Dave Polaschek (he/him)

@davepolaschek@writing.exchange
735 Followers
548 Following
404 Posts

Ex-computer programmer, now retired. Busy #reading, #writing, #cooking, #woodworking and living in #SantaFe #NewMexico. Posts expire in a couple weeks. Unless they don’t.

Bots that boost posts with certain hashtags will be blocked. #nobots

If you don’t have an introduction or profile, I will not approve a follow request.

Bloghttps://write.as/davepolaschek/
Arthttps://peekachello.art/
Bookhttps://meadmadeeasy.info/
LMJargonhttps://lmjargon.info/
Dave Polaschek (he/him)10h ago
Dare Obasanjo10h ago
“Lowest rank on the corruption index…so far” - Homer Simpson
Dave Polaschek (he/him)10h ago
Leslie Burns11h ago
Holy shit.
I was just sitting on the sofa, considering what to do about dinner, when some guy whose face I didn’t see came up my steps and put something in my mailbox. He had a blue heeler waiting at the water bowl. By the time I got up and opened the door, they were gone. And this was in the box. 1/
Dave Polaschek (he/him)10h ago

Interesting. One of the sources of scrapers I learned about today is a Chrome Extension called "MyBib."

"Note: In order to keep MyBib free, the MyBib extension may, from time to time, utilize unused bandwidth to crowdsource the collection of citation data for everyone citing on MyBib. This is anonymous and only occurs when your browser is not being used."

It also nicely hides their scraping behind residential IPs. I sure hope it's getting fed garbage! / @algernon

https://rb.ax/blog/chrome-featured-extension-is-actually-a-scraper-network/

Chrome Featured Extension Is Actually A Scraper Network—Ryan Bagley

An investigation into mysterious file downloads revealed that MyBib, a Featured Chrome extension, exploits user browsers to power a distributed scraping network. This post details the forensic analysis that exposed the extension's hidden WebSocket instructions and unauthorized data harvesting.

Dave Polaschek (he/him)11h ago
Show threadMatthew Haughey16h ago

TL:DR; The Salesforce CEO at a company's annual all hands gathering asked international employees to please rise in the audience, then made a "joke" that ICE agents were in the back of the room ready to nab them.

Guillotines for billionaires is the moderate choice at this point

Dave Polaschek (he/him)14h ago
Show threadJoe Cardillo (Disinfo Dad)21h ago

If you are in #NewMexico (or know someone), my team is also hiring for a bilingual English/Spanish Communications Director: https://progressnownm.org/hiring-communications-director/

Fully remote / based in NM, $70K, excellent benefits, applications are open through February 27

#FediHired #GetFediHired #FediJobs #NM

Hiring: Communications Director

We are hiring! Title: Communications Director Reports to: Deputy DirectorPosition Type: Full-time Exempt PositionPay: $70,000Benefits: Health insurance, Life insurance, Short term disability, 401k match, generous PTO How To Apply: Send resume and one paragraph on why you are interested to info@progressnownm.org Our Organizations: ProgressNow New Mexico and ProgressNow New Mexico Education Fund are the premier […]

ProgressNow New Mexico
Dave Polaschek (he/him)16h ago
Sam Litzinger18h ago

He lied.

And now he’s daring anyone to do something about it.

https://apnews.com/article/jeffrey-epstein-files-howard-lutnick-2ead9f281ba2491e0581aced50a0533d

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick acknowledges meetings with Epstein that contradict previous claims

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has acknowledged that he had met with Jeffrey Epstein twice after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a child. It's a reversal of Lutnick’s previous claim that he had cut ties with the late financier after 2005. He was questioned by Democrats during a Tuesday subcommittee hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee. But Lutnick is facing calls from several lawmakers for his resignation after the release of case files on Epstein contradicted Lutnick’s claims on a podcast last year that he had decided to “never be in the room” with Epstein again after a 2005 tour of Epstein’s home that disturbed Lutnick and his wife.

AP News
Dave Polaschek (he/him)16h ago
Bryan Steele 17h ago

#mutualaidrequest #mutualaid

I don't suppose that I have any #bsd #unix #foss #thinkpad friends out there willing to signal boost, by chance? ​

https://bsd.network/@brynet/114458997143046937

Dave Polaschek (he/him)18h ago
This morning, I’ve been ripping BDs and surfing the web. Saw this great travelogue of a visit to Hamilton Gardens in NZ. Wish I could go, but given that I don’t fly, I’m not sure it would be worth the 3-6 months of travel on multiple ships to get there and back. Also, my sweetie gets seasick, so… probably not. But hey, looking at the post on teh intarwebs isn’t bad. https://leoniewise.com/hamilton-gardens/
hamilton gardens

monday was my birthday, so nic and i both took the day off and did a roadtrip south to hamilton for the day. i specifically wanted to go to hamilton gardens as its been years since we visited. even in its sleepy winter state, the gardens were a delight. and,

Leonie Wise
Dave Polaschek (he/him)18h ago
While I was programming for a living, I almost never had the chance to add something like a —dry-run option to code I was working on (since I mostly did maintenance programming), but it would’ve been very handy. Now, I can, and the first time I hit something that needs more than minimal debugging, I try to. It’s a pretty handy technique when the task lends itself to that. And surfing the web this morning, I found I’m not the only one who thinks so. https://henrikwarne.com/2026/01/31/in-praise-of-dry-run/
In Praise of –dry-run

For the last few months, I have been developing a new reporting application. Early on, I decided to add a –dry-run option to the run command. This turned out to be quite useful – I have…

Henrik Warne's blog
Dave Polaschek (he/him)18h ago
Sad. A professor of Spanish (and Jewish and Native American) descent is getting Spanish citizenship after UC Boulder required him to prove his citizenship (at ICE’s behest). His family’s been in the territory that became the US for at least 200 years longer than the Drumpfs have been. https://english.elpais.com/usa/2026-02-09/a-university-professor-of-spanish-descent-in-the-days-of-ice-a-foreigner-in-his-own-country.html
A university professor of Spanish descent in the days of ICE: A foreigner in his own country

Roger Martínez-Dávila says he was suddenly told to prove his US citizenship by the University of Colorado, where he’s been working for the last 16 years. It wasn’t required of his department colleagues with Anglo surnames

EL PAÍS English