George B

Making all sorts of stuff

Profile pic: a statue that a friend saw in a museum that looks enough like me to pick me out of a crowd.

Banner pic: a doll bench I made with 3 little knit stuffed animals my wife made sitting on it

Pixelfed: George B (npub1txk…lx2r)
Signal: https://signal.me/#eu/IBdzuZUBpMipgrPBtHcXgrD6AFgHSIDqKkhrIq1puoJ-B3fFbLBBvLVZ5hEXNdRz
Bookwyrm: George B (npub1d23…nekn)

Public Key

npub10g4xl47jyj6mm3h8qdqqqye9n6jqcu3r8s4anxe7cxlu7xw7cdhszvqctq

NIP-05 Address

gbargoud_at_masto.nyc@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs852n06lfzfddacmnsxsqqzvjeafqvwg3nc27envlvr070r80vxmcpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dswucvee

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub10g4xl47jyj6mm3h8qdqqqye9n6jqcu3r8s4anxe7cxlu7xw7cdhszvqctq

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Last Notes

2026-03-25 13:43:38 UTC

Woohoo, I'm now hosting a weekly repair cafe at Principles GI Coffee House in Brooklyn: http://principlesbk.nyc
Does anyone who has hosted some have advice for things to do when starting out like what tools to bring for the first day or how to manage expectations when someone brings something that i definitely cannot fix?
#Brooklyn #NYC #repaircafe
https://cdn.masto.nyc/media_attachments/files/116/290/098/024/715/011/original/2d0fbab4e726876d.png

2026-03-11 18:03:50 UTC

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RE: https://hachyderm.io/@evacide/116207648749663738
@npub16ys…sjae
I'm sure you have a massive pile of Avian Intelligence story ideas from everything happening but here's one that would fit in very well:

2026-03-06 00:05:20 UTC

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The NY State Senate are considering a bill that would make companies legally liable if they make chat bots that deliver advice in licensed fields like law, medicine and engineering
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S7263

2026-02-11 16:15:04 UTC

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The one joke that really gets me is this one with the cutaways although it is in the second movie:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lYSOmYyNHpU

2026-02-09 16:32:35 UTC

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Am I right in thinking that if I were to move to another country, I can vote absentee in federal elections but if I were to move to Puerto Rico, I would lose those rights despite still being in the US?

2026-02-06 23:47:51 UTC

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I haven't seen one in person and until I do I'm continuing to believe they are a hoax like drop bears.

2026-02-06 20:57:52 UTC

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Anyone saying an emu does not seem like a dinosaur has not seen one in person

2026-02-05 23:34:08 UTC

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I'm just amazed that there are people who keep getting elected to national positions in the democratic party who just let such blatant election theft slide.
They should have been primaried a quarter century ago and we're still dealing with their shit.

2026-02-05 21:34:02 UTC

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Looking back on the 2000 election (which happened before I lived in the US citizen or turned 18 so I didn't really follow it that hard at the time) it is wild just how fucking corrupt that was right out in the open

2026-02-05 21:29:40 UTC

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When voters were purged from the rolls before the election and then ballots were not counted for various badly defined reasons after the election leading to the governor's brother winning the state by a razor thin margin, I find it hard to blame voters themselves even if fewer Nader voters would have made the margins large enough to block that theft.

2026-02-05 20:58:42 UTC

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I think 2000 can be more accurately blamed on Florida just blatantly stealing the election than people staying home

2026-01-30 16:21:56 UTC

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Are you starting from the beginning? The first couple of books are a bit rougher around the edges as they were written as a parody of a bunch of different things that were popular at the time and he hadn't yet really brought it all together into a semi coherent world.
If you're starting somewhere else then disregard this

2026-01-27 18:38:06 UTC

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I think one of the big things there though is that (unless I'm mistaken), immigrants don't have a path to citizenship in the UAE like they do in the US and Europe which is something that the right wingers here would love to change.

2026-01-25 14:39:37 UTC

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There are a few of those here:
https://www.nyc.gov/site/dep/water/rain-gardens.page

2026-01-19 14:00:39 UTC

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@npub1fdr…lvhs has a bunch of suggestions about removing all of the laws protecting devices from being jail broken that the US has bullied pretty much every country into adding to their books as a start

2026-01-17 19:06:57 UTC

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https://consequence.net/2026/01/dropkick-murphys-anti-i-c-e-song-haywire-split/

2026-01-15 19:33:26 UTC

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Also a war crime (or whatever the equivalent is when not officially at war)
Using chemical weapons on the civilian population

2026-01-14 16:07:40 UTC

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Looks like corporate media not covering it enough is the reason:
> people who have heard “a lot” about it are 18 points more likely to condemn ICE than those who have heard nothing at at all.

2026-01-13 16:23:11 UTC

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I expect it to have a lot more staying power than the Bluesky and Twitter migration waves which would be nice.

2026-01-06 16:39:03 UTC

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The tech lead on my first job once told me to send him any changes deleting code for review, the more code deleted the better because he loves to see them

2026-01-04 19:27:17 UTC

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Also ranked choice voting last time around meant that Eric Adams won the primary by just under 1% instead of a decisive win.

2025-12-20 15:54:17 UTC

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I saw some holiday recommendations so I'll suggest the Hogfather miniseries

2025-12-20 12:01:28 UTC

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With ghosts I found that the US version decided to treat the audience like morons and that made it pretty much unwatchable

2025-12-20 01:01:34 UTC

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https://masto.nyc/@gbargoud/115499201687037717
#note1a8k…dhjz

2025-12-18 16:47:17 UTC

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I am curious about what a tiny per transaction tax would do specifically.
In general it would not be noticeable for most trades but would quickly kill high frequency trading (aka scalably building the most useless of useless middlemen) but I need to look up an analysis of secondary effects
Edit: found it: https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/54823

2025-11-05 21:25:55 UTC

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https://cdn.masto.nyc/media_attachments/files/115/499/196/617/877/044/original/7b4dbc413dd2d24d.png

2025-11-03 21:25:50 UTC

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Do you have a source for the politics desk being axed? That press release doesn't say it explicitly although it is hinted at heavily with:
> As a dedicated pillar on Vogue, Teen Vogue will focus its content on career development, cultural leadership and other issues that matter most to young people, according to the publication.

2025-11-03 19:10:39 UTC

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It should be pretty straightforward to select whatever directory you want as a mount point in disk utility if you have that installed:
https://apps.gnome.org/DiskUtility/

2025-11-03 18:28:28 UTC

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Weird, so it doesn't let you go to /mnt in the file picker even if you were to go to "/" and then navigate from there?
This might not be not the best solution but have you tried to remount the drive somewhere like "/home/$user/drives/$drivename" and then access it as if it's a regular folder

2025-11-03 11:43:02 UTC

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Strange, that's not an issue I ever encountered.
How does it fail to read it? Usually an external hard drive will be mounted on your system as a normal directory somewhere and should be useable by anything that uses the filesystem

2025-10-27 20:37:18 UTC

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People tend to forget just how bad it was in previous generations.
https://cdn.masto.nyc/media_attachments/files/115/448/032/744/364/387/original/afd03d7237486517.png

2025-10-12 18:13:06 UTC

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For some reason this onion article feels perpetually on point: https://theonion.com/jeff-bezos-tables-latest-breakthrough-cost-cutting-idea-1824144898/
Every right wing labor based innovation is just "what if we did slavery with extra steps?"

2025-10-10 14:05:35 UTC

A few years ago I built a long planter box for my balcony with a couple of really fun features.
The 5 gallon barrel is filled from our AC and upstairs neighbor's AC and then drains into a passive irrigation system made up of terracotta cups buried in the soil.
In the middle is an in-ground compost bin with a bunch of over caffeinated worms who go around feeding all the plants.
Something about the completely non-electrical automation is a lot of fun to me
#gardening #brooklyn #nyc #automation
https://cdn.masto.nyc/media_attachments/files/115/350/209/248/534/157/original/91e42ab7745de452.jpg
https://cdn.masto.nyc/media_attachments/files/115/350/209/673/400/186/original/1ea84854ccd8ea93.jpg
https://cdn.masto.nyc/media_attachments/files/115/350/210/170/936/240/original/1eeba6d86d5fa64f.jpg
https://cdn.masto.nyc/media_attachments/files/115/350/210/477/992/934/original/eb93eaf972253227.jpg

2025-10-02 18:56:11 UTC

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If you keep making book reviews and recommendations, you should check out https://joinbookwyrm.com/
It's an ActivityPub (so you can follow it from Mastodon) book logging and review site so if you make an account there you can set up your recommendations on separate shelves to look over them more easily.
As an example my account is @npub1d23…nekn if I write something particularly interesting about a book (like beyond here's a book I read), I can then boost it from my main account

2025-09-18 14:49:01 UTC

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It's a bit of a self selecting audience though. I wonder how the answers would look on threads or bluesky

2025-09-14 22:27:10 UTC

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May be a stupid question but I don't know enough about ATProto, ActivityPub or Bluesky infrastructure to be sure
Would it be possible for one of those systems that is forking Bluesky to make it so they use both ATProto and ActivityPub streams so they can be on here without a bridge?

2025-09-14 21:53:10 UTC

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I haven't checked all of them but lemmy.world is not a Mastodon instance. It is an activity pub service and can be followed from mastodon but it might be best to split it out into a "other fediverse services" list to make it clear to people looking for an instance that it will not be the same experience as a Mastodon instance.

2025-08-08 14:14:26 UTC

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I take it you've seen this post with a similar sentiment by @npub1fdr…lvhs : https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/31/unsatisfying-answers/#systemic-problems
TL;DR: yes those won't just go away based on your personal choices but you can make your own life better in the meantime and find ways to organize to help fix the issues at their root.

2025-08-06 14:56:33 UTC

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One of the more annoying trends in customer service is the last couple of times I've ordered something and had it arrive broken or with a part missing, they just immediately sent me a whole new one.
Even though the broken part was small and easily repairable if they had someone who actually knew the product on the other end of the line instead and I neither have space for a second one nor a desire to throw out something so repairable.

2025-08-04 11:40:29 UTC

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I have avoided following you because of the long threads but if there's one thing this conversation has shown me it's how to configure my filters to not have that problem.
Another thought although it may be more complicated: what if you have a second account that posts only the long thread blog posts in response to the header from your main account and gets boosted by the main account? Muting an account is a lot more discoverable and easy than configuring a filter

2025-08-01 17:07:31 UTC

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The ebooks are available as "notify when available" so I'll check that box to tell them there's interest.

2025-08-01 15:12:05 UTC

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Glad to know I could help.
On an unrelated note, are your ebooks for sale somewhere other than Amazon? My local library does not seem to have them.

2025-08-01 14:36:11 UTC

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Rural life in the US and a lot of the west is extremely tied to car ownership. According to Wikipedia, Uganda has about 41 motor vehicles per 1000 people (in 2016) while the US has 850 (in 2022)
Rural life is designed extremely differently in places where the assumption is that you will always have a car and if your story has international reach a lot of your audience may need to be taught the difference between their rural and yours.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_motor_vehicles_per_capita

2025-08-01 14:19:22 UTC

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Off grid gets rid of some of the issues of scale but takes up a lot of resources per person.
For example. In countries with cold winters, it's a lot cheaper to heat a big building with 100 apts in it than 100 small buildings each exposed to the outside world.
I don't know your background so I don't know what you mean exactly when you say rural and there is a world of difference between what different countries do, heavily influenced by transportation.

2025-08-01 13:44:43 UTC

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The problem is a problem of scale. Infrastructure is much cheaper to build per person in a city. The wiring needed to hook up my home if the neighbor has electricity is less than 10m. If we lived in a US style rural area then it would easily be a few km making it hundreds of times more expensive and failure prone.
If it's small dense villages surrounded by fields that might work (look at a satellite view of the Nile delta in Egypt for an example).

2025-07-21 12:09:33 UTC

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Every time this is suggested, some dip shit comes out to ask "BuT hOw WiLl PeOpLe KnOw HoW mUcH tAx ThEy PaY" as if itemizing things on receipts is a completely unheard of concept

2025-05-05 21:13:31 UTC

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> Anonymous, well-known for its use of the Guy Fawkes mask, is an umbrella some hackers operate under when performing what they see as hacktivism.
This is the best explanation/description I've seen written down. A lot better than the standard "treating it like an actual organization"

2025-03-26 10:37:39 UTC

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I really liked that LLMentaliat article when it came out and sent it to a lot of people who asked me my opinion on LLMs/AI

2025-02-27 19:18:55 UTC

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> My colleague Charlie Stross calls corporations "slow AI.”
I read that slow AI article many years ago and have looked for it ever since (forgetting who the author was) and it's been absolutely impossible to search for the word "corporation" and "AI" together and get anything useful since 2023 or so.

2025-02-04 12:51:02 UTC

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The five boro fedi project is a foundation https://5bfp.org/ that runs http://masto.nyc if you want to add them to your list