Feeling scattered? Can’t focus? Everything feels urgent but nothing feels clear?

I wrote (and tested) a 90-day protocol to reboot your mind.
No gimmicks. Just discipline, attention, and real thinking.

🧵

1/10

:meme_catto: I knew AI would ruin interviews but this is way beyond my lowest expectations. So sad to finally bypass the ATS and getting a malfunctioning AI interviewing you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcQGXC1f-8s

#ai #interview #chatbot

Doctor Anderson woke up to her phone pinging. Careful not to disturb her husband she checked it, and saw that it was a new supernova. She slipped out of bed and went to the kitchen, where she logged into the observation database.

Almost at once she could see something wrong. The report only came from the visible light observatories. None of the radio telescopes - not even the wide-field one - had reported anything.

By morning it was clear that this was not any sort of object that was normally her field of interest. It was, however, not one she was going to stop studying. For starters, it was clearly inside the solar system - well inside the orbit of Jupiter. For another, it was accelerating - at about 1.5G if the repeat observations were correct. It was also getting brighter - a lot brighter, almost as if it were getting bigger.

Her husband found her staring at her laptop in the morning, a half-empty and stone cold cup of tea next to her.

"We have to get the kids up for school."
Without looking up "Can you? I've got something here" she replied.
He looked over her shoulder. "Um, that's not an FRB. Or a supernova," he paused, clearly doing maths in his head "That's a powered trajectory."
"Yep. It's not heading for us, we don't think. It looks like it is planning a slingshot."
"So how come you're heading it up?"
"I spotted the anomalous behaviour first."
"And by anomalous, that it was accelerating."
"And getting brighter. We're re-pointing a couple of the orbital scopes."
"I'll get the kids ready."
"Thanks - you're a wonder."

By the time breakfast was over, she was able to show her family a picture - a flower-shaped object, with a dark core, and fourteen bright petals around it. She printed three of them off, so that the kids and her teacher husband could take them with them.

"Our initial estimate is that it is about two hundred metres across. And it is holding a constant 1.5g acceleration. That is an insane amount of energy."

By tea time, there had been no response to radio transmissions, and there had been no change in the trajectory. The following morning brought a dramatic change, though. Overnight the acceleration had changed to a deceleration.

"It will stop just inside the Mars orbit around about midnight tomorrow. We've got a good look at it now, though."

The petals now appeared bluish, and the dark core now appeared to be a grey colour.

The following night, after getting the family up, all four of them clustered around the laptop watching the feeds from the telescopes as the craft finally slowed to a constant velocity. As they watched, the petals suddenly folded back. A few minutes passed - a sudden burst of violet light - and it was gone.

"Mummy where is it?" the youngest asked.
"I don't know, sweety. I just don't know."
"Did it explode?"
"There's no sign of debris, so no" It had vanished completely..
"Maybe they were recharging their engine."
"Maybe. Maybe."

#SF #SFF #microfiction #microfic #tootfic

Bluesky: Users verify their age by adding a payment method or uploading a photo ID.

Mastodon: Users verify their age by posting pictures of the vintage computer equipment in their homes.

@ReggieHere @Professor_Stevens @kibcol1049 <narrator voice> it won't.

Okay, located one source of the antique sewing machine funk. There are some paper items in here with heavy mold damage. I dunno what to do about the instruction manual. It is absolutelt gross, but there are no copies of this that exist on the Internet. Could be one of the only copies left in the world. The antique sewing accessories box also moldy. #sewingmachinerestoration #antiques #sewing

@ai6yr been there! Careful photography can save the content.

Bright green summer squash seedlings in foreground in greenhouse, with the fully flowering yellow crowns of the Golden Medallion tree in background.

I wrote something new! It’s a UI design history essay about Mac’s Control Panel, and it uses emulation in some… maybe new and maybe interesting ways?

https://aresluna.org/frame-of-preference

@tschapajew @BlindHams HTML-5 integration has begun. Longer update tomorrow. GUI goals outlined in issue tracker on GitHub at https://github.com/OpenResearchInstitute/interlocutor/issues/54

Uh oh.

It beeped at him and he flew off.

Further investigation reveals the results of a bit too much enthusiasm with the last few selections.

Steve the Aracari updated the printer firmware for me and restored network access today.

Not sure I could have done this as quickly myself.

@ai6yr @michael_w_busch

I know the area well and have been through the floods of 1987, 2002, 2006 & had lots of friends impacted by 2015.

A friend of mine has a place near the headwaters of the south fork of the Guadalupe, 5-6 miles above Camp Mystic. It's been in the family since it was part of Mexico. It has the original schoolhouse for the area on it, from 1836. I've spent probably more than a year cumulative there and lived in the area more than a decade. They remember the floods.

The family had a girls camp there in the 1970s-80s. The cabin footings are 6 feet above the 1936 high water line. The cabins are an additional 6 feet above that, sitting on 2x2 foot concrete piers poured directly onto limestone bedrock. In 1997ish I helped the owners anchor the floor joists and hurricane strap the walls and roofs.
At least one of those cabins is gone.
As is the dam which was built in the 1910s -- more than 2 foot thick concrete with down river buttressing extending > 10 feet.

I'm pretty sure the main building at Camp Mystic was the original from 1926. I've seen pictures of cabins *uphill* from the main building with walls missing.

*****************
Crider's Dance Hall and Rodeo* was 100% feet dry in 1987. I had lunch there when we were doing SAR.

[EDIT: A friend pointed out that we weren't at Criders in 1987. He can't remember where we went, but is sure it wasn't there. Therefore I don't know if Crider's flooded in 1987.]
******************************
The main bar is well above most of the property. The pool tables were flipped by the force of the water. Today they were going to celebrate 100 years in business.

The Hunt Store -- easily 30 feet above the first flood plain (which is 10 feet above nominal) -- is wrecked and the owner is asking not to be contacted.

This isn't a problem of not remembering. This storm several sigmas past the worst seen in written history. All the river gauges I've seen so far go off scale at 20-25 feet, and stay off line for hours.

First pass guess by looking at the damage done, the crest on the south fork was 40+ feet.

The local officials didn't assess the risk appropriately and didn't have an appropriate notification plan. And to some extent I blame them for the loss of life.

There are also long-standing issues of lack of infrastructure:
There aren't gauges that far up the river -- where the floods start.
There's nothing like a flood warning siren system.
In the 1990s we had a telephone tree, where the upstream land owners would call us, and we'd call places further down, letting them know that they needed to pull stuff up from the river. Apparently that died at some point.

I haven't been back in that area in a while, mainly because I don't fit in politically any more, but even so I mourn.

*Yes, Dance Hall and Rodeo is a thing; and was a helluva good time too.

Heute auf unserem OV Sommerfest. Ich baue die Kurzwellenstation auf. Wenn wer quatschen mag, einfach mal QRG und Zeit schreiben. #Amateurfunk #Draußenfunk #Hamradio #Ham

The High Court has denied Palestine Action its interim halt to the government’s attempt to proscribe it.

The verdict came as hundreds of people camped outside the central London court house – amid police violence and bias from the corporate media.

The Home Secretary’s proscription of Palestine Action is due to come into effect at midnight tonight (12am Saturday 5 July).

https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2025/07/04/palestine-action-legal-challenge/

🕎 🇵🇸 ☮️
#Gaza #Palestine
#Press #News

OK cyber-sleuths, I need your help!

I can't find high-resolution images of the #Hacktoberfest t-shirt logos for:

* 2014
* 2015
* 2021

I've searched GitHub, Dribbble, Wikimedia, Archive.org, and a bunch of reverse image sites.

These are the logos I'm looking for. Ideally SVG, but a high resolution raster image would do. Can you help?

THANKS GANG!

Help request. My brother has Stage 4 colorectal cancer.

His life insurance has refused to pay out on a technicality, meaning he and his loved ones cannot afford the mortgage on their home.

I've never asked for anything in return for infosec stuff, but if you have anything spare, please chuck it this direction instead:

https://gofund.me/b9a0d8f4

@OpenResearchIns board meeting starts. Working on #OpulentVoice issues on GitHub.