@mike@sauropods.win cover
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

mike

@[email protected]

By day I am a computer programmer with Index Data, where I have been happily and gainfully employed for 20 years.

By night, I am a vertebrate palaeontologist with the University of Bristol, specialising in sauropods: the biggest and best of all dinosaurs.

I am an advocate for open access, open data and open source, and I'm beginning to think pre-publication peer-review might be a mistake. I support #LFC.

Email: [email protected]
ORCiD: 0000-0002-1003-5675

#fedi22

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

@mike@sauropods.win avatar mike , to random

Over the last few weeks I have noticed a behaviour in myself.

If I follow a link and I get a "We care about your privacy" popup, I click the "Reject all" button and read the article.

But if there is no "Reject all" button, just a link to a complicated set of preferences, I simply close the window and never see what the article had to say.

I wonder how many others do this.

And how many web-sites are losing A LOT of their traffic for this reason.

—
UPDATE: see replies, lots of people do this!

@grumpygamer@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar grumpygamer , to random

I turned off copilot but I still like AI writing my commit message. It's better then "Did stuff".

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@grumpygamer Here's why I think this is a mistake: the AI commit message is a summary generated from the diff, which is information already in the commit. It's not adding anything. Anyone who wants an AI summary of what's in the commit can generate it at any time from the diff; but only you, here and now, can write a comment explaining WHY you did what you did.

@mike@sauropods.win avatar mike , to random

I was thinking about how strange it is that the cupboard in a bathroom is called a "vanity unit", and then I got to thinking, what if all your furniture was named after the seven deadly sins?

  • Bathroom cupboard = vanity unit
  • Paid-work office = avarice unit
  • Computer gaming station = anger unit
  • Device running social media = envy unit
  • Bed = lust unit
  • Induction hob = gluttony unit
  • Sofa = sloth unit
@mike@sauropods.win avatar mike , to random

"The collapse of the AI bubble is going to be ugly. Seven AI companies currently account for more than a third of the stock market, and they endlessly pass around the same $100bn IOU."
— Cory Doctorow, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/18/tech-ai-bubble-burst-reverse-centaur

@mike@sauropods.win avatar mike , to random

"I’ve read many historical books on the subject [of Open Source], including [Richard M Stallman]’s biography and many older writings.

And something struck me.

RMS was right since the very beginning. Every warning, every prophecy realised. And, worst of all, he had the solution since the start. The problem is not RMS or FSF. The problem is us. The problem is that we didn’t listen."

https://ploum.net/2023-06-19-more-rms.html

@mike@sauropods.win avatar mike , to random

Oh my word, has really shat the bed this time. Whatever shreds of credibility it had are now surely all dust and ashes.

Really, every national football federation worth anything should defederate from FIFA and start a new global governing body for football. Boxing has three or four, after all, why shouldn't football have two? (For the short time before FIFA withers away into nothing.)

@organicmaps@fosstodon.org avatar organicmaps , to random

New release highlights:

  • Wikipedia articles in Turkish, Japanese, and Chinese
  • A setting to turn on/off purple downloaded regions
  • OSM data as of November 23, 2025

iOS:

  • Edit a bookmark or track name directly on the Place Information Page
  • Liquid Glass support
  • Long-tap the name or address of a selected place or bookmark to copy it to the clipboard.

... and more: https://organicmaps.app/news/2025-11-26/wikipedia-articles-in-turkish-japanese-and-chinese-setting-to-see-downloaded-regions/

Wikipedia article in Turkish
Organic Maps settings
Wikipedia article in Chinese

Wikipedia article in Chinese
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mike ,
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@organicmaps The feature I really need, and whose absence keeps sending me back to Google Maps despite msyelf, is real-time routing based on prevailing traffic. Is there any way that might be on the way? (I get that it depends on privacy-dubious approaches, but it's just so darned useful.)

@organicmaps@fosstodon.org avatar organicmaps , to random

Meet NEW features in the November 11 release of Organic Maps:

  • Highlighted downloaded regions on the World map
  • See and search for nature reserves, national parks, protected areas, Aboriginal lands, danger areas, and lakes on the World map starting at zoom level 8
  • Routing now supports road closure times

...and more improvements: https://organicmaps.app/news/2025-11-11/detailed-world-map-highlighted-downloaded-regions-conditional-routing-support-carplay-android-auto-chromebook/

Downloaded regions are highlighted in Organic Maps

Downloaded regions are highlighted in Organic Maps
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mike ,
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@organicmaps Is there a website that is to the Organic Maps app as maps.google.com is to the Google Maps app?

@mike@sauropods.win avatar mike , to random

Today I learned that all those pointless collective nouns (a murder of crows, a parliament of owls, a pride of lions), which are only ever used in pub quizzes, were made up by one woman 500 years ago.
https://www.themarginalian.org/2024/01/04/brian-wildsmith-birds-company-terms/

@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us avatar ChrisMayLA6 , to random

As @davidallengreen points out, the Court of the Tangerine Tyrant are fine with the US constitution when it confers powers they want to use & protects their interests; when it doesn't then the constitution is an impediment that needs to be sidelined or challenged.

As one might conclude, this is a politically expedient strategy which is un-concerned with consistency or the rule of law & only interested in what is to the President's immediate interest.

https://emptycity.substack.com/p/the-one-way-constitution

mike ,
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@ChrisMayLA6 @davidallengreen "... then the constitution is an impediment that needs to be sidelined or challenged."

Or, more often, simply ignored.

@tante@tldr.nettime.org avatar tante , to random

I do think that this framing isn't fully correct. "Open Source" often has a libertarian (and therefore explicitly non-left) bend. It can be put into left thinking and politics but it works just as well in more right-wing logics. (See Golumbia, Cyberlibertarianism)
https://mastodon.mallegolhansen.com/@philip/115395656389281792

mike ,
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@javi @tante This is of course EXACTLY the distinction between the Free Software that FSF has been advocating since the mid 1950s, and the Open Source software that the Open Source Initiative popularised starting in 1998.

As with so very many things, Richard M. Stallman is proven to have been right all along. He is definitely the modern age's Cassandra.

mike ,
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@tante True; but more broadly it's about software freedom as a moral imperative rather than a pragmatic strategy.

@mike@sauropods.win avatar mike , to random

"I wonder if OpenAI are, in these cases, using their LLMs as interfaces to, say, maths programs, or chess programs, or Python testing or linting tools. And is that “artificial general intelligence”, or is that a natural language interface to point solutions; application-specific intelligence?"

https://codemanship.wordpress.com/2025/01/11/the-llm-in-the-room/

If that IS what they're doing, they should come clean and embrace it. That would be significantly useful.

Maybe the real use-case for LLMs is just text-based UI.

@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar pluralistic , to random

Apple has threatened to stop selling iPhones and other devices in the European Union (home to over 500,000,000 affluent consumers) if the bloc doesn't rescind the Digital Markets Act, a democratically accountable anti-monopoly law that bans Apple from blocking third parties from offering services to iPhone owners:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/25/apple-calls-for-changes-to-anti-monopoly-laws-and-says-it-may-stop-shipping-to-the-eu

1/

Image: Alex Popovkin, Bahia, Brazil from Brazil (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Annelid_worm,_Atlantic_forest,_northern_littoral_of_Bahia,_Brazil_%2816107326533%29.jpg CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en -- Hubertl (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2015-03-04_Elstar_%28apple%29_starting_putrefying_IMG_9761_bis_9772.jpg CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
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mike ,
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@javi @pluralistic I really hope you're right.

@pojntfx@mastodon.social avatar pojntfx , to random

Whenever you see someone recommend Cloudflare or something else that decrypts and re-encrypts TLS for something, esp. for something related to open social media or media storage etc., reply with this picture from the Snowden leaks

The "CloudFlare: SSL Added and Removed Here :-)" picture from https://www.agwa.name/blog/post/cloudflare_ssl_added_and_removed_here
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mike ,
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@pojntfx So a second-order effect of ubiquitous LLM scrapers that ignore robots.txt is going to be the destruction of meaningful encryption. Niiice.

@Swede1952@universeodon.com avatar Swede1952 , to random

Surveillance from the Fence

Yesterday morning—Saturday, 13 September 2025—I looked out into the backyard and noticed a dark shape perched on the back fence near the bird feeder. At first glance, I thought it was a squirrel, its tail hanging down in that familiar arc. But as my brain caught up with my eyes, I realized it was something else entirely.

I grabbed my camera and headed to the sunroom, hoping to get a few shots without disturbing the figure. Through the lens, the mystery resolved: a Cooper’s hawk (Accipiter cooperii), just hanging out, back to me, head turned nearly 180 degrees, scanning the ground below like a surgeon preparing for the first incision.

I cracked the door open and took a few more pictures. Then I stepped out onto the patio—and that was enough. The hawk lifted off and flew into the forest, landing in an oak tree just beyond the yard. It was still close enough for a few decent shots, but birds being birds, it tucked itself behind a veil of leaves, hidden but not gone.

Check out breathtaking photos of magnificent birds of prey, visit my photo gallery here:

https://swede1952-photographs.pixels.com

"A Cooper’s hawk perches on a white backyard fence, its back to the camera, body taut and feathers layered like a well-kept archive. The plumage is grayish-brown, sleek and orderly, catching soft light that reveals subtle ripples and banding. But the drama lies in the head—turned nearly 180 degrees, twisted with avian precision, as if the neck were a hinge of pure intent. Its sharp beak points downward, and its blazing orange eye scans the ground below, hunting without motion. The gaze is surgical, focused, and unblinking. This is not a casual perch—it’s surveillance. The tail feathers fan slightly behind, balanced and banded, while the wings remain folded tight against the body, conserving energy for the moment of strike. The background blurs into neutrality, placing all attention on the hawk’s posture and purpose. The image is signed © Swede's Photographs in the bottom right corner—a quiet credit for capturing this moment of stillness, tension, and anatomical mastery. This is a portrait of readiness. A sentinel with its back turned, but nothing missed." - Copilot with edits by the photographer
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mike ,
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@Swede1952 JFI, I reference this photo on our sauropod vertebra blog: https://svpow.com/2025/10/01/necks-the-lying-liars-that-just-keep-lying/

@organicmaps@fosstodon.org avatar organicmaps , to random

Some are asking: why does privacy-focused Organic Maps use GitHub? The largest open-source contributor network, familiar PR & issue workflow, Actions CI, broad integrations, zero infra to maintain, and easy onboarding/discoverability. This lets us focus on improving the app instead of running and maintaining servers. Development time is the most precious resource nowadays, and most of our users don't care where the code is hosted, but care about the app functionality and usability…
Do you care?

mike ,
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@organicmaps @tobru @Codeberg I think you're making the right call, OrganicMaps. Lots of calls for "action" by (in most cases) people who haven't given any thought to all the things you mention.

@mike@sauropods.win avatar mike , to random

I love how careful @Gargron and the team have been in designing quote-posts in a ways that gives you total control (up to and including opting out of being quoted at all).

"We’ve taken time to introduce quotes in a way that aligns with Mastodon values, focusing on safety and mental health – not just on engagement."

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/09/introducing-quote-posts/

@mike@sauropods.win avatar mike , to random

I was just thinking to myself "It would be good if let you follow someone's original posts without seeing all the stuff they boost, which is not relevant to me".

Then it occurred to me to look and see if it does ... and it does! Click on the person's username, then click the three-dots menu near top right of their profile, then choose "Hide boosts from …"

This is a game-changer!

@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar nixCraft , to random

uBlock Origin Lite now available for Safari running on iPhone, iPad, and macOS (Mac). It is a free and opensource app to block Ads and other stuff. Give it a try. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id6745342698

mike ,
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@nixCraft What is the difference between this and regular uBlock Origin?

mike ,
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@nixCraft Is the the "Chrome manifest v3 makes uBlock Origin impossible" thing, defeated?

@anon_opin@mastodon.social avatar anon_opin Bot , to random

Only Amazon Prime subscribers should be allowed to leave reviews on Amazon.

mike ,
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@Gargron @anon_opin People will stop using Amazon when there's another choice that delivers a huge range of low-priced goods as quickly and easily as they do. I detest Bezos as much as anyone, but what the world really needs is an actual competitor.

mike ,
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@Gargron @anon_opin All I can tell you is my experience has been that other online stores have worse coverage, higher prices, slower delivery, and less helpful customer service when things go wrong. I wish it were otherwise.

@mike@sauropods.win avatar mike , to random

The Met Office (UK) invites you to suggest names for future storms. Make your own suggestions at https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/forms/name-our-storms-call-for-names

Here are mine.

I filled in the storm names Exxon Shell BP Chevron GazProm And I gave "Reason for name choices" as: To properly acknowledge the source of the climate conditions.
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@Daojoan@mastodon.social avatar Daojoan , to random

No, You Shouldn't Let Your Kids Use ChatGPT. A thread. 🧵

1/16

mike ,
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@Daojoan BTW., this also the outcome of the English Public School system.

(Note that "Public School" in England doesn't mean state-funded school, it means extremely expensive elite top-end private school.)

@mike@sauropods.win avatar mike , to random

"I've long maintained that the threat from AI to workers isn't that AI can do your job - it's that an AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can't do your job."
— Cory Doctorow at https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/114466666309059661

@servo@floss.social avatar servo , to random

Servo is considering:

  • allowing some AI tools for non-code contributions

  • allowing maintainers to use GitHub Copilot for some code contributions over the next 12 months

These changes are planned to take effect in June 2025, but we want your feedback. More details:

https://github.com/servo/servo/discussions/36379

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@servo FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAKE IT STOP.

I hope you found my feedback helpful.

@danstowell@mastodon.social avatar danstowell , to random

I have resigned as a reviewer for the Royal Society. I encourage others to do the same.

Dear editors,

Today I saw some news about the Royal Society which made me very uncomfortable. As a result, I am afraid I will withdraw my voluntary reviewing work for Royal Society. I will not after all be completing this review for Royal Society Open Science.

[The rest of the letter: http://mcld.co.uk/blog/2025/letter-to-royal-society-about-reviewing-and-code-of-conduct.html]

mike ,
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@danstowell The is dead in the water. Three hundred and sixty-five years of history, and it's ended it as a beard for a facist. What an utterly utterly shameful end for a once-great society.

@A11yAwareness@disabled.social avatar A11yAwareness , to random

When using Microsoft Word or Google Docs, don't just make text bigger and bolder to make it a heading. That will work for sighted users, but screen reader users will miss that and just hear it as normal paragraph text. Use actual heading styles, like level 1 through 6.

mike ,
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@A11yAwareness It's also just SO much easier for the author that way!

@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar nixCraft , to random

Mozilla CEO made around 7 million USD last year, but hosting bills are pending. Now, they updated the ToS, and you can't watch p0rn, or your data will be sold, or they no longer care about the orignal mission, etc. Once again, we see C-suits lose their grip on reality. As long as they are getting paid in millions, software projects can go to /dev/null. It is like they want to ruin the project on purpose. There is no other explanation I can think of. Can you?

mike ,
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@nixCraft $7M, seriously? What's source for this? If true, then beyond outrageous.

@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar nixCraft , to random

Wow. Amazing news. Type 1 diabetes reversed by new cell transplantation technique: Transplanting insulin-producing cells along with engineered blood-vessel-forming cells has successfully reversed type 1 diabetes, according to a new preclinical study. With further testing, the novel approach could one day cure the as-yet incurable condition. https://newatlas.com/diabetes/islet-transplantation-type-1-diabetes/

mike ,
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@nixCraft Seems like a great time to defund scientific research.

@mike@sauropods.win avatar mike , to random

I see that recent version of will no longer run , “because it doesn’t follow best practices for Chrome extensions”, i.e. it prevents from tracking you.

I switched back to (*) long ago, but if I were still on Chrome this would be a 100% deal-breaker for me. A browser that can’t run an ad-blocker is literally useless to me.

(*) Actually LibreWolf, which is merely Firefox with more privacy-oriented default settings.

Screenshots of Chrome refusing to run uBlock Origin, and Firefox running it happily.
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@internetarchive@mastodon.archive.org avatar internetarchive , to random

As part of its new 'transformative' access model for libraries, "...Clarivate will also phase out one-time perpetual purchases of digital collections, print and digital books for libraries." https://clarivate.com/news/clarivate-unveils-transformative-subscription-based-access-strategy-for-academia/

mike ,
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@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar nixCraft , to random

If I can not get the "hello world" program running less than ten lines, your fancy framework or programming language is dead to me.

mike ,
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@nixCraft You are going to like ETA. https://www.miketaylor.org.uk/tech/eta/doc/index.html

NEN toe nine NA hyaena toe N <aaa!> Renault sudden Adolph Enid: ugly M$IE4.0
Cygnus agenda: t'send a toe 2 nato. Bend a ghoul entourage ant! Venice T.
NT, Be, Next -- a not-budget list of Operating Systems.
Nurture 1 hundred hangmen, uterus 1st.
s3ntient L1fe-f0rm? J@bb@ $ Hut?!
-- On the Niet (Russian)

@grumpygamer@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar grumpygamer , to random

Welcome this episode of "Ask Mastodon".

I'm looking for a good web based RSS reader.

  1. Web based
  2. Not Feedly
  3. Not self-hosted
  4. Not filled with AI bullshit

Please read criteria carefully before replying.

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@grumpygamer Why not Feedly?

I am very happy with feedly.com. There is a small amount of AI bullshit but it's very easy to ignore.

@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar nixCraft , to random

90s desktop 😍

90s Linux desktop 😍 It is a Red hat Linux desktop screenshot.
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mike ,
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@nixCraft Deep in my heart, I still feel that this is what a desktop should look like.

@ScienceDesk@flipboard.social avatar ScienceDesk , to random

Do science dioramas still have a place in today’s museums?

From Science News: "Many exhibit experts believe they still have value but need reimagining."

https://flip.it/Z92ceK

mike ,
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@ScienceDesk Duh, yes.

@itsfoss@mastodon.social avatar itsfoss , to random

Happy Birthday to Ken Thompson! 🎉 A tech legend who co-created UNIX, C, B, and Go. 💻 🔥

Happy Birthday Ken Thompson Feb 4, 1943 UNIX,B, C & Go Co-Creator. There is a photo of Ken wearing a red shirt arranged against a mixed blue-green backdrop filled with balloons and a gradient. There is also the It's FOSS logo towards the bottom left.
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mike ,
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@itsfoss And UTF-8. And won the world computer chess championship on multiple occasions.

@ColleenB@thecanadian.social avatar ColleenB , to random

What search engines do you use in lieu of ? ? ? Others?

mike ,
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@MegaMichelle @ColleenB @Mojeek I'm interested in why it's better to duplicate effort by running a separate crawl. Or is it that Mojeek's crawl is in some substantial sense better than the Bing crawl used by DDG?

mike ,
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@Mojeek @MegaMichelle @ColleenB Ah. so is it that DDG has access to the database compiled from the crawl data, rather than to the crawl data itself?

mike ,
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@Mojeek @MegaMichelle @ColleenB Thanks, I appreciate the explanation.

So you'd not be fans of efforts like https://commoncrawl.org/ ?

mike ,
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mike ,
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@Mojeek @MegaMichelle @ColleenB Right, I see the problem.

@grumpygamer@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar grumpygamer , to random

Every time I write "Elon Musk" I'm going to write "Dipshit Elon Musk" instead. It's the small things that keep me sane.

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@grumpygamer How about "Insecure Dipshit Elon Musk"?

@grumpygamer@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar grumpygamer , to random

I'm sick of everything having rollover text. I can't move my cursor around the screen without some fucking rollover text coming up and blocking my view or distracting me. I only use Slack for a couple of friends but it is the worst. The Mastodon web client has started doing this. Knock it off!

mike ,
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@grumpygamer YES! THIS!!

@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar nixCraft , to random

  1. Open a Linux terminal.

  2. Type the following command:
    watch -d -n 1 sensors

  3. This command displays CPU, GPU, Wi-Fi, NVMe SSD, and HDD temperature data in real time. The -d option highlights the differences between updates, and the -n 1 option sets the interval to 1 second, running the sensors command every second. See https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-linux-get-sensors-information/ for more info.

This watch ... sensor command displays CPU, GPU, Wi-Fi, NVMe SSD, and HDD temperature data in real time. The -d option highlights the differences between updates, and the -n 1 option sets the interval to 1 second, running the sensors command every second.

mike ,
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@nixCraft Is there a MacOS equivalent?

@dansup@mastodon.social avatar dansup , to random

The pixelfed.social public feed is still moving fast, love to see the diversity in our community.

Working on a new release with many improvements!

mike ,
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@dansup Is there a Best Of PIxelfed account that I can follow from here on Mastodon to see, say, half a dozen lovely photos per day?

@Daojoan@mastodon.social avatar Daojoan , to random

It's comfortable to believe that facts will prevail.

That one morning, millions of Trump supporters will wake up, rub their eyes, and suddenly see what we see. That the scales will fall away, revealing truth in pristine clarity.

But tribes don't work that way. 🧵

mike ,
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@Daojoan I am little more optimistic, from this side of the Atlantic. For years it felt that Boris Johnson's vast cadre of supporters would never register anything he'd done wrong, would just write it off. Then Partygate changed all that.