Mastodon Feed: Posts

Boosted by jwz:
sil ("Stuart Langridge") wrote:

@firefoxwebdevs it would be nice if the "AI kill switch" had:
a list of each of the models used, what for, and whether they're trained on open data, each having a "disable this" switch
a thing right at the top of the list which says "I don't care, kill all this AI stuff"

but that would require putting a list of all the different things that Firefox is now using AI for and whether each is using fair models or not, which I suspect a lot of management won't want to document clearly to users

Boosted by jwz:
zzt@mas.to ("[object Object]") wrote:

@firefoxwebdevs neither translations nor any LLM feature have any business being built into Firefox. they should all be add-ons, at best. preferably add-ons developed by any other company than Mozilla. nobody wanted their donations to go to this crap.

like with translations, anyone who feels like they need LLM horseshit in their browser is very likely already using an implementation other than the one built into Firefox.

Boosted by jwz:
zzt@mas.to ("[object Object]") wrote:

@firefoxwebdevs jonah, I hate to break it to you and the LLM shaped like a product manager that’s setting the agenda for your meetings, but the only time I hear about Firefox translations in any context is when Mozilla PMs try to hold it up as an example of an ethical, low-resource, useful AI feature so they can convince to be a fan of the worthless LLM shit they’re actually there to push

the reason why I don’t hear about translations otherwise is simple: it’s shit

Boosted by jwz:
inthehands@hachyderm.io ("Paul Cantrell") wrote:

The vibe is not even the sort of “excessive show of force” vibe you get when militarized law enforcement goes off the rails and starts rioting. (I live in Minneapolis. I’m quite familiar with what •that• looks like.)

This is more like…hundreds of high school gym bullies get all hopped up on Red Bull and decided to take daddy’s SUV on a joy ride to randomly kidnap the first brown person they can corner…but only if nobody’s watching.

5/

Boosted by jwz:
inthehands@hachyderm.io ("Paul Cantrell") wrote:

What do I want you to know, watching from far away?

I want you to know that if you are not hearing about ICE swarming all the hell over my city, you are not hearing the actual news.

I want you to know that if all you see is video of ICE marching off Very Dangerous Criminals in an orderly and authoritative way, you are not hearing the actual news.

I want you to know that these turds act tough, but run away • every • time • they think too many people are watching or there might be video.

4/

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

The corruption, the bipartisan complicity, the imperialist greed, the bigotry and xenophobia. The massive inequality that lets the wealthy own everything. The hollowing out of journalism and education. The surveillance, the lack of privacy. Oil companies in charge of foreign policy. Out of control cops and police budgets. Fucking genocide. Pogroms against vulnerable people. There was a literal pedophilia and sex trafficking ring connected to people at the highest levels of power!

Boosted by jwz:
BenCotterill ("ʙᴇɴ ᴄᴏᴛᴛᴇяɪʟʟ") wrote:

UK urged to cut out US Big Tech for sake of digi sovereignty • The Register https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/06/uk%5Furged%5Fto%5Funplug%5Ffrom/

Boosted by ChrisWere@toot.wales ("Chris Were ⁂🐧🌱☕"):
hacknorris@mstdn.social wrote:

honestly. what is better?

#gameDev #ai

ChrisWere@toot.wales ("Chris Were ⁂🐧🌱☕") wrote:

Another voice not from yours truly. More thoughts and responses from listeners about quitting #YouTube.

View them all at
https://chriswere.wales/voicenotes

Attachments:

• audio: A voice not, where I chat about quitting Youtube.

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

We're all being held hostage by this demented maniac.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/01/06/a-stupid-person-is-in-control-of-the-us/

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

The future of news is happening where no one is looking » Nieman Journalism Lab:

"I spend a lot of time in Haitian and immigrant communities across the United States. In Brooklyn, Miami, Chicago, and the Midwest, I keep seeing the same thing: the people keeping their communities informed aren’t reporters. They’re the pastor who delivers immigration updates before the sermon. The barber who streams local politics on Facebook ... https://micro.fromjason.xyz/2026/01/06/the-future-of-news-is.html

isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:") wrote:

"the chatbot itself apologized while its maker, xAI, remained silent" — this is nonsense. The chatbot is a product and a tool of its maker, it doesn't have agency. The output it produces is legally produced by the maker.

Journalists subconsciously (or consciously!) anthropomorphizing chatbots are helping to remove this accountability.

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

As opposed to being a new "industrialisation", it really looks like we're dealing with a wholesale looting of an economy, end-to-end, from schools to the office. The bubble is a convenient mechanism for this but might not be necessary as you can still suck education and healthcare dry after the pop

So, I don't think the "AI" Bubble and the world's current political woes can be separated. They are two sides of the same project and I don't think you can beat one without also beating the other.

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

I've been hesitant to predict the end of the "AI" financial bubble because I'm not convinced that a bubble pop will even slow down the push for "AI"

The US gov's "AI" efforts provide cover for dismantling education and science and funnel all that money to cronies and oligarchs

"AI" is a convenient story that lets them, effectively, turn education and science into a money hose for oligarchs while at the same time destroying the infrastructure of inconvenience that are schools and universities.

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

Happy All Traitors to the US Constitution Can Fuck Off Into the Sun Day, I hope it is a blessed day for you

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

“Code is a liability (not an asset)”

https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/06/1000x-liability/

Maybe if Cory says it people will listen

> Meanwhile, "software engineering" is a discipline that subsumes "writing code," but with a focus on the long-term operations of the system the code is part of

Writing code forces you to pay some attention to the practice of software engineering. Delegating that to a statistical model lets your software engineering skills degrade until they have the substance and integrity of a wet fart

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

Also, the three "Beatles" songs released after John Lennon's death (the last after Harrison's death) are not, to my mind, Beatles songs, they're songs that happen to have all the Beatles performing on them:

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2023/11/02/that-new-last-beatles-song/

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

As someone mentioned in the comments, not the Beatles without John and George and shouldn't be advertised as such, but if they toured with Julian Lennon and Dhani Harrison, I'd buy a ticket.

RE: https://www.threads.com/@joe%5Fhill/post/DTKmB6JjvVz

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

"The ceasefire did what it was meant to do – make Gaza invisible"

"It became clear to me that the real goal of the ceasefire was not to stop the violence or death, nor to protect people or limit bloodshed & genocide."

"The real goal was to stop the world from talking about Gaza.. the crimes being committed there.. the daily suffering of people."

"Mass death in Gaza continues."

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2026/1/2/the-ceasefire-did-what-it-was-meant-to-do-make-gaza-invisible

#GazaGenocide #USPol #EuroPol #FakeCeasefire #press #racism #palestine @palestine .

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
thejapantimes ("The Japan Times") wrote:

U.S. President Donald Trump's "Donroe Doctrine" essentially claims a U.S. right to lead the entire Western Hemisphere, and to control any critical assets within it. To Trump, that includes Greenland. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/01/06/world/politics/trump-greenland-nato-europe/?utm%5Fmedium=Social&utm%5Fsource=mastodon #worldnews #politics #us #nato #europe #venezuela #donaldtrump #nicolasmaduro #greenland

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

good point

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

Happy Anniversary! (not)

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

JFC

“Holdings from the library at the Goddard Space Flight Center, which includes unique documents from the early 20th century to the Soviet space race, will be warehoused or thrown out.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/climate/nasa-goddard-library-closing.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

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

a sad end for a valuable institution. Franklin would have been appalled

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/business/media/corporation-for-public-broadcasting.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
PavelASamsonov ("Pavel A. Samsonov") wrote:

VCs fund companies who get on the latest hype train. Solving a real user problem is a secondary concern; "product market fit" is seen as something you do only after you build, a sales problem.

But when the product doesn't solve any real problems, showing "progress" to your board is impossible!

So managers invent metrics. Many people are going to come back to the office this week and set goals based on what activity is easiest to measure, rather than what is important.

https://productpicnic.beehiiv.com/p/your-metrics-are-an-avoidance-strategy

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

New configuration manager in town! 🚨🐁

🌀 **dotstate** — A modern & secure dotfile manager TUI

💯 Sync configs via GitHub, manage profiles, auto-handle symlinks and keep backups.

🦀 Written in Rust & built with @ratatui_rs

⭐ GitHub: https://github.com/serkanyersen/dotstate
➡️ Website: https://dotstate.serkan.dev

#rustlang #ratatui #tui #dotfiles #terminal #devtools #productivity #opensource

Attachments:

• gifv: 72db27983d8a90ca.mp4

Boosted by db@social.lol ("David Bushell ☕"):
simon@bne.social ("Simon Elvery") wrote:

I like to use a 'linear calendar' (there must be a more canonical name for this format) to plan out my year on paper. There are a few ready-made PDFs floating around, but I was unsatisfied with them all so I made my own. Customise and print it here: https://elvery.net/linear-calendar-generator/

I recommend printing at A3 if you have the tools.

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

I did get a little bit obsessed by the branch that hung over the river yesterday. #photos #iceland #winter

db@social.lol ("David Bushell ☕") wrote:

did you know Chromium default stylesheet applies `opacity: 0.7` to `select:disabled` ...how did I never notice before!

https://codepen.io/dbushell/pen/ZYOWOGq

https://github.com/chromium/chromium/blob/main/third%5Fparty/blink/renderer/core/html/resources/html.css#L967C9-L967C22

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

Another angle on yesterday's raven pair, this time during a quieter moment. #photos #iceland #bird #birds #raven