Jason Whaley

a thought on work chat systems... the best "chat" tools and cultures:

- encourage and default to shared, topical channels
- channels are *public and discoverable* unless they absolutely have to be private
- DMs are rare

I've anecdotally observed this over the course of my career where I've worked remotely since '08

a well moderated channel with hundreds (sometimes thousands) of people is infinitely better than the asymmetry produced with an unbounded number of ad-hoc DM's

"Results from two experiments indicate that even when people are successful at maintaining sustained attention—as when avoiding the temptation to check their phones—the mere presence of these devices reduces available cognitive capacity. Moreover, these cognitive costs are highest for those highest in smartphone dependence."

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/691462?utm_source=arnoldspumpclub.schwarzenegger.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=how-your-smartphone-secretly-makes-you-dumber-even-when-it-s-off

Shoutout to @gnarlybob@fosstodon.org for (re)introducing me to the Propaganda tiling wallpaper set at https://github.com/BenjaminHCCarr/PropagandaTiles . I've had these on random rotation for a while and it would take a pretty badass wallpaper to make me switch at this point.

Random #python thing I just realized about f-strings. When interpolating a variable, you can append = to change the formatting to the repr version instead of the string version:

```
>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> now = datetime.now()
>>> f"{now}" #str() version
'2025-10-24 07:33:30.443638'
>>> f"{now=}" #repr() version
'now=datetime.datetime(2025, 10, 24, 7, 33, 30, 443638)'
>>>
```

scratching my head over this bill proposed in the UK: https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/63901/documents/7465

it seeks to ban <16 year olds from being allowed to provision a VPN, but puts the onus on the "VPN Provider" for age verification

I haven't skimmed the full bill yet, but I can't imagine this is enforceable, lest all vpn providers with a business presence in the UK capture IDs / video selfies of all users

(also, seems to not address non-services such as your own ssh tunnels+proxies for the smart kids)

#privacy

I know I jested about the Atlassian purchase of TBCNY, but this is at least promising:

https://www.computerworld.com/article/4053130/atlassian-exec-details-the-610m-browser-company-acquisition.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CWe%E2%80%99re%20planning%20to,optimize%20your%20workflow

We’re planning to bring loved features of Arc into Dia.

I'm somewhat past my initial phase of AI loathing, and use Kagi's assistant, so having a browser built on some of those concepts isn't a big turnoff to me now. I just want the UI aspects of Arc to live on somewhere.

#atlassian #arc #dia

I don't have a machine that I can drive a Linux based desktop on atm, but if I did, I would absolutely try out the Pop!_OS again for Cosmic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyXzjnd6q3g

@owen@mastodon.transneptune.net I have a Switch 2, so I may have to try this at some point... though I'm still kind of trudging my way through BotW Master Mode on the Switch 2 remaster - another critically acclaimed game I never did finish.

@owen@mastodon.transneptune.net yeah, the whole Zodiac thing being opaque on the UI, and turn order being clumsy were two of my bigger peeves. Also, did Haste get nerfed in any way shape or form? There were battles where the enemies had a time mage and I didn't yet, and whether I won or not depended completely on whether they had a successful Haste cast or not.

@owen@mastodon.transneptune.net not sure how many times you played through this... but I made the mistake building Ramza with chemist->magic user jobs, and then had my ass absolutely handed to me at the end of Act II when forced to go solo. I think I gave it up after that since I didn't want to go build him up from the Squire tree again.

Is this a remaster version? Graphics look nice. Was gameplay improved at all?