My moment of clarity in the last few weeks was coming back to “Oh right, copyright is a hack, and one that is not serving us, particularly us on the margins”
The moral rights of authorship and the way we situate our legal process of ownership are, actually, kinda at odds. And it entirely misses the idea of a commons, both as community and as a cultural base to draw from.
I've long believed that we, collectively, should own our culture — to have modern myths be Copyright 1972 LucasFilm, the traditional songs we sing Copyright 1922, now owned by Warner/Chappell Music is one of the things I find repugnant about the situation we find ourselves in.
That said, reconciling that with the behavior of the AI companies, _particularly_ the American ones? It's hard. Google abuses its monopoly position; Microsoft has forced harmful and terrible tooling on people at every turn; OpenAI is run by someone who actively despises art and does not understand it; and Anthropic is run by a guy who is trying to make sure the apocalypse has a pleasant demeanor and doesn't offend any corporations on the way. All of the above have scraped the web with no active consent — and that's largely fine, that's what putting things in common _is_, that's the beauty of the open information world we have the remnants of — but also actively evading measures people put in place to stop it and with absolutely no willingness to engage with the process. Extracting from the commons _is_ the tragedy of the commons.
It does not mean that enlarging the commons with the resulting tools is bad. The doctrine of original sin is a Christian concept I do not subscribe to. The concept of 'fruit of the poisonous tree' is a legal tool to fix power relations not a moral stance. They're worth understanding, but they are not absolute moral stances that are self-evident.
These are not harmless tools, but so too putting hard regulation and corporate, legalistic scrutiny on everything has a vastly negative impact: it is a yoke on human creativity and community to the reins of capital.
And, so too, disruption has huge costs. We are, apparently, committed to doing things the worst possible way. One can just hope that we capture the good too, because the ride has started and it's rather late to get off.
News articles complaining about the state of the navy, during a time of conflict, are like news articles that wait until heavy snow to complain about the lack of investment in snow plows.
The UK's previous government took a bet that they wouldn't actually need a full navy before the 2030s - hence the "frigate gap".
"The most powerful thing you can do in this situation doesn’t concern your attachments, or even your beliefs. It’s giving up on the idea that there is such a thing as safe territory. A kid’s book, a magic wand, even the idea of joy itself can be a tool used to club a kid back into the closet. Act accordingly."
https://
RE: https://c.im/@cdarwin/116698495070193661
If the plan is that only outlets that can earn enough from ads and subscriptions will stay afloat,
we'll be left with a small handful of outlets and the same situation we had back in the 1800s
-- where only…
#ForAllMankind S05E10: is there nobody in the #SONY production team old enough to remember a correct #DOS prompt? 🤔
A bit embarrassing considering the overall situation of this scene. 🤷
For those wondering about the bizarre Apache helicopter flyover of a No Kings rally and "spontaneous" visit to Kid Rock's mansion, whether it was intentionally orchestrated (seems likely to me) or not, the effect was to send a public signal to the military that acts of allegiance to Trump and his supporters will get rewarded and shielded with impunity, even if they're flagrant violations of military codes and procedures.
It's another step in the fascist playbook of getting the military in line to support tyrannical acts, so it's very much not a "no harm no foul" situation.
As for why I think it's more likely quite deliberate: those helicopters don't fly without thousands of dollars of fuel, air traffic control (or you're creating some *serious* danger going without), and other logistical support. There's no way that level of risk makes personal sense to some random army helicopter pilots, just for the benefit of pulling a public stunt? These aren't random rookies in basic training, it takes serious skill and many hours of training to successfully pilot a helicopter at all. Why risk your entire military career on a stunt, and how did you convince an entire ground crew and air traffic control tower to get in on it? Having some kind of orders/encouragement/guarantee of impunity from above makes the most sense. I'd be 0% surprised if Hegseth directly gave the orders/go-ahead and the show of an "investigation into insubordination" that gets publicly cancelled by Hegseth personally is an entirely intentional result if not the main objective.
Also buzzing the No Kings rally was 100% intentional.
#NoKings
The most common three wise monkeys variations intrigue me. The positively framed versions are cute, but subdued ominous aura is part of the appeal. The ones with "do no evil" where the monkey covers genitals have too much ominous aura for the mainstream. This could be a Goldilocks situation
Folks, this is a general Gaza Verified message.
Please note that while we know the unconscionable situation people in Gaza are having to go through, we are also seeing a rise (from a small number of people) of mass tagging of people in messages and unsolicited direct messages.
To our friends and families in Gaza Verified: this is against the rules of almost every server, including the one your account is on and it will get your account limited or suspended. It is also against our…
RE: https://mastodon.social/@lina19942810/116692524440490478
Lina has helped me greatly with information about the situation in Gaza. Her husband is injured and is likely to lose a leg; her little daughter is ill. They are living in a tent in extreme …
The cable management situation around me and halfway to the Moon brings me some kind of peace of mind 🖖
Watch the #Artemis 2 crew eat, work out and take a shammy bath on way to moon | VideoFromSpace
https://www.youtube.com…
Installing #elementaryOS on a PC without a mouse (mini PC without bluetooth and I don't have a USB mouse at hand). It works! But it's a sobering experience. It's often a surprise where the keyboard focus will go if you use tab or cursor keys. Once I ended up in a situation where the keyboard focus is nowhere. Dropdowns don't highlight the currently selected option without a m…
Ryanair boss O'Leary happily reports that Europe's jet fuel situation is not so bad, partly thanks to "an increasing supply coming from Russia.”
He also wants an end to the EU CO2 price for European flights, of course. O'Leary used to be an outright climate denier.
https://www.
I have some sympathy with the police. A policeman made a wrong diagnosis in the dark, in an emergency situation, after having been misinformed by a witness. It was a mistake, but it didn't necessarily involve any racial bias. #Nowak #Digwa
RE: https://mastodon.social/@lina19942810/116692967498412273
Lina has helped me greatly with information about the situation in Gaza. Her husband is injured and is likely to lose a leg; her little daughter is ill. They are living in a tent in extreme …
The Bricks and Minifigs situation is insane. What do you mean the police and the Mormon church are in on $200,000 Star Wars Lego theft?
This piece from the LRB blog, "It cannot read the human heart", about a (Chinese) plagiarism scandal, has total «Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote» energy, which is both particularly fitting and ironic in this situation.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/february/i
"The plan doesn’t indicate what will happen if workers don’t report to the DC office or are denied accommodation requests, but there’s a widespread belief among agency employees that many will resign or be terminated and that the plan is designed to get around a potential court hold on the CFPB’s RIF proposal, according to multiple people familiar with the situation."
CFPB’s Return-to-Office Plan Sets Stage for Resignation Wave
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/banking-law/cfpbs-return-to-office-plan-sets-up-potential-resignation-wave
Permeation of hydrogen across graphdiyne: molecular dynamics vs. quantum simulations and role of membrane motion
Mateo Rodr\'iguez, Jos\'e Campos-Mart\'inez, Marta I. Hern\'andez
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.24827 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.24827 https://arxiv.org/html/2603.24827
arXiv:2603.24827v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Previous research based on electronic structure calculations and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have demonstrated that graphdiyne (GDY) is a very suitable two-dimensional membrane for the separation of small molecules in a gas mixture of different species. However, quantum effects may play a role in the dynamics of these permeation processes when light molecules are the ones involved in the crossing of the GDY subnanometric pores. In this work we report rigorous quantum-mechanical calculations together with equivalent MD simulations of the transport of H2 molecules through a static GDY membrane, as a case study for the validity of the application to these problems of classical dynamics. The force fields employed are based on an improved Lennard-Jones formulation, with parameters optimized by means of accurate ab initio calculations. It is found that, although quantum effects are still significant at the temperatures of interest (between 250 and 350 K), MD simulations are able to reasonably reproduce the dependence of the quantum permeances with the temperature. Moreover, MD permeances computed with quantum corrections through Feynman-Hibbs effective potentials provide a lower bound to quantum permeances, while the pure classical counterpart gives an upper bound, thus leading to a well delimited range of confidence of the permeation results. Furthermore, within MD simulations it is possible to incorporate the thermal motion of the GDY layer and in this situation it is observed an enhancement of the permeances with respect to the fixed membrane case, due to a significant reduction of the permeation barriers when the GDY atoms are allowed to vibrate. It seems apparent therefore, that modeling the membrane motion is crucial to provide reliable simulations of the gas transport features.
toXiv_bot_toot
The Incoming Energy Crisis
What the Closure of the Strait of Hormuz Means for Europe and the World
A very good summary of the situation in the ground plus the geopolitical factors at play, by "European Geopolitical Journal"
https://europeangeopoliticaljournal.su
That’s the real business strategy here, the real investor bait. Not massive ROI, not some kind of new Golden Age of Humanity. Nope. It’s about creating a situation of dependence that leads to inelastic demand, then fleecing buyers.
2/
The thesis I was reading spent the majority of it's time focused on John Boyd's OODA loop as a tool for critical analysis in high pressure or constrained situations. Table top exercises could also benefit from using these steps to slow down the thought process, expose what's actually happening, and sharpen these tools.
So each step could start by observing (which is generally what the GM will tell you, but you may ask additional questions to refine observational thinking). What do you look for in any given situation? How do you gather data? What sources do you use?
Next you would orient. Talk through this out loud. What does that data mean? How this fit what you already know, or does it challenge your assumptions? Are you observing something related to a previous action? What does that tell you about your previous action or actions? How do you turn the data you observed into intelligence you can act on? How do your observations narrow the options for the next possible action?
Then you decide your action. But you're not simply deciding, you're coming up with a hypothesis that your action will test. Anything you do is an opportunity to learn something about the world, about your situation, about the accuracy of the model you're using to make decisions. What belief does your next action imply? How will you know if that action was correct or incorrect? What observations would challenge your hypothesis? What observations would confirm it? Are those mutually exclusive, or are there additional observations or actions you must make to clarify things?
Then act. Finish your turn by choosing your action or actions (individually or collectively). Perhaps take a moment to write down notes, like what your observations, your hypothesis, and if you think your previous hypothesis was confirmed or refuted. You can review these all later to refine your thinking.
By exploring these ideas in a safe environment, you can train your brain to run through the process at high speed when under pressure. This helps you avoid panic. It's a lot like slowly practicing marshal arts moves until they become muscle memory, which then just happen without thought when needed.
Dear american customers, I am very happy to announce that shipping to the USA is available again in my online shop https://www.wandklex.art/! 👯
Because of the well known situation, the shipping costs relatively are ridiculously high, since in this case I have to pay your customs duties in advance, but hey, at least it’s working again and the packages can finally reach you. I’m really glad about that! 🎉 )
Janne Korhonen argues,
“When you hear the warnings beeping and flashing all the time,
it is only a natural reaction to lose focus
- and be paralysed by fear and despair.
That's why airplanes, for example, have toggles that turn the alarms off.
So that the pilots can concentrate better on working the problem.
Pilots and especially astronauts are trained to "work the problem."
Even, perhaps especially, if the situation seems truly hop…
So, now the nutz are thinking of invading and occupying Kharg Island, Iran's main oil export terminal.
I wonder if the nutz - cheato and baby bibi - recognize that they have placed Iran in a life-and-death situation.
And when faced with national death Iran may well choose to destroy the facilities on the island and the undersea pipelines leading to the island.
Iran knows that the main issue on the mind of many isn't the war itself - we are, after all, a country made…
"As you can tell, I think this was a bad gamble: it was very unlikely to succeed but instead always very likely to result in a significantly worse strategic situation for the United States, but only after it killed thousands of people unnecessarily. If you do a war where thousands of people die and billions of dollars are spent only to end up back where you started that is losing; if you end up worse than where you started, well, that is worse."
Now it’s supposed to run normally again. We’ll see what the situation looks like when I arrive in Basel…
#dhbenelux2026
Now it’s supposed to run normally again. We’ll see what the situation looks like when I arrive in Basel…
#dhbenelux2026
It seems the President of the United States is hitting on or trying to date (?) perhaps the President of China, and potus also believes that one must block the Strait of Hormuz in order to open it (big destroy-the-villiage-to-save-the-villiage energy here), and finally potus would rather hug things out but also might get violent and wants you to know that he is a violent man.
Rabies-like logic.
#USpol
The opening salvo of a war is not "a fast-moving situation." It is the deployment of a pre-assembled target list under zero pressure to outpace an adversary. #minabstrike
RE: https://flipboard.social/@CultureDesk/116682411885979134
"New Zealand-born Sarah Wynn-Williams was introduced as "an author in a hostage situation" at the Hay Festival, Powys, on Sunday" 💯😂
New mailer from Scott Wiener’s backers is basically “Saikat claims to be a progressive, yet he owns stocks.”
It would be great if Saikat took his personal investments out of big pharma and big tech, but even if he doesn’t, it’s better than the situation with Scott Wiener, where big pharma and big tech are investing in HIM. Including through the very PAC that sent this mailer!
Learning how to psyop Third World populations with Manual of The Mercenary Soldier
https://archive.org/details/PaulBalorManualOfTheMercenarySoldier
I really like the concept of noticing "greyed out options": perfectly reasonable if sometimes wacky things that you can do in a situation but that you accidentally treat as unavailable, like a greyed out option in a dialog box in software.
Once you start noticing them, you unlock a whole lot of self-awareness.
An example tonight from a moderation decision: someone who's kind of a jerk and often gets their messages blocked on the forum, and it's never quite over the line but often borderline. Do we ban the person or not?
Wait: there's a third option! We can send them a message and tell 'em to knock it off and contribute better.
Unlocking that not only gets you a lot more information as a moderator to decide whether to keep someone, but also gives them the opportunity to change their behavior.
One reason it’s been so hot in India and Pakistan this year is due to persistent high-pressure weather systems.
When these systems sit in place, they make heatwaves more likely
by suppressing cloud formation and reducing the chance of cooling rain.
This year, strong high-pressure systems have lingered over parts of India and Pakistan, trapping hot air near the surface and allowing temperatures to build over many days.
With less rain, there’s more heat at ground level a…
Following an official github documentation about integrating Claude with Github MCP ends up with github token in a plain text in ~/.claude.json. Other guides I found did the same, except revealing a different github secrets there.
That means I am really really really surprised that there are so few security incidents like axios. I'd guess the situation is much worse.
#claude
The current situation in between the UK and the US feels like Griff calling Marty chicken in the Cafe 80s.
OK, apart from this "settlement" being a contrived form of self-dealing and thus in violation of Constitutional requirement that Federal Courts deal only with actual, valid cases and controversies, one may wonder, what is the tax situation with regard to the payouts - bribes - to trump supporters?
Often legal settlements are exempt from tax. But that exemption may exist only for the taxpayer who was an actual plaintiff and thus a party to the settlement.
In this case, …
Behind the public’s mounting worries is a growing sense that Trump isn’t mentally all there.
Physical and mental health aren’t easily separated, especially as one reaches 80. I often can’t remember where I put my wallet and keys or why I’ve entered a room. I also have less patience than I used to have. (I’m less tolerant of long lines, automated phone menus and Republicans.)
But if Trump can’t remember where he put, say, a top-secret memo or why he entered the Situation Room, or …
A new media company called MTS launches for "monitoring the situation" across tech, business, politics, and culture, with backing from a16z and others (a16z)
https://www.a16z.news/p/monitoring-the-situation
A.Word.A.Day --brave new world
A good title names a book. A great title names the world beyond it. These titles escape their bindings and walk straight into the language.
This week we feature words and phrases from book titles that have done just that.
https://wordsmith.org/words/brave_new_
RE: https://mastodon.social/@samiamsam/116459688263848899
Rights are things you defend with guns. If you don't have guns, are not organized enough to defend them, or are unwilling to "go that far," then you don't have rights.
But I ultimately challenge the logic of "rights." The entire framing of "rights" is somewhat individualist though. Once you have the power to assert your rights, you really have no reason to support others... Which is exactly the situation we're in now.
I actually think it's worth throwing out entirely. Instead, I like the concept of "obligations." We all owe obligations to each other by way of all of our existences being intertwined. You can ignore your obligations, just like you can ignore any debt, but you can't really escape them.
They also don't require anything to exist. They exist on their own. You choose to act on those obligations or not, which again comes back to what you're willing to do... But from a different angle, and for *others* not for yourself.
“President Trump exhibits what forensic mental health experts have, across dozens of independent assessments, identified as the ‘Dark Triad’ of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy … Rather than constituting a clinical diagnosis, this trait-based assessment is grounded in behavioral observation and is particularly useful for assessing the level of danger an individual poses in a political leadership position. We do not offer this as a clinical verdict. We offer i…
I fear that the proliferation of expert panels on #ClimateChange is a bit like Randall Munroe's famous cartoon about the proliferation of standards. We don't need more panels, we need to pay more attention to the ones we already have
#ClimateEmergency
RE: https://fosstodon.org/@mwb/116476124401887839
it's happening huh
I've kept silent for a long time b/c I hate throwing fellow maintainers under the bus, but the situation around httpx 2 (which is developed in private and has a focus on adding a …
Middle East crisis live: IEA chief says Iran war energy crunch worse than 1970s oil crises and Ukraine war combined
The head of the International Energy Agency is addressing Australia’s national press club now and says the public needs to understand the “depth of the problem” facing the globe.
Fatih Birol starts by saying the situation is now “very serious”,
more so than the two oil crises in 1973 and 1979, and more serious than the gas crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion …
RE: #enshitificaton of software, hardware, and services and the austerity to fascism pipeline. The state is just an older type of walled garden. The solution isn't to improve the walled garden, but to leave it forever.
When we build systems, together, that cannot be shut down, that exist outside of these political systems, then we are opting out. Anarchism is the open source option of political ideologies.
Europe has “maybe six weeks or so” of remaining jet fuel supplies,
the head of the International Energy Agency said Thursday in a wide-ranging interview,
warning of possible flight cancellations “soon” if oil supplies remain blocked by the Iran war.
IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol painted a sobering picture of the global repercussions of what he called
“the largest energy crisis we have ever faced,”
stemming from the pinch-off of oil, gas and other vital suppl…
Today, I made gifts to some people in need in #Gaza, as I try to do every Wednesday. None of the people I gave to today had received anything at all since my last gift.
What I can afford to give is nowhere near enough to keep a single person alive, let alone a family.
And, of course, there are many other people begging me for aid, whom I can't afford to give to.
The situation in…
The White House is forcing countries to choose between opening up a potentially unbridgeable rift
or playing down the climate crisis and trying to squeeze in green priorities by the back door.
Last autumn, the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, demanded the removal of some climate finance targets from the World Bank’s aims
and insisted it must “finance all affordable and reliable sources of energy … [with] an all-of-the-above approach to energy that includes financing fo…
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) is suggesting that a recent report on President Donald Trump’s involvement in the Situation Room (or lack thereof) during the extraction of U.S. military airmen in Iran should prompt his cabinet members to consider removing him from office.
The Wall Street Journal report in question details that Trump, upon learning that the two airmen’s plane had been shot down, reportedly screamed at his aides for many hours and was later kept from r…
Making extreme threats -- and walking them back -- will again provide Trump with the illusion of agency.
But he no longer has control of events in Iran.
He does not get to decide when the conflict ends.
Markets are figuring out that that will probably be up to Tehran.
Oil rebounded on Tuesday and stocks gave up much of their Monday gains
after Iranian officials denied the “productive conversations” Trump claimed had taken place
“regarding a complete and t…
At least within the Republican party, Trump approval rating remains at 82%, according to a New York Times newspaper/ Siena poll released on Monday.
But the same poll showed Trump’s overall approval rating down to 37%, the lowest of either term. Nearly two in three voters disapprove both of his handling of the economy and decision to wage war on Iran. Democrats lead Republicans 50%-39% on the generic congressional ballot.
This suggests the Republican party is ever more out of whack …
Drones over base where Rubio, Hegseth live raise security concerns
U.S. officials detected unidentified drones above the Washington Army base where Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth live,
according to three people briefed on the situation.
Officials have not determined where they came from, two of the people said.
The military is monitoring potential threats more closely because of the heightened alert level as the United States and …
A man armed with a rifle rammed a vehicle into the nation's largest Reform synagogue, in a Detroit suburb,
and was fatally shot by security, The Associated Press has learned.
That's according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on Thursday.
The vehicle caught on fire after crashing into the Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, the person said
The Gulf countries are in a no-win situation,
stuck between a belligerent Israel that has no qualms about using violence to achieve its strategic aims
and a desperate Iran lashing out against U.S. allies in the region as it tries to survive.
"No matter which side prevails, Gulf states have realized how vulnerable they are despite U.S. security guarantees.
“In either scenario, I don’t think that the Gulf states will be happy with the outcome,”
says Kareem …
That was fast!" Tom Miller said.
"You're seeing that Trump's strategy is just making a bunch of claims and hoping that they come to fruition,"
Miller added that the Strait's closure could compel Trump to make further concessions to the Iranians as negotiations continue.
"I think obviously that Trump will continue to offer more and more concessions in the hope that the Strait can get reopened,"
"But the situation is a lot dic…
Britain's Keir Starmer has agreed with Germany’s Friedrich Merz and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni to “work closely together” in navigating commercial shipping through the strait of Hormuz.
A spokesperson for Starmer said the prime minister spoke to the leaders of Germany and Italy on Monday night “about the situation in the Middle East, discussing the strait of Hormuz.”
He said:
They agreed on the vital importance of freedom of navigation for vessels through these waters. They ag…
Zeteo’s Asawin Subsaeng reported this week that Trump is directing a furious hunt for people who leaked info to The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan for that huge piece about how Trump decided to start this war.
The piece is actually an excerpt from their upcoming book, which is expected to contain still more embarrassing details about the Trump regime.
“In conversations with close aides and advisers, President Trump has loudly demanded to know who in his Cabin…
@aredridel@kolektiva.social
