholar.social avatar

I was talking to a new programmer the other day and she asked me how long I have been programming. I told her since 15, about 23 years ago. Then I realized she was probably 23 years old 😅

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@hrefna @ashedryden we had it the first year Java was an option, heh. so probably two or three years after you.

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

A rich weirdo wants you to do some difficult but rewarding task. You’ll get paid more than you would demand, enough to sweep all other engagements aside. But it’s all a little crazy and unnerving. Exactly what you always really wanted to do yet that is exactly the problem— the horror of it. Of course you can’t say no.

For you what is this task?
(I’ve observed this is generally a great inciting incident for a story— this is shameless mining!)

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@futurebird yeah we got offered this once, we said no to it

(we will not elaborate)

parismarx , to random
@parismarx@mastodon.online avatar

picked up a couple new books that sounded like they had something interesting to say

irenes ,
@irenes@mastodon.social avatar

@parismarx oh, hey. we'll be very interested to hear more about these.

alice , to random
@alice@lgbtqia.space avatar

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    irenes ,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @alice it feels like "what kind of colorblindness" should have been the next question....

    irenes ,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @alice yeah. you led it to give a very specific sort of answer, and it did that.

    irenes ,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @alice ha! that's fun. yeah it's... it's really pretty interesting to compare the things it can do to what humans can do, it feels like there are lessons about ourselves to be learned from this

    irenes ,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @alice if you'd asked us at any point prior to a couple years ago, we'd have been all yeah that's what the Turing test is for, if we can't tell it doesn't matter

    we'd have said that despite having heard an example way back in the 90s where somebody's IRC bot with a bunch of canned phrases "passed" a turing test because it had a feminine name and somebody decided they were attracted to it

    irenes ,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @alice today it's...

    so, like, we do believe that humans are not NEARLY as complex or ineffable as we often tell ourselves. we know for certain that a ton of what we personally do is essentially content-aware fill.

    at the same time, we think that understanding the internals of the system has to be part of how we assess its capabilities.

    irenes ,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @alice we personally have no doubt that SOMEDAY there will be algorithms that talk to us truly as equals. this just isn't that day.

    irenes ,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @alice ah! right! yeah the one we're talking about was an accident, "in the wild", not even part of Lenat's contest

    irenes ,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @alice @AeonCypher (in all seriousness we don't think there's any "real" disagreement here)

    hrefna , to random
    @hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

    If your focus with gender affirming care is on those who regret it and you use that as a justification to deny it or gatekeep it then I need you to take a step back and examine literally any other medical procedure.

    Any.

    It's not that there aren't those who regret it, it's not that there isn't an error rate, it isn't that those who regret it don't deserve compassion and aid.

    But if you look at that and go "therefore we should downplay the benefits" then go look at any other procedure first

    irenes ,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @hrefna said very eloquently. thank you. we tend not to talk about this nearly as much as we should... we have so many trans followers that we figure it's stuff everybody already knows

    but in times like these, well, if we help even a couple people make sense of the hatred and misdirection aimed at our community, it's worth talking about

    hrefna , to random
    @hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

    Psssst, saying that memory safety "fixes up to 70% of bugs" is almost certainly wrong.

    Or, more precisely, contextual

    When those same developers who wrote that same code start writing under the same conditions in a memory safe language, do you think that number—which is already highly contextualized—will hold?

    Will the culture of correctness follow into the system?

    Will people lean on the memory safety and treat it as protecting them in areas it won't?

    Now. Moving is a Good Thing™ AND ALSO

    irenes ,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @hrefna no, yeah, this is all true. good points. thank you.

    irenes ,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @hrefna @datarama somebody pointed out to us yesterday that the nix configuration language, despite having immutable data and referential transparency, has a lot of action-at-a-distance in the way the nixos module system is designed. it's just that it takes place at a higher level of abstraction.

    so that was upsetting :D

    irenes ,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @hrefna @datarama anyway, languages can't solve people's problems for them, but they can offer tools and create affordances to make it easier to write safe code

    irenes ,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @hrefna @datarama the government is extremely late to the party here, in endorsing memory safety, a technology which has existed for something like fifty years and been available in numerous widely-used languages for thirty years. the thing to keep in mind is that, like... the previous messaging from on high has been that everything is fine, nobody needs to invest in security except maybe to give more money to companies that sell surveillance software to cops

    irenes ,
    @irenes@mastodon.social avatar

    @hrefna @datarama good line.

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