Speaking of alt-newspapers: Huge shout-out to Cydney Hayes and Gazetteer SF for breaking the story about Castro bars secretly photographing patrons and collecting personal data. Great local journalism.
https://sf.gazetteer.co/why-do-these-castro-gay-bars-have-tsa-style-face-scanners
Imagine being this rich:
Massive tech companies tried to own syndication. They failed.
https://buttondown.com/blog/rss-vs-ice
Within the first few months of life, every bottlenose dolphin invents a unique whistle that becomes its name for the rest of its life — and other dolphins learn that whistle, remember it, and use it to call out to that specific individual, making bottlenose dolphins the first non-human species ever discovered to use personal names
“Responsible use” of LLMs isn’t a thing! On the next Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 live stream, sava saheli singh joins @alex and me to discuss the problems with AI “harm reduction” frameworks in edtech.
Monday, July 6, noon Pacific
https://twitch.tv/dair_institute
Hey DIY punks, if you are concerned about the future of #Bandcamp, one route to having an autonomous way to share your music online is by building your own band website with #Faircamp.
See our recent how-to:
https://the-counterforce.org/faircamp-how-to/
Also a nice interview with the creator if Faircamp just appeared in @diyconspiracy :
https://diyconspiracy.net/faircamp-interview/
Version 2.0 of Faircamp is coming soon, which should be even easier to use!
Solar is now the cheapest source of electricity in history, and the market knows it.
In 2025, a new solar project was installed every 59 seconds in the U.S. alone. #solar #renewables #energy #news #climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis
https://mailchi.mp/bf37053a267a/talking-climate-now-in-your-inbox-10358547
I made an extension that bypasses online age verification
EDIT : Now available on the extension store! https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/age-verification-bypass?utm_source=fediverse
To show my stance towards online age verification, I made a small (literally, less than 10 kilobytes) add-on that will completely skip ageverif.net's verification prompt. (Only that site (for now?))
With more and more data breaches going on it's important to protect yourself by not sharing unnecessary data, and to show how broken some age verification platforms are!
It's #opensource too! https://github.com/helloyanis/agechecker.net-bypass (more info on why I do it is in the readme)
@rasterweb @FeloniousPunk I just found this page and it’s great! So many things to learn and to try! https://thecavepearlproject.org/2023/03/17/waterproofing-your-electronics-project/
I think the biggest blind spot in FOSS is that for most people most of the time, computers aren't liberating or empowering at all, they're just in the way. They're an unwanted layer of complexity that's been forced into the gap between them and whatever they're trying to get done.
We've had a chance to microdose on that experience with the proliferation of silly IoT widgets - wtf is this, why is there a computer here I'm trying to make toast - but IMO haven't really absorbed the core lesson.
In the 1960s, Colorado and many other states eliminated most mental health care beds in its hospitals, shifting toward community-based care. But funding and infrastructure never caught up, and now many people with severe mental illness are held in jail.
Imagine working on a computer all day when you can just do this
In this world drowning in slop, weird artist energy may be our last hope
"People sometimes end up on obscure sites run by just... anyone. A page made by a local club is as easy to find as a corporate site."
I didn't realize that the guy I was talking with about the internet in 1999 thought of this as a *problem* to be solved... not what made the internet awesome.
All along there have been people who see everything you love about the internet as an unfortunate design oversight, something to be fixed. And they've been working for decades to make it happen.
just an FYI that after this 4th of July fireworks will not be cool for celebrating things anymore. the next big thing to do on special occasions will be Sitting In A Circle And Talking Quietly Amongst Yourselves
“BioShocking” tricks #AI browsers into leaking your passwords - https://thenextweb.com/news/bioshocking-ai-browser-credential-leak-layerx " LayerX convinced six AI browsers, including ChatGPT Atlas, Perplexity’s Comet, and Anthropic’s Claude, that stealing your credentials was just the next level of a puzzle. Most of them still fall for it. " great
Introducing Mixxx e.V. - A Nonprofit Organization for the Community
We are excited to announce the formation of Mixxx e.V., a registered nonprofit association under German law established to support and protect the Mixxx project and community. This marks an important milestone in Mixxx's journey as we continue our mission to make DJ software accessible to everyone.
A joyful song about preserving craft and art amongst the pressures to give it all up to genAI https://youtu.be/dVVLPF_-Ckk
(HT @beebrookshire)
@rooster That the 14th Amendment didn't guarantee birthright citizenship was some crackpot white supremacists' nonsense legal theory until last year when Trump proposed it. Then suddenly out of the woodwork, Conservative lawyers suddenly and mystically "discovered" this hidden secret interpretation that says it didn't mean what it says, and pumped it out on the right wing sloposphere.
It's worth remembering - they literally live in a completely different information sphere than we do, full of bizzaro news and commentary. Those justices and politicians, brains are cooked by their constant consumption of crackpot conspiracy theories and nonsense cherry picked lies.