@ret@furry.engineer cover
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ret

@[email protected]

Half-fox, half-wolf, half-engineer. Into electronics, radio & software. (Very) amateur radio operator. Talk to me about TETRA V+D. Talks about NSFW stuff sometimes - please be 18+ 🔞 Runs (NSFW) https://isthisyiff.net

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. View on remote instance

@adafruit@fosstodon.org avatar adafruit , to random

No Tools for You: A Century of Men Policing Women’s Tools

In 1925 a doctor said vacuum cleaners will make women lazy. In 2026 mastodon dudes said the same thing (and worse) about a woman engineer using a tool to make a CAD part.

https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/16/no-tools-for-you-a-century-of-men-policing-womens-tools/

Early 1900s stereoscope photograph showing a woman calmly seated reading a magazine titled Truth while a disgruntled man behind her scrubs laundry by hand in a wooden washtub. Socks hang on a line above him. A staged comedy photo capturing the exact nightmare that drove a century of appliance panic: what if she sits down and he has to do it.
Betty Crocker Cake Mix advertisement, circa 1950s. Headline: Betty Crocker Cake Mixes bring you that Special Homemade Goodness... because YOU add the eggs yourself. The original mix worked fine with just water but flopped because women felt guilty about it being too easy. Psychologist Ernest Dichter figured out the fix: remove the powdered egg, make her crack a fresh one, and suddenly it's baking instead of cheating. The first product redesigned specifically to manage the laziness accusation. The egg did nothing. The guilt did everything.

Betty Crocker Cake Mix advertisement, circa 1950s. Headline: Betty Crocker Cake Mixes bring you that Special Homemade Goodness... because YOU add the eggs yourself. The original mix worked fine with just water but flopped because women felt guilty about it being too easy. Psychologist Ernest Dichter figured out the fix: remove the powdered egg, make her crack a fresh one, and suddenly it's baking instead of cheating. The first product redesigned specifically to manage the laziness accusation. The egg did nothing. The guilt did everything.
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@adafruit ratio

@finn@surfin.dog avatar finn , to random

people won't move off discord lol. sunk cost and all that

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@finn a Matrix spokesperson when asked for comment on the Discord situation had this to say:

Unable to Decrypt Message

@gamingonlinux@mastodon.social avatar gamingonlinux , to random
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@gamingonlinux personally I will never comply with this stuff. I will always find a way to spoof the face scan (AI or otherwise) or find a different platform. Also keep in mind that producing/using any kind of fake government document is probably illegal. Take care.

@soatok@furry.engineer avatar soatok , to random

I don't know what inspires strangers to insult me like this, but it's tiresome as fuck.

https://web.archive.org/web/20251201100137/https://bsky.app/profile/hexmani.ac/post/3m6vluxqecs22

Post from penny (@hexmani.ac) on BlueSky: "i wish for soatok.blog to be entirely AI generated!" "...why did nothing change?"
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@soatok I think I lost about 10% of my brain cells scrolling that timeline

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@soatok yeah that’s done more damage to me than years of SnPb soldering has.

@gamingonlinux@mastodon.social avatar gamingonlinux , to random

Anyone seeing a Cloudflare outage atm?

Cloudflare London error
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@gamingonlinux yeah, scheduled maintenance I think - https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/

@fdroidorg@floss.social avatar fdroidorg , to random

What time it is? It's 5 o'clock... somewhere. So here comes the fifth legal post.

It's all about content, transparency, and user protections. It features strong tags like and and how these shape our own policies.

Will this break some prejudice? One way to find out: https://f-droid.org/2025/10/21/navigating-the-digital-markets-act-digital-services-act-and-the-online-safety-act.html

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@fdroidorg

The vast majority of the world, including where many F-Droid contributors and users live, have strict pornography and gambling laws, as well as regulations restricting mature content. Even if we don’t want to be, we are accountable to certain regulations that meet at the intersection between censorship and safety.

Not to be unkind, but isn’t that their problem? What do you do when your Saudi Arabian contributors are threatened by their government for publishing an LGBTQ-support app? Why would you change your behaviour to support the whims of this or that government just because they decide to pass an intrusive and expression-limiting law? If you’re in the Netherlands, you respect Netherlands law. If you’re trying to please everyone, you’re just going to wind up pleasing no one.

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@eighthave forgive me, perhaps I’m ignorant of the technical detail, but how exactly is F-Droid (including the main repo) as decentralised as say, Git, or HTTP? Just because you can stick a different URL in the app and access a different repo doesn’t necessarily change things from the point of view of a censor.

F-Droid is running a central repository, which will be subject to scrutiny from those censors. As far as I understand it, this entire article relates to that. If you didn’t host that repository, I fail to see how the OSA or other acts would be relevant to you at all? You’d be a… piece of software, not a “platform” or a “website”. This is all about the main repo, which isn’t “decentralised” at all.

Again, apologies if I misunderstand any of this, and please do correct me if so.

@fdroidorg

@gamingonlinux@mastodon.social avatar gamingonlinux , to random
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@gamingonlinux@mastodon.social avatar gamingonlinux , to random

UK gov has "no plans to intervene" with payment processors pressuring stores to remove games https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/10/uk-gov-has-no-plans-to-intervene-with-payment-processors-pressuring-stores-to-remove-games/

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@gamingonlinux UK gov being a chocolate teapot, as usual. Move along…

@soatok@furry.engineer avatar soatok , to random

My favorite joke to tell people who are debugging JavaScript code: "Which this is this this?"

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@soatok let that = this;

@ret@furry.engineer avatar ret , to random

Work gripe. A big (50GB) MySQL table on RDS ran out of IDs this morning. Oops. I created a new table with the correct ID column size and started a SELECT * INTO... query to copy rows over.

Before starting, I increased the storage throughput and IOPS limits for the instance to get it done quicker.

Half way through, I got a monitoring alert that the instance was almost out of storage. Storage autoscaling is on, so not too worrying... right?

Just by chance, I checked the instance logs...

Storage autoscaling is unable to scale the storage for the reason: DB instance is in the cooling-off period for a previous scale storage operation.

Turns out when you change almost any storage setting in RDS, storage-optimization is caused. You then can't change anything else storage related until 6 hours after that ends. Even auto-scaling will fail.

@ret@furry.engineer avatar ret , to random

unimplemented!("bork not supported, call awoof() instead");

@ret@furry.engineer avatar ret , to random

fedi

An Onion headline: “Left-Wing Group Too Disorganised for FBI Agents to Infiltrate”
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@soatok@furry.engineer avatar soatok , to random

Fun observation:

If you do cool stuff, then over time you will gather a bunch of people who are interested in doing cool shit, and will quickly feel like the cool shit you're doing is inadequate because you're surrounded by people who can do cooler shit than you.

This is a desirable outcome. (It's related to the friendship paradox, too!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_paradox

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@soatok can't tell you how often I need to be reminded of this. I should print this toot out or something tbh.

@nando161@partyon.xyz avatar nando161 , to random

Photographer Debbie Parker captured this strike in West Virginia. - Author: sco-go

Photographer Debbie Parker captured this lightning strike in West Virginia. - Author: sco-go
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@dec23k @themaritimegirl @tarheel @nando161 @pluralistic I captured this with my Nikon D600 about 10 years ago. The old "continuous shooting mode, hold the shutter button down and hope" approach. I think I filled two SD cards and got ~4 usable images.

@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar aral , to random

Government that’s going all in on “AI” urges you to delete old emails and pictures to save water. You couldn’t make this shit up. https://tech.lgbt/@Natasha_Jay/115016993942039602

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@aral @Natasha_Jay looks AI generated itself to me? The long dashes…

@ret@furry.engineer avatar ret , to random

Absolutely insane that Ofcom is paying influencers to astroturf the . I’ll be complaining to their board about this gross misallocation of funds. Ofcom is a regulator, it should not be involved in polishing public perception of the Labour Party’s authoritarian behaviour right now.

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@ret@furry.engineer avatar ret , to random

God I love fursuiters so much. Friday is always such a good day because of all the floof on my TL.

@soatok@furry.engineer avatar soatok , to random

Age Verification Doesn’t Need to Be a Privacy Footgun

"Won't someone think of the poor children?" they say, clutching their pearls as they enact another stupid law that will harm the privacy of every adult on Earth and create Prior Restraint that inhibits the freedom of speech in liberal democracies. Art: CMYKat If you're totally ignorant of how things work, the proposal of "verifying you're an adult" before you access adult content sounds, superficially, like a…

http://soatok.blog/2025/07/31/age-verification-doesnt-need-to-be-a-privacy-footgun/

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@soatok thank you for writing about this <3 We need sensible voices right now, more than ever.

@arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar arstechnica , to random

VPN use soars in UK after age-verification laws go into effect
Proton VPN sign-ups originating in the UK increased by over 1,400 percent.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/07/vpn-use-soars-in-uk-after-age-verification-laws-go-into-effect/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

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@arstechnica irony alert.

@ret@furry.engineer avatar ret , to random

https://bsky.app/profile/kefyor.bsky.social/post/3ltpec6nvv22s

Mockup drawing of a UK parliament petition where the petitioner has asked for "good thing please" with description "we think the UK needs this". Government responded: "No."
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@gamingonlinux@mastodon.social avatar gamingonlinux , to random

Good morning fellow "British" people.

Dropping these links for no particular reason at all:

https://mullvad.net/en

https://protonvpn.com/

Homer meme from the simpsons, going in the bush British, coming out from another country (using a VPN) because of the atrocious and overreaching UK online safety act
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@gamingonlinux proton has faced some measure of public opprobrium because their CEO has made numerous pro-Trump admin comments and posts. https://archive.is/iKaz3

@soatok@furry.engineer avatar soatok , to random

Against the Censorship of Adult Content By Payment Processors

This is a furry blog, where I write about whatever interests me and sign it with my fursona's name. I sometimes talk about furry fandom topics, but I sometimes also talk about applied cryptography. If you got a mild bit of emotional whiplash from that sentence, the best list of posts to start reading to get a feel for my usual fare is…

http://soatok.blog/2025/07/24/against-the-censorship-of-adult-content-by-payment-processors/

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@soatok queer culture online is under attack from so many different directions now. Governments in US states, the UK, and soon the EU are rolling out draconian laws. Payment providers run by Christofascists are closing ranks and tightening the screws on platforms. Weird pressure groups like Collective Shout are adding legitimacy to it all.

Time to fight.

@monkeyben@mastodon.sdf.org avatar monkeyben , to random

Every little website is being pushed onto Facebook thanks to the computer illiterate duckheads in UK Parliament. We'll played MPs, people are much more vulnerable on Facebook you cuckwombles 🤬

A post on the Renault EV Club website saying they have closed down the website and moved to Facebook because of the UK online safety act.
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@monkeyben @neil one more for the list...

@ret@furry.engineer avatar ret , to random

Surely these are in the wrong order for usability? Notifications is far more important than "Trending"... ugh... is this the slow spreading tendrils of enshittification?

The new Mastodon right-hand menu. Home, Trending, Live Feeds, Notifications
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@soatok absolutely, just a bizarre choice. How does a decision like that happen? I should be able to find it on GitHub I guess.

@ret@furry.engineer avatar ret , to random

Always somebody in front of you at the post office who wants to remortgage their driving license with their pension which is in Zimbabwean dollars or some shit… fml.

@ret@furry.engineer avatar ret , to random

Oh and by the way, these age verification things are pure bullshit. This is Go.cam - the leading "open source" one people are talking about. I thought I'd have to employ some AI image generation stuff to spoof it. That was... overly optimistic about their capabilities.

"Highly Effective Age Assurance" they said.

A screen recording. On the left is the go.cam demo site. On the right is OBS (Open Broadcast Studio). OBS has a single scene with two sources. A photo of a happy person is shown. The verification process starts. The user wiggles the image of the happy person around. The verification process progresses to ask the user to stop smiling. The user turns off the Happy source, revealing the NotHappy source - a photo of the same person looking less happy. The verification process passes, saying the user is "31".

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Honestly, fuck all the people pushing this.

Fuck the hand-wringing apologists who know better but employed a "it'll be alright on the night" attitude when we had a chance to stop it.

Fuck the snake-oil salesmen who are pushing "solutions" like this one.

Fuck Ofcom and their "what government wants, government gets" attitude - if you think it's a mistake, fight it, or resign instead of being complicit in ushering in censorship.

Fuck the idiots who think it'll stop here.

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@ulveon not really sure how to respond to that I'm afraid. I don't think I'm in the business of "naming and shaming" anybody.

@arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar arstechnica , to random

Reddit starts verifying ages of UK users to comply with child-safety law
Reddit hires company to verify user age with selfie or photo of government ID.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/07/reddit-starts-verifying-ages-of-uk-users-to-comply-with-child-safety-law/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

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@arstechnica UK MP's wife found to mysteriously have a large number of shares in Persona and/or other AV platforms in 3...2....

@arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar arstechnica , to random

Mike Lindell’s lawyers fined after using AI in brief riddled with mistakes
Lawyers fined $6,000, while Lindell lost $2.3 million defamation verdict.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/07/mike-lindells-lawyers-fined-after-using-ai-in-brief-riddled-with-mistakes/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

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@arstechnica he’s gonna need a pillow to cry on :(

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk avatar neil , to random

> Major porn providers operating in the UK have confirmed to Ofcom that they will introduce effective checks by next month’s deadline in order to comply with the new rules. They include PornHub, the most-visited pornographic service in the UK. Other services who are happy to be named at this stage include BoyfriendTV, Cam4, FrolicMe, inxxx, Jerkmate, LiveHDCams, MyDirtyHobby, RedTube, Streamate, Stripchat, Tube8, and YouPorn. This represents a broad range of pornography services accessed in the UK.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/protecting-children/uks-major-porn-providers-agree-to-age-checks-from-next-month

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@janeishly @neil don't worry, there's video evidence of named Ofcom spokespeople hand-waving away my very direct questions around this. I'm sure nothing can go wrong.

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@neil @janeishly I think it's a broader problem with our system of government & legislation.

The problem is the one way communication path between people who are knowledgeable about what is sensible/possible (actual industry experts, engineers, academics, researchers and Ofcom - I think) and people who do not have a clue and write laws that sound good or put themselves or their relatives in favourable financial positions (MPs, Lords).

There needs to be a path where group A turn around to group B and say "no, that's bonkers, it's not going to work - go back to the drawing board". That path (as far as I know) does not exist, or in this case failed to work properly.

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@cy @neil @janeishly I think in many cases you’re right. In this case there’s certainly an element of privilege and class warfare; if not a more sinister drive to cull the smaller, less controllable parts of the Internet in favour of centralised, Americanised megasites.

@ret@furry.engineer avatar ret , to random

how it feels to come back to a programming project after a few months

A World of Warcraft popup box: Your talents have been reset.
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@ret@furry.engineer avatar ret , to random

Reposting publicly... Rather amusing.

So I've always thought the "curly" advanced string interpolation {} in PHP was specifically limited to accessors with no ability to arithmetic inside it. Sometimes you just need a quick +1 or -1 or something though.

So what if...

// normally not possible<br></br>$x = 32;<br></br>print("Hello {$x}");  // Hello 32<br></br>print("Hello {$x+1}"); // (Syntax Error)<br></br><br></br>// but...<br></br>$x = new class {<br></br>  function __get($v) { return $v; }<br></br>};<br></br><br></br>// and now... arithmetic inside str interp.<br></br>print("{$x->{3 + 2}}"); // 5<br></br>

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Doesn't have to use __get either actually, calling methods inside curly string interpolation is allowed.

$x = new class {<br></br>  function boo($v) { return $v; }<br></br>};<br></br><br></br>print("{$x->boo(620+1)}"); // 621<br></br>
@ret@furry.engineer avatar ret , to random

look what they did to monopoly

An STM32F103RBT IC visualised in STM32CubeMX. It looks like a monopoly board with coloured blocks where the pins are.
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@AnarchoNinaWrites@jorts.horse avatar AnarchoNinaWrites , to random

UK going full Minority Report; way too busy to write about it but holy shit how is this even real?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/apr/08/uk-creating-prediction-tool-to-identify-people-most-likely-to-kill

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@AnarchoNinaWrites the precogs twitch violently in their pool. futuristic sirens sound. detectives hurry to the precrime lab. A singular brown ball rolls down the track…

KIER STARMER

Damn, this movie is overdue a reboot tbh.

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

What Android needs is a way to deny an app notifications privs but tell it it got notifications privs, for the asshole apps that I don't want to send me fucking notifications but then retaliate with a "enable notifications!" popup on every launch

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@mcc “sure sweety notifications are on, don’t worry about it”

“Yay!”

vkc , to random

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

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    @vkc every single one of the alternatives I’ve ever looked at have been infested by right-wing/conspiracy nuts or crypto shills for some reason. Odysee certainly is/was.

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    @PierricD @vkc I have not tried tinkertube so I couldn’t speak for that ^

    @NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

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    @NanoRaptor how do people make these things? Are engraved/milled?

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    @NanoRaptor TIL! Thank you :blobfox_w:

    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

    Had a fridge horror moment the other day when I realized part of why the AI scrapers are behaving so badly, ignoring robots.txt, hitting the same endpoint over and over etc, is that at least some of those AI scrapers are probably written using AI

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    @mcc and a lot of them are also reading content written by AI. It’s just a massive, complicated energy wasting machine really.