Dan Jones shared 4 months ago
🌶️ Fedi hot take 🌶️
I saw several toots posted in the past 24 hours that said: "yeah, Bluesky was down, but the same thing could have happened to mastodon.social, home of 15% of accounts on the Fediverse."
You know what I did when mastodon.social went down? (I remember it happened a couple of months ago during a routine upgrade)
Well, when the INSTANCE mastodon.social went down, I simply switched to my GoToSocial account and checked out from there what people were posting. Maybe I even logged onto my Pixelfed account.
People on Bluesky couldn't do something like that because Bluesky is FULLY CENTRALIZED.
You can't compare apples and oranges.
End of my hot take sorry if I have offended friends who are super enthusiastic about Bluesky, but I can't just politely nod and stay silent. Bluesky enthusiasts, please read up about the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog
I want the Open Social Web to succeed... but I will always give the side eye to Bluesky and Threads. Sorry not sorry.
On a more positive note: I just wrote about some new projects I'll start soon to promote the Fediverse: https://elenarossini.com/2025/04/my-fedi-activism-q2-2025-edition/
Dan Jones shared 4 months ago
Pack-bonding with everything, including rocks and pencils.
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Screenshot of Joseph Fink and greg Stolze discussing fucking AI. It reads: JF: It turns out this whole time that the Turing Test was the wrong way to think of it. Thinking a chatbot is alive is not a test of how good the chatbot is, but of your own ability to think of other human beings as real and complete people. GS: I heard some professor put googly eyes on a pencil and waved it at his class saying "Hi" I'm Tim the pencil! I love helping children with their homework but my favorite is drawing pictures!" Then, without a warning, he snapped the pencil in half. When half his college students gasped he said "THAT'S where all this AI hype comes from. We're not good at programming consciousness. But we're GREAT at imagining non-conscious things are people".
Dan Jones shared 4 months ago
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An edited three panel comic by safely endangered. In the first panel the Mario Bros meet their mother. Mario is named Java and Luigi is called C#. The mother eclaims „Hey it‘s-a the Java Bros.“ In the second panel Luigi/C# asks sadly „Mama, why-a you never remember my name?“ In the third panel the mother put‘s their hand on the shoulder of Luigi/C# and says „I‘m-a sorry Microsoft Java.“
Dan Jones shared 4 months ago
I cannot explain to you why this is good, but the sky is quite good.
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A night sky fades from black to purple to white along the horizon, filled with countless silver stars. Along the straight line demarcating earth from sky, a forest slopes down slightly from left to centre, standing out barely against the distant glow. Below, a still lake reflects back the forest and horizon’s light.
Dan Jones shared 4 months ago
Dan Jones shared 4 months ago
Public television is a critical part of our community, providing free news, arts, science, kids’ programming, history, documentaries, and entertainment. Tell elected officials how important this service is to you and to your neighbors.
https://protectmypublicmedia.org/urge-congress-email/
Dan Jones shared 4 months ago
As part of their Smithsonian purge, the Trump regime is dismantling and removing the Woolworth’s lunch counter (a key artifact of the Civil Rights Movement) from the NMAAHC and returning other artifacts to their owners. https://blackpressusa.com/the-smithsonian-purge-trump-team-removes-artifacts-of-black-resistance/
Dan Jones shared 4 months agoA set of Australian twins went viral this week for speaking in unison. They’re not unique — Werner Herzog is filming a movie called Bucking Fastard right now starring Rooney & Kate Mara, which is based on the synchronously speaking Chaplin twins. https://kottke.org/25/04/twins-speaking-twins-speaking-in-unison-in-unison
Dan Jones shared 4 months ago
3081. PhD Timeline
3081. PhD Timeline
title text: Rümeysa Öztürk was grabbed off the street in my town one month ago.
(https://xkcd.com/3081)
(https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/3081)
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Single panel comic. Title: US Ph.D. program timeline A vertical series of 7 tick marks with the first labeled enrollment. Shortly after the first mark there is a series of actions with arrows between them. On the side there is also a bar showing coursework that starts shortly after enrollment and ends anywhere from after the second tick mark to after the 4th with research starting anywhere from after the second tick mark to after the fourth and continuing indefinitely. The actions are between 1 & 2 Meet with advisor at the start of 2 research proposal at the start of 3 qualifying exams in the middle of 3 propose dissertation from 4 to 5 research and write dissertation from 5 to 6 is says submit dissertation and at the start of 6 it says defend dissertation, however both of these are scribbled out in red ink a red arrow after the research and write dissertation action goes to "get grabbed off the sidewalk outside your home by masked government agents" which has a second red arrow to "be whisked out of the state before a judge has time to intervene" a last red arrow just leads to a series of question marks
This is apparently Trump's version of diplomacy: talking to other world leaders like you're an angry kid on the playground on fake Twitter.
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Screenshot from Truth Social showing a post by @realdonaldtrump, which reads "I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying. Lets get the Peace Deal DONE!". It shows that the post was made April 24, 2025 @ 7:24 AM. The post has 6.84K "Retruths", 34k likes, and 3023 replies. Donald Trump's avatar is his face with the American flag superimposed on it, and next to his name is a red check mark.
Happy Shakespeare's Death Day, to those who celebrate.
If you'd like to celebrate, consider doing a small performance of your favorite death scene from one of his plays for your family and friends.
Dan Jones shared 4 months ago
Huh. I wonder how sighted people like it.
If you get it, boost it.
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Lavar Burton yes/no meme. The text boxes for both images is, in reality, blank with no text at all. If you want to enjoy the meme, you have to read it here. Top image, Lavar rejecting the idea: Text in Meme Bottom image, Lavar thinking it's a good idea: Meme in AltText
Dan Jones shared 4 months ago
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.”
—Captain Jean-Luc Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
(From Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 4, episode 21, “The Drumhead”)
Dan Jones shared 4 months ago
Hi all. I'm hating to be writing this post, but here we are.
A little while ago, I was laid off from my SRE job at a government contractor.
If anyone is looking for an SRE with:
- #Linux experience (a lot)
- #BSD experience (some)
- Plan 9 and Haiku experience (a little)
- Experience with a large #Ansible codebase
- Experience managing thousands of servers
- Experience with bare metal and VM management
and who isn't afraid of code - I'm your person!
I'd be especially interested in roles around #climate action or with a socially conscious #coop if anyone from those communities is looking.
Boosts welcome!
Dan Jones shared 4 months ago
It seems like a lot of people I see here need a 🫂 or few lately.
If you're feeling like you might hurt yourself, please consider a helpline or even DMing me as an alternative (see profile for contact options). I may not be able to respond *immediately*, but I will read it and I will respond.
Yes, I'm just some queerdo on the internet, but sometimes that's enough to get through a hard patch. How do I know? Because if it wasn't for the kindness of some of the people on this site, I wouldn't be here today. (thank you 💕)
You can call a peer-run warm-line for your state here: https://warmline.org/warmdir.html
If it's critical, you can go to https://988lifeline.org/ or call tel:988, but beware of the risk of possible emergency services involvement.
If you're not in the US, here's a list of crisis lines by country: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines
#SuicidePrevention #ItGetsBetter #YouAreNotAlone #BoostWelcome #Boost
Dan Jones shared 4 months agoTime for another round of #HireAlice! I've had some prospects, but I'm running out of unemployment benefits and need something soon.
With a lot of (big) tech companies slashing DEI and removing trans/queer-inclusive wording from their policies, the pool of companies I'm willing to work for has become a lot smaller lately.
So, if you're a hiring manager (or can put me in touch with one) for any senior data positions, please let me know.
Thank you all so much 
Link to post with what I offer and what I'm looking for:
https://lgbtqia.space/@alice/113993183937247251
Dan Jones shared 4 months ago
- const tantinople;
+ int stanbul;
Dan Jones shared 4 months ago
I've got a quick favour to ask. If you're reading this post on Mastodon (or the Fediverse), please click share.
How come?
I recently moved across to my own self-hosted single-user server (using GoToSocial.org). For a bunch of reasons, including visibility across the Fedi, it would really help out.
#Fediverse #FediHelp #gotosocial #mastohelp
Dan Jones shared 4 months ago
lol, no
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Screenshot from editor where GitHub Copilot suggests naming a variable "Maxerals" after the first one in the struct was named "Minerals"
Dan Jones shared 4 months ago
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Star Trek Discovery scene. We're on the street w/Tilly and a green alien fella sitting behind her. Green guy looks like Ron Howard's brother who's in all of his movies, and Tilly is half bent over talking into a handheld communicator. Closed caption reads, "First of all, um, so, I'm very high."