Michæl La💤

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Last Notes

2026-06-04 04:11:19 UTC

Open Source software: “How can I adapt this software to my needs?”
Proprietary software: “How must I adapt my needs to this software?”
(A thought that hit me an a seminar, that I wanted to make a note of in case I need it later to neg my workplace's over-reliance on MS Office.)
#foss #fosstodon

2025-08-28 23:15:51 UTC

Things we learned about Bob Katter yesterday.
- He has Lebanese heritage.
- He doesn't like to be reminded of that because it makes it harder for him to be racist towards brown people from overseas.
- He thinks that old white male anger engenders deference rather than ridicule.

2025-06-02 06:24:15 UTC

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One wonders if a measure of concentration similar to either the Gini Coefficient or Shannon Entropy (using p=market share) could be used to flag markets with overly dominant participants? That way any regulation effort could potentially be better targeted.
eg If the "Market Entropy" score is greater than X bits then the market segment is deemed to be "competitive" and subject to lighter regulation, but if the "Market Entropy" is less than X bits, the market segment is "potentially monopolistic" and flagged for anti-trust investigation.

2025-05-26 01:58:25 UTC

Cautionary tale from the Metaverse:
My wife's Meta accounts have been deleted for reasons that are not particularly clear.
She uploaded some (extremely uncontroversial) family holiday photos to Instagram and some AI bot has decided they "Violated community rules". She appealed and another AI bot agreed with the first one.
So her Instagram account was "permanently disabled", and that appears to have taken down her Facebook and Messenger access too. Because apparently that's a thing that can happen to loyal users of 15 years.
Doing my best to convince her to take the hint and join the Fediverse instead, but running into the usual Mutual Action Problem.
Anyway, I was reminded of this column from Cory Doctorow, outlining how Metagoogle have done even worse to others.
https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/22/allopathic-risk/

2025-03-15 02:01:28 UTC

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Not being familiar with the dish, I thought you'd made up a new nickname for the Orange Liar.
"What did the President say today?"
"Oh, just another load of peach cobblers..."

2025-03-01 23:39:52 UTC

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If commuting was paid time, your boss wouldn't let you do it.

2025-02-08 01:05:01 UTC

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[@helvick](https://mastodon.ie/@helvick )
Bush stone-curlew
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_stone-curlew
The photo was taken in Australia by a friend of mine.
I've just learned that stone curlews are not true curlews, which may explain the confusion - probably similar to how Australian magpies are not related to European magpies.
They have the eeriest of calls, like a ghostly woman screaming in the night.
https://youtu.be/gqZsdBF-eKg

2025-02-07 07:33:21 UTC

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This curlew is not convinced either.
https://mediacdn.aus.social/media_attachments/files/113/961/436/235/242/806/original/066a0a7734f6e689.jpg

2025-02-05 21:51:21 UTC

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💐

2025-01-23 01:40:27 UTC

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A world where the productivity gains from technology have been thrown at explicitly unproductive ventures, rather than used to make the world a better place for humans (eg 4 day week)?
(And that's not to mention the sacrifice of social license for short-term personal aggrandizement*.)
[*I was going to say "enrichment", but after the first couple of million it's not about the money.]

2025-01-03 15:01:04 UTC

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I once saw a small parade of Norwegians march past my office on their National Day (17 May). My colleague also saw them and shouted "Hey, there's Norwegians marching past!" But by the time anyone else came to look, they'd disappeared from view, and I rather cheekily pretended not to know what she was talking about so "Look! Norwegians!" kinda became an office joke.

2024-12-28 15:26:07 UTC

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Oh no )-: The video code is here if you want to paste it into the correct part of the URL field:
JUz93v_s18A

2024-12-27 21:26:18 UTC

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The kangaroos may be aggressive, but at least they help control the population of Monsters.
https://youtu.be/JUz93v_s18A
(Famous clip from Aussie kids TV in 1987.)

2024-11-15 06:04:36 UTC

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Hi. Sorry, no time to read the replies and see if this has already been posted, but the scenario you outlined is definitely a thing , eg:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jul/21/we-unleashed-facebook-and-instagrams-algorithms-on-blank-accounts-they-served-up-sexism-and-misogyny
And it doesn't even appear to require prompting - it lays on the misogyny by default, according to this study using a blank account.

2024-10-21 00:53:58 UTC

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You may or may not enjoy this series of sketches from a BBC sketch comedy series made by British comedians of Indian heritage satirising their experiences.
A running joke was a pair of very aspirational couples desperate to convince each other that they were as English as roast beef, but often reminded that nobody else sees them that way.
https://youtu.be/WTnsNE0cN3g?t=1118

2024-10-17 03:41:02 UTC

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It was a good article, though the quality of the prose is unsurprising. Tim Winton is one of Australia's most artistically acclaimed living authors of fiction. Calling him the Australian Steinbeck would not be completely inaccurate.
His magnum opus is "Cloudstreet", but "Dirt Music" might also appeal if you craved more of his words.

2024-09-07 06:23:40 UTC

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I have just finished it and enjoyed it, thanks for the tip (-:
I was reminded of "Hellzapoppin" (1941) and "Alice"(1988), though only tangentially.