@Techmeme@techhub.socialAppfigures: global consumer spending in mobile apps on the App Store and Google Play rose 21.6% YoY to $155.8B in 2025, but app downloads dropped 2.7% to 106.9B (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/14/app-…
@midtsveen@social.linux.pizzaEverything You Ever Wanted to Know, But Were Too Afraid To Ask
https://classautonomy.info/anarcho-syndicalism-everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-but-were-too-afraid-to-ask/
@lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nzThis seems most auspicious: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/12/yes-new-york-will-soon-be-under-new-management-but-zohran-mamdani-is-just-the-start anti-trust specialist Khan on M…
@primonatura@mstdn.social"Marine protected areas expanded in 2025, but still far from 30% goal"
#Oceans #Environment
@hex@kolektiva.socialThere's a word at the beginning and end of Dawn of Everything that feels self-referential right now: Kairos.
> We began this book with a quote which refers to the Greek notion of kairos as one of those occasional moments in a society’s history when its frames of reference undergo a shift – a metamorphosis of the fundamental principles and symbols, when the lines between myth and history, science and magic become blurred – and, therefore, real change is possible. Philosophers sometimes like to speak of ‘the Event’ – a political revolution, a scientific discovery, an artistic masterpiece – that is, a breakthrough which reveals aspects of reality that had previously been unimaginable but, once seen, can never be unseen. If so, kairos is the kind of time in which Events are prone to happen.
> Societies around the world appear to be cascading towards such a point. This is particularly true of those which, since the First World War, have been in the habit of calling themselves ‘Western’. On the one hand, fundamental breakthroughs in the physical sciences, or even artistic expression, no longer seem to occur with anything like the regularity people came to expect in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet at the same time, our scientific means of understanding the past, not just our species’ past but that of our planet, has been advancing with dizzying speed. Scientists in 2020 are not (as readers of mid-twentieth-century science fiction might have hoped) encountering alien civilizations in distant star systems; but they are encountering radically different forms of society under their own feet, some forgotten and newly rediscovered, others more familiar, but now understood in entirely new ways.
Reading this as I write something very inspired by this work feels especially serendipitous, especially at this time. When they wrote the book, I think that kairos felt more serendipitous itself. But as the frequency of opportunity increases, the veil between realities feels more malleable... that perhaps we can poke a finger through and open a portal to a completely different future than the one we've felt locked into for such a long time.
https://anarchoccultism.org/building-zion/the-coordinated-swarm-lyhr
@cowboys@darktundra.xyzPrescott says Cowboys have to stick to business with playoff hopes all but gone https://www.foxsports.com/articles/nfl/prescott-says-cowboys-have-to-stick-to-business-with-playoff-hopes-all-but-gone
@inthehands@hachyderm.ioAnd also, again and again — people need to know this! — I get these messages too:
ICE started to gather, but dispersed when too many observers showed up.
ICE vehicle headed back to base after being tailed in circles for an hour.
ICE started abducting someone, but let them go as the gathered crowd got larger and larger.
These people •really• do not want to be observed. Typical bullies: they cosplay tough guys, they waggle their gear around, but they •behave• like they’re afraid.
@raiders@darktundra.xyzAFC West Power Rankings: Chiefs Are Back, But What About The Raiders? https://raiderramble.com/2025/10/15/afc-west-power-rankings-chiefs-are-back-but-what-about-the-raiders/
@lpryszcz@genomic.social
@fanf@mendeddrum.orgfrom my link log —
Elsevier threatens others for linking to Sci-Hub but does so itself.
https://eve.gd/2019/08/03/elsevier-threatens-others-for-linking-to-sci-hub-but-does-it-itself/
saved 2019-08-04
@aral@mastodon.ar.alI’ve spoken with my boss (he’s a bit of a dickhead but his heart’s in the right place) and confirmed that I won’t be getting fired for opposing Israel’s ongoing genocide and supporting the human rights of the Palestinian people to live with freedom and dignity like the rest of us but not everyone is as lucky.
@ruth_mottram@fediscience.orgGreenland thoughts from Antarctica..
Greenland is all over the press at the moment for all the wrong reasons. But Greenland is also on my mind, not just because of geopolitics, but also because the Copernicus Climate service has just put out their annual global climate highlights for 2025 with some disturbing messages about Antarctica. Understanding Greenland can help us to understand also what is happening here.
http://sternaparadisaea.net/2026/01/14/greenland-thoughts-from-antarctica/
@grifferz@social.bitfolk.comNot to go all One Weird Dieting Trick on you, but I was complaining to someone the other day about lack of low sugar dessert options and food cravings leading to bad choices. They said, "have you tried jelly?" (en_US: jello) … and I have not because I always associated it with sugar-loaded desserts.
But, 12g (en_US: about 2.5 ounce) gelatine makes 568ml (en_US: 20 fl.oz) and contains 41 calories, zero carbs.
It's also unflavoured and gross but some artificially swee…
@benb@osintua.euPokrovsk not encircled but remains Russia’s main target, Syrskyi says: https://benborges.xyz/2025/11/13/pokrovsk-not-encircled-but-remains.html
@mlawton@mstdn.socialCold front arrives late tonight and the wind was certainly keen to hasten its arrival. Spitting rain at times, but happily any serious downpour never arrived.
Ran a quiet, pensive 7.5 km on the HS track. Heart ❤️ and lungs 🫁 felt great, but legs 🦵 were less willing. In all, the 4/1 run/walk intervals are helping. I look forward to being further along, but in the interim I can feel progress.
7.51 km in 59:30 for an average pace of 7:55/km.
@rasterweb@mastodon.socialI tried a new recipe for these potato chip chocolate chip cookies… not impressed, but I’ll try another batch with dough that has chilled longer. I also might skip the “pan smack” next time.
I expected more potato chip goodness but it seems lacking.
@cdarwin@c.imChristian nationalist pastor says that wives must submit to their husbands
with "a sense of fear, and trembling, and awe ...
not only in things she agrees with, but in everything":
"She belongs to him. He owns her."
https://bsky.app/profile/rightwingwatc…
@stefan@gardenstate.socialI was ready to enjoy the idea of this but hate the song... but this works.
GWAR cover “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan by The A.V. Club
#music
@kexpmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #Roadhouse
Ry Jennings:
🎵 She Loves You, But
#RyJennings
https://whisperinry.bandcamp.com/track/she-loves-you-but
https://open.spotify.com/track/4mDn0uiwOkRRF0TayI6HuG
@Xexyz@mastodon.me.ukThe Crew Motorfest: on the horizon
The new Crew game has joined Game Pass, so I thought I'd give it a go. At first it felt like I was playing Forza Horizon 2, but after a while it felt more like Forza Horizon 4. It's just so familiar, but with a slightly worse driving model, and more unlikeable characters in longer cut scenes. I've still got a third of FH4 and most of FH5 to complete, but maybe I'll get around to trying this some day - through probably they'll turn …
@boris@cosocial.caJust paid for a personal annual account with Photopea, the web based image editor. It's free to use and you don't need to login, but 50EU/year takes off the very large amount of ads.
It's got that Photoshop 3.0 design vibes that means I can still sort of use it. https://bsky.app/profile/bmann.ca/post
@AimeeMaroux@mastodon.socialWell, I definitely didn't see *that* coming. Harriet basically threw her game, what the actual fuck? I was so excited to see her questions to the traitors and what her next move would be. She was great against Hugo. But then she showed up to breakfast & turned everyone against her by being aggressive and not letting others speak. It feels as if she wanted to leave the game. Sad. But I'm happy Stephen is still playing. Would love to see a joint traitor win for once.
@hikingdude@mastodon.socialSo we tried #nextcloud talk yesterday with friends and it was AMAZING. I first struggled with sound in-out but that was clearly my setup with external speakers and external camera. (really not the typical setup!)
But the 2h video call went totally smooth, good quality, no lag.
If you do videocalls with friends and family.. I can totally recommend nextcloud call - in my case hosted…
@azonenberg@ioc.exchangeOK fedi hivemind... I'm looking for a flat square of material about 1cm on a side and maybe 1mm thick that is going to survive being boiled in hot nitric/sulfuric acid for a couple of minutes, then rinsed in acetone and water.
I'm thinking a glass or ceramic, but don't have a source for ready made chunks of the right size (microscope coverglasses are too fragile).
You can get pre-diced silicon wafers with chunks the right size (e.g. Ted Pella 16006) but that's ann…
@karlauerbach@sfba.socialOver the years I have written a lot of code. Most of my stuff is deep down networking or kernel stuff - users rarely see it.
But sometimes I have to do a user interface. I'm not good at it. But it is amazing how much better I am than so many who produce commercial tools and websites.
I usually back my user input fields with a layer that puts input into a canonical form and then validates it.
That step to create a canonical form is important - it catches bad input err…
@jake4480@c.imThis week's #GrindayFriday is Serbian deathgrinders GNOJ. They just put out EP 'Anujka' and I love it. Five intense songs, about a minute each, listen to the whole thing in around five minutes. But there's some GROOVES on this, too. No idea what they're saying, but DAMN, it rips. Grindy, deathy, a powerviolence shout here or there, hell yeah.
@teledyn@mstdn.caBut can these neighbours afford the high prices small shops must pay for small-batch wholesale and rent? Will banks finance small enterprise or treat them like restaurants?
I'm all for a walkable ward, but mine is already conspicuously littered with boarded up small shops and gentrified boutiques.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-council-votes-oppose-ford-government-bill-60-9.6976288
@penguin42@mastodon.org.ukFirst time I've seen a TO220ish shape resistor; I'm used to the chunkier ceramic power resistors; but when I picked it up I assumed this was a diode, but nope, does indeed read somewhere around 270 ohm.
@yaya@jorts.horsethey're so silly and basic but I love them. unfortunately it's way too cold to wear my crocs out now lmao
@pre@boing.worldFinal day of having the carpenter here. A lot of sawing. Built the dresser desk drawers, cut all the perspex into shape for the windowed doors that fit together now but still need gluing.
The dresser drawers are just about big enough to put the hairdryer in, so that's nice.
Still quite a bit for the other workers to do. Detailing for panels on the doors, gluing and hanging the window doors, handles and painting and touch ups. They reckon another 5 days work still, only two of which can be next week because I have stuff to do.
Must be weird being a builder and finishing your part of the job then never seeing it completed. He's done all this great work on it but will only see the completed work if he has to come back for something else. And he doesn't want to come back coz he's fed up of driving across London 😆
@cheryanne@aus.socialOrganised to go to SouthFest at Tuggeranong today with a friend. Just heard the first of the rain. It was brief but reasonably heavy, so we'll just have to see how the day's plans pan out. I'm happy enough to risk the weather if they're game but I'll wait and see what they decide.
#StormyWeather
@cdamian@rls.socialFriday Links 25-26
Short, but with lots of good stuff. The fad of engineering management, drug policy in Spain, and Mr. TIFF are my favourites.
Have a lovely weekend!
https://christof.damian.net/2025/11/friday-links-25-26.html
@mariyadelano@hachyderm.ioSo I grew up next to #Chernobyl and this is, well, TERRIFYING.
A story for y’all: I’m from a city called Zhytomyr, 2 hours west of Kyiv in the North of #Ukraine. We were downwind of the Chernobyl #nuclear power plant when the 1986 disaster happened.
I wasn’t born for another 12 years, but my childhood was filled with stories and the aftermath of it all. Things like:
- My grandmother worked as a head doctor in a hospital and rehabilitation facility exclusively for children of Chernobyl victims to treat the extremely high prevalence of Tuberculosis and other severe health complications. (To specify: these were SECOND GENERATION of exposure).
- A lot of the kids in that facility were orphans, because their parents died young from health problems.
- My uncle’s wife was born in Pripyat. She was 1 year old when the disaster happened. Her parents were told to evacuate while given no information about what happened. They had to pack up their things and rush out to an unfamiliar city with their baby, never to see the rest of their belongings, apartment, or hometown again.
- When I was a kid, it became so common to see weirdly mutated animals and insects that even 2-3 year olds would make jokes about “Chernobyl mosquitos” and I wouldn’t even flinch seeing occasional giant bugs, dark frogs, weird-looking dogs.
- We’d frequently hear of nearby farms having issues with their animals being born too mutated to survive or random outbreaks from contaminated water / food. Crops would randomly fail. People would get poisoned on a regular basis. This all got less common as I grew up.
- My mother still remembers being a little girl, 10 years old, and looking outside from their balcony at the clouds blowing over from Chernobyl that day. People were told to not go outside and to shut all the windows, but not given an explanation as to why. My mother swears that the rain looked different. They weren’t able to go and buy more food for the kitchen for multiple days.
Anyway - nuclear safety isn’t a joke. I don’t understand how this level of carelessness can happen after Chernobyl and Fukushima.
https://www.404media.co/power-companies-are-using-ai-to-build-nuclear-power-plants/
@kurtsh@mastodon.socialThis analysis 100% encapsulates my sentiment about the #StarWars Sequel trilogy with one key difference:
I really never preferred 'The Last Jedi' over 'The Rise of Skywalker'. Yes, choosing between two evils... but TLJ committed the unforgivable sin of not just being BAD but also being perpetually IRRITATING.
▶️ Revisiting the FAILURE of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy…
@wraithe@mastodon.socialI know everyone’s already dragging the living shit out of this already but 🤷🏻♀️:
All ICE/BP should have:
Clearly marked vehicles
Clearly marked names on uniforms (large TEXT for both)
ID/badges
Dismissal and/or prosecution for failing to comply.
QR codes are just unneeded “tech” complication
The current regime talks a lot of shit about ID being required to vote, but is fine with armed agents of the govt having less ID than a teen trying (and failing) to…
@ErikUden@mastodon.deFolx, I don't do this often, but one of my favorite projects has now gone online again and I wish to share it! Feel free to check out @… at:
🔗 https://howtheyvote.eu/
@tiotasram@kolektiva.socialJust finished "Far Sector" written by N. K. Jemisin and illustrated by Jamal Campbell. I don't normally go for Marvel/DC comics stuff and this was a good reminder why. Jemisin's authorship was the draw for me here, as well as some curiosity about what I might be missing out on by avoiding the classic comics lineage. I won't go into too much detail about particulars, but suffice to say it ends up feeling to me line a very neoliberal story dressed up in a veneer of radicalism, which is not what I'd expected of Jemisin. Particularly in light of current events, the "good cops" aspects of the storyline ring truly hollow. There's still a lot of neat parts, but I guess I also wound up disappointed by the sci-fi aspects in a lot off ways. I truly think Jemisin is capable of better than this, based on her other (excellent) work.
#AmReading #ReadingNow
@samvarma@fosstodon.orgSo—a little reprogramming of the Morningstar MC6:
⁃ A/B/C buttons now switch to cln/low/mid/hi with a single press, no change to fx; same but dry with double press, same but with verb with a long press;
⁃ Max/min expression toggle on button D
⁃ 30/50/70% exp on button E
⁃ Button F toggles Next Page, which has various fx block toggles for Mercury X on the six buttons
Now I don't need a separate expression pedal, & I can get in the ballpark of what I need with…
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io"But we can't do this, it would kill the [insert word] industry!!1!"
Have you thought about that mayhaps there are industries that aren't worth having?
@sauer_lauwarm@mastodon.socialMit Orzo perlato, Sellerieknöllchen, weißen Bohnen und etwas Stängelkohl als Substitutionssubstanzen. Let this be recommended. #nommention
https://<…
@metacurity@infosec.exchange"Cody Kociemba, the developer behind the Hack/House project, has taken it upon himself to maintain these aging devices. The solution is called "No Longer Evil," or “NLE” for short. It's an open-source project designed to give decommissioned Nest Thermostats a second life."
ht…
@NFL@darktundra.xyzShedeur Sanders' metrics weren't very good, but what is correctable by next season? https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6970820/2026/01/15/shedeur-sanders-low-metrics-what-is-correctable/
@cowboys@darktundra.xyzDak Prescott praised in weekly QB report card, but defense failed him again https://www.si.com/nfl/cowboys/onsi/news/dak-prescott-praised-in-weekly-qb-report-card-but-defense-failed-him-again
@stf@chaos.socialhi, my name is stf, and i'm addicted to #trackpoints. having learned that the thinkpad trackpoint #keyboard II - is EOL - i panicked and bought all the available ones for reserve. but i also found two others the happyhackingkb which looks sleek, and the tex shura which is simpler but more modular…
@migueldeicaza@mastodon.socialWe ended up building an “expo”, but for Godot:
https://zirk.us/@Eyelit/115547519055762618
@timbray@cosocial.caNews flash: Billionaires are unpopular. But, the strength of the sentiment and how fast the needle has moved were both surprises to me. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/opinion/billionaires-politics-money.html
@servelan@newsie.socialWhere's the Resolute desk?
‘Did He Take That Too?’: Trump Brags About Mar-a-Lago’s Before-and-After Upgrade, but Fans Freeze After Spotting One Detail That Shouldn’t Be There
https://atlantablackstar.com/2026/01/13/trump-brags-about-mar-a-lagos-before-and-after-upgrade-but-fans-freeze-after-spotting-one-detail-that-shouldnt-be-there/
@kctipton@mas.toSecret Documents Show Pepsi and Walmart Colluded to Raise Food Prices Across the Economy #walmart
@anildash@me.dmOne of the top stories on Hacker News today was a post arguing that Mozilla shouldn't accommodate any usage of AI in Firefox because (understandably) people were mad at Big AI companies for all the horrible things they've done to users and the internet and society. But I think people are ignoring the reality that *hundreds of millions of users* are using LLMs today, and they need to have tools from platforms that will look out for their interests.
@tante@tldr.nettime.orgWe bought into the "post scarcity" narrative because digital tech feels so magic and ethereal but we need to get back to an understanding of the material costs and effects of those systems. They are not very post-scarce in reality.
@zachleat@zachleat.comthe rapture happened in 2016 but no one made the cut
@theodric@social.linux.pizzaIt annoys me that replacing my IKEA "Högmodig" coffee carafe is possible, but only if I'm willing to travel to Dubai or India (but nowhere in Europe or America)
@luana@wetdry.worldI made a script for this, but then I thought a webui would be better so I could use it in my phone and stuff
I asked an LLM to generate a python webui to run server-side the script I wrote, and surprisingly it 100% worked first try. I was sure it wouldn’t work at all, but I didn’t touch that code and it works.
I can’t even say I “vibe coded” this bc I didn’t even read the code enough to know its vibes lmao. I’m surprised this even works, and it does work well. What the actual fuck.
Welp, not my favourite way to do things but I wasn’t in the mood to do python and figure out the extra libraries and stuff.
And it works so I’ll just use that. In a hardened systemd service to make sure it doesn’t like accidentally delete my whole system or something.
@Techmeme@techhub.socialTotal global VC funding to fintech startups totaled $51.8B in 2025, up 27% YoY and above pre-pandemic totals, but much lower than 2021's peak of $141.6B (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News)
https://news.crunchbase.com/fintech/funding-jumped-big-checks-ai-ye-2025/<…
@catsalad@infosec.exchange
@thesaigoneer@social.linux.pizzaOkay, a brief recap of today's trials.
Alpine with Cosmic was no success, with an cosmic-OSD running at 100%.
AerynOS blew up the install at 97%.
FreeBSD River showed the audio output device in pavucontrol, but produced no sound.
The Slackware QT6 spin shat the bed again with SDDM.
Gentoo KDE update got interrupted by me; compiling kwin takes ages. And i mean 2 hours or so.
The Slackware Cosmic iso downloaded, but got corrupted in the process.
The exter…
@davidaugust@mastodon.online"Lots and lots of things scare me but you just get on with it. Fright can transform into petrol, you just have to use it to your advantage."
—Judi Dench
#acting #coaching #inspiration
@pavelasamsonov@mastodon.socialNo one wants to build bad products. But in an industry where programmers implement features to order, it can be hard to shake that feeling.
This is how orgs see the ROI of UX: as a soothing function to tell everyone they're doing a good job. And as a scapegoat, when we finally learn otherwise.
UX cheerleading is doing the industry no favors.
#UX
@callunavulgaris@mastodon.scotA massive (but not unusual) sneezing fit followed by hiccups certainly wakes you up in the morning. I hope Wednesday is good to you. I'm bringing together the findings from one part of a small sample set we've processed and then moving onto the microscopes to analyse the other part. I enjoy both aspects but tragically it's the admin that really makes my heart sing 😄 I spent years fighting it but now I accept I was born under the admin star.
@primonatura@mstdn.social @mlawton@mstdn.socialThere is a bug in this 3rd party API that declares a payload to fail their validation checks in a false positive way BUT ALSO fails to report what the alleged validation errors are.
And of course, there are none, so I've now spent days in a logical lockpicking manner, brute force trial and error to rule out various possibilities.
And, just now, I got it. 🎉 It's a workaround, but it'll do. I've reported the bug and they acknowledge it, but no timetable for a fix. …
@rasterweb@mastodon.socialImagine if the restaurant you go to started serving shit sandwiches. Some people seem to like the shit sandwiches but you're like "Dude, these are literally shit sandwiches! I do not want these!" but the restaurant owner starts forcing every customer take a shit sandwich even if they don't want one.
This post is about AI.
@cdarwin@c.imThe Trump administration said Thursday it is rescinding federal rules that were aimed at protecting from future oil and gas leasing vast swaths of a petroleum reserve in Alaska that provide key habitat for migrating birds, caribou and other wildlife.
The U.S. Interior Department said the final rule would be published next week but announced it is repealing rules put in place last year.
Those rules restricted future leasing and industrial development in areas within the National …
@Techmeme@techhub.socialDealogic: 51 US tech IPOs raised $16.8B in 2025, driven by AI and crypto, above the past three-year average but far below 2021's 127 IPOs raising $74.4B (Valida Pau/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/ai-crypto-companies-dominat…
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io🎶 but I didn't pay the deputy 🎵
@tiotasram@kolektiva.socialDay 23: Thi Bui
Indirect CW: parental neglect, war, intergenerational trauma
Bui is the author of "The Best We Could Do", a graphic memoir which explores her relationship with her parents and unpacks some of the intergenerational trauma coming out of the Vietnam War. It has a lot of wisdom to offer about both dealing with troubled parents as a 1.5th-generation immigrant, and it delves deeply into her parents' histories in Vietnam and the complexities of the situation there both in the north and in the south. It's beautifully illustrated and very nicely plotted together given all the disparate threads it is working with.
I haven't read any of Bui's other work, but it looks like she's published a picture book for kids as well as a series of short comics during the pandemic. Besides Oseman who also writes non-illustrated fiction and the two manga artists Ice mentioned, Bui is the first graphic novel author I've included here, but I've actually got quite a few of them in my longer list, one of whom may make it into the 30 I'll include in this thread. These days I'm reading a bunch of graphic novels since they're easy to get through, and the variety of stories and perspectives in that space is wonderful these days, with a huge array of indie stuff that probably never would have gotten off the ground in traditional publishing/comics spaces.
#30AuthorsNoMen
@NFL@darktundra.xyzDrake Maye had a chance for MVP moment, but it was Josh Allen who stole the show https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6889421/2025/12/15/patriots-bills-josh-allen-drake-maye-mvp-candidates/
@migueldeicaza@mastodon.socialI shrank down SwiftGodot for those that just want to expose APIs to Godot, but do not need to control Godot, and added a template that you can use to make your own:
This leverages the new "barebones" SwiftGodot work:
https://github.com/migueldeicaza/SwiftGodotAppleT…
@timbray@cosocial.caMastodon *does* have an algorithmic feed if you want one. It’s identified by different names in different clients but “Trending” is usually part of the name. I think it works well, hit the “Trending posts” and “Trending links” (called “News” in the Masto web client) once a day or so to get a feel for what’s happening in the world.
As with many other things, PhanPy is really good at presenting this stuff..
@inthehands@hachyderm.ioIllegal. Completely illegal. But everyone agrees: nobody’s allowed to stop ICE from breaking state and local laws, only issue citations afterwards.
To mismarked vehicles. With masked drivers who refuse to identify themselves. How do you cite •that•?!
@tante@tldr.nettime.orgFrom a pragmatic standpoint I get Wikimedia making deals with AI companies: They will scrape anyways, this way you might get some money.
But it still _feels_ off. Telling all volunteers "you are working for Microsoft/Perplexity/etc for free now" _feels_ wrong.
@zachleat@zachleat.com@… either is fine but for lower traffic repos I would prefer using Issues for everything (what a relevant question to my last two weeks 😅)
@Techmeme@techhub.socialSources: xAI has created an enterprise AI sales group, but xAI's lack of experience in selling to big businesses is holding potential customers back (Theo Wayt/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/xai-uphill-battle-selling-grok-busine…
@catsalad@infosec.exchangeIt's up there... In the trees.
@davidaugust@mastodon.online"Lots and lots of things scare me but you just get on with it. Fright can transform into petrol, you just have to use it to your advantage."
—Judi Dench
#acting #coaching #inspiration
@hex@kolektiva.socialThe US military has always had a massive global advantage against enemies by having bases all over the world. There are bases in every NATO country. This would appear to be a powerful threat to anyone willing to oppose American hegemon, and under normal conditions it would be.
But a lot of those kids serving on those bases joined, not because they love America but, because they needed a ticket out of poverty. They joined for the education, for the money, maybe a bit for the adventure, but, more than anything, to escape the ghetto or podunk backwater that trapped them. Under normal times, this is the best deal they could expect. Maybe they risk their lives, usually they sit around being bored for a few years, and they get to come out with respect and paid college.
But what they are being offered is normal in most of the countries they're stationed in. Free healthcare, cheap or free education, is just what citizens in a lot of countries have come to expect. If the US attacked a NATO country, how many would snap up citizenship if they were given a chance to defect? Bonus points for taking some hardware with you, I'm sure.
But there are some who love their country. There are some patriotic Americans on those bases. Some of them joined specifically to protect the US from all enemies, foreign *and* domestic. Given a chance to fulfill that oath or violate international law, what happens?
There are a good number of former military folks too who now are unsafe in the countries they served, who would do just about anything for citizenship in any EU country and almost any NATO ally. Some of those folks know things they swore an oath to never share, but the country they swore an oath to has betrayed them. Today there's no value in leaking those secrets, but in a war between the US and NATO allies things would be different. Some of those former military folks still believe in their oath, and know exactly who the real enemy is. What happens when there's a real threat of war, when they can use their knowledge to fulfill that oath to protect the US against those domestic threats?
There are a bunch of civilian tech workers who have become targets of the regime. Some of them had clearance, or know about the skeletons in the closet. They know about critical infrastructure, classified systems, all sorts of things that would be extremely valuable to an opponent. But the opponents of the US have always been a frightening *other*, never familiar societies these folks look up to, have visited, have thought about moving to, are trying to escape to.
All I'm saying here is that invading Venezuela and kidnapping the president has a very different calculus than does attacking Greenland. I don't know if Trump or his people are able to understand that, but if he and his folks aren't then I hope European leaders are. But more than that, I hope it never comes down to finding out.
But perhaps we should all think about what we would do to make sure things ended quickly if American leadership ever made such an incredible mistake.
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.ioNot to be alarmist, but VHS will be FIFTY YEARS old next year.
https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/115723856261738924
@NFL@darktundra.xyzTheir season is over, but it's a winning week for the Giants: Solak on John Harbaugh's impact https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/47619832/john-harbaugh-new-york-giants-best-coaching-hire-carousel
@primonatura@mstdn.social"Cyclones get names but deadly heatwaves don’t. Should Australia personalise severe weather?"
#Australia #Weather
@timbray@cosocial.caThere’s this place we walk by pretty regularly that’s semi-abandoned. The owner replaces parts when they fall off and there are lights at night, but the front and back have been left to return to nature. This chunk of land is worth ~$2.5M Canadian, so an odd situation. Anyhow, I enjoy watching the progress of the informal small-scale rewilding.
#Photography
@migueldeicaza@mastodon.socialIn this world nothing can be said to be certain except death, taxes and LLM will dutifuly exfiltrate your data via a hidden prompt:
https://www.promptarmor.com/resources/claude-cowork-exfiltrates-files
@tante@tldr.nettime.org"These findings show that the use of stakeholder tends to performatively entrench the existing power of “industry stakeholders” or nameless but clearly already engaged and empowered “key stakeholders”"
(Original title: You have a stake in reading this – Hi, I'm Heather Burns)
https://
@inthehands@hachyderm.ioLocal community groups? Busting their asses, but they live and die on volunteer support. Legal system? Too slow, too compromised. City, county, state elected officials? Grasping for something they can do. Local police? Useless or worse than useless, of course.
BUT…all the above are formed by, shaped by, and constrained by popular sentiment. An active, defiant citizenry changes how all these institutions behave. Police know, politicians know, and yes, even judges know: they can only stray so far from what people will tolerate.
This active resistance? Hell yeah, it matters. It’s the short-term •and• the long-term.
@rasterweb@mastodon.socialI’m not sure but if you go to urgent care and lie flat on the floor instead of sitting in a chair they may see you sooner. 😫
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.ioMaybe you can’t change that awful things happen in the world, but you can post things that bring other people joy—and by extension yourself. Try it!
@NFL@darktundra.xyz49ers: Warner progressing but out vs. Seahawks https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/47623317/49ers-fred-warner-return-playoff-tilt-vs-seahawks
@timbray@cosocial.caI must be weird, am one of the apparently 0.02% for whom #Pluribus isn’t doing much, 6 episodes in (haven’t seen latest). I mean Rhea Seehorn is great but she’d be greater if they gave her a chance to be anything but angry-and-rude for even a minute here or there. Also, how about another character with a character? Will watch the last 3 shows despite massive suspension-of-disbelief failure, hopin…
@Techmeme@techhub.socialOpenAI quietly rolls out ChatGPT Translate, a standalone website that currently supports plain text translations across 50 languages (Adamya Sharma/Android Authority)
https://www.androidauthority.com/chatgpt-translate-3632584/
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.ioLiving on a hill without direct fiber or cable sucks sometimes.
At midnight our main ISP crapped out completely and then in the morning I manually switched to our super-slow backup ISP (like 8Mbps down, 1Mbps up) but that one also intermittently craps out.
Main ISP says it should be fixed soon, their "internet chassis" at another location shit the bed and they need to replace multiple pieces of hardware.
@Techmeme@techhub.socialSamsung Galaxy XR review: matches some of the Vision Pro's hardware features at half the price, but has an uncomfortable headband and less precise hand tracking (Chris Welch/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/20
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.ioRE: https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/115718470244854807
I didn't learn in school that a free market economy is about the suppliers installing fascist regimes to force demand and fix prices, but maybe I understood it wrong.
@Techmeme@techhub.socialA look at iRobot, founded in 1990, and its slow collapse after regulatory pressure killed Amazon's $1.7B acquisition in 2024, and the rising Chinese competition (Connie Loizos/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/14/how-irobot-lost-its-way-home/
@Techmeme@techhub.socialGoogle proposes ad tech changes to address a €2.95B EU antitrust fine, including enhancing interoperability across its ad services, but still plans to appeal (Samuel Stolton/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/202…
@Techmeme@techhub.socialThe UK government drops plans for mandatory digital IDs to work in the country, marking a reversal from when the UK first announced the policy in September 2025 (BBC)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3385zrrx73o
@Techmeme@techhub.socialSources: Apple now needs to fight for TSMC production capacity amid the AI boom; Nvidia was likely TSMC's top customer in at least one or two quarters in 2025 (Tim Culpan/Culpium)
https://www.culpium.com/p/exclusiveapple-is-fighting-for-tsmc
@Techmeme@techhub.socialSources: China is drafting rules for Nvidia H200 purchases, limiting how many chips local companies can buy and requiring them to justify the need (Nikkei Asia)
https://asia.nikkei.com/business/technology/artificial-inte…
@Techmeme@techhub.socialA cat's killing by a Waymo robotaxi sparked outrage in San Francisco, as some questioned why deaths caused by human drivers don't get the same level of concern (Heather Knight/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/15/us/waymo-san-francisco-kit-kat.htm…
@Techmeme@techhub.socialGoogle is shutting down its dark web monitoring tool, launched in 2024 to alert users when their personal info is detected on the dark web, on February 16, 2026 (Ben Schoon/9to5Google)
https://9to5google.com/2025/12/15/google-dark-web-report-shutting-down/<…
@Techmeme@techhub.socialSolve Intelligence, which offers generative AI tools to law firms for IP and patent law work, raised a $40M Series B, bringing its total funding to $55M (Mike Butcher/Pathfounders)
https://pathfounders.com/p/generative-ai-is-coming-for-ip
