Mastodon Feed: Posts

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

Fascinating machine work. If I didn't have to go to work I'd watch this over and over.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/01/30/impressive-mechanical-work/

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TBjw3fs7ARk

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

If you've fallen prey to this silly "looksmaxxing" nonsense, watching a few old movies might be the cure.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/01/30/another-reason-to-ignore-social-media/

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

🍿 Watching: Primal

Watched the first two episodes. I’m into it!

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
brie@social.lol ("🐈‍⬛ brie carranza") wrote:

💅 The inspo for this manicure was "off duty Uhura"!

#NailArt #StarTrek

Boosted by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
qaris@mas.to ("Karis") wrote:

i saw a comment with someone comparing UpScrolled to Parler and yeah - the quacking is definitely ducking.. lol..

link below:
https://blacksky.community/profile/did:plc:ffqrmizoc5z6ly4vf3mhgwta/post/3mdm3rhckzs2w

#UpScrolled #SocialMedia #Internet #Nazi #Bigotry #HateSpeech #App

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
elilla@transmom.love ("elilla&: back to Néojaponisme: 改") wrote:

@LilaHexe ok so I'm covided and I don't have the energy to elaborate on this point now but I am getting convinced that in addition to the problem I was describing (the irreversible pollution of humanity's knowledge commons), and in addition to the *massive* environmental damage, and the plagiarism/labour issues/concentration of wealth, and other well-discussed problems, there's one insidious damage from LLMs that is still underestimated.

I will make without argument the following claims:

claim 1: every regular LLM user is undergoing "AI psychosis". every single one of them, no exceptions.

the Cloudflare person who blog posted self-congratulations about their "Matrix implementation" that was mere placeholder comments is one step into a continuum with the people whom the "AI" convinced they're Machine Jesus. the difference is of degree not kind.

claim 2: that happens because LLMs have tapped by accident into some poorly understood weakness of human psychology, related to the social and iterative construction of reality.

claim 3: this LLM exploit is an algorithmic implementation of the feedback loop between a cult leader and their followers, with the chatbot performing the "follower" role.

claim 4: postindustrial capitalist societies are hyper-individualistic, which makes human beings miserable. LLM chatbots exploit this deliberately by artificially replacing having friends. it is not enough to generate code; they made the bots *feel* like they *talk to you*—they pretend a chatbot is *someone*. this is a predatory business practice that reinforces rather than solves the loneliness epidemic.

n.b. while the reality-formation exploit is accidental, the imaginary-friend exploit is by design.

corollary #1: every "legitimate" use of an LLM would be better done by having another human being you talk to. (for example, a human coding tutor or trainee dev rather than Claude Code). by "better" it is meant: create more quality, more reliably, with more prosocial costs, while making everybody happier. but LLMs do it: faster at larger quantities with more convenience while atrophying empathy.

corollary #2: capitalism had already created artificial scarcity of friends, so that working communally was artificially hard. LLMs made it much worse, in the same way that an abundance of cheap fast food makes it harder for impoverished folk to reach nutritional self-sufficiency.

corollary #3: the combination of claim 4 (we live in individualist loneliness hell) and claim 3 (LLMs are something like a pocket cult follower) will have absolutely devastating sociological effects.

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

the number of start-ups that have harvested my email from GitHub / NPM etc and are now spamming me is way too high

Boosted by andreu@andreubotella.com ("Andreu Botella :verified_enby:"):
regocas ("Manuel Rego") wrote:

On my way to @fosdem where tomorrow I’ll be talking about @servo in the "Browser and web platform" devroom. See you there!
https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/LXFKS9-servo-project-impact/

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social ("Kevin Beaumont") wrote:

Amazon have reported "hundreds of thousands" of pictures of child sexual abuse material found in shared AI training data... but is refusing to tell regulators which data sets.

If you're using generative AI tools, there's a pretty good chance you're generating imagery with child porn training data behind the scenes.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-01-29/amazon-found-child-sex-abuse-in-ai-training-data

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

“The job losses are real — but the AI excuse is fake – Pivot to AI”

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/01/29/the-job-losses-are-real-but-the-ai-excuse-is-fake/

> That darker reality is that the economy is already screwed.

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

“Coding Is When We’re Least Productive – Codemanship's Blog”

https://codemanship.wordpress.com/2026/01/30/coding-is-when-were-least-productive/

> But if I hadn’t made that trip and seen for myself, and had a chance to talk to a department manager in that store, those three lines would have been applying special offers wrong

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
iris_meredith ("Iris") wrote:

I've written my thoughts on what you, as a software professional, can do to make yourself less susceptible to being displaced by AI in our current wave of tech madness. In short, learn your tools well, build and deploy things as often as you can, don't avoid the unfashionable work and learn a field that isn't writing software.

https://deadsimpletech.com/blog/ai%5Fproof%5Fengineer

Boosted by jwz:
dansup wrote:

Data Not Collected ✅

The developer does not collect any data from this app.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/loops-by-pixelfed/id6499375182

jwz wrote:

I'm old enough to remember when the AI company with $1,400,000,000 in the bank held a bake sale to keep their mail reader running. https://mastodon.social/@jwz/111546146333271392

Boosted by jwz:
gregkh@social.kernel.org ("Greg K-H") wrote:

Prediction for the potential future:

When the AI coding agent companies are just about to run out of money, down to their last few % raised as none of their customers are actually paying the real cost required to run these services, they pivot and take all of the uploaded code that was willingly sent to them, turn it into thousands of products / services to sell / rent, disconnect the public api endpoints leaving their old customers helpless as they no longer remember how to program "in the raw" and can not understand their own codebases, and compete directly against them putting their own customers all out of business which finally results in a positive income stream and "validation" of the coding agent companies previously over-hyped business valuations.

"But copyright law will prevent this!" you say...

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

guess I'm learning Penpot today ☕

Boosted by jwz:
MLNow@sfba.social ("Mission Local") wrote:

Map: Here’s who’s closed Friday for ‘ICE Out’ national strike

Some S.F. businesses will close for national strike; some will provide, free coffee and other aid to strikers.

https://missionlocal.org/2026/01/sf-ice-out-strike-businesses/

Boosted by jwz:
kirakira@furry.engineer ("kirakira☆ (give me a SWE internship!!)") wrote:

like this shit was my 2nd cellphone i was incredibly prepared for the technology of the future to be at Least this cool

Boosted by jwz:
tobinbaker@discuss.systems ("Tobin Baker") wrote:

I really love designing tabulation machines here at IBM. Such cool technology. I'm not really exposed to the sales side but hear there's a lot of demand from Europe, Germany maybe? Anyway, super-fun technology to work on.

Boosted by jwz:
rstevens ("rstevens 🐳💨✅") wrote:

tim cook, i swear to god if i wake up in the morning and that fucking melania movie shows up on my ipod with the U2 album...

jwz wrote:

I just renewed some domains, and my registrar is telling me the most *outrageous* lies, such as: 5 years from now is 2031.

**crumbles to dust**
https://jwz.org/b/yk2p

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
vampiress@eigenmagic.net ("Elissa") wrote:

SECOND HAND COMPUTER IS OUT!

SHC is a sort of vibes-based programmable #FantasyComputer designed to mimic my own experiences getting a second-hand computer too crappy to run graphical games.

Inside Second Hand Computer you will find a pile of random text games I've made, from the very simple (Hangman and 2048) to the gimicky (Wargames) to larger original projects such as Swords of Freeport and BOOTLEG.

You can even code your own games for it in Lua.

#IndieGames #IndieDev #GameDev

https://funtimeelectrics.itch.io/second-hand-computer/devlog/1335775/second-hand-computer-is-out

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
ExplodingLemur@mastodon.online ("Nick 🦇🕸️🖤🖖") wrote:

I was laid off in October after 13 years at Amazon and am still seeking a new opportunity. Please ping me if you know of a full-time remote role working on network and/or infrastructure security (on-prem and cloud-based). I also have experience with embedded/OT/IoT network security and wireless security. After hours I run a small network (AS46577) and fiddle with microcontrollers, embedded Linux, ham radio, and drones. Boosts appreciated. #infosecjobs #getfedihired #jobhunt #jobsearch

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

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/29/david-eby-alberta-separatism-treason

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
elhowieson ("El Howieson") wrote:

💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯

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

H/T to my moots here who have been screaming into the void to raise awareness of this issue, and so I’m going to boost it.

ICE is using hexachloroethane gas grenades. There can be used as smoke markers. When used as riot control, it is inexcusable. Here’s why:

HC gas is a potent central nervous system depressant. It also causes cancer. It will absorb through your eyes, respiratory tract, and importantly, your skin!

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

Report: "Dozens of Anti-ICE Protesters Arrested in Manhattan"

The protesters "occupied the lobby of a Hilton hotel where federal immigration agents are believed to be staying."

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani praised the protesters:

”ICE is a rogue agency that has repeatedly carried out cruel, inhumane & lawless raids & arrests of American citizens."

https://www.democracynow.org/2026/1/28/headlines/dozens%5Fof%5Fanti%5Fice%5Fprotesters%5Farrested%5Fin%5Fmanhattan%5Fafter%5Foccupying%5Flobby%5Fof%5Fhilton%5Fhotel

#USPol #Europol #CdnPoli #ICE #BorderPatrol #Press #ResistFascism #StateMurder #DHS #Mamdani #NYC .

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

Interview: ICE Forcibly Entering Homes Without a Warrant directly violates the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

Legal scholar Stephen Vladeck "encourages witnesses to share video evidence of federal agents’ abuses to support future prosecution efforts."

https://www.democracynow.org/2026/1/27/stephen%5Fvladeck

#USPol #Europol #CdnPoli #ICE #BorderPatrol #Press #ResistFascism #StateMurder #DHS .

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
fedizen ("Fedizen ⁂ Fediverse News") wrote:

»Loops is Now on the App Store« https://blog.joinloops.org/loops-is-now-on-the-app-store/?Fedizen.EU #Fedizen #Fediverse #ActivityPub #News

Boosted by kornel ("Kornel"):
martinus@mastodon.art ("Martinus Hoevenaar") wrote:

#CatsOfMastodon

Attachments:

• video: Video of a delivery driver and the reason why they had a delay in their deliveries: a cat.