Tootfinder

"The hidden health risks of bottled water"
#Water #Plastic #Plastics

The hidden health risks of bottled water
Plastic bottled water is popular despite health risks and environmental costs but decentralised technologies could cut plastic waste while improving water safety.

Yeah, Jimmy “I’m actually quite in favour of business and capitalism and all that”* Wales, the surveillance capitalist and Fandom-president adtech man who once told me he doesn’t believe in any form of government regulation – not even in food standards or healthcare – can go fuck himself.
Find better heroes. Or even better yet, get over the whole stupid concept itself.
*

❌Mobile Fortify,
the new app used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to use face recognition technology (FRT) to identify people during street encounters,
is an affront to the rights and dignity of migrants and U.S. citizens alike.
That's why a coalition of privacy, civil liberties and civil rights organizations are
🔥demanding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
shut down the use of Mobile Fortify,
release the agency's privacy anal…

Rights Organizations Demand Halt to Mobile Fortify, ICE's Handheld Face Recognition Program
Mobile Fortify, the new app used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to use face recognition technology (FRT) to identify people during street encounters, is an affront to the rights and dignity of migrants and U.S. citizens alike. That's why a coalition of privacy, civil liberties and...

⛏️ Behind our screens: The truth about ‘artisanal’ mining and ‘natural’ technology
https://globalvoices.org/2025/10/05/behind-our-screens-the-truth-about-artisanal-mining-and-natural-technology/

Behind our screens: The truth about ‘artisanal’ mining and ‘natural’ technology
“It would be disingenuous to attempt to disentangle the human rights abuses connected to creating technologies from their environmental impacts.”

LLMs are a fundamentally useless technology because their applications (supposedly) boil down to humans not having to think for themselves or do their own writing / drawing / filming.
But if you can do it on your own - why would you need a robot to do it? It’s, at best, a novelty.
That’s why this shit only resonates with executives and capital owners. “Get things done with fewer people and expenses” is at least an actual pitch. “Get things done faster for yourself” isn’t.
The individual angle really works for things you already were trying to avoid doing because you’re either disinterested or don’t have enough time to do things right.
“Avoid your work” as a value proposition doesn’t work when you’re dealing with intellectual labor rather than commodities. Not large scale, not long term.
Sorry for the rant, I saw some Notion ads on the subway and got irritated 😅
#AI #llm #LLMs

Seems like a good day to bring back this 2021 post: https://systemsapproach.org/2021/07/19/decentralizing-the-internet-again/

Meta says Manus, initially based in Beijing and Wuhan, will cut Chinese investor ties after the deal and "will discontinue its services and operations in China" (Nikkei Asia)
https://asia.nikkei.com/business/techn

Meta says AI startup Manus to cut China ties after acquisition
US tech giant says Manus will maintain current operations as it is integrated into Meta platforms

ICE has purchased “a smorgasbord of spy technology: social media monitoring, cellphone location tracking, facial recognition, remote hacking tools, and more … the government openly says it will use [these] capabilities to target people who oppose ICE’s actions [including] anti-ICE protesters.”
#ICE #protest

ICE Wants to Go After Dissenters as well as Immigrants
The Trump administration is being open about its plans to violate Americans’ First and Fourth Amendment rights.

Series D, Episode 01 - Rescue
TARRANT: All right, I'll keep it a secret.
[They resume their descent.]
TARRANT: Look, we must be at least four levels below the landing silo by now.
DAYNA: At least.
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/401/395 B7B2

The assumption is that one day large language models and other related AI technologies fostered by Google Gemini and OpenAI ChatGPT actually will be a great and infallible productivity tool for genuine work.
It already is decent for providing basic overviews of highly-covered, well-sourced topics, even as hallucinations and sycophancy continue to dog the tech, particularly in situations where accountability is more critical.
Despite today's downsides,
many companies ar…

Analysis: OpenAI is a loss-making machine, with estimates that it has no road to profitability by 2030 — and will need a further $207 billion in funding even if it gets there
Don't call it a bubble! Loss-making monster OpenAI is on the hook for $1.4 trillion (with a T) in compute commitments. How can this go on?