Ben Zanin

Robertson screwdriver owner, believer in the value of personal-scale computing and skeptic of the value of computing scales any larger than that

(previously https://twitter.com/gnomon ; account de-funked)

Small hacks: https://git.sr.ht/~gnomon/

Pronouns: he/him
💍: Katie Lou Boo (npub1myf…3whl)
Home: 🇨🇦 Toronto, Canada
Trash animals: raccoons, possums, skunks, rats, squirrels, not geese

Last Notes

2025-09-22 02:00:06 UTC

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ooh they brought pool floaties, good planning
#monsterdon

2025-09-22 01:50:40 UTC

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Ooh are we about to meet a rat-crab-bat-spider monster?
I think we are!!
Aww lookit the little cutie
#monsterdon

2025-09-22 01:48:20 UTC

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...could you please also not smoke a pipe in a spacecraft running an atmosphere of compressed oxygen and recirculated air
...directly next to the two-light alert panel with a green light labelled "NORMAL", a red light labelled "EXCESSIVE", and a panel title that reads "OXYGEN CONSUMPTION"
#monsterdon

2025-09-22 01:38:28 UTC

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Could you not gesture at your crew member with your sidearm while keeping your finger on the trigger please, that would be great
#monsterdon

2025-09-22 01:31:37 UTC

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"No no, I'll go. It's about time Iris and I had a chance to use this expensive equipment of ours."
...says the guy standing inside an interplanetary spaceship
#monsterdon

2025-09-22 01:00:07 UTC

Getting ready for #monsterdon, kicking off in just a moment!

2025-08-22 20:28:03 UTC

For pete's sake, @npub16pr…crsg : if you want to measure whether the AI/ML features are worth a damn, put a big green "disable all AI in my browser" button on the version update screen and put some telemetry around how many people instantly click it.
Just about everyone I know who has taken the 142 update is working through about:config menus to toggle off everything under browser.ml.* and grumbling about it, or just straight-up abandoning Firefox in exasperation.
Turn the ship around. *Please*.

2025-07-21 01:55:53 UTC

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*jukebox explodes in a shower of sparks*
HAH, they make those things out of the same stuff as the bridge consoles in the NCC-1701-D?
#monsterdon

2025-06-18 01:50:43 UTC

Why do I like computing as a field of study and as an industry?
Why still, when the tech industry works so hard to find new reasons to be reviled - invading privacy; bending public sentiment against democratic institutions by monetizing disinformation campaigns; leveraging enormous financial instruments against laws, regulations, & social norms that have protected employees & preserved dignity; driving up profit for investors at the expense of environmental externalities borne by the powerless?

2025-04-16 01:41:29 UTC

I know of brunch places that make French toast with challah, but does any place make it with babka? How is it?

2025-02-22 20:07:23 UTC

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I often feel this way too, but I have to keep reminding myself that while I'd be willing to give up bitmap images quite easily, I am immoveable in my commitment to the font rendering infrastructure that makes text on computers accessible to most of the readers in the world now, and I don't think I could keep the glyph rendering work while yeeting the image rendering, alas.

2025-02-16 01:39:51 UTC

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(it has a cute little HANDLE on top, just look at it, COME ON)
https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/1005008110790874.html

2025-02-14 03:24:31 UTC

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"butter fuss"

2025-02-14 01:35:37 UTC

This is probably a pretty cold take at this point, but I feel like SELinux is a failed idea. Not in that it doesn't function, because it does; nor in that its functionality isn't valuable, because it is; but in that it has failed to turn that value into a wide improvement in the security of the linux ecosystem.
I think a contributing cause for this is how it feels like a sales pitch: "buy our training course", "buy our consultancy package".
Feels like it was written by IBM. (It was the NSA.)

2025-01-29 01:21:02 UTC

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I'm sorry too, I was feeling prickly and I let that get the better of me when you wrote in. That 51st state talk is extremely poorly received around here: it is whipping people here into a cold rage.
I beg your pardon. No hard feelings.

2024-12-26 06:26:40 UTC

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Yay, my brother got me that Logitech joystick I had on my wish list! We are definitely going to put some time into Star Wars: Squadrons together in January or February!

2024-09-06 14:02:24 UTC

GUESS WHAT SEASON IT IS
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/its-decorative-gourd-season-motherfuckers