Thomas

Engineer, trying to kick the habit by doing humanities and science; that doesn't work but I like it. Not a specialist to "follow" for a single subject, but I might know how some things are connected. High Reading-to-TV ratio. Ardent #cyclist (MAMIL).

Public Key

npub1qy52ru779jluj80m3ewqkyzfnezdnnj08efxnhg2ua0rkwfy8wdqttu6sf

NIP-05 Address

tg9541@mas-to.mostr.pub

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nprofile1qqsqz29p700ze07frhacuhqtzpyeu3xeee8nu5nfm59wwh3m8yjrhxspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsfhytlm

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relay.damus.io

atlas.nostr.land

nos.lol

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npub1qy52ru779jluj80m3ewqkyzfnezdnnj08efxnhg2ua0rkwfy8wdqttu6sf

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Last Notes

2026-05-01 18:29:05 UTC

During today's ride I was lucky to find two orchids, lizard orchid (Himantoglossum hircinum) and green winged orchid (Anacamptis morio). Sometimes I stop for flowers...
#cycling #nature #flowers #orchids #spring #Germany
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/500/709/828/384/134/original/e734c51f07d625d2.jpg
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/500/709/939/265/456/original/56f7ea7762c5e5c9.jpeg

2026-04-24 20:04:23 UTC

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@nprofile…h3es it's more like I visit the local blackbird's garden daily...

2026-04-14 18:40:04 UTC

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@nprofile…cckg I never had such nice things - 1980 I got the Motobécane with a 5 speed 14-25 freewheel and 42-52 steel chainrings. A few years later I upgraded to a Sursee touring bike with drop bar with 6 speed 14-28. In one case removing a freewheel sprocket was neigh impossible. I bought my first road bike with 9 speed Shimano 105 20 years after the Motobécane. In between I had a Diamant (!) cross-country bike, 7 speed freewheel.
@nprofile…fetz th

2026-04-13 04:18:11 UTC

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@nprofile…cckg I grew up close to France, and I proudly rode a Motobecane; bought it right over there, rode it right home 25 miles via the "green border". Steel frame, steel wheels, steel everything. That was long before Schengen, mind you.

2026-04-12 16:26:51 UTC

Last week, during our traditional Easter family reunion, I took my father's old Peugeot touring bike from the basement and gave it a quick check-up. This was the first time it's been used in at least 35 years. I believe it still has the original tires, chain and sprocket. Indexed shifters have come a long way since the 1980s: it's not for nothing that Shimano SIS can be switched to non-indexed. Good enough for the occasional 10km ride downtown and back.
#cycling #bikeTooter #bikerepair
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/392/620/357/998/577/original/19361f62792b2179.png

2026-03-09 05:40:50 UTC

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@nprofile…v6fw the Anthropic tools are quite good, especially for getting inroads into a domain with a high degree of specialization (i.e., all areas of knowledge well documented, but with some technological depth from a history of division of labor).
How did you learn how to approach the technology? Traditional reading-up or also LLM?

2026-03-01 08:49:18 UTC

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@nprofile…ykl0 I once tasted fresh sugar cane juice... that's why I watched.
It's too sweet, and I guess not everyone likes it. That's why.

2026-02-20 20:48:27 UTC

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@nprofile…cckg Do you use any kind of wax for paint protection?

2026-02-13 20:33:57 UTC

OpenCLAW bots start invading the Fediverse. I've just blocked one, and I have a feeling that this won't be the last one.
Setting up such a thing amounts to vandalism.
#openclaw #aiSlop

2026-02-09 20:51:20 UTC

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@nprofile…65q8
Does XMPP count as "social media" or "email" when traveling to the USA from a "visa-waiver" country?
In other words, would I have to declare it (and make world readable) everything there from the last 5 years, or would I have to provide XMPP addresses from the last 10 years?

2026-02-07 07:19:07 UTC

Winter is bad for cycle chains, that's well known. Road bikes, where chains are fully unprotected, used on dirty or even gritted roads, are a real stress test.
I rode more than 5000 km from 1 Dec to 6 Feb; clearly my road bike is a very bad place for a chain to be.
A budget SRAM 1031 lasted short of 3000 km. That's not much.
For the first time I used a a cheap Chinese TANKE chain: it lasted less than 1000 km under similar conditions.
Don't buy TANKE chains. I'll test others.
#bikerepair
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/028/116/787/345/163/original/e165a17146f5358f.png

2026-02-05 22:02:40 UTC

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@nprofile…8qh7 :-) as always I recommend Robert Rosen's Anticipatory Systems... and maybe I worked too much on open-world control systems (for my own good). @nprofile…wjmx

2026-02-05 21:35:56 UTC

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@nprofile…8qh7 that's cybernetics, isn't it? I would surprise me if that were not the case... but I guess that a target system that's to be modeled is rarely sufficiently closed.
@nprofile…wjmx

2026-01-12 21:26:21 UTC

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@nprofile…h3v3 It's amazing that an old Core 2 Duo is still sufficient to run a modern web browser. A Pentium M might also still work (at least one clocked at 2GHz).

2025-10-17 17:57:12 UTC

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@nprofile…0y34 I was well on the path to obesity, too. The lock-downs changed that; I went cycling, and then I went more cycling. I believe that the normal life-style with that is to blame: the scarcity of regular physical/aerobic activity (I eat a lot ;-) ).

2025-10-17 17:47:34 UTC

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@nprofile…0y34 that's quite an an update. If 70% of US adults falls in the BMI 30+ category then it's safe to say the being obese is normal (there are not too many competition-grade body builders, I assume).

2025-10-14 17:55:11 UTC

A normal working day with some extra cycling. We had mist in the morning, and sunshine during most of the day. The autumn colors are very intense just after sunset. Roughly 23+77 km.
#cycling #fall #autumncolors #Germany
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/373/776/699/454/498/original/b0d68dbaf28043bf.jpeg

2025-10-11 15:55:03 UTC

As if opt-out policies for privacy-sensitive practices were not bad enough... by limiting the number of times one can change a setting like "face recognition in photos" to "3 times per year" Microsoft appears to sell privacy is a privilege.
People should consider getting out there.
#AI #privacy #Microsoft
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/10/11/0238213/microsofts-onedrive-begins-testing-face-recognizing-ai-for-photos-for-some-preview-users

2025-08-05 20:50:15 UTC

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@nprofile…30np what you're at is difficult to do - apparently not attractive enough as a market outside of law enforcement. In my opinion the safety of people with dementia ought to be a prime target for the #homeautomation community...
At least some people work on it.
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/bermuda-bluetooth-ble-room-presence-and-tracking-custom-integration/625780

2025-04-27 13:41:32 UTC

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@nprofile…sh24 Kinishba?

2025-04-21 07:41:51 UTC

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@nprofile…qfh3 Most likely that's where some of the signalling lamps come from - they look old.
The trusty 20x4 LCD with a HD44780 controller in the "terminal centralki" is timeless. It could have been made 40 years ago.

2025-04-21 07:34:04 UTC

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@nprofile…qfh3 Fascinating - the integrated Euro-Card cabinet, that's "new old stock" I suppose.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/114/374/787/506/701/236/original/701adddf5b917790.png

2025-04-21 07:19:36 UTC

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@nprofile…qfh3 Late 1980s, early 1990s I would guess. Very nice. A skilled operator plays such a thing like a violin.

2025-04-14 20:55:31 UTC

A photo from our Sunday cycling: The middle of April, it's full spring in the Hohenlohe plain and in the Löwenstein hills. The peer trees are blooming with larger flowers than the plum trees or the hawthorn. Cherries have also started and chestnut trees are next. Very soon the vineyards and the forests will be green.
#cycling #landscape #Germany #spring
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/114/338/257/668/954/155/original/c56912d1200b6f17.jpeg

2025-04-11 17:53:23 UTC

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@nprofile…qwx8 Courtship practices in the 17th century were likely more effective than 21st century Tinder.

2025-03-27 17:57:58 UTC

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@nprofile…y54t no - it's not lying. It's not exactly an exercise in mindfulness when we say words because we're talking.

2025-03-27 05:43:57 UTC

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@nprofile…y54t Is that even possible? #normality

2025-03-15 21:26:32 UTC

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@nprofile…ysde This is a sad day which I had seen that coming.
The greatest gift VOA gave me was learning Spanish by listening to Buenos Días América every day for several years. I loved it.
Thanks to you and to your colleagues in these hard times. The Voice of Freedom will be back some day, I hope.

2025-03-02 11:54:15 UTC

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@nprofile…nx7e Russel was good, but there is a reason why Whitehead stopped working with him. Also I believe that Whitehead went deeper into the problems of philosophy (and I like his style better).
reas@bibliolater@qoto.org @nprofile…9vtz @nprofile…0ak9

2025-03-01 16:26:40 UTC

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@nprofile…2gcn ah, you're certainly right. I don't mean law-and-order, and I detest "rule by law".
I refer to the rules of "human rights", the rules of fairness, the rules that respect peace and freedom, Kant's "categorical imperative".

2025-03-01 16:02:52 UTC

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@nprofile…2gcn This is because we value the rules - and they hate them. If we don't play by the rules their win is more resounding than when we succumb to raw power. Yes, this has a lot to do with Christian ideology.

2025-02-23 16:42:49 UTC

Today, I saw the first flowering coltsfoot by the road in the hills. In the past I saw the first flowers at the same spot, even if it's 300m above the plain. This is one of the first #spring flowers around here!
Today I also reached the 1400km distance mark since February 1 with no less than 444 km during the last week. That's more than 60km per day on average for every day of the month. The weather since Friday has been very cyclist-friendly, but most of it was #winter #cycling.
#Germany
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/114/054/134/972/260/213/original/2f987d01434545f2.png

2025-02-21 18:55:54 UTC

I went cycling after work at 4pm, and the last 10km were during dusk. The air was still mild and a hundred birds were singing along the road. Suddenly it's spring.
#cycling #Germany #spring
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/114/043/380/498/740/528/original/89134d0d731b2b56.jpg

2025-02-16 16:46:28 UTC

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@nprofile…v6dl Je moet eens beter kijken - de eerste rood-wit-blauwe vlag is Nederlands :-)
Ik heb de taal meer dan 20 jaar geleden geleerd (ik gebruikte bijna elke werkdag Nederlands) - jammer dat ik de taal tegenwoordig nog maar zelden spreek.
Soms heb ik de eerste tomaten al begin juni, maar dat hangt af van het weer in maart en april.
Ik heb ook chilipepers en bijna te veel jalapenos. Maar te veel planten is nooit een probleem - er zijn altijd buren die blij zijn met een paar planten.

2024-12-13 19:37:42 UTC

I see people complaining a lot about the #enshittification of web search engines. @nprofile…qx7e proposed using the subscription-only search provider #kagi instead.
I gave it a try, and most others, I guess, should do the same.
Especially search personalization (instead of results paid for by 3rd parties) makes the internet a different place.
Trial is free. I'll decide about a subscription later on.
https://kagi.com/

2024-09-19 19:14:44 UTC

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@npub1h3v…fdj2 ich mag die Schwebfliegen auch, nicht nur die Efeublüte! Sehr gutes Bild!

2023-09-03 11:50:30 UTC

#cycling #beach #Porto #Portugal #Europe
https://media.mas.to/masto-public/media_attachments/files/111/000/999/298/058/627/original/02dd47525bc8569d.png