Toxic Profile picture
Gray-ponytailed sysadmin, Potty mouth, Web 0.96β apologist, Unix wrangler, builder, and master of one finger opinions. Also on mastodon as @toxic@xyzyx.org
5 subscribers
Jun 28, 2022 18 tweets 3 min read
I want to talk about something that is very close to my heart, that I never talk about, and that you probably haven’t ever considered. Soon, you’re going to hear a lot about the “compromise” of banning abortion after 15 weeks. Please don’t entertain this as a good idea. To a lot of people, even people who feel that abortion should be available to everyone who doesn’t want to be pregnant, this feels like a reasonable compromise. It isn’t. It’s inhumane.

If you read through this long thread, I’ll give you a very real example why. Buckle up.
Feb 13, 2022 5 tweets 1 min read
SFUSD and the current school board is a major part of what made us leave the city that I first moved to and fell in love with in 1994.

The recall process is flawed, and some right-leaning folks helped fund it. There are a lot of non-parents who are voting NO because of that. But SFUSD parents have no problems overlooking that, because this school board is not just bad for SF's kids, but through their dereliction of duty, they're actively reducing the livability of The City for families (a group which already has a hard time of it.)
Dec 7, 2021 20 tweets 4 min read
Reminder: The pre-commercial web and most of web 1.0 were decentralized. Publishers and hobbyists ran their own servers, many quietly stashed under desks. Bits and bytes were not scarce, everyone had a printing press, revenue was not the goal, and information wanted to be free. It was built by a generation who had spent half a lifetime copying records/radio to tapes, defeating copy protection on software, xeroxing cartoons for zines, and decrypting analog cable TV. The concept of "information wants to be free" came directly from that history and ethos.
Oct 31, 2021 6 tweets 3 min read
#outsidelands was interesting this year (I'm skipping today, though I'm bummed about that). On one hand it was a big celebration of TheBeforeTimes. A vaccinated crowd outdoors in a highly-vaccinated city might be the equation that works. I certainly hope so. For a lot of people (including a lot of the artists who played), this was what they've been waiting almost 2 years for. A chance to play to a real crowd. A chance to be in a real crowd. A chance to shout "I've Got ASS!" with 50,000 @Lizzo fans.
Oct 5, 2021 4 tweets 1 min read
We miss you DevOps Borat! Automating BGP table changes is definitely a great way to more efficiently push errors far and wide.

And when you inevitably discover the errors of your automated ways, you can always rely on the ultimate manual cage door opener: the angle grinder.
Jan 28, 2021 5 tweets 4 min read
Good Morning @TMFOtter and @themotleyfool.

I have to admit, though I wasn't surprised to see this article this morning, some of the words in it are maybe a little too familiar.

fool.com/investing/2021… (Light background is @TMFOtter's article. Dark background are my tweets from Monday evening)
Jan 26, 2021 14 tweets 3 min read
Step 0: Citadel pays Robinhood for order flow. Citadel gets to see RH's orders a few milliseconds before they're filled. Citadel may choose to front-run some of those trades.

Step 1: RH's customers and WallStreetBets start manipulating $GME. This is happening in the open. Officially, they're manipulating $GME (and $BB and $KOSS) because these low-value stocks are being very heavily shorted, and if something moves the value of the stock up (like, tens of thousands of retail investors acting in near unison), those short-sellers may be forced to sell
Dec 8, 2018 9 tweets 2 min read
Today i learned that English muffins don't require an oven. I have no idea why I didn't already know this. Image Put in your mixer:
1 and 3/4 cup of milk, heated to 115-130°F.
add 2 tbsp of sugar.
add 3 tbsp of butter.
mix thoroughly.

Make sure this is under 140° then
add 2 teaspoons dry yeast (about 1pkg)
mix to dissolve. Wait 5 minutes for bubbles.

add 1 large egg, mix well.

(1/6)
Aug 17, 2018 10 tweets 4 min read
You have been told repeatedly by the users who have been here the longest:

Want: Complete chronological timeline of people I follow and the folks who reply.

Don't want: Algorithms that show racist shitheels who I don't follow and who don't interact with people I do. Don't want: Delays seeing tweets from accounts that tweet timely information (@I80chains, @CAquake), and then seeing them re-appear in "Did you miss this?" 48 hours later, when they're stale.

I don't love the promoted tweets/ads, but I recognize you've got a business to run.