Elon Musk on data centers in orbit: “SpaceX will be doing this” “We could see another transformation of what’s done in space.”…

Ok this (arstechnica.com/space/2025/1...) is an amazing example of the kind of BS hype tech writing we see so much, because even I, a lowly historian, can see the Obvious Problems with 'space data centers' that the article by a journalist at a technical publication failed to ask.

Inventing the Renaissance An irreverent new take on the Renaissance, which reveals it as anything but Europe’s golden age. From the darkness of a plagued and war-torn Middle Ages, the Renaissance (we’re told) heralds the dawni...

I have to say that this book is an incredible joy to read--full of self-aware, lucid prose that has a great deal of explanatory power regarding a great many things, historical and otherwise!
Thank you, @adapalmer.bsky.social for this great gift to my brain :-)
#history

Traceability is not a verb!

So please complete this sentence:
As a stakeholder,
I want traceability,
so that ...

In that, dreadful, terrible moment, every black bloc protestor in the world is useless, but a line of concerned senior citizens, office workers and house-spouses is actually a 'harder' target.

And 'the soldiers stood aside' is the sentence in the history book that goes before 'and the regime fell.'

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems... SIMON: What? SHAPIRO: ...Or saying... SIMON: You imagine that? SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over. SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level. SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this. SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

In an old ad for board game Scattergories in Spain a player was shown flouncing out while anothet said “OK, we’ll accept ‘octopus’ as a pet”.
“Aceptamos pulpo” has now entered the language in the meaning of “that’s a bit of a stretch but let’s go with it just for the sake of argument”.

Have been playing Hades 2 for a bit and I suspect its perfectly tweaked reward cycle is detracting from the quality of the game. I mean, do I want to play because I enjoy playing or because I want to get more of those rewards?

“You’ve got sadness in you, I’ve got sadness in me – and my works of art are places where the two sadnesses can meet, and therefore both of us need to feel less sad.”

HBD, Mark Rothko ...

Here's your period reminder that "Luddite" does not mean "hates technology/progress".

It means "hates how technology/progress benefit only the bosses while the workers get the shaft".

Here is 28 seconds of sleeping cat with little sleep noises for your calming down needs.

That "We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist" is still getting misattributed to James Baldwin instead of Robert Jones Jr., huh? Damn. Guess Mark Twain was right.

this is, hands down, the best video I've seen on men's influencer content and it's not close either

So I counted how many people were behind Silksong.

106.

(And over 1000 people who backed the money)

Character artists, background artists, musicians, sound folks, coders.

This game was not made by 3 people. Stop pedling this bullshit.

Today is the 5th anniversary of David Graber's death. And with everything happening in the world, his work is now more relevant than ever before.

Today is the 5th anniversary of David Graber's death.

And with everything happening in the world, his work is now more relevant than ever before.

How adding a flex-wrap almost spiraled out of control The thin line between value and distraction

Blogged: How adding a flex-wrap almost spiraled out of control

Or, about the thin line between value and distraction.

smallsheds.garden/blog/2025/ho...

I suspect it's hard not to when you have a de facto two-party system. It turns elections into a zero-sum game, us versus them.

For a taste of her topic and writing, here's one of her promo threads for the book, about a ramp in Florence that is almost certainly a disability aid for the Medici, but mostly not recognized as such by historians. (and I doubt the Medici would have admitted it, for reasons in the thread)

was just discussing “AI” with a coworker and realized this:

if i had wanted to use english to program complex systems that run nondeterministically, i would’ve gone into law

"The problem with a book is that you never know what it's planning to do to you until you're too far in it." - Nina Burgess in "A Brief History of Seven Killings" by Marlon James

There are only two genders.

My mom and stepdad are from the same diaspora group as Zohran Mamdani’s dad (same like “my stepdad was kicked out of the same town and knows some of his classmates”) and apparently the New York Times doesn’t understand how diaspora works, so I am going to tell you a little about my mom’s people!

On the whole, the Gujarati African diaspora is wealthy, well-educated, and pretty obsessed with integration and respectability politics on account of all the trauma. We’re also very tight-knit, which is helpful because we also have a lot of poverty and refugees.

Some of the things I did after being off for a few weeks Show what you do day-to-day!

Blogged: Some of the things I did after being off for a few weeks

smallsheds.garden/blog/2025/so...

Because I'd like to see testers share more about what they do day-to-day.

Related Torment Nexus: "The Method" (original title: "Corpus Delicti: Ein Prozess") by Juli Zeh from 2009

Jesus Christ as somebody who lives between two gigantic treacherous mountain ranges and is constantly getting news (both from komo 4 and friends of friends; my dad lost a dude a couple years ago himself) about people who have died while lost on said ranges: fuuuuuck

"I would put all projects that propose to substitute a computer system for a human function that involves interpersonal respect, understanding, and love in the same category [of obscene computer applications]."

Computer Power and Human Reason, Joseph Weizenbaum, 1976, p. 269

TestBash Brighton 2025 session: “A day in the life of a Quality Lead” by Elizabeth Zagroba. This talk makes the behind-the-scenes work of a quality lead visible, helping attendees understand how to advocate for their work, interact with leadership, and see what quality looks like beyond their own team. Keywords: Elizabeth Zagroba, quality leadership, day in the life QA, TestBash Brighton 2025, software testing careers, QA visibility, Ministry of Testing, quality roles, work transparency.

Elizabeth Zagroba shares what it really looks like to be a Quality Lead.

See the work behind the title, how to make your impact visible, and what quality means at scale at TestBash Brighton 2025, October 1–2.

TestBash Brighton 2025 session: “Ensuring quality for a peculiar piece of software” by Joep Schuurkes. This talk explores the challenges of building high-stakes, rarely used, air-gapped software—specifically one used in Dutch municipal elections. Joep shares how to ensure quality without traditional production environments, using vertical slices, feedback loops, and embracing constraints.

Joep Schuurkes shares how his team builds election software used once a year, with no fixes or monitoring.

Learn how to ensure quality under tight constraints at TestBash Brighton 2025, October 1–2.