»Decreasing Certificate Lifetimes to 45 Days:
Let’s Encrypt will be reducing the validity period of the certificates we issue. We currently issue certificates valid for 90 days, which will be cut in half to 45 days by 2028.«
The @… halving the validity of the keys makes the web more secure (not more anonymous).
🔐

Decreasing Certificate Lifetimes to 45 Days
Let’s Encrypt will be reducing the validity period of the certificates we issue. We currently issue certificates valid for 90 days, which will be cut in half to 45 days by 2028. This change is being made along with the rest of the industry, as required by the CA/Browser Forum Baseline Requirements, which set the technical requirements that we must follow. All publicly-trusted Certificate Authorities like Let’s Encrypt will be making similar changes. Reducing how long certificates are valid …

I don't think allies under or overestimated Trump. They are regular people who don't know what to do with a 6 foot 4 child who is unpredictable, willful and uncontrollable. Will he throw a tantrum in public today? Will he torture the dog? Will he pretend to be friends with the new kid and then call him names and throw mud? Will he be all sweet and behave and eat all his dinner and then poop in the corner? Time out we yell and he laughs in our face. How to deal with that?

drag, the upcoming أحمد [AHMED] shows in #nyc got cancelled (with no mention of rescheduling). https://www.fouroneoneprojects.org/events/ahmed

In neither this year nor the next should anyone expect Russia to propose a deal that is meaningfully different from what it has already.
How do we change the circumstances?
There are two main levers.
The first deteriorates conditions inside Russia to the point that Mr. Putin is forced to consider ending the war as the lesser evil,
and it is achieved by imposing sanctions that would be powerful and smart enough to erode Russia’s capacity to wage war and significantly i…

Opinion | Ukraine Is Not a War of Attrition
Victory will belong not to the side with more resources, but to the side with the stronger, more adaptive and unyielding will to win.

From the article: "He added: “It’s something where it’s moving very quickly and people don’t necessarily have time to absorb it or figure out what to do.”"
That impersonal, natural "it" is moving - Not the people developing the models and selling them (or inflicting them), not the wealthy investors demanding market share, not the sci-fi addled techbros (Muskrats?) imagining that if only we get AGI all problems will be solved tomorrow, - all wanting to be first. Oh…

From the article: "He added: “It’s something where it’s moving very quickly and people don’t necessarily have time to absorb it or figure out what to do.”"
That impersonal, natural "it" is moving - Not the people developing the models and selling them (or inflicting them), not the wealthy investors demanding market share, not the sci-fi addled techbros (Muskrats?) imagining that if only we get AGI all problems will be solved tomorrow, - all wanting to be first. Oh…

Maybe I'm in my own little info bubble but I find it hard to believe that 60% of Canadians would support a new pipeline from Alberta to the west coast. I was disappointed with Carney's negotiation/capitulation to Smith, and I think longterm it's a misstep by the Liberals. Indigenous People will fight it tooth and nail, and we should support them in that effort. B.C. doesn't want a new terminal on their coast. Demand for oil continues to drop and there's a real risk the pipeline is severely underused upon completion. Most of the money made from oil moving through this pipe will leave Canada. Canada's reputation is polluted with this announcement while the majority of countries continue to develop alternative energy solutions. I can understand the support from Alberta as the province doesn't appear to have a strategy for transitioning from an oil dependent economy. But who are the other Canadians that Angus Reid surveyed?
#CanPoli #Pipeline
https://youtu.be/3VISu7l6FhY?si=kgpadeUAXu8DC5uP

Peyton Manning's 2013 success will never be repeated https://insidethestar.com/peyton-mannings-2013-success-will-never-be-repeated

Save important peat moss in Greater Manchester.
Trafford Council is applying for planning permission for the Carrington Relief Road, and we have until 27 February to object.
The Carrington Relief Road will cause harm to Carrington Moss, a 335 hectare peat moss, which Natural England considers to be an irreplaceable habitat. It will also damage or totally destroy 40 hectares of productive agricultural land, and increase traffic,.
Take action::

watching bf play Elden Ring, it strikes me that we're close to peak graphics. the realism dial can still be turned up a bit, but games are generally better when they're a step away from reality.
what's missing though is physicality. when characters swing weapons at enemies, it's clearly just sprites doing canned animation, and there's no actual contact happening.
a couple decades from now, perhaps average 3d games will have processing budget for procedural ani…

I’m not really sure what it means, given the state of the world, but I guess in an aspirational sense, at least, as in “against all evidence to the contrary, here’s hoping 2026 will be a…”
Here’s wishing you all a Happy New Year.
(Except the fascists. They can get fucked.)
💕
PS. You can find people in need in Gaza to donate to at https://

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

We're two LTS releases of Debian away from a version that will still be supported on 2038-01-19.

"Spoiler alert: unless there happens to be some breakthrough in physics that will drive more gigahertz to our CPUs, more crypto to those GPUs, more watts to our batteries, and more money to cloud providers, we most probably will not see any difference between the computer you are using today and the one you will receive as a gift in Christmas 2033. Get used to this fact."

Return to Innocence
The pages of this magazine have often orbited around the subject of retrocomputing. Take, for example, the editions about sustainability, computer museums, hardware, hobbies, gaming, operating systems, or the one about BASIC published last summer. If you pay attention, you most probably have realized how much retrocomputing has grown in popularity in the past few decades, with more and more people learning on YouTube or TikTok how to replace the batteries or leaking capacitors from the motherbo…

Jensen Huang says Nvidia's OpenAI investment will be "the largest investment we've ever made", after a report said plans to invest $100B in OpenAI stalled (Debby Wu/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Selten hat der Song so gut gepasst, wie zu den jetzigen Zeiten.
"Greed and jealousy, each equal, all your days now dark"
"Monsters rule your world, are you too scared to understand?"
"We put our faith in maniacs, the triumph of the will
We kill for money, wealth and lust, for this we should be damned
We are disease upon the world, brotherhood of man"

We close out 2025 this week with another early pick, a fitting track from 90s rock act Semisonic.
Give it a listen and bring in the new year with us, as we run through why we feel this is the perfect track for the occasion.
Thanks again to all our readers for another fun year of music blogging, we'll be back in the new year to showcase more hand picked tracks from across the epic world of #rock

Semisonic - This Will Be My Year
One awesome, hand picked song from the world of rock and metal, showcased every week. Nothing more, nothing less! 🤘

Today's alarm in the Radisson Blu Hotel will just be a DRILL!
Der heutige Alarm im Radisson Blu Hotel ist nur eine ÜBUNG!
#radissonbluhotel #39c3

Did Performance

Played two Loopy gigs

Just a tiny birthday party and in a camping field with friends.
This is probably about the target number really.
It's nice to play now and then but couldn't be monthly or anything even more frequent.
Didn't feel like either went great. Health issues affecting performance plus nerves
Just one with video of any kind.
Added a couple of great songs to the playlists, need to practise more really.
At the end of a Hoopla class and the end of
a self-organised group class.
They were good fun.
But having to book a course every eight weeks means constantly churning co-players and long gaps where I don't get around to it or it was all booked up.
Tried to get a more permanent group going...
Trying to get some sort of indie-group off
the group rather than just short runs of
classes with new people all the time.
We found a group an booked the room but didn't get most of the actual people to turn up. Need to presumably meet more people up for that sort of thing.
So there will be new improv class starting
in Jan.
A new show in March at least.

Steven Guilbeault lays out the truth. Canada will not reach its climate targets.
““[Carney] thinks we’ll be able to do this with the market, with private investment. Of course, we have to do that, but I also think we need to have regulations in place to ensure that we achieve the goals we have set for ourselves. And by abandoning many of these measures, that becomes impossible.
“I mean, if we are honest with Canadians, we can no longer achieve our targets for 2030 with the announcements that have been made recently. It’s not possible.””
... he goes on to say Danielle Smith is (effectively) Donald Trump.
"“In my opinion, she is not a reliable partner in this negotiation.””
It is now abundantly clear that the Liberal Party and all Canadians really did lose something when Mark Carney became Prime Minister.
#CanPoli #CdnPoli #ClimateChange #ClimateCatastrophe #ABPoli
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/climate-change-guilbeault-carney-9.6998944

We recently switched to a different trash & recycle pickup company, one that was mandated by the town govt. They’re generally pretty good, but the bin we were given for trash is only just big enough to hold 1 week’s worth of trash. Usually that’s fine, but now I’ve got more stuff than will fit in it, like a Christmas wreath, and a large potted poinsettia that’s on its last legs, and more in that vein. I may be forced to toss these in someone’s yard after dark some night.

I explained something for a friend in a simple way, and I think it's worth paraphrasing again here.
You cannot create a system that constrains itself. Any constraint on a system must be external to the system, or that constraint can be ignored or removed. That's just how systems work. Every constitution for every country claims to do this impossible thing, a thing proven is impossible almost 100 years ago now. Gödel's loophole has been known to exist since 1947.
Every constitution in the world, every "separation of powers" and set of "checks and balances," attempts to do something which is categorically impossible. Every government is always, at best, a few steps away from authoritarianism. From this, we would then expect that governments trand towards authoritarianism. Which, of course, is what we see historically.
Constraints on power are a formality, because no real controls can possibly exist. So then democratic processes become sort of collective classifiers that try to select only people who won't plunge the country into a dictatorship. Again, because this claim of restrictions on powers is a lie (willful or ignorant, a lie reguardless) that classifier has to be correct 100% of the time (even assuming a best case scenario). That's statistically unlikely.
So as long as you have a system of concentrated power, you will have the worst people attracted to it, and you will inevitably have that power fall into the hands of one of the worst possible person.
Fortunately, there is an alternative. The alternative is to not centralize power. In the security world we try to design systems that assume compromise and minimize impact, rather than just assuming that we will be right 100% of the time. If you build systems that maximially distribute power, then you minimize the impact of one horrible person.
Now, I didn't mention this because we're both already under enough stress, but...
Almost 90% of the nuclear weapons deployed around the world are in the hands of ghoulish dictators. Only two of the countries with nuclear weapons not straight up authoritarian, but they're not far off. We're one crashout away from steralizing the surface of the Earth with nuclear hellfire. Maybe countries shouldn't exist, and *definitely* multiple thousands of nuclear weapons shouldn't exist and shouldn't all be wired together to launch as soon as one of these assholes goes a bit too far sideways.

Karpathy about AI & education (summarized some points), i agree with these point, other opinions?
1. You will never be able to detect the use of AI in homework. Full stop.
2. Therefore, the majority of grading has to shift to in-class work (instead of at-home assignments), in settings where teachers can physically monitor students.
3. We want students to be able to use AI, it is here to stay and it is extremely powerful, but we also don't want students to be naked in …

Renault is set to launch its Dutch AC bidirectional charging package in collaboration with We Drive Solar and Hegg Energy in the first half of 2026. This will be the first commercialised #V2G

Renault Group en We Drive Solar introduceren allereerste V2G AC-laden service in Nederland - Renault Group
In Nederland beschikt meer dan 70% van de EV-rijders thuis over zonnepanelen*. Met het einde van de salderingsregeling (januari 2027) in het verschiet, groeit de interesse voor hergebruik van goedkope en/of eigen opgewekte energie. V2G vormt een oplossing hiervoor, terwijl het tegelijkertijd bijdraagt aan het balanceren van het elektriciteitsnet in Nederland. Dankzij V2G-technologie is laden […]

NFL Coaching Hot Seat Rankings https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/nfl-coaching-hot-seat-rankings-after-harbaugh-vs-tomlin-will-loser-leave-town

#Blakes7 Series D, Episode 09 - Sand
ORAC: We will be lovers for a little while, or maybe for a long while, who knows?
SOOLIN: I do. [Pulls key]
VILA: What a thought.
SOOLIN: Keller was right again.
AVON: Vila, try and bring Tarrant back up.

The full Weekend Reads report is on vacation this week, it will return next week. But we don't want to leave you with nothing. Here is one piece that might have made it into the top 5:
* The Input Stack on Linux
https://venam.net/blog/unix/2025/11/27/input_device…

The Input Stack on Linux
Let's explore and deobfuscate the input stack on Linux. Our aim is to understand its components and what each does. Input handling can be divided into two parts, separated by a common layer. We’ll try to make sense of all this, one thing at a time, with a logical and coherent approach.

Where will you be tonight? Will you be at Victory Cafe, 440 Bloor St. W. In Toronto, for @… hosted by us, Tech Pizza Mondays? https://luma.com/ojfhyp5q

An interview with Google DeepMind Nobel laureate John Jumper on the creative "off-label" uses for AlphaFold, combining AlphaFold's power with LLMs, and more (Will Douglas Heaven/MIT Technology Review)
https://www.technologyrev…

What’s next for AlphaFold: A conversation with a Google DeepMind Nobel laureate
“I’ll be shocked if we don’t see more and more LLM impact on science,” says John Jumper.

We're downtown killing time before we head over to the theatre to see We Will RockYou. I suspect Best Buy's boxing day sale is not going well. At the Eaton's Centre location there are hundreds of big screen TVs piled up everywhere. In the aisles, at the front, in display areas. Messy as hell.
Reminds me of this appropriate tune.
https://youtu.be/wTP2RUD_cL0?si=pjmiHpE0mct5pXbF

In a staff meeting, Bari Weiss says CBS News will be "toast" if it clings to its broadcast audience and will put a "huge emphasis on scoops...scoops of ideas" (Alex Weprin/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-ne…

Bari Weiss Unveils Sweeping Vision: “I Am Here to Make CBS News Fit for Purpose in the 21st Century”
Weiss rallied the troops and outlined her vision at an all-hands meeting Tuesday morning, naming a lineup of new contributors: "Our strategy until now has been to cling to the audience that remains on broadcast television. If we stick to that strategy we're toast."

"A very-well known Internet meme, inspired by a scene from the 2004 movie “Finding Neverland”, features a sequence of images in which a very young Freddie Highmore tearfully admits that “it works in my machine”, to which Johnny Depp replies “then we’ll ship your machine”, with the last caption stating “and that is how Docker was born”."

Shipping Your Computer
The analogy between intermodal containers and software containers sounds cliché, but it works pretty well, which is the reason why we will keep using it in this article. Let us recap: before the standardization around intermodal containers after the Second World War, freight had to be manually loaded and unloaded from boats to trains to trucks, over and over again. Before the rise of software containers of the 2010s, software had to be manually loaded and unloaded from developer laptops to tes…

Donald Trump said on Sunday that he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were “getting a lot closer, maybe very close”
to an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, though both leaders acknowledged that some of the thorniest details remain unresolved.

Trump said it will be clear “in a few weeks” whether negotiations to end the war will succeed.

Zelenskyy said an agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine has been reached.

Trump was sli…

Daring Fireball: The Names They Call Themselves
#USpol

The Names They Call Themselves
*Fascist* and *Nazi* weren’t slurs that were applied to the Italians and Germans by their political or military opponents. That’s what they called themselves. The job won’t be done, this era of madness will not end, until we make *the names Trump’s regime calls themselves* universally acknowledged slurs.

House Rep. Rosa DeLauro (from CT) says:
❝I understand that many of my Democratic colleagues may be dissatisfied with any bill that funds ICE. …[But]… The Homeland Security funding bill is more than just ICE. If we allow a lapse in funding, TSA agents will be forced to work without pay, FEMA assistance could be delayed, and the US Coast Guard will be adversely affected….❞
And I am saying stop ICE if you have to ••shut down every airport in the country•• to do it.
That is the message I want Congress to hear. That serious. This is Trump starting a civil war.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/22/democrats-ice-funding-bill

Ugh, my personal git server uses a pre-2022 version of sshd - and now, when I do anything, I get a warning that I'm not using post-quantum keys.
We should be moving to PQ methods, yes, but I don't think anyone will convince me that mass "store now, decrypt later" quantum attacks will ever really be a thing - the opportunity cost will always be too high.
This is a VPN-advert level of unnecessary caution.
(You can set "LogLevel ERROR" in an ssh_con…

Want to see some fluffs at #39c3 ?
chaosfurs will do two fursuitwalks on day 2 and 3
https://events.ccc.de/congress/2025/hub/en/assembly/detail/chaosfurs

"Hero? No! We're pirates! I love heroes but I don't wanna be one! Do you know what heroes are? Say there is a chunk of meat. Pirates will have a banquet and eat it but heroes will share it with other people. I want all the meat!"
Monkey D. Luffy, One Piece, ep. 554.
#quote #OnePiece

After #Trump finally crashes and burns (I'm still saying I don't think he makes it to the mid terms, and I think it's more than possible he won't make it to the end of the year) we'll hear a lot of people say, "the system worked!" Today people are already talking about "saving democracy" by fighting back. This will become a big rally cry to vote (for Democrats, specifically), and the complete failure of the system will be held up as the best evidence for even greater investment in it.
I just want to point out that American democracy gave nuclear weapons to a pedophile, who, before being elected was already a well known sexual predator, and who made the campaign promise to commit genocide. He then preceded to commit genocide. And like, I don't care that he's "only" kidnaped and disappeared a few thousand brown people. That's still genocide. Even if you don't kill every member of a targeted group, any attempt to do so is still "committing genocide." Trump said he would commit genocide, then he hired all the "let's go do a race war" guys he could find and *paid* them to go do a race war. And, even now as this deranged monster is crashing out, he is still authorized to use the world's largest nuclear arsenal.
He committed genocide during his first term when his administration separated migrant parents and children, then adopted those children out to other parents. That's technically genocide. The point was to destroy the very people been sending right wing terror squads after.
There was a peaceful hand over of power to a known Russian asset *twice*, and the second time he'd already committed *at least one* act of genocide *and* destroyed cultural heritage sites (oh yeah, he also destroyed indigenous grave sites, in case you forgot, during his first term).
All of this was allowed because the system is set up to protect exactly these types of people, because *exactly* these types of people are *the entire power structure*.
Going back to that system means going back to exactly the system that gave nuclear weapons to a pedophile *TWICE*.
I'm already seeing the attempts to pull people back, the congratulations as we enter the final phase, the belief that getting Trump out will let us all get back to normal. Normal. The normal that lead here in the first place. I can already see the brunch reservations being made. When Trump is over, we will be told we won. We will be told that it's time to go back to sleep.
When they tell you everything worked, everything is better, that we can stop because we won, tell them "fuck you! Never again means never again." Destroy every system that ever gave these people power, that ever protected them from consequences, that ever let them hide what they were doing.
These democrats funded a genocide abroad and laid the groundwork for genocide at home. They protected these predators, for years. The whole power structure is guilty. As these files implicate so many powerful people, they're trying to shove everything back in the box. After all the suffering, after we've finally made it clear that we are the once with the power, only now they're willing to sacrifice Trump to calm us all down.
No, that's a good start but it can't be the end.
Winning can't be enough to quench that rage. Keep it burning. When this is over, let victory fan that anger until every institution that made this possible lies in ashes. Burn it all down and salt the earth. Taking down Trump is a great start, but it's not time to give up until this isn't possible again.
#USPol

From the comments: “World leaders now know that Trump’s word means nothing and that no member of his administration can be trusted. They also know that even if 2028 ends the current nightmare, America will always be just four years away from electing someone of his ilk. For that reason, they should count this as a permanent rupture.”
Opinion | We Don’t Need Greenland. We Need Allies. - The New York Times
https://archive.ph/OAzIw

Chicago is getting a place for sickos
#fedifc

(yes, I'm avoiding a link to Failbook):

Wednesday, December 3, 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM
Columbia Road, Adams Morgan
Carols & Cocoa
#DC

Carols & Cocoa
Will We See You There? Join us at 5:30pm outside The Festival Center (1640 Columbia Road NW) for the 6th annual sing-along and hot cocoa! The hot cocoa will be […]

It’s apparent to anyone with a bit of education in technological history that this sort of thing must be possible. We have waste streams with higher concentrations of key elements than the "ore" we derive them from.
This is part of why I religiously recycle plastics even though right now they don’t really get recycled. At some point, the piles of unrecycled plastics will be a better raw material for new plastics than the dregs of petroleum we have left.

I am thrilled to be back at FOSDEM. It is a fantastic opportunity to meet with the open source community and connect with fellow developers at such a great conference!
Please join me this Saturday in the FOSS on Mobile devroom. I will be presenting the technical evolution of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, demonstrating how we achieved full mainline support—from power management to the Adreno GPU—running on actual product hardware.
I look forward to seeing you there.
Saturday, 18:30…

"What will be the condition of the world our children inherit? What will we feed them if we destroy the ecosystems on which agriculture depends? In short, we can’t nurture healthy people on a sick planet."
—Mary Evelyn Tucker, Co-Director of Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, in her piece in the new issue of the YDS journal Reflections

"When people tell me that there’s been no resistance to the Trump administration... or just aren’t paying attention, because there has, in fact, been a tremendous amount and variety of resistance and opposition and it’s mattered tremendously. When will it be enough is a question that can only be answered if and when all this is over and we find out what comes next."

if you defend ISO's practices to me we will not be friends

Okay, getting an early start on preparing for the JoCo cruise in the beginning of 2027 (assuming the world is still here). The overall setup will be the RetroTINK 4K (already owned), a nice 4K OLED portable monitor, and a sturdy MiSTer. I'm excited to see if the RetroTINK 4K works its magic on the portable monitor...even more excited to see if I can get back into running _Castlevania: Symphony of the Night_. We'll see.

In October last year, US chip giant Qualcomm acquired Italian open source electronics and software pioneer Arduino. Not everyone was happy.
https://www.computing.co.uk/interview/2026/arduino-ceo-we-will-always-be-open-source

Arduino CEO: We will always be open source
In October last year, US chip giant Qualcomm acquired Italian open source electronics and software pioneer Arduino. Not everyone was happy.

Due to inclement weather, we will be sleeping all year

:bear:

Irgendwie der Soundtrack dieser Tage:
You'll be back, time will tell
You'll remember that I served you well
Oceans rise, empires fall
We have seen each other through it all
And when push comes to shove
I will send a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love
[…]
So don't throw away this thing we had
'Cause when push comes to shove
I will kill your friends and family
To remind you of my love
You'll be bac…

This has allowed me to make clear something that's been at the back of my mind. Something that is at the heart of so much blind stupidity in big tech.
It's the assumption that we will change one thing and all else will be the same.
In this case, we will fire lots and lots of employees all over the world and we will make lots of profit. We're smart enough to make the AI, and we're dumb enough to think that there will only be one consequence. 1/n

@… Yes, we are losing all that history that once used to be in paper letters. I have no idea what future historians will be able to see.

RE: https://mas.to/@gleick/115952606396238455
Unlikely, but I hope somehow his phone will be used in evidence, so we can know what they said to one another. More likely is that the murderer will see to it that the phone disappears.

The scary thing is that we're still in the FA stage. 2026 will be a very unfortunate FO.

I freelanced for @… for 10 years, writing 37 articles/features
They were an amazing team, interested in global #justice, #labor, &

As Equal Times closes, the work continues
This is it. Our final article. Equal Times, the global labour news platform, will cease to publish as of December 2025. The website – which was, for more than a decade, an invaluable resource on the realities of work, society, fundamental rights, and more: the victories secured, the innovations introduced, but also the many indignities, injustices and stubborn anachronisms endured – will remain online, but no new content will be added. We launched back in autumn 2012 with a simple mission …

Breaking down Bill Polian's alleged role in Bill Belichick not being a first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/bill-polians-alle…

"We have a funding system for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that is entirely based on the spending priorities of the UK government in England. The Welsh government has less borrowing powers than a local council, and it often publishes its final budget nine months into the financial year, because the Treasury has decided to change funding in England. This doesn’t work. And it can’t work"

"The Nordic trade union movement stands firmly with Greenland. We will continue to support the right of the Greenlandic people to decide their own path and to be treated with respect as equal members of the international community." ✊️ #solidarity #Greenland

Who are going to be the five D senators who chicken out and sign a blank check to the trumpies?
These wimpy-D's are willing to give away what little power we have left to obtain magic beans - which are worthless promises that the R's will allow a vote on ACA subsidies. A vote? We know that the R's will roll over that vote, that el-cheato won't sign, and that even if enacted, will simply become a bag of cash that el-cheato will use for whatever purpose he wants.
…

Republicans try to end shutdown without health care fix
Senate Republicans are trying to end the government shutdown by preparing a bipartisan package of spending bills that they hope will win new Democratic votes. It's unclear whether their plan will work. Democrats have voted 14 times not to reopen the government as they demand an extension of health care subsidies, which aren't expected to be part of the legislation. Many say they will continue to hold out until President Donald Trump and Republican leaders negotiate with them on an extension. A …

Real conspiracies tend to come out, but some of them take a while. Information on the Iran/Contra scandal broke out about 5 years after the conspiracy started. That would have taken several hundred people to carry out, so it was somewhat hard to hide. Even so, they largely got away with it.
The moon landing conspiracy theory would have taken thousands of people, so it would have come out more quickly. Since we have an example of a real secret program of a similar scale as what would be required to fake a moon landing (that is, the Manhattan project), we know that the fake moon landing conspiracy theory is not true. (There's also the literally tons of evidence in the form of rocks and other samples, and all kinds of other ways to debunk the claim.)
Could Kash Patel's FBI have been trying really hard to entrap people into carrying out terrorist attacks in order to justify #Trump's occupation of DC? Could they have helped a guy plan an attack then just failed to arrest him? There are reasonable scenarios that fall in between malice and incompetence while still indicating some level of false flag.
Could someone have just snapped and ambushed some guardsmen without any involvement from the FBI? Yeah, totally. The US is a country full of guns with a completely non-functional mental health system. Someone coming from a country that the US destroyed, twice, could have a lot of untreated trauma. Might they see the national guard as a threat (even if that wasn't totally true)? Yeah, they were deployed to threaten people (even when they were just picking up trash). The point was to incite this kind of response. It's completely reasonable to believe that the FBI would not need to be involved at all, that this would just be the stochastic response they were looking for.
So the point here is that everything is on the table, nothing is really known, nothing should be surprising, and no matter what it's Trump's fault. This is exactly the escalation he was looking for. If he didn't get it naturally, he would also have had ways of making it happen.
He will use this in exactly the same way as the Reichstag fire, to drive a wedge between liberals and radicals. Don't fall for it.
Edit:
There are plausible reasons to not believe the official narrative at all right now, or maybe ever. The official narrative is also plausible, but there are plausible reasons to disagree with the response even if the official story is true. It is unnecessary to resort to conspiracy thinking in order to account for what happened and to disagree with the response. But it is also understandable why someone might jump immediately to a conspiracy given the circumstances.

#Memphis: there’s a free brake light repair clinic this Saturday! Don’t be giving #Trump’s #tAsKfOrCe nazis a reason to pull you over; make sure your lights are good.
Volunteers will be replacing brake and…

This is a subtweet...
People who are not anti-capitalist sometimes wonder: "Why is there a monopoly on X life-critical thing?" (E.g., epipens, insulin, web search).
This one is really simple actually: because monopolies are more profitable than competition, and the foundation of capitalism is that capital = power.
Various societies have recognized the necropolitical outcomes of monopolies and have tried to erect barriers to monopoly; we all know that monopolies are bad, death-and-suffering-causing things. But since these societies mostly remain capitalist, they allow these barriers to be eroded by the power of capital (to do otherwise would be to repudiate capitalism because it puts a limit on the power of money). The barriers are ineffective, and the capital = power equation holds, and monopolies result and get to do their killing & maiming thing (remember: even things like social media monopolies that you wouldn't expect to pay for political assassinations like a mining company still profit from inciting genocides). *Sometimes* there are oligopolies instead of monopolies, but instances of really competitive markets are pretty rare for things that are widely sought-after.
The "government will manage the markets to prevent bad outcomes like monopolies" strategy has failed repeatedly, spectacularly, and almost universally. To actually prevent monopolies you need a population that no longer believes that money should equal power, it's that simple. Sadly, it's actually not that simple, since all of the alternatives which equate something else to power, like "the king" or "party loyalty as judged by the supreme leader" have the same problems or worse. The attitude you need to cultivate is "nobody should have power," which is hard because *all* of the power-systems we have constantly propagandize against this attitude in myriad ways. Still, in the future once we've broken free of this age where hierarchy is accepted, people will look back and wonder whether the historical records are even credible given how much needless death and suffering were endured with little resistance.
#anarchy #capitalism

For you #Minneapolis, #Dinkytown, University of #Minnesota folks: five years ago, we lost the iconic McDonald's

This cranky senior citizen doesn't get mad (too often that is) I use the process. I have been doing this longer than most of them have been alive.
When I send a request to check the status of a server the courtesy of a standard reply is not optional! Where I am we have standard replies depending on the subject that we send back stating that we received their email and are working on it and there will be updates. Sending emails and then it is swallowed by a black hole isn't a…

Representative Robert Garcia accused the administration of shielding powerful figures who abused women and girls.
"The White House is openly engaged in a cover-up protecting Epstein's co-conspirators and the powerful men who abused women and girls", he said,
noting it was "outrageous that the DOJ has illegally withheld over 1 million documents from the public".
Notably, under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, there was a December 19 deadline for …

Trump's DOJ 'receives' one million new Epstein files. When can we expect another document drop?
When will the next Epstein files be released? The DOJ says it has received over 1 million new Epstein-related records, but when will we see them? All we know.

Just got these messages from @seengoals@mastodon.social, one of the members of Gaza Verified, basically accusing me of running a fundraiser for Gaza and keeping the proceeds (I have no fundraiser on any fundraising site anywhere) and extorting me to share his fundraiser or he’ll apparently go public with it.
So here’s what’s going to happening instead: Nabil has been removed Gaza Verified (

I will not be going to bed until it stops fucking steaming. Not that we (or the neighbors) have any more dry towels to soak up more water, but I'm not letting my house burn down to avoid a bit of damp in the kitchen

I am being a bit cheeky, but I really do think this is a powerful psychological force that shapes orgs far more than we realize: it can be emotionally damaging to have people tell you “no” or question your ideas, and leadership means getting that •all the time•. People in management / executive positions — who are in fact very much people, all too human — will go to great lengths to protect their own psyches from the injury of pushback.
This is a •powerful• force in orgs.
7/

Leaseweb's annual service price increase will be 3.9% in 2026. Outside of domain registrations and big contracts, not many basic #hosting providers do this on such a consistent basis.
It is not unreasonable to charge more to account for inflation on salaries, rent, energy, etc. However, as we all know, hardware gets cheaper and better all the time. Are these customers getting more …

Possible replacements for Matt Eberflus as the Cowboys DC in 2026 https://insidethestar.com/possible-replacements-for-matt-eberflus-as-the-cowboys-dc-in-2026

If I were to give a prize for the most disruptive workflow change of my life, it will be probably `less` changing home/end key behavior from scrolling to top/bottom (something which I do *all the time*) to disabling line wrapping and scrolling left/right (something I never do).
It's like XKCD#1172, except it's "we've decided spacebar heating is so cool, we've removed all other spacebar functions".
#Gentoo #Linux

Series C, Episode 04 - Dawn of the Gods
AVON: We will do nothing to counter the force acting upon the Liberator. We then plot the Liberator's course on the main battle computer flight predictor to see exactly how she is behaving. Once we understand how the force is operating we may be some way toward defeating it.
TARRANT: Strange. The Liberator's following a curve. Traction beams produce straight-line motion. Zen, I want a prediction of the Liberator's course based …

Arrived in Toronto safely. We're staying at my youngest daughter's apartment for 3 or 4 days and planning on attending a show and maybe visit a few museums.
Our daughter took our car back to our place in Innisfil and she will be having friends over for a New Year's extended party. I hope her commute is as uneventful as ours was.
#HouseSwap

In the wake of the D.C. shooting,
the Trump administration will conduct a full review of Afghan nationals who were admitted to the U.S. under the Biden administration,
Donald Trump said.
“We must now reexamine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden,
and we must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who does not belong here, or add benefit to our country.”

Live updates: 2 National Guard members in critical condition; D.C. shooting suspect said to be Afghan national
The suspect, who was also shot, was taken into custody, according to D.C. police. The suspected shooter is said to be an Afghan national.

BBC News hires Lindsay McIntosh, previously Head of News at The Sunday Times, as its Executive News Editor (BBC Press Office on LinkedIn)
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7407013484615409664

We are delighted to announce Lindsay McIntosh as the new Executive News Editor, BBC News.    As Executive News Editor, Lindsay will be at the heart of the BBC newsroom – driving the BBC’s editorial… | BBC Press Office
We are delighted to announce Lindsay McIntosh as the new Executive News Editor, BBC News.    As Executive News Editor, Lindsay will be at the heart of the BBC newsroom – driving the BBC’s editorial agenda and working across BBC News to ensure we continue to deliver high quality, distinctive news across our platforms.   Lindsay joins us from The Sunday Times where she is currently the Head of News and oversees its award-winning political and investigative journalism across digital and pr…

X starts rolling out About This Account globally, letting users see the country or region where an X account is based by tapping the signup date on the profile (Nikita Bier/@nikitabier)
https://x.com/nikitabier/status/1992335925322613127

Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) on X
In a couple hours, we'll be rolling out About This Account globally, allowing you to see the country or region where an account is based. This will be accessible by tapping the signup date on profiles. This is an important first step to securing the integrity of the global town

I think today's worker is the owner of the company, he certainly is the assessor.
He worked a lot later than those without the vested interest there. 😆 I finished work at my job before he did! 🤭
All the wood was sanded down and remaining nude wood given some paint. We have a test plank in the foreground of the first picture here which is painted with a second coat of paint. Seems likely we lose all the wood grain when doing that, and so will prefer the paler look where it's obviously made of wood not paint.
Won't really know for sure till it's dry. Prefer the colour a bit darker like that but if we're hiding the wood grain we might as well have used MDF instead of pine. We're after something clearly made of wood.
Another area is test-painted with just the clearcoat top varnish as a second layer. That's likely to be right, just a bit more shiny and protected.
The carpenter proper is back from holiday and starts tomorrow. He has a lot of drawers and doors to build and edging to attach to make the door panels. Still hoping at least the carpentry will be pretty much all done by the end of the week but likely some painting and touching up still to do next week. Hopefully by the end of Tuesday because I'm not really able to be here all day each day for most of the two weeks after that.

Pressure on Senators •is working•. Previously head-in-sand centrist Senators are actually coming out to vote against ICE funding. Their positions are still weak and insufficient, and more need to cave to pressure — but they are visibly buckling.
Again, we should not and must not wait on elected officials to save us — they will not — but we can and should deploy pressure on them as a strategic tool in moments when that can be useful.
Now is such a moment. KEEP IT UP.
1/

I think we can actually prove that this constraint is the *only* constraint that can preserve freedom:
1. There will exist actors in a system who will wish to take advantage of others. Evolution drives survival and one strategy for increasing survival in an altruistic society is to become a parasite.
2. Expecting exploitative dynamics, a system needs to have a set of rules to manage exploitation.
3. If the set of rules is static it will lack the requisite variety necessary to manage the infinite possible behavior of humans so the system will fail.
4. If the system is dynamic then it must have a rule set about how it's own rules are updated. This would make the system recursive, which makes the system at least as complex as mathematics. Any system at least as complex as mathematics is necessarily either incomplete or inconsistent (Gödel's incompleteness theorem). If the system is incomplete, then constraints can be evaded which then allow a malicious agent to seize control of the system and update the rules for their own benefit. If constraints are incomplete, then a malicious agent can take advantage of others within the system.
5. Therefore, no social system can possibly protect freedom unless there exists a single metasystemic constraint (that the system must be optional) allowing for the system to be abandoned when compromised.
Oh, you might say, but this just means you have to infinitely abandon systems. Sure, but there's an evolutionary advantage to cooperation so there's evolutionary pressure to *not* be a malicious actor. So a malicious actor being able to compromise the whole system is likely to be a much more rare event. Compromising a system is a lot of work, so the first thing a malicious actor would want to do is preserve that work. They would want to lock you in. The most important objective to a malicious actor compromising a system would be to violate that metasystemic constraint, or all of their work goes out the window when everyone leaves.
And now you understand why borders exist, why fascists are obsessed with maintaining categories like gender, race, ethnicity, etc. This is why even Democrats like Newsom are on board with putting houseless people in concentration camps. And this is why the most important thing anarchists promote is the ability to choose not to be part of any of that.

NFL Insider Pours Cold Water On Rumored Cowboys Coaching Hire https://heavy.com/sports/nfl/dallas-cowboys/brian-flores-cold-water-defensive-coordinator/

Worked on some more #Gentoo global #jobserver goodies today.
Firstly, Portage jobserver support patch: #PyTest jobs will also be counted towards total job count.
Again, it's not a perfect solution, but it works reasonably. The plugin still starts -n jobs as specified by the arguments, but it acquired job tokens prior to executing every test, therefore delaying actual testing until tokens are available. It doesn't seem to cause noticeable overhead either.

As we grow, most of us learn to find an appropriate level of tact when personally appraising the creative output of others.
But, from this year of AI, we have been liberated.
"Well, this looks like absolute shit" we'll say, on the assumption that no feelings will be hurt.

Series C, Episode 03 - Volcano
VILA: Because we can't.
[Flight deck]
AVON: Zen, flight status?
ZEN: The energy banks still require two minutes before power will be available to make navigation speed.
AVON: We'll be dead by then
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/303/622…

The BBC says "as we have made clear previously, we will be defending" against Trump's defamation lawsuit and "we are not going to make further comment" (Christal Hayes/BBC)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpvd81470v1o

BBC says it will defend Trump defamation lawsuit over Panorama speech edit
The US president is requesting $5bn (£3.7bn) in damages, according to court documents filed in Florida.

Good Morning #Canada
Apparently the earth moved last night but I didn't feel a thing. An earthquake, a magnitude 3.7 to 4.1 depending on different reports, was reported in my neighbourhood near Orilla Ontario last night. The epicenter was across Lake Simcoe, approximately 35km away from my home and 5km deep. Maybe the lake reduced the impact and we do have a pretty good mattress.
There are 4,000 ish earthquakes measured in Canada annually but most are minor. Perhaps 40 might be large enough or not remote, and people will feel the ground shaking. That's about 1 every 8 days. Most of our earthquakes occur along the West Coast, the High Arctic, and lower frequency along the eastern seaboard. Earthquakes are monitored by the National Seismograph Network with approximately 100 seismographs distributed across Canada.
I know you're wondering about the 10 largest earthquakes ever felt in Canada. I got you covered...
#CanadaIsAwesome #Seismology
https://www.earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca/pprs-pprp/pubs/GF-GI/GEOFACT_largest-earthquakes_e.pdf

I’ve seen posts about how Democratic politicians have to be “punished” and then they’ll shape up — even one horrifying post basically arguing that we need a couple more years for fascism to fully materialize in order to reform our political system.
My dude…this “people will wake up when it’s bad enough” trope doesn’t work. It’s never worked. It’s been failing spectacularly my whole life — and if one Trump term didn’t do it…what will? And how many people’s lives will be destroyed along the way?
That thinking will kill us all.
4/

Of course, economic pressure isn't the only tool we have. Diversity of tactics is critical. I'm not going to tell anyone not to throw buckets of screws into the parking lots and driveways of ICE facilities or blockading facilities with burning dumpstes. Even if i don't promote those types of tactics, we should all STFU if we see people doing them. We all have a place. There are things we can all do. Everything is on the table and it should be, because ICE agents will intimidate you, steal your car, and even murder you for just filming them.
You can cower in fear, or you can stand up and fight with everything you have. Which or those do you want to remember yourself doing?

This will be the easiest way to go after this administration once it's over.
It will be the equivalent of getting Capone for tax evasion.
But it will be enough, especially if we can sweep the funders with them.
https://bsky.app/profile/bloomberg.com/post/3mcid2hfs…

Bloomberg News (@bloomberg.com)
Donald Trump’s social-media empire is muscling into Wall Street, entering the $14 trillion US ETF market with five new “Made in America” funds. https://bloom.bg/3NLRx4V

The 2026 schedule isn’t favoring the Cowboys https://insidethestar.com/the-2026-schedule-isnt-favoring-the-cowboys

Good Morning #Canada
Good news... we've hit the low point of dark winter days and things will be much brighter going forward. I am referring to the Winter Solstice, which officially begins around 10am in these parts. This will be the longest night and shortest day of the winter and daylight will begin increasing tomorrow. So put away the snow shovels and slather on the tanning butter.
#CanadaIsAwesome #CelestialDays
https://www.insidehalton.com/news/ontario-canada-winter-solstice-2025/article_5adc2a0c-9ac6-50fd-9ef4-ca851ee6d6ce.html

Here’s the best info I have (which seems to be corroborated despite the scammy “CRIME” account name): now reported to be just one person hit, in the thigh. My guess is that the press will be picking up now and we won’t get really clear info until the dust has settled.
Will stop posting more from the chat rumor mill at this point unless I hear a really important correction.

One of the things that made organizing a lot easier with the GDC was a thing called "GDC in a box." It was a zip file with all kinds of resources. There was a directory structure, templates for all kinds of things like meetings and paperwork you had to file (for legal reasons) and "read me" files.
We had all kinds of support. There were people you could talk to who had been there. There were people you could call to walk through legal paperwork (taxes). Centralized orgs are vulnerable and easy to infiltrate. They're easy for states to shut down. But there are benefits to org structures.
I think it's possible to have the type of support we had with the GDC, but without the politics of an org (even the IWW). I hope this most recent essay has some of the same properties. I hope that it makes building something new, something no one has really imagined before, easier.
This whole project is something a bit different. It's a collective vision and collective project, from the ground up. Some of it has felt like a brain dump, just getting things that have been swimming around in my head down somewhere. But I hope this feels more like an invitation.
Everything thus far written is all useless unless people do things with it. Only from that point does it become a thing that lives, a thing with its own consciousness that can't be controlled by any individual human.
Tech billionaire cultists want to bring a new era of humanity with AGI. That is definitely not possible with LLMs, and may not be possible at all. But there is a super intelligence that is possible, though it's been constrained by capitalism: collective human intelligence.
The grand vision of the tech dystopians is that of the ultimate slave that can then enslave all humans on their behalf. I think we can build a humanity that can liberate itself from their grasp, crush their vision, and build for itself a world in which people will never be enslaved again. Not only do I think it's possible, I think it's necessary. I think there are only two choices: collective liberation or death.
And that's what I plan to write about next time to wrap this whole project up. Today things often feel impossible. But people talked about the Middle Ages as though they were the end of the world, and then everything changed in unimaginable ways. Everything can, and will, change again.
"The profit motive often is in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings."

Cop30 live:
‘If we continue destroying everything on this earth there will be chaos,’
warns Indigenous chief
Earlier on day five of the climate summit, activists blockaded the main entrance demanding to speak to the Brazilian president
http…

So this is percolating and the results so far are not surprising.
I'd vote NO, for the following reasons:
- oil demand continues to decline and risk is high we'll end up with an expensive underutilized pipeline. Therefore high risk we'll end up subsidizing any private entity that builds this thing.
- why would we invest public dollars to support infrastructure for a product where 75% of the profit leaves Canada? There has to be a net benefit, beyond steel sales and jobs, for this project to be considered.
- Indigenous land rights must be respected. They will be left with the rusting pipeline decades in the future, and it's impact on the land.
- the B.C. government must also have a final vote as they have to give up land and provide support.
- we don't need additional oil tankers on our west coast.
- and most importantly, with this MOU, Canada pretty much declared we aren't serious about protecting the environment or fighting climate change. We're oil whores. Harsh but....
#CanPoli #ClimateAction

Dozens of unions, community and faith organizations are calling on every Minnesotan to take a stand on January 23rd.
The ICE “surge” that cost the life of Renee Nicole Good is violating the Constitutional and human rights of Americans and our neighbors.
On January 23rd there will be a unified, statewide pause in economic activity.
We are demanding:
🔸ICE must leave Minnesota now.
🔸The officer who killed Good must be held legally accountable.
🔸No additiona…

So the Canada - China trade deal just announced is interesting, particularly regarding Electric Vehicles. It was primarily about restoring our agricultural trade with China by allowing their EVs to access our market. But it will likely, despite the limited amount that will hit our shores, jumpstart the EV market in Canada. Cars that are feature rich and cost less, like the one reviewed in the YT video linked below, will push current manufacturers in Canada to up their game.
Doug Ford abandoned his Captain Canada persona and selfishly attacked the deal because of potential impact on Ontario's auto industry. Part of his statement demanded that the Federal government cancel their Electric Vehicle mandates because it was too costly for manufacturers to build them. I think Toyota and Honda, long time Canadian partners, may be concerned about the deal, but U.S. manufacturers are abandoning EVs and Canada. Hey Doug, I thought we were Open for Business?
#CanPoli #GlobalTrade
https://youtu.be/Mb6H7trzMfI