RE: https://infosec.exchange/@rebane2001/117580634604569849

Oh we’re buying CVE authorship now. Can’t wait to see the used car salesmen of InfoSec with CVEs on their resume.

I've talked before about how I mentor a robotics team at a small local school. When I say "small," I mean the graduating class last year was 9 students.

One of those who graduated was the main engineer on the team, a good kid. When I first met him about 4 years ago, he was a typical rural boy. I think the first interaction I had with him was to talk to him about using the R-word.

I also remember his wide eyed confusion when he first saw my husband, who looks like a scary tattooed biker and not the stereotypical gay man. "Wait, *that's* your husband?!"

Robotics has an extremely inclusive and diverse culture, and I literally watched this kid "wake up" in real time.

This past year, he became a leader on the team. He helped me stand up for our trans student against a phobic teacher (and got all his jock buddies to give the teacher a hard time all throughout the year).
I remember on the last day of our robotics competition, he slept in and arrived late, and we had to get a photo done right away for the newspaper. So he rushed to the trans boy and asked him to help fix his hair quick in the bathroom.

He once sat quietly with one of our autistic students for an hour after a meeting ended because they were having a meltdown, then drove them home. He takes care of his disabled mother, and spent his 18th birthday taking her around town and partying with her. Just an all around great guy.

And so when he saw that this old bigoted asshole was running for school board, he put his name in. His very first time voting in an election and his own name was on the ballot.

And fam, he won!

This 18 year old kid is now on the board of the school he just graduated, ousting the local Big Name family that has held a majority for the last 15 years. I'm so fucking proud!

Working with teenagers is difficult, and sometimes I ask myself why the heck I'm doing this for free. But it's times like these where I can see the impact I'm making just by being visibly out, and encouraging kids to be compassionate to each other.

Hakeem Jeffries, trying to read the room at a child's birthday party: They don't want cake. The kids want broccoli.

I was inspired by a post from @FreakyFwoof talking about DC++, and took a brief jaunt down memory lane.
In the last 5 years, Limewire evolved into some kind of vibe coded file sharing and AI platform. (https://www.limewire.com/)
Napster is now “Visible AI agents with voice, video and memory” (https://www.napster.com)
BearShare is now an AI slop music blog.
Is some LLM out there recommending that people hoodwink old file sharing company names for completely unrelated projects as a strategy? Brand resurrection? Capitalizing on nostalgia? Just coincidence?

Thanks to all who followed the election last night on Bluesky or Mastodon with Skyscraper!

As a thank you, going to keep this promo for next 10 signups. Use URL below to get first 6 months of Pro for only $2.99.

https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=6754198379&code=ELECTION26

First 12-ish hours with the iPhone duo:
1. It has some very strange, seemingly mandatory noise reduction on microphones when recording in stereo. Haven't found out a way to turn it off yet.
2. A current iOs bug prevents Braille Screen input to flip to landscape orientation with the port being on the left when the device is open.
3. Having come from the Pro Max line of devices, I am not at all bothered by the weight.
4. Explore by touch, which is my primary way of using the phone on the big screen is gorgeous.
5. Most apps look fine with Voiceover. Some old apps such as dystopia are squished in the middle of the screen.
will thread my random ob servations here as I go.

Apparently Salon was shuttered today, which seems to have been a surprise to its staff:

https://www.salon.com/2026/11/05/goodbye-from-salon/

@matt I wish there were a way to wave a magic wand and make GenAI go away *except* for something like this and perhaps for personal projects.

Accessibility is an area that has been neglected and I can't begrudge anybody looking to a tool that helps them fix some of these problems.

But, from where I'm sitting, *almost* all of the impact is negative. Maintainers are being overwhelmed with slop PR/MRs, it's making security response damn near impossible, and as an editor who covers FOSS... ugh.

We're getting multiple pitches per day that are for slopped-together projects, with the pitches "written" by LLMs and just thrown out in bulk by somebody's agent. (I honestly am never quite sure if I'm even replying to a human, when I reply.)

And we're getting author pitches that are more often than not clearly LLM-written. And I have to eye any new author with suspicion. Our subscribers won't be very happy if we wind up publishing LLM-written content.

Maybe this is the penance that everybody else is paying for neglecting accessibility.

Another side of all of this, yes Trump will veto a lot of stuff, but bipartisan legislation, which are many of the issues that NFB and ACB push for, have a much better shot in this environment. It'll be interesting to see the strategy of deciding which issues may have the most legs for 2027. Remember, a lot of this stuff is supported by a broad coalition, it's just hard to get it to the floor with someone like Mike Johnson.

"Harkin’s signature achievement is the Americans With Disabilities Act, and there’s poetry, as Turek often says, if Harkin is succeeded, albeit with a 12-year Ernst-filled gap, by Turek, who was born with spina bifida and went through 21 surgeries by age 12."

https://theiowamercury.substack.com/p/with-josh-turek-coming-into-the-senate

#USPol

sorry, but i definitely don't think this is a sign that anti-wokeness and transphobia don't work. they totally do. those things just can't outweigh lying about going to war and fucking up people's grocery/gas prices

What we did see is that Americans will vote for BIPOC, queer people, women, non-Christians, and democratic socialists, even in historical conservative rural areas, even against incumbent up for reelection. So let’s keep fucking running. Keep pushing. “Electability” is bullshit. Better is possible. We do not have to settle.

I should be more excited about this win. But I'm really nervous waiting for the shoe to drop.

RE: https://newsie.social/@servelan/117559048652764541

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

In Austin Texas, I went outside after Talarico one and could hear cheering in the distance. And then I went to bed to fireworks. And now it is another day and I feel so much lighter. There is an incredible amount of work to be done but for now, just this week, I am taking the win. Thank you America and every single person’s vote that mattered to make this happen. It’s certainly unreal to have been part of the blue wave in Texas, only having lived here for a few years. We were here when it happened.

The glowing Apple logo on the new MacBook Pro models is controllable by software. It has a 25kHz PWM frequency and per-device calibration. CoreBrightness implements automatic brightness and controls the relationship between display and logo brightness. One interesting tidbit: the brightness of the logo is adjusted differently depending on the enclosure color.

The conservative AI group Alliance for a Better Future, whose advisory council includes members of the Heritage Foundation, the anti-porn group NCOSE, the Institute for Family Studies, and the effective altruist-aligned Future of Life Institute, is officially 0 for 4 after its candidates lost in Maine, Iowa, Kansas, and Michigan.

#USpol #USpolitics #midterms

Waking up and realizing it wasn’t all a fever dream after all. Podcast queue should be very interesting this morning.