Scott Williams 🐧

Do you use your powers for good or for awesome?

Senior #DevOps Engineer at a major research institution (views/opinions my own) and a severe #Linux and #opensource enthusiast. Also into #retrocomputing, #fountainpens, #Volkswagen, #music, and #cooking. #fedi22

Hoosier currently living in California.

Pixelfed: @vwbusguy
Video game talk: @vwbusguy

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Last Notes

2026-07-27 17:19:03 UTC

I wonder if labeling a socket as GFCI is technically a way to make code?
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/993/079/459/960/843/original/5ad3cac2a2ec820b.jpg

2026-07-19 20:36:59 UTC

Debating about getting tin can for the kids. It's like a landline phone over WiFi. Curious to hear from others that may have used the service before and if they would recommend it or not?
https://tincan.kids/

2026-07-14 22:27:58 UTC

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@nprofile…qnx8 This Kubernetes deployment used to be a Perl script

2026-07-14 21:51:28 UTC

That moment when you go from "Does this really need the complexity of Kubernetes" to "Does this really need the complexity of a VM?"

2026-07-14 16:16:28 UTC

Of the various things I've regretted in my life, the choice to go all in on #Linux at work and at home is not one of them.

2026-06-13 23:01:32 UTC

Complain all you want about n64 controllers, but the only firmware upgrade it ever needed was a rumble pack.

2026-06-06 17:19:51 UTC

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@nprofile…2f04 I am a Free Methodist, which is a registered peace church, though I wish we were as consistent about it as your church has been. Quakers were regularly cited by our church early on, particularly on issues of war, slavery, and women in ministry. (Methodists in general were historically pacifist, which was a major problem during the Revolutionary War, until they got popular in the 19th century. Free Methodists retained that earlier conviction.)

2026-06-06 05:35:15 UTC

Even though my religion is still on the DoD list, I wish it wasn't, because it means we haven't caused enough good trouble as pacifists to get removed from such a list.

2026-06-03 03:53:53 UTC

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@nprofile…398a Since I'm primarily a guitar player, do I benefit from double jeopardy?

2026-06-03 03:38:14 UTC

Doing my best to keep the rent down in my neighborhood with my regular banjo playing 😅

2026-05-29 15:11:52 UTC

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@nprofile…dhz6 @nprofile…mfhp That ship sailed almost 40 years ago the moment I took piano lessons.

2026-05-29 05:29:58 UTC

Played my #banjo tonight at a local bluegrass jam. I've been playing banjo for a decade now but this was my first time doing something like that with it. I'm very "back porch trained" when it comes to my banjo. While it was painfully obvious to me at least that I'm nowhere remotely close to my competency on a guitar, I still had fun, and I'm declaring it mission accomplished on that basis.

2026-05-28 05:17:48 UTC

Life hack - if you feed your sourdough starter but aren't ready to make bread, fry it in a cast iron skillet with bacon grease, dry minced garlic, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper and you'll get an easy and absolutely delicious focaccia fry bread.

2026-05-22 23:48:55 UTC

Today's fresh loaf of sourdough #bread from scratch. This one did some interesting things in the oven.
#cooking
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/620/898/809/395/680/original/2605a7c0cef4c882.jpg
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/620/899/594/372/652/original/ff88298c3df190f5.jpg
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/620/899/815/073/453/original/9af4d766cc97d6a9.jpg

2026-05-14 04:36:29 UTC

Serious question: Why would I get a membership to one of those indoor cycling places when I live in a place that has excellent cycling weather over 300 days of the year that costs me nothing except for the extremely nominal upkeep on my 30 year old Trek bike?
There's a bunch of indoor cycling gyms in easy biking distance to me, but why?

2026-05-04 14:21:33 UTC

I wonder at some point if us coffee enthusiasts will finally admit that for all the fancy pour over type brewing stuff made since, that they all require more work but they're not better than a French Press.

2026-04-30 23:30:38 UTC

Playing Doom on Nextcloud is honestly way more fun to me than the shiny AI integrations.

2026-04-28 15:33:12 UTC

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@nprofile…cm40 That said, COSMIC is really good!

2026-04-28 15:32:51 UTC

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@nprofile…cm40 Huh, I upgraded about a week ago and gnome login worked fine. You might ask on https://discussion.fedoraproject.org for support for that.

2026-04-28 15:04:34 UTC

Happy @nprofile…n7x6 44 release day! 🎉🎉🎉
https://fedoraproject.org/
#Linux #Fedora #Fedora44

2026-04-27 22:05:36 UTC

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@nprofile…6v4e Fedora COSMIC Atomic.

2026-04-27 22:01:19 UTC

Welp, looks like my time with Bazzite is coming to an end. rpm-ostree layering is broke for me and the advice to run basic desktop stuff in an Ubuntu DistroBox isn't for me. It's still great option if you are gaming focused, but I was hoping for something more robust for a laptop experience.
#Linux

2026-04-25 02:46:34 UTC

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@nprofile…3p9z the NetworkManager tui

2026-04-24 15:16:32 UTC

The thing about making sourdough is that it gives me something active to do with my hands that doesn't require being online and doesn't feel like a chore* and I need more of that kind of stuff in my life.
*Making the initial starter from scratch definitely felt like a chore. I recommend getting some starter from a local friend instead.

2026-04-22 18:14:33 UTC

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@nprofile…3p9z I personally agree. What I would really love is for the AI mega data center thing to fall on its knees hard enough that GPUs become reasonably priced for consumers and efficient enough to run modern models locally, and for self-hosting more complex things against your own data to be far more affordable both in terms of hardware and electricity.

2026-04-22 17:54:18 UTC

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@nprofile…3p9z The truth is this stuff is really expensive and they're (Anthropic, Copilot) are finally growing a legit user base for it with newer and more capable models but can't handle the compute demand for it, so that's manifesting for now in really esoteric limits to avoid the unavoidable massive price hikes as long as possible when they're trying to gain mass adoption. Quality has improved but the business models are far from sustainable.

2026-04-22 16:26:56 UTC

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@nprofile…27sg Also, for what it's worth, much of the most recent trend has been more toward assisting actual devs rather than platforms to replace them, and devs are much more willing to help improve stuff that they feel empowers them rather than directly threatens their livelihood. Stuff like #opencode seems well positioned right now.

2026-04-22 16:22:26 UTC

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@nprofile…27sg AI has been around much longer than this current hype cycle and will continue on in some form once it has passed. It'll be interesting to see what's left once the things that have been overrepresented and oversold get sifted out.

2026-04-22 15:49:28 UTC

Yesterday was Anthropic. Today it's Copilot. If you think prices aren't going to continue to go up and rate limits tighten for these companies, then I have some oceanfront property to hallucinate for you in Arizona.

2026-04-21 15:57:12 UTC

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@nprofile…st9f I feel like I should also qualify this by saying that I also have zero desire to tell someone who is skilled with an axe that they must use a chainsaw instead if they are otherwise perfectly able to get the job done with an axe.

2026-04-21 15:53:10 UTC

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@nprofile…st9f Chainsaw is probably a better example than hammer and screwdriver because it's had massive environmental implications as well.

2026-04-21 15:51:57 UTC

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@nprofile…st9f I replied for this otherwise but I think we can agree that the chainsaw hasn't become less useful because we no longer use them for childbirth.
https://www.history.com/articles/chainsaw-invention-origins-delivery-labor

2026-04-21 14:56:31 UTC

LLM's are just another tool. LLM's as a concept aren't inherently magical nor evil. Like most everything else, people will use them as people do with any kind of widely available unregulated tool like screwdrivers and hammers - for good, evil, awesome, or thoroughly stupid.

2026-04-18 02:26:58 UTC

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@nprofile…0n3n I'm trying out HeliBoard now and I was interested to see it referenced from the FUTO website
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/423/338/205/555/155/original/cfbe8880e23ce345.png

2026-04-18 00:44:12 UTC

I've been using #SwiftKey since before Microsoft bought them but it's been all sorts of glitch lately and it seems like a good opportunity to find an #opensource alternative that isn't a corporate key logger. Looking for something that can swipe to type.

2026-04-15 20:18:18 UTC

Imagine finding out that dragons did exist and still do exist and then not telling anyone about it so that they would continue to exist, but getting to go on living with the sense of awe about that.

2026-04-14 21:11:49 UTC

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And this one..
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/405/111/384/197/957/original/c0796c40d094261d.jpg

2026-04-14 15:00:09 UTC

The #California voter guides never disappoint for having weird stuff and drama.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/403/653/263/377/940/original/4b933a2396e25bf0.jpg

2026-04-14 02:48:07 UTC

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@nprofile…3p9z You'd be a very lucrative pick up for a certain prominent German Linux vendor with a competing Kubernetes distribution.

2026-04-13 18:56:00 UTC

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@nprofile…398a I hear you. But the stuff I would normally leave in there if I chain it up is deodorant and replacement tire tubes, etc. Not particularly valuable stuff.

2026-04-13 18:23:53 UTC

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@nprofile…3p9z I'm so sorry to hear this 😔

2026-04-13 16:18:05 UTC

Since I got a bike rack and saddle bags last year, I still haven't gotten used to not taking a backpack on my back to work. I certainly don't miss the extra weight, but I also have to fight the feeling that I've forgotten something. It's a "good problem to have" though.

2026-04-12 03:08:22 UTC

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@nprofile…2ffv Nope and it's a long story. If you're curious, you're best off reading it from the horses mouths directly.

2026-04-12 02:07:16 UTC

It seems like TDF/Libreoffice board has lost the plot lately. Sad to see as someone who has been using LibreOffice ever since it was first forked from OpenOffice. I hope Collabora and others can find ways to continue to channel their energies in contributing in productive ways for the user community.

2026-04-09 15:43:28 UTC

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I'm at the point where bread making is feeling easy, much like driving a stick shift. It doesn't feel like a chore and unless I'm going out of town for several days, I haven't felt obligated to maintain my sourdough starter beyond my natural whims for when I feel like making a batch of dough.

2026-04-09 15:40:12 UTC

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The best part is start to finish was about 4 hours, including autoalyse. I used store yeast, but not quick rise - regular Fleischmans. I don't have a stand mixer, so the most labor intense part was mixing the initial flour and water with a bread whisk in a bowl, keeping hydration low. I pitched yeast dry straight from the fridge and after an hour, stretched it and added honey and various other spices. I added more to the banneton as well and it didn't stick to the basket.

2026-04-09 15:34:56 UTC

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This was definitely my best wheat bread so far. Very good flavor. My wife approved and she's not a wheat bread person. The loaf is incredibly dense, though, which is great for sandwich bread, but it's very filling compared to my sourdough.

2026-04-09 03:58:52 UTC

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Here's a shot from on top
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/372/741/299/533/082/original/ec2e8783803c64ff.jpg

2026-04-09 03:56:56 UTC

Today's loaf of bread from scratch. Whole wheat. I used a banneton with rice flour I ground myself.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/372/731/586/049/572/original/0c7d421214514fa4.jpg

2026-04-06 15:58:20 UTC

Lol, I love reading bad reviews of the new Mario movie. For me, it all the more affirms that they doubled down on making a movie for the fans and not for the critics. I loved it!

2026-03-26 22:10:59 UTC

My last git rebase set me back 19 manual merge conflict commits 🥹

2026-03-25 06:46:22 UTC

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@nprofile…j983 I think I've driven through San Jose exactly one time? I'm not a California native and have only lived in So Cal area since moving here.

2026-03-25 06:25:45 UTC

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@nprofile…j983 Never been to Santa Clara and don't know where it is on a map, but I've driven through Santa Clarita many many times.

2026-03-24 22:47:46 UTC

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@nprofile…j983 That *used to* be true 10 years ago but I thought there were a couple stateside since - one of them in Georgia, IIRC.
https://www.westernelectric.com/company-history

2026-03-24 17:05:08 UTC

How to make a wifi7 router using spare guitar tube amp components? Asking on behalf of myself and millions of Americans.

2026-03-24 02:11:21 UTC

I'm gonna miss SUSE shipping wicked as the default.
-Literally no one
#Linux

2026-03-23 18:14:26 UTC

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@nprofile…2zdt I'm almost certainly running phosphor bronze on my mandolin, too. My mando has a pickup as well, but I've never had an issue of it not being bright enough 😅 .

2026-03-22 20:04:36 UTC

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@nprofile…2zdt I'll preface this with an acknowledgement that both are viable and it largely comes down to preference, but it's ultimately a trade off better 80/20 having a more vibrant tone vs phosphor bronze having better longevity. 80/20's brightness is also easier to manage with an on board EQ when plugged it. It's easier IMO to tone down the high end brightness than to boost it. My next adventure will be "bluegrass" 80/20 that have thicker gauge low end strings.

2026-03-22 13:45:51 UTC

I prefer 80/20 strings over Phosphor Bronze for steel string acoustics.

2026-03-20 16:10:05 UTC

Well, I think I'm gonna pass on that offer.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/262/367/942/028/290/original/07cd7f9b37206617.png

2026-03-20 04:33:07 UTC

I missed FireFoxOS and the company that Mozilla used to be right up until about the time they canned it.

2026-03-13 16:55:38 UTC

Why yes, I do torrent.
#Linux
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/222/911/827/215/772/original/1301dce0f2a7b9ca.png

2026-03-10 16:07:43 UTC

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@nprofile…u0ky I think I paid $240 new for the laptop that got me through my PhD coursework and it had a touchscreen, DVD burner, and plenty of USB ports.

2026-03-10 04:30:36 UTC

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@nprofile…sftd c: for Linux was the first clue.

2026-03-09 01:31:39 UTC

Another great year for #Fedora and #CentOS at #Scale23x! I love events like this that reinforce the "Friends" in Fedora!
#Linux
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/196/627/935/641/604/original/65556a1bcee91661.jpeg

2026-03-07 20:37:02 UTC

We're back in the expo hall again with the retro modem running #Fedora #Linux.
#retrocomputing #Scale23x @nprofile…z2ss
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/189/804/209/225/798/original/07e9b59e147ab273.jpg
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/189/804/237/513/535/original/b62fb0f466e25fca.jpg
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/189/804/611/216/201/original/27c4ab37c043df31.jpg

2026-03-03 20:55:47 UTC

Sourdough loaf of the day. Good oven spring. No banneton this time. Only problem is I used a different brand of parchment paper and this one stuck to the bottom of the bread. Haven't had that happen before (and no, it's not wax paper).
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/167/230/028/460/046/original/7970abf2ef0869d0.jpg

2026-03-01 23:22:32 UTC

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@nprofile…4mdk Wow if this is true, UC San Diego got over $2.3m from three ICE contracts.

2026-03-01 02:23:32 UTC

This is fantastic.
A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator
https://youtube.com/watch?v=T4Upf_B9RLQ

2026-02-28 21:29:24 UTC

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
- Eisenhower

2026-02-28 21:09:49 UTC

War is not an effective remedy for injustice. You can't fight evil with evil.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/116/150/302/109/606/777/original/ee31dad35cb6669d.png

2026-02-28 18:39:19 UTC

To this day, the personal server that I use and depend on in my daily life runs a LAMP stack on #Fedora #Linux from primarily secondhand hardware. No Kubernetes, Ansible, etc, etc. Just old school bash automations via cron, and it's been going for well over a decade now like that. I manually upgrade the Fedora version twice a year, which usually requires me running two commands. Most everything else is automated with plain old bash.

2026-02-26 05:16:51 UTC

Back in my day, "retro games" were called "games".

2026-02-25 00:53:05 UTC

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@nprofile…mhfn @nprofile…h7vq @nprofile…e762 @nprofile…850x Unless I'm missing something obvious, that doesn't appear to be LibreOffice based?

2026-02-24 21:49:41 UTC

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@nprofile…h7vq @nprofile…e762 You can run Collabora Office standalone.

2026-02-23 01:10:24 UTC

I've heard someone say that the older you get, the more you appreciate P90 pickups and that's definitely been true for me.

2026-02-20 23:43:05 UTC

In case you thought things were "de-escalating"
ICE Agents Arrest Observer and Knock Down and Pepper-Spray 80-Year-Old Attorney in Downtown Santa Barbara
#SantaBarbara
https://www.independent.com/2026/02/20/ice-agents-arrest-observer-and-knock-down-and-pepper-spray-elderly-attorney-in-downtown-santa-barbara/

2026-02-20 18:37:13 UTC

I feel like using ssh as a socks5 proxy is a secret hidden in plainsight and fulfills a heck of a lot of use cases for VPNs with much less overhead.

2026-02-20 01:20:53 UTC

Sennheiser: The thing to use when you're not Shure.

2026-02-11 18:29:10 UTC

"As of December, 2025, there are an estimated 15,000 satellites in orbit around Earth. Around two-thirds of that collective are Starlink satellites, despite the project only having started in 2019."
"At first, the satellites seemed stable, with only two reentries in 2020, but the number soon climbed: 78 in 2021, 99 in 2022, 88 in 2023, and then in 2024, a massive leap to 316. That's almost one a day, and in 2025... McDowell has recorded 1–2 satellite reentries per day."
https://www.sciencing.com/2065092/number-of-starlink-satellites-fallen-out-of-sky-might-surprise-you/

2026-02-08 02:46:51 UTC

New life skill unlocked: I cut my own hair for the first time this afternoon. It's not perfect, but I've also paid money for much worse. Absolutely nerve wracking at first, but took my time and it turned out pretty good.
I had done the math and the cost of clippers was a little less than what I usually end up paying at local barber shops.

2026-01-26 16:41:05 UTC

OK, I'm willing to admit that making a sourdough starter from scratch has been a bigger and more tedious project than I expected it would be (considering I only started baking bread from scratch a little over a week ago), but I also feel like I'm too far along to turn back.

2026-01-23 20:13:41 UTC

#AlpineLinux just feels so satisfying and right for a container image base. It's just so clean and straight to the point.

2026-01-23 00:08:46 UTC

Looking forward to #SCaLE23x in March!
https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale/23x
#Linux #socallinuxexpo

2026-01-15 03:56:29 UTC

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@nprofile…c9kz There's a lot of it depends, but most of the cost is AI is in training the models rather than the queries themselves.

2026-01-14 04:29:35 UTC

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@nprofile…j983 What I read was that traditional didn't go away with 16, but the immutable/transactional stuff is focused on Leap Micro and MicroOS (in my use case here, I wanted immutable since it's more practical for Kubernetes hosts).

2026-01-14 00:04:53 UTC

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@nprofile…j983 Success!
It booted up just fine. Granted, these are fresh install servers that aren't running any DE.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/890/519/376/755/690/original/4f3e3884ec9fa4fb.png

2026-01-14 00:01:01 UTC

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@nprofile…j983 I think we may have gotten it to work on some HP Gen 8 Sandy Bridge servers that don't support UEFI by installing 15.5 Transactional Server and upgrading to 16 via the opensuse-migration-tool. It also gave an option for 32-bit support for steam.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/890/507/659/174/288/original/b75685051cdaf600.png

2026-01-12 22:19:41 UTC

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This SLES support doc seems to suggest it exists but I don't see it in repos or docs on the OpenSUSE side.
https://documentation.suse.com/sles/15-SP7/html/SLES-all/cha-upgrade-paths.html

2026-01-12 22:15:24 UTC

It's interesting that there's a SLES 15sp7 but no OpenSUSE Leap 15.7.
#Linux #SUSE #OpenSUSE

2026-01-10 21:39:49 UTC

It's a good time to consider your digital sovereignty. If you aren't hosting your own data on #Nextcloud, etc., it's a very good time to think about doing that.

2026-01-07 21:47:14 UTC

It turns out, I replaced Percona's postgres operator with one from a German shoe company 😂.

2026-01-06 22:16:44 UTC

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@nprofile…qnx8 Why? Have you had some rough experiences with it?

2026-01-06 19:59:37 UTC

My first impressions of the #Zalando #postgresql operator are very good.

2026-01-06 17:41:44 UTC

Morning thought: What if the earth had a massive ocean sized air pocket hiding in the crust somewhere that gradually opened up and released causing the oceans to recede by a hundred feet, which in turn cause the coastlines to expand around the entire world over the course of a year?

2026-01-06 15:54:23 UTC

We're back to manifest destiny? 🤦

2025-12-30 20:10:45 UTC

TIL that inches and centimeters line up exactly at 50 inches, which is 127cm. Why can't metric use nice even numbers like that? 😅

2025-12-26 17:08:23 UTC

It's a sad day when the leftover Thai food in the fridge is gone.

2025-12-21 18:28:09 UTC

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This was an extraordinarily niche joke.

2025-12-21 01:18:20 UTC

The Packard Bell computer company had a canyon named after them that became a song that made it on the Trans Siberian Orchestra Christmas album, so now we get to hear about this old OEM every year.