Anthony Sorace @a@pdx.social

E: “These [messaging apps like Signal and Telegram] are creepy.”
Me: “No they’re not.”
E: “Yes they are. I’m going to ask on Facebook.”
M: “First of all, it’s ironic asking about creepy things on Facebook, but I’m really curious how you’re going to phrase that question.”
E: “‘Are these sketchy, secretive apps for hiding things from your partner creepy?’”
M: “So… ‘Are creepy things creepy, yes or no?’”
E: “Exactly.”

I just checked my Wickr account for the first time in who knows how long. I have 8 contacts there (not counting the default wickr account). Of those, 7 are apparently on a version too old for me to actually communicate with.

I’m certainly not missing much — with those 8 contacts, I’ve had 0-1 conversations *total* — but I… feel bad for them? Is it weird to feel bad for a communication network?

I saw a product launch announcement today which included the phrase “venture-backed” as though it was an endorsement.

It’s not. It’s a liability.

On the up side: one of our chicks tried to escape their temporary housing tonight, but she didn’t know how well various Zelda games has prepared me for catching skittish chickens.

Did you know we have biting ants in Oregon? I didn’t.

I do now. :-(

Update on yesterday’s events:

1) Good people won all the races I could vote in. This included the school board elections, where three people were running campaigns driven by a desire to prevent kids reading a book with a trans character.

2) My rep listened to her constituents and has joined the calls for impeachment.

Voted. 🗳✅

It’s one of my favorite days in Oregon: Election Day. 🗳

Trying to figure out one more race, then ✉️📮

(Intellectually, I like Oregon’s voting system, but I still really miss going somewhere and pulling the lever.)

That was a solid ending. This whole season needed ~3-4 more episodes for pacing, but that aside, it was coherent end to a really complicated story. Well done. #GoT

I’m confused by people real worked up about the folks real worked up about the Batman casting.

Like, are y’all real concerned they’re going to ruin the sterling reputation of the Batman franchise?

Yeah, I thought Twilight was trash, too, but what was Batman and Robin or Batman v. Superman, high art?

Also: there’ve literally been Batman stories where he’s a vampire. I’m pretty done with Batman movies, but I’ll absolutely see this one if they can promise me a Red Rain nod.

I *think* the middle school students I walked past just now were joking when they called the pigeons “city chickens“.

Wait, they’re re-re-rebooting Batman? Is DC giving up on the entire JLA-ish continuity they worked up? I mean, it was mostly crap, but it really underscores how many continuities DC has going on and how little larger world-building they’ve even attempted.

Well, not the same thing as if we’d never gone down the path (presumably work spent on this woul’ve been spent elsewhere), but this is significant, regarding the coarse mitigation for this particular vulnerability:

“Testing conducted by Apple in May 2019 showed as much as a 40 percent reduction in performance with tests that include multithreaded workloads and public benchmarks.”

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT210108

CompSci folks: any sense of what the performance hit would’ve been if we’d just never gone down the speculative execution path?

My sense is 5-10% on normal use, ~20% on heavy workloads, but that’s only based on some readings after Spectre/Meltdown. Any better sources?

This whole line of processor work increasingly just seems like more trouble than it’s worth.

Rocky does not understand that just because the sun is getting up a little bit earlier every day doesn’t mean he should, too, which is mostly terrible, but our sunrises are a pretty decent consolation prize.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bxe8mwiAXOC/

One interesting thing about the event was the composition of the audience. It would have been really hard to guess what type of event you were at just based on looking at the audience.

Turns out all sorts of people enjoy a good story told well.

Pop-up Magazine was great last night. They’re mostly sold out for this round, but if this or a future edition comes to a city near you, I highly recommend it.

https://www.popupmagazine.com/

Random thing I’m missing from childhood today: when I got off the bus after school, I always knew if we were having veal for dinner right away because I could hear my mom pounding on it with the tenderizer a block away.

Mother of Spoilers