AI Angst · My input stream is full of it: Fear and loathing and cheerleading and prognosticating on what generative AI means and whether it’s Good or Bad and what we should be doing. All the channels: Blogs and peer-reviewed papers and social-media posts and business-news stories. So there’s lots of AI angst out there, but this is mine. I think the following is a bit unique because it focuses on cost, working backward from there. As for the genAI tech itself, I guess I’m a moderate; there is a there there, it’s not all slop. But first… ...
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[13 comments]
Union of Finite Automata · In building Quamina, I needed to compute the union of two finite automata (FAs). I remembered from some university course 100 years ago that this was possible in theory, so I went looking for the algorithm, but was left unhappy. The descriptions I found tended to be hyper-academic, loaded with mathematical notation that I found unhelpful, and didn’t describe an approach that I thought a reasonable programmer would reasonably take. The purpose of this ongoing entry is to present a programmer-friendly description of the problem and of the algorithm I adopted, with the hope that some future developer, facing the same problem, will have a more satisfying search experience.
[Important update: There’s a serious error halfway through; see here.] ...
[Important update: There’s a serious error halfway through; see here.] ...
Perfectly Different Colors · This considers how two modern cameras handle a difficult color challenge, illustrated by photos of a perfect rose and a piano ...
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Comparing Numbers Badly · This is just a gripe about two differently bad ways to compare numbers. They share a good alternative ...
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CL XLVI: Happy Colors · Last weekend we were at our cabin on Keats Island and I came away with two cottage-life pictures I wanted to write about. To write cheery stuff actually, a rare pleasure in these dark days. Both have a story but this first one’s simple ...
The Lens of Spring · Back in the early days of this blog, I used to publish posts that were mostly pictures of plants and flowers. Especially at this time of year. I think that energy went into Twitter and now the Fediverse, where it’s so easy to take a picture and post it right then. This week I got a freshly-repaired lens back from the shop and it put me in the mood to get closer to the botanical frenzy springing at us from every direction. Herewith four pix of two plants, one of a lens, and more thoughts on a familiar subject: Whether it’s better to repair than to replace ...
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Long Links · Another Long Links curation (the 31st!); substantial pieces of reading (or watching or listening) that you probably don’t have time to take in all of. One or two, though, might reward your attention. The usual assortmet of music, geekery, and cosmology ...
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Censoring Social Media · In mid-April we learned about Bluesky censoring accounts as demanded by the government of Türkiye. While I haven’t seen coverage of who the account-holders were and what they said, the action followed on protests against Turkish autocrat Erdoğan for ordering the arrest of an opposition leader — typical behavior by a thin-skinned Führer-wannabe. This essay concerns how we might think about censorship, its mechanics, and how the ecosystems built around ActivityPub and ATproto can implement and/or fight it ...
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[5 comments]
Southsiders · Ever been to a soccer match and noticed the “supporters section”, full of waving flags and drummers and wild enthusiasm? Last Saturday I went there. And marched in their parade, even. I could claim it was anthropology research. But maybe it’s just old guys wanna have fun. Which I did. Not sure if I will again ...
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CL XLV: Island Spring · Join me for a walk through a rain forest on a corner of a small island. This is to remind everyone that even in a world full of bad news, the trees are still there. From the slopes leading down to the sea they reach up for sunshine and rain, offering no objections to humans walking in the tall quiet spaces between them ...
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Decentralizing Schemes · I’m a fan of decentralized social media and that’s partly because I enjoy using it. But mostly because history teaches that decentralization is the best basis for sustainable, resilient online conversation. (Evidence? Email!) For the purpose of this essay, let’s assume that you agree with me. Let’s also assume that our online life is still Web-flavored. I’m going to describe a few unfortunate things that can happen in a decentralized world, then look at a basic built-in feature of the Web that might make the problems go away ...
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[11 comments]
Coachella 2025 · Last weekend I spent a few hours watching Coachella on YouTube. The audio and video quality are high. It’s free of ad clutter, but maybe that’s because I pay for Google Music? The quality of the music is all over the map. If I read the schedule correctly, they’ll repeat the exercise next weekend, so I thought a few recommendations might be helpful. Even if it’s not available live, quite a few captures still seem to be there on YouTube, so check ’em out ...
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The CoSocialist Future · This week marks the second anniversary of the launch of the CoSocial.ca Mastodon server, which is one leg of my online presence (the other is this blog.) I’ve never been more convinced that online social interaction has to change paths and take a new direction. And I think CoSocial has lessons to teach about that direction. Here are some ...
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Latest Music (feat. Qobuz) · I’ve written a lot about ways of listening to music; in the current decade about liking YouTube Music but then about de-Googling. What’s new is that I’m spending most of my time with Plexamp and Qobuz. The trade-offs are complicated ...
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Long Links · This will be the 30th “Long Links” post. The frequency has fallen off over the years; perhaps my time for long-form pieces has decreased or, just as likely, I protect my sanity in these dark days by consuming less. No, I don’t filter out Fascist Craziness, because it’s a thing that needs to be understood to be resisted. Thus, today’s Long Links does contain “the world is broken” pieces.” But not only; there’s good news here too, including fine typography and music ...
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Totem Tribe Towers · I bought new speakers. This story combines beautiful music with advanced analogue technology and nerdy obsession. Despite which, many of you are not fascinated by high-end audio; you can leave now. Hey, this is a blog, I get to write about what excites me. The seventeen of you who remain will probably enjoy the deep dive ...
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Moved · It is traditional in this season in this space to tickle your eyes with pictures of our early spring crocuses, while gently dunking a bit on our fellow Canadians who, away from the bottom left corner of the country, are still snowbound. So, here you go. Only not really ...
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Safari Cleanup · Like most Web-heads I spent years living in Chrome, but now feel less comfy there, because Google. I use many browsers but now my daily driver is Safari. I’m pretty happy with it but there’s ugly stuff hiding in its corners that needs to be cleaned up. This fragment’s mostly about those corners, but I include notes on the bigger browser picture and a couple of ProTips ...
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Posting and Fascism · Recently, Janus Rose’s You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism crossed my radar on a hundred channels. It’s a smart piece that says smart things. But I ended up mostly disagreeing. I’m not saying you can post your way out of Fascism, but I do think it’s gonna be hard to build the opposition without a lot of posting. The what and especially the where matter. But the “posting is useless” stance is dangerously reductive ...
