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Boosted by jwz:
carnage4life@mas.to ("Dare Obasanjo") wrote:

How AI startup acquisitions work in 2025

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

There's only one reason why the data center water consumption debate feels confusing and convoluted. It's the same reason why Hank Green's video does little to sway you in one direction or another, but instead seems to take 24 minutes just to conclude "who's to say?"

The reason is that these companies (OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, etc.) are hiding their data centers' water consumption figures from the public. That's it. Hank's whole argument relies on a single quote from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

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

People are using Hank Green's AI water consumption video to dismiss concerns about AI water consumption.

Hanks video is terrible, by the way. It does nothing but encourage people to bicker over non-existent stats while AI companies continue to build data center kingdoms in poor communities.

Poster 1 quote tweet: hey bro you forgot to put the hashtag for the "how many lies can you make up in one post" contest OPPoster 2: Data centers. They raise our electric bills and steal millions of pure ground water daily. They don't pay for the massive electricity they use. Raising our bills. They use pure ground water, millions of gallons a day to cool the computers. Progress yo! Poster 2: Dumbass Screenshot of search results: Al Overview Yes, data centers use a tremendous amount of water, primarily for cooling their hot servers, with large facilities consuming millions of gallons daily, impacting local water supplies, especially in arid regions, and this usage is increasing with Al growth. This water is used directly for evaporative cooling and indirectly for electricity generation, making data centers significant water consumers, sometimes equivalent to small towns.
Poster 1: shares video of Hank Green water consumption

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Mastodon wrote:

Democracy shouldn’t end at the login screen.

Mastodon is the only major social network that answers to you. As a nonprofit, we’re building a digital commons where transparency, trust, and your participation shape the future.

Help us keep the Fediverse independent and thriving: Donate #SupportMastodon

https://joinmastodon.org/sponsors#donate

A cartoon Mastodon mascot being assembled

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adam@social.lol ("Adam :prami:") wrote:

I’m sure it won’t be long before a white guy shows up to tell me that I’ve misunderstood what happened here, or that I’ve omitted all of the critical *nuance*.

Or that I’m just a “bully” who can’t stop “attacking” someone. Slap whatever labels on me you want, but I won’t stop holding privileged guys with influence to a higher standard.

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adam@social.lol ("Adam :prami:") wrote:

This is what happens when you’re focused more on your brand image than on fostering genuine inclusivity. This is what happens when you’d rather double down on your bad take than reflect and admit that you were wrong.

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Boosted by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
timnitGebru@dair-community.social ("Timnit Gebru (she/her).") wrote:

"The ads, from a company calling itself Replacement AI, feature dark, dystopian taglines."

The ads, from a company calling itself Replacement AI, feature dark, dystopian taglines.

One reads: “AI does your daughter’s homework. Reads her bedtime stories. Romances her. Deepfakes her. Don’t worry. It’s totally legal.” Visitors to the Replacement AI website are greeted with a banner declaring, “Humans are no longer necessary.”

‘Stupid. Smelly. Squishy.’

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/if-this-is-a-joke-the-punchline-is-on-humanity-replacement-ai-blurs-line-between-parody-and-tech-reality/

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adam@social.lol ("Adam :prami:") wrote:

Manton would never engage in censorship, so I guess there’s a bug in Micro.blog that causes critical replies to vanish after a while.

October 3: https://archive.is/zhCQW

Today: https://archive.is/PLUw6

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Boosted by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
timnitGebru@dair-community.social ("Timnit Gebru (she/her).") wrote:

"Pressed on whether marketing an addictive AI chatbot to kids is ethical, Hardin shrugged: “I mean sure, but that’s not really our problem. That’s something parents or maybe lawmakers might want to look into.”

"AI safety" brought to you by the likes of The Future of Life Institute who are now armed with $700m+ thanks to crypto billionaires.

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Boosted by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
pheonix@hachyderm.io ("Windy city") wrote:

Putting this out there for anyone feeling the holiday spirit 🎄

Maintaining open-source software (like my Mozilla extension for YouTube) is a labor of love, but it does take time and energy.

If you have the means to support a small creator this Christmas, even a coffee makes a massive difference in my day!

Sending you all my love and wishing you a happy holidays and Merry Christmas ❤️

https://buymeacoffee.com/ppheonix

#holidays #cake #christmas #xmas #santa #merryChristmas #enshittification #art #music #painting

Meme with soldier as extension protecting a child from YouTube irrelevant search suggestions

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

I've been neglecting Canada because I superficially assumed they would never be as bad as the US.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/12/26/i-thought-canada-was-supposed-to-be-better-than-us/

X Suspended Canada's Clean Electricity Regulations in Alberta X Weakened methane regulations X Scrapped the Oil & Gas Sector Emissions Cap X Abandoned Canada’s consumer carbon pricing system X Ended Canada Greener Homes retrofit program to electrify and improve household efficiency X Ended Canada Greener Homes Loan Program to electrify and improve household efficiency X Ended the Electric Vehicles (iZEV) program X Delayed Canada's Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate X Passed bill C5 ‘Building Canada Act' to allow government to override 12 laws and 7 regulations, including the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, for designated projects X Committed to clawing back Canada’s anti-greenwashing legislation > Announced plans to eliminate a tax on private jets and yachts X Weakened the Alberta industrial carbon price from the $170/tonne it should have been (if the federal government enforced its own policies) to $130/tonne

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chipotle@mstdn.social ("Watts Martin") wrote:

I’m giving up on network Time Machine for now. It not only takes multiple tries to get to work (on the same local network), it looks like if it fails, it starts over *without erasing the failed backup*, so I quickly get 1.5TB backup space used for a single 300GB backup.

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

Give spiders a plentiful food supply, and they cooperate to build vast communal webs.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/12/26/i-wonder-if-we-could-at-least-vacation-in-albania/

Man stands before colonial spider web in a cave

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

From 2005-2010 I had a tendency to use photography to manage being in crowds and events. Being a self-appointed photographer was a way to avoid social interactions I barely understood. But it also means that I can’t really post any of it. So, instead here are some of the few I can post

An overlit photo of a woman walking near the Bristol Downs
New year’s eve in Iceland
A couple walking during new year’s eve
A pair of pigeons are courting, I think

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

These two are unironically a couple of my favourite photos. The window to the old used book store on Hverfisgata created a kind of impromptu collage

A photo of a window, we see a part of a photo of a woman smiling, and the edge of a newspaper clipping
Another photo of the same window, a crop of Marilyn Monroe’s face and a newspaper clipping

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

These photos are from 2008 in Iceland, using a Canon Powershot G9, a lovely little camera that I wish I still had.

Two people in the distance stand on the edge of a steep cliff.
A black and white photo of gulls flying along a cliff that borders the picture
A very blue photo of a rock in the middle of the ocean.
A horse portrait. The horse is very horse-y

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

These are from 2006 and show that I’ve always enjoyed this whole grotty blurry vibe 3/3

A very blurry photo of a pigeon flying among trees
A motion-blurred photo of a pigeon in flight in Bristol city centre.

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

The last major photographic project I did in 2010 was for my friend Tom Abba, documenting the production of one of his projects. The photos I enjoy the most from that were the ones that are blurry and weird and silhouetted, which has always been a recurring theme for me 2/3

A motion-blurred photo of somebody in a doorway
A bunch of set crew edge lit as they work on a shot.
Through a gap between two pieces of wood, we can see the backs of the actors
The final scene for the project. Underlit and blurry, the actor waves goodbye.

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

My “iPhone era” didn’t result in that many photos because I had hit a crisis point in my photography in 2010 or thereabouts, followed by a similar crisis in my writing in 2013. I no longer knew what any of this was for, or why I was doing it, so I did less of both until around 2017-8. 1/3

The photo is of snow falling. People and buildings happen to be in the background

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Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
christopherkunz@chaos.social ("Dr. Christopher Kunz") wrote:

Youtube did the right thing and resolved my complaint within a few hours. And they decided that the clearly fraudulent ad is... not fraudulent.

Way to go, Youtube. Way to go.

It's a little bit ironic that this ad got shown to me while watching @pluralistic on the Daily Show, in anticipation of meeting him on #39C3.

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

RE: https://toot.cafe/@baldur/115745486395487987

I’ve continued to report the gambling ads on YouTube over the past week and two things have happened: now 9 out of 10 reports come back acknowledging the ad was in violation of ad policies; and I don’t know if they’ve paused their ads or tuned their targeting but at least I’m not seeing them anymore

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Boosted by ratatui_rs@fosstodon.org ("Ratatui"):
orhun@fosstodon.org ("Orhun Parmaksız 👾") wrote:

The wait is over! 📢
We are excited to announce the NEW version of **Ratatui**! 👨‍🍳🐁

🦀 A Rust library for cooking up TUIs (@ratatui_rs)

🌠 Added "no_std" support for embedded targets, modularized architecture, major widget & layout upgrades!

🧀 Highlights: https://ratatui.rs/highlights/v030

➡️ Our new website: https://ratatui.rs

⭐ GitHub: https://github.com/ratatui/ratatui

#rustlang #tui #ratatui #library #terminal #commandline #opensource #release

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

important to understand here how tech product design + PR + investor relations exist in a feedback loop for companies like this. Waymo steadfastly refuses to admit they need remote human operators and gives them what seems like a weird bad interface for it, in the hopes that that more indirect labor can in turn be automated later. this is all because they don't know this whole experiment will ever work. so don't give them the slightest bit of benefit-of-the-doubt!
https://gizmodo.com/waymo-released-a-revealing-postmortem-on-its-san-francisco-blackout-meltdown-2000702801

It seems very important to Waymo’s brand to not ever allow the impression that Waymos are ever remotely driven. What Waymo has instead of “remote drivers” or “teleoperators” is called “fleet response,” a Waymo blog post says. When the Waymo Driver encounters a truly heterogeneous driving situation, it sends out for human feedback, which we’re not supposed to think of as a bailout.

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

When Will My Pornographic Shrek Christmas Ornament Arrive?:

"I had been shopping for a tree topper online when I stumbled into the strange world of AI generated pornographic custom ornaments starring popular cartoon characters listed on sites of dubious repute."

What a time to be alive. https://www.404media.co/weird-disney-shrek-etsy-christmas-tree-ornaments/

Shrek sitting on a chair in a wooden buggy with what appears to be Fiona kneeling in front of him.

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

"People are leaving Spotify, and those who aren’t seem embarrassed about using it. Major artists pulled their music off the platform this year in protest of the company’s ICE recruitment ads and connections to military drones, and posting your Wrapped stats has gone from a ubiquitous year-end pastime to a cultural faux pas."
https://www.404media.co/why-i-quit-streaming-and-got-back-into-cassettes/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
EuromaidanPress ("Euromaidan Press") wrote:

Turkey shot down a Russian drone with an F-16 after three separate incursions near Istanbul and defense facilities in days.

Ankara signals continued violations could trigger Bosphorus restrictions - 20% of Russia's oil exports flow through there.

🔗https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/12/26/frontline-report-2025-12-25/

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

You do not want to cross the Shadow Dom…

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

When we offer care and support to people facing any of life’s myriad challenges, we lift ourselves up at the same time.

#quote #justice #kindness #leadership

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." ~ FDR, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1937.

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

Noemia Prada

#photograpy

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

“It’s colder than a corporate apology.”

- @CARROT