Ricardo B�nffy<p>I'm an American software developer and the "broligarchs" don't speak for me - ratfactor <a href="https://ratfactor.com/tech-nope" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">ratfactor.com/tech-nope</span><span class="invisible"></span></a></p>
mastodon.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
The original server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit
Administered by:
Server stats:
351Kactive users
mastodon.social: About · Status · Profiles directory · Privacy policy
Mastodon: About · Get the app · Keyboard shortcuts · View source code · v4.4.0-nightly.2025-03-25
David Beazley@dabeaz@mastodon.social
Free-range computer scientist living in Evanston, Illinois. Former academic. I teach computer science courses, but you'll probably find me yapping on about bikes, dogs, and other random stuff here. I wrote the Python Cookbook, 3rd Ed (O'Reilly) and Python Distilled (Addison-Wesley).
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2022
- Website
- https://dabeaz.com
- Newsletter
- https://buttondown.email/dabeaz
- Github
- https://github.com/dabeaz
rob pike<p>A few years ago I wrote a blog about the need to make prints in the digital era:</p><p><a href="https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2014/08/prints.html" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">commandcenter.blogspot.com/201</span><span class="invisible">4/08/prints.html</span></a></p><p><a href="https://mastodon.social/@dabeaz/114245978556444514" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">mastodon.social/@dabeaz/114245</span><span class="invisible">978556444514</span></a></p>
the roamer<p>"I do not want a computer to summarise texts sent by my friends into shorter sentences, as though the work of being updated on the lives of those I love is somehow strenuous or not what being alive is all about."</p><p>Writer and painter Joseph Earp nails it in this Guardian essay.</p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/30/ai-promises-to-free-up-time-but-what-if-it-spares-us-from-learning-writing-painting-and-exploring-the-world" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">theguardian.com/commentisfree/</span><span class="invisible">2025/mar/30/ai-promises-to-free-up-time-but-what-if-it-spares-us-from-learning-writing-painting-and-exploring-the-world</span></a></p><p><a href="https://mastodonapp.uk/tags/NoAI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>NoAI</span></a> <a href="https://mastodonapp.uk/tags/authenticity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>authenticity</span></a> <a href="https://mastodonapp.uk/tags/creativity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>creativity</span></a> <a href="https://mastodonapp.uk/tags/JosephEarp" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>JosephEarp</span></a></p>
David Beazley<p>"Or explain the concept of a file folder."</p>
David Beazley<p>"Also kid, speaking as a bona-fide member of GenX, I've seen how you use computers. Unless you can prove you know how to do something like rotate a PDF or rip a CD, a paper copy is what you want."</p>
David Beazley<p>FWIW, this discussion focused on his recent breakup. "What should I do with the photos of her on my phone?" I said he should find the best ones, print them out, throw them in a "memory box" and move along. You'll thank me in 30 years kid.</p>
David Beazley<p>Saw this poster the other day and thought of my recent advice to the kid. "If it's an important photo you want to keep, print it out and put it in a box."</p>
Dave Rahardja<p>This post by photographer Jingna Zhang resonates with me.</p><p><a href="https://sfba.social/tags/AI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AI</span></a> art is devoid of humanity, intention, and backstory. It’s a shallow remix of human works, designed to be consumed and discarded, grinding human creation down into a sandy paste, to be re-extruded into grotesque displays. It’s the opposite of what makes art so valuable.</p><p><a href="https://sfba.social/tags/aiArt" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>aiArt</span></a> <a href="https://sfba.social/tags/art" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>art</span></a> <a href="https://sfba.social/tags/plagiarism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>plagiarism</span></a> <a href="https://sfba.social/tags/artist" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>artist</span></a></p><p>(alt text continues)</p>
Wurzelmann<p>Es ist exakt so.</p>
David Beazley<p>Nah, the SSA code rewrite will probably be fine with all the practice they'll get rewriting air traffic control first. The second system is always better.</p>
David Beazley<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://hachyderm.io/@briankung" class="u-url mention">@<span>briankung</span></a></span> You can track and report Flock cameras at <a href="https://deflock.me" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">deflock.me</span><span class="invisible"></span></a>. I've managed to report more than 40 in close range to my house.</p>
Brian Kung<p><a href="https://cardinalnews.org/2025/03/28/i-drove-300-miles-in-rural-virginia-then-asked-police-to-send-me-their-public-surveillance-footage-of-my-car-heres-what-i-learned/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">cardinalnews.org/2025/03/28/i-</span><span class="invisible">drove-300-miles-in-rural-virginia-then-asked-police-to-send-me-their-public-surveillance-footage-of-my-car-heres-what-i-learned/</span></a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/surveillance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>surveillance</span></a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/Police" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Police</span></a></p>
guts.gibgub.gom<p>if you're a student and you're not using LLMs just stick with it you are going to be running absolute mental circles around your peers by the time you graduate</p>
David Beazley<p>Gave some elevator logic code (Python) to a room of smart coders at a trading firm yesterday and asked "does it have any bugs in it?" Nobody found the bug, but a few noted some hard-to-describe oddities that were bug-adjacent perhaps.</p><p>Just gave the same code to Gemini Pro 2.5 and asked it to find bugs. It found a few superficial Python things and a few bits of odd behavior that none of the human coders found. But, it also didn't find the bug. </p><p>So, the elevator remains undefeated.</p>
Jeff Jarvis<p>The Nazis hid their concentration camps. These fascists hold photo ops in theirs.</p>
David Beazley<p>Managed to spot another unreported ALPR from afar by looking out the window on yesterday's train ride. Win! <a href="https://dabeaz.com/flock.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">dabeaz.com/flock.html</span><span class="invisible"></span></a></p>
Ami Angelwings<p>The original Dear Abby was a badass, esp for her time, she was a champion for queer acceptance in her column and was very big on telling parents to listen and accept their children instead of punishing and fighting with them. But also this response is a banger. Top 10 advice columnist responses of all time.</p>
Jon Udell<p>"You don't briefly interrupt a system like this one. Once professors and PhD students disappear, they can't be conjured again out of thin air. The pipeline of new faculty members is gone – altogether, or overseas, but certainly gone in America. We won't be able to rebuild the R1/R2 system in less than a generation. And the Trump administration has proposed no alternative to it."</p><p><a href="https://not-a-tech-bro.ghost.io/not-invented-here-2/?ref=not-a-tech-bro-newsletter&attribution_id=67e03db985bae4000145b050&attribution_type=post" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">not-a-tech-bro.ghost.io/not-in</span><span class="invisible">vented-here-2/?ref=not-a-tech-bro-newsletter&attribution_id=67e03db985bae4000145b050&attribution_type=post</span></a></p>
Artyom Bologov<p>I'm pretty sure most of y'all here know that <a href="https://merveilles.town/tags/AI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AI</span></a> (in scare quotes, of course) is a poison pill, but here's my new <a href="https://merveilles.town/tags/blogpost" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>blogpost</span></a> explaining why one doesn't need e.g. <a href="https://merveilles.town/tags/ChatGPT" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ChatGPT</span></a> or <a href="https://merveilles.town/tags/Cursor" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Cursor</span></a> for <a href="https://merveilles.town/tags/programming" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>programming</span></a>. Because if we make programming better, we'd need no "AI". Just use <a href="https://merveilles.town/tags/Lisp" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Lisp</span></a> lol.</p><p>LLMs, But Only Because Your Tech SUCKS<br><a href="https://aartaka.me/llms-suck.html" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">aartaka.me/llms-suck.html</span><span class="invisible"></span></a></p>
David Beazley<p>Wondering if I've been shadow-banned on BlueSky for using the word "f*cking" in a reply to a post by <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://omfg.town/@dansinker" class="u-url mention">@<span>dansinker</span></a></span> related to f*cking @MayorEmanuel. That'd be pretty f*cking ironic.</p>
ExploreLive feeds
Mastodon is the best way to keep up with what's happening.
Follow anyone across the fediverse and see it all in chronological order. No algorithms, ads, or clickbait in sight.
Create accountLoginDrag & drop to upload