BC Holmes @bcholmes@mastodon.social

Ha! Latest ST:SNW episode: "Ghosts of Ontario Place"

Holy hell, Anime Central.

The real problem is that I'm just avoiding writing out formulas. I keep thinking that I can DuckDuckGo a simple formula or pre-made implementation.

Bah. I have three points. I want to assume that they fall on a quadratic curve. I know I can solve for a, b, c in the y = ax²+bx+c format. Really, I'm trying to write code that solves this for any three points in 2D-space.

You'd think, with a degree in pure math, that this would be a trivial exercise, but no.

#StrangeNewWorlds Wouldn't it be awesome if, after the season ends, we look back and say, "wow, that pilot was the weakest of the bunch."

#StrangeNewWorlds I'm surprised at how much I like T'pring.

Was Kiley 279 really York University?

Apple has done a passable job with their email. I *think* that the image is just a banner image -- they usually have some pretty recognizable marketing image for each of their big events. But I have some indication of what the email is *about*:

Just once I'd love for an organization to run a report that says, "hey, the only engagement with have with this BC person is that she unsubscribes to our emails. Maybe we should take notice of that."

(As an aside: the Prime Video email was a new attempt by them at marketing at me. I unsubscribe from these things -- an action that is trackable -- pretty quickly).

(To a certain extent. I mean, browser fingerprinting is a thing).

But every once in a while, I'm struck by the fact that I see a different Internet than a lot of other people see. I hang out in an Internet that's missing images, and doesn't have ads and which I've hindered when it comes to tracking me.

And, okay. I know that I'm in the minority in the way I set up my email clients. But it also feels to me like it's possible to craft an HTML message that shows *something* if the remote images don't load. (I don't just "feel" that; I know it to be true).

This is what I see:

The other two emails were from commercial organizations that I give money to: Apple sent me an email about their upcoming WWDC conference, and Prime Video sent me an email about (I think) upcoming shows.

Neither of these emails are readable, because all the "content" of the email is contained in remotely-loaded images.

So Email Guy is saying, "I can't track you, so it's like you don't exist. I'm gonna stop sending you emails." Okay. Whatev.

I am fantastically allergic to engagement tracking. I've configured my email client to not load remote content, and I've trained myself to never click on links in emails, except for "email verification" cases. (It's a good security practice, too).

So I got three different emails today. Email number 1 was from the owner of an email list that I signed up for a while ago. Email say, in brief, "hey, you don't read my emails; I'm gonna stop sending them to you." Why does he think I don't read the emails? Because his engagement tracking software gives me a great bit zero.

I really enjoyed the Blender Conference in 2019. The 2020 and 2021 conferences were cancelled for obvious reasons, but it's back, this fall: https://conference.blender.org/2022/