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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀

@lahosken.bsky.social
339 followers 196 following 49 posts

Coding, encoding, and decoding in San Francisco USA. Mostly on hachyderm.io but I check Bsky a few times a day. He/him lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/self/c… User №246748

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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
The next day: "Are there any messages for me?"
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/new/2026/10/...
lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us
New to me,* part of the #SanFrancisco Big Art Loop: Seed of Self by Kate Raudenbush, Golden Gate Park panhandle near Stanyan. Kinda tough to …
New to me,* part of the #SanFrancisco Big Art Loop: Seed of Self by Kate Raudenbush, Golden Gate Park panhandle near Stanyan. Kinda tough to …
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
now followed by the FBI
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
for science
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
TV lied to us. "[TNT] is often assumed to be the same as (or confused for) dynamite, largely because of the ubiquity of both explosives during the 20th century. This incorrect connection between TNT and dynamite was enhanced by cartoons such as Bugs Bunny…" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamit...
en.wikipedia.org
Dynamite - Wikipedia
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
me reading the news
image meme: Captain Picard from "There are four lights" with text "Genocide / is still bad tho"
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
beyond Mondegreen to Mondegenre, just swapped a couple of letters
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
they've also being doing a great job at protecting us from the Loch Ness monster, haven't heard of an attack in ages
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Email I got to send just now (details redacted): Hello, excellent Department of Elections people! I live at [address] [apartment number]. A few days back, I received my ballot (yay) and also the ballot for [someone else] [different ad… lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/new/2026/10/...
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
taboola rasa
amazon interests page showing a couple of saguaro cacti and the text "You don't have any interests saved yet" with a "Discover Interests" button
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
lotta jokes. kinda expected Brooke's notes to be something like "I read through these clues, so you have to also."
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
"Barring a time machine, I'll never have occasion to wear this."
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/new/2026/10/...
lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us
It's just that your turn signal has been on this whole time. (the joke: a sailboat captain says hard alee to say the boat's about to …
It's just that your turn signal has been on this whole time. (the joke: a sailboat captain says hard alee to say the boat's about to …
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
oh wow, SDI, that takes me back 👴 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strateg...
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
hmm, my machine doesn't know about "wcm.hearstnp.com". I wonder if that's an internal work thingy for people who work at Hearst news sites? tl;dr I can't look at that link
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
The Nobel committee should award Trump a soccer prize.
image of cat reading a newspaper from the "I should buy a boat" meme.

I don't exactly know why it felt right to use it here
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
universeodon.com/@mathew/1173...
universeodon.com
mathew (@mathew@universeodon.com)
Scientists are feeding bees with genetically modified bee gut bacteria, to make them resistant to organophosphates. The moral of the story: change the bee you want to see in the world. https://igem....
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Things I saw walking in #SanFrancisco Thursday: 20th and Judah: "weird" graffito. You might think I jiggled my phone while taking this pic, but: The graffito was painted to look blurry. 20th and Irv… lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/new/2026/10/...
sidewalk graffito: 'weird' but blurryutility pole with a 'No Kings' stickersidewalk chalk art: a guitarist sits on an oil drum. there's something mystical about him: he has more arms than you'd expectsidewalk chalk art: zooming in on the top part of the guitarist
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
he rocks³ the hat
panel from the comic showing Sluggo sporting the hat while walking past the three rocks
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Malicious compliance with "Right to Repair"? or website problems? Only time will tell
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
"with spacing" OMG thank you!
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I continue to check my little dashboard of #SanFrancisco COVID numbers each morning … I've resumed going places. lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/new/2026/10/...
lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us
I continue to check my little dashboard of #SanFrancisco COVID numbers each morning to decide whether to stop in a little bodega on the way …
I continue to check my little dashboard of #SanFrancisco COVID numbers each morning to decide whether to stop in a little bodega on the way …
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Reposted by Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀
Nancy Baym @nancybaym.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
It’s not that I’ve retired, it’s that I’ve gone rogue.
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Aw, I miss having a functioning federal government "Data from participating sites in the CDC NWSS commercial testing contract will be temporarily unavailable on the dashboard, while CDC transitions to a new contract." skylab.cdph.ca.gov/calwws/
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
IIUC, and if in California: www.coveredca.com
coveredca.com
The Official Site of California's Health Insurance Marketplace
Covered California is a free service from the state of California that connects Californians with brand-name health insurance under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It’s the only place ...
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The Associated Press. They succumb somewhat less. They've been banned from the White House months longer than these Johnny-Come-Latelys! Over on Mastodon, I follow @top-stories-AssociatedPress@flipboard.com and some others of theirs.
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The computing museum would fit the "mad scientist" requirement nicely. "You're doing all this with tape?"
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
My parents told me about a library for dogs on 6th Avenue between Cabrillo and Fulton (I think?): a box of tennis balls. Take a ball, leave a ball. That seemed like a better idea than the library for dogs I was familiar with on Waller near D… lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/new/2026/08/...
a couple of 'libraries' out in front of a blue building. The bigger one has books and is labeled for children. It is painted blue and styled with a fake bay window and other deco to resemble the building behind it. There is also a red box, a library for dogs albeit not obviously because you probably can't read the label from this far awaypatch of sidewalk with a couple of covered drains. instead of the usual plain drain covers, these are brightly colored with raised pixel art reminiscent of the old Space Invaders game. They are signed @draINvaderred box labeled 'stick library and treats'. Half of it is covered and latched. I didn't check, but I guess that's where they keep the treats, with a latch to keep out raccoons. The other half is open. It contains a couple of stubby stick fragments; also a couple of tennis balls
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
FWIW, there's one for teachers opening soon, only took ~10 years to build www.midpen-housing.org/shirley-chis...
midpen-housing.org
Shirley Chisholm Village – MidPen Housing
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
I continue to check my little dashboard of #SanFrancisco COVID numbers … lately, stuff has been happening and not settling down. lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/new/2026/08/...
chart tracking three values over the past 60 days. the red stat, tracking new reported COVID cases in SF, started near zero and has gradually ramped up to low-but-noticeable. The purple stat % of positive PCR covid tests started low, but then trended upwards to the pretty-safe line; for the past few weeks it has bounced above and below the pretty-safe line. The green COVID-in-wastewater stat started out a little above the pretty-safe line (eek!), strangely trended down to safe levels during the same stretch of time the %positive PCR tests stat trended up. Lately, it's bounced high again; but it's a very bouncy stat so maybe don't panic quite yet
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Thanks for shutting it down! Keep in mind that the LLM tech bozos are pretty out of touch with most voters.
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
would be easier to take this seriously if you hadn't wasted a bunch of power and fresh water to set up that conniechan.ai stunt
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Suddenly had a good guess at who made those Mario-themed drain covers on Page St when I saw this DraINvader cover on Baker St. #SanFrancisco #StreetArt lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/new/2026/07/...
lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us
Suddenly had a good guess at who made those Mario-themed drain covers on Page St when I saw this DraINvader cover on Baker St. #SanFrancisco …
Suddenly had a good guess at who made those Mario-themed drain covers on Page St when I saw this DraINvader cover on Baker St. #SanFrancisco …
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Saikat said "She is the only candidate in this race who takes no corporate money, who supports a wealth tax on billionaires, and who will vote to end all military aid to Israel." You could do those things, and thusly take away my reasons for voting for her.
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
I'm always glad to see an editing offer in the form of a long run-on sentence.
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Might be more efficient to list all the replies ending with wink-emoji that didn't result in blocks
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
#Book Report: Matching Minds with Sondheim It's a book about Stephen Sondheim, focusing on his puzzles and games rather than on the stuff he's most famous for, theater. Of course, it's the puzzle-y and game-y parts that I'm interested in, becaus… lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/new/2026/05/...
lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us
Book Report: Matching Minds with Sondheim
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
Things I saw walking in #SanFrancisco this morning: New-ish Kal Zakzouk sidewalk chalk art on Irving St at 20th Ave: Lady blowing bubbles amongst baby-faced goldfish. A stalled bus. I'm no expert mechanic, but I think it ran out of tokens Hillway A… lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/new/2026/05/...
stalled bus pulled over by the side of the road. the bus' exterior is wrapped in ads for an 'AI App Builder'. See, the joke is that a lot of these AI companies meter their services as 'tokens' and it's a hassle when you run out. And buses used to use tokens. Hilarious, right? OK, maybe you had to be therecrane on a steep hill. Also a little bit of a forklift that's carrying around railroad-tie-sized blocks of wood, some of which are propping up bits of the crane to level it outsidewalk chalk art: zooming in on one baby-faced goldfish (and a bit of the lady's elbow)sidewalk chalk art: lady sits cross-legged blowing bubbles while surrounded by hovering giant baby-faced goldfish
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
#Book Report: The Pacific Circuit It's local history, in context. It's about the development Oakland, especially west Oakland near the port. But also about global forces at work. When I say "local histor… lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/new/2026/04/...
cover art for book "The Pacific Circuit" by Alexis Madrigal. suggests intermodal freight containers hovering over some houses. says it's "A globalized account of the battle for the soul of an American city."
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Smart prediction in a couple of ways: 1. it makes sense 2. if wrong and things spiral out of control, nobody's going to be reading bsky tomorrow to follow up
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
It is March and the lovely #EnigMarch people have challenged puzzle designers to write a puzzle inspired by today's word: "hint". You're trying to log into a computer that's not yours. The password hint is "Mary's violet eyes keeps John up." lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/new/2026/03/...
lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us
Suppose you're trying to log into a computer that isn't yours. The password hint is "Mary's violet eyes keeps John up." What passwords might you try?
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
Given that onolatry is donkey-worship and monolatry is the worship of one divine being while acknowledging the existence of other divine beings, we can extrapolate monönolatry, the worship of one donkey.
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
it's the UFO from that "I want to believe" poster from the old-time-y X-Files show, but it's in Impact font to remind you that this is a meme and furthermore the "believe" has been replaced by a coinage "Bolive"
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
I continue to check my little dashboard of #SanFrancisco COVID numbers each morning to decide whether to go get professionally made coffee at my local Peet's or make so-so coffee at home. As you may recall, I track three m… lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/new/2026/02/...
graph charting three measurements over the past 60 days. two measurements have stayed low the whole time: number of positive PCR tests and % of positive PCR tests. The green line, COVID in wastewater has generally been higher (though below the 'pretty safe' line. A couple of weeks ago, it shot up to about 50% over the safe level. since then, though it's wobbled, it's stayed at about the same level
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
The Storybook House at Masonic Ave/Upper Terrace has their Valentine's Day decorations up. One word: 💕♥️ Hearts! 💖💗 The place across the street also has decorations up. More than one word, I guess. #SanFrancisco
strip of front yard in front of vehicle parked in house driveway. the yard strip has some decorations. closest to the viewer is a horse-skeleton Hallowe'en decoration, the kind that inexplicably has ears. It's been painted black and augmented with ghostly white hair where some horses have long hair: the mane plus feathering on the lower legs. Also the eyebrows. (I forget if there was also a tail, dang.) Next a painted-plaster-statue showing a kinda-cartoon-y looking duckling hatching from a pastel-painted Easter egg. Last we have a wrought-iron planter shaped like Cinderella's carriage painted bright pink and carrying various flowers and ferns and such. Didn't make it into the photo: there's a concrete-looking sea serpent which would be the standout detail in almost any other yard, but kinda faded into the background in this contextmansion with a big front yard decorated with many, many hearts. Also in view is a splash of plum blossoms
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
The char picker built into my desktop machine's OS was clunky enough such that I thought "I bet I can make a web page that works better than this." I succeeded, uh, at least for someone with my work patterns or whatever. Behold: 🐭 CARpHick lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/frivolity/ca...
lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us
🐭 CARpHick : handy char-picker page
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
#MysteryHuntPredictions typo.social/@gdc/1158899...
GUI for creating art with letterforms.

It's dominated by a large rectangular "canvas" on which is rendered many many letter a's (and a smattering of other letters). The letters are in a variety of fonts and sizes. There are some dendrite forms, that if you squint, you realize are actually made up from many many tiny letters.

The right-hand side is a toolbar. There are arrows to send a letter up,down,left,right. There are big Flip, Mirror, Rotate Left, Rotate Right buttons. More buttons: Typing mode, Snap to Grid, Hide B-Boxes, Cursor Follow, Font 1, Font 2, Font 3, Font 4. A spreadsheet-ish grid with columns Font, Cell X, Cell Y and rows with some French(?) names: Parisienne, Nompareille, Mignone, Petit-texte, ... Grosse-Nomparelle. Controls for page size and margins.

Under the canvas is a wide shallow toolbar with a grid layout of individual characters. (Keeping in mind that the right-hand side toolbar has a "typing mode", I guess depending on mode, one might need to use a GUI to choose letters vs typing them?)
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
"to be scared of a hat instead of me" Me, who finally stopped flinching at the mention/sight of Heather Adkins a few years after I stopped working at the same company as her: oh yeah good idea
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Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀 @lahosken.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
My morning walk was longer than intended. Silver lining: I walked past 20th Ave and Irving, where there was Kal Zakzouk chalk art. #SanFrancisco #StreetArt
sidewalk chalk art. a human-ish figure rides a tricycle. the trike has 'monkey bar' handles. the humanish figure might have a halo or a space helmet. they are sipping from a beverage through a straw. a bulbous figure on a tether bobs behind, reminiscent of a balloonzooming in on the bobbing balloon-like figure, it seems to be a body-less imp with a blue hat sipping from a baby bottle? or something like that?zooming in on the figure's head. is that a space helmet? a halo? hmm, maybe a sunhat?the trike has a basket. within the basket is a smaller basket of fries and a small purple toy
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