Tom Bortels

128 Followers
77 Following
3.4K Posts
Ancient Scholar, Level 80 Paladin, Finder of Lost Children. Science blah blah blah Computers blah blah blah...
PronounsHe/him/his
Hat sizeEnormous
MainPaladin
SignalBiggles.66
LocationSouthern California
Moodusually grumpy
AI Economics for Dummies

“Xavier owns an apartment that he rents out at a loss of $1 billion/month. Seeing this success, he decides to make financial commitments to construct $850 bi...

McSweeney's Internet Tendency

I employ a two-pronged defence against phishing:

First, I am so behind on reading my email that, by the time a phishing message actually gets read, the original scammers have probably had their site taken down, or maybe died of old age.

Second, I don’t know any of my passwords and, if your domain doesn’t match, my password manager won’t fill them, and I’m much too lazy to fill them manually, so will probably just close the window. If it looks important, I’ll flag the email and come back to it eventually. Maybe.

I Work Very Hard, And I Would Like To Try Cake. “I am a nice horse. I do not fuss. I do not bite the human woman’s face, even though her hair smells nice. I do not ask to go live free in the woods like the deer. I do my duties. I must try cake. Please.” https://theonion.com/i-work-very-hard-and-i-would-like-to-try-cake
I Work Very Hard, And I Would Like To Try Cake

Hello. I am a horse. I work very hard at my job of being a horse. When humans say move the heavy thing, I move the heavy thing. When humans sit on top of me and pull on my head, I carry them where they want to go. The main food the humans give me […]

The Onion
When I was at school, Dad convinced my friend that when you flushed away a huge turd you had to phone Thames Water so they could 'deal with it' to stop the pipes blocking. He gave my friend the landline number of his mate who was in on it. The calls carried on for several years.

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@wendynather/116714739536238264

Life Hack: when an Old Person says, do you want to know how I got these scars, it's because they can see that you're about to do the thing that got them those scars.

Just saw the idea of getting wound up all the way up over some utterly innocuous thing that might, maybe, if you hold up to the light at the right angle, be a nod to an allusion to some expression of queer gender something as "a cissyfit" and it is warming my heart like a tiny campfire.

Fred Rogers is the hero we should build statues of.

I say, for the millionth time. I'll say it as many times as it takes.

filed under "extraordinarily rare covers as good as the original song, perhaps even better" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfoqd4hpPZohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfoqd4hpPZo
Baby Got Back

Provided to YouTube by CDBabyBaby Got Back · Jonathan CoultonTh...

YouTube
I may have finally found the Python-in-a-sandbox solution I've been looking for... here's my latest experiment, this time running MicroPython in WebAssembly inside my Python applications https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jun/6/micropython-in-a-sandbox/
Running Python code in a sandbox with MicroPython and WASM

I’ve been experimenting with different approaches to running code in a sandbox for several years now, but my latest attempt feels like it might finally have all of the characteristics …

Simon Willison’s Weblog