Andy 🌎

@Akshay > Tolkien books should be adapted as creatively animated series

Like this one? 😜

#Tolkien #Movies #Bookstodon

Dismay! I bought "Westviking" by Farley Mowat a while ago and just started it, only to find that the appendices aren't included in the book; they only included a page with a URL and a QR code.

The intro suggests to read the appendices first and then references them in the text. How annoying.

Has anyone run into this before? Not something I would have thought to check for.

#bookstodon #BookPublishing

I saw this truncated CBC headline and was expecting a different ending...

#RenewableEnergy #oil #headlines #BaitAndSwitch #CanWePleaseFocusOnRenewableEnergy

Happy Ides of March for those who celebrate.

Sic semper tyrannis.

#IdesOfMarch #JuliusCaesar #SicSemperTyrannis

I released an update to my libE57Format library—version 3.3—to fix some build warnings & to update the build system (cmake)🏗️.

It is a C++ library which provides read & write support for the ASTM-standard E57 file format on Linux, macOS, and Windows. E57 files store 3D point cloud data, attributes associated with 3D point data (color & intensity), and 2D images (photos).

https://github.com/asmaloney/libE57Format/releases/tag/v3.3.0

#3DScanner #PointCloud #GIS #Geospatial #LiDAR #LaserScanner #E57 #OpenSource #FileFormat #cpp #FOSS

@Tutanota Petition **e-6838** 📢 has fewer signatures, but focuses directly on the privacy aspect of Bill C-2, and petitions for withdrawal of the entire bill. (And is clearer & better written.)

https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-6838

It closes for signatures on *27 January 2026*.

Worth signing both this one & **e-6627** if you're Canadian! 🇨🇦

#privacy #Canada #BillC2 #petition

@shipperslist I really enjoyed **Station Eleven **(2014) as well …though I did read it before the pandemic of 2020! 😀

I thought the TV mini-series adaptation was great as well. The interactions between Javeen & young Kirsten were fantastic. Matilda Lawler absolutely nailed that part.

#bookstodon #EmilyStJohnMandel

RIP Bill Atkinson - one of the original Macintosh team.

He created both MacPaint & Hypercard which had a big influence on me as a kid.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/06/07/bill-atkinson-pioneering-early-apple-engineer-dies-at-74

#BillAtkinson #RIP #Macintosh #Hypercard #MacPaint

For Ottawa 🇨🇦 folks:

I contacted Ottawa Public Health a while ago about setting up a fediverse bridge to their bluesky account. They've recently added it:

@ottawapublichealth.ca

Stay healthy! ⚕️

#Ottawa #OttawaOntario #CityOfOttawa

For other Ottawa 🇨🇦 people, the City of Ottawa is now on bluesky.

There's a bridge to fediverse here: @en.ottawa.ca

They still don't seem to know how to use hashtags effectively & they use link shorteners, but it's better than nothing!

#Ottawa #CityOfOttawa

I'm reading **Hard to Be a God** (1964) by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky.

For *some* reason the passage I just read jumped out at me...

#bookstodon #Strugatsky #fiction #OnPoint #Science #Art

@atomictangerine > Sadly, I have no recollection whatsoever of what the book is about.

I can't tell if that's a sly meta-commentary on the book 😆

(For those who haven't read **The Buried Giant** - it involves the loss of long-term memory.)

I really like Ishiguro and how his style adapts to the type of story he's writing (fable, SciFi, period piece, etc.). I think he's a masterful writer!

#bookstodon #Ishiguro

For my fellow allergy sufferers - this looks promising!

> That means an injection could stop all allergic reactions — not only seasonal allergies but food allergies (such as peanuts) and insect allergies for a prolonged period of time.

https://www.vox.com/health/408749/allergy-season-pollen-grass-cure-treatment

via @Vox

#allergies #pollen #ImmuneSystem #MonoclonalAntibodies

@ForestOrca @arstechnica Seconded!

I've been using Jitsi for years. Overall it's a pretty great substitute for Skype/Zoom/Teams for my use cases (2-3 people video chat - occasional screen sharing).

#VideoConference #VideoChat #Zoom #Skype

Hey Ottawa people 🇨🇦 - final reminder that the City of Ottawa is asking for feedback on their communications: "Tell us how you like to hear from us". Their survey closes on 21 February.

I asked them to please support ActivityPub/Mastodon and to cease participating in the Twitter dumpster fire.

https://engage.ottawa.ca/communication-review

Please consider boosting for reach!

#Ottawa #YOW #CityOfOttawa

Hey Ottawa people 🇨🇦 - the City of Ottawa is asking for feedback on their communications: "Tell us how you like to hear from us".

I just filled out the survey to ask them to support ActivityPub/Mastodon.

https://engage.ottawa.ca/communication-review/surveys/survey

Please boost for reach!

#Ottawa #YOW #CityOfOttawa

I asked the Royal Bank of Canada's help system a question about a SWIFT transfer...

Go home RBC - you're drunk!

(Probably some pseudo-AI/LLM BS. Guess we better get used to it.)

#banking #AI #LLM #RoyalBankOfCanada #RBC

I released libE57Format v3.2.0 to address some build issues 🏗️ & fix a couple of issues with standards conformance 📋.

If you need to work with E57 point cloud files, check it out!

(E57 is an ASTM standard for vendor-neutral point cloud data files.)

https://github.com/asmaloney/libE57Format/releases/tag/v3.2.0

#E57 #PointCloud #3D #GIS #Geospatial #LiDAR #FileFormat #cpp #OpenSource #FOSS

Along with the gactar 0.13.0 release yesterday, I released v0.4.0 of the VS Code extension for it.

This extension provides syntax highlighting, snippets to quickly create an amod file or add productions, and allows you to run gactar directly through VS Code.

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=asmaloney.gactar

#VSCode #VSCodeExtension #CogSci #CognitiveScience #CognitiveArchitecture #CognitiveModelling #ACTR #OpenSource #Symbolic #SymbolicAI #gactar

🧠 I released v0.13 of my gactar tool for creating & running basic ACT-R models on multiple implementations using a single declarative file format.

ACT-R (Adaptive Control of Thought — Rational) is both a theory of cognition and an implementation of that theory in software.

https://github.com/asmaloney/gactar/releases/tag/v0.13.0

#CogSci #CognitiveScience #CognitiveArchitecture #CognitiveModelling #ACTR #OpenSource #GoLang #Symbolic #SymbolicAI

I released libE57Format v3.1.0 to fix issues with standards conformance and some build issues 🏗️.

If you need to work with E57 point cloud files, check it out!

(E57 is an ASTM standard for vendor-neutral point cloud data files.)

https://github.com/asmaloney/libE57Format

#E57 #PointCloud #3D #GIS #Geospatial #LiDAR #FileFormat #cpp #OpenSource #FOSS

Dun & Bradstreet is a company whose entire reason for existence is maintaining a database of company info.

I just called to update a phone number.

How long will that take?

"Up to 15 business days."

Wow. What kind of database are they using?

#database #business #DNB #DUNS #bureacracy #WhoUsesPhoneNumbersAnyways #venting

🧠 I released v0.12 of my gactar tool for creating & running basic ACT-R models on multiple implementations using a single declarative file format.

ACT-R (Adaptive Control of Thought — Rational) is both a theory of cognition and an implementation of that theory in software.

This release fixes issues, adds some capabilities to the language, & adds some new command-line tools.

https://github.com/asmaloney/gactar/releases/tag/v0.12.0

#CogSci #CognitiveScience #CognitiveArchitecture #CognitiveModelling #ACTR #OpenSource #GoLang

I released libE57Format v3.0.2 to fix a small issue with standards conformance, some build issues 🏗️, and reading index packets 📇.

If you need to work with E57 point cloud files, check it out!

(E57 is an ASTM standard for vendor-neutral point cloud data files.)

https://github.com/asmaloney/libE57Format/releases/tag/v3.0.2

#E57 #PointCloud #3D #GIS #Geospatial #LiDAR #FileFormat #cpp #OpenSource #FOSS

Great cartoon from The Marketoonist:

https://marketoonist.com/2023/06/impact-of-chatgpt.html

#AI #LLM #business #marketing #Marketoonist

For any cognitive science people out there in the Mastiverse who are into *symbolic*, I've just updated my mirror of Lisp ACT-R on GitHub to **7.27.7 **from 19 July 2022.

https://github.com/asmaloney/ACT-R

(For non-CogSci people, ACT-R (Adaptive Control of Thought — Rational) is both a theory of cognition and an implementation of that theory in software.)

#CogSci #CognitiveScience #CognitiveArchitecture #CognitiveModelling #ACTR #OldSchoolAI #Lisp

I just released libE57Format v3.0.1 to fix MSVC 32-bit builds 🤷 and to allow overriding some CMake options ⛑️.

If you need to work with E57 point cloud files, check it out!

(E57 is an ASTM standard for vendor-neutral point cloud data files.)

https://github.com/asmaloney/libE57Format/releases/tag/v3.0.1

#E57 #PointCloud #3D #GIS #Geospatial #LiDAR #FileFormat #cpp #OpenSource #FOSS

libE57Format v3.0 was released with lots of API cleanups & fixes 🧹, updated compiler requirements (C++14), and general project health improvements ⛑️ (ASan, UBSan, testing).

If you need to work with E57 point cloud files, check it out!

(E57 is an ASTM standard for vendor-neutral point cloud data files.)

https://github.com/asmaloney/libE57Format/releases/tag/v3.0.0

#E57 #PointCloud #3D #GIS #Geospatial #LiDAR #FileFormat #cpp #OpenSource #FOSS

NodeJS (19.4) won't build on my laptop using homebrew anymore because it's running out of disk space.

I have 13.6 GB free space. 🤦

#NodeJS #ModernSoftware #bloatware #SoftwareBloat #BloatyMcBloatface

🧠 I released v0.11 of my gactar tool for creating & running basic ACT-R models on multiple implementations using a single declarative file format.

ACT-R (Adaptive Control of Thought — Rational) is both a theory of cognition and an implementation of that theory in software.

This release changes it to a command-style cli & adds colour to the command-line output.

https://github.com/asmaloney/gactar

#CogSci #CognitiveScience #CognitiveArchitecture #CognitiveModelling #ACTR #OldSchoolAI #OpenSource #GoLang

For anyone considering donating to the Red Cross note that they will continually waste your donation by sending you trinkets in the mail (at least here in Canada).

I've tried repeatedly to get them to stop, but they won't. I think this is the 5th snail mail full of junk now?

YMMV

#RedCross #RedCrossCanada #donations #StopWastingMyDonation

I love that someone put a bread recipe on GitHub. 🍞

(No license though. 😆)

Looks tasty!

https://github.com/LanaSina/feeling_bread

Oh! Found the "someone" - @lana

#bread #recipe #OpenSourceBread #GitHub