Fast forward a few years and I'm at university, and I'm depressed. I don't know enough about mental health yet to know it, but the combination of a bunch of stuff including the knowledge I'm failing my degree badly overall despite seeming to understand things faster than my year mates individually (hello undiagnosed #adhd) and some things having gone very wrong for a close friend means I very much am depressed whether I know it or not.

Seems like I'm on an old music kick today, so gather around boys and girls (and the rest of you) for the tail of the song that turned my life around and nearly killed me.

Back in the day ('94-95?) I got roped into helping at a concert for a band called Eden Burning. Not huge, not unknown, very fun love, the recordings showed a bit their roots as live performers and not having lots of production money. I bought a tape, but while a couple of the songs were good the combination of them sounding better live and my not so good tape player speakers meant it didn't listen to it all that much.

@[email protected] Oh, weird. I wonder what's causing that one? I don't know if @[email protected] might be interested in knowing that is happening.

@[email protected] @[email protected] Now... does this make MS incompetent or dishonestly trying to shed responsibility by proclaiming incompetence? I'm not sure I know or care, really. But it feels hard on the other projects/3rd parties who got the random seagull experience.

@[email protected] @[email protected] Just saw a post (unfortunately on LinkedIn, which I'm reluctant to link to) where the head of developer relations was apologising because it wasn't even deliberate; they'd added a selection of useful tips to highlight third party tools with copilot integrations for the LLM to use in 'appropriate situations' and well, it's an LLM so it just started spamming absolutely everything with them.

Which means that, as far as I can make out, none of the third parties being advertise knew this was happening, wanted it to happen, or paid for it to happen. Which was kind of nice to know given I use at least one of the tools it was spamming about.

Oh, wow. Yoko Kanno & SEATBELTS have just released an extended 7+ minute version of Tank! (the theme from Cowboy Beebop) It is very, very, good and splat in the middle of the Venn diagram sweet spot of #jazz that is technically awe inspiring but still also sounds like really good music.

So if you've somehow managed to miss it for the last 30 years, enjoy! And if you haven't, go listen anyway - the extended section is fire and being able to see the band so obviously enjoying themselves playing gives life.

youtube.com/watch?v=d75ov4Hv...

@[email protected] @[email protected] I've just also realised that this is exactly what the best bosses do, which I've always previously described as 'being the shit shield' but that's a, erm, less useful name in a professional context than 'applies ring theory in their management of the team'

@[email protected] I love having a name for this concept, which I first met when some Chinese friends were horrified to learn that the immediate family normally handled funeral proceedings in the UK. "But... they're the ones most impacted! That's when everyone else is needed most."

Also: you (and by the sounds of things your wife) are standing strong even if this is a crappy timeline at the moment and that is awesome. There's a lot of us rooting for you, and hoping it gets less crappy soon, including adding some recognition for the people who are actually doing the hard work.

Just in case anyone is actually wondering, I went with fediverss in the end.

Starting to put together a hacky program to federate my blog by reading the rss feed to publish articles with #activitypub and then provide a known url to show any replies that I can drop onto the actual blog pages.

But that means creating a directory for the code, which means a name, 'activity_rss' sounds good but that's too long, I know...

mkdir arss

Fortunately my brain caught up with me before I actually hit enter.

@[email protected] okay, but I have to ask: Aldi clearance shelf or not, is there ever a situation where pink latte sounds like a good idea?

@[email protected] ah, well. It's all over now anyway. There's a line of LLM enthusiasts just waiting to explain to you how natural language is the ideal tool for capturing and defining complex processes.

Now, now, @[email protected] . You're almost making it sound like different programming languages are better at or make it easier to communicate different things to both their users and maybe even the computer.

This is obviously nonsense, as shown by the many developers who will immediately tell you the best programming language.

@[email protected] as someone nearly two years into dealing with part viral fatigue (which may not even have been from covid!) I totally agree. The effects of the pandemic go so far beyond the immediate, in objective physical terms but also in terms of trauma, uncertainty, and general mental health.

@[email protected] That is an awesome photo, thanks for sharing.

@[email protected] @[email protected] Half to heaven, half to hell?

Short but sweet blog post today on tracking hidden consequences in #ink, responding to a question from my #visualnovel writing course.

blog.mavnn.eu/2026/03/28/hid...

@[email protected] @[email protected] mia moglie dice sbobba è forse una parole appropriato

@[email protected] fun fact I learned from watching a family member: if you have a visual sensory processing disorder, you can become a very competent pianist who immediately loses the ability to play if you look at your hands

@[email protected] @[email protected] There's a place in Italy called Fonteblanda which caught my eye as the name can literally be translated as 'the bland spring'. It's not the only or even the most natural translation, but I love the head canon that the person who named it did so accidentally by declaring how tasteless the local spring was.

Anyway... I wouldn't use the term in this context both because it is actually a real place, and because spring water doesn't have the right negative connotations for translation