Esme Povirk @madewokherd@computerfairi.es
Joined Aug 2018
mn/st paul politics
As is my tradition, looked up my sample ballot the Sunday before election day. Currently likely to:
Vote DFL in all the partisan races. Just not seeing other candidates I can support.
Yes on constitutional question. I gather it's renewing a fund that exists already and is used to do important work, though I'm not a fan of lotteries.
Esme Povirk
boosted
How a misinterpretation of a BMJ publication from 1996 caused (and yes, I do mean caused) the explosion in rates of peanut allergy.
In a nutshell: for decades the guidance issued in the USA and UK was the opposite of what it should have been and left a generation with preventable, life-threatening allergies.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/10/excerpt-from-blind-spots-by-marty-makary/
pandemic
It's weird to me that now people reassure with "it's not covid" as if being sick and spreading other communicable diseases is actually fine.
Esme Povirk
boosted
If you tell the story of the burnt ballot boxes in Portland and Vancouver this week (an important story that warrants attention), also tell how good fire-suppressant design saved all but three ballots in the Portland box, and the efforts of the election workers who contacted those three voters and arranged for replacement ballots.
Things are scary and bad, and often literally on fire. But there are good people and good systems too. Making us forget that is always a win for the worst ones.
Esme Povirk
boosted
Annoying edge cases: non-binary person who identifies as binary.
Not as a binary gender, but as having the gender "binary". Like the gender options are "man", "woman", and "binary".
0 uses 0/1 neopronouns, of course. 0 says 1s never been happier with this gender and pronoun choice, it really works for 1.
Also there's just.. no easy way to get a post's url from the API? They give you a weird at: url and you have to take it apart and slot the pieces into an https: url?
Well now that I can see some actual post data, this bluesky thing is super complicated.
Well darn, I was kinda hoping I'd have more to read about while waiting for my vaccine appointment.
OK usually the simplest thing for me has been to ignore any "client libraries" recommended in documentation and use the curl documentation to do raw http stuff in Python, but it seems like this isn't even http and atproto is complicated so following their Python documentation is probably the simplest way.
looks at Bluesky documentation Uh I was expecting a typical web API with oauth and tokens and json stuff and there are uri's starting with "at:" and I'm confused.
Hey if any friends are on other socials more (been hearing about bluesky a lot), I would like to follow you there. I have feed-merger to conveniently pull everything together, although I need to update it with bsky api (rss feed has some annoying limitations), and it doesn't work with Twitter because Twitter charges unreasonably for API access.
Probably will still only post here though, as much as I do at all.
Esme Povirk
boosted
Lots of PCs are poised to fall off the Windows 10 update cliff one year from today
Windows 10 is by far the most-used version of Windows, and support ends soon.
Esme Povirk
boosted
So apropos of nothing in particular https://chaosfem.tw/@rooster/113283640352363325
If you hang around around Internet Trans people you've probably heard the "You can just be a girl" / "You can just be a boy" line, and that's a super good point!, but
There's actually an even simpler line, which is you can just stop being cis. If that's what you'd prefer. You don't have to change your pronouns, presentation, or even particularly your gender identity itself. You can just stop feeling like you're cis. That's an option.
Esme Povirk
boosted
If you happen not to be an infosec person, and would just like some advice on how to not get phished, here's one simple non-technical rule that will help:
👉 If you got a message that demands immediate action of you and is making you feel stressed – take a short break.
Deep breaths, make some tea, take a short walk.
Whatever it is, it almost certainly can wait a few minutes. And a few minutes might just be what it takes for you to figure out it's a scam, or ask someone's opinion.
Esme Povirk
boosted
My daughter is trying to convince me that the phrase "social butterfly" implies the existence of a "social caterpiller", which justifies her wrapping herself in a quilt, her "social cocoon", and refusing to get up today.
I have to admit it's a pretty good argument. Solid wordplay, reasonable-sounding if ridiculous conclusions, ticks all the boxes. Kinda dad-proud right now, gotta say.
Today's new bit of Firefox UI clutter https://superuser.com/questions/1750467/how-can-i-remove-firefoxs-list-all-tabs-button
(I'm sure it's useful to some but I have few enough tabs I can see them all just fine.)
Huh. I think maybe my "choice" between unsustainable stress levels from existing on the road with cars, or relying entirely on walking+public transit, isn't really a choice so much as society disabling me.
Just 100%ed https://epicpikaguy.itch.io/bee-magic
Highly recommended. It's a grid puzzle sort of game where you pick up spells that you can then activate by moving in a specific pattern. I don't want to spoil it, but it's much longer and deeper than it first appears.
Esme Povirk
boosted
I say again: friends don't let friends use password "systems".
All I have to do is find one of them in plaintext or in an infostealer dump ... and then I can get most of the others.
Joined Aug 2018
