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Good video on chumbox ads by #RyanGeorge;
youtube.com/watch?v=hJxAOJmHaM…
Still serving chumbox ads from OutBrain on your website Stuff Digital? Yup.
The billion dollar industry that’s ruining the internet
The internet is a dark place where all kinds of bad things happen, and I recently discovered a new part of it that feels an awful lot like hell… introducing ...YouTube
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Be safe out there.
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I side-eye everyone who uses Substack, but I especially side-eye my fellow queer people who use Substack.
Substack platforms Nazis. Nazis are not friends of queer people (to put it mildly.)
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3 min
The leading cause of medical fraud has been the influence of private equity and hedge funds taking over nursing homes hospitals, Dr practices and ER rooms.
PE, separates property from the operations of the service, operations are made to lease their facilities and is given the burden of paying off the debt of private equity took on to buy the business..
Shit like this is criminal. It should be illegal.
youtube.com/watch?v=lhgFEqX5Mh…
Let's talk about Medicare being next for the GOP cuts....
Support via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/beautfcThe Roads with Beau: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_x7nc3Vi4BPgmNnMsz774ACheck out the store. Sticker...YouTube
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I just checked the map of bigoted Congressperson Mary Miller’s district and oh my gosh is it gerrymandering run amok.
#USpol #ILpol #Congress #gerrymandering #Illinois
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Don’t cross the lines into that square looking area!
Best part of being off Twitter. Don’t have to see or hear much about the #GQP
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Interesting. Eerily similar to Mark Zuckerberg's strategy that killed MySpace
theverge.com/news/678928/bounc…
Bounce lets you move from Bluesky to Mastodon without losing followers
A New Social has launched Bounce, a tool that builds on Bridgy Fed to let you leave Bluesky for Mastodon without losing followers or the ability to post.Cameron Faulkner (The Verge)
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I consider myself a "technowitch" which I define as someone who uses technology but on their own terms.
I have a smart TV but it's cut off from the internet. I have smart bulbs but I use a self hosted server to run them. I have a kindle but the firmware is jailbroken.
I reject your terms of service.
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@lori of course they’re labels so every label is reductive when applied generally. What I can answer is what the difference is to me.
I think a hacker is a pretty broad term for just someone who uses technology in a way outside the norm, or in ways that are specifically not allowed or sanctioned. I think I would fall under this umbrella but my focus has always been internal not external. I bring tech into my life and use it on terms I define, I do less of entering or dealing with technology external to my home or personal equipment.
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Kid1 suggested they could use ai to complete homework assignment
Kid2: dont! if you do, even once, your brain will begin transforming into a mushroom and you will be lost to a life of chronic stupidity!
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Like, there's a reason the word "brainrot" is part of kids' vocabulary.
They get that this stuff is mindless drivel that messes up your brain's wiring.
Engagement with it is expression of an understanding of how stupid the world is.
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"Do you remember the Human Genome Project? I’m not sure the Trump administration wants you to."
statnews.com/2025/06/05/nih-na…
(#paywalled)
"My job was to preserve and provide access to the records of the Human Genome Project [#HGP]...All of that work, like so much else at #NIH, is currently being dismantled...The digital archival records my colleagues and I maintained are currently inaccessible. I worry that they might be gone altogether, either now or sometime in the future."
#DefendResearch #Medicine #OpenData #Preservation #Takedowns #Trump #TrumpVResearch #USPol #USPolitics
NIH’s Human Genome Project archives are at risk of disappearing | STAT
The archival records detailing the Human Genome Project are under threat due to efforts by the Trump administration.Zachary Utz (STAT)
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Really enjoyed David Gerard's amusing take on how programming with AI becomes like a gambling addiction for many.
"Large language models work the same way as a carnival psychic. Chatbots look smart by the Barnum Effect — which is where you read what’s actually a generic statement about people and you take it as being personally about you. The only intelligence there is yours."
"With ChatGPT, Sam Altman hit upon a way to use the Hook Model with a text generator. The unreliability and hallucinations themselves are the hook — the intermittent reward, to keep the user running prompts and hoping they’ll get a win this time."
"This is why you see previously normal techies start evangelising AI coding on LinkedIn or Hacker News like they saw a glimpse of God and they’ll keep paying for the chatbot tokens until they can just see a glimpse of Him again. And you have to as well. This is why they act like they joined a cult. Send ’em a copy of this post."
pivot-to-ai.com/2025/06/05/gen…
Generative AI runs on gambling addiction — just one more prompt, bro!
You’ll have noticed how previously normal people start acting like addicts to their favourite generative AI and shouting at you like you’re trying to take their cocaine away. Matthias D…Pivot to AI
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@kims
More good thoughts along these lines:
softwarecrisis.dev/letters/llm…
The LLMentalist Effect: how chat-based Large Language Models rep…
The new era of tech seems to be built on superstitious behaviourOut of the Software Crisis
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Why Canada needs a law that gives workers the right to govern their workplace
theconversation.com/why-canada…
> In its governance structure, the modern workplace operates as a kind of mini dictatorship. But what if there were an actual legal right to workplace democracy?
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If Trump gets impeached, Vance becomes president. That should scare you.
Silver lining: Vance has the charisma of a bucket of warm, frothing pus.
indypendent.org/2024/07/j-d-va…
J.D. Vance Is Silicon Valley’s Trojan Horse in Its War on What’s Left of American Democracy
Vance’s elevation to vice-presidential candidate should be prompting far greater alarm among the institutions and “responsible people” that anchor the American establishment.indypendent.org
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One would think they would be smart enough to groom someone with at least a little charisma. It's almost as if fascists aren't actually as smart as they think they are.
After the VP is the Speaker of the House: Mike Johnson, basically a theocrat version of MAGA.
After that is the president pro tem of the Senate, currently Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, age 91.
After that come the cabinet secretaries, in the order of the foundation of their departments. First up: Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.
You have to admit Team Stupid & Dangerous has some depth to their bench, here.
Though not in a good way.
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How does the union-busting industry work?
Union busters are hired in two thirds of organizing campaigns. Make sure you know how the “persuader” industry works.
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DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to “Munch” Veterans Affairs Contracts
propublica.org/article/trump-d…
DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI to Help Kill Veterans Affairs Contracts
We obtained records showing how a Department of Government Efficiency staffer with no medical experience used artificial intelligence to identify which VA contracts to kill. “AI is absolutely the wrong tool for this,” one expert said.ProPublica
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I'm hoping #MarkCarney is a Conservative in Liberal clothing, but I'm worried that he'll continue the last ten years of failed economic policy...
I don't want to rain on the parade but... It's worth remembering that Donald Trump was a wrestling guy and knows how a "work" works.
This dust-up today has caused delicious schadenfreude. I'm going to give it two weeks before I conclude it meant anything.
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"You haven't used this computer in a month. Would you like to disable all your security and let malware run amok in a context with all your saved credentials and session tokens? We've made it easy to misclick on the yes!"
🤡🦊
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@alwayscurious If you haven't started Firefox in more than a certain number of days (maybe a month? not sure) it puts up a banner asking if you'd like to "refresh" it.
"Refresh" means revert all your privacy settings and remove all your extensions. This is of course not obvious unless you know to expect slimy behavior.
Folks have taken exception in the past with my claim that SimpleX is "run by nazis".
I base that on the fact that it presents popular/recommended "rooms" as part of the UX, and a bunch of those are nazi shit.
No, "that's just algorithmic outside their control" is not an excuse. If you're publishing an app and find it in any way promoting nazi shit, especially to someone who didn't actually seek that out, and you're not a nazi, that's a maximum-priority bug to be fixed. By removing the recommendations entirely if nothing else.
If you're ok with it being there, you're fucking nazis.
SimpleX is fucking nazis.
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@divyaranjan Um, the evidence has piled up extensively since then. If you haven't seen it you're either oblivious, purposefully not paying attention, or just lying to simp for SimpleX.
The lead dev is on the record spewing vile transphobia (yes this is fundamentally nazi) on birdchan. I'm not going to do your homework for you. Go look.
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LBT¹: I applied at canonical back before i knew not to. I think I got rejected; I received a “how did you like your interviewing process at canonical” survey email the next day. I never spoke to or exchanged messages with any person.
¹ mastodon.social/@lapcatsoftwar…
Canonical's interview process is notorious in an industry already notorious for its interviews, Mark Shuttleworth is a total psychopath, and nobody should ever apply at Canonical, but this is a great use of the GDPR:dustri.org/b/my-experience-wit…
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Listening to Decoding the Gurus critique Naomi Klein;
decoding-the-gurus.captivate.f…
... I just realised I'm really jealous of people who actually think Gaia can sustain late capitalism. Who've never look deeply into how their everyday life is produced, what energy and resources that requires, and how long they can continue to be extracted. Imagine the bliss of thinking that if you keep earning roughly the same income, your world can just chug on unchanged, indefinitely!
Naomi Klein: It was Neoliberal Capitalism all along! - Decoding the Gurus
In this episode, your favourite neoliberal Decoder shills take a break from managing the decline of late-stage capitalism to examine the insights of fam...decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm
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"The other way I worry about the way Algorithms are changing us is just the currency of the attention economy ... of likes, of retweets. They're value-free measurements ... In the same way that money is. The question is not; was this insightful, was it correct. It's; how many, how much."
#NaomiKlein, quoted on Decoding the Gurus, 2025
decoding-the-gurus.captivate.f…
This critique applies to the fediverse too.
(1/?)
Naomi Klein: It was Neoliberal Capitalism all along! - Decoding the Gurus
In this episode, your favourite neoliberal Decoder shills take a break from managing the decline of late-stage capitalism to examine the insights of fam...decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm
We may know, in the background, that Boosts are not always endorsements. That Favourites are not always 'likes'. But we could build tools for being more specific about what we're highlighting about a post, without a text explanation in the form of a reply post.
EDIT: fixed what looked like a typo then realised I'd broken the sense od the sentence 🤦♂️
(2/?)
Seemingly unrelated follow-on thought:
What if linking to someone's post sent them a notification, as if they'd been @mentioned? Assuming the account linking hasn't been Muted or Blocked by the account notified or their server, of course. And that it wasn't a DM.
Is the goal of linking to someone's else's post, instead of replying directly, ever to avoid that person being notified?
(3/3)
I feel like that might make replyguy problems even more prevalent.
Linking to someone's post could be a way of starting a new conversation that doesn't require them. Letting them opt back in only if they want to. Insulating the original poster from one's own followers.
@tim
> Linking to someone's post could be a way of starting a new conversation that doesn't require them
True. But so is deleting their address from the reply before you start writing (I hope).
But thanks for the thoughtful response. I'm trying to get a sense of when and why people link instead of replying, and what might improve or inadvertently worsen the user experience of different kinds of fediverse interactions. Your reply is exactly the kind of feedback I'm after.
Me:
> we could build tools for being more specific about what we're highlighting about a post
Eg imagine we had a Correct button that told the network we'd checked the facts in a post against their references, and they seemed to be true. Then we could build tools to surface posts that are widely marked as Correct.
There are lots of ways that kind of tooling could be used, or misused, but I think it's worth having a conversation about how we could leverage the wisdom of crowds here.
Given it a few tries, but just can't get into Decoding the Gurus. They go long, without ever getting as deep as much shorter, more tightly-edited podcasts. There's a lot of important facts they not only don't know but scoff at, which gets irritating.
For myself, I suspect I'd get better bang for buck timewise listening to the Naomi Klein interview they were playing clips from.
What's happening in Ukraine is Genocide but what's happening in Gaza isn't.
What's happening the Uyghur's in China is Genocide but what's happening in Gaza isn't.
Maximization of their own propaganda against their opposition. Minimization of their own actions.
You need to rewire everything you've learned if you can't see right through this complete and utter bullshit.
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They are selling guns while they are forcing people out of their homes into kill zones.
They are selling bombs while they are dropping them indiscriminately on hospitals and civilians.
They are selling ammunition while they are blocking aid and food, starving innocent people to death.
Racist fascists deserve ARMED OPPOSITION.
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A disabled woman named Alma Bowman spent 30 months, nearly three years, in ICE custody during the first Trump regime.
The daughter of an American veteran, they revoked her status because she wrote $1200 in bad cheques twenty years ago. Which she paid back.
When she finally got out of the camps, she worked with the US government as a whistleblower to prosecute detention centre employees who were sterilizing immigrants without consent.
Who were performing unnecessary hysterectomies and tubal ligations.
She used her real name. She stood up for injustice. She tried to protect others.
Now ICE has taken her again, and the media have been largely silent.
The MAGA crowds are cheering because they have no compassion.
No one should be treated this way.
I’m going to keep saying her name until she gets the attention she deserves. She needs to be released.
Justice for Alma.
advancingjustice-atlanta.org/n…
#ice #immigration #fascism #almabowman #uspol #authoritarianism #disability #ableism #eugenics
Advancing Justice-Atlanta Calls for Immediate Release of Alma Bowman and for Federal Government to Recognize Her Claim to American Citizenship
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 02, 2025 CONTACT: James Woo, Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Atlanta, Director of Communications, media@advancingjustice-atlanta.org ,Rachael Ramchand (Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta)
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'What It’s Like to Work Outdoors in India’s Brutal Heat
As temperatures approach a threshold of what’s considered livable for humans, hundreds of millions of outdoor workers are at risk.'
archive.ph/DETUz#selection-123…
William fucking Nordhaus should be in prison for the rest of his miserable life. He's a despicable human being and also the perfect personification for what neoclassical economists are. Pure filth.
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One of these days, those heavily armed, masked ICE assholes, will run into a real life John Wick who will kick the shit out of them.
Fuck Trump’s Gestapo
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Enough people...enough molotov coctails...enough confusion...their time will come.
By the way, Democrats have guns, too. Others honed up their survival skills.
ICE is estimated at around 22k members, in total.
There are around 340million US citizens. Approximately 100million actively oppose the Trump agenda.
The math is not in ICE’s favour—you don’t need a saviour, you need to organize.
Lorraine Lee
in reply to Lorraine Lee • •sousveillance:
The art of seeing through mirror shades.
Lorraine Lee
in reply to Lorraine Lee • •transparency:
The neutralization of mirror shades.