Kevin Boyd (he/him) 🇨🇦

Software Developer, Photographer, Sailing Enthusiast. (he/him)

Victoria, BC, Canada

Public Key

npub1w6lns0vz7hplpsxadn9zqxkqaxgueqxf4wkwj0nl0qwymjjg0ysq2zewgg

NIP-05 Address

kboyd@phpc-social.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs8d0ec8kp0tslscrwkej3qrtqwnywvsry6ht8f8elhs8zdefy8jgqpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43qzdhv96

Publishing to

relay.ditto.pub

Author Public Key

npub1w6lns0vz7hplpsxadn9zqxkqaxgueqxf4wkwj0nl0qwymjjg0ysq2zewgg

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Last Notes

2026-08-16 19:15:04 UTC

"greenwich bean time" would be a great name for a cafe

2026-08-06 00:45:34 UTC

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@nprofile…r8sg Although, creating a system for swappable keels would be interesting. You could swap out for whatever draft floats your boat that weekend, and a fully-charged battery comes along for the ride.

2026-08-06 00:43:56 UTC

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@nprofile…r8sg It would be fun to try as an experiment, as well as with newer chemistry & cell layouts. Problem is, on a boat you have to design as if everything is going to fail & need maintenance, because it will.

2026-08-05 20:28:23 UTC

Spotted on the #sailing subreddit: someone named their windvane (mechanical autopilot) "Ziggy". Such a great name for it.

2026-08-01 19:34:48 UTC

If you find you're constantly asking yourself, "where do people get the money for these obscenely overpriced cars??" (where even the used SUV prices are still in the 70-90K range), remember that the answer is probably "DEBT!!!!"

2026-07-23 23:28:46 UTC

Current status: supremely annoyed at WordPress's half-baked concept of "child themes"; or else maybe the "twentytwentytwo" theme is particularly unhappy to be living in 2026.

2026-07-21 05:59:02 UTC

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@nprofile…gnqe @nprofile…pu46 Colin Mochrie in ... Total Recall.
Colin Mochrie as Sonny Crockett.
Colin Mochrie In Bruges.
I would like to see that.

2026-07-21 00:03:23 UTC

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@nprofile…u7m2 "the HOA mentality makes it impossible to build applications on" ... oh, what kind of applications?

2026-04-01 16:36:29 UTC

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@nprofile…pfuj we already have the hague and the ICC...

2026-03-19 05:40:03 UTC

Does anyone know where I can find a list of all the brands owned by ultracorporations? (Unilever, nestle, P&G, etc)
Or better yet, a downloadable database that I could work with.

2026-03-04 21:57:25 UTC

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@nprofile…ds0l Heh. I guess we're on different dark humour wavelengths at the moment.
Did you watch Steve Carrell's "The Patient"?

2026-03-04 21:48:46 UTC

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@nprofile…ds0l Zero. Just someone rightfully concerned with societal overreach.
And their otherwise-unharmed captive.

2026-03-03 18:22:42 UTC

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@nprofile…kkk3 is that ... snow? Great shot :)
My mom lives in NS. I sent her this photo from my bike ride this morning:
https://media.phpc.social/media_attachments/files/116/166/633/635/827/086/original/0e9be38942d94460.jpeg

2026-02-27 20:43:18 UTC

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@nprofile…4xpq blues and yellows ... all kinds of ... little fluffy clouds

2026-02-21 22:07:01 UTC

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@nprofile…4xpq Without context, this sounds a little bit like an invitation to an AMA. A really high-energy, two-way AMA.
I can't do high energy right now, I have some important things on my plate that demand those energy reserves, so how about a friendly low-energy question...
If you eat bacon, how do you prefer it? Soft, Medium, Crispy, Super Crispy, Burnt, Coronal Bacon Ejection?

2026-02-19 20:11:54 UTC

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@nprofile…07hu @nprofile…7yuj @nprofile…ugpy Well, it is unethical to do so while ignoring the robots file. And it's unethical to do so at such a pace that it cripples the site being scanned. And it is unethical to repackage that content as a new creation; search engines provide a value to the sites they scan, by directing traffic to them. AI scrapers extract value with nothing in return, voiding the social contract.

2026-02-10 03:20:47 UTC

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@nprofile…4xpq (And I say this knowing fairly well that another near-impossibility is getting something like UBI approved nationally. But it's not fully impossible. My country made means testing illegal for medical care in 1984. I got a "free" CT scan on saturday as a result, which was helpful for making sure I wasn't about to die.)

2026-02-10 03:13:23 UTC

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@nprofile…4xpq
> "You'll give money to rich people over my dead body."
So you are opposed to bettering life for the bottom 90% of people because of the irrelevant blip it would provide for the top 10%?
> "The idea that it is "impossible" to build any kind of remotely efficient means testing is completely absurd."
Is it? And is efficiency the only metric by which such a system should be judged?
> "So let's route around that damage."
Yes, let's. By completely obviating it.

2026-02-09 16:04:27 UTC

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@nprofile…pfuj @nprofile…r7tj
"Hey guys, mothy here with another update. Merino: what is it that makes it soooo delicious? Let's start by diving into what Merino actually is and how it gets made ..."

2026-02-04 00:14:50 UTC

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@nprofile…le0y I haven't set one up yet, so I don't know for sure, but my first guess would be that the queues are not running.

2026-01-12 00:24:00 UTC

Okay, I'll be "controversial", or even self-contradicting, for a sec:
I don't think X/Twitter should be banned.
I think the government, at all levels, should entirely stop using it. But that is not the same as a ban.
#nevent1q…ws0r

2025-12-17 17:38:13 UTC

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@nprofile…c3hj I am not (as you might be able to tell from the raindrops on my lens in my own photo) - i was using a bike seat cover as a rain protector. It was not entirely ineffective.

2025-12-17 06:55:27 UTC

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@nprofile…c3hj Nice! It was a good night for photos.

2025-11-18 16:15:00 UTC

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@nprofile…he5k @nprofile…s67t a brilliant yellow NO NAME trench coat?

2025-11-01 19:45:51 UTC

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@nprofile…avn3 @nprofile…s67t @nprofile…4r77 ... would it be a bad idea to have an election when the postal service is in disarray?

2025-10-26 17:02:58 UTC

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@nprofile…s67t I must admit, I feel like a bit of a dimwit for not having understood the bitter, extreme irony of the Republican party delivering America its putative new King.

2025-08-26 03:48:32 UTC

Ooh, my town is advocating for people to follow their RSS feed. Neat!! https://bsky.app/profile/townofviewroyal.bsky.social/post/3lxaz6ksgds2g

2025-08-23 22:04:33 UTC

AI crawlers finally started hitting my site hard enough for me to notice (despite a robots file disallowing ALL indexing from ANYONE). I had to block 8.210.0.0/16 and 47.(239|242|243).0.0/16 ... the ua did not specify who was doing the crawling, it mimicked standard browser UAs.

2025-08-22 19:08:10 UTC

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@nprofile…fpf4 well, at least they approved of obsidian. I love it. Heh.
Some folks swear by emacs org-mode for PKM, if you're ever looking for another approach to try.

2025-08-22 18:19:43 UTC

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@nprofile…fpf4 Hmm. Well, I guess that's their prerogative. Still, it feels a bit like the company saying "you can't use emacs or vim, you can only use vscode".

2025-08-22 17:39:41 UTC

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@nprofile…fpf4 I'm curious what the reasoning is for logseq not being allowed - would you be able to share what you've heard about that?

2025-08-22 15:51:49 UTC

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@nprofile…l99m "I’m still happy to pay someone else to deal with Ruby"
That was my experience with Ruby as well. Not a bad language, super usable in some hands, but something about it was very frustrating for me personally.

2025-08-22 15:21:19 UTC

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@nprofile…l7u7 the entire time I was watching it, I was unsure if it was actually from that era, or a modern replication of it.
I eventually settled on, nobody on the planet has the budget to make a replica that good and authentic, so it must be real.

2025-08-21 16:02:32 UTC

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@nprofile…2kgy I solved this recently by making a video that merely summarized a blog post.

2025-08-20 17:32:34 UTC

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@nprofile…7y6q thanks :)

2025-08-20 17:13:59 UTC

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@nprofile…7y6q now I'm curious what it does to the stones. Stains them? Roughs them up?

2025-08-19 20:10:35 UTC

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@nprofile…9rpf I could find many uses for it. Only a small number of those uses would be related to buying things (an EV, a modest used sailboat, paying off townhouse, that sort of thing), the rest would be for exploring my ideas on how to make the world a better place and humanity a better steward (becoming the Vegetarian Space Socialists Who Are Always Right™️ that we were always meant to be).

2025-08-19 19:57:59 UTC

Radioactive shrimp? Oh my. Sounds like someone needs to make a demon core themed shrimp cocktail.

2025-08-19 01:53:24 UTC

"Copilot uses AI. Check for mistakes."
No, see, that's a typo. It should say "Assume it only ever lies."

2025-08-18 18:27:04 UTC

Air travel in Canada is already stupidly expensive, nigh out of reach for many. To hear that the flight attendants are being short-changed by the company on top of that? And also that they were ordered back to work almost instantly by the gov't? I'm pretty offended on their behalf.
I was also offended to hear that (as part of the short-changing) they don't start getting paid until the plane is in motion. And they can't transfer their seniority between companies.

2025-08-15 17:26:36 UTC

@nprofile…hq4y Is your clippy avatar related to that youtube video I saw about how Clippy is a sign of a better time in computing?
(It reminded me so much of my own blog post on the subject that I couldn't keep watching or else I'd have to make a second post. Heh.)

2025-08-14 15:06:01 UTC

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@nprofile…7y6q indeed. So I guess I'll continue to grow my YT channel and tie my photography into it. Synergy, right? :)

2025-08-14 08:02:44 UTC

"It must be as big as a mastodon," Hartigan whispered. "What in the universe—"

2025-08-14 05:52:24 UTC

I'm feeling glum. And also bored. Anyone have any suggestions on how I can make my photo sales website look better / sell better?
https://www.kevinboyd.ca/
I mean, "take better photos", yes, obviously. But that's not all there is to sales and marketing.

2025-08-12 20:56:48 UTC

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@nprofile…yupt awesome!

2025-08-12 18:02:21 UTC

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This is the video I was editing & uploading from my campsite yesterday.
(You might have already seen the post from @nprofile…kfyd
about it)
I'm tempted to start editing all the footage of my 3-day sailing trip, but my laptop doesn't have enough battery power to handle that extreme workload.
Batteries: simultaneously a huge boon and a source of great frustration.
Orcas at Swartz Bay
https://youtu.be/jA1Jr01EheY
#sailing #boating #boat #boats #ocean #wildlife #orcas #KillerWhales #killer_whales

2025-08-12 01:31:21 UTC

ah, that camping tradition ... waiting for a video to upload to youtube over cellular LTE
57%
19 minutes left
...
the video is 56 seconds long, 475MB

2025-08-11 03:15:00 UTC

Today I tried to teach someone a knot and failed, miserably and embarrassingly. Three times.

2025-08-09 08:16:06 UTC

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@nprofile…rdje it always leaves me wondering if this is what counts as "good writing", like I'm the odd one out for physically cringing, or if it means the writing is actually cringe.

2025-08-07 21:10:31 UTC

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@nprofile…3kda newer versions of iOS allow you to select folders in the Drive/Files app and choose "keep downloaded". This is what solved it for me.

2025-08-07 07:01:10 UTC

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@nprofile…rdje *so* many shows cause this reaction for me.
Lately I've been forcing myself to hit +30s and carry on.

2025-08-06 18:42:51 UTC

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@nprofile…l99m I don't think it's a fair comparison. Crocs do provide value, and predictably so.
AI's value is highly unpredictable, if it delivers at all, and it's being hawked by the sweatiest* of people.
AI is the raw milk of computing. The everyflavour beans of computing. The russian roulette of computing.
(* As somewhat of a sweaty person myself, I don't like using this descriptor, but i can't think of a better word to encapsulate the anxious desperate thirst of a grifter / grifter's mark)

2025-08-06 02:22:23 UTC

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@nprofile…luk6 and what about 1080i?

2025-08-01 14:31:15 UTC

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@nprofile…yupt yep, seems very similar - though Saltstraumen looks to be longer.

2025-08-01 14:23:32 UTC

This narrow passage on the Gorge Inlet Waterway in Victoria BC features a "Reversing Falls" effect.
Shortly after taking this photo, the tide equalized and I was able to row my little boat under the bridge. On the way back, it was flooding, and I was mostly "sucked through" - ending up in a whirlpool for a moment on the other side. A fun ride!
#photography #VictoriaBC #yyj #flickr
https://flic.kr/p/2rk1LsZ
https://media.phpc.social/media_attachments/files/114/953/958/661/450/663/original/7173b151dec09d0d.png

2025-08-01 05:03:50 UTC

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@nprofile…rdje pdc. prettified data chunks.
(and also 'point defense cannon', from the expanse)

2025-07-31 01:13:09 UTC

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@nprofile…lv3e it looks like a typo: that is the ellipsis character when it should be three dots

2025-07-27 06:28:00 UTC

I use ohmyzsh. It includes a bunch of aliases for Git usage. One of them is "gco". As a result, I often find myself typing "gco main".
I'd consider using that as my rapper name, but it's probably too close to Gucci Mane.

2025-07-24 23:33:18 UTC

Am I wrong, or is France's recognition of a Palestinian state far too little, far too late?
And, despite that, is it still a very good development?

2025-07-21 23:57:52 UTC

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@nprofile…xe4c @nprofile…wuyc i was thinking more of the local labour market (I'm in Victoria) but yeah, design and materials pricing would also factor in

2025-07-21 23:33:57 UTC

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@nprofile…xe4c @nprofile…wuyc ... not always.

2025-07-21 16:04:52 UTC

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@nprofile…29xr ah, fair point

2025-07-21 15:59:11 UTC

At first blush, this feels like it's essentially a run of the mill SQL injection, not exactly a "flaw". User input is being sent to the query in an unsafe way. Same old story? Or am I missing something?
Though, I've certainly written queries that are this shape. Hmm. Time to take a closer look.
In a broader view, perhaps the "flaw" is that PDO doesn't allow binding for table/column names.
https://social.skynetcloud.site/@jos1264/114891679504811946

2025-07-10 15:59:08 UTC

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@nprofile…vnuv @nprofile…2wc8 no, my use case is to run it on an ipad on its own account without linking to any other devices & not having a phone plan. (So my son can run it. He doesn't have a phone.)
But aside from that, usernames are great. I got a good one when they first launched. :)

2025-07-10 15:23:37 UTC

Maybe @nprofile…2wc8 should launch a cross-compatible fork of itself that doesn't require a phone number, and call it "Noise".

2025-07-05 20:22:50 UTC

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@nprofile…7hjs ooh, please let me know, I have an immediate use case for this.

2025-07-04 05:24:56 UTC

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@nprofile…gms0 Yeah, on AppleTV+ :) They cast Alexander Skarsgard as Murderbot, which is still a bit odd, but it's very entertaining.

2025-07-04 04:45:33 UTC

Murderbot episode 9, all systems red, is SO good.
I've thoroughly enjoyed season 1, and they'd better produce 2,797 more episodes ASAP.

2025-07-02 21:16:50 UTC

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@nprofile…5jtd I'm not sure of its provenance/history. Could be that. Design-wise it seems much closer to a Whitehall Spirit Minto 9.

2025-07-02 15:49:50 UTC

After a long hiatus, I've got a new youtube video!
(Let me know if there's a good Peertube instance for posting this sort of video)
Rowing to Cole Island - Esquimalt Harbour, Victoria, BC
https://youtu.be/eb7w-4P2QCQ
#boat #rowing #victoriaBC #yyj

2025-07-01 19:06:23 UTC

"Unlikely things are likely to happen when happening happens a lot"

2025-06-27 18:25:33 UTC

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@nprofile…hq4y i'd only judge if it was a cybertruck.

2025-06-17 02:47:37 UTC

Coming soon to Password Managers: ai! By feeding it all your passwords, the ai will be able to distill your data into a single password you can use everywhere.
Current hurdle for this veritable revolution of tech:
The resulting password is always "hunter2". For everyone.

2025-06-13 10:18:27 UTC

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I mean. I went with Option 4, Obviously.

2025-06-13 04:55:21 UTC

Evening activities menu:
1. Faff about in Ansible to try and create a cross-region migration for a hobby project.
2. Finish writing a blog post I've been working on for eight months.
3. Start reading Ghost Brigades.
or ...
4. Play more Balatro.

2025-06-11 21:39:56 UTC

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@nprofile…hq4y additional point: people who abstained from voting, also enabled this.

2025-06-10 08:02:14 UTC

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@nprofile…9rpf what if it rams a car that has people inside it?

2025-05-23 18:29:52 UTC

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@nprofile…l7u7 There are a lot of "just around the corner" things that will likely never happen, or at least not within our lifetimes. AGI, real fusion power sources, a Canadian team winning the Stanley cup ...

2025-05-23 16:36:55 UTC

Twist: the war between AGI and humans will actually be a war between humans who want to treat AGI as human, and humans who think they own AGI because they created it.

2025-05-15 15:30:24 UTC

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@nprofile…g8y8 I heart interac email transfers. And I can deposit paper cheques by my credit union's app.
But you're not wrong at all. :)

2025-05-14 08:50:16 UTC

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@nprofile…jnvu @nprofile…jqvx also counts as an argument for Canada to join the EU

2025-05-13 23:46:59 UTC

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@nprofile…jqvx Maybe, if you make the request via VPN from europe. But otherwise, no.

2025-05-13 23:39:50 UTC

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@nprofile…jqvx that ban sounds like a GDPR violation ...

2025-05-11 19:11:39 UTC

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@nprofile…upw4 My understanding is that even on a free account, you can still get the originals back via the Download Your Data feature (which downloads all of them at once). This change is about the ability to download individual originals via the Available Sizes feature.

2025-05-08 16:08:22 UTC

Attempting to achieve AGI by scaling up the datasets of LLMs is like attempting to achieve nuclear fusion by adding more control rods to a fission pile.

2025-04-29 02:33:40 UTC

I have eaten too much spaghetti with bolognese.
And yet I want to eat more.

2025-04-28 21:37:00 UTC

Inbox 28,000

2025-04-23 20:31:34 UTC

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@nprofile…l99m like this: https://mastodon.social/@adrianh/114364306492325697
or this: https://birdbutt.com/@colinstu/114366470968583037

2025-04-23 19:40:01 UTC

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@nprofile…l99m can you remember anything else about it? Maybe we can crowdsource the spelunking.

2025-04-17 22:19:39 UTC

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@nprofile…vnuv Which film?

2025-04-15 20:50:30 UTC

It's been a few months, I should probably post something #PHP related. Okay, question:
What's the best way to extract cache-control header information from a Response object in Guzzle 6 or 7?

2025-04-10 23:34:57 UTC

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@nprofile…d2rl actually, i forgot, there is one thing that doesn't fall into those categories:
Brassica oleracea. It's apolitical, non-furry, and it isn't corn.

2025-04-10 23:12:40 UTC

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@nprofile…d2rl all topics fall into one of those categories, I'm afraid.
Yes, even Dance.

2025-04-09 22:44:53 UTC

Me looking at apple watch features:
"Cycle Tracking ..."
Hey, I like cycling. That sounds promising.
"... with retrospective ovulation estimates"
Oh. 🤦‍♂️

2025-04-08 23:44:01 UTC

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@nprofile…zgvz looks amazing!
(And causes me to think "... with mint frosting", so I think the colour is spot on)

2025-04-07 22:02:29 UTC

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@nprofile…5jtd ah, always good to have some extra counterweight, right?

2025-04-07 19:59:02 UTC

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@nprofile…5rv0 Someone must be able to think of one - surely, across the nation

2025-04-07 19:26:24 UTC

Someone should see if noise cancelling tech can be applied to microwaves, to see if they can create a home appliance for instant cooling/freezing.
I mean, it is probably physically impossible. But it would be fun to complain about the spots that are still white-hot.

2025-04-07 19:12:51 UTC

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@nprofile…n4vt @nprofile…z72q Maybe it has a Celestial in its core? Or a Titan?

2025-04-07 14:41:58 UTC

"blubbins the seal"
#wildlife #flickr #photography
https://flic.kr/p/2qWjBbq
https://media.phpc.social/media_attachments/files/114/297/203/181/313/343/original/1cbb30bccf5b3a72.png