Conversation over coffee this morning about the costs of a neural net for collapsing 30-40 parameters into 3 or so, and I strongly suspect that for most data sets I could implement a 3d parametric curve fit that's close enough and way faster.
But wouldn't be "AI".
Got an FB DM with a link to a pro-Kirk video, and I went off, but I have to wonder if I should have gone off and outed people who sent me things like this previously. A Joe Rogan ep that you wouldn't put on your timeline, but sent to me? Name and shame.
Because it seems like the purpose of these sorts of DMs is to feel you out to see if you might be an ally in hate, or get the sort of feedback that reinforces your in-group state, without taking broader social risk.
And we need to reinstate that broader social risk.
Despite my support for an independent HTML rendering engine, the profusion of "You have to remember to turn all this crap off" features in @firefox.com, coupled with several long-standing bugs, sent me to Vivaldi.
Firefox Mobile is now sending me Marketing notifications.
Decision: confirmed.
For some reason, I keep loading these two pages from Wikipedia, and keep sighing, and closing the tabs again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Wessel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_involved_with_the_French_Resistance
Thinking about this dynamic of people who send sketch interviews and news stories via DM rather than posting them on their own feed.
Like: why did you think I, specifically, would be interested in this Joe Rogan interview or lecture by a Russian stooge or apologia for Charlie Kirk's Nazism?
Well huh. I currently use Namecheap as my registrar, but if they're getting acquired maybe it is time to just move everything to Hetzner.
https://mastodon.social/@lapcatsoftware/115204981198009776
The amaryllis belladonna have been lasting a lot longer this year, but alone the road I've been ready to say that the naked ladies have lost their bloom. But in the shade
We use a Chromecast on a TV for a digital picture frame. Had gotten tired of the selection, turned it off, but took the effort this morning to go into Google Photos and Home apps to set up some new albums.
It is an example of how far we've come from designing for user experience, and caring about anything other than the upsell. An indictment of where computing has evolved to.
Today we learned that using lye as a cleaning agent is really fun, but if there's a screen that has a lot of grease on it and is galvanized in possible reactive metals: do it outside.
Box of free books outside a house I'm walking by. See a non-fiction that might be interesting, look through the rest of the back, find Malcolm Gladwell books, realize that this association is not a recommendation, do not grab the book.
Listening to the Kirk Hamilton interview with the Wailin' Jennie's; went straight from discussion about a moment that a song appears, which brought up thoughts about generative AI and artists like Gilhooly or Kincade using other artists to actually execute the craft, followed by a Petaluma shout-out.
February 2024: Trump Ally Charlie Kirk Suggests Children Should Watch Public Executions
https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-death-penalty-public-executions-1873073
The thing I remember most about 9/11, is how in the intervening years the United States capitulated to pretty much all of the goals that the hijackers and killers had, and how we've become what they hoped to make us.
We could have stood firm for freedom and liberty and equality, but we folded.
As Gavin Newsom says "The best way to honor Charlie's memory is to continue his work", your reminder that Kirk called for someone to "bail out" David DePape, who attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/charlie-kirk-bail-out-alleged-paul-pelosi-attacker-1234621493/
The things one finds when poking through HTTP logs. Sole mention of an IP address in 3 months is attempt to GET /.git/config . What were you looking for, random Amazon EC2 instance?
Dan Lyke 20:55:16+0000 (2025-09-10)—
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Charlie Kirk shot in the neck. It's unclear if the attacker thought maybe he was smuggling drugs, or a migrant, but with precedent towards extrajudicial executions in the administration he's supported I find it hard to get up in arms over this.
https://www.deseret.com/utah/2025/09/10/charlie-kirk-shot/
Dan Lyke 20:17:15+0000 (2025-09-10)—
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Huh. Today I learned about #:~:text=blablabla highlighting in URLs, which seems to be supported by most of the major browsers.
Dan Lyke 19:43:31+0000 (2025-09-10)—
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Turns out that if volunteer labor (me) got compensated at all, the thousand or three bucks that the big film festival organization wanted for media wrangling is a fucking bargain.
Next year we're doing this differently...
In other news, who knew that freakin' pnpm wanted so much cache space?
Went to Sebastopol to see The Last Class with a Q&A with the producer and director. It was an interesting musing on giving up an identity, but it left me unsettled with Robert Reich both as a political personality and as a teacher, which I don't think was the intent.
Up in Sebastopol to see The Last Class, stumbled upon a field with sculptures in it, including Mark Rivera's Habitat, a metal heart composed of houses.
I feel dirty, and it's a reminder to not trust anything on my WiFi network, but I have 4 cheap Etekcity wifi light switches in my workshop so that when I forget to turn off lights before I go in the house, I can do so from my phone.
I'm doing some video wrangling for a film fest, and needed a countdown timer on a green screen. Lots of "download this YouTube video", or you could go to https://www.flutterby.com/software/countdown/ , turn on your screen recorder, and click to start a 6 minute countdown timer.
I've been thinking about how belief in the corruption of institutions seems to go hand-in-hand with the willingness to corrupt institutions when one achieves power in them.
Comment at lunch about how nobody's as cynical as Russians.
And... in this current (AI/politics) doom loop, we're fucked.
I have a Markdown-ish static site generator that has heritage to code I wrote in 1998 to convert email to web sites, I use Emacs for text editing, and I'm playing with Obsidian, and wondering what people do about paragraph breaks vs line breaks.
Lots of <br/> is funky, and yet...
Ah, the joys of finding a kindred spirit on the Mac/XCode development path. From https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/316880/stop-xcode-from-hijacking-my-file-associations Mark Anderson writes:
"The best workaround I've found is to never install the sodding GUI. Use `xcode-select --install` in terminal"
It is always a delicate dance between using lldb from the command-line, or dealing with XCode.
Vivaldi email users: Do the filters allow you to export or pipe to an external file? As I configure my new working environment, I'm trying to decide between Claws-mail on my Linux laptop, or Vivaldi, and the whole "integrated calendering and an actual business model" thing is endearing.
Dan Lyke 19:33:09+0000 (2025-09-02)—
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Just to log it somewhere: Firefox's bullshit has finally gotten to me, and given the raving of Vivaldi users, and their AI comments, I've installed Vivaldi on my usual devices as a replacement.
Smallest router I had is underpowered and the base wouldn't hold height even with a hose clamp strapped around it, so the edges of my inlay holes suck, but the fixed counter top with the two part finish is curing and looks way better than creeping black mold...
The polyurethane I used on this counter sucked, so I'm sanding it all off, inlaying some Ipé around the sink to replace the damaged wood, then gonna finish it with rolled on 2 part Stone Coat.
Shout out to all of my friends who lived in Tennessee in the '80s and '90s and could have seen this coming without exhuming the body for autopsy... Sheriff Buford Pusser implicated in his wife's murder.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/famed-sheriff-inspired-walking-tall-movie-implicated-wifes/story?id=125126955
Smoke alarms are perhaps a necessary evil, but the first brand to give me a remote "I'm cooking, damn it, leave me the fuck alone" button will get a bunch of brand loyalty.
I still have my "Man of Rubber" dry bag from my years guiding and paddling on the Ocoee, so of course I had to get Gary's memoir.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FM8BRYDM
It has been a long time since I switched primary browser, and I have liked that Firefox is the independent rendering engine, but it's getting harder to justify sticking with it.
Any others I should check out besides Vivaldi?
https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/22/firefox_142/
Newsom really is running for Trump's position...
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/08/28/governor-newsom-deploys-new-teams-to-fight-crime-in-major-california-cities-building-on-existing-successful-efforts/
Dear XCode: Sometimes crashing and going non-responsive when you hit a breakpoint is not a reasonable trade-off for whatever that new feature is where you clutter up my editor pane with a gazillion sub editors when I hit a breakpoint.
I think it's the "Translate to English" on this YouTube "Ah ffs man" comment that really makes it shine.
More naked ladies (with picture)
The amaryllis belladonna have been lasting a lot longer this year, but alone the road I've been ready to say that the naked ladies have lost their bloom. But in the shade
Sunday in Petaluma
Up in Sebastopol to see The Last Class, stumbled upon a field with sculptures in it, including Mark Rivera's Habitat, a metal heart composed of houses.
Oh wait, this is the picture I meant to upload earlier
In Google's defense, Bangkok Thai Express was apparently sold and rebranded, but more reasons the AI summary, in this case two(?!), is bullshit.
Dry fitting the sink in the countertop. Now to remove it and roll on the Stone Coat...
The polyurethane I used on this counter sucked, so I'm sanding it all off, inlaying some Ipé around the sink to replace the damaged wood, then gonna finish it with rolled on 2 part Stone Coat.