Canageek

Canadian Geek. Ph.D. in Chemistry. Plays tabletop RPGs, video games and board games. Aspie & ADHD.

Not a geek in a can.

Public Key

npub14w0zuwjtn2qq0v96dmfmgscmtyy253mhlzrk30amkp3sp94awxdqxm5ym9

NIP-05 Address

Canageek@wandering-shop.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs2h83w8f9e4qq8kzaxa5a5gvd4jz92gaml3pmgh7amqccqj67hrxspz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43q76qq99

Publishing to

relay.ditto.pub

Author Public Key

npub14w0zuwjtn2qq0v96dmfmgscmtyy253mhlzrk30amkp3sp94awxdqxm5ym9

Show more details

Last Notes

2026-10-23 16:20:43 UTC

Question I might have asked before: Why is NetBSD the one everyone is moving to? Did the other BSD go slop? Are they just not as good? What happened to FreeBSD, OpenDSB, DragonflyBSD?
#BSD

2026-10-21 23:10:36 UTC

@nprofile…pfuj By the way, you're the a person who keeps posting the really cool ant stuff, correct?
Did you hear about that new spider that only eats one type of ant?

2026-10-21 16:56:56 UTC

Make me dictator and I *promise* to get autistic with it
No more base 60/60/12/24 time. It's getting decimalized. Or possibly base 8 or 16? I'll set up a bunch of mathematicians and psychologists to work on it. BUT NO ASTRONOMERS. I've SEEN what they think reasonably units to use are.

2026-10-16 17:55:38 UTC

Got a G502 but *cannot* remap the buttons on Linux. I've got libratbagd and Piper setup, but they just STOP WORKING if I remap them.
#Linux Help wanted, boosts OK

2026-10-11 00:56:02 UTC

Just saw a sports car going BACKWARDS down the highway‽ Looks like they missed their turn and are doing something stupid.

2026-09-25 15:29:20 UTC

Question: Is it possible to game on NetBSD or is it server and programmer only? Can you run steam on it? Is there Wine and Proton? Will modern AMD graphics cards work?
#NetBSD

2026-08-18 18:39:44 UTC

Missing the last day of #IUCr2026 due to an asthma attack :(

2026-08-12 23:47:04 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj There is a beekeeper I follow who gives updates on how good hives are doing and when he convinces a wild swarm that one of his hives is a good place to live, is that the sort of thing you mean?

2026-08-12 01:02:05 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj Ah, I see the difference

2026-08-11 23:40:10 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj Apperently they did the same thing with Clinton once, so it doesn't seem surprising?
Back in the 60s in Canada they'd line up a bunch of cars door to door and Trudeau Sr would sneak through several of them. That was to deal with his fangirls though (it was a weird time in Canada)

2026-08-11 22:09:29 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…gfkp Also be VERY VERY careful with your eclipse glasses. Check them before every single time you use them, even if it's only been a couple of minutes. They scratch VERY VERY easily.
My Dad and I took FOUR PAIRS from a good brand to the last eclipse we went to. They were all fine when we arrived, I scratched THREE PAIRS while waiting for totality. Brushing them against a shirt button or zipper is enough.

2026-06-30 18:05:08 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yzy8 I have never understood your obsession with that operating system, I never had a pleasant experience with it.
Windows 3.1? Yes. 98SE? Hell yes. NT4? Oddly yes.
But then again, my the most Windows knife I've experience I had was with a badly damaged and set up secondhand computer. my parents got for my brother that I helped him keep running...

2026-06-30 18:01:27 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yzy8 Would you wind up using a desktop environment that lets you use a Windows 95 skin? or would that be too distracting when you're trying to get work done?

2026-06-29 23:03:01 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj @nprofile…r6z7 I'm guessing the Liberty has wings for the same reason that they're writing one nation under god on it, to make it more christian

2026-06-19 23:15:44 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yzy8 The big question: Do you zero-index your eras? Are we in year zero or year one of The Alice Era?

2026-06-18 19:45:46 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj I wonder why she runs all the way over there to pick up the sand? looks like there's a fair bit that's closer

2026-06-18 15:39:54 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj I work with a research group that is almost entirely from Iran, and you can tell things are really bad over there when they stop coming in to work.
I've not seen most of them in weeks now, so I'm really worried about how bad things have gotten

2026-06-17 18:10:15 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…p25k Yes? That is what I was saying? I hope you find an instance that is a good fit for you

2026-06-17 18:07:46 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…p25k very understandable, I hope you find somewhere that works for you

2026-06-17 18:05:56 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…p25k I think wandering.shop has quite a few writers on it? It originally started as being more writer focused before becoming more general, and I can give you an invite anytime you need

2026-06-16 23:44:04 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…d4c6 @nprofile…pfuj Wait what happened to mall water? (I haven't been in a mall with an indoor water feature since... um.... I think I was six?)

2026-06-12 17:32:29 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yzy8 It baffles me how many systems break if you change your last name, considering a very large percentage of the population will change their last name when they get married.
Single men should not be allowed to design software anymore...

2026-06-08 04:16:21 UTC

When "This podcast player hasn't been updated in five years" becomes a selling point as there will be no AI in it
(This is a post about finding an AntennaPod alternative)
Edit: @nprofile…tkfv is claiming they don't use AI (yet), but they have this in their repo https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod/blob/develop/AGENTS.md and this policy was accepted: https://forum.antennapod.org/t/proposal-to-change-expenses-policy-ai-subscriptions/8417
So it very much appears this ByteHamster person is using AI

2026-06-07 17:01:53 UTC

I'm hearing that @nprofile…tkfv is vibecoded shit now, what else are people using these days?

2026-05-04 15:49:53 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…dumn Ah, so it's more of a collective than a formal organization?

2026-05-04 04:56:28 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…dumn That is good to hear! I thought there would be some sort of consensus process before it went out as a press release

2026-05-03 23:25:23 UTC

"- For openSUSE Linux they are looking at developing an AI-powered onboarding experience for users to deal with "new openSUSE users face a steep learning curve navigating distribution-specific tools like zypper, YaST, Btrfs/Snapper, and systemd." "
Guess it is time for me to find a new linux distro. Recommendations welcome.
#NoAI #OpenSUSE #Linux

2026-04-28 22:02:06 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj @nprofile…hd8y This might help with your ant problem, once you are feeling better

2026-04-28 21:21:55 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj How do you clear off the scent Trails? I know someone who's trying to convince a group of ants to stop coming into their apartment, but they keep following the exact same scent trails despite cleaning

2026-04-22 00:44:04 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj @nprofile…uuml You are reminding me about that old Twitter thread about the guy who bought crickets online, not realizing they would just be shipped loose in a cardboard box and then opened the box in his living room.

2026-04-21 23:10:48 UTC

"The most expensive way to punish someone is to pay them run SEM cross sections all day" - One of my co-workers
(SEM = scanning electron microscope)

2026-04-21 18:04:06 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yzy8 I was going to suggest an exorcism, because that is incredibly cursed

2026-04-17 00:10:13 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj That would also be an excellent phrase to watch for time travelers using.
Honestly, the years since 2015 have been excellent for phrases that have probably never been uttered in history before

2026-04-16 23:43:23 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj I take it ants aren't like bees, where you also need a number of attendants to start a colony? Just the queen?

2026-04-06 03:58:53 UTC

This is a really cool visualization, I had no idea the Apollo and Artemis missions had such different flight paths: https://youtu.be/PNQ7MoL7erI

2026-04-01 00:45:59 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…59q8 note for Canadians, princess auto usually has certified n95s for cheaper than anything 3M sells

2026-03-30 15:44:41 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj I remember Seth Meyers second lockdown video, where he was recording at home and doing his own makeup for the first time and he snaps at the audience a bit because after the first episode he got a lot of criticism for not being as good at doing makeup as a 14-year-old gir. His response was something along the lines of 'I know that, whose makeup tutorials do you think I'm watching? '

2026-03-08 23:35:38 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj I knew someone who had to work with the government database in Ottawa that was so badly programmed it would take over 30 seconds to load a new page of search results every time you press the next page button
They weren't allowed to delete any entries from it because they were worried that would corrupt the whole database, so they had to page past pages and pages of entries marked as no longer available making the simplest of searches take half an hour

2026-03-04 18:59:31 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…ds0l Dammit, I forgot about that. Apologies.

2026-02-23 22:04:30 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…ds0l Are you doing more animations? I really liked the old ones you did

2026-02-20 16:37:43 UTC

This is really cool, someone has set up a bunch of hidden cameras around a bunch of fox dens and is recording wild foxes and putting it on YouTube
https://youtu.be/6Cg0TdtRsD0
For example, he's found two Fox mothers sharing again, which is apparently relatively uncommon and only happens with two closely related female foxes. Also the litters have the same father, so he is working overtime feeding all of the kits

2026-02-18 01:32:03 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yzy8 Huh, I'm slightly surprised Linux doesn't support every font format ever made, I kind of thought that was the sort of thing that Linux nerds did.

2026-02-18 01:24:06 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yzy8 Very silly question, does Windows 98 not use true type fonts? or does Linux not like Windows 98's version of true type?

2026-01-24 00:11:01 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yzy8 but quantum dots are so cool, it's the only time something I learned in undergraduate made it into a consumer technology before I finished my PhD

2026-01-23 00:15:32 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…gnzg Oh man, I have still never used a phone with an interface that good, but it just wasn't reliable. Alarms wouldn't go off and such :(

2026-01-21 02:41:20 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yzy8 @nprofile…0f4l Thank you! Is the speed good then, since cable to house is pretty fast, or are there horrific drawbacks?

2026-01-21 02:24:33 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yzy8 @nprofile…0f4l Wait, isn't that how cable internet always works?

2026-01-08 19:06:47 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…ds0l That means he's full grown, correct?

2026-01-07 21:37:28 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…ds0l That makes a little more sense, but what if Logitech goes out of business and isn't renewing their certificates? Will my driver still work in 20 years?
I asked because my main keyboard is in fact 20 years old this year...

2026-01-07 21:34:24 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…ds0l I mean I just keep seeing things about mice and motherboards and my mouse or motherboard should never expire....

2026-01-07 20:56:07 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…ds0l someone once explained to me why this type of certificate even has expiration dates, and I still don't understand it.
Like is there some technical reason you can't make a certificate which doesn't expire for hardware use?

2025-12-17 18:36:07 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…48e8 @nprofile…lx0q I know a lot of blogging hate came from it's origins as personal journals, so I saw a lot of people dismiss it as people writing about what they had for lunch

2025-12-01 21:29:38 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…re97 especially when there's already a huge problem of people mistaking the oxidizer symbol for the flammable symbol and storing them together, that's been one of the big things I've done since starting this job in the engineering department is fix our storage so that we're not doing stuff like that, and it has been an effort, let me tell you

2025-11-16 00:48:30 UTC

This is very odd. mpv is having a lot of problems on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. I think I've done everything right, moved to the Pakman codec version via Zypper, following these instructions: https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Installing_codecs_from_Packman_repositories
But I'm still getting a lot of videos with audio and a black screen, and a lot of desync issues if I rewind in videos that do work.
However, VLC works fine.
Any suggestions?
#OpenSUSE

2025-11-13 05:51:35 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…6ljh Fraggle Rock! maybe something that Traveling Matt sings?

2025-11-09 18:36:15 UTC

I FOUND CRYSTALLOGRAPHY WRAPPING PAPER! https://mathsgear.co.uk/collections/all-products/products/symmetry-groups-wrapping-paper
#Crystallography #ChemChat #Chemistry

2025-10-25 16:55:54 UTC

One day I'll move to a Linux distribution that doesn't need me to relearn package management XD
Since moving off Windows I've used Mint (apt- great, same as Ubuntu, I used that back in high school), Fedora (dnf) and now OpenSUSE (zypper)
So now I'm reading up on when to use up vs patch
#linux #openSUSE

2025-05-22 20:00:51 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pp8p @nprofile…939d Does that stop you from using the Kobo store?

2025-02-25 20:19:37 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…6whn yes but what do I do if the modified title is just terrible, not the original is good?

2025-02-17 21:41:30 UTC

I am outside for the first time since Thursday, getting some sushi for lunch

2025-01-29 21:45:13 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…aqq5 I saw recently by a metafilter that someone had made a playlist entirely consisting of songs named Personal Jesus (and many, many covers of those songs)

2025-01-28 00:24:13 UTC

Someday I'm going to track down an Internet computer toucher send her them to explain what a static site generator is, why they all seem to need a billion command line commands, and how they are different then Frontpage and the like.
Also if you want a static site why not just write the HTML by hand? I did that in elementary school, it isn't that hard. Seems easier then setting up all that software

2025-01-22 17:29:23 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…zwgs wait what

2025-01-15 02:02:22 UTC

Today's music is extra cyberpunk and feel very much like something out of the Animatrix
Scandroid - Pro-bots & Robophobes (feat. Circle of Dust) ft. Circle of Dust
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E99KybmjfM
#MusicRecommendation #MusicRec

2024-12-27 04:19:21 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…cgs9 Wait, you type these injections by hand? You do this so often, I'd figured you would have a "textInjections.txt" file filled with every character you might ever want to extract

2024-12-24 23:54:03 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…cgs9 I remember when in the mid-2000s if you wanted pirated things you searched Name ISO, I wonder why that fell out of style?

2024-12-13 01:00:14 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…cgs9 ! Odd. When I tried it on my laptop keyboard I got endless Ms.
Haven't tried my fancy Microsoft keyboards yet.

2024-12-13 00:55:26 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…cgs9 I'm trying to figure out how you test this without just typing MMMMMMMMMMMMMM

2024-12-11 18:37:55 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…jh3m My Grandmother talked about this. Her house when she was young was at the end of a confusing road, so the priest would stop in for directions on the way to the funerals of kids that had died of polio, and people today would not understand how many times ministers stopped in for directions

2024-12-10 02:40:23 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…cgs9 Oh cool, what did you learn?

2024-12-09 18:22:39 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…xm42 I think this is because the talks aren't really the point of conferences anymore. it's mostly to set up collaborations and network for career opportunities from what I can tell.
Which is absolutely impossible to do it a virtual conference unless you were to like hosted in VR chat or something.

2024-12-06 04:02:27 UTC

The most annoying linux mystery: Why are there *multiple* clipboards?
Control-Y is one (I never remember the command to send something to it other then C-K (Kill rest of line, send to kill ring)
Middle click is another
Control-C/Control-V

2024-11-26 03:52:28 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…cgs9 couldn't have written a little script to write that for them? or do you think they actually copy pasted that out by hand?

2024-11-24 17:54:58 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…uhu3 that is weird as f***

2024-11-24 17:51:44 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…uhu3 could it just be there some sort of service outage?

2024-09-08 15:04:22 UTC

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-island-marmots-pups-recovery-1.7316725?cmp=rss
Endangered Vancouver Island marmot numbers get a boost:
A record 86 wild-born pups counted among critically endangered population this summer, researcher says

2024-08-15 14:38:37 UTC

- reply

@npub1cxy…vryr isn't that cuz the vast majority of cats are all either American or British shorthairs? I mean I know a few people who specifically have Maine coons, but other than that it's all American shorthairs.

2024-07-12 23:26:34 UTC

- reply

@npub1rv4…ft5j Wait, isn't that entirely what Grep is for, or am I totally on the wrong planet?

2024-05-28 19:46:51 UTC

- reply

@npub1cxy…vryr Yeah, one of the ones I discovered! [NBu4]2[UO2(NO3)(O2)Au(CN)2]2

2024-05-01 15:58:53 UTC

Once again: please let me buy things with a billing address in Canada and ship them to an address in the US. Many people in Canada maintain US addresses to save on cross-boarder shipping, and many of us want to buy people gifts.

2023-07-19 18:05:13 UTC

If anyone knows acoustics, I'd love to know why music sounds better when I put my Bluetooth speaker on the top shelf.
or for example why does it sound better when I turn it up but move it further away so it's perceptually the same volume then if I play it quietly and close to me.
I know it probably sounds better in the lab because it's all echoey and big