wizzwizz4 @wizzwizz4@fosstodon.org

Sometimes, I make really compelling arguments about things that I stop believing five minutes later, because I realise (or am informed) that they're wrong.

Don't take my word for anything. If something I've written has convinced you of something major, it might be worth asking whether I still believe it – but if I don't, don't take *that* as gospel either.

I have a very simplistic view of the world. Sometimes that means I miss obvious things for a long time.

One of these paragraphs is wrong.

Blog Post: bootprints in butter and failures of imagination- an update on the Food bank.
https://alanlaneblog.wordpress.com/2020/10/23/blog-post-bootprints-in-butter-and-failures-of-imagination-an-update-on-the-food-bank/

The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics. Almost No One is Evil. Almost Everything is Broken.
https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/

Nobody Is Perfect, Everything Is Commensurable
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/19/nobody-is-perfect-everything-is-commensurable/

I was absent for a month. When I came back, I had 6 additional followers and no other notifications.

Is this… popularity?

Did Firefox get rid of the “view page info” and “view media info” feature? I can't find the option in the context menu for images, and I swear it used to be there.

Pattern-matching profanity filters aren't accessible. The harms do not outweigh the benefits. Don't use them.

There is closed-source, proprietary software that respects your freedoms better than its popular "open source" counterparts.

It's okay to put aside the hard questions of life, if they're scary or confusing. You can always answer them later. But don't forget that you've left them unanswered, and don't be too quick to think you've answered them.

Each one of us can make a big difference to something that matters. How? By doing something that not everybody can do, and even fewer will.

I want to put #icons in the navigation bar of my #website. These icons are for sighted users only, and should be ignored by screen readers.

I think I should use SVG, but how can I get the icons to scale with the font? CSS `width: 1em;`? Is there a de-facto standard for this?

Philosopher (Plato, paraphrased): The true essence of reality is Ideas.

Playwright (William Shakespeare): All the world's a ſtage, and all the men and women, meerely Players;

Programmer (various, paraphrased): The world is a computer program, and we're just data.

Me (many years ago): Wow, those advanced $PROJECT programmers are so cool! I want to be as good as them one day!

Me (a few years ago): So many programmers write really badly-designed, buggy code! I'm glad the $PROJECT people are making the important underlying infrastructure to a high standard.

Me (now, looking at $PROJECT's code): Egad! They're the worst of the lot! Who made *these* people responsible for something as vital as $PROJECT‽

If some people are tied to the tracks, and you can switch the tracks so the train hits one person instead of five, you can also change the lights to red, and contact somebody who can contact the train operator who can stop the train. That's how train control boxes work. (Also, who's tying people to train tracks?)

If you are ever in a situation where you can think about these kinds of problem, and the problem's remotely realistic, you can usually avert them.

This applies to a lot of ethical systems, actually. If you find yourself doing wrong for the right reasons: stop. It is very unlikely that you are actually doing something good.

If utilitarianism gives you a repugnant conclusion, there are two possibilities:

• the situation does not occur in real life; if you think you have that situation, you are wrong (most likely)
• the world is fundamentally, and avoidably, flawed; tear things down and build them anew

Over the past two years, I've begun to understand when people are talking “politically” (when they're saying things that aren't true, not because they believe their claims justified, but because they're “cheering for a team”).

Unfortunately, I've also started responding in kind (arguing for an opposing “team”, rather than addressing what they're saying). I do not want this for myself. If you notice me doing this, please tell me to shut up.

My computer ran out of memory and all my X sessions got closed. This has been a known bug for several years, apparently.

Using Debian 11 for the first time, I immediately noticed the graphical compose key support. Sure, it's buggy in web browsers (double-typing letters in certain “web applications”), but it gives visual feedback for every keystroke so I'm fine with that.

Did you know that x11-ibus leaks several GiB of memory? Me neither!

And when I restart ibus, it (apparently unrecoverably) breaks… openbox? The mouse? X itself? Who knows? (And that doesn't even fix the leak.)

So… how do I turn off #ibus?

Notice to people “investing” in cryptocurrency. If you see:

> • 5% fee = redistributed to all existing holders
> • 5% fee = used to add liquidity

This is a blatant pyramid scheme. Translation:

• 5% fee = sent up the pyramid
• 5% fee = sent directly to the top

If you see this? It's more of a scam than usual. (“Shitcoin”, to use the slang term.) You will not get your money back.

#blockchain #cryptocurrency #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #nft #CNFT #shitcoin #scam

Who keeps turning my volume up to 50?

Oh. Me.

I haven't found a copy of TkReplay, but I have found a paper on it. I can re-implement the concepts.

Does anyone have a guide to modifying Python IDLE? I've tried before, but I've never succeeded in understanding the codebase.