bowser: not bad, just grouchy @akorphan@code4lib.social
Contains 0.2% sodium benzoate as a preservative.
Joined May 2019
Dream browser plugin: One that allows you to manage keybindings per key and per site, in particular which allows "ignore whatever javascript keybinding this site has for this key and restore browser default behavior"
bowser: not bad, just grouchy
boosted
Update: the answer is "under the pillow of the spare bed in his room".
Dear internet hivemind: If you were my toddler, where would you hide my keys?
Today in Le Chatelier's Principle:
A fellow I know who's a doctor can no longer work at the VA Hospital, since he didn't register for Selective Service before age 25.
He emigrated to the US at age 27 (and thus would not have had to register with Selective Service).
Doesn't matter. Banned.
There's an appeal process, but it's convoluted and involves writing letters to the government. So.
I am NOT ready to start teaching this course in a week.
I should probably finish up revising the course, huh?
bowser: not bad, just grouchy
boosted
I very much appreciate a webinar presenter who is self-aware enough to know they ramble and so occasionally says "Ok, if you're doing another thing while listening, you really want to listen to this part." Even better, when they say that and it's true.
Had an awesome privilege-check moment the other day: Was getting a copy of the potato's birth certificate and noticed that the Vital Records Form offers laminated, wallet-sized certified marriage certificates.
I said to myself, why would I ever need to carry a copy of my marriage certificate in my wallet?
But then I realized: I have never had (and probably will never have) the legitimacy of my marriage challenged, and certainly not on the regular -- which is definitely a privilege.
These flyers are up all over UNC-SILS. They seem... problematic, for many reasons discussed in other venues.
bowser: not bad, just grouchy
boosted
epoch 2 while training a variational autoencoder on COCO captions. god bless machine learning
input: two apples an orange some grapes and peanuts
output: go is a table lumbers a lean tint sitting kite
input: two white twin beds pushed together in a bedroom
output: a bird a them with of a boat ball the a a plain
input: a blender where someone is making a mixed drink
output: window flying cows two mustard toe hat placed bow
bowser: not bad, just grouchy
boosted
Please reply with pictures of your animal companions (and boost this as well)
I need it today
bowser: not bad, just grouchy
boosted
Taking a little break now but if you were a kobold kid or home-type parent and a human (or some kind of stranger!) woke up in your village... what might you do to respond?
For example, my mom would immediately set this human to work Being Tall for her. And then reward them with stew.
Looking for funny and creative ideas. This is going in a free twine game, tho, so PLEASE specify if you don't want me to riff on/build from your answer.
My Windows 10 machine, which has as aggressive update-deferral mechanisms as I can muster without a Microsoft certification, just opted me into Windows Insider and downloaded an update over a metered connection. What?
When did Tuesday become the hot new day for restaurants to be closed?
Thought for a sunshiny morning:
I saw a friend give a presentation on coaching, and he framed what a coach does in terms of the trainee's OODA loop. This framing gave me a sudden insight: Coaches and user experience people have complementary jobs.
Here's a simplified action cycle diagram.
Coaches work towards better outcomes by acting on the part of the diagram labeled "user".
UX people work towards better outcomes by acting on the part of the diagram labebed "the world".
bowser: not bad, just grouchy
boosted
finally an Algorithm that's going to be even more racist than all the other existing ones
Important empathy exercises for UX types:
1. Do life for a week/month/whatever without a smartphone.
2. Do life for a week/month/whatever using only a smartphone.
https://www.pewinternet.org/2019/06/13/mobile-technology-and-home-broadband-2019/
Additional layers of algorithms are unlikely to be particularly effective at mitigating bias and other issues that manifest in algorithmic systems (the reason why is left to the reader as an exercise).
Meanwhile, the human labor required to manage the problems intrinsic to algorithmic solutions is invisible, inadequate, and often soul-crushing.
It's enough to make one question the social value of recommender systems.
Contains 0.2% sodium benzoate as a preservative.
Joined May 2019
