Mastodon Feed: Posts

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

Don’t scan wild QR codes!

Always assume they link to something that runs an exploit, just to be safe

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
arstechnica ("Ars Technica") wrote:

Hunter-gatherers in Siberia died of a plague outbreak 5,500 years ago

We can't blame the Neolithic Transition for the plague anymore.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/06/hunter-gatherers-in-siberia-died-of-a-plague-outbreak-5500-years-ago/?utm%5Fbrand=arstechnica&utm%5Fsocial-type=owned&utm%5Fsource=mastodon&utm%5Fmedium=social

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

Central Japan Railway and West Japan Railway will begin offering Supreme Class private compartments on their bullet trains from Oct. 1. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2026/06/18/companies/shinkansen-private-compartments/?utm%5Fmedium=Social&utm%5Fsource=mastodon #business #companies #shinkansen #trains #jrcentral #jrwest #bullettrains

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

In what world is it perfectly acceptable for a cop to kill a 1-year old child, even accidentally, when under no threat whatsoever?

Oh, yeh, duh. The U.S.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/police-kill-1-old-boy-215240450.html

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

mmmm, 32kb pages are starting to appeal

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

aaaaaaa, this metadata is quite possibly bigger than the data it's about

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

(this is silly, but it's much easier to assure yourself you won't lose data if you go copy on write, hence why i'm doing it)

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

if it's not copy on write it's cocky on write

Boosted by EmilyEnough@hachyderm.io ("Emily 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️"):
riley@toot.cat ("Riley S. Faelan") wrote:

In cancer vaccination news ...

Around 200 lives have been saved in England so far thanks to a vaccine which protects against cervical cancer, according to analysis published in the Lancet.

The first study of its kind showed that deaths have fallen sharply since school-age girls were offered the human papillomavirus (HPV) jab in 2008.

Between 2020 and 2024, no cervical cancer deaths were recorded in women aged 20 to 24 - the first time that had happened over a five-year period.

Without vaccination, around 23 deaths would have been expected.

"It's incredible to think that a single jab can almost eliminate a particular type of cancer," said Prof Peter Sasieni, the lead researcher at Queen Mary University of London.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c621z28z138o

For context, the prudes who often like to call themselves "pro-life" as a sign of their virtues being justly proud have been campaigning hard against the cervical cancer vaccine because it makes them think of young women having sex, which is a mortal sin blameable on the vaccine.

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

This is kind of amazing: a Microsoft researcher built a neural network out of goats in Age of Empires II to puncture the “chatbots might be conscious” nonsense. https://www.404media.co/if-ai-is-sentient-then-so-is-age-of-empires-ii/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter

Boosted by cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber"):
cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber") wrote:

due to the increase in vulnerabilities, we recommend upgrading your software all the time to patch all vulnerabilities, but we also recommend pinning your software to the past to avoid new vulnerabilities

Boosted by cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber"):
lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me ("Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:") wrote:

@aeva @misty @cwebber @ryanprior Video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo

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

Let's not pretend that three days from now all these people won't be on Fox and Newsmax saying what a fantastic deal this is. I mean, prove me wrong, dudes! Please! I beg of you! But we all know anyone in the GOP who had an actual spine or courage of their convictions exited the state long ago.

Also, this whole "war" has been an unmitigated embarrassment for the US from day one.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-iran-deal-republicans-war-b2998118.html

Boosted by cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber"):
SuperDicq@minidisc.tokyo wrote:

Boosted by cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber"):
openrightsgroup@social.openrightsgroup.org ("Open Rights Group") wrote:

🚨 First the social media ban, now the UK government wants to restrict VPNs 🚨

VPNs are a vital cybersecurity tool for businesses, politicians, journalists and families to protect data and communications.

Banning or requiring digital ID checks before buying VPNs would increase cybercrime risks and expose IP addresses to predators.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2217934/vpn-ban-table-july-labour

#vpn #socialmediaban #ageverification #ukpolitics #cybersecurity #onlinesafety #ukpolitics #ukpol

Boosted by cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber"):
livelakeontario ("Lake Ontario! Live!") wrote:

Current* conditions near Kingston, ON:

Boosted by cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber"):
karpour@mstdn.social ("Karpour") wrote:

@ryanprior @theeclecticdyslexic @SofaFernsehFan @FOSSForce I'm not going to spend more time engaging with slop, but I made some lines to point out a few things

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

i have an urge to rewatch breaking bad, but i know it's going to get hard going in season 4 when they've just run out of ideas and you get ridiculous shit like trashing the lab swatting a fly

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("The Luddites were right"):
marxjohnson@indieweb.social ("Mark Johnson") wrote:

Amazing news, vaccinations against cancer-causing HPV are reducing cervical cancer deaths to 0. I didn't realise this is now being given to boys too (who can get other cancers, or pass on the virus). Fantastic.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c621z28z138o

glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

@Gargron @TechConnectify personally I am just excited to find out how ceiling fans are related to the refrigeration cycle

Boosted by cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber"):
thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io ("Thomas Fuchs") wrote:

Ah yes, it’s the episode when they’re trapped in a ca. 1989 Amiga cracktro effect

Boosted by cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber"):
theeclecticdyslexic@mstdn.social ("eclexic") wrote:

@aeva

People are going to finding this shit buried in every code base as archaeological artifacts!

It took until this thing has 600 boosts before it came down, and people are _still_ noticing new stuff in this thread.

No project has the man power to filter this stuff effectively.

@misty @cwebber @ryanprior

cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber") wrote:

RE: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@aeva/116768331776709972

@aeva's whole subthread about that slop "political cartoon" about tokenmaxxxing that made its rounds on here yesterday is worth reading, as is @theeclecticdyslexic's followup observation:

> It's a perfect visual story of why "I read all the code the LLM spits out" is not valid! You can read all of it, and miss total madness! I was looking meticulously for things I know diffusion models do, and missed a ton of tells!
>
> Look at how well this has done on _fedi_ home of the Butlerian Jihad!
>
> I simply can't trust the word of people that claim to wield LLMs responsibly.

The problem with tech that looks so convincing at first glance but has subtle and serious issues that take *significant effort* to uncover is that it rots your code and your culture.

Boosted by cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber"):
aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place wrote:

@misty @cwebber @ryanprior I think also the more slop you see without realizing its slop, the more the alien noise phenomena becomes invisible to you because you get passively trained to see it as normal. The only antidote I've been able to think of so far is to look at as much real art as you can, read as much real code as you can, and so on; and think deeply about it.

Boosted by cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber"):
theeclecticdyslexic@mstdn.social ("eclexic") wrote:

@aeva

I am glad notifications brought me back to read your take!

I feel the same way! It's a perfect visual story of why "I read all the code the LLM spits out" is not valid! You can read all of it, and miss total madness! I was looking meticulously for things I know diffusion models do, and missed a ton of tells!

Look at how well this has done on _fedi_ home of the Butlerian Jihad!

I simply can't trust the word of people that claim to wield LLMs responsibly.

@misty
@cwebber @ryanprior

Boosted by cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber"):
aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place wrote:

@misty @cwebber @ryanprior and like, if three highly skilled experienced engineers can't reliably spot a figurative six fingered hand in a 30 line diff, what chance does a non-specialist have? worse, people are rightly suspicious, but that's also translated to professional artists getting falsely accused of slop peddling because visual literacy is generally really bad

Boosted by cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber"):
aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place wrote:

@misty @cwebber @ryanprior and like yeah there's shit that doesn't make sense in that cartoon. people who don't know how to draw with structured perspective don't draw like that. people who know how to draw with structured perspective and simply choose not to also don't draw like that. there's all these random details that nobody would bother with if they were in a hurry and if they weren't in a hurry they'd be bothered by the inconsistency

Boosted by cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber"):
aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place wrote:

@misty @cwebber @ryanprior it's like that video where they tell you to pay attention to the students passing basketballs around or whatever and you do that thinking they're going to try and pull a fast one on you and you don't see the guy wearing the gorilla suit walking by.

Boosted by cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber"):
aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place wrote:

@misty @cwebber @ryanprior I had the unique experience of performing my first code review of a pull request that was known up front to be slop, and it was blessedly straight forward and even though I was reading it with suspicion it seemed fine... until I realized that part of it was just complete nonsense like a thing that literally does nothing that nobody would write that benefits nobody and it slipped by at least two other people!!!

Boosted by cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber"):
aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place wrote:

@misty @cwebber @ryanprior yeah that's probably the most reliable indicator heh.

I'm just kinda fascinated that slop can pass cursory examination and sometimes detailed examination because slop machines don't make mistakes so much as generate nonsense that is so alien it's invisible at first until you spot it and even then it's confusing because people don't do that but people do lots of things so our natural tendency is to try to make sense of it based on what we know.