calcifer @calcifer@hackers.town

Hello H.T

I've recently arrived from the Bauhaus, because you all have built a pretty sweet community here

I'm old, I'm all over the place, I get nerd-sniped on the regular, and I'm very enthusiastic about tech ethics

I like to fiddle with embedded stuff, particularly making stuff out of Arduino and LED pixels. I get cranky when "modern" means "we added complexity for no real reason". I think tech should aim for legibility and serve as a human enhancer; I get cranky when it's used to control or oppress or replace humans

I have no patience for stupid tech holy wars -- all hardware sucks, all software sucks, the documentation is provably incorrect, and the vendors all tell lies

I'm a dad -- so there will be dad jokes. I'm queer and polyam -- so there will occasionally be venting about that. I'm a nerd -- so there will be references and in-jokes aplenty

New rule: you're not allowed to argue about private censorship unless you can clearly articulate your position on what curation, editing, and control of association are and how you consistently differentiate between those and censorship

We don't have to agree on those things. There are simply too many whiney fash-hats who define censorship as "when people tell me to STFU, it's censorship; police violently silencing critics, that's fine though". I'm tired of wasting my time trying to figure out if any given person using "censorship" like it's a magic word is in that category, so no more arguments from me

Cry "censorship" without any evidence that you understand the above, and it's an instant mute

Other parents: try this new food, you might like it! If you don't, you don't have to eat it all

Me: let's play "Eat it or Yeet it"

If I could wave a wand and fix unhelpful/toxic behavior, one high on the list would be the tendency to cede definitions of terminology to extremists

It leads to so much 'throwing out the baby with the bathwater' behavior, where people will fight an entire valuable concept because of the way extremists use or define it. It's so frustrating because well-intentioned people end up doing the work of the extremists for them (by opposing progress because it's been "rebranded" as something regressive, for example), and there's no easy solution to it

Ugh, come on: "hey that situation sucks, and it isn't your fault, but there are some things you can do to make it suck less" is not victim blaming

I know that leather conditioner works. I understand the science of how leather conditioner works. But every time I use it I'm still surprised. It's magic

I try not to be petty, I really do. But a former boss who constantly told me I would never amount to anything, made regular homophobic jokes, and was just generally a shithead to me and my coworkers reached out to ask if I'd put a word in for him at my current employer

I probably should have just stopped at giving an honest and professional summary to the hiring manager. But in this one case, I definitely decided to be petty and I don't regret it for even a second

I pulled zero punches. His candidacy has been pulled, and the hiring manager told him that the reason was: based on my assessment of his character, she had serious concerns about his professional judgement

I probably shouldn't be happy. But I am.

Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy solutions to stressors, and that damned sure makes it easier to find happiness

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why is there capitalist propaganda in my fortune cookie?

Everything is getting to "too much" for most people these days. The people who tend to be the most resilient have had people leaning on them without a break for a long while, and they're also starting to crack.

If there is someone in your circle you think isn't struggling, reach out to them. There's a significant chance they need a little emotional care right now, because they're probably providing a lot of it to others.

When Al Pacino and his family take a taxi, do they become coffee? (Cab Pacinos)

Today I made the mistake of describing my preferred microwave popcorn flavor option as Butter Orgy without realizing my children were in hearing range

I wish I could put "coming up with an accurate but pre-teen-accessible definition of 'orgy' on the fly" on my resume, because friends? Nailed it