← Feed

Posts

• View post

  I just encountered a new kind of spam. It's LLM generated, responding to a recent blog post relating to home automation. The email is clearly slop, referencing unnecessary details from the post, and asking a question based on a superficial (but not inaccurate) read of the post. https://codeberg.org/crosenthal/gists/src/branch/main/20261012-owly-slop-email.txt The spam is from owly.studio, an AI-based marketing service. I guess their tools are great for creating engagement -- with naiv...

• View post

  My AWS account has sat fallow for years. Got an alert yesterday about anomalous usage. It may have been one of my old containers launched to run in a lambda. I dunno, it was a couple pennies. No matter, rather than debug the problem, I finally did what I should have done long ago: closed the account. AWS is a horrible system that monetizes misery and complexity. Glad to be done with it.

• View post

  I'm enrolled in the local community college. I emailed their "Ask a Librarian" about a technical e-book I wanted to read but they didn't seem to have. The response was basically, "Want us to order it for you?" Libraries are cool. 😎

• View post

  Here is a in-depth spreadsheet of candidates in the Portland city election. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1U3hzhXgEYsZO_WlOaFqNonVUPH5OU5vikQ_IKYqSioY/edit?usp=sharing Note that you can filter "Candidates" tab by doing Data → Create Filter View then click on the three lines symbol (kinda like ⏚) on the column you want to filter -- such as "Office". via https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/1x5wycm/election_information_resources_who_is_running_...

• View post

  I'm a grown ass woman and I'm eating instant ramen for dinner, and I'm ok with that.

• View post

  New Blog Post: Matter Woes Matter/Thread has been a frustrating addition to my home automation network. So why do I keep doing it? https://www.crosenthal.com/chrome/2026/08/04/matter-woes.html #homeAssistant #blaugust

• View post

  I've been thinking I need to do something to remedy my lapsed blogging. So I did something. I signed up for Blaugust 2026. https://nerdgirlthoughts.game.blog/2026/07/15/blaugust-2026-is-coming/ #blaugust

• View post

  @philip@mastodon.mallegolhansen.com has thoughts about Codeberg (source code hosting platform) refusing generative AI projects ... https://philip.mallegolhansen.com/blog/2026-07-29-the-codeberg-fracture-is-good-actually.html

• View post

  My neighborhood pub had a women's softball game on the telly -- a championship game for the AUSL professional league. It was the Portland Cascade playing. I didn't know we had a local woman's softball team! With women's sports being in the news as of late, I decided to check the AUSL policy on transgender participants. And -- holy double huh! -- the AUSL has a highly inclusive policy. https://auprosports.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Athletes-Unlimited-Policy-...

• View post

  Duck, but smol. And momma. Westmoreland Park. #portland #duckling

• View post

  I don't get why people are upset that their Github projects are getting pulled into the Hugging Face training set. For goodness sake people ... github IS a training set. I don't mean your project is surreptitiously scraped -- although that's happening too. When you publish on Github you are loading content directly into the Copilot training machine. If you don't want to be trained upon, maybe you shouldn't publish on Github.

• View post

  Good News: NY Mag is offering a free scoop of Salt & Straw ice cream to subscribers. (Which I am.) YAY! Bad News: Only at NYC locations. BOO!

• View post

  Three Good Things: 1. E. Jean Carroll is going to get her $5.8M (and there's potentially another $83.3M behind it). 2. Planned Parenthood is able to receive Medicaid funding again. 3. The rapey guy will have more time to dedicate to his oyster farming. #threeGoodThings

• View post

  When I am appointed ruler of the world, one of my first decrees will be the banishment of staples in favor of reusable fasteners. It's not just the single-use waste. I hate going through my old records and having to de-staple piles of documents before recycling or shredding (which is compostible).

• View post

  The government having ownership interest in commercial business poses no risk of conflict or regulatory capture. Nope, never, none whatsoever. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/02/openai-stake-us-government-ai-sam-altman

• View post

  TFW the entire day has been blocked out and scheduled, including transit, and you didn't put in an entry for lunch.

• View post

  Google's 'advanced flow' for sideloading is a deterrence mechanism, not an escape hatch. 9 steps and a 24-hour wait for software you own? No thanks. @keepandroidopen #KeepAndroidOpen https://keepandroidopen.org

• View post

  I am a firm believer in lifelong learning. You're never too old to acquire new experiences and broaden your horizons. For instance, today I learned you should give that seat on the train a good look over before sitting down.

• View post

  Let's celebrate the Fourth with a good old protest song. Sing it, Margo. https://youtu.be/Qf7JBsm18CI

• View post

  Went washer/dryer shopping today. The Electrolux looked keen, but the salesperson warned us it doesn't have an app. Oh no! How will I ever get my clothes clean if I can't have a cloud connection and embedded consumer spyware?

• View post

  Need more goose content. Please send geese.

• View post

  Commit!

• View post

  I want to share NotifyBot more widely and invite people to try it out. https://notifybot.jampdx.net It's a bot that lets you know when posts have been made to hashtags you want to follow. The use case is to make sure you don't miss posts with occasionally used (but important to you) hashtags. Check it out. Let all your friends and family know. Lemme know if you have any questions or feedback. #mastodonTips

• View post

  A big shout-out and hug to Place Cats. https://www.placecats.com When @NotifyBot sends a notification, it includes a random cat picture. 😸 That is thanks to Place Cats. A service that's truly making the world a better place.

• View post

  On my last visit to the kitchen supply store I got a big stack of little prep bowls, and now my mise en place is on fleek. The professional kitchen supply store is my happy place.

• View post

  I blog like a Vulcan. I need an editing pass just to go back and put in contractions.

• View post

  New Blog Post: I Built a Bot I've created a Mastodon bot called NotifyBot that monitors hashtags and sends you a DM when new posts appear. Would you like to try it? https://www.crosenthal.com/chrome/2026/05/26/i-built-a-bot.html #mastodon #fediTips

• View post

  You know, listening to Rolling Stones "In the Stars" on streaming, without the sloperific video, is kind of a banger. So, here's the lyric video, which is much better than the AI version: https://youtu.be/F-F_oHOvBsM

• View post

  How it started ..... How it's going ..... Happy Gotcha Day 4th anniversary, Franklin. 😻 #caturday #catsOfMastodon

• View post

  The email from #Portland Mayor Keith Wilson has subject: I haven’t seen you testify yet. (Budget hearings start soon) which gives me big Chuck Schumer /DNC vibes. But, at least to his credit, he's not asking for money.