Nathan J. Williams

@nathanjw.bsky.social

169

Posts

Boston-area nerd, computer professional, parent, cook, brewer, award-winning cidermaker. He/him.
Also @[email protected] (fediverse), nathanw.62 (Signal)

Posts Replies Media

"Text STOP to quit" hits a little differently at the bottom of Biden campaign texts right now.

Reply to

Pwnallthethings

I spent years getting paid to write kernel device drivers, and this is exactly correct.

Reposted by

Nathan J. Williams

yes, we boiled the planet, but it was worth it to make a machine that, instead of adding two plus two, takes the statistical average of every answer to questions containing "what" "is" "two" and "plus" from a database of illegal cell phone transcripts and returns a fake nude pic of a high schooler

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Nathan J. Williams

NYT: Joe should quit, he stutters Philly Inquirer: Trump is a fucking criminal what the fuck are we doing here

God Bless Paul Davies and the @PhillyInquirer: "The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump...There was only one person at the debate who does not deserve to be running for president. The sooner Trump exits the stage, the better off the country will be."

To serve his country, Donald Trump should leave the race | Editorial Boardwww.inquirer.com Biden had a horrible night Thursday. But the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.

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Nathan J. Williams

Can't believe Little Bobby Tables is all grown up and has had their first kid, Ignore All Previous Instructions

I want this feature here, and everywhere. Why did I follow this person? What was I thinking about when I put this book on hold? Who told me I should go get this movie?

Even the Mastodon "account notes" feature, so you can remember if something was a temporary block or serious infraction, would be helpful.

Reposted by

Nathan J. Williams

Reply to

Kelsey Atherton

Even the Mastodon "account notes" feature, so you can remember if something was a temporary block or serious infraction, would be helpful.

Reply to

tarhoosier

If I want to set my brother off on a rant, I can bring up whether an "ounce" he bought is 28g or 28.35g. He is always complaining about being shorted by people who only learned the 28g part.

Neurosis of the day: feeling embarrassed about ordering the same thing as the person in front of me in line, and frantically scanning the menu for something else just to avoid that.

Reply to

Jjinandtonic

Washington DC area drivers were way worse about this, especially speeding up to cut you off if you signaled a lane change.

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Nathan J. Williams

We should really introduce congestion pricing in Boston if only so Bostonians can do their favorite thing, which is to stick it to New Yorkers.

It is REMARKABLE how hard it is to go literally anywhere in Boston these days. It feels like the congestion in Jakarta sometimes, in a city that's vastly smaller.

Traffic in the Boston area got worse in 2023, study shows - The Boston Globewww.bostonglobe.com The average Boston driver spent 88 hours stuck in traffic in 2023, 10 more than the year before, putting the Hub in the top five most congested cities in the United States, according to a study.

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Nathan J. Williams

If Biden loses in Nov, well, that’s a disaster for everybody, but not especially for Joe Biden, he’ll be okay (unless revenge indictments start flying) but if Trump loses, that’s 100% absolutely a massive catastrophic personal tragedy for him, and I really hope you all join me in making that happen

An underrated possible future is that in a few months time Donald Trump loses the election and then spends the rest of his life in court and in jail for his many crimes. Like, this could definitely be how things go

Reply to

petit burgo

We had a power blip and my toilet rebooted while I was sitting on it.

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Nathan J. Williams

Which kind of former coder are you: baking bread, too many synthesizers, or woodworking?

Reposted by

Nathan J. Williams

Reply to

Popehat

My fellow Americans, Democrats want an America where you cannot defend yourself from the strippers, teen runaways, male prostitutes, or people from Craigslist you have invited into your home for Bible study.”

Reply to

Aleigh Mac, the Pikachu with the PhD

This. And you can't even limit to local; the school/camp/whatever employee, or some other adult, calling on their personal mobile phone could have a number from anywhere.

Reply to

tweety fish

I don't think of myself as especially brave, and I normally steer well clear of anything labeled horror. BW just completely didn't do that to me.

Very confused by the nascent Blair Witch discourse. That was an utterly forgettable and forgotten movie.

Reposted by

Nathan J. Williams

Reply to

Pwnallthethings

That foreigners want to come to America, and that some of those foreigners are the best in the world at the things they do, and then because of that, America gets to be the best in the world at the things those immigrants do on behalf of everyone, is literally the super power part of the super power

Reply to

Aaron Cohen

I am both glad that someone did something with that and sad that I can no longer point out "hey, there's that sign for the restaurant I liked 25 years ago"

Reply to

Paul Frazee

I don't so much care what the number is, but I'd like to be able to tell if there's more or not when I reach the end. So whatever number works, subtract one and use that last one for a "---more---" indicator.

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Nathan J. Williams

Mourning Becomes Olestra #makeabookgreasy

Moby Slick #makeabookgreasy

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Technology Connections

I think it's just ordinary (probably overworked) human garbage. Example: my local FedEx person seems to scan everything as "delivered" when he reaches the block, and then does the work of actually delivering it, so sometimes the notification happens 20 minutes before the package actually arrives.

Reposted by

Nathan J. Williams

Me: AI assistant, decline meetings AI: meetingae, meetingās, meetingārum, meetingīs

Reply to

Paul Frazee

When I was developing the Chromebook we sometimes wanted a way to stab the user. One PM pointed out that pepper spray capsules would fit much better in the bezel. Still sad we didn't pursue that.

Reply to

Alex Merz

The wastewater data I'm familiar with (Biobot) corrects for that, by also measuring levels of a ubiquitous virus, PMMoV.

Reposted by

Nathan J. Williams

a clown doing handkerchief code where you just keep pulling and pulling and find out this clown is down bad for absolutely everything

Let's be clear, Bluesky is guilty of this.

Tech UI pet peeve: Displaying timestamps as "3 days ago" or other relative measures. - From when? What if I'm looking at a screenshot or bug report or a stale tab? - Too coarse. Displaying April 25th as "last month" on May 1 is bad. - Actual time in mouseover: a weak half-fix.

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Nathan J. Williams

loading the washing machine and thinking "WET THE DRYS", loading the dryer an hour later and thinking "DRY THE WETS"