Bam Bam

Gray-beard swimmer. Gay stay-at-home dad. Retired CPU engineer. General nerd.

Aside from sex, my general interests are fiber art (mostly weaving and knitting), programming, and cooking. I like a good hike in the outdoors, but my backpacking days are in the past.

Bam Bam boosted:
Tjeerd Royaardsroyaards@newsie.social
2025-07-02

IDF fun fair. Probably my harshest cartoon of the year so far (but I felt I needed to draw it).

#Gaza #Israel #IDF #famine

IDF fun fair. Probably my harshest cartoon of the year so far (but I felt I needed to draw it).

#Gaza #Israel #IDF #famine
2025-07-02

@ytetic @thickurt @isocat Ooh! Ooh! And do the thing where you tie the stem in a knot using just your tongue.

Bam Bam boosted:
2025-06-30

"People who use AI at work feel that they're more productive" is an argument I've been seeing in various forms lately, which, as a recommendation, is not far removed from "people on cocaine at parties feel that they're more interesting."

2025-06-29

@Furball Mroooww!!!

Bam Bam boosted:
monkϵyborg 🦾🐵monkeyborg@triangletoot.party
2025-06-29

Is there a word for the transition that occurs when you cross the liminal threshhold from having a countable number of discrete units to having a mass of something?

Like if you have 4 or 5 rocks, you have 4 or 5 rocks (how many?). But if you have a truckload of rocks, you’re probably not going to express the quantity as the number of discrete units but as a measure of weight or volume (how much?).

Is there a word for the transition between these two ways of thinking about quantity?

Bam Bam boosted:
Camarada Bakunin :anarchy:camaradabakunin@paquita.masto.host
2025-06-29
Taken from Sam Landman on FB but not sure if he is the artist. Graphic saying AI is for losers, reject fascism think for yourself. I can make Art that’s ugly and bad all by myself thank you very much
Bam Bam boosted:
Coach Pāṇini ®paninid@mastodon.world
2025-06-29

#Inconceivable

During the first table read of "The Princess Bride," Wallace Shawn noticed that his character, Vizzini, had the word “Inconceivable!” scribbled plainly in the script, without any hint of how it should sound. The moment stayed vivid in his memory because he immediately felt that the delivery had to reflect Vizzini’s inflated ego and constant desperation to prove his superiority. Shawn later shared in interviews that he began experimenting right there at the table, trying (1/10)

2025-06-28

@targrus All hail Ubu Roi!

2025-06-27

@Furball This?

Man wearing Perry the Platypus boxer shorts. Only the midsection is visible.
2025-06-25

@Richboy50 @zero They are actually very chill right now. Just hanging out while scouts find a new home. I went to beeswarmed.org and reported them. A local bee keeper might come collect them. Or they will find a home on their own.

Bam Bam boosted:
tobi is writing bugs :terminal_cursor:dumpsterqueer@superseriousbusiness.org
2025-06-24

have The Talk with your friends:

  • no, artificial intelligence isn't real now, nor is it just around the corner
  • we need laws to prevent capitalists using LLMs to try to circumvent labor laws; we don't need laws to stop "rogue AI" because that's sci-fi bullshit with absolutely no bearing on reality
  • no, "ai" is not "inevitable" -- the bullshit word extruders that are being positioned as the next big thing right now are snake oil garbage, and not even profitable snake oil garbage, and there's no path to develop them into anything else because that's just how they work
  • if you hear someone talking about how "ai" is going to change everything, treat them the same way you'd treat a scientologist talking about whatever the fuck scientologists believe in: it is bullshit cult nonsense for marks and rubes
  • remind them to ponder the question of "cui bono" -- who benefits from the narrative that "ai" is the "next big thing"? the answer: mostly filthy rich american fascists, filthy rich chip manufacturers, filthy rich data center operators, and filthy rich silicon valley entrepreneurs

do your part to counter bullshit fucking propaganda from capitalist scumbags 👍

Edit: this seems to have resonated with a lot of people and I've rejected a lot of nonsense replies or people being contrarian and annoying :dancing_baby: I don't care if you disagree! Write your own post about it! :')

Bam Bam boosted:
2025-06-24

STOCK ANALYSTS: Ignore Musk’s behavior, geniuses are just eccentric sometimes, it’s OK, his repeated failures will soon give way to 10000x growth

MUSK: After listening to Ace of Base on repeat for 72 hours straight while huffing jet fuel, I now understand that I am destined to merge with the AI resurrection of Hitler to become Machine Jesus who saves the white race after 1000 years of continuous stock market crashes, which are of course necessary and a good idea. Libturds have hidden this truth from your mind

Bam Bam boosted:
2025-06-15

1/n

My dad was (is) a “Mad Men”-era 📺 advertising guy.

#MadMen #Advertising #Dad #FathersDay

Illustration of Don Draper from the Mad Men show experiencing an acid trip
2025-06-14

@whittenbourg Your outfit 🔥🔥🔥

Bam Bam boosted:

My latest @theguardian.com Books cartoon

A cartoon in four panels.

A heavy swiss Fountain pen is uncapped with a satisfying click. 
(closup image of the pen)

The gold nib scratches pleasingly across heavy, textured paper.
(image of the pen writing)

Each completed page is deftly turned with a light rustle.

The writer sighs gently and closes the handmade leather notebook with a soft thud. 
(image of a hand closing the notebook) 

These sounds are captured with a high-resolution Microphone and uploaded to the author's "Sounds of Creation AMSR" Youtube channel.
(Image of a laptop with a youtube video playing)

The story itself is utterly dreadful.
Bam Bam boosted:
2025-06-08

#MAGA #Grievance #Fear
What is MAGA exactly, in a psychological, spiritual, and sociological way? The author of this article brilliantly describes it all to a T, better than I have read anywhere else. We still don’t have a prescription, but at least we have a full-throated, professional explanation.

open.substack.com/pub/theratio

2025-06-07

Don't be fooled! This kitty is a punk. #CatsOfMastondon #caturday

Sleeping man and sleeping cat. The cat is a small tabby cat. The man has a beard and a septum piercing. A tattoo of a Game of Life glider is visible.
Bam Bam boosted:
2025-06-06

Really enjoyed David Gerard's amusing take on how programming with AI becomes like a gambling addiction for many.

"Large language models work the same way as a carnival psychic. Chatbots look smart by the Barnum Effect — which is where you read what’s actually a generic statement about people and you take it as being personally about you. The only intelligence there is yours."

"With ChatGPT, Sam Altman hit upon a way to use the Hook Model with a text generator. The unreliability and hallucinations themselves are the hook — the intermittent reward, to keep the user running prompts and hoping they’ll get a win this time."

"This is why you see previously normal techies start evangelising AI coding on LinkedIn or Hacker News like they saw a glimpse of God and they’ll keep paying for the chatbot tokens until they can just see a glimpse of Him again. And you have to as well. This is why they act like they joined a cult. Send ’em a copy of this post."

pivot-to-ai.com/2025/06/05/gen

Bam Bam boosted:
Z(achary) YaroZMYaro
2025-06-06
Nothing has been more important to my being queer than when I went to my first Pride parade, got seperated from my group, had a panic attack about it, and was sitting on the side of the road holding a tiny genderfluid flag and freaking out.  Then this six-foot-five drag queen in four-inch heels appeared from literally nowhere and sat down next to me.  I, this scared-shitless trans bi kid at Pride for the first time, very nervously told her she looked pretty and I told her my name and that I got lost and didn't feel like I should be at Pride, and she held my hand and said, “Oh, honey, everybody deserves to be here, especially you.  Pride is for everybody who's ever gotten lost, who's been scared of who they are or where they are.  You think we never been scared before?  Pride's for you, honey, because you're scared.  You don't have to be proud right now, but you're gonna be one day, honey, I'm sure of it.”

I found my group soon after that, and I never saw that queen again, but to this day, I am convinced I met an angel.

So yeah.  Pride is for you.  Pride is for all of us.
Bam Bam boosted:
2025-06-05

Mood today 😌

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