Tootfinder

Frankly, I’ve been quiet on this because I wanted to see if Firefox would offer a single ‘fuck off fake-AI’ button.
https://mastodon.social/@firefoxwebdevs/115740500373677782
That said, I still don’t see a clear message on disabling ad blockers. But I also haven’t …

Folks, if you want to donate to our Gaza Verified families but don’t know who to donate to or are overwhelmed, here’s is a list of all the families, sorted by those who have raised the least in the last seven days:
https://gaza-verified.org/donate/
(The list is based on

Gaza Verified
We’ve personally had video conversations on Signal with the people from Gaza whose Mastodon accounts on the fediverse are listed here and we verify that their accounts are genuine. – Joy & Aral Balkan

Someone at Cloudflare clicked the wrong option today

Dieser #Digitalgipfel ist eine Art neoliberales Dauergewitter.
Bürokratieabbau ("Vereinfachung"), Deregulierung, Innovation, Investitionen.. und wieder von vorn.

#pastpuzzle 151
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4/4 🟩
https://www.pastpuzzle.de

Stockholm-based vibe coding startup Lovable raised $330M led by CapitalG and Menlo Ventures at a $6.6B valuation, up from $1.8B after raising $200M in July (Niko Gallogly/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/busines

Lovable, a Start-Up That Makes Anyone a Coder, Raises $330 Million
The Swedish company is now valued at $6.6 billion, more than triple its $1.8 billion valuation set by investors in July.

Wild. I had no idea I had a 4 digit github user ID.
Was I really that early or was there an early renumbering and I got a low one thanks to a username starting with A?
Such a strange thing to learn right after moving most of my stuff away from github.

RE: https://nileane.fr/@nileane/115570855799458529
The Future(tm)

Ultra-processed foods damage health in ways that calories don’t explain, new study says #nutrition

Ultra-processed foods damage health in ways that calories don't explain, new study says
Ultra-processed foods may harm health because of what they contain but also how they are manufactured to promote overconsumption and maximize profits.

If you're in the Netherlands (or have a VPN I guess), and would like to know more about our current. #Antarctic fieldwork, sea level rise and how we make projections@bureaubuitenland.bsky.social has a piece about us today, filmed in the field the last 2 weeks...
https://www.vpro.nl/bureau-buitenland

“#pastpuzzle 411
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4/4 🟩” https://www.pastpuzzle.de/

Si vis pacem, porto bello

Series B, Episode 13 - Star One
[Scene - Liberator flight deck]
VILA: I don't like explosives, very crude. Difficult to reason with a bomb.
CALLY: Blake?
AVON: They won't explode until they are primed.
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/213/241 B7B3

SBU says drones hit Russian equipment worth hundreds of millions at Belbek airfield in occupied Crimea: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/18/sbu-says-drones-hit-russian.html

Bei @… las ich kürzlich von https://beta.balkonsonne.app/ und habe herumprobiert.
Der Balkon ist nach Süden ausgerichtet und hat ca. von 9 bis 15 Uhr Blick auf die Sonn…

"Already paranoid about scams, hacks and market turmoil, wealthy crypto investors have lately become terrified about a much graver threat: torture and kidnapping."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/business/how-to-not-get-kidnapped-for-you…

How to Not Get Kidnapped for Your Bitcoin
Escaping zipties, hiring bodyguards and other practical lessons in self-defense for crypto traders, after a series of gruesome crimes spooked the community.

Exhausted from hunting for bumblebee socks, Pixie falls fast asleep. #caturday

👻 #Mythos zum #Frühstück: 😱
„Die Bürger sind mehrheitlich gegen #Klimaschutz“.
Ist das Interesse am

Das Interesse an Klimaschutz sinkt? Falsch! --- 4 von 5 Menschen weltweit fordern mehr Klimaschutz!
Wie denkt die Bevölkerung wirklich über Klimaschutz? Internationale und deutsche Umfragen zeigen ein differenziertes Bild jenseits der Tagespolitik.

/2
Kort en hevig dus ...
Odido storing? Actuele storingen en problemen | Allestoringen
#odido

Ukraina vill köpa upp till 100 franska stridsplan https://www.dn.se/varlden/ukraina-vill-kopa-upp-till-100-franska-stridsplan/

Ukraina vill köpa upp till 100 franska Rafale-plan
Ukraina vill köpa upp till 100 franska Rafale-plan – men finansieringen av köpet är oklar.

Ionospheric gradient estimation using ground-based GEO observations for monitoring multi-scale ionospheric dynamics: #Ionosphere in motion - a new way to track space weather in real time: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1110143

Windows: Microsoft patcht Patchday-Patches
Zur Behebung einiger Probleme vom Januar-Patchday hat Updates außer der Reihe für die meisten unterstützten Windows-Versionen veröffentlicht.
https://www.he…

Two More Heritage Foundation Trustees Resign Over Support for Tucker Carlson (David A. Fahrenthold/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/us/politics/heritage-foundation-trustees-resign-tucker-carlson.html
http://www.memeorandum.com/251217/p22#a251217p22

When you beat the later levels, Linux restarts the whole game over but in hard mode. Sure, I've installed MySQL on Debian before, but this time around there's extra challenges - like the GPG signature on <https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.4/en/checking-gpg-signature…

Qesser Zuhrah has just been picked up by an ambulance seconds ago. I wish for his survival and future wellbeing. Shame on Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy for not even listening to the hunger strikers and their demands!
The silencing and criminalization of Palestine Action has seen hoards of arrests, with the hunger strikes it may even claim its first lives. We must do everything in our power to prevent this, which means at least giving all arrested a chance to a fair trial!

NFL Draft prospects to watch in Alabama-Oklahoma College Football Playoff game https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6894530/2025/12/18/nfl-draft-2026-alabama-oklahoma-ty-simpson/

Asscher moet een van de neteligste kwesties oplossen: verduurzaming van de luchtvaart. Maar als je als uitgangspunten neemt dat de mensen moeten kunnen blijven viegen en de maatschappijen moeten blijven verdienen dan gaat dat helemaal never nooit niet lukken. Kijk maar naar zijn voorstel, dat lost helemaal niks op | de Volkskrant
https://archive.ph/k2V…

I am going to grab a coffee and then watch the live stream for day 1 of #swib25 which will start in a few minutes at https://forum.swib.org/t/swib25-livestream-chat/850

The English in this article is so poor, there are several paragraphs I had to read several times to get any sense out of them. AI or the four(!) reporters named? Interesting topic, but nothing much added in this piece.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/13/politic…

Pentagon bought device through undercover operation some investigators suspect is linked to Havana Syndrome
The Defense Department has spent more than a year testing a device purchased in an undercover operation that some investigators think could be the cause of a series of mysterious ailments impacting spies, diplomats and troops that are colloquially known as Havana Syndrome, according to four sources briefed on the matter.

#IT sent out instructions to all employees to use #Powershell and a dozen commands to run in it to get computer information, which we were to email back to IT:
`$sys = Get-CimInstance Win32_ComputerSystem`
`$sys.Name`
etc.
A dev (I assume) pointed out that Active Directory does this for breakfas…

If you are on a multi-user #SteamDeck or other handheld using #SteamOS (or similar distros, like #Bazzite deck or

Innovativ wäre, wenn der #Digitalgipfel in der Lage wäre, spontan auf das kleine #Cloudflare Problem einzugehen. Agil, geradezu.

It’s obvious that this tool was made by people who care about data and care about humans. It’s not even that it’s •perfect•; it’s just that it’s •thoughtful•.
That kind of human-to-human feeling of “we did our best because we care about the strangers who use this tool” just seems almost like an act of radical defiance in this Era of Enshittification. I appreciate it so much.

Designers are always inventing new titles. Web designer, UI designer, UX designer, UX/UI designer, Product designer, UX/AI designer (???)
These are all the same!
As long as your work is mediated entirely by Figma and Jira, you are just a production artist.
Fighting with PMs over who "gets" to do strategy (usually: neither of you) won't help you. Lean into the core #design

Without UX governance, your app turns to "sludge"
Break out of the feature delivery mindset and attend to the architecture and maintenance of the product.

Sweden’s navy says armed guards are appearing on Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ vessels: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/18/swedens-navy-says-armed-guards.html

Chinese toymaker FoloToy suspends sales of its GPT-4o-powered teddy bear, after researchers found the toy gave kids harmful responses, including sexual content (Brandon Vigliarolo/The Register)
https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/13/ai_toys_fmatches_knives_kink/

Happy holidays: AI-enabled toys teach kids how to play with fire, sharp objects
: Consumer advocacy researchers at PIRG tested four AI toys, and none of them passed muster

Congratulations President Kennedy… long into the future!

Mobiel internet hapert bij klanten Odido door storing | Binnenland | De Gelderlander.nl
#odido

#Steady-#Klimacrew
Was tun, wenn falsche Einträge im #Marktstammdatenregister die Auswertung ruinieren?
Das Register ist berüchtigt für Fehleinträge durch Anlagenbetreiber. …

Fehler im Marktstammdatenregister: Fehlerkorrektur zur Laufzeit
Zwei fehlerhafte Einträge im Marktstammdatenregister verzerren die Windenergie-Analyse – eine einfache Python-Lösung schafft Abhilfe.

US-Handelsaufsicht soll „Trump Phone“ auf irreführendes Marketing prüfen
Kongressabgeordnete und Senatoren wenden sich an die FTC, unter anderem, weil „Made in USA“ für das goldene Smartphone versprochen wurde.

The really classic Greenlandic band is Sume, there was a wonderful documentary about them a couple of years ago called The sound of a revolution (tilgængelig på Filmstriben i Danmark) - really worth checking out..
#greenland alt-rock band Atsinnermiut and their self-titled album. It’s not online, but you can buy a copy here. https://atlanticmusicshop.gl/en/rock-213/atsinnermiut-p4135
Lots of other bands’ albums are available from the same company, have a look!

What Is an American? -- There are two competing visions now emerging on the American right, and they are incompatible. (Vivek Ramaswamy/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/opinion/republican-identity-divide.html
http://www.memeorandum.com/251217/p21#a251217p21

I updated the initial Kitten course based on our first lesson with @… and your feedback here. So now we start with no tooling except for your default terminal app and Kitten and it serves as a gentle introduction to the command line and gets to you seeing your first web page in your web browser far more quickly.

NFL color commentator superlatives: Each analyst as a guest at our football watch party https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6877567/2025/12/18/nfl-color-commentary-rankings-brady-aikman-olsen-romo/

RE: https://mastodon.de/@ErikUden/115355012220225449
I feel vindicated for this take

Seit der Version 4.5.0 von #Mastodon braucht mein Server deutlich mehr Traffic. Größenordnung etwa doppelt so viel. Haben andere #Mastoadmin das auch beobachtet?

Met Office: 2026 will bring heat more than 1.4C above preindustrial levels https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/18/met-office-2026-will-bring-heat-more-than-14c-above-preindustrial-levels

(sound on)
Tfw scanning photos and making mouse pads is a whole experience

Dang it, PostgreSQL is so good.
I did a data export thing. The options I needed were there. Then I needed more options, and then they were also there. They worked the way I guessed. It was fast. It was reliable. Then I thought “oh, what about sequences?!?”, but they already had that covered. My seemingly easy task turned out to be…easy.

North Korean hackers stole a record $2.02B in crypto in 2025, a 51% YoY rise that takes its cumulative stolen total to $6.75B; individual wallet hacks hit 158K (Chainalysis)
https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/crypto-hacking-stolen-funds-2026/

2025 Crypto Theft Reaches $3.4 Billion
North Korean hackers stole $2.02 billion in cryptocurrency in 2025, a 51% year-over-year increase, pushing their all-time total to $6.75 billion.

EU leaders agree on $105 billion loan to secure Ukraine’s financing through 2027: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/19/eu-leaders-agree-on-billion.html

I haven’t tuned into CBS since its morning news promoted that interview (and Weiss) last week. This latest announcement validates my decision.
“CBS News launches town hall series featuring JD Vance following Bari Weiss’ ratings flop”
https://www.indep…

CBS News launches town hall series featuring JD Vance following Bari Weiss’ ratings flop
Following the Bari Weiss-moderated sitdown with Erika Kirk that was a massive ratings flop, CBS News has doubled down on the format and is launching a new town hall series in partnership with Weiss’ “anti-woke” digital media outlet that the network’s parent company recently purchased.

„Horizon“-Abklatsch: Sony und Tencent einigen sich wegen „Light of Motiram“
Der chinesische Publisher Tencent hat mit „Light of Motiram“ einen offensichtlichen „Horizon“-Klon beworben. Nach einer Klage von Sony gibt es nun eine Einigung.

🍮 Wissen zum Nachtisch: 🍨
Retröt: Mastodon für #Einsteiger. Was ist #Mastodon? Wie bekomme ich einen Account? Wie sieht die Oberfläche aus?
Wer als #Twitter-, X-,

Mastodon für Einsteiger - Eine einfache Einführung zum Umstieg für Anfänger
Entdecke Mastodon – die dezentrale und werbefreie Alternative zu Twitter und anderen kommerziellen Diensten! Lerne, wie du Tröts postest und das soziale Netzwerk für dich nutzt.

The Summer of Starvation: Amid Trump's Foreign Aid Cuts, a Mother Struggles to Keep Her Sons Alive (ProPublica)
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-usaid-kenya-humanitarian-aid-starvation-families-children
http://www.memeorandum.com/251217/p19#a251217p19

Lahore's toxic winters: How smog is reshaping daily life in urban Pakistan #Pakistan…

Lahore's toxic winters: How smog is reshaping daily life in urban Pakistan
In November 2025, Lahore, the second-largest city in Pakistan, registered a "hazardous" air quality index of 509, according to IQAir, a global air quality monitoring organization. The number speaks for itself. Eyes sting, throats burn and headlights blur into halos. In winter, the city feels as though it has slipped beneath a toxic sea.

I should make some more this winter, but first weather and then health weren't condusive

I just saw that we now have over 100 verified accounts on Gaza Verified.
https://gaza-verified.org/people/
That’s over 100 people that @…,

Gaza Verified
We’ve personally had video conversations on Signal with the people from Gaza whose Mastodon accounts on the fediverse are listed here and we verify that their accounts are genuine. – Joy & Aral Balkan

Sources: Blue Owl Capital will not invest in Oracle's $10B, 1GW data center in Michigan after funding talks stalled due to concerns over debt terms and delays (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/84c147a4-aabb-4243-8298-11fabf1022a3

Ukrainian sanctions target Russian sports ahead of Winter Olympics: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/17/ukrainian-sanctions-target-russian-sports.html

Urteil: Amazon darf Video-Kunden keine Werbung aufzwängen
Amazon Prime Video sendet seit 2024 Werbespots. Ein Gericht schreitet ein und untersagt dem US-Unternehmen, die Vertragsbedingungen einseitig zu ändern.
ht…

Maybe the red line for you is deploying •active duty military• to Minnesota, and not just National Guard. They did that in LA with marines — briefly, just a little, just in the background, little or no confrontation — and that too got smacked down hard.
That one’s a pretty bright red line. Domestic deployment of the military is in fact the origin of the phrase “crossing the Rubicon:” when Julius Caesar led troops across the Rubicon river, leading the troops to invade his own country, that marked the beginning of civil war in Rome, and a death knell for democracy.
4/

The Man Who Rules the Country Presides Over Nothing (Jamelle Bouie/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/opinion/trump-presidential-power-miller-vought.html?unlocked_article_code=1.9U8.drHL.AcgWATAfR0B2&smid=nytcore-ios-share
http://www.memeorandum.com/251217/p20#a251217p20

Why global environmental negotiations keep failing—and what we can do about it #environment

Why global environmental negotiations keep failing—and what we can do about it
In the past year alone, four major environmental negotiations have collapsed.

While Cloudflare is down why not look at my pictures of space that aren't going through Cloudflare
https://lightfrom.space/

Are you more scared of: https://mastodon.social/@euobserver/115564641753988876

TMTG agrees to merge with Google-backed fusion energy company TAE in a $6B deal and begin building the "world's first utility-scale fusion power plant" in 2026 (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/1e1978d5-535b-4241-872f-38db778df694

Die Telekom lässt Betrüger alt aussehen! 🙃 Das Unternehmen hat mit „Call Check” ein neues System eingeführt, das seine Kunden vor unseriösen Anrufern warnt.
Zum Artikel: https://heise.de/-11117623?wt_mc=sm.red.ho.mastodon.mastodo…

An A Economy, My A -- Trump made big boasts but he isn't delivering (Paul Krugman)
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/an-a-economy-my-a
http://www.memeorandum.com/251217/p17#a251217p17

Drone production, air defense sustainment — Germany backs Ukraine with $1.4 billion in defense agreements: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/18/drone-production-air-defense-sustainment.html

Water levels across the Great Lakes are falling – just as US data centers move in #GreatLakes

Looks like my tree has an agenda

EU: All bark, no bite, and everyone knows it. https://mastodon.social/@euobserver/115564641753988876

Sources: Yann LeCun is in early talks to raise €500M for his startup at a ~€3B valuation, and plans to name Alexandre LeBrun as CEO, ahead of a January launch (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/d88729c0-c44f-4530-b888-bafa29ee0446

#Cloudflare #AWS #Azure

The Republican Party Is Fracturing Over Trump's Labor Agenda (Jade Lozada/NOTUS)
https://www.notus.org/economy/republican-party-trump-labor-agenda
http://www.memeorandum.com/251217/p18#a251217p18

UK social homes unprepared for rising heat as policy fails to keep pace, new research warns #UnitedKingdom

UK social homes unprepared for rising heat as policy fails to keep pace, new research warns
Millions of UK social homes are at growing risk from rising temperatures and soaring energy costs and current housing and climate policies are failing to keep up, according to new research by The University of Manchester.

Images via https://walkman.land/, they have a lot of background information as well, so pay them a visit.

The UK and Denmark are so poor, so immoral, so without humanity, so uncivilised that they will steal the last belongings of refugees. What sad, pathetic countries. How embarrassed must their people be?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/17/refu…

Nordkoreas Remote-Angestellte: Fünf Helfer in den USA bekennen sich schuldig
Schon seit Jahren lässt Nordkorea Menschen über das Internet in den USA arbeiten, um an Gehälter zu kommen. Nun zeigt sich in den USA, wie dabei geholfen wird.

Unprecedented errors are eroding the credibility of Trump's Justice Department (Sarah N. Lynch/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/unprecedented-errors-are-eroding-credibility-trumps-justice-department-2025-12-17/
http://www.memeorandum.com/251217/p12#a251217p12

‘No water, no life’: Iraq’s Tigris River in danger of disappearing https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/16/no-water-no-life-iraqs-tigris-river-in-danger-of-disappearing

Can't sleep so I'm naturally browsing the Internet about old tech. This Sony Walkman from 1995 could very well be the ur-gadget for translucent plastics, predating the original iMac by 3 years.
But! The Sony Whoopee predates it by a year, although I think this one was aimed at kids.

Westerners will literally steal from refugees rather than go to therapy.
#UK

"Cities: Skylines II": Paradox trennt sich von Entwickler Colossal Order
Nach über 15 Jahren trennen sich Paradox Interactive und Colossal Order. Die Entwicklung von "Cities: Skylines II" übernimmt ab 2026 das Studio Iceflake.

Malaysian companies dominate PNG forest-clearance permits: report https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/malaysian-companies-dominate-png-forest-clearance-permits-report/

Malaysian companies dominate PNG forest-clearance permits: report
Papua New Guinea’s rainforests, which span 28.2 million hectares (69.6 million acres), are among the most biodiverse in the world, hosting an estimated 5-8% of all species. The country also has one of the world’s highest rates of communal land ownership, with around 97% of land legally recognized as being customary tenure. Despite the ecological […]

“TABS [by Mozilla] pulls exactly the data you need—from HTML to Markdown to JSON—using the fastest, most efficient method for each page. It adapts to the structure and complexity of the site, staying stealthy and reliable so your [AI] agents always get what they need without friction.”
Ethical Stealthy AI Scraping (tm) by Mozilla.
#Mozilla

BurnBot RX2: Roboter brennt Schneisen zur Waldbrandbekämpfung
Die Ausbreitung von Waldbränden kann durch Brandschneisen erschwert werden. Ein ferngesteuerter Roboter kann sie temporär anlegen.
https://www.

Jeff Bezos gründet KI-Startup Project Prometheus
Jeff Bezos steigt als CEO und Gründer in das KI-Startup Project Prometheus ein, das bereits Milliarden-Finanzierungen erhalten haben soll.
https://www.

Lidl-Mutter Schwarz-Gruppe baut KI-Rechenzentrum für 11 Milliarden Euro
Die Schwarz-Gruppe (Lidl, Kaufland) investiert elf Milliarden Euro in ein neues Rechenzentrum in Lübbenau. Es ist die größte Einzelinvestition des Unternehmens.

Streit über Bestpreis: Teilerfolg für über tausend Hoteliers gegen Booking.com
Das Landgericht Berlin hat geurteilt: Booking.com haftet prinzipiell für Schäden, die durch unzulässige Preisvorgaben entstanden sind. 1099 Kläger profitieren.

#heiseshow: Verbrenner-Aus-Aus, Telefonbetrug, 2025-Rückblick
In der #heiseshow: Das Verbrenner-Aus wird aufgeweicht, die Telekom kämpft gegen Betrugsanrufe und wir blicken zurück auf das Tech-Jahr 2025.

Jahresrückblick der Störungen: Die größten Online-Ausfälle 2025
Ein Blick auf das Jahr 2025 zeigt, welche Online-Dienste die weitreichendsten Ausfälle in Europa verzeichneten – von Gaming-Plattformen bis zu Cloud-Anbietern.

UN-Bericht: Methan-Ausstoß sinkt langsamer als nötig
Ein UN-Bericht zeigt Möglichkeiten zu Methan-Einsparungen auf. Dennoch gelangt viel von dem aggressiven Treibhausgas in die Atmosphäre.
https://www.

Zum Abend noch einige der heute besonders häufig geteilten #News:
Erneut heulen in Sachsen-Anhalt Sirenen ohne Grund
https://w…

Fake-News über Staatsstreich: Präsident Macron zürnt Facebook
Ein millionenfach angesehenes KI-Video erfindet einen Staatsstreich. Sogar andere Staatschefs fallen rein. Facebook sperrt es nicht. Macron sucht Abhilfe.

Rückzieher bei Meta: Konzern will VR-Brillen nun doch allein entwickeln
Meta überdenkt seine Pläne und pausiert ein Partnerprogramm für VR-Brillen. Andere Hersteller sollten sie auf Basis des Quest-Betriebssystems entwickeln.

Etwas mehr der heute besonders häufig geteilten #News:
Deutsche Bank springt auf Wero-Zug auf
https://www.he…

Zum Abend noch einige der heute besonders häufig geteilten #News:
3,5 Milliarden User: Gesamtes WhatsApp-Verzeichnis abgeschnorchelt