Merc

@merc@techhub.social
25 Followers
83 Following
478 Posts
I'm a #critter (someone who likes #CriticalRole), a Gooner (a fan of #arsenal), and for work I do tech stuff.

Aston Martin is competing in this weekend's #LeMans 24 hour race and because of their link to the Bond franchise one of their cars has the number "007". Cool, but...

Man, do I feel sorry for the programmers who built car trackers, results databases, etc. The number field used to be, you know, a number. Now they have to convert everything to a string so that car "007" (Aston Martin) can be distinguished from car 7 (Toyota).

There's probably some dude named Paul Weiss having an awful month because Mr. Paul and Mr. Weiss were the most important partners at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.
@cstross The new movie is trash, but I can't let a Captain America reference go by without linking to this incredible fanfic, "Steve Rogers: PR Disaster".
https://idiopath-fic-smile.tumblr.com/post/117149098318/steve-rogers-pr-disaster-gen-4k
steve rogers: pr disaster | gen | 4k

(someone asked about the full version of this, so here u go) “Wait,” says Sam, “you had a publicist?” “For my first five months at S.H.I.E.L.D,” says Steve. “Then she quit. Uh, decisively.” “Well...

Tumblr

thanks to the videogame history foundation, we now have audio extracted from a DAT tape that was recorded during the production of Ultima VII: The Black Gate.

voiced by Bill Johnson, the tape contains one hour of The Guardian taunting the avatar. the first minute is the exact monologue used in the intro to the game.

source: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/f08cd613-0509-488e-a5e7-160bcbe15117

#ultima #dosgaming

Home | Video Game History Foundation Library – Digital Archive

I used to subscribe to Apple Music and then stopped. When I subscribed again, I had lost all my hand-curated playlists that I had carefully crafted over the years.

I’m done with this subscription-based life where everything you cherish can and will be taken away from you. So I took the radical decision to own my music, like we used to when iPods were fashionable.

And you can too.

https://ergaster.org/posts/2025/02/14-you-can-own-music/

#music #subscription #ipod

You can still own music

In the 2000s I spent a lot of time with headphones on. Most of my pocket money went into CDs. I bought them, ripped them, loaded them into my music player and listened to them countless times. This changed, and owning my music is how I've meant to fix my relationship to music.

Are you worried about anticompetitive practices or privacy, or maybe you just want new search results? These 15 search engines beat Google in many ways, from anonymous browsing to curated content. https://www.pcmag.com/picks/go-beyond-google-best-alternative-search-engines
Go Beyond Google: The Best Alternative Search Engines

Worried about privacy and anticompetitive practices, or maybe you just want new online search options that aren't Google? Start with the top 12 alternative search engines we recommend.

PCMAG

This is an interesting time to be reading @cstross 's The Delirium Brief for the first time.

@pluralistic 's Radicalized has been seen as prescient lately, but @cstross really demonstrated the chaos of abruptly shutting down a government body without first wrapping up all the loose ends.

Bellingcat’s Financial Investigations team explores the bizarre streams of online gambling company 1xBet, that allow gamblers to bet on tournaments organised on an industrial scale from amateur sports separated by curtains to strange arcade-like games. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2024/10/21/1xbet-hosts-thousands-of-amateur-sports-streams-on-its-website/?utm_source=mstdn
1xBet Streams Thousands of Amateur Sports Games

Bellingcat has identified a series of locations across Russia, Ukraine and Belarus that host amateur games streamed to controversial gambling website.

bellingcat

Ontario is actually moving forward with the dumbest and most counterproductive pieces of legislation I've ever seen: any new bike lane projects that remove any car lanes will be denied by the province.

There's no solution to car traffic except viable alternatives to driving, but Ontario is determined to ignore that reality.

It's also wild that so-called small government "Conservatives" think it's ok for the provincial government to meddle in municipal issues.

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-government-moving-to-restrict-new-bike-lanes-in-municipalities-1.7073952

Ontario government moving to restrict new bike lanes in municipalities

Ontario Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria says the provincial government is introducing legislation that would require municipalities to receive provincial approval before removing traffic lanes to install new bike paths.

Toronto

A Prescription To Ruin Your Life

"Frank was a faithful husband, professionally successful, devoted father [] spent hours playing online poker. One day he went out to buy grass seed and came home with a new car [] convicted of possession of CSAM."
https://theamericanscholar.org/the-degradation-drug/

The Degradation Drug - The American Scholar

A medication prescribed for Parkinson’s and other diseases can transform a patient’s personality, unleashing heroic bouts of creativity or a torrent of shocking, even criminal behavior

The American Scholar