Link: Experiment with ‘lost’ wallets reveals that people are surprisingly honest https://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-people-are-honest-lost-wallets-experiment-20190620-story.html
Category: Wandering.Shop
@Algot It’s interesting how that changes the effect. To me, the red-circle version looks like …
@Algot It’s interesting how that changes the effect. To me, the red-circle version looks like red (on red), almost the same red except slightly orange (on green), and magenta (on blue).
I guess there’s enough contrast with the red circle & green stripes that my brain doesn’t meld it as much as it does the other color combinations.
Cool optical illusion: what colors are the spheres?
Cool optical illusion: what colors are the spheres?
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/another-brain-frying-optical-illusion-what-color-are-these-spheres
Gotta love it when you get a detailed 100-line stacktrace explaining exactly *where* you tried …
Gotta love it when you get a detailed 100-line stacktrace explaining exactly *where* you tried to call a method on a null object….
…but what you really need to know is how that object ended up being null in the first place, and the logs don’t tell you a thing about that.
SDK complaining
You have an API that, for whatever reason, uses FIVE different formats for transmitting dates and times.
You also have a Java SDK that will generate the XML requests and parse the responses.
Shouldn’t it be the SDK’s job to convert a standard Date object into the five different formats your XML gateway needs, and convert the responses, instead of making devs keep track of which format you want where and do all the conversion themselves?
An interesting story about user-testing in the wild…and finding someone who had never used …
An interesting story about user-testing in the wild…and finding someone who had never used a computer before.
It’s almost 10 years old now, but there are still some good lessons about assumptions.
Link: An Old Painting of Vermont’s Ancient Rocks Was Hidden Behind a Wall for Decades
Link: An Old Painting of Vermont’s Ancient Rocks Was Hidden Behind a Wall for Decades
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/found-painting-behind-wall-in-vermont
A swarm of ladybugs over California was big enough it showed up on weather radar.
A swarm of ladybugs over California was big enough it showed up on weather radar.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ladybug-bloom-san-diego
Me: Wait, does that actually have a *manual*? 8YO: No, it’s just the Terms of Service.
Me: Wait, does that actually have a *manual*?
8YO: No, it’s just the Terms of Service.
I spotted some of these feral parrots in the grocery store parking lot today.
Two of these parakeets flew across the grocery store parking lot into a palm tree, squawking as they went. I could only spot one of them once they’d settled, but I managed to get almost a dozen photos of it while it sat there.
Link: Feral Parrots Are Taking Over America!
“These birds, descendants of escaped pets, have managed to create thriving colonies in these cities despite the annual cold weather.”
I spotted some of these feral #parrots in the grocery store parking lot today. Two #parakeets flew across the lot into a palm tree, squawking as they went. I could only spot one of them once they’d settled, but I managed to get almost a dozen photos of it while it sat there.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/26590485
#birds #parakeets #FeralParakeets #FeralParrots
#nature #wildlife #photos
TODO: combine with this post and others
rambling thoughts on self hosting
Thinking about what it means to self-host a service, and that there are degrees even within that.
I have a self-hosted WordPress blog in the sense that I manage an installation of WordPress, but I run it on a VPS at a web host. It’s not as self-hosted as someone running a server on a Lollipop or FreedomBox, but it’s more self-hosted than someone using WordPress.com. It’s also more self-hosted than someone using the managed WordPress hosting at the same web host.
The key advantages of self-hosting are privacy and control. Unless a service uses end-to-end encryption, the admins at each level can probably read your stuff – you have to trust that they won’t do it unless they have to.
And of course when you run your own service, you don’t have to fear losing control when Google Plus shuts down, or Flickr changes their pricing structure, or Tumblr changes their TOS, or MySpace botches a server migration.
The obvious disadvantage of self-hosting, of course, is that you’re on the hook for all the maintenance. Spam filtering, moderation, security updates, server migrations – those are all on you.
And unless you’re using your own software, even on your own box there’s still the risk that a project is going to shut down & leave you without security fixes, or pivot to a new direction that no longer fits what you want. (So glad WP’s block editor is still optional!)
@iona Yeah, that’s sort of the balance I’ve settled on, too. I manage the top-level web apps, but my webhost handles the hardware, the virtualization and the LAMP stack.
(And email. Ugh, I’d forgotten how much of a pain a mailserver can be to handle until I tried to set one up on a Raspberry Pi a couple of months ago.)
I guess I’m kind of splitting the difference.
Fascinating: At the Guédelon medieval construction site in central France, builders are reconstructing a 13th …
Fascinating: At the Guédelon medieval construction site in central France, builders are reconstructing a 13th century castle using only the technologies and materials that were available at the time. Hand-quarried stone cut with hand-forged tools, treadwheel cranes, etc.
A medieval castle in France could be Notre Dame’s salvation
Gee, nothing creepy about that….
Gee, nothing creepy about that….
Link: Household Radar Can See Through Walls and Knows How You’re Feeling
A prototype non-flammable lithium battery using glass.
A prototype non-flammable lithium battery using glass. The researchers behind it claim that its capacity *increases* over time. Others aren’t convinced.
Locally-sourced parts – and parts you can repair – can be important.
Locally-sourced parts – and parts you can repair – can be important.
Link: Tanzania Builds a Drone Industry From Local Know-How and Bamboo
I’m still amused every time I tag a “feral pigeon” on iNaturalist
I’m still amused every time I tag a “feral pigeon” on #iNaturalist
Screen time is a much less helpful metric than the patterns of HOW people use their devices
It should have been obvious from the start: screen time is a much less helpful metric than the patterns of HOW people use their devices, what researchers are calling the “screenome”
[NYTimes link]
(But it was easy to measure, & people love pointing to a single number.)
It’s not just psychology, it’s CO2. Why crowded meetings and conference rooms make you so, so tired.
It’s not just psychology, it’s CO2.
Link: Why crowded meetings and conference rooms make you so, so tired.
@nolan This is part of why I haven’t flat-out deleted my Twitter or Facebook accounts …
@nolan This is part of why I haven’t flat-out deleted my Twitter or Facebook accounts yet: to make sure nobody grabs the name.
That and every once in a while I still stumble on something where I’d previously used a third-party sign-in. I reactivated a newspaper account recently and it wouldn’t let me generate a new password because it associated my email with my FB login. I had to sign in with FB in order to disconnect it from FB!