Canageek

Canadian Geek. Ph.D. in Chemistry. Plays tabletop RPGs, video games and board games. Aspie & ADHD.

Not a geek in a can.

Public Key

npub14w0zuwjtn2qq0v96dmfmgscmtyy253mhlzrk30amkp3sp94awxdqxm5ym9

NIP-05 Address

Canageek@wandering-shop.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs2h83w8f9e4qq8kzaxa5a5gvd4jz92gaml3pmgh7amqccqj67hrxspz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43q76qq99

Publishing to

relay.ditto.pub

Author Public Key

npub14w0zuwjtn2qq0v96dmfmgscmtyy253mhlzrk30amkp3sp94awxdqxm5ym9

Show more details

Last Notes

2026-08-18 18:39:44 UTC

Missing the last day of #IUCr2026 due to an asthma attack :(

2026-08-12 23:47:04 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj There is a beekeeper I follow who gives updates on how good hives are doing and when he convinces a wild swarm that one of his hives is a good place to live, is that the sort of thing you mean?

2026-08-12 01:02:05 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj Ah, I see the difference

2026-08-11 23:40:10 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj Apperently they did the same thing with Clinton once, so it doesn't seem surprising?
Back in the 60s in Canada they'd line up a bunch of cars door to door and Trudeau Sr would sneak through several of them. That was to deal with his fangirls though (it was a weird time in Canada)

2026-08-11 22:09:29 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…gfkp Also be VERY VERY careful with your eclipse glasses. Check them before every single time you use them, even if it's only been a couple of minutes. They scratch VERY VERY easily.
My Dad and I took FOUR PAIRS from a good brand to the last eclipse we went to. They were all fine when we arrived, I scratched THREE PAIRS while waiting for totality. Brushing them against a shirt button or zipper is enough.

2026-06-30 18:05:08 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yzy8 I have never understood your obsession with that operating system, I never had a pleasant experience with it.
Windows 3.1? Yes. 98SE? Hell yes. NT4? Oddly yes.
But then again, my the most Windows knife I've experience I had was with a badly damaged and set up secondhand computer. my parents got for my brother that I helped him keep running...

2026-06-30 18:01:27 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yzy8 Would you wind up using a desktop environment that lets you use a Windows 95 skin? or would that be too distracting when you're trying to get work done?

2026-06-29 23:03:01 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj @nprofile…r6z7 I'm guessing the Liberty has wings for the same reason that they're writing one nation under god on it, to make it more christian

2026-06-19 23:15:44 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yzy8 The big question: Do you zero-index your eras? Are we in year zero or year one of The Alice Era?

2026-06-18 19:45:46 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj I wonder why she runs all the way over there to pick up the sand? looks like there's a fair bit that's closer

2026-06-18 15:39:54 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj I work with a research group that is almost entirely from Iran, and you can tell things are really bad over there when they stop coming in to work.
I've not seen most of them in weeks now, so I'm really worried about how bad things have gotten

2026-06-17 18:10:15 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…p25k Yes? That is what I was saying? I hope you find an instance that is a good fit for you

2026-06-17 18:07:46 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…p25k very understandable, I hope you find somewhere that works for you

2026-06-17 18:05:56 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…p25k I think wandering.shop has quite a few writers on it? It originally started as being more writer focused before becoming more general, and I can give you an invite anytime you need

2026-06-16 23:44:04 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…d4c6 @nprofile…pfuj Wait what happened to mall water? (I haven't been in a mall with an indoor water feature since... um.... I think I was six?)

2026-06-12 17:32:29 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yzy8 It baffles me how many systems break if you change your last name, considering a very large percentage of the population will change their last name when they get married.
Single men should not be allowed to design software anymore...

2026-06-08 04:16:21 UTC

When "This podcast player hasn't been updated in five years" becomes a selling point as there will be no AI in it
(This is a post about finding an AntennaPod alternative)
Edit: @nprofile…tkfv is claiming they don't use AI (yet), but they have this in their repo https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod/blob/develop/AGENTS.md and this policy was accepted: https://forum.antennapod.org/t/proposal-to-change-expenses-policy-ai-subscriptions/8417
So it very much appears this ByteHamster person is using AI

2026-06-07 17:01:53 UTC

I'm hearing that @nprofile…tkfv is vibecoded shit now, what else are people using these days?

2026-05-04 15:49:53 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…dumn Ah, so it's more of a collective than a formal organization?

2026-05-04 04:56:28 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…dumn That is good to hear! I thought there would be some sort of consensus process before it went out as a press release

2026-05-03 23:25:23 UTC

"- For openSUSE Linux they are looking at developing an AI-powered onboarding experience for users to deal with "new openSUSE users face a steep learning curve navigating distribution-specific tools like zypper, YaST, Btrfs/Snapper, and systemd." "
Guess it is time for me to find a new linux distro. Recommendations welcome.
#NoAI #OpenSUSE #Linux

2026-04-28 22:02:06 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj @nprofile…hd8y This might help with your ant problem, once you are feeling better

2026-04-28 21:21:55 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj How do you clear off the scent Trails? I know someone who's trying to convince a group of ants to stop coming into their apartment, but they keep following the exact same scent trails despite cleaning

2026-04-22 00:44:04 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj @nprofile…uuml You are reminding me about that old Twitter thread about the guy who bought crickets online, not realizing they would just be shipped loose in a cardboard box and then opened the box in his living room.

2026-04-21 23:10:48 UTC

"The most expensive way to punish someone is to pay them run SEM cross sections all day" - One of my co-workers
(SEM = scanning electron microscope)

2026-04-21 18:04:06 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yzy8 I was going to suggest an exorcism, because that is incredibly cursed

2026-04-17 00:10:13 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj That would also be an excellent phrase to watch for time travelers using.
Honestly, the years since 2015 have been excellent for phrases that have probably never been uttered in history before

2026-04-16 23:43:23 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj I take it ants aren't like bees, where you also need a number of attendants to start a colony? Just the queen?

2026-04-06 03:58:53 UTC

This is a really cool visualization, I had no idea the Apollo and Artemis missions had such different flight paths: https://youtu.be/PNQ7MoL7erI

2026-04-01 00:45:59 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…59q8 note for Canadians, princess auto usually has certified n95s for cheaper than anything 3M sells

2026-03-30 15:44:41 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj I remember Seth Meyers second lockdown video, where he was recording at home and doing his own makeup for the first time and he snaps at the audience a bit because after the first episode he got a lot of criticism for not being as good at doing makeup as a 14-year-old gir. His response was something along the lines of 'I know that, whose makeup tutorials do you think I'm watching? '

2026-03-08 23:35:38 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…pfuj I knew someone who had to work with the government database in Ottawa that was so badly programmed it would take over 30 seconds to load a new page of search results every time you press the next page button
They weren't allowed to delete any entries from it because they were worried that would corrupt the whole database, so they had to page past pages and pages of entries marked as no longer available making the simplest of searches take half an hour

2026-03-04 18:59:31 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…ds0l Dammit, I forgot about that. Apologies.

2026-02-23 22:04:30 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…ds0l Are you doing more animations? I really liked the old ones you did

2026-02-20 16:37:43 UTC

This is really cool, someone has set up a bunch of hidden cameras around a bunch of fox dens and is recording wild foxes and putting it on YouTube
https://youtu.be/6Cg0TdtRsD0
For example, he's found two Fox mothers sharing again, which is apparently relatively uncommon and only happens with two closely related female foxes. Also the litters have the same father, so he is working overtime feeding all of the kits

2026-01-24 00:11:01 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yzy8 but quantum dots are so cool, it's the only time something I learned in undergraduate made it into a consumer technology before I finished my PhD

2026-01-21 02:24:33 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yzy8 @nprofile…0f4l Wait, isn't that how cable internet always works?

2026-01-07 21:34:24 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…ds0l I mean I just keep seeing things about mice and motherboards and my mouse or motherboard should never expire....

2026-01-07 20:56:07 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…ds0l someone once explained to me why this type of certificate even has expiration dates, and I still don't understand it.
Like is there some technical reason you can't make a certificate which doesn't expire for hardware use?

2025-12-17 18:36:07 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…48e8 @nprofile…lx0q I know a lot of blogging hate came from it's origins as personal journals, so I saw a lot of people dismiss it as people writing about what they had for lunch

2025-12-01 21:29:38 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…re97 especially when there's already a huge problem of people mistaking the oxidizer symbol for the flammable symbol and storing them together, that's been one of the big things I've done since starting this job in the engineering department is fix our storage so that we're not doing stuff like that, and it has been an effort, let me tell you

2025-11-13 05:51:35 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…6ljh Fraggle Rock! maybe something that Traveling Matt sings?

2025-08-07 20:22:29 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…067g @nprofile…cgs9 This seems like it might fit your interests

2025-07-22 00:29:45 UTC

Ok, so does anyone else remember actually sitting down and turning on the TV to watch music videos? My brother and I did that a lot in the early 2000s. I don't know if MTV still had music videos them, but MuchMusic out of Toronto sure did

2025-06-25 00:07:50 UTC

hey all, my fiance wants to get a new laptop that works well with Linux, where on earth do we going to look up driver compatibility and what will work well? We've never been able to get the audio working on their current laptop.
Boosts welcome
#Linux

2025-02-25 20:19:37 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…6whn yes but what do I do if the modified title is just terrible, not the original is good?

2025-02-25 19:58:21 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…6whn this is great, I was continuously frustrated by certain changes.
is there a way to report a bad title change, as in one that does not make things clearer? I've seen ones where they literally just changed the order of the words of the title which does not remove any clickbait or make things clearer

2025-02-17 21:41:30 UTC

I am outside for the first time since Thursday, getting some sushi for lunch

2024-10-19 16:29:27 UTC

WHAT THE FUCK. Google Authenticator just upgraded and now CAN'T GENERATE MOST OF MY CODES and thinks telling me to remove them and readd them is an acceptable solution.
DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH WORK THAT IS? That means I have to HOPE I can find the emergency login codes for all of those and that I *can* turn off and readd it easily.
I guess that helps me migrate to another app with local backups like I'd been planning on. Any suggestions? I was thinking Duo.
Boosts Welcome, advice request

2023-12-08 20:21:34 UTC

- reply

@npub1c6w…xlee THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE BOOST FEATURE! Please pass this on to whomever implemented that! So many of my podcasts I can't listen to near the highway as it is just too loud there with all the trucks.

2023-07-19 18:05:13 UTC

If anyone knows acoustics, I'd love to know why music sounds better when I put my Bluetooth speaker on the top shelf.
or for example why does it sound better when I turn it up but move it further away so it's perceptually the same volume then if I play it quietly and close to me.
I know it probably sounds better in the lab because it's all echoey and big