Mastodon Feed: Posts

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
wim_v12e@scholar.social ("Wim🧮") wrote:

I've compiled a short list of anti-AI tools

https://codeberg.org/wimvanderbauwhede/low-carbon-computing/src/branch/master/anti-AI-tools.md

#AI #NoToAI

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
Wileymiller ("Wiley Miller") wrote:

Via WaPo:
"Trump administration says it mistakenly deported Salvadoran migrant
The government blamed “an administrative error” for the accidental deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant married to a U.S. citizen. Officials claim they’re unable to return him to his family in Maryland."

Gee, I wonder if due process might have helped prevent this?

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
kingofark ("Noah Fang") wrote:

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
ScottLucas@journa.host ("Scott Lucas") wrote:

Yes, #Trump is serious about wanting to be "President for Life"

But he is also diverting from serious problems for his Admin: " #SignalGate", signs of economic downturn; and complications over #ElonMusk'attempt to decimate US agencies

The dangerous reality: how Trump will try to be the power behind the Presidency, hoping to rule over the US Government that he is destroying in his second term

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
MeanwhileinCanada@ohai.social ("Meanwhile in Canada") wrote:

The US military base that JD Vance visited in Greenland uses fuel that can only be delivered with the help of Canadian ice breakers.

I noticed he didn't say thank you.

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
br00t4c wrote:

The CDC Has Been Gutted

#CDC #ExpertWarning #ReductionInForce #HIV #LeadPoisoning

https://www.wired.com/story/cdc-gutted-rif/

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
petrillic@hachyderm.io ("Chris Petrilli") wrote:

It’s best to view Trump and Musk as strip mining the country for their personal gain.

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
com ("QC") wrote:

This collaboration between a Tuvan throat singer and a bunch of beatboxers from Baltimore is the album you didn’t know you needed to listen to today.

https://earuprecords.bandcamp.com/album/embodiments

#music #khoomei #beatbox

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

evey damned one of them should hit ‘REPLY ALL’. these supposed computer geniuses cannot even handle managing a friggin’ email list.

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
neauoire@merveilles.town ("Devine Lu Linvega") wrote:

One aspect that I like of the programming language I use daily is its robustness, it'd be hard for it to become unrecoverable.

The language itself relies on a runtime that can be emulated in about 150 lines in most languages(including its own language), and a 2300 bytes self-hosted assembler. There is a bootstrapping toolchain that allows me to recover an assembler from a hex dump on an operating system without `cat`, or `xxd`, or even with an implementation of the runtime without a file system.

I've added a few notes on how it all works:
https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/drifblim#bootstrap

#permacomputing

Boosted by taral ("JP Sugarbroad"):
glent@aus.social ("Glen, now with 100% OPSEC") wrote:

A quick note that the issue with the use of Signal in the infamous Mother of All Group Chats is not encryption. Nor is the Signal program deficient for use by folk like us.

The issue is authorisation (the authority to do a thing) and, specifically, labelling.

Those TOP SECRET stamps you see on TV are labels. Authorisation schemes are all based around labels: people with *this* label can access items with *that* label.

Government information security is awash with labels. Security clearances, nationality, project codewords, compartmental information -- all are labels. The idea being that a person with a Secret clearance, and "cleared" into compartmented information label, and "read into" a codeword project can access the document with labels SECRET//CRYPTO//AWASH HAVEN (and I am absolutely avoiding real-life labels here, because I don't need ASIO at my door waving the Official Secrets Act).

Now you can see how a military group chat will work. Each chat will have a label (say SECRET//BOMBPEOPLE) and people seeking to join that chat will need to have labels which indicate they have a Secret clearance and have been read into the BOMBPEOPLE codeword.

You can also see that if we invite the Editor of The Atlantic to that SECRET//BOMBPEOPLE conversation then the Editor will lack the labels indicating the Secret clearance and BOMBPEOPLE codeword and their attempt to join the group will not be authorised.

Signal, being communications for ordinary folk, doesn't support much authorisation and does not need military-style label-based authorisation, with its labelling of people, communication channels, and information. Imagine the hassle of configuring all those labels just to text your dad.

This is really what is meant when experts say that Signal is not suitable for national security use.

jscalzi@threads.net ("John Scalzi") wrote:

Yes, this is how tariffs actually work, any first-year economics student will tell you this

pzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷") wrote:

Somebody scattered little toy spiders around my office door last night. I like it.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/04/01/i-had-visitors-last-night/

Gargron ("Eugen Rochko") wrote:

Today's mastodon.social update brings some improvements to the video player in Mastodon's web app. You can double-tap the video to enter and exit full screen, the controls will disappear once your mouse stops moving, and a new indicator will show you which function you triggered when you press a hotkey (like "m" to mute or "arrow up" to increase volume).

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

an interesting analysis

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/01/democrats-working-class-voters

Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold"):
rich@social.lol ("Rich") wrote:

this is a fun idea: https://www.aprilcools.club/

Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold"):
darylsun@social.lol ("Daryl Sun") wrote:

Special Edition — Self-Expression:
https://blog.darylsun.page/2025/03/30/se-8-indieweb-carnival-march-2025

Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold"):
andycarolan@social.lol ("Andy Carolan :prami:") wrote:

Custom Profile Pictures — Commissions open!

🌟 A unique profile picture for £30
🌟 Supplied as a 1000x1000px PNG
🌟 Vector version add-on available
🌟 FREE additional Pride background if requested
🌟 4-5 days delivery

#commissionsopen #kofi #icons #avatars

https://ko-fi.com/c/11a46f7c25

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

‘“A year from now people will notice things are missing that used to be there and Doge and others promoting this will say: ‘See, told you government can’t do things’, rather than: ‘We broke it and it got worse,’” he said.

“Noaa staff right now aren’t happy because they don’t know if they will keep their jobs. Work has been made harder for no reason and they are being told they are worthless. No one has even explained why they are doing all of this crap.”’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/trump-cuts-noaa-spam-emails

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
StillIRise1963@mastodon.world wrote:

White does NOT make safe. SO, GET YOUR ASSES IN GEAR.

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
GottaLaff@mstdn.social ("Laffy") wrote:

Good

"Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) says he will put a hold on Trump’s nominees to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs to protest cuts at the agency that provides lifelong healthcare services to military veterans."

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5225064-gallego-trump-va-nominees/

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

“They are trying to gut Medicaid and Medicare, programs on which nearly a third of our country rely – all to pay for tax cuts to billionaires and corporations.
Booker also said social security “is not the government’s money to spend” but the “hard-earned savings of working Americans that belongs to Americans,” adding:

[Donald] Trump and [Elon] Musk need to keep their hands off of money that isn’t theirs to take.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/apr/01/donald-trump-elon-musk-special-elections-florida-wisconsin-texas-arizona-us-politics-live?CMP=share%5Fbtn%5Furl&page=with%3Ablock-67ebdf478f0842b23ea4eee8#block-67ebdf478f0842b23ea4eee8

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
fluidlogic@oldbytes.space ("Amin Girasol") wrote:

Another wonderful interview by @savetz, this time with Tom Zimmerman, part of the four-person team at Atari that worked on the never-released AMY sound chip: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari%5FAMY

Tom comes across as an absolute gentleman.

His description of what the AMY could do is terrific. It synthesised audio using up to 16 oscillators for the fundamental and harmonics to build rich, complex sounds. It could also be run "in reverse"; quoting Wikipedia:

An input sample could be run through a Fast Fourier transform to extract the spectral pattern, and then that pattern could be input to the AMY to set up the oscillators.

Tom contrasts the AMY's design against FM synths like the #YamahaDX7 and sample-based synthesizers.

Tom's words of wisdom at the end of the interview are wonderful too. A recommended listen, even if #Atari isn't your thing.

https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-431-tom-zimmerman-amy-chip

#RetroComputing #SoundSynthesis #LostFutures

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
requiem@hackers.town ("requiem 🦫") wrote:

Ages ago I wrote a post about a new CCC: Create, Consume, Curate. Someday I’ll recover the post from the archives, but the gist was that I think it’s healthy to split your time equally across these three activities.

For me the middle C is the hardest, and if I’m honest I’d rather spend all my time on the first C, but like a balanced diet it takes some discipline lest you suffer the ills of “too much of a good thing”. The world has no shortage of examples of the negative effects of over-indulgence oneself in too much of one C.

It’s one of my favorite of all the things of written, but something I left out was and explicit mention of teaching, and upon reflecting on the subject, I think that was a mistake.

Good teaching incorporates all three C’s, but deliberate teaching is also an essential vitamin and/or mineral to a healthy organism. I really wrote A New CCC from a personal, solitary perspective but a decade or two later I’m much more aware of the importance of acting in the interest of lives beyond one’s own. Teaching, even more than genetics, is what evolves the human animal and our individual failure to prioritize teaching others is at the root of some of the diseases that threaten the future of this particular species.

So people like me, we need to make teaching part of our recommended daily allowance of activities. Adhering to the CCC does this in a passive way, but I believe that what’s needed is an active ingredient as well.

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
wdlindsy@toad.social ("William Lindsey :toad:") wrote:

"President Donald Trump is pushing the economy to a breaking point with sweeping tariffs and rapid cuts to immigration and the federal workforce. There is growing fear of not just a recession but stagflation, a frightful situation — not seen in the United States since the 1970s — in which the economy contracts and people lose jobs but prices remain high.

This is a self-inflicted wound from Trump."

~ Heather Long

#Trump #economy #tariffs #inflation #stagflation
/4

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/03/31/trump-stagflation-recession-tariffs/

Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold"):
sarajw@front-end.social ("Sara Joy :happy_pepper:") wrote:

My State of the Browser talk slides are here:

https://slides.sarajoy.dev/whimsica11y-sotb2025/

Now updated to not include all the uncompressed, bandwidth-hammering videos! All they showed were the websites already linked in the text (apart from one, where I left the video in because the content is otherwise behind a login).

#SotB2025

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
wdlindsy@toad.social ("William Lindsey :toad:") wrote:

"The collapse is coming—and as [Canadian MP] Charlie [Angus] warned, it’s going to hit Americans first. Higher prices. Job losses. Isolation."

#Trump #economy #tariffs #recession #inflation #stagflation #StockMarket #TaxCuts #EconomicElites
/7

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:

Yeah, I know, it's uspol, and I'm still trying to get away from posting about it too much. I just notice recurring tactics in republican attempts at making the US an even more cruel and shitty place that don't seem to be explicitly pointed out when you see news about any particular item.

"Republicans yet again attempt to incentivize their base to attack those they don't like with the promise of court awarded bounties."

Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold"):
andycarolan@social.lol ("Andy Carolan :prami:") wrote:

April fools feels like it’s lost all meaning now. Everything is already ridiculous anyway 🤪

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:

Here's an example in the SAVE act that Republicans are attempting to pass at the federal level in order to disenfranchise voters. In this case they're talking criminal and civil pressure on election workers.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/save-act-republicans-trump-noncitizen-voting

It still feels to me like cases brought under laws like this should get thrown out because of no standing, but since most courts are conservative in nature, I suspect many judges will be gleefully enforcing these pointedly cruel laws.