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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
thetnholler.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy ("The Tennessee Holler ") wrote:

ALASKA LAWMAKERS (1 Republican, 1 Independent): “This is not about partisanship… Our focus is squarely on the survival of the people we represent. The benefits of Medicaid & SNAP permeate the entire fabric of the Alaska economy.” #TrumpsTrillionsTransfer www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/o...

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

5/ Vance:

And a little side snark— the next time MAGA wants to, say, ban access to medication abortion on a nationwide basis, this will apply to them too. I’m off to study for decision, but you’ve got the broad contours.

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz ("John Carlos Baez") wrote:

Great! A bunch of us here wanted it. Now it exists. 👍

It's a "dark archive" of the arXiv - a non-public backup to save the data in case of attack by hackers or the US government. The arXiv, I hope you know, is the biggest source of modern math and physics papers.

Who got the job done? The TIB: the Technische Informationsbibliothek, run by the Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology, in Hannover, Germany.

They write:

"The TIB has now set up a so-called dark archive for the arXiv content in order to be able to make the backed-up data accessible if the data stored in the USA is lost. The archive functions as a silent reserve: the complete copy of the content is stored decentrally at the TIB, but is not publicly accessible. This means that the data stock – almost 10 terabytes – is protected against potential outages and can be activated in an emergency.

The TIB is currently working on processes to keep the archive up to date: new submissions and updated versions must be backed up regularly in order to preserve the state of research as completely as possible.

“Building a Dark Archive is an expression of our longstanding commitment for a reliable, international academic provision, and as a partner of arXiv. Even though the Dark Archive today only works in the background, it is a key element in safeguarding digital research contents in the long term, because in case of a crisis, we could open the archive,” explains Dr Irina Sens, Deputy Director of the TIB."

We should call it the darXiv.

More details here:

https://blog.tib.eu/2025/05/14/protecting-science-tib-builds-dark-archive-for-arxiv/

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
charlotteclymer ("Charlotte Clymer") wrote:

"Hegseth’s take on the operation was a literal erasure of the woman involved, of course, but it was his doubling down that it’s fine to refer to a woman as 'a boy' that raised eyebrows."

https://charlotteclymer.substack.com/p/a-woman-is-a-woman-until-shes-a-boy

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

7/ Brad Moss:

Republicans have to just hope they never lose control of the White House or they are going to HATE this SCOTUS ruling gutting nationwide injunctions.

It was just as commonly used by conservatives to upend Biden's policies through lower court injunctions issued by overly-conservative judges.

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

6/ Elie Mystal:

The main upshot of today's birthright citizenship ruling (that I'm still making way through) seems to be that each person victimized by an unconstitutional Trump order has to pretty much sue individually.
Trump is free to act unconstitutionally to everybody individually.

Also, all you liberals who were humping Amy Coney Barrett last month really should have listened to me when I told you SHE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
infobeautiful@vis.social ("Information Is Beautiful") wrote:

The world’s solar capacity reached 1,419 gigawatts in 2023, way beyond any predictions. 1 gigawatt = power for a medium sized city

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
ProPublica@newsie.social wrote:

States Fear Critical Funding From FEMA May Be Drying Up
—

Many states rely on the federal government for the vast majority of their emergency management funding. Now, local leaders are looking for clues about the money — and the future of FEMA itself.
https://www.propublica.org/article/fema-grants-trump-emergencies?utm%5Fsource=mastodon&utm%5Fmedium=social&utm%5Fcampaign=mastodon-post

#News #FEMA #Hurricane #Disaster #Emergency #Government #Trump

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

"Because DOJ has made directly contradictory statements on this issue in the last 18 hours, and because we cannot put any faith in any representation made on this issue by the DOJ, we respectfully request to delay the issuance of the release order until the July 16 hearing on the government’s motion for revocation."

https://mstdn.social/@GottaLaff/114755603213942728

wow, sking to be *kept* in jail to avoid being kidnapped

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

Interview: “A Clown Show”: CDC panel fired & stacked with anti-vaxxers

"Anti-vaccine activists have been shouting from the sidelines for decades. Now they’re making policy".

~Dr. Paul Offit, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is withdrawing U.S. funding for the world’s preeminent international vaccine organization, Gavi, which has prevented nearly 19 million future deaths.

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/6/26/trump%5Fadministration%5Fvaccinations%5Frfk

#Anti-Vax #RFKJr #Trump #USPol #GAVI #CDC .

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
JessTheUnstill@infosec.exchange ("Jess👾") wrote:

A colleague made the analogy that using an AI to assist your code basically means you're moving from a developer to doing code review of a junior developer all the time. But without any of the upsides of doing code review of a junior developer - like helping them improve their understanding of the project, improving their skills, building relationships.

Oh sure, they may be able to spit out "good enough" code when you can tightly contain the specs of what you want them to do, when you have a very good understanding of what you are wanting them to do, and how the solution should look.

But unlike when I work to improve my own skills in a language and codebase, where it's my own skills and knowledge getting better, and in a durable way I can carry from place to place, all I've really "learned" is how to instruct some SaaS tool how to do something at this moment in time. But next month, they might change the model to the point my prompts no longer work. Or they might run out of venture capital and shutter their products entirely. Or the company might decide to stop paying for the product so I can't use it anymore. Or government regulators could shut it down. When I know something, I know something.

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

just in case you have forgotten how long Russia has been waging this insane war against Ukraine

https://igm.rit.edu/~jxs/media/streaming/ObamaUkraine.mp4

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
texttheater ("Kilian Evang") wrote:

> On November 28th, 2012, Randall Munroe published an xkcd comic that was a calendar in which the size of each date was proportional to how often each date is referenced by its ordinal name (…) "In months other than September, the 11th is mentioned substantially less often than any other date. It's been that way since long before 9/11 and I have no idea why." After digging into the raw data, I believe I have figured out why.

https://drhagen.com/blog/the-missing-11th-of-the-month/

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
ljs@mastodonapp.uk ("Lorenzo Stoakes") wrote:

the 'k' in printk stands for 'king of debugging'

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

Your favorite licensing model wants to sell your art to AI bros? That's really shitty and unethical.

Time for a fresh start!

:neocat_gun: https://cyberlicense.org/

Let's start doing it right together, without greed, without corporations, without AI bullshit.

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
ParadeGrotesque@mastodon.sdf.org ("Parade du Grotesque 💀") wrote:

When I got started in computer baby-sitting, I met a very old, grizzled IBM engineer.

The one lesson he imparted and that still resonates with me was this: "Never trust a computer to keep a secret, ESPECIALLY a computer connected to a network (any kind of network). If you want to keep a secret, write it on a piece of paper and keep that paper in a safe".

I think of that one often.

https://jorts.horse/@AnarchoNinaWrites/114751470630905850

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
wingo ("Andy Wingo") wrote:

such a good point by signal's meredith whittaker about the threat posed by "agentic ai" to the sort of security boundaries we have spent our lives building
https://bsky.app/profile/keithfitzgerald.bsky.social/post/3lsjkat7sjk2w

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

But somehow reframing the question as an act of imagination of somebody helps shine a light on things and maybe provides a hope of imagining better things. It reminds us to keep our eyes on the goals *we* have instead of being pushed around to accommodate the goals of others.

The next time you're disillusioned with something (e.g. tech), maybe ask yourself "Whose imagination are we living in?"

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

Ever since listening to this podcast with Dr. Timnit Gebru[1]:

https://www.techpolicy.press/through-to-thriving-honoring-our-elders-with-dr-timnit-gebru/

I've had the question "Whose imagination are we living in?" echoing through my mind. It's a question that is applicable in so many places in our lives. In the past, I've already observed how structures of organization and various incentives affects the tech we make and the policies we write...

[1] https://dair-community.social/@timnitGebru

rust@social.rust-lang.org ("Rust Language") wrote:

Rust 1.88.0 has been released! ✨🎊 🦀

This release brings you let chains, naked functions, automatic Cargo cache cleaning, Cell::update, proc_macro span locations, various as_chunks methods on slices, and more!

Check out the blog post and release notes for all the details: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2025/06/26/Rust-1.88.0/

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
m2m@sonomu.club ("Simone S") wrote:

Surveillance as a Service.

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Went to two frontend conferences in as many days, and learned a lot; not all of it what the presenters hoped I'd take away:

https://infrequently.org/2025/06/conferences-clarity-and-smokescreens/

Boosted by jwz:
jwz wrote:

@mark
"stares in infosec"

Yeah well, I think this is a "two kinds of people" situation.

1: The computer is a tool that I own. It is a force amplifier of my will. When I say, "Give me a void* to the frame buffer", that's just *table stakes*. It does that, or it does not *belong* to me.

2: You own nothing, computers are appliances for access to corporate services. You must be prevented from exploiting their full capabilities at all costs. It's for your own good: you might do something illegal!

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

One more thing- reading these old blogs it's wild to think that #Facebook was once considered a fairly "private" platform, so much that it was a selling point for some.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090213175451/www.webmonkey.com/blog/OpenSocial%5FIs%5FDoomed:%5FMarc%5FCuban%5Fs%5FFacebook-Yahoo%5FMashup%5FFantasies

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

Anyway. It's late. I'm rambling. End of thread.

Here's a picture of a cup of coffee I made this morning in my favorite mug gifted to me by my niece.

I made the Cuban-style coffee in my moka pot :)

https://fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/the-bliss-of-good-enough-an-ode-to-my-moka-pot/

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

Looking back, no one could've predicted just how good Facebook would become at data mining our personal information.

Would opening Facebook up so that social activity is indexable on Google help prevent the surveillance capitalist system we have today? Surely not.

Knowing what we know now, do we *really* want our posts, likes, comments, and shares available for anyone to quantify, analyze, use against us etc?

Is that the same as open accessible knowledge on the web? I don't think so.

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

It's facisnating to see how the #OpenWeb ideology was formed in the late aughts. Technologists and early Internet tech personalities have long believed in open and free information.

That's great for academia, and the accumulation of humanity's knowledge. But when we extend that ideology to personal data we end up with what we have now.

Open Web evangelists criticizing early Facebook for being *too private* is an incredible heap of irony.

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

> I wanted to clarify my comments about Facebook’s similarities to AOL. I don’t think Facebook is a bad company or that they won’t be successful; they seem like smart passionate people who genuinely care about making a great space for their users

No shade to Kottke but this sounds exactly like what people are saying about #Bluesky right now.

https://kottke.org/07/07/facebook-vs-aol-redux

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

> Eventually, someone will come along and turn Facebook inside-out, so that instead of custom applications running on a platform in a walled garden, applications run on the internet, out in the open, and people can tie their social network into it if they want, with privacy controls, access levels, and alter-egos galore.

That didn't really happen but Kottke was right about the AOL comparison

https://kottke.org/07/06/facebook-is-the-new-aol

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

Reading vintage tech blogs is my love language