Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

I cried at the Voyager news today. I also know why.

Because for every techbro out there, there's a talented engineer quietly working to make things actually better.

That gives me hope.

Hope is in short supply these days.

Well, the secret's out. As many of you suspected, I am indeed Banksy. Need proof? Here, I'll give you the inside scoop of how I came up with my name. It's a combination of bank (my favorite place to withdraw money from) and syrup (because I like to pour maple syrup on pancakes lol).

#WritersCoffeeClub - Do you agree with Rose Tremain, who said you shouldn't plan a book's ending; it must be earned?

Earned by whom??? By the author? By the story? By the characters??

Anyway, it's not how I plan my stories: I see all of them as a film first (often several times) before I start writing. So even if I don't do a proper outline (or mindmap - a mindmap is better, really), I have a plan for the story. It might change a little during the writing process itself, but not much.

Ooooooo...

NASA recovered a space probe's 47-year-old computer with about as much memory as my old Commodore 64 over a distance of 15 billion miles so it can (hopefully) continue to do science work, and it reminds me of how much ingenuity used to go into computers back when the assumption was you couldn't consume the water and electricity of a small nation just to power Ask Jeeves.

My brother and I were driving through this small decaying town called Barnett, Mo, and we passed this old mill that looked very old, and grown over. It was covered with cool old signage, and looked really interesting, but there were 5 older people sitting in front of it by a table, and a hand painted sign that says Toxic Club. So, we drive back around, because we had to know, so we pull in, and ask "What is the Toxic Club?", and they say they are just out there most days with coffee and donuts to make sure that people get something to eat, and drink and have someone to chat with. That doesn't sound toxic at all, it sounds lovely.

Last November, NASA's Voyager 1 sent home garbled data, and engineers traced the problem to the flight data subsystem (FDS). The problem turned out to be a single chip in the FDS memory. They couldn't repair the chip but could move the affected code into sections and store them in different parts of the FDS system. They tested the new system this week, sending signals to the Voyager 1, 22.5 light-hours away. It worked, and Voyager 1 is back.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/voyager/2024/04/22/nasas-voyager-1-resumes-sending-engineering-updates-to-earth/

Happy 27th anniversary to Winamp!

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The first version of ⚡Winamp⚡ was released as freeware on April 21st, 1997!
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Winamp, it really whips the llama's ass!

#SilentSunday

The boss has been pestering me to attend a leadership conference so I, completely jokingly, said, "A true leader would never sit in an audience being told what to do" and now half this office is in existential crisis

can a visor see farts

f'reals

#art #artist #artists

puberty blockers are primarily used to delay precocious (early) puberty in *cis* children so they can go through puberty at a more normal age. that’s the purpose they were originally developed for. so removing access to puberty blockers for under-18s on the basis of state sponsored transphobia would primarily affect cis children. are you really that transphobic that you would knowingly hurt cis kids with early puberty just to hurt trans kids who don’t want to be forced through a wrong puberty?

puberty blockers are a well-tested, safe remedy for trans kids/youth.

their effects are fully reversible if the kid/youth later decides that they’re cis.

if they’re trans and want access to cross-sex hormones before the age of 18, that will give them the *right* puberty.

after which they won’t have to go through life physically and emotionally scarred by a *wrong* one, wracked by gender dysphoria, which often ruins sex and other enjoyable aspects of bodily life like swimming in public.