Robert Atkins
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ratkins.net
Robert Atkins
@ratkins.net
420 followers 370 following 5K posts
I miss Usenet. Prompt engineering and other things at https://beams.tech, ex Pivotal Labs. Also @ratkins, @[email protected]
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Reposted by Robert Atkins
I will support any New York mayoral candidate who admits bodegas are just convenience stores and everywhere in the world has them
Or just @greatdismal.bsky.social: “And, for an instant, she stared directly into those soft blue eyes and knew, with an instinctive mammalian certainty, that the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human.”
Reposted by Robert Atkins
Someone replied that it‘s always been this way but media consolidation into a tiny number of corporations mostly controlled by people with truly boggling wealth (not “rich” so much as “basically aliens“) is, yes, a real thing with effects.
My son is 9 and I’ve tried to explain to him why the Fernsehturm (TV Tower—we live in Berlin) exists, and he doesn’t quite get it.
Oooh! Flagging that for whenever I manage to pick up some more rye.
“What size is a 12" frying pan?” seems like a stupid question but it is apparently impossible to answer: https://gsioutdoors.com/products/guidecast-frying-pan

(What’s the rim diameter? What’s the diameter of the contact patch? What’s its mass? Handle length? At most one of those is specified.)
Reposted by Robert Atkins
Most importantly, the Chinese names are homophonous with "Zohran Kwame" when pronounced in both Cantonese (the spoken language used by first-wave Chinese immigrants from the South) and Mandarin (the spoken language used by new-wave Chinese immigrants from the North).

What an absolute masterstroke.
Reposted by Robert Atkins
I keep seeing journalism described as an "ecosystem" and I guess that tracks because it's undergoing an extinction crisis caused by billionaires, too.
Oh that’s funny. Only if you get a Bahn Card 100 do they send you a physical card anymore. Us plebs on Bahn Card 50s and 25s have to “load our card into the app”.
Offering me a €250 Bahn Card 50 for €50 might even be a good way to get me on the train, Deutsche Bahn. Or at least make me think that it would be. Well played.
Them: “Why is this so hard to understand?!”
Me: “Well, there’s a really good reason it’s because… [thinks] wait a minute, I guess it doesn’t need to be this complicated.”
Them: “We could just…”
Me: “Yes we could, let’s change it.”
Reposted by Robert Atkins
Bumped into the sister of my arch enemy yesterday. My nemesister.
Reposted by Robert Atkins
Word of the Day: ANTIMETABOLE - a rhetorical device when words are repeated in successive clauses, but swapped. For instance JFK's "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country", or Snoop Dogg's "With my mind on my money and my money on my mind."
Fascinated to find out what the story is here.
I can commend https://tuple.app to you, it’s the best tool we’ve found. Remote pairing is still strictly worse than in-office, but with people who are at least somewhat experienced it works ok.
Reposted by Robert Atkins
Trump Writes Netanyahu Strongly Worded Check
The apps “look pretty” but they’re impossible to use, full of nonsensical navigation schemes, “who knows what the fuck this button does” mystery meat UI and failure to support obviously useful system feature integrations.
Everywhere else in the world has them at the breaker box.
I know a couple who have the same (typically perceived as gender neutral) first name. It’s adorable.
Isn’t he the “Norwegian Chef” in Sweden?
I do an exaggerated dismissive eyeroll, like they’re not even worth insulting.
Reposted by Robert Atkins
I wonder if Malcolm Turnbull feels a jab of pain everytime the NBN goes down here and the Teen slides another pin into his Voodoo Doll.
Reposted by Robert Atkins
Remembering that San Francisco “crime wave” that magically stopped being a problem the moment the District Attorney the conservatives didn’t like was recalled.
NYC is going to have the world's biggest media-manufactured crime panic in history the second Mamdani is elected. They aren't even going to wait until he is inaugurated. Whether or not you like the guy, you need to start preparing now for the fire hose of disinformation that is about to activate.
Reposted by Robert Atkins
Carl Sagan’s Apple Pie Recipe
Ingredients: 1.5e53 kg matter (any)
Prep time: 121,000,000,000,000.5 hrs
Cook time: 1 hr
Directions: Compress matter until internal temp is 10e15 GeV. Place on countertop, allow to expand & cool, about 13.8B years. Within the result, locate apples, cinnamon, sugar…