Two views of a rainbow during a rainstorm a few days ago (first of the season for southern California).
Two views of a rainbow during a rainstorm a few days ago (first of the …
Category: Fediverse
Interesting analysis of Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi
Interesting analysis of Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi (major spoilers)
Luke Skywalker Isn’t Supposed to Be “Nice”
Spam fallout
Interesting thread on the unintended consequences of fighting the spam wars. [dead link] via @gcupc
I would personally like to apologize for the antispam movement of the late 90s and early 00s. We did more harm than good. Nothing we did reduced the amount of spam significantly, and we created the centralization of email…
Fog
Good to know: Raspberry Pi is not vulnerable to Meltdown/Spectre…
Good to know: Raspberry Pi is not vulnerable to Meltdown/Spectre because they use processors that don’t do speculation.
Also a nice, clear explanation of how the vulnerabilities work.
The hour grows late, and Los Angeles rises out of the palm trees for another night.
The hour grows late, and Los Angeles rises out of the palm trees, preparing for another night. 😉
Seriously, though, I was trying out different settings on a camera with a good zoom lens.
In response to KemoNine asking about the haze:
By LA standards, for 11 miles away, that’s crystal clear!
We’ve actually had some really clear days over the last month or so, especially after the winds have blown all the smog out to sea (before they bring all the dust out from the desert a day or two later), interspersed with smoggy days and days when the sky is full of smoke from wildfires in the mountains or canyons. The smoke from the massive fire raging in Ventura is mostly being blown the other way from here.
It’s a lot better than it used to be 20 years ago. A couple of years back on a visit to my parents’, I noticed that I could see the mountains from their front door. I had never noticed that the whole time I was growing up there!
And even that was better than their stories of LA smog in the 60s: outdoor school activities cancelled due to smog, being unable to see the end of a block, observing sunspots directly…
Air quality laws have made a huge difference!
Scuttlebutt
Interesting idea: Secure Scuttlebutt, a totally decentralized social network that syncs through mesh & LAN connections & can handle being off-grid.
The Nomad Who’s Exploding the Internet Into Pieces – The Atlantic
An Off-Grid Social Network – André Staltz
Via A Plan to Rescue the Web from Internet – André Staltz
Disinterested Seagull
Disinterested Seagull: “What, there’s a sunset behind me? Nah, can’t make me look!”
Last Sunday, after a hectic afternoon running errands through Christmas shopping crowds, I went out to the Manhattan Beach Pier to watch the waves and relax. This seagull seemed to have the “relax” part down already.
Totally forgot that AIM is shutting down tomorrow…
Totally forgot that AIM is shutting down tomorrow. I remember the talk about these new “buddy lists” that were going to change communication.
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/12/14/2122217/psa-aim-will-be-discontinued-tomorrow
Weirdly enough, ICQ seems to still be around.
Sun halo spotted a few weeks ago.
Driving around with a giant cardboard Minecraft spider
It turns out I’ve been driving around with a giant cardboard Minecraft spider in the back of the car all week. Yes, including the day I went to Downtown LA for jury duty.
Spoilers for last night’s #supergirl & building up to Reign…
Spoilers for last night’s #supergirl & building up to Reign
I liked the way her journey to Earth and discovering her past paralleled a mirror version of Clark’s, but i would have rather watched the fortress holo slowly convince her over several episodes to become a villain instead of just activating latent programming. Flipping the villain switch is boring.
It seems like such a waste of the build-up. Something like Morgana’s journey or even Anakin’s would have been a lot more interesting.
What if an actual fire breaks out during the test?
The building is testing the fire alarm system. I found myself wondering: What if an actual fire breaks out during the test?
This year’s Mexico City quake hit the same day as an earthquake drill. At least in that case you can tell immediately that it’s the real thing.
Fall leaves
Iridescent clouds
The biggest roadblock to adoption and the key feature
I’m kind of reminded of XKCD’s initial response to Google+
Ultimately, though, I think the separate instances are going to be both the biggest roadblock to adoption and the key feature that distinguishes Mastodon from Twitter.
Wait, is there a taboo against naming that other microblogging site? that other microblogging site. Should I call it “You-know-where” or “That which must not be named?”
(I will admit I was amused to see someone refer to it as “The Bad Place” yesterday.)
…and I just noticed the editing error in this toot. :facepalm:
I do wonder about permanence, though: How often do Mastodon instances shut down? How much notice?
Data Export seems to only cover follow/block/mute lists so far. I suppose I could hook up my atom feed to IFTTT or something.
Or I can just do what I do with “the bird site,” and if I really want to make sure I keep something I’ve written, copy it over to my blog.
First photo: Wildflower bloom
First photo: Wildflower bloom this past spring in the Anza-Borrego Desert.
Photog Introductions
#introductions Hello! I’m still exploring after first setting up on mastodon.social. I’m not a professional photographer, but I’ve been a hobbyist forever. I live in the Los Angeles area & mostly post scenic photos, architecture, things I find amusing, and comic conventions.
I can also be found at flickr.com/photos/kelsonv as well as my blog at
Mastodon’s been trending again
So I noticed Mastodon’s been trending again & figured I’d take another look. I don’t need another time sink, but I figured it might be worth jumping in this time. Now to replicate just the good parts of that other network…
I should probably figure out what I want to talk about here before I try to figure out who to follow, huh? I mean, I’ll probably end up cross-posting photos & blogging (yes, I still blog), but other than that, do I want to talk about…tech? politics? comics? sci-fi/fantasy? I don’t think anyone I know IRL is here, so it’s a matter of topics for now.
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Actually, what *is* the etiquette for cross-posting here?
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So, the 5-7 interests meme (this feels like early 2000s LJ): #comics #scifi #space #computers #science #art #photography
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Hmm, looks like I may want to check out wandering.shop for scifi/fantasy and photog.social for photography…
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OK, so I’ve set up @kelsonv@photog.social for photography posting. I’ll probably keep this one for other stuff.