Okay, I've got the first steps down of my #Mastodon #migration to a new account -- I was able to bring over the people I follow and the people I've blocked. Unfortunately, although you can EXPORT all your posts and media in Mastodon, you can't IMPORT them into another account, which is maddening. Now to figure out how to forward everyone following me to my new account, so you don't have to manually do it (although I appreciate @snarl being the first one to do so).
https://mastodon.social/@jasonpettus
I'm thinking a lot this week about how it's now been a month since I've gone to a Starbucks, when previously I went almost every day for several decades. Habits are SO hard to disrupt once they've been established, but Starbucks managed to do exactly that with me -- through $8 coffees, 20-minute waits, and stores blasting their music systems like they're a danceclub, unambiguously signaling that the employees would like you to get the fuck out now, please.
I Was a Slave to Starbucks Until the Company Fucked Up So Much That They Accidentally Freed Me: A Lifetime movie
It's official -- a three-day outage this week at the weird generic massive Japanese Mastodon instance I belong to, which I joined way back in 2019 when I first showed up at the
#FEDIVEEERSE and didn't know what I was doing, has convinced me to
#migrate to an "official Mastodon instance" so that I'll get all the software updates in real time. New address is
https://mastodon.social/@jasonpettus, but for now, can anyone recommend a good
#guide #online for
#migrating a
#Mastodon account?
Read my ★★★★ review of #NealStephenson's newest, #Polostan, volume 1 of a trilogy that tells the 20-year saga of how atomic weapons were first invented. I'm relieved to say that this longtime favorite author of mine (going all the way back to his cyberpunk days in the '90s) is back in full form here, after his two previous books were both giant swings-and-a-miss.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6962164284
Jason Pettus's review of Polostan (Bomb Light, #1)
4/5: 2024 reads, #68. Oh boy, Neal Stephenson has a new novel out! Like Bret Easton Ellis, who I was just talking about here last week, Stephenson’s one of the few authors in existence I can say I’m a legitimate completist of, by which I mean I’ve read every novel he’s ever written, going all the way back to 1984’s The Big U and counting forward another fourteen titles. In my twenties and thirties, I was absolutely blown away by his far-out-there ‘90s cyberpunk tales and eventually his first historical-fiction saga, the ‘40/’90s dual story known as Cryptonomicon; and while he’s had better ones a...
How fucking incompetent is Boeing in the 21st century? So fucking incompetent that they're seriously considering selling off their entire aerospace division, because it would be easier than replacing their employees with people who know what they're doing.
https://www.space.com/boeing-exploring-sale-space-business-starliner
Boeing considers selling its space business, including Starliner: report
Discussions are at an 'early stage.'
A Chicago Bears player at an away game was so busy taunting the crowd about their impending loss, he didn't notice the successful Hail Mary pass happening directly behind him that let his opponents win the game in the final seconds.
https://www.nbcnews.com/sports/nfl/bears-player-apologizes-taunting-fans-right-team-lost-hail-mary-touchd-rcna177612
Bears player apologizes for taunting fans right before his team lost on a Hail Mary touchdown
Chicago Bears cornerback Tyrique Stevenson thought his team had a win in the bag against the Washington Commanders on Sunday, so he stood with his back to the field and taunted the home crowd as the final play of the game was unfolding.
Renormalize making city parks by just plunking them on top of graveyards without bothering to move the bodies
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/this-new-york-city-park-was-built-on-top-of-a-cemetery-180985329/
This New York City Park Was Built on Top of a Cemetery
In the late 19th century, city officials turned the final resting place for 10,000 souls into what's now Greenwich Village’s James J. Walker Park
I admit, I'm shocked to see the New York Times run an article positing that Kamala Harris was grown in a lab by a scientist, but here we are.
#FireYourCopyeditor
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/28/science/shyamala-gopalan-kamala-harris-mother.html
The Rebellious Scientist Who Made Kamala Harris
The presidential candidate’s mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, was a breast cancer researcher whose egalitarian politics often bucked a patriarchal lab culture.
Welcome to your #thoughtcrime future: Man sentenced to 18 years in prison for taking photographs of nude children, despite no actual photographs or actual children being involved.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/28/u-k-man-who-used-ai-to-create-child-sexual-abuse-imagery-sentenced-to-18-years-in-prison/
U.K. man who used AI to create child sexual abuse imagery sentenced to 18 years in prison | TechCrunch
In what some are describing as a landmark case, a U.K. man who used AI to turn normal pictures of children into sexual abuse imagery has been sentenced to
