fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Re: How the media lost the left
An excellent analysis of what we’ve seen over the past two weeks.
Luigi didn’t just kill a CEO, the coverage around him marks the end of liberal media’s influence and control over identity politics. Many neoliberal identity writers are trying to argue around the truth: Americans are tired of living in a system where your insurance company can bankrupt & kill you.[image or embed]— Ana Valens ... https://micro.fromjason.xyz/2024/12/22/re-how-the-media-lost.html
“The Brown Round-Up”: The Racist Chain Letter Terrorizing an Oregon County
Trump’s mass deportation agenda is already taking shape—for a second time—in coastal Oregon. A racist letter reportedly circulating through Lincoln County, which has a population of about 50,000 people and is located on the state’s western coast, encourages residents to surveil and report “brown illegals…who you suspect are here in our country on an illegal […]
Well, Kraven is absolutely as good as Morbius! In fact I think one of these movies might be wearing the other one as a skin suit. I couldn't tell you which, though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQOYgKePQK0
Millions face wintry weather for what could be a record-setting holiday travel season
More than 119 million people are expected to travel for Christmas and Hanukkah, which both fall on the same day this year, through the New Year, according to AAA.
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
Fred Willard: “The True Story of Christmas.”
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Bluesky’s growing pains:
"Last week, the platform faced its most significant controversy yet: user backlash against journalist and media personality Jesse Singal joining the platform. Singal, who has reported on people who reversed their gender transitions among other topics pertaining to trans people, hosts a podcast that critiques perceived left-wing biases in media."
An incredibly generous account of who Jesse ... https://micro.fromjason.xyz/2024/12/22/blueskys-growing-pains-last-week.html
Biden Has Officially Appointed More Judges Than Trump
President Joe Biden has officially surpassed president-elect Donald Trump’s record of judicial appointed to federal courts—by one single judge. On Friday, the Senate Judiciary Committee, tasked with carrying out the confirmations of Biden’s appointees, announced that it had confirmed Biden’s 235th judge—one more than Trump during his term in office, when he blitzed the courts […]
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
I know this is insignificant in the greater context, but Artisan, the company with the “Stop Hiring Humans” ads doesn’t have RSS set up for their company blog.
It’s just one of those things you come across, and it’s like oh, right, these people don’t actually care about what came before it. They’re just compute middle men, AI drop shippers, hoping to lure enough idiot CFOs with a hard-on for layoffs.
So this was a ... https://micro.fromjason.xyz/2024/12/22/i-know-this-is-insignificant.html
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fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Everything Wrong with Tesla’s $500 ‘Mezcal’ ~ L.A. TACO:
"Tesla just released a 43% ABV mezcal from Oaxaca made from espadín and bicuishe agave, and is selling it for $500. Secondary retailers are already selling it for more than $1,099"
I feel like I don’t need to tell this crowd not to buy Elon’s shitty tequila. But it’s wild that anyone is buying it at all. https://lataco.com/tesla-mezcal-tequila
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Feature chum is a shady business goal presented to consumers as a useful feature to a company’s product line or feature set.
For example, Facebook's like button for websites.
https://micro.fromjason.xyz/2024/12/22/feature-chum-you.html
All of Canoo’s employees are reportedly on a ‘mandatory unpaid break’
Image: Canoo
Days after furloughing dozens of its employees without pay, EV startup Canoo told the remainder of its staff they will be on a “mandatory unpaid break” through at least the end of the year, TechCrunch reported Friday_._ A company email seen by the outlet said employees would be locked out of Canoo’s systems by the end of Friday, with their benefits continuing through the end of this month.
The report follows Canoo’s announcement last week that it was idling its Oklahoma factories and furloughing employees while it worked “to finalize securing the capital necessary to move forward with its operations.” As TechCrunch notes, the company reported that it had only about $700,000 left in the bank last month.
Also on Friday, the company announced a 1-for-20 reverse stock split, effective December 24th. Canoo says the consolidation aims to keep its stock listed on the Nasdaq exchange and attract “a broader group of institutional and retail investors.”
Canoo was founded in 2017 to sell electric vans and trucks to adventure-seeking customers but has mostly only ever made vehicles for the US government. As The Verge’s Andrew Hawkins wrote last year, analysts have warned of its risk of insolvency as it’s teetered on the edge of running out of cash since 2022. Canoo has lost a steady stream of executives since then, including all of its founders and, more recently, its CFO and general counsel.
Marvels Rivals Is The Hero Shooter We Didn’t Know We Needed
One of 2024’s biggest success stories has been Marvel Rivals, a third-person PVP shooter starring Marvel heroes and baddies. The game has already picked up over 20 million players and shows no signs of stopping. Which is cool but also very surprising!
Reblogged by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
alienmelon ("Nathalie Lawhead (alienmelon)") wrote:
i just learned about “riot dogs” (stray dogs that for no knowable reason join in when people protest, and protect protesters from police), reinforcing my view that all dogs are good boys https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_dog
(i am not a dog person so this is an unbiased nonpartisan dog assessment)
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Review by Senate Democrats finds more unreported luxury trips by Clarence Thomas
A report by Democrats on the Judiciary Committee found additional travel taken in 2021 by Thomas but not reported on his annual financial disclosure, including trips on private jets and a yacht trip.
10 great shows to stream on Amazon Prime Video from 2024
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
This year’s Prime Video streaming content was led by adaptations and spinoffs like Fallout and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
good lord, these ppl sound so much like the Marxists of old who *also* insisted "that current liberal democracy contains the seeds of its own destruction" and "when the inevitable collapse comes you build back the country in a way that’s actually better." the anti-democratic far Left & far Right have never really been all that far apart, IMHO
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/21/curtis-yarvin-trump
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
"The Internet is being ruined by fake quotes and misinformation." - Benjamin Franklin, 1792
Attachments:
Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
SmudgeTheInsultCat@mas.to ("Smudge The Insult Cat 🐀") wrote:
Attachments:
- merry twigsmas @notpixietit im employed at starbucks and we live in hell. the word Xmas is BANNED, we are only allowed to say happy holidays my coworker asked a child what santa would bring her & a manager overheard they took him out & shot him in the head. they fucking shot him in the head (remote)
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
inclusion matters:
'The U.S. Senate confirmed President Joe Biden’s 200th federal judge... the most diverse federal judges of any president in history.
“These judges are exceptionally well-qualified. They come from every walk of life, and collectively, they form the most diverse group of judicial appointees ever put forward by a President – 64% are women and 62% are people of color”' https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/senate-confirms-bidens-200th-judge-in-historic-feat-for-court-diversity/
Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
thetnholler.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy ("The Tennessee Holler ") wrote:
AOC: “Oh, I don’t think we’re witnessing the START of an oligarchy. I think we are fully here.” 🇺🇸
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jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
'Musk, who has been named by Donald Trump to co-lead a commission aimed at reducing the size of the US federal government, wrote on his social media platform X: “Only the AfD can save Germany.”'
(they are the neo-Nazis, child... grow TF up)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/20/elon-musk-claims-only-afd-can-save-germany
Apple is working on a doorbell camera with Face ID
A Google Nest doorbell camera. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Apple is working on a new smart doorbell camera that uses Face ID to unlock your door, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. The camera could be released by the end of 2025 “at the soonest,” Gurman writes.
The lock would work just like your iPhone, automatically unlocking your door when you or another resident looks at it. Like biometric login info on other Apple devices, the camera would be equipped with the company’s Secure Enclave chip that stores and processes Face ID information separately from the rest of the system’s hardware.
Gurman writes that this device will “likely” work with existing third-party HomeKit smart locks and that the company may also partner with a smart lock company “to offer a complete system on day one.” He expects the camera will make use of Apple’s in-house “Proxima” combination Wi-Fi / Bluetooth chip that’s rumored for new HomePod Mini and Apple TV devices next year.
This doorbell camera joins a broader collection of rumors surrounding a renewed Apple push into the smart home that’s centered around Apple Intelligence. Those include another new smart home camera, a possible Apple-branded TV, and new smart home displays — one a simple iPad-like device that magnetically attaches to wall mounts or speaker bases, while another display sits on the end of a robotic arm attached to a larger base.
An iPhone owner’s guide to living off the app grid
Do we really need all this? | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The grid is a comfortable place to live.
The app grid, I mean: the rows and rows of app icons on your iPhone’s homescreen. It’s familiar. Safe. It’s how I’ve lived with my various phones over the past decade. But at some point, it started to feel oppressive.
All those icons staring at me in the face, vying for my attention. The clutter! The distracting little notification badges! The grid was a reasonable way to organize apps when I had like, ten of them. There are sixty on the iPhone I’m using now, and I set it up from scratch a few months ago.
Naturally, living off-grid or in a non-traditional homescreen arrangement has been possible for much longer on Android. Google’s OS lets you keep your screen clear and just find your apps in the app drawer, which is always a swipe away. You can even replace the launcher entirely. But iOS — where every new app you download winds up on your homescreen by default — hasn’t exactly made it easy to abandon the grid.
That started to change when iOS 14 added widgets, an app library, and the ability to hide apps from your homescreen — though I haven’t developed the muscle memory to use it much. Now, iOS 18 adds even more flexibility. You...
The Best Marvel Rivals Tips, Steam Winter Sale Deals, And More Of The Week's Most Helpful Gaming Info
This week, Marvel Rivals continued to pull players in with its enjoyably chaotic take on the hero-shooter genre, and we’ve got heaps of tips to help you come to grips with the game and see what cool strats other players are using. We’ll also fill you in on everything we know about Intergalactic, Naughty Dog’s upcoming…
The Verge’s favorite books from 2024
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Our staff writes about the best books they read over the course of the year.
A new and better way to control your smart home
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 65, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, get ready to take up all your phone’s storage space, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
This is the last Installer of the year! I’m taking a couple of weeks off for the holidays, and I hope you’re getting some relaxation in too. Thank you so much to everyone who has subscribed to this newsletter, emailed me your recommendations, told me I’m a lunatic about to-do lists, and generally been part of the Installerverse this year. Making this newsletter is so much fun, and I’m so thrilled to get to do it with you. Bigger and better next year!
This week, I’ve been reading about Spotify’s ghost artistsand Formula 1 and Mufasa and the deeply silly New York Jets, watching Hot Frosty(you can judge me, it’s fine) and re-watching 30 Rock, beating Balatrofor the very first time, and trying to convince my toddler that it’s actually not fun and cool and great to wake up at 4am every day.
I also have for you a nifty new smart home controller, a new app for the future of social networks, the next Sonic movie, and much more. Plus,...
Israeli strikes across Gaza kill at least 20, including five children
Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip overnight and into Sunday killed at least 20 people, including five children, Palestinian medical officials said.
The new 3d-rendered MGM lion looks as melty and sad as Jar Jar. Did they find this animation sitting on a dusty shelf from 1999?
This Week’s Episode of Reveal: A Whistleblower in New Folsom Prison
When Valentino Rodriguez started his job at a high-security prison in Sacramento, California, informally known as New Folsom, he thought he was entering a brotherhood of correctional officers who hold each other to a high standard of conduct. Five years later, Rodriguez would be found dead in his home. His unexpected passing would raise questions from […]
This Christmas I'll be grieving. Here's how I'll be finding joy.
Since her husband's death, newscaster Windsor Johnston has been looking for ways to recapture joy and continue her healing journey — one that's taken her to a place she'd never expected.
Spending Christmas With “Dr. Doom”
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. I was 11 years old the year my older stepsister brought her high school boyfriend home for the first time. It was Thanksgiving 2006, and his Southern manners fit right in as we bantered between mouthfuls of cornbread stuffing, fried okra, […]
I discovered one way to fight loneliness: The Germans call it a Stammtisch
Modern life can be lonely. Some are looking to an old German tradition – of drinking and conversation – to deepen connection through regular meetups.
On tap for the holidays: A blend of multicultural drink traditions and fond memories
For this year's All Things Considered holiday cocktail interview, we visited Providencia in Washington, D.C., a bar that brings its owners' personal stories to life.
College students get emotional about climate change. Some are finding help in class
A recent survey finds that more than half of young people aged 16-25 are highly worried about climate change. Some universities are now trying to help them navigate those emotions in class.
Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
AkaSci@fosstodon.org ("AkaSci 🛰️") wrote:
Very aptly put, David Frum.
👍
https://bsky.app/profile/davidfrum.bsky.social/post/3ldtps2hxps2m
#Politics #Bitcoin
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Reblogged by keul@fosstodon.org ("Luca Fabbri"):
bluebabbler ("Bluebabbler") wrote:
"What's stopping you from coding like this?" - the Game
https://blog.keul.it/whats-stopping-you-from-coding-like-this/
Tonight I used "Have they been Mirandaized?" as shorthand for "Has the person with the SLR been issued a photo pass and been informed of the rights and responsibilities conferred therein?"
@jef All of these third-party efforts to adversarially interoperate with corporate closed platforms are inevitably doomed to fail. In the meantime all you are doing is carrying water for their propaganda that they "will federate some day for sure, we pinky swear".
"Oh, it's in Blewsky or Threads or Twitter? I guess I'll never see it then." Works for me!
The Bridgy "service" is basically acting as a volunteer advertising arm of a billionaire-backed commercial social network whose business model requires destroying Mastodon. Also this bot will spam you with DMs exhorting you to support their favorite billionaire social network repeatedly if you accidentally say the wrong words or reply to the wrong thing. Their replies are unmonitored. I strongly recommend preemptively blocking @bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gy
happydisciple@mendeddrum.org ("Jos Dingjan") wrote:
@NanoRaptor Performance cores, efficiency cores, and demon cores.
Pickup truck driver killed by police after driving through Texas mall and injuring 5
A pickup truck driver fleeing police careened through the doors of a JCPenney store in Texas and continued through a busy mall, injuring five people before he was fatally shot by officers.
Reblogged by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
dbattistella@mstdn.ca ("DB 🇵🇸 🌎🌏🌍") wrote:
Our politicians are mostly lazy, greedy and incompetent. They find it easier and more profitable to criminalize a problem than to do something about it.
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Reblogged by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
tixie@guerilla.studio ("Tixie Salander") wrote:
Make full content rss feeds when the author only provides a summary https://paul.kinlan.me/projects/full-rss-feed/
Reblogged by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
mttaggart@infosec.exchange ("Taggart :donor:") wrote:
Boost if you want less generative AI in your tech in 2025.
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni and a Smear Campaign After ‘It Ends With Us’ - The New York Times:
"When Ms. Abel wrote to her Aug. 4 that “I’m having reckless thoughts of wanting to plant pieces this week of how horrible Blake is to work with. Just to get ahead of it,” Ms. Nathan replied that she had spoken off the record to an editor at The Daily Mail."
I don’t spend too much time reading up on Hollywood. But, I vaguely recall ... https://micro.fromjason.xyz/2024/12/22/blake-lively-justin.html
Reblogged by pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑"):
randahl ("Randahl Fink") wrote:
"If only American billionaires could buy the EU, like we bought the US presidency, stealing people's data while destroying planet Earth would be so much more profitable."
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Two US Navy pilots shot down over Red Sea in apparent 'friendly fire' incident, US military says
Two U.S. Navy pilots were shot down Sunday over the Red Sea by apparent "friendly fire", the most serious incident to threaten troops in over a year of America targeting Yemen's Houthi rebels.
Reblogged by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
hipsterelectron@circumstances.run ("d@nny "disc@" mc²") wrote:
"don't use technical solutions for social problems" might be better reframed as "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house"
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Feature Chum
You know how when a tech company pushes a feature onto its users and it’s evident that the feature is just a way for the company to collect more user data or for some other nefarious business goal? You can tell that the feature results from some c-suite demand for world domination, and the marketing department sort of backed into whatever user benefit they’re touting.There isn’t a great word for that.
In tech, ... https://micro.fromjason.xyz/2024/12/22/feature-chum-you.html
Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
5t3ph@front-end.social ("Stephanie Eckles") wrote:
Ho ho ho! All 12 Days of Web articles and emails are scheduled and ready to take flight up until Christmas night!
Do some catch up reading this weekend, and considering re-gifting an article to a friend or two.
I'm trying to get my music into Rockbox by using rsync instead of iTunes, and the iPod can only transfer about 20 files before it crashes. And when it does that, it somehow makes my USB hub reset as well, which I have never seen before. So that's going great.
Also it takes 3 1/2 minutes between plugging it in to USB and the mount point showing up on the desktop.
Party City files for bankruptcy and plans to shutter nationwide
Party City was once unmatched in its vast selection of affordable celebration goods. But over the years, competition stacked up at Walmart, Target, Spirit Halloween, and especially Amazon.
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Man on Fire walked so John Wick could run. This is Denzel Washington’s best work. And oh, how quotable.
"A man can be an artist… in anything, food, whatever. It depends on how good he is at it. Creasy’s art is death. He’s about to paint his masterpiece."
Banger.
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Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
damieng ("Damien Guard") wrote:
8x8 Font Advent Calendar 2024 Day 21
Shadow of the Beast ZXCPC
Shadow of the Beast was a gorgeous atmospheric Amiga game that struggled to fit into less powerful machines.
The Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum versions while graphically constrained did however include this gorgeous 8x8 bitmap font.
https://download.damieng.com/fonts/conversions/Shadow+of+the+Beast+ZXCPC.zip
Attachments:
- Screenshot of the Shadow of the Beast title screen on the ZX Spectrum.
- Screenshot of Shadow of the Beast on the Amstrad CPC showing a view peering down a tunnel.
- Modified screenshot of Dragon Warrior on the Nintendo NES. The text has been re-rendered using Shadow of the Beast ZXCPC font.
- Modified screenshot of Slaine on the ZX Spectrum. The text has been re-rendered using Shadow of the Beast ZXCPC font.
Gemini can now tell when a PDF is on your phone screen
Illustration: The Verge
In the latest version of the Files by Google app, summoning Gemini while looking at a PDF gives you the option to ask about the file, writes Android Police. You’ll need to be a Gemini Advanced subscriber to use the feature though, according to Mishaal Rahman, who reported on Friday that it had started rolling out.
If you have the feature, when you summon Gemini while looking at a PDF in the Files app, you’ll see an “Ask about this PDF” button appear. Tapping that lets you ask questions about the file, the same way you might ask ChatGPT about a PDF. Google first announced this screen-aware feature during its I/O developer conference in May.
Rahman posted a screenshot of what it looks like in action:
Other context-aware Gemini features include the ability to ask about web pages and YouTube videos. For apps or file types without Gemini’s context-aware support, the assistant instead offers to answer questions about your screen, using a screenshot it takes when you tap “Ask about this screen.”
Reblogged by isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:"):
I would now like to sum up my experience of nearly 50 non-expert years of using computers and the internet:
Plaintext, wherever possible, FTW.
Missouri Judge Blocks Abortion Ban—But Clinics Still Can’t Reopen
Last month, Missourians voted to add the right to abortion until viability into their state constitution—making their state one of ten to enshrine abortion rights since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. But simply having the constitutional right to abortion does not alone change anything on the ground: The courts must enforce this right […]
Sudan's biggest refugee camp was already struck with famine. Now it's being shelled
The siege, blamed on the Rapid Support Forces, has sparked a new humanitarian catastrophe and marks an alarming turning point in the Darfur region, already overrun by violence.
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
What is shadowbanning? Why social media may be hiding your posts. - The Washington Post:
"We asked Washington Post readers to share their stories about “shadowbans," the real or perceived suppression of a person’s posts, and many suspected that their posts were being shown to friends but hidden on feeds. Few had proof this was happening."
Good read. Not to get too conspiratorial, but I have often wondered about the ... https://micro.fromjason.xyz/2024/12/21/what-is-shadowbanning.html
Reblogged by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
katzenberger@mastodon.de wrote:
With "a new social", another #Meta / #Threads lobbyist group has appeared. They're partially imitating the look and even the wording of the so-called "Social Web Foundation".
One of the team members is #RyanBarret, the guy who wanted to force opt-out from his #Mastodon - #Bluesky bridge "Bridgy Fed" upon the Fediverse, until a shit storm stopped him.
Quote from their website:
»Industry Partnerships
We will also work closely with existing organizations building on top of the open social web, focusing on maintaining compatibility and collaborating on features and education. We've already begun discussions with #industry #partners like Flipboard, Bluesky, Meta, and Mastodon, and we look forward to continuing to work with them.«
Never forget who's trying to open the gates for #Meta.
Reblogged by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
dangillmor ("Dan Gillmor") wrote:
Spotify is a creepy, and grossly unethical, platform at this point. it rips off musicians and rewards huge companies -- and itself. Apparently what it's doing is legal, however.
This is great reporting, from a new book by Liz Pelly. A compelling read.
https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machine-liz-pelly-spotify-musicians/
Reblogged by isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:"):
darktable@photog.social wrote:
well well well if it isn't version 5.0.
get it here: https://www.darktable.org/2024/12/darktable-5.0.0-released/
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
I, for one, welcome our cyborg insect robot army.
I found this story on Boing-Boing. A university in Singapore created a sort of logistic model for mass-producing cyborgs cockroaches capable of doing their master’s bidding.
A Starship Troopers timeline is as good as any, I guess. https://boingboing.net/2024/12/21/cyborg-cockroach-production-nears-one-per-minute.html
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fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
On my second reading of the essay “A Linkless Web,” I remember the first book I ever read, and wonder if an AI-generated summary would’ve robbed me of that experience.
When AI summaries replace hyperlinks, thought itself is flattened | Aeon Essays:
"In The Well-Wrought Urn (1947), he argued that a reader could not sum up a poem by paraphrasing what it ‘says’. Poetry does not work like ordinary language. It is not reducible to its ... https://micro.fromjason.xyz/2024/12/21/on-my-second.html
The Supreme Court’s Christmas Gift to Religious-Right Lawyers
The Supreme Court agreed last week to hear a case that could pave the way for states to kick Planned Parenthood clinics and affiliated doctors out of their Medicaid programs. The case threatens the ability of the nation’s largest family planning organization to provide their low-income patients with birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing […]
cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:
Before I forget, and just for the purposes of this thread where I seem to be dumping all my art related things, the post linked below contains a christmas card I made in 2013.
https://social.coop/@cstanhope/113691963939292523
(apologies to any followers who already saw the post)
nikitonsky@mastodon.online ("Niki Tonsky") wrote:
I propose we replace semantic versioning with pride versioning
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FDA approves weight loss drug Zepbound to treat obstructive sleep apnea
The FDA said studies have shown that by aiding weight loss, Zepbound improves sleep apnea symptoms in some patients.
david_chisnall@infosec.exchange ("David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)") wrote:
I finally turned off GitHub Copilot yesterday. I’ve been using it for about a year on the ‘free for open-source maintainers’ tier. I was skeptical but didn’t want to dismiss it without a fair trial.
It has cost me more time than it has saved. It lets me type faster, which has been useful when writing tests where I’m testing a variety of permutations of an API to check error handling for all of the conditions.
I can recall three places where it has introduced bugs that took me more time to to debug than the total time saving:
The first was something that initially impressed me. I pasted the prose description of how to communicate with an Ethernet MAC into a comment and then wrote some method prototypes. It autocompleted the bodies. All very plausible looking. Only it managed to flip a bit in the MDIO read and write register commands. MDIO is basically a multiplexing system. You have two device registers exposed, one sets the command (read or write a specific internal register) and the other is the value. It got the read and write the wrong way around, so when I thought I was writing a value, I was actually reading. When I thought I was reading, I was actually seeing the value in the last register I thought I had written. It took two of us over a day to debug this. The fix was simple, but the bug was in the middle of correct-looking code. If I’d manually transcribed the command from the data sheet, I would not have got this wrong because I’d have triple checked it.
Another case it had inverted the condition in an if statement inside an error-handling path. The error handling was a rare case and was asymmetric. Hitting the if case when you wanted the else case was okay but the converse was not. Lots of debugging. I learned from this to read the generated code more carefully, but that increased cognitive load and eliminated most of the benefit. Typing code is not the bottleneck and if I have to think about what I want and then read carefully to check it really is what I want, I am slower.
Most recently, I was writing a simple binary search and insertion-deletion operations for a sorted array. I assumed that this was something that had hundreds of examples in the training data and so would be fine. It had all sorts of corner-case bugs. I eventually gave up fixing them and rewrote the code from scratch.
Last week I did some work on a remote machine where I hadn’t set up Copilot and I felt much more productive. Autocomplete was either correct or not present, so I was spending more time thinking about what to write. I don’t entirely trust this kind of subjective judgement, but it was a data point. Around the same time I wrote some code without clangd set up and that really hurt. It turns out I really rely on AST-aware completion to explore APIs. I had to look up more things in the documentation. Copilot was never good for this because it would just bullshit APIs, so something showing up in autocomplete didn’t mean it was real. This would be improved by using a feedback system to require autocomplete outputs to type check, but then they would take much longer to create (probably at least a 10x increase in LLM compute time) and wouldn’t complete fragments, so I don’t see a good path to being able to do this without tight coupling to the LSP server and possibly not even then.
Yesterday I was writing bits of the CHERIoT Programmers’ Guide and it kept autocompleting text in a different writing style, some of which was obviously plagiarised (when I’m describing precisely how to implement a specific, and not very common, lock type with a futex and the autocomplete is a paragraph of text with a lot of detail, I’m confident you don’t have more than one or two examples of that in the training set). It was distracting and annoying. I wrote much faster after turning it off.
So, after giving it a fair try, I have concluded that it is both a net decrease in productivity and probably an increase in legal liability.
Discussions I am not interested in having:
- You are holding it wrong. Using Copilot with this magic config setting / prompt tweak makes it better. At its absolute best, it was a small productivity increase, if it needs more effort to use, that will be offset.* This other LLM is much better. I don’t care. The costs of the bullshitting far outweighed the benefits when it worked, to be better it would have to not bullshit, and that’s not something LLMs can do.
- It’s great for boilerplate! No. APIs that require every user to write the same code are broken. Fix them, don’t fill the world with more code using them that will need fixing when the APIs change.* Don’t use LLMs for autocomplete, use them for dialogues about the code. Tried that. It’s worse than a rubber duck, which at least knows to stay silent when it doesn’t know what it’s talking about.
The one place Copilot was vaguely useful was hinting at missing abstractions (if it can autocomplete big chunks then my APIs required too much boilerplate and needed better abstractions). The place I thought it might be useful was spotting inconsistent API names and parameter orders but it was actually very bad at this (presumably because of the way it tokenises identifiers?). With a load of examples with consistent names, it would suggest things that didn't match the convention. After using three APIs that all passed the same parameters in the same order, it would suggest flipping the order for the fourth.
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Startup set to brick $800 kids robot is trying to open source it first - Ars Technica:
"The $800 robots, aimed at providing emotional support for kids ages 5 to 10, would soon be bricked, the company said, because they can’t perform their core features without the cloud."
This is Web 3.0, the new Internet, the newer Internet of Things. We’re no longer able to buy products and services, only compute. Fleeting, short-term, ... https://micro.fromjason.xyz/2024/12/21/startup-set-to.html
The US finalizes CHIPS Act funding for Samsung and Texas Instruments
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
The US Commerce Department has awarded Samsung and Texas Instruments with a combined over $6 billion in “direct funding under the CHIPS Incentives Program’s Funding Opportunity for Commercial Fabrication,” according to a pair of announcements published on Friday.
Samsung will get the larger of the two awards at $4.745 billion. The Commerce Department says the company will use this as part of its planned $37 billion investment in Texas chip facilities that include two new “leading-edge logic fabs and an R&D fab” in Taylor, Texas, and the expansion of its plant in Austin.
The company was originally slated to receive $6.4 billion. In a statement reported by Bloomberg, the company said that its “mid-to-long-term investment plan has been partially revised to optimize overall investment efficiency,” which suggests the company has dialed back its plans, according to the outlet.
Texas Instruments will receive $1.61 billion to bolster the $18 billion it plans to spend on projects like constructing two wafer fabs in Texas and a third in Utah. The Commerce Department announced smaller awards this week too, including $407 million in funding for Amkor Technology, a US-based company that...
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
yahhhh
‘Walk Away (Album Version)’ by Tom Waits
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cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:
I already haven't been hanging out here as much the past week, and I think I'll take a more definitive break starting today.
I hope you have good holidays, if that's your thing. Otherwise, I hope you have good days.
I've got the urge to make a Christmas card again, but if I manage it, it'll be next year's. I actually have two ideas, but I'm trying not to abandon the first.
I don't have a card this year, but this is the one I made in 2013. See you next year!
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- A cartoon of an outdoor scene at night. In the foreground you see two monsters roasting marshmallows over a fire. They have red mugs filled with hot beverage by their side. The monster on the left (Apemon) is sporting a santa hat. He is brownish with blue eyes and patches of coarse hair. He has fierce looking claws. The monster on the right (T-Mon) is reptilian in nature and is wearing a nice a scarf with red and white stripes. He's green with a yellowish belly and yellow eyes. T-Mon sports a large horn on his nose and two smaller horns on his head. He also has some fierce claws. They both look content. Behind them is a decorated tree (done pretty well for clawed monsters) with their gifts to each other. In the far background are silhouette pine trees set against a dark blue sky with stars with one very prominent star. (You're looking at the back of the card as though it was completely open. It would've been folded down the middle as I had them printed.) (remote)
Reblogged by rmrenner ("The Old Gay Gristle Fest"):
zeta0134@mstdn.plus ("Zeta") wrote:
Good grief! The entire sprite system has been overhauled, and now I can have way more metasprites without breaking the art budget.
Please enjoy this updated flail, which is now (hopefully) much easier to understand in motion thanks to 20 unique on-hit animations!
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- The player dances to and fro, striking enemies from afar using the extended reach of the flail. This intentionally difficult-to-control weapon is sweetened with overlay sprites showing the specific tile impacted, with a trail in the direction of motion. At the fight's conclusion, the player picks up a spell scroll which reads, "SCORCH: Burn one entire chamber!" I wonder what that does? (remote)
Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
ThompsonArt@mastodon.art ("Aled Thompson") wrote:
A Flying Fire Fox
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Netflix is dreaming of a glitch-free Christmas with 2 major NFL games set
It comes weeks after Netflix's attempt to broadcast live boxing between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson was rife with technical glitches.
cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:
Code like other people matter.
Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
mathias@rhizospherelabs.com wrote:
There’s an idea I run into frequently but don’t know if we have a proper term for — using a lower end computer (often an older laptop like one of the classic Thinkpads) when developing software. Not just for using what you have and keeping it out of the landfill; but that those machines are both plenty fast and that it forces you to consider performance. Is there a better term than “low-end computing”?
Here’s the first CoPilot plus mini PC with Intel’s new Core Ultra 9 processors
Image: Asus
Asus has announced the Asus NUC 14 Pro AI, the first Copilot Plus-capable AI mini PC that crams an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor into a form factor resembling a black M4 Mac Mini. First introduced at IFA in September, Asus is providing a little more detail about the mini PC’s specs than it did before, but still isn’t saying it will become available or how much it will cost.
The NUC 14 Pro AI will come in five CPU configurations, from the Core Ultra 5 226V processor with 16GB of integrated RAM to a Core Ultra 9 288V processor with 32GB of RAM. The company says it has up to 67 TOPS of GPU performance and 48 NPU TOPS, and that its M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 4 x 4 slot supports 256GB to 2TB NVMe SSDs.
All of that is packed into a PC that measures 130mm deep and wide and just 34mm tall; comparatively, the Mac Mini is 127mm deep and wide and 50mm tall. Here are some pictures from Asus’ website:
The Asus NUC 14 Pro AI features a fingerprint sensor on top and a Copilot button on the front for speaking voice commands to Microsoft’s AI assistant. Also on the front are two USB-A ports, a Thunderbolt 4 port, a headphone jack, and a power button. Around the back, you’ll find a 2.5Gbps ethernet jack, another Thunderbolt 4 port, two more USB-A ports, and an HDMI port. For connectivity, it features Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.
Asus still hasn’t said when the NUC 14 Pro AI will be available, nor how much it will cost.
Big dreams: He's the founder of a leading African photobook library
Paul Ninson had an old-school, newfangled dream: a modern library devoted to photobooks showing life on the continent. He maxed out his credit cards, injured his back — and made it happen.
ModRetro Chromatic review: an arms dealer’s Game Boy is among the best ever made
Stellar hardware from a controversial figure.
The Verge’s 2024 holiday gift guide
Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
A collection of fun, affordable, and unique gifts fit for everyone on your list.
Reblogged by mbrubeck@mefi.social:
solar_seattle@mas.to ("Solar Seattle") wrote:
The sun will rise in #Seattle #Washington tomorrow at 7:55, 30 seconds later than the day before.
It will set at 16:20, 27 seconds later than the day before.
pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:
Curious. All these billionaires are college dropouts who know nothing about physics, but they like to claim they could have been physicists. So why don't they go back to school?
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/12/21/a-common-thread-among-billionaires/
TCL’s new AI short films range from bad comedy to existential horror
A screenshot from TCL’s The Audition. | Screenshot: TCLtv Plus
Earlier this year, TCL released a trailer for Next Stop Paris — an AI-animated short film that seems like a Lifetime movie on steroids. The trailer had all the hallmarks of AI: characters that don’t move their mouths when they talk, lifeless expressions, and weird animation that makes it look like scenes are constantly vibrating.
I thought this might be the extent of TCL’s experimentation with AI films, given the healthy dose of criticism it received online. But boy, was I wrong. TCL debuted five new AI-generated short films that are also destined for its TCLtv Plus free streaming platform, and after the Next Stop Paris debacle, I just had to see what else it cooked up.
Though the new films do look a little better than Next Stop Paris, they serve as yet another reminder that AI-generated videos aren’t quite there yet, something we’ve seen with many of the video generation tools cropping up, like OpenAI’s Sora. But in TCL’s case, it’s not just the AI that makes these films bad.
Here are all five of them, ranked from tolerable (5) to “I wish I could unsee this” (1).
5. Sun Day
This futuristic short film basically has the same concept as Ray Bradbury’s short story “All Summer in...
cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:
I'm probably the wrong guy to be posting about this on the internet, but Proko has done an "advent calendar" or "12 days" of sketchbook tours from some fabulous artists. Yeah, it's a (very mild) promo for proko's lessons, but if you have an interest other artists' sketching habits or just want to see artists talking about their great art, then maybe check it out:
LG’s brilliant B4 OLED TV is on sale with a $50 gift card for its best price ever
You’d be hard-pressed to find an OLED TV for less right now. | Image: LG
One of the best Black Friday deals has returned — and this time, it’s done so with an added perk. Right now, LG’s B4 Series OLED TV is matching its all-time low at Best Buy, where you can pick it up in the 48-inch configuration for $599.99 ($200 off) with a $50 digital gift card. The larger 55-inch panel, meanwhile, is on sale at Best Buy with a $100 digital gift card for $999.99 ($400 off), its best price yet.
Although LG is likely to introduce its 2025 lineup at CES in a few short weeks, the B4 is likely going to remain a bargain, especially at this price. You don’t get the same brightness levels or performance speeds as LG’s flagship C4 or G4 — the B4 lacks the AI-focused a11 processor found in the latter — but it provides all the core benefits you’d expect from an OLED panel. It offers deep blacks and wide viewing angles, along with four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports that are capable of 4K 120Hz gaming, making it a great pick for use with modern consoles like the PS5 or Xbox Series X.
Personally, as the current owner of a 48-inch OLED, I find the smaller size more than big enough for my entertainment needs. It’s not as much of an eyesore in my living room as my previous 65-inch panel, yet I have little trouble watching movies and playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth from my couch. The real question is whether you need all the bells and whistles on LG’s high-end TVs or if an entry-level OLED will suffice.
More weekend deals and discounts
- Twelve South’s quirky Butterfly charger is on sale at Amazon for a cool $103.99 ($26 off), which is the first discount we’ve seen. The travel-friendly 2-in-1 charger consists of two aluminum-clad discs connected via a vegan leather strap, one of which can fast-charge an Apple Watch and another that can supply 15 watts of power to any MagSafe-compatible phone. Moreover, it comes with a 30W power supply, complete with swappable international prongs.
- If you’re not concerned regarding the shipping timeline, Apple’s latest entry-level iPad is matching its all-time low of $249.99 ($100 off) in select colors at Amazon thanks to an on-page coupon (it’s also on sale at Walmart and Best Buy for $279). The 64GB base model isn't as capable as the newer Air or Pro models, but it offers USB-C charging, plenty of power, and enough battery life to burn through The Penguin, the second season of Silo, or whatever else is on your holiday watch list this year. Read our review.
- If you’re a bike commuter, investing in a proper tail light this time of the year is a must. Thankfully, the Garmin Varia RTL515 is down to $149.99 ($50 off) at Amazon and Target, matching its best price to date. The bright, IPX7-rated light can be seen from up to a mile away and offers up to 16 hours of battery life in select modes; however, the main attraction is its ability to alert you of rear-approaching vehicles via the Garmin app or a Garmin Edge computer, which is done using a combination of visual, vibration, and tone alerts.
pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:
Uh-oh. All we need is religion added to the volatile mixture in the powder keg.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/12/21/the-imagery-that-should-scare-the-wealthy/
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Pokémon TCG Pocket's Game-Changing Update And More Of The Week's Big News
The year is wrapping up but the gaming news keeps coming. This week, tales of hurt feelings and anger among some developers and fans of Black Myth: Wukong emerged after it failed to take home Game of the Year honors at this year’s Game Awards. Additionally, the announcement that pricey Killzone skins were coming toHel…
10 excellent shows and movies from 2024 to stream on Max
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Between The Penguin, Dune: Prophecy, and I Saw the TV Glow, Max has you covered when it comes to last-minute streaming options to get you through the holidays.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk Have Energized the German Far-Right
“So where’s my German friends?” Donald Trump asked a fawning Mar-a-Lago crowd on Election Day, before flashing a grin and a thumbs up for a photo with a group of young men. The German friends in question: Fabrice Ambrosini, a former politician forced to resign after a video surfaced of him doing a Hitler salute; […]
Opinion: The Pope wants priests to lighten up
A reflection on the comedy stylings of Pope Francis, who is telling priests to lighten up and not be so dour.
The FDA restricts a psychoactive mushroom used in some edibles
The Food and Drug Administration has told food manufacturers the psychoactive mushroom Amanita muscaria isn't authorized for food, including edibles, because it doesn't meet safety standards.
People power's unfinished work: Can Bangladesh be an exception?
The Wilson Center's Michael Kugelman says that for many Bangladeshis, a successful youth-led mass movement has shattered a long malaise and kindled a newfound optimism about the country's future.