@cdarwin@c.im2026-01-25 17:11:03
The Department of Homeland Security has ordered immigration officers to gather identifying information about anyone filming them and to “send that information to Intel who will do a ‘work-up’ on them,” a federal law enforcement official directly involved tells me.
“Meaning, trying to identify them via social media, running their license plates if available, and running a criminal history check,” the official explained.
The directive is part of a sweeping, nationwide effort by U.S…
@v_i_o_l_a@openbiblio.social2026-01-26 13:00:42
@mgorny@social.treehouse.systems2025-12-26 10:41:26
I don't think I'm ever going to enjoy gifts.
I can get why people would give them to children. After all, children don't have their own budget. However, I'm talking about occasional gifts, not a new toy every second week, because "we must outcompete the other grandparents". But to adults?
Once I've heard that you should gift people with what they won't buy themselves. Well, that's won't work for me. I'm a minimalist. If I don't need something, I don't want to have it. Unnecessary junk is only emotional burden to me.
I can get why you'd enjoy something handmade. But something people bought? If I need something, I can buy it myself, when I need it. And I definitely don't need people to prove to me that they never cared to learn who I am, and just buy whatever they like or whatever is "fashionable"; which usually means exactly the opposite of what I'd prefer (i.e. something minimalistic). Or even worse, I don't need people manipulating me through gifts.
Sweets? Besides my diabetes, I don't really enjoy expensive shit that people generally buy because it's what's advertised. For the money they waste on it, I'd buy three times as much sweets I'd actually enjoy.
Gift cards? Oh yes, "you aren't supposed to give money, so let's just give the equivalent of money that's actually worth less than money". Actual money? And here we reach the true nonsense; we exchange the same amount of money, so it's just pointless gesture. Unless one of us gives less money…
What I'd really like, as a gift? Maybe that people would finally bother accepting me as who I am. The absolute minimum of caring that I hate consumerism, and not fueling it "for me".
#AntiCapitalism #minimalism #ActuallyAutistic
@pre@boing.world2025-12-26 23:25:43
Like all the rest of the nerds, I did a bit of tech support on family computers.
They're all popping up windows from scam virus scanners lying that subscriptions need to be renewed or machines are unprotected. People don't know how to remove these things. Luckily they also don't really know how to pay the subscription.
Their phones are updating on them. Changing where buttons used to be. Removing options. Forcing people to register to use they things they have been doing for years.
They don't know how to register.
Things pop up asking for passwords and they have no idea who is asking or which password to use.
I tell them that I don't really understand why they keep using Windows now it is so shitty and awful. They say they don't know how to use anything else. The fact they don't really know how to use windows either doesn't seem to register.
The tech corporations have given up completely on being user friendly. They are all deliberately user hostile and exploitative now.
Corporate tech is terrible. The industry is failing it's users, abusing them. People don't even know there is any other way. They are just giving up on achieving their tasks until someone can fix the pop-ups and subscription boxes and passwords and 2fa for them.
Tech sucks now. Sucks hard.
#tech #christmasTechSupport
@Techmeme@techhub.social2026-01-26 12:26:43
Interviews with 100 therapists and psychiatrists on clients' AI chatbot usage show, while there are some upsides, conversations also deepened negative feelings (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/us/chatgpt-delusions-psychosis.html
…
@underdarkGIS@fosstodon.org2025-11-26 15:55:00
@cdarwin@c.im2026-02-26 01:45:34
The price of silver smashed through the $90 mark Wednesday morning
for the first time in weeks
as the metal recoups gains it lost after a late January crash,
though the precious metal remains far from the record highs it previously hit above $120.
KEY FACTS
The price of silver is $90.68 as of 9:25 a.m. EST, up nearly 4% but down slightly from a high of $91.18 reached earlier in the morning.
@pre@boing.world2025-12-26 08:40:32
Nice to see a UK party leader demonstrate some actual compassion and care this Christmas. I'm so fed up with politicians pedaling hate and division trying to pander to terrible racism and xenophobia, trying to pick up the votes of the hateful.
This is what political leadership really is. Not following the right wing media hatred but countering it.
Zack Polanski's Christmas message is less than five minutes.
#green #christmas
@cdarwin@c.im2026-02-26 16:01:14
Conservatives want schools to teach this strict life path they say avoids poverty
The steps are simple: Graduate from high school. Find a full-time job. Get married before having kids.
The three-pronged framework is currently taught in just a handful of classrooms.
But soon, students across the country may be told that following those steps could keep them out of poverty as adults.
The approach is getting a boost from conservatives seeking to bring it to America’s middl…
@cdarwin@c.im2026-02-24 09:09:44
AI companies are raising at valuations that require them to grow at rates that are only achievable by chasing the broadest possible market with the most generic possible product.
A company that raises at a $500M valuation needs to show a path to billions in revenue,
which means it can't afford to be a niche tool that does one thing brilliantly for a specific audience.
It has to be a platform, horizontal, aimed at enterprise, built for no one in particular.
Ever…
