Tootfinder

I had this idea for a Cairn lifepath generator where there are three stages of life and you roll 1d6 for your stats at each stage, and also get appropriate items.
It has not been playtested, it's barely been proofread, but I've been having a lot of fun generating guys
perchance.org/lt8m69fg35
#ttrpg #CairnRpg

Time to fight, mobilise everybody you know, to stop the creation of backdoors in E2E encryption.
#encryption

Possible End to End to End Encryption: Come Help - Bert Hubert's writings
tl;dr: The European Commission is honestly asking for experts to advise them on ways to institute “effective and lawful access to data for law enforcement”. If you are an expert, I urge you to apply to join this group. You have until September 1st. Do read on for more details! The never-ending battle where police and intelligence services demand more/total access to communications shows no sign of stopping, even in the face of mathematical and practical impossibilities.

Anthropic co-founder Jared Kaplan says Anthropic cut Windsurf's direct access to Claude models because of reports that OpenAI is acquiring Windsurf (Maxwell Zeff/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/05/anth

Anthropic co-founder on cutting access to Windsurf: 'It would be odd for us to sell Claude to OpenAI' | TechCrunch
Anthropic's Jared Kaplan said the company largely cut Windsurf's direct access to Anthropic's Claude AI models because of rumors OpenAI is acquiring the startup.

"Professor Cain uses various programming languages to explain these concepts: he starts with C (roughly from the second lecture to the 8th), then Assembly (lectures 9 to 11), C (lectures 12 to 18), Scheme (lectures 19 to 23), and Python (from 24 to 26). The last lecture (27) dives into some other functional programming languages like ML, Miranda, and even Haskell, as well as some advanced type design concepts, to round up your general programming knowledge."

Jerry Cain
The late 2000s were an interesting time for online education. The wider availability of faster and more reliable bandwidth led to an explosion of online video. This, in turn, led to the emergence of an ever-expanding number of providers of online learning services, and then to a wave of "Massive Open Online Courses" or MOOCs, many of which were offered by large universities and high schools all over the world. This month's Vidéothèque movie is a full playlist featuring one of the earliest (an…

Long; central Massachusetts colonial history
Today on a whim I visited a site in Massachusetts marked as "Huguenot Fort Ruins" on OpenStreetMaps. I drove out with my 4-year-old through increasingly rural central Massachusetts forests & fields to end up on a narrow street near the top of a hill beside a small field. The neighboring houses had huge lawns, some with tractors.
Appropriately for this day and this moment in history, the history of the site turns out to be a microcosm of America. Across the field beyond a cross-shaped stone memorial stood an info board with a few diagrams and some text. The text of the main sign (including typos/misspellings) read:
"""
Town Is Formed
Early in the 1680's, interest began to generate to develop a town in the area west of Natick in the south central part of the Commonwealth that would be suitable for a settlement. A Mr. Hugh Campbell, a Scotch merchant of Boston petitioned the court for land for a colony. At about the same time, Joseph Dudley and William Stoughton also were desirous of obtaining land for a settlement. A claim was made for all lands west of the Blackstone River to the southern land of Massachusetts to a point northerly of the Springfield Road then running southwesterly until it joined the southern line of Massachusetts.
Associated with Dudley and Stoughton was Robert Thompson of London, England, Dr. Daniel Cox and John Blackwell, both of London and Thomas Freak of Hannington, Wiltshire, as proprietors. A stipulation in the acquisition of this land being that within four years thirty families and an orthodox minister settle in the area. An extension of this stipulation was granted at the end of the four years when no group large enough seemed to be willing to take up the opportunity.
In 1686, Robert Thompson met Gabriel Bernor and learned that he was seeking an area where his countrymen, who had fled their native France because of the Edict of Nantes, were desirous of a place to live. Their main concern was to settle in a place that would allow them freedom of worship. New Oxford, as it was the so-named, at that time included the larger part of Charlton, one-fourth of Auburn, one-fifth of Dudley and several square miles of the northeast portion of Southbridge as well as the easterly ares now known as Webster.
Joseph Dudley's assessment that the area was capable of a good settlement probably was based on the idea of the meadows already established along with the plains, ponds, brooks and rivers. Meadows were a necessity as they provided hay for animal feed and other uses by the settlers. The French River tributary books and streams provided a good source for fishing and hunting. There were open areas on the plains as customarily in November of each year, the Indians burnt over areas to keep them free of underwood and brush. It appeared then that this area was ready for settling.
The first seventy-five years of the settling of the Town of Oxford originally known as Manchaug, embraced three different cultures. The Indians were known to be here about 1656 when the Missionary, John Eliott and his partner Daniel Gookin visited in the praying towns. Thirty years later, in 1686, the Huguenots walked here from Boston under the guidance of their leader Isaac Bertrand DuTuffeau. The Huguenot's that arrived were not peasants, but were acknowledged to be the best Agriculturist, Wine Growers, Merchant's, and Manufacter's in France. There were 30 families consisting of 52 people. At the time of their first departure (10 years), due to Indian insurrection, there were 80 people in the group, and near their Meetinghouse/Church was a Cemetery that held 20 bodies. In 1699, 8 to 10 familie's made a second attempt to re-settle, failing after only four years, with the village being completely abandoned in 1704.
The English colonist made their way here in 1713 and established what has become a permanent settlement.
"""
All that was left of the fort was a crumbling stone wall that would have been the base of a higher wooden wall according to a picture of a model (I didn't think to get a shot of that myself). Only trees and brush remain where the multi-story main wooden building was.
This story has so many echoes in the present:
- The rich colonialists from Boston & London agree to settle the land, buying/taking land "rights" from the colonial British court that claimed jurisdiction without actually having control of the land. Whether the sponsors ever actually visited the land themselves I don't know. They surely profited somehow, whether from selling on the land rights later or collecting taxes/rent or whatever, by they needed poor laborers to actually do the work of developing the land (& driving out the original inhabitants, who had no say in the machinations of the Boston court).
- The land deal was on condition that there capital-holders who stood to profit would find settlers to actually do the work of colonizing. The British crown wanted more territory to be controlled in practice not just in theory, but they weren't going to be the ones to do the hard work.
- The capital-holders actually failed to find enough poor suckers to do their dirty work for 4 years, until the Huguenots, fleeing religious persecution in France, were desperate enough to accept their terms.
- Of course, the land was only so ripe for settlement because of careful tending over centuries by the natives who were eventually driven off, and whose land management practices are abandoned today. Given the mention of praying towns (& dates), this was after King Phillip's war, which resulted in at least some forced resettlement of native tribes around the area, but the descendants of those "Indians" mentioned in this sign are still around. For example, this is the site of one local band of Nipmuck, whose namesake lake is about 5 miles south of the fort site: #LandBack.

Due to popular demand, we made the web exports easy to download:
https://blog.la-terminal.net/export-to-itch-downloadable-exports-now-available/

Export to Itch: Downloadable Exports Now Available
When we launched Xogot last month, one of our favorite features was giving you the ability to share your game directly to the web with a single tap. No export targets, no hosting setup, no extra configuration. Your game is instantly playable in any modern browser with an easy to

Trey Hendrickson to Eagles? Tyreek Hill to Patriots? Seven trades we'd like to see during NFL offseason https://www.nfl.com/news/trey-hendrickson-to-eagles-tyreek-hill-to-patriots-seven-trades-we-d-like-t…

Amnesty International, Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continued use of starvation to inflict genocide against Palestinians.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/07/gaza-evidence-poi…

Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continued use of starvation to inflict genocide against Palestinians  
Evidence gathered by Amnesty International demonstrates how over a month since the introduction of its militarized aid distribution system, Israel has continued to use starvation of civilians as a weapon of war against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip and to deliberately impose conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction as part of its ongoing genocide. 

#Ukraine #Putin #MontyPython

Für die breite Verwendung von #KI, speziell im Kontext #Schule, muss sichergestellt sein, dass #LLMs user:innen nicht zu selbstgefährdendem Verhalten animieren.
Das Nonprofit Transluce arbeitet an verschie…

Surfacing Pathological Behaviors in Language Models
We train reinforcement learning (RL) agents to craft realistic natural-language prompts that elicit specified behaviors in frontier open-weight models (Llama 3.1/4, Qwen 2.5, and DeepSeek-V3), using a proposed variational lower bound to guide the search.

A tunnelled road underneath Ontario's Highway 401 would be an expensive and very short term solution to congestion. A high speed train subway would be cheaper, move many more people and cost less.
A better Toronto, for all.
A Real Solution to Highway 401 Congestion — the Express Subway.
A subway to Pickering makes much more sense than a 401 Tunnel.

Trump says Putin 'wants to keep killing people,' signals US may send Patriots to Ukraine: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/05/trump-says-putin-wants-to.html

By being yourself, you put something wonderful in the world that was not there before.
-Edwin Elliot (Really...not Edward? Anthony Hopkins trying to blow up the Kremlin?)
To be yourself is to wonder. Always wonder.
#MoreWonder in your #Philosophy

❝We humans are stability-seeking creatures. Getting accustomed to what used to seem unthinkable can feel like an accomplishment. And when the unthinkable recedes at least a bit…it’s easy to mistake it for proof that the dark times are ending.
But these comparatively small victories don’t alter the direction of our transformation — they don’t even slow it down measurably — even while they appeal to our deep need to normalize.…And so just when we most need to act — while there is indeed room for action and some momentum to the resistance — we tend to be lulled into complacency by the sense of relief on the one hand and boredom on the other.❞
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/opinion/trump-danger-normalization-shock.html

On lesson: "It's incredibly expensive to try to replace the services that the Earth's ecosystems provide for free to humanity."
https://bbc.com/future/article/20250703-how-the-biosphere-2-experiment-ch…

How the Biosphere 2 experiment changed our understanding of the Earth
In the early 1990s, eight people tried to survive in a hermetically sealed glass structure filled with miniature forests, oceans and savannah.

We got in! #SamFender #London #CMAT

“Where to Put Focus When Opening a Modal Dialog”
https://adrianroselli.com/2025/06/where-to-put-focus-when-opening-a-modal-dialog.html
TL;DR: blanket statements about where to put focus when opening a modal dialog are wrong, in…

Where to Put Focus When Opening a Modal Dialog
TL;DR: blanket statements about where to put focus when opening a modal dialog are wrong, including this one. This post is meant to help guide you, an intelligent and thoughtful and empathetic reader, figure out where you should set focus. The scenarios are non-exhaustive. Messages I’m artificially breaking these into…

One Man in Southwest India Taught 10,000 People to Swim for Free in a River to End Drownings https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/one-man-in-southwest-india-taught-10000-people-to-swim-for-free-in-a-river-to-end-dro…

One Man in Southwest India Taught 10,000 People to Swim for Free in a River to End Drownings
In the water of the Periyar, swimming lanes are formed by strikes of floaties or tires which are separated based on difficulty level.

This is so out of touch. ICE is ambushing and kidnapping our neighbors and we're going to "cover the entire city with drones"? The SFBOS should reject this "gift"
https://missionlocal.org/2025/06/were-

‘We’re going to be covering the entire city with drones’: Billionaire’s donation to SFPD accepted
San Francisco police commission accepts tech billionaire's gift, to provide cops with drones, cameras and a massive new office

How People in the Twin Cities Responded to a Federal Raid https://crimethinc.com/2025/06/04/minneapolis-to-fed…

Minneapolis to Feds: "Get the Fuck Out"
Two firsthand accounts detailing how people in the Twin Cities responded to a federal raid.

I watched Thunderbolts Asterisk.
Valentina was my favorite character.
The villain storyline, I think, almost rung true, but needed to be a bit different to be truly compelling. There’s a basic counterargument the villain should have made but didn’t. But I liked it anyway.

The overall goal at "A New Social"
is to shift the power of social networks back to the people,
not the platform makers,
by giving them tools that let them
move their account and their followings,
and leave if a platform ever fails them in some way.

Introducing Bounce, a tool to move your following between Bluesky and Mastodon | TechCrunch
The overall goal at A New Social is to shift the power of social networks back to the people, not the platform makers, by giving them tools that let them move their account, their followings, and leave if a platform ever fails them in some way.

"Eventually, I stopped responding to my body. I was responding instead to a dashboard." — @…
This is a great point and very much translates to so many other parts of life/work where people stop listening to their "body" (or to their org/product/offering), outsourcing/numbing/dumbing down their decision making based on dashboards of col…

Why I Gave Up My Smartwatch
Somewhere between the first time I tapped my wrist to skip a song and the three hundredth time I anxiously checked my resting heart rate, I started to hate my Apple Watch. The promise of the smartwatch was elegance, convenience, optimization. What I got was constant data drip, subtle panic,

If the US president threatens to take away freedoms, are we no longer free?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/05/trump-threats-freedoms?CMP=share_btn_url

Google Calendar: I found an event in my calendar for this Thursday, without a title or description, but a specific time (12:20-13:05). It is my private calendar, so I know I created it. So I am probably going to miss something this Thursday, but I don't know what.
What I found interesting is that when I asked Gemini it was able to tell me when I *created* that event, a piece of metadata that is not visible in the Google Calendar UX in any way.

For blind iPhone followers who are new to The vOICe vision BCI: you can see the live camera view in sound. Use your Safari browser to visit https://www.seeingwithsound.com/webvoice/webvoice.htm and allow access to the camera. Use stereo earbuds and start with simple thi…

Some statistics about all robotic #LunarLanding attempts so far from 1965 to 2025 compiled from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon and https://scicomm.xyz/@AkaSci@fosstodon.org/114636519291241321 in which I only count those for which descent to the surface had been initiated, not missions lost at launch or on the way - in a nutshell ~70% of all landings by government agencies went well (essentially the same rate 60 years ago and now!) but only ~30% by private companies. Here goes ...
There have been two separate periods of soft lunar landing attempts of ca. a dozen years each, from 1965 to 1976 and 2013 to 2025 (ongoing) with a huge gap between them.
In the first interval there were 20 attempts with 13 successes (Luna 9, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21 and 24 and Surveyor 1, 3, 5, 6 and 7), one partial success (Luna 23, counting as 50%) and 6 failures (Luna 5, 7, 8, 15 and 18 and Surveyor 4), so the success rate was 13.5/20 = 68 %. All missions were by - the Soviet and U.S. - governments.
In the second interval there were so far 14 attempts with 6 full successes (Chang'e-3, 4, 5 and 6, Vikram 2 and Blue Ghost), three partial successes (SLIM, IM-1 and 2, counting as 75%, 50% and 25%, respectively) and 5 failures (Beresheet, Vikram 1, Hakuto-R 1 and 2 and Luna 25) so the success rate was 7.5 / 14 = 54%.
But looking only at the government missions it was 72%, slighly up from 50 years ago. While for the commercial attempts it was only 29%. In total the success rate was 19 (18 government-run) missions out of 34 (28) attempts or 62% but 69% for governments only. And if you throw in the 6 Apollo landings, the total success rate rises to 68% and the government-only rate goes even up to 75%.

Do you make #notes? Wanna do it from within your #shell? In files located _anywhere_? Without switching tabs, apps, directories? Then search across all these notes files wherever they are _without_ grepping your _entire system_?
HAMNT - hyper aggressively minimal note taking... app.

Ya gut the National Weather Service and then the fourth largest city in the country gets stomped by weather we didn’t see coming.
trump tornados in Oklahoma, trump floods in Houston, and your and my town will get the same too.
Help flood folks now: text REDCROSS to 90999.
https://www.…

Mail, Phone, or Text Donations
Whether you mail, call, or text to donate, your donations bring help and hope to people every day. Start here, with a $10 text donation to one of our ongoing campaigns.

How to prepare for a 8h train ride: go running.
Now of to Prague to #FlockToFedora; looking forward to meet a lot of old friends there and make new ones.
Ohh, and I give a talk there, too: When and how to use upstream Linux kernels to fix or improve Fedora –

Well, this seems stupid - New Jersey is forcing the removal of many working NACS charging centers and replacing them with CCS charging.
That's already stupid. But it moves from stupid to destructive in that it NJ wants to expand the moribund CCS charge system while automobile makers are shifting away from CCS to NACS.
Perhaps we ought to remember that New Jersey is a major oil refining/gasoline producing state and thus there are political forces in NJ who abhor EVs.

Once again: #FuckEricAdams
Unbelievable how he's managed to avoid jailtime breaking federal/state laws while City Council allows him to continue to break _their_laws as well.

https://…

No to 15 mph e-bike speed limit, yes to real safety! - Transportation Alternatives
A ridiculous 15 mph speed limit for e-bikes won't work. Tell Mayor Adams and City Council: We need effective, data-driven policies that protect everyone, and accountability for the corporations fueling chaos on our streets — not the cyclists surviving it.

This is the sort of crap that sounds smart until you think about it for five minutes.
Was the solution to COVID really ultimately technological? What about the social measures that got us to the point where the vaccine was ready? What about the different vaccination rates between Europe and the US? No social aspects to getting a population vaccinated? What about the emergence of Omicron: maybe luck was part of it?
The same goes for Ozempic, and the same will be true of Climate ch…

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/06/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-reprioritizes-cybersecurity-efforts-to-protect-america/
Trump issued an executive order to “amend problema…

Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Reprioritizes Cybersecurity Efforts to Protect America
STRENGTHENING THE NATION’S CYBERSECURITY: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to strengthen the nation's cybersecurity by focusing

Does someone know how to change the port for an SSH based cache?
The `user@host:port` pattern doesn't work on my machine.
https://discourse.nixos.org/t/how-to-change-port-for-ssh-based-cache/63908

The research collective I'm a member of had a great couple of days of meetings this week. We could all use more colleagues we truly want to spend time working with.

"I wrote in October that billionaires should resist cozying up to authoritarians: while it can feel as if they are reducing risks to themselves and their businesses, surrendering to a corrupt system is just as likely to endanger them. Musk is the first to learn this lesson, but I suspect he will not be the last."
Let's see.

Israel arms ISIS-jihadists to fight against Hamas just like they armed Hamas to fight against the PFLP.
You may ask yourself “when will they ever learn?” but that's assuming the Israeli government's goal is to live in peace. Why should they need to learn, when arming terrorist groups that destabilize and escalate this conflict isn't a mistake?
Considering how much genocide, ethnic cleansing, settler colonialism and hence the expansion of their borders they have been a…

YouTube rolls out a tool to let some creators upload different thumbnails for each video dubbed into a different language, to help expand their global audience (Dan Whateley/Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-te

YouTube is testing a new feature to help videos travel globally
YouTube is testing a new tool to let creators switch out thumbnails for videos in different languages, helping their content spread globally.

Cowboys appear to have a plan should Tyler Guyton fail to develop https://insidethestar.com/cowboys-appear-to-have-a-plan-should-tyler-guyton-fail-to-develop

There was this New Yorker that had a lifelong ambition to be an Texan.
Fortunately, he had an Texan friend and went to him for advice. "Mike,
you know I've always wanted to be a Texan. You're a *____real* Texan, what
should I do?"
"Well," answered Mike, "The first thing you've got to do is look
like a Texan. That means you have to dress right. The second thing
you've got to do is speak in a southern drawl."

Yup I try to limit my intake as well
https://mas.to/@carnage4life/114630680918880682

TTC new CEO took the bus from Kennedy to Scarborough Town Center to do his press conference.
Like Andy Byford, an actual CEO that uses transit. Refreshing (the bar is low). Cautiously optimistic.
https://www.

O'Reilly: GenAI has adopted a colonialist business model.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/timo3_proud-of-the-cloudflare-team-working-to-build-activity-7345899260506271745-mlHS

If you want to understand why O'Reilly is a supporter of this announcement, and want to ask both me and Matthew Prince about it, join our July 14 conversation on Live with Tim O'Reilly. | Tim O'Reilly
If you want to understand why O'Reilly is a supporter of this announcement, and want to ask both me and Matthew Prince about it, join our July 14 conversation on Live with Tim O'Reilly. AI has adopted colonialism as its business model: Extract resources from others and use it to enrich yourself and your customers at the expense of those whose resources you have taken, without giving much back. It's high time we started developing new mechanisms to enable content monetization for creators, not …

The UK's FCA plans to lift its ban on offering crypto exchange traded notes to retail investors "to support UK growth and competitiveness" (Ian Allison/CoinDesk)
https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/06/06/uk…

From Translink
Partial closures on Pattullo Bridge coming next week
Bridge closed northbound for one night and southbound for two nights

The Pattullo Bridge will be partially closed to traffic three nights in a row next week so crews can perform scheduled maintenance work.
Monday June 9 9pm to 5am closed Northbound
Tuesday June 10 9pm to 5am closed
Southbound
Wednesday June 11 9pm to 5am closed Southbound
1/2

Adoptiert weil ohne Alttext
#Ukraine #Poland

"The industry perpetuates this state of things, keeping itself in a state of blissful high-hormone idiocy. Software is important, so clearly those who are writing it must be hailed as the holders of some occult knowledge and the purveyors of infinite wisdom. Through bribery, hubris, or ill luck, some of those same assholes find themselves later in management positions, and continue the tradition by hiring more people like themselves, because that is what humans do."

The Insane Cult Of The Asshole
If we had to choose just one profession that falls into the cult of the asshole, software craftsmanship (call it engineering or development) would certainly come to mind. Writing code is ripe to endless, serial, toxic demonstrations of manhood, bundled together with an endless admiration for those historical figures (usually referred to as "pundits" or "moguls") who show certain supposedly manly traits.

Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, unilaterally halted an agreed shipment of military aid to Ukraine due to baseless concerns that US stockpiles of weapons have run too low, it has been reported.
A batch of air defense missiles and other precision munitions were due to be sent to Ukraine to aid it in its ongoing war with Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in 2022. The aid was promised by the US during Joe Biden’s administration last year.
But the Pe…

My favorite kitty Penny, sleeping this morning. She sleeps while I soak my bones in the hot tub. The birds sing in the morning.

Russia seeks to involve Laos in war against Ukraine, military intelligence claims: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/05/russia-seeks-to-involve-laos.html

Well I'm off to an Americana festival today, on the spur of the moment. Toria Woof is the only name on the lineup that I know.
My wife is busy marking exams all weekend, and my daughter is disinterested and asleep, so I'm going solo. He heeee!
#maverick #music

How to Feel More Hopeful https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/podcasts/item/how_to_feel_more_hopeful?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_content=muz4now/magazine/Signs of%2…

How to Feel More Hopeful
How can we build a sense of hope when the future feels uncertain? Poet Tomás Morín tries a writing practice to make him feel more hopeful and motivated to work toward his goals.

#resist #history

Mr. Twain Offers a Lesson on Patriotism , by Scott Horton
It was March 16, 1901. A lanky man with elegant and flowing white hair and a prominent moustache strode to the podium. He hardly needed an introduction:

Missouri Senate approves plan incentivizing Chiefs, Royals to stay in state, will move to House next

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/missour

[Suspicious publication, looks AI-generated] Cortical visual prostheses: a future paradigm shift in ophthalmology and vision restoration https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2949889925000261 No experiments, no new insights, nothing actionable…

If Uzbekistan wins or ties today against UAE, they will - for the first time ever - have qualified for the FIFA world cup final tournament!
If not they still have a path to the final tournament, but it gets messy.
#fifa2026 #worldcup #uzb

In a finding that will surely rock (eheh) the scientific community, I can now confirm that an electric guitar, even a good one, strung and mostly ignored in its case for a couple of decades will fail to remain in tune like it did when seeing more active use.

X changes its developer agreement to prevent third parties from using "the X API or X Content to fine-tune or train a foundation or frontier model" (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/05/x-changes-i…

X changes its terms to bar training of AI models using its content | TechCrunch
Social network X has changed its developer agreement to prevent third parties from using the platform's content to train large language models.

Sources: Google told publishers it is hiring new staff to market its ad tech to big advertisers and ad agencies, signaling a renewed focus on publisher ad tech (Catherine Perloff/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/go

Google Tries to Win Over Publishers Amid AI Search Tensions
Google’s relations with publishers have suffered lately, as its shift to AI-powered searches has hurt traffic being sent to publishers’ web sites. But Google is now taking steps to curry favor with publishers. In recent weeks, Google staffers on its ad tech unit that helps publishers sell ad ...

TIL that Captain Falcon's side special is known in English as Raptor Boost, but in Japanese as Falcon Knuckle. Why didn't the localizers just keep the original name?

#Chicks

TransLink and the City of New Westminster have completed major upgrades to a 737-metre stretch of the BC Parkway along Stewardson Way, between River Drive and 14th Street. These enhancements are designed to improve safety, comfort, and accessibility along this vital active transportation corridor.
Key upgrades include:
A widened pathway with separate lanes for cyclists and pedestrians making it comfortable and convenient for all modes of active transportation

It needed to be sent out again. https://syzito.xyz/@selzero/111990917196716451

Deniz Opal (@selzero@syzito.xyz)
Attached: 1 image "Where do you see yourself in three years?" "3 years? By that time I'll be dropping poisonous scorpions into rich people's climate change bunker air vents."

On Thursday the Supreme Court furthered the Trump administration's unprecedented effort to deport immigrants to countries with which they have no ties and where they may face mistreatment -- allowing the regime to transport eight migrants to war-torn South Sudan, where they had no previous connection.
The migrants,
who DHS has alleged have serious criminal convictions,
had been the subject of a lawsuit that halted their deportation to South Sudan and diverted them to a …

Trump administration deports 8 migrants to South Sudan
The migrants were the subject of a lawsuit that halted their deportation.

"The overall life expectancy of a programming language has dwindled in the past 56 years. A COBOL developer in the 1960s most probably retired in the 2000s, still writing COBOL. As a former professional VBScript, then C#, then Objective-C, later Swift, and finally Go developer, I can only see this trend accelerating. We should expect our favorite programming language to be replaced and removed from the market in a relatively shorter time every decade."

Alan Perlis And The Evolution Of Programming Languages
Alan Jay Perlis knew a thing or two about programming languages, both as an early pioneer of our industry and as one of the designers of ALGOL. The language that has inspired the one you, dear reader of this magazine, probably use every day to earn a living.

German lawmakers call on Merz to increase aid to Ukraine, Bild reports: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/06/german-lawmakers-call-on-merz.html

Trump weaponizes words. His opponents should, too | Cognoscenti https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2025/06/03/donald-trump-big-beautiful-bill-political-rhetoric-steve-almond

Trump weaponizes words. His opponents should, too
In an era of agitated distraction, Americans latch on to simple catchphrases as a way of grasping complex realities, writes Steve Almond. Trump and Republicans use this to their advantage. Democratic and progressive leaders could do the same.

Gene therapy can restore hearing in adults, first-of-its-kind trial shows https://www.sciencealert.com/gene-therapy-can-restore-hearing-in-adults-first-of-its-kind-trial-shows Surprisingly, younger was not always better in…

Gene Therapy Can Restore Hearing in Adults, First-of-Its-Kind Trial Shows
Up to three in every 1,000 newborns has hearing loss in one or both ears.

Rußland soll eine HaNuRa (aka Oreshnik) abgefeuert haben, welche sich aber kurz nach dem Start desintegrierte. Die Trümmer sollen über Kazhachstan runtergekommen sein.
#Ukraine

The Indian government says it has not issued any directive to withhold the Reuters X account in the country (The Economic Times)
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/go…

Government says no order to withhold Reuters handle on X in India
India has denied ordering the blocking of Reuters’ X account, saying no such directive was issued. As per notification on the X account, it was withheld “in response to a legal demand,” sparking criticism from journalists and free speech advocates. An official spokesperson said that the government is working with X to resolve the issue amid growing censorship concerns.

Sources: Google told publishers it is hiring new staff to market its ad tech to big advertisers and ad agencies, signaling a renewed focus on publisher ad tech (Catherine Perloff/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/go

Google Tries to Win Over Publishers Amid AI Search Tensions
Google’s relations with publishers have suffered lately, as its shift to AI-powered searches has hurt traffic being sent to publishers’ web sites. But Google is now taking steps to curry favor with publishers. In recent weeks, Google staffers on its ad tech unit that helps publishers sell ad ...

"On June 25th, 1999, Brian Foote published a seminal article that became, for a short while, one of the most commented pages of the early Internet, at least by struggling software developers and prospective architects. Such was the impact that it “was twice featured in Slashdot” (kids: that is the 1999 equivalent of “this article hit the homepage of Hacker News”). After almost 25 years since that publication, one question lingers: when are we going to accept defeat?"

Goodness Gracious, Great Balls Of Mud!
On June 25th, 1999, Brian Foote published a seminal article that became, for a short while, one of the most commented pages of the early Internet, at least by struggling software developers and prospective architects. Such was the impact that it "was twice featured in Slashdot" (kids: that is the 1999 equivalent of "this article hit the homepage of Hacker News"). After almost exactly 25 years since that publication, one question still lingers: when are we going to accept defeat?

Moldova's pro-Russian political bloc to participate in upcoming elections: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/06/moldovas-prorussian-political-bloc-to.html

Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.
-Elie Wiesel (from his Nobel acceptance lecture https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1986/wiesel/lecture/)

Madre fire in rural San Luis Obispo County grows to nearly 80,000 acres
The bulk of the fire is threatening the
Carrizo Plain National Monument,
which is home to several endangered and threatened wildlife and plant species
https://www.

Madre fire in rural San Luis Obispo County grows to nearly 80,000 acres
The bulk of the fire is threatening the Carrizo Plain National Monument, which is home to several endangered and threatened wildlife and plant species.

The Most Badass Breakdown of the MAGA Cult I’ve Seen #analysis

The Most Badass Breakdown of the MAGA Cult I’ve Seen
Send This to any MAGA Person You Still Care About

SIGN THE PETITION: PROTECT HUMAN RIGHTS. STOP BILL C-2
Prime Minister Mark Carney ran a campaign on leading Canada through Trump’s tariffs & attacks on sovereignty & a cost-of-living crisis. Instead, his first piece of legislation, Bill C-2, is an attack on migrants & privacy rights straight out of the Trump playbook.
Bill C-2 drastically restricts refugee protection, allows for mass deportations & gives security officials unchecked power to access everyone’s data…

SIGN THE PETITION: PROTECT HUMAN RIGHTS. STOP BILL C-2 - Leadnow

"wehe du pinkelst ins Becken!"

Sources: TikTok plans to launch a new version of its app in the US on September 5, ahead of the Sept. 17 deadline for the US to enforce the divest-or-ban law (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/tiktok-building-n…

TikTok Building New Version of App Ahead of Expected U.S. Sale
TikTok is building a new version of its app for users in the U.S. ahead of a planned sale of the app to a group of investors. The company has developed a plan to launch the new TikTok app, known internally as “M2,” to U.S. app stores on September 5, according to two people with knowledge of the ...

Neuralink's Blindsight BCI targets blindness, as Musk teases "superpower situation" https://thedebrief.org/neuralinks-blindsight-bci-targets-blindness-as-musk-teases-superpower-situation/ After Dobelle, Arg…

Neuralink’s Blindsight BCI Targets Blindness, as Musk Teases “Superpower Situation”
Science, Tech and Defense for the Rebelliously Curious.

Sources: TikTok plans to launch a new version of its app in the US on September 5, ahead of the Sept. 17 deadline for the US to enforce the divest-or-ban law (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/tiktok-building-n…

TikTok Building New Version of App Ahead of Expected U.S. Sale
TikTok is building a new version of its app for users in the U.S. ahead of a planned sale of the app to a group of investors. The company has developed a plan to launch the new TikTok app, known internally as “M2,” to U.S. app stores on September 5, according to two people with knowledge of the ...

"The good news is, those same software workers can still influence the state of the world in a positive light. In the pages of this magazine, now celebrating its fifth year of existence, we have tried to highlight the various ways they can do this:
By promoting a healthy dialogue between management and software engineers.
By showing empathy with one another and with mankind.
By unionizing and fighting against atrocious work conditions."

From a German lagerstätte, which means "hold my beer". https://tech.lgbt/@DelilahTech/114617249507331663

Registered nurses are appalled by this latest executive order that seeks to strip federal employees
-- including 15,000 registered nurses with National Nurses United
-- of their protected union rights.
As union nurses, we know this is union busting

NNU statement on executive order seeking to strip federal employees of their protected union rights
"Registered nurses are appalled by this latest executive order that seeks to strip federal employees of their protected union rights. As union nurses, we know this is union busting. Our nurses have been on the front lines, calling out this administration's attempts to dismantle and privatize our VA system."

EU to help Moldova fight hybrid attacks from 'agents of autocracy,' von der Leyen says ahead of September election: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/05/eu-to-help-moldova-fight.html

Jemand hat drei Paprikapflanzen wieder rausgezogen weil die einfach nicht wachsen wollten. Wem fällt was auf?
(Spoiler im Alttext, wer ihn nicht braucht, erstmal nicht lesen)

From David Suzuki
It’s hard not to conclude that much of the world has been taken over by idiots. Sure, there have always been uninformed politicians & those who let their ideology stumble ahead of their wits. & some who seem more sociopathic than stupid, waging brutal wars & massacres with no regard for the lives, families and communities they destroy under whatever nationalistic banner they concoct to justify their actions.
Lately things seem extraordinarily stupid.…

Jim Croce wrote:
Movin' me down the highway,
Rollin' me down the highway,
Movin' ahead so life won't pass me by...I got a name...and I carry it with me like my daddy did, but I'm livin' the dream that he kept hid.
He had a song. Now we have it.
#MusicIsTheBest #Music

Wise says it plans to shift main listing from London to New York, the latest blow to London's stock market, and will maintain a secondary listing on the LSE (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Elom should consider taking trains in the future
(well, for all i care, maybe not)

"Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of the second-most translated book of all time, colorfully explained (also in French) the importance of dress in our society through a simple anecdote: the planet of the Little Prince had been discovered in 1909 by a Turkish astronomer that nobody took seriously because of his traditional clothes. Repeating his conference in 1920, this time in suit and tie after a reform in his country, he had been applauded at length."

Tenue Correcte Exigée
The French have a very intimate relationship with clothing. This should not be a surprise, given the sheer size and impact of their renowned fashion industry, arguably one of the biggest contributors to France's GDP.

'Evacuate to safer regions!' — Russian attacks kill 5, injure 1 in Donetsk Oblast: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/06/evacuate-to-safer-regions-russian.html

Counterpoint has revised its 2025 global smartphone shipment growth forecast to 1.9% YoY, down from 4.2%, citing "renewed uncertainties surrounding US tariffs" (Arjun Kharpal/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/04/apple-sams

Apple and Samsung smartphone growth to take hit from tariff uncertainty: Counterpoint Research
Counterpoint Research revised down its 2025 global smartphone shipment growth forecast to 1.9% year-on-year from 4.2%.

"Instead of calculators, we could sit at exams with certain books on our desks, filled with logarithm and trigonometry tables, featuring formulae for algebra, calculus, and geometry. French-speaking Swiss students might remember the ubiquitous “Formulaire et Tables” of the “Commissions romandes de mathématiques, de physique et de chimie”, published by the Éditions du Tricorne, that many generations of Swiss students used during their exams."

Banning, Adopting, Reckoning
Last month, OpenAI, the company (in)famous for their ChatGPT product, released a course called "ChatGPT Foundations for K-12 Educators", an event that has raised more than a few eyebrows, and even some outrage. We must have a serious conversation about the value of a bullshit generator in the context of teaching programming skills to new generations.

Eine Funktion, die Tröts in selektierten Sprachen automatisch in eine gewünschte Sprache übersetzt
#WasFehlt
#FediHelp

Savvy Wealth, a digital wealth management service for financial advisors, raised a $72M Series B led by Industry Ventures, taking its total funding to $100M (Davis Janowski/Wealth Management)
https://www.wealthmanagement.com/ria-news/

Savvy Wealth Raises $72M, Adds Mark Casady to Board of Directors
Savvy Wealth, a technology platform provider to RIAs, announced the closing of a $72 million Series B funding round led by venture capital firm Industry Ventures.

"Ich spuke dir ins Auge und blende dich!"
#ukraine #russia #MontyPython

Wer "Waffenruhe" in Gaza fordert, verlängert den Krieg. Hamas (und auch Netanyahu) freut das.
Wenn man schon Druck auf die israelische Regierung machen will (nicht auf Hamas, weil man eigentlich weiß, daß sie eine Terrorgruppe sind, die auf Diplomatie scheißt), dann dahingehend, diesen Krieg schnell durchzuziehen und Gaza von Hamas zu befreien.
Jede "Waffenruhe" kostet weitere Menschenleben auf beiden Seiten.