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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
Soweitsogut@troet.cafe ("Schauinsland") wrote:

BREAKING: #Hungary explodes with MASSIVE protests against Russian-backed Orban government. Peter #Magyar is demolishing #Orban in the polls and if there’s a free election, Putin loses his puppet. Protesters flooding streets openly defying Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin demanding an end to authoritarianism.

Mainstream media barely touching this story - the world must see it.

https://substack.com/@reallyamerican/note/c-170140076?

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

"But Earth Day events had been planned for more than a year and had organizational support from labor unions, hundreds of universities and thousands of public schools, some state and local governments, and even a few companies. This year’s ‘No Kings’ protests, pulled together in these past few months, were the most significant mass events in the lifetimes of most of today’s Americans."

#NoKings #NewYorkTimes
/2

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

"Seven million people show up, but don’t make the front page.

Last weekend, the largest collection of public gatherings in modern US history took place, across all 50 states.

Only once in all of American history have more people turned out in demonstrations on a single day. That was on April 22, 1970, as part of the original Earth Day movement."

~ James Fallows

#NoKings #NewYorkTimes
/1

https://fallows.substack.com/p/putting-the-public-back-in-public

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
jrychter ("Jan Rychter") wrote:

A while ago I bought several Apple wireless charger pads (Qi/Magsafe). But I didn't buy them directly from Apple. After rather surprising issues (one broke, one makes noises while charging, some do not charge AirPods, etc) I finally decided to open one up.

They are fakes. Unbelievably convincing fakes. With perfect packaging.

Here are quick pictures of the fake USB plug and mainboard, and what the originals should look like.

From now on, I'm only ever buying Apple stuff directly from Apple.

Fake board
Fake USB plug
Original board
Original USB plug

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

Fall walk around the reservoir. High contrast. Nice light.

This photo captures a tranquil autumn landscape featuring a partially dried lake surrounded by trees in rich fall colors. Golden leaves frame the scene on both sides, while the remaining patches of water reflect the bright blue sky and scattered white clouds above. The sunlight filters through the trees, highlighting the textures of the rocky shoreline and the contrasting greens and browns of the exposed lakebed. It’s a peaceful moment that conveys the quiet beauty of late fall as the season begins to turn toward winter.
A graceful mute swan glides across rippling blue water in this close-up photo. Its white feathers contrast sharply with the dark, textured surface of the pond, while its orange bill and distinctive black facial markings stand out in profile. The soft light and gentle waves give the scene a serene, painterly quality, capturing a quiet moment of natural elegance.
This photo captures a calm autumn afternoon by a lake, framed by trees with leaves turning shades of gold and rust. In the foreground, a few remaining brown leaves cling to branches, while across the water, the opposite shore glows with fall foliage under bright sunlight. Puffy white clouds drift through a vivid blue sky, reflected softly on the lake’s surface below. The scene conveys a peaceful sense of seasonal transition, with the stillness of the water contrasting the lively textures and colors of the changing trees.

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
javensbukan@mstdn.ca wrote:

👏 Stop. Going. To. The. US. 👏

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/u-s-photograph-border-9.6953627

#boycottusa

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
N4JAW@mastodon.radio ("Jim "Ham on a Bike"") wrote:

Quick #amateurradio #hamradio CW #morsecode #pota #parksontheair activation with repaired @qrplabs #qrp #qrpradio #qcxmini 20 meter transceiver. Got 11 contacts coast to coast in17 minutes. Shazam

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

Flying on Space-A looks like an interesting, no-frills way to travel.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/26/my-grandson-is-flying-to-south-korea/

My grandson Knut, flying back to South Korea for a while

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Boosted by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
ErosBlog@kinkycats.org ("ErosBlog Bacchus") wrote:

@fromjason It was the original kindle -- and, three replacements later, I have to discipline it by keeping it permanently in Airplane mode so it doesn't do things I don't want.

There have been half a dozen things developed more recently that I WANT, but that big tech won't sell me without unwanted surveillance cruft tacked on. For example, real time blood sugar monitoring. Likewise personal EKG machines.

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

Someone knows how to do Hallowe'en right.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/26/put-to-shame/

fabulous halloween display

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

Look, I've given RSC a hard time — for at least 3 years it featured viral client-side dependency ambush, it generally makes code harder to factor and reason about, and doesn't add anything useful to the toolbox except to make RPCs slower — but JFC, this takes the bloody cake:

https://marma.dev/articles/2025/when-perfect-code-fails

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jwz wrote:

I had a great idea for December Cyberdelia, which was to do a screening of the Star Wars Holiday Special, the whole thing, commercials and all, because even people who have "seen" it probably haven't made it to the end, and definitely not while drunk in a nightclub. But then someone wisely pointed out:
...
https://jwz.org/b/ykw9

Screenshot

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Gargron ("Eugen Rochko") wrote:

I added some of my more recent photos to my portfolio, in case you missed them when I shared them on here. Best viewed on a large screen.

https://eugenrochko.com/

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Boosted by jwz:
ansuz@social.cryptography.dog ("ansuz / ऐरन") wrote:

I was just looking at my webserver logs while sipping coffee (as one does) and I noticed that one of my websites was receiving requests for a js file which I had prototyped but never actually deployed.

The script tag is present in the page, but it's commented out. I investigated, and it seems that scrapers see that tag and are trying to grab it even though it's completely non-functional. I guess they just want every bit of code they can find to help train an LLM.

This seems like a promising pattern for catching scrapers that pretend to be normal browsers.

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Boosted by isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:"):
altomare@oldbytes.space ("Altomare") wrote:

Some neat info about 70s hard drive contaminants.

From the DEC RK05 disk drive maintenance manual (DEC-00-HRK05-C-D)

#retrocomputing #dec

""Relationship of Disk Head, Disk, and Contaminants" Graph showing a side/cutoff view of hard drive reading head over the platter, with size comparisons: * Space between the head & platter: 100µ * Smoke particle: 250µ * Fingerprint smudge: no unit but it's drawn twice as big as the smoke particle * Lint & dust: no unit either, 4 times bigger(ish) than the smudge * Humar hair: .004" The oxide layer on the disk is 200µ wid

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Boosted by jwz:
jplebreton ("JP") wrote:

the way so many outlets write about "AI" is so incredibly irresponsible. they'll take a story about a study that showed a majority of people in a field say it's making everything worse with no upside and then still spin it like "this is controversial! but it's here to stay. it's already happened. and the c-suite loves it" like you clowns writing this drivel are class traitors, think for a second about what you are doing here and ask if you're really going to be spared for acting like their pet.

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Boosted by jwz:
cliffle@hachyderm.io wrote:

Many Unix tar programs leak uninitialized data into unused portions of the file. This is not unusual for C programs (unfortunately). The leaked data is usually just repetition of earlier files, so it wasn't obviously useful for anything.

Until I noticed that optimizations to tar programs tended to change _which_ earlier data was leaked.

Turns out, you can use this behavior to fingerprint the tar implementation pretty precisely in some cases.

A screenshot of terminal output showing a hex dump of the final sector of a tar file, noting that it contains excess data. It points out that the excess data mirrors other data exactly 20 blocks back, and opines that this is likely a result of pdtar or early GNU tar.
A screenshot of terminal output showing a hex dump of the final sector of a tar file, noting that it contains excess data. It points out that the excess data mirrors other data exactly 20 blocks back, and opines that this is likely a result of V7 Unix-derived tar code.

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Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam :prami:"):
jon@henshaw.social ("Jon Henshaw") wrote:

New LEGO set just dropped

White House LEGO set with the East Wing destroyed

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Boosted by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
Nickiquote@mstdn.social wrote:

Sometimes people just want to be able to complain about Windows or iOS without being told about Linux.

Maybe it’s a work computer and it’s not their choice. Maybe they’re not a computer toucher and do not have confidence touching computers. Maybe they were perfectly happy using these OSs before some stupid new feature was introduced. Maybe they’re tired or stressed or have no time.

If the obvious reply to the post is “use Linux”, as a rule, do not post that. You are not adding anything.

A comic strip featuring two characters. The left panel shows the first character shushing another while holding their lips closed, while the right panel depicts the same characters with the first character continuing: "LET PEOPLE COMPLAIN."

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

Capitalism doesn't make products anymore, just tracking devices with the indicator light taped over, and the hero's journey plot printed on its packaging. 

#AI #Google #Meta

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

daKid and hubby are headed back to Toronto after a short but sweet visit with us this weekend. I miss her, and I must remember we will see each other a lot more now than when they were living in Nashville.

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
abraxas3d@mastodon.radio ("Abraxas3d W5NYV") wrote:

Here’s a figure from an upcoming article about optimizing Synchronization Words in radio signals.

Another solid contribution to open source digital radio from your friends at @OpenResearchIns 🙂

Article will discuss Barker codes, concatenated Barker codes, maximum length sequences and truncations, Zadoff-Chu sequences, metrics of sync words, and how we chose the sync words for Opulent Voice. See the draft article in ORI's next newsletter.

Sign up at https://www.openresearch.institute/newsletter-subscription/

Visualization of three results. First, when you use a maximum length sequence, produced by a linear feedback shift register, in a situation where it's a one-shot synchronization attempt, you don't get a good result. This is because there are lots of matches for the pattern throughout all the offsets.  The offsets come from when you have a pattern you are looking for, and you are monitoring an incoming received data stream. These are false matches, which are equivalent to having high side lobes to a main lobe in an antenna. You might be tempted to point your antenna towards signals in the high side lobes. The second graph shows how a concatenated Barker Code works. It's got a solid high main lobe when the stored pattern matches up exactly with the pattern in the received data stream. But there are a couple of sidelobes that peak up. If there was also a lot of noise, then one of those might give you a false alarm.  At the bottom of the graph is the brute-force search sequence. 24 bits that only give a solid 24 bits match at the exact center, when the alignment is perfect. Otherwise, only 3 bits match. This is a great sync word. It's the best we can get, because we did an exhaustive search.  Use this one to find the edges of your frame!

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

When was the last time a piece of tech actually changed your life?

Sometime in the last ten-fifteen years, Silicon Valley stopped making products we want, and instead, will manufacture endless versions of the same tracking device.

It is easier, and perhaps more profitable, to make surveillance tech with a good story and a large marketing budget, than it is to make actually useful things.

#BigTech #Google #Meta

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Boosted by ChrisWere@toot.wales ("Chris Werewolf ⁂🐧🌱☕ 🎃💀🕸🐺"):
chris@video.thepolarbear.co.uk ("Chris Were but on PeerTube") wrote:

My Newsboat + Lynx browser setup

https://video.thepolarbear.co.uk/w/gQ9pCFCgmcihC67rnMMhUz

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Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
interfluidity@zirk.us ("Steve Randy Waldman") wrote:

building a giant golden ballroom while cutting SNAP has very Marie Antoinette vibes.

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

Nice try, Threads, but I'm not going to look at the "For You" feed no matter how often you try to default me back to it, "Following" is my happy place here

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

The least surprising bit of news in a very long time

RE: https://www.threads.com/@hollywoodreporter/post/DQR7N0eEh57

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Boosted by jscalzi@threads.net ("John Scalzi"):
jococruise@threads.net ("JoCo Cruise") wrote:

Our next JoCo Cruise 2026 featured guest is Amal El-Mohtar, an award-winning writer of poetry, criticism and short fiction. She won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards for her short story “Seasons of Glass and Iron” and again for her novella This Is How You Lose the Time War, written with Max Gladstone, which also won the BSFA and Aurora awards & became a New York Times bestseller. Learn more about her here: https://monkeylink.co/389f21

Photo by JoCo Cruise on October 26, 2025. May be a cartoon of magazine and text that says 'FEATURED GUEST sofa CRUISE 2026 AMAL MALEL-MOHTAR EL EL-MOHTAR'.

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baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

Leftover pic from this week

Slight hints of misty steam over a yellowing landscape, with a few trees scattered here and there

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

Half-assing our halloween decorating.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/26/halloween-decorating-done/

inflatable spider