Tootfinder

The real question is why is a fucking sociopath allowed to teach a class at a university? Oh, it’s Stanford. As you were. https://mastodon.social/@RuthMalan/113022749498944409

2 people killed, 15 injured in Zhytomyr amid explosions: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/02/people-killed-injured-in-zhytomyr.html

My day just took a nosedive because some fascist jerk is celebrating a bill landing on his desk!
Honestly, it’s wild how people still put their faith in the same old power games when real change comes from people coming together, running things themselves, and kicking the fascists out of the picture.
Being autistic, I usually struggle to get what people mean, but Rudolf Rocker said some real shit that even my autistic brain understands.

Vikings great Jim Marshall, member of Purple People Eaters, dies at 87 https://www.nfl.com/news/vikings-great-jim-marshall-member-of-purple-people-eaters-dies-at-87

The G7 has once again put multinationals’ profits over the interests of people
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/02/the-g7-has-once-again-put-multinationals-profit…

TIPS FOR PERFORMERS:
Playing cards have the top half upside-down to help cheaters.
There are a finite number of jokes in the universe.
Singing is a trick to get people to listen to music longer than
they would ordinarily.
There is no music in space.
People will pay to watch people make sounds.
Everything on stage should be larger than in real life.

Over 100 people convicted of LGBTQ 'extremism' in Russia
https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/07/01/more-than-100-people-have-been-convicted-of-lgbtq-extremism-in-russia/

The American people are driven by fairness and decency (Norman Ornstein/The Contrarian)
https://contrarian.substack.com/p/the-american-people-are-driven-by
http://www.memeorandum.com/250702/p92#a250702p92

In 2020, there were some people who marveled at how China built hospitals quickly to handle the start of the pandemic.
Now, some people are marveling over how the US has quickly built a camp in the Everglades to concentrate people.
There are many issues with how China runs itself as a country, and denies human rights to people.
But so too, there are issues with how the US runs itself as a country, and denies human rights to people 😳
The heart breaks.

Here's an idea: People in tech want better AI criticism? It's all just too $something? I'm willing to take off a month from work to write a whole bunch of detailed structural criticism if the people demanding better, more specific criticism pay my salary for that month.

Gee, that statement by senator (no capitalization deserved) Joni Ernst and "the white house" about how good it is for Medicare to let people die is applicable to the abortion issue:
As the white house (and Ernst) argue, fewer people receiving medical assistance means (does it really mean?) more for everyone else.
Gee, then if that argument holds they ought to be in favor of abortion - because that means fewer people who will need government services, meaning more for th…

Source: ~1,000 people have left the CISA during the second Trump administration, including 750 taking a buyout, cutting CISA's workforce by nearly a third (Sam Sabin/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/03/cisa-staff-layoffs-resignations-trump-cuts…

Hours after Trump's Tax and Spending bill passed the US Senate, the hashtag #MuskWantsToBuildAnAmericaParty
went viral on Weibo -- a Chinese social media platform similar to Musk’s X, receiving more than 37m views.
“If Elon Musk were to found a political party, his tech-driven mindset could inject fresh energy into politics. The potential for change is significant – a…

Quite rich for someone that just sold his business for 6 billion to OpenAI
« When I first moved here I came because it was characterized by people who genuinely saw that their purpose was in service to humanity, to inspire people and help people create. I don't feel that way about this place right now. »
https://

Social Robots for People with Dementia: A Literature Review on Deception from Design to Perception
Fan Wang, Giulia Perugia, Yuan Feng, Wijnand IJsselsteijn
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.00963

Government once again working in service of mega corporations and against regular, suffering, people.
“Boeing BA-N and the Justice Department on Wednesday asked a U.S. judge to approve an agreement that allows the company to avoid prosecution despite objections from relatives of some of the 346 people killed in two 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019.”
#corporatocracy #usa #canada https://flipboard.com/@globeandmail/world-qs57rganz/-/a-vSZpN2zeT3SqZlIzFDUYJg:a:729020400-/0

💪 Higher levels of trust in people and institutions linked to greater well-being
#psychology

Musician YATTA on going towards the unknown https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/musician-yatta-on-going-towards-…

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.07287 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csCY_…

People who have more time than me: please make a way of paying to subscribe to an RSS, Atom, or ActivityPub feed.
Help creators publish on their terms, directly to their people.

AOC wrote on BlueSky, a good summary of the Trump budget bill adopted in Congress.
"I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE.
This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined.
It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing."
#usa

🇺🇦 Auf radioeins läuft...
Randy Newman:
🎵 Short People
#NowPlaying #RandyNewman
https://phbrussels.bandcamp.com/track/randy-newman-short-people-ph-smooth-pop-edit
https://open.spotify.com/track/53yBKCc5S7u8zzutqepkiT

Trump cyber nominees expected to testify next week, people familiar say
https://www.nextgov.com/people/2025/05/trump-cyber-nominees-expected-testify-next-week-people-familiar-say/405644/

Inside AI Addiction Support Groups Where People Try to Stop Talking to Chatbots (404 Media, 28 June 2024)
https://www.404media.co/inside-ai-addiction-support-groups-where-people-try-to-stop-talking-to-chatbots/

🌟 “I see GÉANT as a strong component in the competitiveness that Europe is striving for.”
In her first interview as GÉANT CEO, Lise Fuhr reflects on her initial impressions, shares what she wishes more people knew about the GÉANT community, and offers a glimpse into the forthcoming GÉANT Association strategy.
➡️ Read the full interview:

A democracy is – how Pratchett puts it in Small Gods – a system where everyone distrusts the government, so everyone is somehow (un-)happy about it. And this is how it is meant to be and where checks and balances comes in.
And now there is a Trump administration where a alarming number of people just trust everything done by them regardless of what it is.¹ If we needed another sign² of Trumpism being far from being democratic: here it is.
I really hope people in Germany continue …

Fiat 500 and people ;-)

For anyone who loves libraries, now's the time to let that love inspire you to become a #LibraryDefender. Check out the latest newsletter from For The People (https://www.librariesforthepeople.org/

There's no male loneliness epidemic, just people with standards and men who don't want to work on themselves.

Chris Arnade was one of my favorite followers on the old place. One of the very few people who thinks very deeply, but also outside of their own silos, to create a cross-disciplinary theory of the world. One of the few people who is truly willing to see the world as it is.
The solutions to our problems will never come from one realm of expertise, but only by synthesizing a strategy from a more holistic world view.

„This year, over 11.7 million people applied for Schengen short-stay visas. Globally, demand rose by more than 13%.
But for African applicants, that just meant more money lost.
Analysts estimate Africans lost €60 million (around US$67.5 million) in visa fees in 2024 alone — just for rejections.“
Via Sham Jaff's excellent newsletter https:…

You’re Not Imagining It. People Actually Are Starting To Talk Like ChatGPT.
I’m both terrified and highly amused.
By Matt Jancer
https://www.vice.com/en/article/youre-not-imagining-it-people-actually-are-starting-to-talk-like-…

Smart phones dumb people.

Jim Marshall dies at 87: Vikings legend was a member of the famous 'Purple People Eaters' defensive line

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/…

NOBODY told me that Peppa Pig has a small sister now! Apparently that was a whole thing of Mummy Pig being pregnant and even breaking news!?
🤯🐷🍼
https://people.com/peppa-george-baby-sister-mummy-pig-has-girl-evie-baby-11738142

Trump Rails Against 'Shylocks And Bad People' In Iowa Speech (Hunter Walker/Talking Points Memo)
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-rails-against-shylocks-and-bad-people-in-iowa-speech
http://www.memeorandum.com/250703/p137#a250703p137

Over 80,000 people flee severe flooding in southwest China https://phys.org/news/2025-06-people-severe-southwest-china.html
When rain, snow and soil align: The triple threat behind 2024's deadly central Asian floods

‘Restricted’: Nearly 7 billion people worldwide lack full civil rights | Freedom of the Press News | Al Jazeera
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/2/restricted-nearly-7-billion-people-worldwide-lack-full-civil-rights?traffic_source=rss

Now that most services have implemented 2FA (multi-factor authentication) we are seeing a new breed of scams that exploit them and trick people into approving requests under the guise of fraud prevention, which is easy to do now that we are bombarded by more secure logins. The next time you get a fraud prevention alert, be quadruple vigilant about how you respond to 2FA requests.

Paris' public prosecutor says it charged 25 people, including six minors, over a spate of kidnappings and attempted abductions targeting crypto executives (Le Monde)
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2

Let’s be clear:
The people saying “Alligator Auschwitz” are not blowing things out of proportion. They are not putting words in MAGA’s mouth. This is a clear and explicit endorsement of the mass murder of an entire identity group in the US.
And yes, obviously she is “joking.” Of course she is “joking.” But with quotation marks. She is not joking.

After long presenting heatwaves as fun episodes, with pictures of young people in fountains and swimming pools, European media are now realizing it's not funny anymore.
French TV talked about the worst day instead of the warmest day, and Le Parisien had "Torture" as headline. https://nos.nl/l/2573263

It's the holocaust. It entitles the Israeli government to impunity for the murder and expulsion of the inhabitants of the land where prosecuted Jews found refuge. Or so the Netanyahu regime seems to believe. Palestinians are semites, too, though, and evidently suffer antisemitism and its consequences just as much.
An interesting book to read:

social.linux.pizza is doing invite-only in a few weeks.
This is to promote other, small instances and also encourage people to set up their own instance.
social.linux.pizza is here to stay, and with an added touch of organic growth :)

pokec: Pokec online social network (2012)
The online social network of Pokec, a popular OSN in Slovakia, from 2012. Date covers about 10 years and more than 1.6 million people. Profile data contains gender, age, hobbies, interest, education etc. Profile metadata are in Slovak language. Friendships in Pokec are oriented.
This network has 1632804 nodes and 30622564 edges.
Tags: Social, Online, Metadata

We spoke to several people on the House GOP whip team Tuesday night who were expressing alarm about what they’re seeing on their whip cards.
These sources said that they were racking up no’s from lawmakers who they didn’t expect would be opposed to the bill.
Again, it is likely the bill passes in the next 24 hours
but as we learned with the Trump’s failed effort to repeal the ACA in 2017 nothing is pre-ordained in this business,
and we just have to keep working as ha…

«Sure, people from Latin-language-majority countries also list their “pronouns” in e-mail signatures and on social-media profiles, but this is, I think, largely the subconscious acceptance of the English-speakers’ hegemony over social norms (and queerness?).»
🔥 by @….
I'd even go one further and say "USian English's hegemony, both for online social norms generally and queerness in particular 🙈
https://blog.achintyarao.in/post/the-english-language/

I wish Mastodon had a block with note and request unblock button. Some people I’m not mad at but were annoying and I want them to fix that before they interact further. I don’t need to send them the message but I do want them to be able to find it.

One rule for thee, another for me. #LLM #AI #GenAI

OH (not mine):
One thing a lot of people fail to understand is that a if a social group are oppressors in one place and oppressed in another, the score isn't oppressors:1, humanity:1.
It's oppression:2, humanity:0.

Baffles me that Italy has adopted the US(?) notion of Outlet Malls with free buses to and fro, all to go sit in a place that is…basically what city center looks like. In the US, only malls look like this. So that they can imitate an…Italian city! #Italy25

Government, brought to you by the people who paid people to take their tests in college....
"Nobody has ever accused RFK Jr. of academic rigor,” said Marion Nestle, a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. "The speed (of the MAHA report) suggests that it could not have been vetted carefully and must have been whisked through standard clearance procedures. The citation problem suggests a reliance on AI."

So err, thanks, Volvo. This is a thing people have been clamouring for, is it?

It's amazing to me that people continue to look back at 2024 and angrily blame muslims,non-voters, & leftists for the overwhelming win by Trump. It must be nice to be able to completely ignore reality and learn nothing.
https://www.

@… Ah I get it. Thanks for clarifying. That is super interesting. I chose hammer because that is what most people in my vicinity were giving as a comparison example when I made the diagram (two years ago). I did spend some time thinking about what the parallell effect/impact/circumstance would be in the case of the hammer (hence jerrybuilding),…

Ed Yong is one of, if not the top science writers in the world today. Here’s his latest blog entry. https://buttondown.com/edyong209/archive/the-eds-up-unbreaking/
Recommended.

Music writer, producer, and podcaster Dylan Tupper Rupert on envisioning alternatives
https://thecreativeindependent.com/peo

Having 21 capitalists following you is quite an achievement!
#Capitalism

Russian missile strike on Dnipropetrovsk Oblast kills brigade commander, injures 30 people, Zelensky says: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/01/russian-missile-strike-on-dnipropetrovsk.html

Enhancing Critical Thinking in Generative AI Search with Metacognitive Prompts
Anjali Singh, Zhitong Guan, Soo Young Rieh
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.24014 …

Louisiana Republicans have passed a new law that effectively eviscerates people's ability to claim their innocence and seek relief once they've been convicted.
A massive blow to the rights of people in prison in a state that's full of wrongful convictions:
https://

Shift-Command-4
Mac OS

Jim Marshall, longtime Vikings defensive and member of 'Purple People Eaters,' dies at 87 https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6400697/2025/06/03/jim-marshall-dead-vikings-legend/

If you’re against Nazis, and billionaires, and bigots, and pro LGBTQ but look the other way as Israel commits genocide in Palestine, or, even worse, support Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people, I have news for you: You’re not progressive; you’re selectively fascist.
#israel #genocide

I am at the same position as this post lines out. I’m neither hard core pro or anti LLMs. I think they are useful in specific contexts e.g. distilling and querying big chunks of text based information. They are not a hail mary solution to every problem.
„A lot of people like Rust and hate Go, and a lot of people like Go and hate Rust. That’s fine. That doesn’t bother me. But there’s something different about [AI discourse] that is driving me up a wall.“

"I'm curious about other people. That's the essence of my acting. I'm interested in what it would be like to be you."
-Meryl Streep
#acting #coaching #inspiration…

Describing a coup as an “invasion from within” seems fairly accurate to me, and maybe useful to people who are having trouble getting their heads around the danger of the moment.

It’s frustrating and disappointing to see people, including governments, police, and others, misrepresent GrapheneOS and even Pixel phones.
https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114784469162979608

Weather Service rehiring at offices left ‘critically understaffed’ by layoffs
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5329625-nws-seeks-hire-126-people/

reality_mining: Reality mining proximity network (2004)
A network of human proximities among students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as measured by personal mobile phones. Nodes represent people (students from the Media Lab and the Sloan Business School) and an edge connects a pair if the two devices made a Bluetooth handshake at the time. Edges are timestamped.
This network has 96 nodes and 1086404 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Unweighted, Timestamps

Why do people think music needs to be saved?
#music #Musicstodon
https://muz4now.com/2014/people-thin…

Exclusive: One-third of top U.S. cyber force has left since Trump took office
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/03/cisa-staff-layoffs-resignations-trump-cuts

The free expression of the hopes and aspirations of a people is the greatest and only safety in a sane society.
---- - Emma Goldman - ----

I gotta say I find a lot of AI discourse around higher ed very confusing:
"if ChatGPT can write your essays is college even worth it?"
Did people think math teachers were assigning problem sets because *they* couldn't figure out the answers?
https://bsky.app/prof…

On top of all of this there's a meta-effect: a certain class of their best engineers want no part of this and have left. The people with the peak insight that simplify things and unify products into cohesive, useful systems are leaving.

Sources: JD.com and Ant are lobbying the People's Bank of China to authorize yuan-based, Hong Kong-issued stablecoins to promote the yuan and counter USD coins (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-te…

If you take a walk along the coast, near Caleta Camarones in northern Chile, near an old archeological site called Camarones 15, it is hard not to spot evidence of the mummies.
Cloth, rope, hair, tiny fragments of bones, and pieces of wood, an item that is nowhere to be seen growing anywhere nearby, but which the Chinchorro people used to keep their mummies intact like little dolls.
The Chinchorro mummies are considered the oldest mummies in the world.
Thousands of years olde…

Wonderful thread from @… on moral panics, press coverage, and people living through a time of change. https://mastodon.online/@xankarn/112253975617354814

Visual Privacy Management with Generative AI for Blind and Low-Vision People
Tanusree Sharma, Yu-Yun Tseng, Lotus Zhang, Ayae Ide, Kelly Avery Mack, Leah Findlater, Danna Gurari, Yang Wang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.00286

It is only a matter of time until noem, homan, dhs, ice and potus realize dropping people out of aircraft is cheaper than housing or moving them.
Unless they already have.
Rumors are the US is engaging in death flights. Already there are some known flight paths of ice flights turning around over bodies of water.
The US Congress and international community seem to be the only things that can stop this.

ambassador: Philippines Ambassador bombing (2000)
A temporal network representing snapshots of relationships among individuals directly or indirectly associated with Philippines Ambassador Residence Bombing 2000, Jakarta. Nodes are people, and an edge exists if they are associated with each other. Definition of the edge weight is unknown.
This network has 16 nodes and 4 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Weighted, Temporal

Russia's attacks kill 3, injure 34 across Ukraine over past day: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/03/russias-attacks-kill-injure-across.html

Learn not to be horrified by mere "AI"
Learn to be horrified by inhumanity, oppression, commoditization of labor, deskilling people, disrupting lives, acquiring control of society and culture, of misinformation, of uncaring bullshit.

https://apnews.com/article/swatting-plot-thomasz-szabo-60de50b8bf1dd35b3ea403072a58f1cd
Romanian man pleads guilty to ‘swatting’ plot that targeted an ex-US president and lawmakers

AOC:
I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE.
This is not a simple budget increase.
It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined.
It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play.
And people are disappearing.

OpenAI updates its coding agent Codex with internet access, turned off by default, and expands availability to ChatGPT Plus users (Simon Willison/Simon Willison's Weblog)
https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/3/codex-agent-internet-access/

Accessible Data Access and Analysis by People who are Blind or Have Low Vision
Samuel Reinders, Munazza Zaib, Matthew Butler, Bongshin Lee, Ingrid Zukerman, Lizhen Qu, Kim Marriott
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.23443

ambassador: Philippines Ambassador bombing (2000)
A temporal network representing snapshots of relationships among individuals directly or indirectly associated with Philippines Ambassador Residence Bombing 2000, Jakarta. Nodes are people, and an edge exists if they are associated with each other. Definition of the edge weight is unknown.
This network has 16 nodes and 13 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Weighted, Temporal

My article Vent or Win, Choose Wisely has been accepted for publication by The Geopolitical Economist:
https://medium.com/the-geopolitical-economist/vent-or-win-choose-wisely-c618c86f1472

Writer Ariel Courage on never feeling finished https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/writer-ariel-courage-on-ne…

Russian strike on Poltava kills 2, injures 11, Ukrainian officials say, conscription office set on fire: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/03/russian-strike-on-poltava-kills.html

At least 54,418 people have been killedin Gaza during the war, according to the territory's health ministry

A local Palestinian journalist told the BBC that Israeli tanks opened fire near an aid centre.
A medic says he is treating people with bullet or shrapnel wounds

The Palestinian Red Crescent says 14 people have been injured near another aid distribution centre in the Netzarim Corridor, central Gaza

As a reminder: Israel doesn't allow independent…

Author Michelle Tea on making art your main focus (and not taking your day job too seriously)
https://thecreativeindependent.…

Seven people are missing
after multiple explosions
at a warehouse in Northern California that sent bright fireworks across the area
and ignited a brush fire.
The location is owned by an active pyrotechnics license holder, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Emergency crews were searching the property for the missing individuals Wednesday,
and investigators were also surveying the area with drones.
Authorities ha…

If people taking care of our elders get deported, will anyone take their place?
At a time where it seems fewer and fewer of us want to work in long-term care, the need has never been greater
So how will millions of aging Americans be able to afford care for physical and cognitive decline,
especially given Trump’s proposed cuts to Medicaid, which covers about two-thirds of nursing home residents?
And who will take care of those who don’t have family members who can …

“Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to...acclaim the bully as hero”
-- Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 1958
#poetry

It's really telling how much of the conversation around AI boils down to,
"Is there any value in humans being able to think?"
Which all too quickly reduces to
"Is there any value in humans” ?
https://bsky.app/profile/kevinriggle.b

Dozens of peaceful protestors, including disabled people in wheelchairs,
were arrested last Wednesday, June 25, in Washington, DC,
while protesting Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,”
which will slash taxes,
dramatically increase funding for war and immigration enforcement,
and make devastating cuts to vital, popular programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

We can say this at least:
Musk is one of the most malignant people ever to hold a position of influence in American politics.
His actions, without exaggeration, have devastated the health and security of American society
and directly caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people all over the world, with millions more to follow given the course that he has set.
Musk’s DOGE, which is more or less a conspiracy to destroy constitutional government in this country, has …

Measles is on the rise in Kentucky.
Health officials in the state confirmed that the disease has spread to Fayette County,
marking the seventh case of the highly contagious illness in Kentucky since the beginning of the year.
Previous cases had been reported in Woodfood County.
There are five active measles cases in the Bluegrass State, four of which are connected to the current outbreak,
while another unrelated measles case was reported in Todd County last week,…