John Carney

@johncarney.dev

1593 Followers 1168 Following

An Australian Rubyist living in USA. Agile enthusiast, TTRPG fan. ADD/ADHD. He/they. Check my pinned thread for more details.

Thumbnail for a PBS Space Time video on YouTube. Headline reads “which universe are we in?” Image is a 3D model of the Greek letter lambda in a tube of what appears to be bubbles.
Promotional email from Cursor announcing that they are extending the 50% introductory pricing on their Grok model for another week.
“@schizanon.bsky.social has added you to the "Wrong about VR AI GLP1 Crypto Smart-glasses NFTs or Bitcoin" moderation list”
Email from Substack promoting an article with the title "I Asked Three Al Systems the Same Question - They All Lost Their Composure at the Word Female — See for Yourself."
“Masters of the Universe” movie poster with a couple of areas of arguably pinkish background lighting circled in green.
Failed download.
Safari download progress.
Duck Duck Go search results for “when is sunset” showing the sunrise and sunset times for the current date (May 31, 2026) at Idaho Falls, Idaho. If you’re curious, the sunrise time is listed as 5:50 am MDT and sunset is at 9:01 pm MDT. I have not confirmed these times, but they sound about right.
An opening scene from the original Star Trek series with the starship Enterprise in orbit around a planet. The episode title reads “a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.”
A rather attractive wooden key organizer with shelf and six (count them) pegs for hanging keys on.
Instagram post from the Adelaide Advertiser. Image shows Ben Roberts-Smith standing in front of some microphones saying “I always acted within my values.”
Cover of the 2024 printing of the Traveller Core Rulebook Update 2022 book. It depicts three humanoid figures and an alien. Fromleft to right we see a short, armoured, possibly female humanoid of indeterminate species, what looks like a robot carrying a weapon, a very white human male holding a sword above his head in an attitude of conquest, an Aslan male holding a weapon, and an alien that looks kind of like a tortoise, but with a head that is basically a tentacled maw with eyes. In the background are a couple of starships and a ringed planet.
Cover of the 2021 printing of the Traveller Core Rulebook Update 2022 book. It depicts a group of five humanoids. From left to right: a Vargr holding a weapon in each hand, an Aslan holding a weapon, a white human woman, apparently the leader, pointing off in the distance, a black human operating some sort of device, presumably a scanner, and an armoured figure holding a weapon. The tone is a diverse group of people exploring a new world, prepared for danger. In the background a couple of starships can be seen. The near one ha "Beowulf" printed on its side, a reference to the earliest editions of the Traveller game.
A spoonful of peanut butter resting atop an open jar of peanut butter. The jar is on a wooden table with scattered peanuts in shells around it.
Headline from Daring Fireball post: “Low-Wage Contractors in Kenya See What Users See While Using Meta’s AI Smart Glasses.”
Screen recording of a Kickstarter page for Ruin: An Anthology of One Shot Incursions for Trophy (a TTRPG). The video scrolls down to “similar projects” showing “MetMo Pocket Grip,” which appears to be a kind of adjustable wrench.
Graph of credit scores from about October to February. Starting in November the score swings wildly up and down by 30+ points.
Black and white drawing of a warrior fighting a skeleton. Caption reads “What are the four core character classes? Wrong answers only.”
Scam email. Partial text of email follows. “Attention Please..... This is to inform you that we have been working towards the eradication of fraudsters and scam Artists in Africa with the help of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) United Nations (UN), European Union (EU) and FBl. We have been able to track down some scam artist in various parts of African countries which includes (Nigeria, Republic of Benin, Ghana and Senegal with cote reservoir ) and they are all in Government custody now, they will appear at International Criminal Court (ICC) soon for Justice. During the course of investigation, they were able to recovered some funds from these scam artists and IMF organization have ordered the funds recovered to be shared among the 3 Lucky people listed around the World as a compensation. This notice is been directed to you because your email address was found in one of the scam Artists file and computer […]”
Snippet from a The Conversation article on the effects of music on driving performance: “Music you choose yourself tends to be less distracting than music imposed on you. Drivers often select music to regulate their mood and arousal – and that can stabilise their driving. “Conversely, several experiments show researcher-selected or imposed music leads to poorer performance: more collisions and violations, especially when the driver doesn’t like the music.”
Calendar entry for New Year's Day showing that a number of my contacts have their 425th birthday on that day. The contact names have been redacted because I'm sure they don't want the whole world knowing how old they really are.
Snippet from a The Conversation article about COVID and influenza vaccines. “ If I get the flu a few days after the vaccine, is it because I had the flu already? “After you catch the flu virus, it usually hides in your body for a few days before you notice any symptoms. So, it is possible to catch the flu and then get a vaccine without knowing you are infected because you haven’t developed symptoms yet. “This is just unlucky timing. While it isn’t dangerous, getting the vaccine while you have the flu may make you feel worse. If you do feel unwell with a fever, you should delay getting your flu jab until you recover.”
Headline from The Conversation: “Sussan Ley talks about 'Australian values' in assessing migrants. What exactly does that mean?”
Two graphs. One tracking ambient temperature and upper and lower temperatures. The other tracks the de-icer power consumption. You can see the pond temperatures rising when the de-icer is on, but there is no sign at all of the alleged thermostat kicking in. Not even when the pond temperature exceeds 15°C (59°F).
Aurora Borealis shot from a rural town in Idaho. The upper half of the photo is reddish pink with some faint columns. A strip of green lies between pink and the horizon. The lower third of the image is a road.
Announcement from the maintainers of the Foundry VTT Pathfinder 2e system. On the one hand it warns that the next release will contain a lot of changes that may break things, on the other it says the release will contain content from Paizo's Monster Core 2.
Outage notice from Netatmo explaining that their servers are down.
Movie poster from Escape from New York, but where the original has the head of the Statue of Liberty fallen in a New York street with people fleeing, this has the smiling face of Zohran Madani.
A greyish rectangular pouch stapled to a tree. Poking out of the top of the pouch is a some sort of pad in mesh.
Headline from The Conversation UK: “Can the UK fast-track nuclear power without cutting corners on safety?”
YouTube thumbnail for video from Anton Petrov. The thumbnail is a recent image from the Perseverance rover on Mars showing features that MIGHT be minerals indicative of PAST life on Mars. A headline in the image in a huge font says “NASA JUST ANNOUNCED LIFE ON MARS.”
Screenshot from the 1980 Atari video game Battlezone. It features a 3D wireframe tank with a very low polygon count somewhat reminiscent of a Cybertruck only a million times cooler.
A gallery of thumbnails of Facebook reels. There is too much there for me to describe, I’m sorry. They are all pretty ludicrous, trust me.
Title screen of the classic Macintosh game Dark Castle. It shows a moonlit scene with a silhouetted castle on a craggy prominence at left above a lake. The picture is framed by trees with a vulture perched on the one on the right. The title “Dark Castle” in a gothic font appears in the right of the picture.
A black Ford F350 with oversized tire and spiky wheel nuts.
A bottle of Gardacho Garnacha wine (also known as Grenache). The label features a black silhouette of a four-legged creature (possibly a deer, dog, or mythical beast) on a plain white background. The design has a folk art or indigenous art aesthetic, reminiscent of traditional decorative patterns. The creature is primarily black with decorative elements in red, blue, and white.
An analysis of my Bluesky posts showing how many of my recent posts with images have alt text. Of 203 posts, 10 contained images and all those had alt text for a score of 100%. In the image there is a semicircular pie chart with equal-sized segments in red, orange, yellow and green. A needle indicating which band my score falls in is pinned to the top of the green segment.
Elon Musk wearing a red baseball cap with the words “GULF OF AMERICA” emblazoned on the front.
Batman slapping Robin meme. Robin is saying “but I didn’t vote for *this*.” Batman is saying “yes you fucking did.”
Visual instructions for operating an aircraft emergency exit door. In the first step a seated stylised human figure removes the door mechanism cover. In the second the figure is operating the mechanism. In the third, the door is open and the figure and its seat is no longer apparent.
A pair of Alaskan brown bears wander down a row of float planes lined up along a beach.
Comic: The 4 stages of eating cheese. 1. Eating cheese. [A rabbit-like figure is happily eating cheese.] 2. Still eating cheese. [Same as previous image.] 3. Ate too much cheese. [The figure now looks a bit ill.] 4. Bit more cheese. [Figure has resumed happily eating cheese.]
Snippet from a The Conversation article: “ Ethylmercury is sometimes confused with methylmercury. Methylmercury is known to be toxic and is associated with many negative effects on brain development even at low exposure. Environmental researchers identified the neurotoxic effects of mercury in children in the 1970s, primarily resulting from exposure to methylmercury in fish. In the 1990s, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration established limits for maximum recommended exposure to methylmercury, especially for children, pregnant women and women of childbearing age.”
A basket of fish and chips with three pieces of battered fish and cups of a tangy sauce and coleslaw.
Exterior of Caffe Ibis, which is located on a leafy back street.
A ginger cat peering through a window in a door.
Email from Roll20 checking in to see if I still want to receive newsletters and other material from them. There is a “Yes, Please” button, but no “Thanks, but no” button.
Printer colour test sheet with four test bands for grey, yellow, magenta, and cyan. The grey and cyan bands show a vertical white stripe that is not present in the yellow or magenta bands, indicating that there is a problem with the cyan.
Video of a Bluesky post that has attached video. In the middle of the video thumbnail there is a spinning loading animation, even though nothing is being loaded.
Update from The Arcane Library’s “Western Reaches” Kickstarter campaign. It includes an image of the results for a poll asking which martial class should be the subject of a live-streamed class design session. In order of most popular to least we see Paladin, Barbarian, Jester, and Pirate. The text reads a follows: “Greetings, Western Reaches backers! By popular vote, the paladin has won the poll for the martial class we'll design on livestream (it was a close run against the barbarian)! Join me today at 12pm Pacific as we dive into our paladin design. Click below to check out the stream:”
Graph showing Tesla’s stock price. Starting around November it rises dramatically to peak in December. Since then it’s fallen steadily, but is still higher than the November level.
Listing for a YouTube video entitled “Finding Solutios to the Fermi Paradox with Harvard’s Dr. Avi Loeb” on the “Event Horizon” channel. The thumbnail features a silhouetted of a person sitting an a hill looking at the Milky Way. The image is overlaid with the channel’s logo on one side and the headline “FERMI PARADOX / WHERE ARE THEY?” The video is 55 minutes and 10 seconds long. It was posted 6 years ago and has 322 thousand views.
Email from Mysa (a Canadian company0 offering US residents a discount on their thermostat products. The key text from the email reads “ When it feels like life is moving a bit too quickly, it’s comforting to know that control you can trust is just a click away. As we prepare to navigate changes due to new economic realities, we invite you use code FRIEND10 code at Checkout for 10% off your purchase of energy-saving Mysa Smart Thermostats at getmysa.com.”
Listing for a YouTube video titled “Picnic at Hanging Rock - The Truth Revealed.” The thumbnail for the video is a still from the movie featuring a class photo of the characters assembled on the steps of a mansion.
Post from New York Times with link to an article. The post text is “A.J. Weberman went from being one of Bob Dylan's keenest fans to his nemesis. With the popularity of "A Complete Unknown," Weberman is now seeing a renewed opportunity to advance the anti-Dylan agenda that has sustained him for decades.” The article headline is “Bob Dylan Is Having a Hollywood Moment. His No. 1 Hater Is Ready.”
Star Trek Voyager’s Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH) with a concerned expression on his face. Seven of Nine is in the background looking on with a smile.
A moderation list named “coordinated inauthentic accounts.” After describing the purpose of the list we see that the list is, in fact, empty.
A slice of pizza in a frying pan with a glass lid on it. The glass lid has condensation on the inside. The idea is you heat up a slicer two of cold pizza on a frying pan on medium heat for a few minutes to crisp up the base, then put a little water in the pan and cover it with a lid. The steam melts the cheese.
Section of Golden Lasso Games’ shop page for Virgins and Vixens showing image placeholder text above the “Related products” section.
A window against a clear blue sky with a distinctly bird-shaped smudge from a bird strike. It would be quite beautiful if not for what it signifies. There is a second smudge, also from a bird strike, but it is not really bird-shaped.