Nostr notes by Patch Arcana

#ScribesAndMakers 24/9: Our next featured creator will donate a ...

2026-09-24T11:36:16Z

#ScribesAndMakers 24/9: Our next featured creator will donate a portion of proceeds from book sales. Have you ever put proceeds from sales towards a cause you believe in?

I haven't done it in a while (and can't right now where I'm trying to bootstrap a living) but I used to fairly routinely pick a "cause of the month" and back it.

I think the only one where I really generated a reasonable amount of revenue for any one was when I donated a whole show's revenues to the local SPCA.

#ScribesAndMakers 9/23: Choose a noun that is representative of ...

2026-09-23T12:12:10Z

#ScribesAndMakers 9/23: Choose a noun that is representative of you as a creative person.

Alchemist.

#ScribesAndMakers 9/22: Promotion day. Self or someone else. Or ...

2026-09-22T12:35:27Z

#ScribesAndMakers 9/22: Promotion day. Self or someone else. Or both.

I genuinely have entirely too many things to promote but the one I need you to do *right now*, vitally importantly, is to follow my account on Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/zadammac

This is because I am going to be re-launching the kickstarter for my latest novel in a few days.

#ScribesAndMakers Sep 21: What character from one of your own ...

2026-09-21T13:09:44Z

#ScribesAndMakers Sep 21: What character from one of your own books or someone else's would you want to spend a day with? What would you do?

From my own books? If I'm in the mood to be social, a day with Oleander could be a real treat. Or bankrupt me. It's hard to say.

From the works of others? The mass-media list is long as my leg, but someone needs to take Ian Mallory from Rachel A. Rosen (npub1dvk…p2c8)'s series out of the apocalypse and give that poor bastard a break.

#ScribesAndMakers Setpmber 19: "My mistake was..." ...

2026-09-19T20:26:25Z

#ScribesAndMakers Setpmber 19: "My mistake was..."

opening that verdammt envelope.

When finding uncatalogued materials in the Back Archive, *always* observe proper information sanitation first.

RE: https://furry.engineer/@patcharcana/117280932147300844 ...

2026-09-17T12:18:50Z

RE: https://furry.engineer/@patcharcana/117280932147300844

#ScribesAndMakers 17: Exposit on the answer.

The correct answer is "Fluid Dynamics Simulations". The only simulating I did was nuclear load simulation which isn't the same thing.<li>A knife of living bone appears in Sanity Line as an object Maria Frost is shown to have obtained.</li><li>Vidcund's signature pistol is mentioned offhand as a model that is manufactured in our real world's China.</li><li>Draven does, in fact, act in positions of righteousness while also being right. It can happen.</li>

In the real world it's rare as hell, but it CAN happen.

quoting
note1uz4…gn9h

#ScribesAndMakers 16. Create a poll listing 2-3 objects that have featured in your work and one that hasn't. Ask people to pick the one that hasn't.

Pick the one that is not featured:

#ScribesAndMakers 16. Create a poll listing 2-3 objects that have ...

2026-09-16T13:23:24Z

#ScribesAndMakers 16. Create a poll listing 2-3 objects that have featured in your work and one that hasn't. Ask people to pick the one that hasn't.

Pick the one that is not featured:

I think you'll find that complies strictly with the letter of ...

2026-09-15T11:57:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…75v5
_________________________

I think you'll find that complies strictly with the letter of the question, so no, that's RAW.

;)

#ScribesAndMakers Sep. 15: What's a situation where you feel ...

2026-09-15T11:29:28Z

#ScribesAndMakers Sep. 15: What's a situation where you feel a ';' definitely works better than a '.' ?

Writing code where punctuation literals have functional meaning.

#ScribesAndMakers Sep 14 - What's your favourite type of ...

2026-09-14T13:09:49Z

#ScribesAndMakers Sep 14 - What's your favourite type of story setting?

Anything that can make the familiar alien, and the alien familiar.

Cursed with neurogenic boredom, forever seeking to find the times ...

2026-09-09T12:47:52Z

In reply to nevent1q…gmt3
_________________________

Cursed with neurogenic boredom, forever seeking to find the times I live in to be *interesting*

It's a new day. Let's see what fresh horrors await.

2026-09-09T12:46:01Z

It's a new day.

Let's see what fresh horrors await.

all trades are equally valid, but that doesn't mean I want a ...

2026-09-08T15:33:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…6s5r
_________________________

all trades are equally valid, but that doesn't mean I want a plumber doing my electrical. Or an electrician doing my plumbing.

operating high complexity machinery isn't a universal ...

2026-09-08T15:27:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…z0ng
_________________________

operating high complexity machinery isn't a universal aptitude and I am tired of pretending it can be.

#ScribesAndMakers September 8: Gauge? I'm just a small boy ...

2026-09-08T10:33:04Z

#ScribesAndMakers September 8: Gauge?

I'm just a small boy from a lumber town, and the narrow gauge will always have a special place in my heart.

The scientific literature tells us that audiobooks are exactly ...

2026-09-06T13:18:30Z

In reply to nevent1q…meve
_________________________

The scientific literature tells us that audiobooks are exactly reading.

My reading comprehension scores tell me that I cannot read aurally for any meaningful version of read.

But I love an audiobook or a video essay when I have something involved to do with the rest of my body, like the housework or an assembly task.

#ScribesAndMakers Sep 6 Have you ever listened to an audiobook ...

2026-09-06T13:17:23Z

#ScribesAndMakers Sep 6
Have you ever listened to an audiobook where the reader had a good voice, but not the 'right' voice?

I go into an audiobook expecting that I either already know the story, or that I won't retain the story. The reader merely has to speak clearly with good diction.

#ScribesAndMakers September 5: From a purely aesthetic ...

2026-09-05T11:22:45Z

#ScribesAndMakers September 5: From a purely aesthetic standpoint, what is your favorite color of ice cream?

I am stretching the boundaries of ice cream here, but there's a sorbet you can make out of henkeltroken and peppermint that is the most DELIGHTFUL shade of green-tea green.

It's not that rough on the pallet, either, but you'll never find it in a store so I hope you've got a hygrometer and and ice cream maker.

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@cR0w/117214759237138880 Good ...

2026-09-04T20:59:03Z

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@cR0w/117214759237138880

Good FUCKING goddamn I see that things are worse than they were ten years ago on the security side as well.

Computers were a mistake, I should have opened a restaurant like 26 year old patch wanted.

quoting
note16u2…4xth

RE: https://digitaldarkage.cc/@iaintshootinmis/117208258535524995

Please don't put TailScale / TailCat keys in your DNS. IAintShootinMis and I just tested it out and I went from TXT query to SSH access by only knowing the domain.
note1x7q…9zw6

#ScribesAndMakers 9/4: "If ebooks stopped being produced, how ...

2026-09-04T11:12:04Z

#ScribesAndMakers 9/4: "If ebooks stopped being produced, how much would you miss them?"

If the wheels came off that industry I probably have bigger problems than I have now.

But if it was some fluke of the calendar, I have a lot of very expensive purchases to make, I guess.

Nothing mission-critical is digital only in my library, but a whole lot of delightful stuff sure is.

Also just thrilled to be unemployed right now. I might be ...

2026-09-03T17:57:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…ttld
_________________________

Also just **thrilled** to be unemployed right now.

I might be broke but at least I don't have to clean up the mess I got fired for warning you about.

What's really hilarious about today's Reliability ...

2026-09-03T17:54:49Z

What's really hilarious about today's Reliability Engineering situation is that my pissant little "service cluster on a REALLY old laptop" is more stable and available than all this AI shit we're throwing all our money at.

#ScribesAndMakers Sep 3 Which ebook reader do you use? Right now ...

2026-09-03T12:27:32Z

#ScribesAndMakers Sep 3
Which ebook reader do you use?

Right now I have a Kobo Clara 2E, which I can't sing the praises of enough: as far as the closed-platform, mass-market e-readers go, Kobo makes the most open on the market. They allow direct management of the library by file manager or e-reader and many authors sell on Kobo without DRM. This one has integration with the loaning apps my public library uses, too.

I plan to run this thing until the wheels come off, and then check out what's out there for OSHW alternatives. This was a gift, and the kobo I had before that I got before there was much open out there.

#ScribesAndMakers Sep 2 - How do you think where you live affects ...

2026-09-02T11:35:28Z

#ScribesAndMakers Sep 2 - How do you think where you live affects your creative work?

So, I'm atlantic-canadian. This puts me far away from suppliers, limits my access to opportunities, and I don't even get the benefit of living in one of the super rare melting-pot metropolises so many of us con ourselves into thinking is the norm here.

I spent a lot of time unpacking baggage and slicing very small pies.

#ScribesAndMakers September 1: It's September. List 7 ...

2026-09-01T12:35:56Z

#ScribesAndMakers September 1: It's **Sept**ember. List 7 things about your creativity (accomplishments, goals, etc.)<li>I'm making a hard dash at finishing my fourth book, and the last one of my first trilogy, by the end of the year.</li><li>I'm doing my first show where I'm appearing as an author in a couple weeks. I'm horrified.</li><li>The music practice is going better than I'd admit it is.</li><li>I'm better at graphics than I think I am, but I'd still rather not do them.</li><li>For the moment, my creativity is my primary source of income (which is going as well as you'd expect that to be)</li><li>"Stick to one Genre" is horrible advice and my work tries to show it.</li><li>In spite of that, I can feel a hard veering-off into "mostly sci-fi" coming.</li>

#ScribesAndMakers 31/8: Choose an adverb to sum up how your month ...

2026-08-31T12:33:33Z

#ScribesAndMakers 31/8: Choose an adverb to sum up how your month went.

Tenuously.

When I was about 11 the answer rapidly oscillated between airline ...

2026-08-29T16:01:36Z

In reply to nevent1q…h5nh
_________________________

When I was about 11 the answer rapidly oscillated between airline pilot, chef, and astronaut, for whatever that's actually worth.

#ScribesAndMakers > 29th Aug 2026. At age 11, our TTMD guest ...

2026-08-29T11:15:29Z

#ScribesAndMakers

> 29th Aug 2026. At age 11, our TTMD guest answered 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' with 'Author.' Do you know what you wanted to be at 11?

I'm 36 and I barely know what I want to be now. Sure, there are some consistent themes that have remained for decades, but you never know when an interest is going to disappear, or arise.

Hell, there was a good 3 and a half minutes on Wednesday I was considering looking into what it'd take to establish a zen temple in my town and head it (not so much to head it, but to have one in town. Be the solution to your own problems, etc etc)

#ScribesAndMakers 27. Tell a story, real or fictional, about an ...

2026-08-27T11:24:35Z

#ScribesAndMakers 27. Tell a story, real or fictional, about an object on your desk.

So, when my wife and I were on our honeymoon, we were floating around the market at the event we'd gone to, and I found a little resin cast of a faux-soapstone cthuhlu figure, in a kind of vikingish style.

It still lives on my desk, on a little wood coaster with waves sublimation printed on it, and remains my favourite rubber ducky.

#ScribesAndMakers August 26. Describe how it feels to be ...

2026-08-26T11:52:05Z

#ScribesAndMakers August 26. Describe how it feels to be "locked in" to your work.

For me, that feeling comes natural, and feels great. To sit with one idea and one problem and just whack away at it is fundamentally the hacker's catnip.

And that's a problem. Life isn't built in a way that it's sustainable or healthy to narrowly focus on a single problem for four hours without interruptions for things like maintaining healthy activity minimums or sharing some of that energy with the housework.

Xen, did you guys have to make your documentation so fucking ...

2026-08-25T18:04:26Z

Xen, did you guys have to make your documentation so fucking opaque?

I am a *professional engineer* (or at least I was until a month or two ago) and I am intimidated by the idea of setting up your hypervisor.

for bonus points, Slava Ukraini

2026-08-24T22:39:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…8az5
_________________________

for bonus points, Slava Ukraini

You know what, it's been like six months. Let's have ...

2026-08-24T00:33:32Z

You know what, it's been like six months.

Let's have another swing at the "I and I alone understand how money works" nest and see if we can stir up the right kind of hornets.

https://www.arcanalabs.ca/essays/philosophy/2026/02/18/philosophy-of-enterprise.html

I've been shouting from increasingly high rooftops for ...

2026-08-24T00:27:52Z

In reply to nevent1q…8s6d
_________________________

I've been shouting from increasingly high rooftops for decades about how scaling is a mugs game and "Not a one of you fuckers understands how to use fiduciary responsibility responsibly" and "big enough" and I should probably resurface that rant at some point for a fresh audience.

To go deeper, no one single user of any of the Bad Systems is ...

2026-08-24T00:21:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…utej
_________________________

To go deeper, no one single user of *any* of the Bad Systems is the problem quite so much as the way we've spent the last century or so allowing a quiet recapture of the commons.

You basically can't be an author, in the English language, anyway, and completely eschew amazon. You just can't.

One single corporate entity was allowed to get *so large* that it controls... multiple fields of artistic expression.

And then we created similar such entities to gobble up all the other ones.

And like, at some point I must have known and acknowledged this ...

2026-08-24T00:15:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…9xsx
_________________________

And like, at some point I must have known and acknowledged this in my bones before I started thinking about it seriously because I never *ever* considered moving my streaming away from Twitch.

Yeah obviously Bezos Bad but the alternative is to try to squeeze less blood from smaller stones *and* pay for all the infrastructure myself to do it.

Until the relevant principalities adopt UBI or somehow this ...

2026-08-24T00:12:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…8ktm
_________________________

Until the relevant principalities adopt UBI or somehow this federated stuff goes mainstream, I can't *not* have availability on amazon, I'd be a fool not to deal with at least a few of the metaplatforms, I have no real choice but to give Jack Dorsey the eyeballs, and at some point I should probably learn what the fuck booktok is.

Something I'm slowly realizing and getting discouraged ...

2026-08-24T00:11:05Z

Something I'm slowly realizing and getting discouraged by/angry about is that as much as I love the fediverse and would love to do all my social mediaing on the open platforms, the things that I love about it make it *a significant impediment* to trying to earn a living as an artist.

I love all y'all to death, I truly do, but I'd be doing myself a disservice if I didn't have profiles in the places people would expect to find them.

Alright, real talk, is the Witcher show worth watching or not? ...

2026-08-20T14:17:28Z

Alright, real talk, is the Witcher show worth watching or not?

How about whatever english printing of the books is current?

There are practical reasons to never leave an unattended crystal ...

2026-08-19T17:11:22Z

There are practical reasons to never leave an unattended crystal ball un-covered and they have to do with optics and fire.

But on a deeper, spiritual level, we should bring back the habit of putting dust covers over smart devices.

Jesus Kickstarter, do you want a DNA sample and a lock of my ...

2026-08-19T16:27:22Z

Jesus Kickstarter, do you want a DNA sample and a lock of my mother's hair too?

Usually, it actually favours nintendo at the end of their ...

2026-08-16T13:31:07Z

In reply to nevent1q…casq
_________________________

Usually, it actually favours nintendo *at the end* of their current gen's product lifecycle.

The only calculus that favoured the switch to me was the Switch Lite existing and my enduring fondness for handheld mode. Not having a protability-enhanced version of the Switch 2 and not having released that much by the way of attractive-and-exclusive counts doubly in the wrong direction.

But 10 years from now when they're announcing the Nintendo Switch 1080 or whatever? Yeah, it might have enough of a library that I'll have wanted a 2 by then.

Yeah, when you narrow the list to "exclusives" ...

2026-08-16T13:27:11Z

In reply to nevent1q…thd8
_________________________

Yeah, when you narrow the list to "exclusives" there's shockingly little I want on there. The prospect of some of my old favourites being on there is attractive (Hey, I paid for the Skyrim port on the first switch), but that's a lot of very expensive, narrowly constrained compute to buy games that I can run *way more entertainingly* on the hardware I already own.

So it comes down to: do I care that much about nintendo's exclusive gaming software.

And that is not a calculation that favours Shigeru Miyamoto most decades.

I was right on the edge of buying a switch2 before the hike when ...

2026-08-16T13:18:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…uhtk
_________________________

I was right on the edge of buying a switch2 before the hike when the Great Unpleasantness occured.

I don't even want one that bad, but between handheld CP2077 (I'd buy that again in a trice, though I'm not great at games like that with a controller), Fallout 4 (though, this I preferred modded heavily, so maybe not), and some of the upcoming stuff I'd have found a use for it even if it was mostly for the wife.

Plus, despite my complaints and protests that I'm not that interested in it, I know I'm going to wind up buying the Gen 10 pokemon game when it comes out.

Warforged bard, just to get it out of the way earlier that this ...

2026-08-11T18:51:03Z

Warforged bard, just to get it out of the way earlier that this bard is not the horny kind.

What's rough about those is that often they're something ...

2026-08-10T19:55:56Z

In reply to nevent1q…9rg0
_________________________

What's rough about those is that often they're something that'd be trivial to make in a pantry stocked for that cuisine specifically, but getting so-stocked is usually more expensive than just getting the takeout.

Boy, I really need to find a password manager that won't make ...

2026-08-10T14:45:50Z

Boy, I really need to find a password manager that won't make me pay for having more than one device.

There was this hilarious 30-second period when I was still making ...

2026-08-06T15:01:42Z

In reply to nevent1q…z76c
_________________________

There was this hilarious 30-second period when I was still making Salary Money and considering getting back into fishkeeping that I thought it would be interesting to treat that water and use it for the aquaria when it was available.

House plants seems appropriate. They're all ornamental anyway.

It's too bad consuming the aircon condensate is how you get ...

2026-08-06T14:58:27Z

In reply to nevent1q…2u4p
_________________________

It's too bad consuming the aircon condensate is how you get Legionairre's disease, because I feel like an idiot throwing out the 8 litres or so we've been pulling out of the bedroom air every night.

I should at least use it when houseplants need watering or something

It's another braiser out there today. 27 for 35 celsius at ...

2026-08-06T14:55:34Z

It's another braiser out there today. 27 for 35 celsius at 54% humidity and climbing.

I've already put in the day's first litre of water, so at least we don't have to worry about *kidney function* today.

not nearly as hot as its name suggests and I haven't once ...

2026-08-06T14:37:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…ve84
_________________________

not nearly as hot as its name suggests and I haven't once regretted adding it to whatever I chose to add it to.

Well, I was gonna take a photo of breakfast for the social ...

2026-08-06T14:34:20Z

Well, I was gonna take a photo of breakfast for the social medias, but then I put chili crisp on my eggs and the next thing I knew the Spirit of Kirby was upon me and I inhaled that fucker.

It is in no way surprising to me that Thunderbird is heavily ...

2026-08-04T13:23:27Z

It is in no way surprising to me that Thunderbird is heavily slopcoded.

In part because I know Mozilla to be what it is.

But in a much bigger way, because it has developed a strange inability to actually update the contents of the inbox since the last time the snap was refreshed, causing me to have to close and reopen the app about 40 times a day to make sure I'm not missing any emails.

fuuuuuuuuuvk cancer, fuck july 2026, and if we're making a ...

2026-07-31T00:56:42Z

In reply to nevent1q…qu2p
_________________________

fuuuuuuuuuvk cancer, fuck july 2026, and if we're making a list I'm not thrilled by these apples either

If the LLMs were coming for jobs backed by a real trade union ...

2026-07-28T17:33:30Z

In reply to nevent1q…0jp4
_________________________

If the LLMs were coming for jobs backed by a real trade union there'd have been hell to pay long before the gamers stopped being able to afford their laughably-powerful floating point units.

I keep going back and forth on whether we should have let the ...

2026-07-28T17:32:32Z

In reply to nevent1q…w763
_________________________

I keep going back and forth on whether we should have let the term "software engineer" stay protected by a professional association like all the other engineers, or if we should have gone even harder the other way and (rightly) acknowledged its fundamentally blue-collar nature.

My "Everyone should have their own website" position is a ...

2026-07-18T20:16:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…sql8
_________________________

My "Everyone should have their own website" position is a lot like my "Everyone should have equitable access to top-flight healthcare" position. It works great until the *motherfuckers* get involved.

Anyway, if you're wondering why the "Host your own ...

2026-07-18T20:14:47Z

Anyway, if you're wondering why the "Host your own Commonplace Website" zine is now like three months late, this is why:

I'm not sure I can, in good conscience, any longer recommend that non-experts host their own shit, because by any reasonable definition of the term I am an expert and I still stepped on all these rakes.

Nostr event nevent1qqstpml2hr39yecd3yc7jcnc8cg058kz3ev4vylzkrdpwverejm9hlszypjv2ckqh295u5lplsgpzv2yfe4mkrptq66ed0gj38gvwauuze7lutz9cdw

2026-07-16T22:01:29Z

It turns out they could, in fact, take the sky from me.

I was using agent-based blocklisting but that only works when the ...

2026-07-16T20:20:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…2q4u
_________________________

I was using agent-based blocklisting but that only works when the remote agent is *honest*.

Now I'm going to need a heuristic for dishonest traffic.

AND UNFORTUNATELY I HAVE A WHOLE LOT OF FREE TIME TO LEARN HOW TO BE MEAN ABOUT IT.

Someone 'has alo somehow absolutely become aware of a DNS ...

2026-07-16T20:17:48Z

Someone 'has alo somehow absolutely become aware of a DNS registration I don't think I shared anywhere and is hammering the shit out of it, so there's a subdomain enumeration trick I don't know about.

Anyway, I've restored proper function of The Stuff but boy oh boy keeping the AI shit and skids off my front lawn is a never-ending problem huh?

Surely the marked uptick I've been having in kernel panics ...

2026-07-15T21:10:46Z

Surely the marked uptick I've been having in kernel panics has nothing to do with everyone and their dog fellating at the LLM altar.

Well, my shiny new job around which I was building a ...

2026-07-13T13:12:51Z

Well, my shiny new job around which I was building a hopefully-stable career has evaporated. I was the unnecessary 2nd senior engineer on a project that couldn't afford a second engineer, and it was the 89th day of my employment.

If anyone needs a quality- and documentation-minded, Canadian Senior SRE, reach out to me. I am quite good at this.

#FediHire #GetFediHired

The infosec cool kids are bitching about Software Engineering ...

2026-07-10T00:37:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…seyp
_________________________

The infosec cool kids are bitching about Software Engineering being the only Engineering that isn't.

After several years of complaining about the same thing I'm *briny*.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calling_of_an_Engineer

To be fair to tonight's discourse, being the only software ...

2026-07-10T00:34:13Z

To be fair to tonight's discourse, being the only software engineer I know who held himself to the Kipling rules is *why* I'm a burnt out little fuck who keeps trying to get as much gaming time in on the clock as possible instead of actually building anything for fun anymore.

It's a *fine calling* but it doesn't work when everyone around you is playing Fuck It, Ship It instead

This guy is better at pinball with a whisk and a spoon than I am ...

2026-07-10T00:27:35Z

This guy is better at pinball with a whisk and a spoon than I am with my own damn hands.

Aaron Swartz didn't die so that Sam Fuckin' Altman could ...

2026-07-08T14:39:19Z

Aaron Swartz didn't die so that Sam Fuckin' Altman could get away with this shit.

I would have a harder time stealing a password out of a notebook ...

2026-07-07T18:56:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…wdh4
_________________________

I would have a harder time stealing a password out of a notebook in a locked desk drawer in your secured facility than I would stealing it from your company OnePassword account.

And hell, that difficulty only goes *up* when you factor in remote workers.

#ScribesAndMakers 6/30: > Choose an adjective to describe how ...

2026-06-30T13:31:22Z

#ScribesAndMakers 6/30:

> Choose an adjective to describe how you're feeling about your creativity going into next month.

Placid.

I feel like if you did a high republic/old republic wuxia film it ...

2026-06-26T16:54:44Z

I feel like if you did a high republic/old republic wuxia film it would kick serious ass.

And while I'm busy doing that exact thing: Yeah, getting ...

2026-06-08T22:03:47Z

In reply to nevent1q…7vmj
_________________________

And while I'm busy doing *that exact thing*:

Yeah, getting treatment is a real pain in the tuckus here too.

I try to give people more and more latitude every day but at a ...

2026-06-08T22:03:06Z

In reply to nevent1q…k0z0
_________________________

I try to give people more and more latitude every day but at a certain point I have to just throw up my hands and say "I am not mentally well enough to help y'all solve this problem caused by your own unexamined baggage, sorry".

And "several adults arguing past each other about three different things" is definitely one of my limits still.

Though dear god being surrounded by intergenerational, ...

2026-06-08T21:18:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…p0vh
_________________________

Though dear god being surrounded by intergenerational, unmedicated, and untreated cases of ADHD is going to make me start throwing things at people.

I should really start meditating again.

I still can't tell how much of my "people older than me ...

2026-06-08T21:14:43Z

I still can't tell how much of my "people older than me make WILD assumptions about their ability to read other people's minds" problem is Patch, Personally, is Probably Autistic and how much of it is "a number of grown-ass-adults have the emotional intelligence of that carrot you forget in the fridge until it goes bendy."

Concerned about having your chance to meet with people yanked out ...

2026-06-08T20:49:48Z

Concerned about having your chance to meet with people yanked out from under you by a social media ban?

Get your personal website up and join some webrings.

You will never regret a 1990s-style button exchange.

roast me at 375 with some other veggies until golden and you ...

2026-06-04T00:41:17Z

In reply to nevent1q…xvh5
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roast me at 375 with some other veggies until golden and you *can't fucking miss*, really.

I am but small potatoes but# Thirded

2026-06-04T00:40:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…y3l0
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I am but small potatoes but#

Thirded

I mean, I'm also rolling my own "crypto" but I can be ...

2026-06-03T20:32:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…a8gq
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I mean, I'm also rolling my own "crypto" but I can be trusted not to fuck up XOR.

"Patch you know better than to roll your own crypto" Get ...

2026-06-03T20:26:39Z

In reply to nevent1q…tsrc
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"Patch you know better than to roll your own crypto"

Get fucked I'm gonna roll my own ASTROGRATION.

To be fair I'm insisting on doing *a whole lotta math I ...

2026-06-03T20:01:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…0xpq
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To be fair I'm insisting on doing *a whole lotta math I don't understand* as part of this project.

I'm taking a very "planning first" tack toward this ...

2026-06-03T19:09:55Z

I'm taking a very "planning first" tack toward this new game I'm tinkering with and oh my god never in my life has a project prospectus grown so long so fast.

Here I thought "hey, a quick little tui-feel game" would be simple. What the hell.

Ah, yes. A good wizard should always study his classics. Thanks!

2026-05-08T19:30:34Z

In reply to nevent1q…uvcq
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Ah, yes. A good wizard should always study his classics.

Thanks!

Is the source for this somewhere? I've been curious about ...

2026-05-08T19:09:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…ypjj
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Is the source for this somewhere? I've been curious about dungeon gen algos for years but never looked hard into how they solve for completability.

I just keep getting hung up on the idea that it can't really ...

2026-05-04T23:47:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…x9jg
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I just keep getting hung up on the idea that it can't really be trusted to do anything without direct supervision, and if I'm sitting that close to its shoulder why not just type the thing.

At least with a Junior Engineer someone is getting smarter. Not that us in our one-man-show labs/studios/hobby shops have any Junior Engineers going beggin'.

On an unrelated topic, I am *horrible* to learn under. Working on it.

I'm not sure that it'd make me dumber per se, ...

2026-05-04T23:41:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…stws
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I'm not sure that it'd *make me dumber* per se, especially for very limited use, but if it takes me all afternoon to figure out the right prompt or it takes me all afternoon to just do the work, what value was created for whom?

Well, and even I, about as Anti as you can get without ...

2026-05-04T23:38:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…gkcd
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Well, and even I, about as Anti as you can get without firebombing datacenters, spent a good chunk of this morning going "You know, an LLM could probably at least speed up this very tedious conversion task I have to do".

But at the same time: how much of my brain do I want to give over to learning how to get the best out of a tool *I don't trust*?

Normally when I've thought about this problem in the past ...

2026-05-04T23:35:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…0xcd
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Normally when I've thought about this problem in the past I've thought in terms of formal correctness. Code generation or answering questions.

It's much easier to have that argument about LLMs because of the twin dangers of "user may not know better than the LLM to catch the errors" and "humans are by and large not especially good at finding errors in unfamiliar stacks of right-seeming tokens". The cure to both problems is (a) don't use the damn thing but (b) if you absolutely must, don't use it to do anything you don't already know how to do extremely well.

And I'm not sure that advice works in terms of prose! The users (authors who can't be arsed to *write* which is frankly the only *fun* part of the entire discipline so I really don't understand that mindset) aren't the consumers (readers) and I'm not sure I'm feeling bullish on the critical reading skills of most english speakers my age and younger.

Anything else you could detect on, literally anything else; word ...

2026-05-04T23:22:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…6gnj
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Anything else you could detect on, literally anything else; word frequencies, use of special characters, all the tells you hear trending every few weeks: not metrics of AI-generated writing.

Writing without soul, without the ability to follow its own internal logic, without character... that's the tell.

And no tool will ever dectect it because if it was detectable it'd be part of the model!

Much as I hate to admit it no tool to detect LLM-generated texts ...

2026-05-04T23:19:40Z

Much as I hate to admit it no tool to detect LLM-generated texts will ever be truly useful for the same reason LLM-generated literature is an empty-shirt of an exercise:

The machine has no fucking *gnosis* and it's the missing-bit that gives that away, but you need it to SEE it.

Hey, I know I know some game-dev folks: What (other than ...

2026-04-22T18:32:30Z

Hey, I know I know some game-dev folks:

What (other than giveafucks) stops someone from marking their game as "proton compatible" on steam?

Like what is the technical limitation that makes some games suited for it and others not?

Assume all processors are intel x86 architectures for the sake of simplicity.

Repeat after me: there is absolutely no evidence to suggest human ...

2026-04-21T21:00:55Z

Repeat after me: there is absolutely no evidence to suggest human brains are state machines.

I wonder if tape drive storage was error-hardy enough that you ...

2026-04-08T14:55:38Z

I wonder if tape drive storage was error-hardy enough that you could broadcast the software over FM and just plug an FM tuner into the cartridge jack on some of those older computers that supported it.

My infosec conspiracy theory is that ...

2026-04-07T16:15:24Z

My infosec conspiracy theory is that [@da_667](https://infosec.exchange/@da_667 ) and Lazerpig are the same person.

This is a joke about tankfucking.

A friend of mine has coined some wrokplace butter: > A group ...

2026-04-06T18:56:41Z

A friend of mine has coined some wrokplace butter:

> A group of users is rheologically a fluid

That's not to say you should never terraforming things ...

2026-04-03T19:21:11Z

In reply to nevent1q…ptc0
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That's not to say you should never terraforming things I'm just a big fan of "put the fires out before you start building the new cabin" as a general rule of work ordering.

This is your reminder that any geoengineering technology with the ...

2026-04-03T19:19:07Z

This is your reminder that any geoengineering technology with the potential to terraform a world could also be used to restore the equilibrium of this one.

The part of me that can't get past the impulse to walk across ...

2026-03-25T21:32:06Z

In reply to nevent1q…wlkg
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The part of me that can't get past the impulse to walk across your hood when you stop in the crosswalk *really* wants a punch-back solution like iocane or nepthenes though.

I mean, I have an nginx revproxy in front of everything I could ...

2026-03-25T21:23:41Z

In reply to nevent1q…wvc3
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I mean, I have an nginx revproxy in front of *everything* I could just create a rule that drops a lot of user agents and IP ranges.

That would solve the actual problem I have more efficiently than tarpitting (I'm annoyed about bots being present, yes, on philosophical grounds, yes, but the problem's *urgency* comes from the load placed on the server)

I am aware of Nepthenes; what else are all y'all using to ...

2026-03-25T20:47:04Z

I am aware of Nepthenes; what else are all y'all using to protect your services from enshittification by trying to shed crawler load or make yourself unattractive to them or poison the dataset?

(If you're techish but not doing the above, consider boosting, though I suspect my general followers will have a preponderance of advice for me)

Of course he blinked, he's not just a moron he's a pussy ...

2026-03-23T12:51:45Z

Of course he blinked, he's not just a moron he's a pussy besides.