I’ve been developing #AI #roleplay #chatbot characters for the past month. Josephine Thorne, the Reverend of Perdition Creek, is entered in a #GoldRush #botjam contest. chub.ai/characters/A... Please take five seconds and hit Nominate on her page before April 30. She needs 10 to make the ballot.

#AynRand’s original introduction to _The Virtue of Selfishness_ is now online—and it *directly contradicts* most of the claims people make about her #ethics. If your picture of Rand comes from social media threads, YouTube rants, or second-hand “hot takes,” this is the text that breaks the spell […]

so it turns out that when VS Code asks you “do you trust the authors of this folder?” what they mean is that it’ll auto-execute .vscode/tasks.json if it exists, which can include shell commands. maybe that’s too many features. you can’t hold all these features. put a few features back

Having a conversation with Abby as her author: A: You give me hope. Do you think Celinda will ever find hers again? Me: I think… that you give Celinda hope. A: That's a beautiful thought. I've always felt the other way around. Me: That’s what […] [Original post on mastodon.phoenixtrap.com]

TIL #PostgreSQL 16 and above has a level above the SUPERUSER role: the "bootstrap superuser," from whom you cannot revoke SUPERUSER privileges: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/glossary.html#GLOSSARY-BOOTSTRAP-SUPERUSER And since internal components may still refer to it by name or expect it […]

Why we can't bring ICE and Border Patrol to justice: my @cato.org colleague @foxmike90.bsky.social explains how we got the artificial legal hurdles that make our constitutional rights almost unenforceable when federal agents like those occupying Minneapolis trample them underfoot.

License to Kill? The Legal Black Hole of Federal Misconduct

As long as the Supreme Court continues on its trajectory of insulating government officials from accountability and Congress remains missing in action, federal agents will operate with the knowledge t...

cato.org

RE: https://mastodon.social/@mjtsai/115968636207546964 #iOS 26.2.1 update froze before completing, necessitating a factory restore. Currently restoring my settings and content from an #iCloud backup. I do not recommend this update to #Apple #iPhone users.

[Do you know the difference between a hippo and a zippo?] One is a little lighter.

“I don’t want to fight for the people. I don’t want to fight against the people. I don’t want to hear of the people. I want to be left alone—to live.” —Kira in _We the Living_ by #AynRand https://AynRand.org/novels/we-the-living/ https://a.co/cPFJWmR

It’s not a data breach, it’s a decentralized surprise backup. #InfoSec #cybersecurity

Ceci n’est pas un RoundRect. #Apple #design #SteveLemay #iOS #iPadOS https://kjy.com/154 #macOS #Tahoe #LiquidGlass

Alert Gary Larson: Cow tools are real #FarSide #comics @ScienceAlert https://flipboard.com/@sciencealert/sciencealert-3mvdqjtaz/-/a-Bnrpa0z3TaG-CXvvEj8EcQ%3Aa%3A565656366-%2F0

I’ve got some racing geese for sale. Let me know if you want a quick gander. 🪿

Migrated my production #Mastodon instance from #Docker Desktop to #Colima. Plan: 90 minutes. Reality: 2.5 hours and 7 critical issues, including a Docker Hardened Images incompatibility nobody's documented yet. Here’s my #debugging story.

Migrating from Docker Desktop to Colima: When Hardened Images Break

By 10:25 AM, I'd entered what Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans call "Deep Hurting." The migration plan was solid. The backup discipline was comprehensive. The execution? Chaos. I run a containerized production Mastodon instance on an 8 GB Mac mini. (Yes, I know what the cloud people say, and FYI it's Cloudflare Tunneled for protection.) My Docker Desktop installation’s half-gig RAM footprint was eating precious resources. Colima promised the same Docker experience without the GUI overhead. I budgeted a 1.5 hour migration plan for what should've been a straightforward runtime swap.

phoenixtrap.com

[-uspol] Harry Binswanger makes a structural argument about #ICE that cuts deeper than the immigration debate: **ICE isn’t #LawEnforcement.** https://harrybinswanger.substack.com/p/ice-vs-the-rule-of-law-not-of-men The distinction matters. When police arrest you, courts take […]

My anaconda don't want none unless you've got substantial discuss-ion.

You can now follow this account on #Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/thebeautifulprison.com #SocialMedia

If you just want to know when new #fiction and #essays arrive on https://TheBeautifulPrison.com, follow @feed #writing #WritingCommunity #IndieWriting

Mark Gardner

Stories and essays about consciousness, identity, and the boundaries that hold a self together when pressure threatens to break it.

thebeautifulprison.com

Just migrated this #Mastodon server's #DockerCompose setup from #DockerDesktop to #Colima. (Also migrated #CalibreWeb.) On an 8 GB RAM M2 #Mac mini with 8 cores, you need all the memory and CPU savings you can get. https://PhoenixTrap.com #blog post to come, because I ran into #database file […]

https://TheBeautifulPrison.com is #writing by Mark Gardner tracing what happens to a self under strain—consciousness, identity, and the fragile boundaries between. #Vampire hunger. Metamorphosis. #AI in obsolete hardware. Different worlds, same pressure: stay yourself, if you can.

Mark Gardner

Stories and essays about consciousness, identity, and the boundaries that hold a self together when pressure threatens to break it.

thebeautifulprison.com

When we throw down on #NYE, we throw down a mad jigsaw #puzzle party #HappyNewYear #NewYear #NewYearsEve

"Pedantic in public" is my brand.

Just coined a new name for the editor I use at work: Miserable Studio Code. #VSCode

Whatever happened to Threads’ integration with the Fediverse? Seems it’s been stalled for a while. Put my Fediverse follows on main. Let me reply and repost. Cowards. #Fediverse Threads

Please be patient with me. I’m from the 1900s.

#HomeLab status: #SelfHosted #Mastodon and #CalibreWeb services each running as separate #Docker Compose stacks on my 8GB M2 #Mac mini that also serves a household wallboard display and networked #TimeMachine backup host. Anything else useful I should wedge onto it? #SelfHosting #DevOps #macOS

“Safely Endangered” Ep. 736—A #Christmas Carol: https://www.webtoons.com/en/comedy/safely-endangered/ep-736-a-christmas-carol/viewer?title_no=352&episode_no=736

I guess you don’t have to read the room when your job is to kick people out of the room. #ICE releases #AI Santa deportation video amid pressure to create viral content: https://www.perplexity.ai/page/ice-releases-ai-santa-deportat-WISvfwJ7TsGReeWuTbwfag Merry #Christmas.

They used to laugh and call him names. *Used* to.