Microsoft is paywalling features in NOTEPAD. Let me say that again so it sinks in. Microsoft is _paywalling_ features in _NOTEPAD_.

My god this is so stupid.

pcworld.com/article/2614943/mi…

Microsoft is paywalling these features in Notepad and Paint

Two iconic Windows apps will have certain features restricted if you don't have an active Microsoft 365 subscription.

^{Laura Pippig (PCWorld)}

I think what's happened to America is downright hilarious.

Russia influenced the government through with same means and same tools that Saudi Arabia and Israel have traditionally used to influence Democrats and Republicans alike.

1. Easily influenced for-profit media
2. Shady PACs
3. Shady corporate influence
4. Troll farms

Russia *did better* than the historical influencers because they only had to bribe one party mind you.

Americans could have elected anyone else. They didn't.

Didn't realise that last boost of the 404 Media article was paywalled. Here's the cited Amnesty research.

amnesty.org/en/latest/news/202…

Serbian authorities using spyware to hack activists and journalists

Serbian authorities are using spyware and Cellebrite forensic extraction tools to hack journalists and activists in a surveillance campaign.

^{Amnesty International}

There are those things that used to be "the fringe people on the internet", and there were a few of them, and you could chuckle, because nobody was going to take them seriously right

Like "we should remove democracy and install a CEO king"

Nobody's ever going to take THOSE people seriously right

I didn’t call this talk technofascism but I could have. Maybe “surveillance capitalism” just wasn’t scary enough a term?

inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=k2Go4uP…

#surveillance #capitalism #SiliconValley #BigTech #fascism #USA #technofascism

hmm, electrical ... robotics ... cad ... design ... technician ... yes, yes yes!

Located in Dallas.

nooooo

You should never for any reason whatsoever include the size in bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, or petabytes of the file on the "download" button (link) or especially anywhere visible on the page offering said download.

NO REASON WHATSOEVER

dig?

#youCanProbablyGuessWhatPromptedThisRant

The totalitarian shitshow In the US continues to have downstream effects, in fueling "culture wars" in NZ and emboldening our worst people. We've reached the stage of violent daytime assaults on queer people and families now.

Brian Tamaki and his Destiny Church goons will not stop unless they ARE stopped.

#uspol #nzpol

When you hear “Make America Healthy Again” please remember who the Nazi’s targeted first.

They wanted to make Germany healthy and “pure”

The Aktion T4 program mass murdered people with disabilities. They tested the gas chambers on us.

Please do not obey in advance. Speak out. Save lives.

#maha #uspoli #disability #eugenics #ableism #aktiont4 #disabilityjustice #fascism #resist #donotobeyinadvance

Like most American tech giants, Google is a fascist company.

“De-googling” can sound daunting, but you don’t have to do it all at once. Step one should be abandoning the Google Chrome browser.

12½-minute video
youtube.com/watch?v=m4UInu03jZ…

Goodbye Google | My Degoogling Adventure Begins

In this video, I share my decision to start degoogling my life and the initial steps I'm taking to reduce my reliance on Google services. I discuss switching...

^YouTube

Mastodon, is there a good tool or site you recommend for watching overall internet health, like BGP routing failing, ip blocks disappearing, etc.

Because I feel like over the last year I've been noticing more and more wacky outages, weird traceroute changes, lots of sites at once becoming randomly inaccessible from a VPN endpoint and then later not...

I had a moment of fantasy just now where all the instances gathered in a massive park, in the style of a company picnic.

#Mastodon

I really, really hated GW Bush. To the point where I had to turn off the TV or radio if I even heard his voice. I disagreed with him on every point. But that was based on a fundamentally different world view. I think he believed he was doing the best he could for the country IF his world view was valid. (Which it wasn't.)

But DJT doesn't even have a world view. He only has a "me view." The rest of the world is irrelevant if it doesn't benefit him personally. That makes him so much worse.

In other news, as a thumbs up for the company I work for, during the CEO town hall someone asked about DEI, and our CEO and Chief of Human Resources both reinforced their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. In a follow up newsletter they shared that our code of ethics and our integrity are not in place just to satisfy laws, but are core to what the company represents, so they stand by them even if the legal landscape changes.

I've got 99 problems with my work, but this ain't one.

"several projects advocating tolerance and equal rights on #Codeberg have been subject to hate attacks"

web.archive.org/web/2025021219…

Too many people refusing to say 'fuck you, make me' when the moment comes for them.
The ones that do are heroes though.

#USPOL #LGBTQIA #Trump

Two reflections on how the press should be covering the Trump administration — and isn’t. Both of these were on Substack newsletters, so I won’t be linking,

From @froomkin: “The first essential step is to fully and intentionally go into crisis mode. That means constant, round-the-clock, top-of-the-homepage coverage until the crisis is resolved.”

From Oliver Darcy, quoted by Dan: “Think about how it covers natural disasters and terror attacks. ... It’s time to break out those six-column front page headlines and interrupt regular programming with special broadcast news reports.”

h/t @inthehands #journalism #uspol

Whenever I hear about Trump's authoritarian idiocy about the "Gulf of America," or invading Greenland and Canada, all I can think of is this "Simpsons Treehouse of Horror" clip in which Bart renames America into "Bonerland."

Of course, Trump and his henchmen are such nasty and oppositionally defiant children that even Bart and Nelson would shun them.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I will begin.

John Mastodon was spending some time in Istanbul. An old woman asked "How am I to comprehend Mastodon?" John whispered: "Ask me next week."

These are the words of #JohnMastodon.

In March 2018, #Trump introduced #tariffs on the importation of iron and steel of 25%. He incorrectly insisted that foreign nations pay the tariffs he imposed, rather than the reality that American importers paid them.

A May 2019 analysis found Trump's tariffs were equivalent to one of the largest tax increases in the U.S. in decades. Further studies found that Trump's tariffs reduced real income in the United States, as well as adversely affecting the U.S. GDP.

People have short memories.

Step 1: Defund public #schools.
Step 2: Demonize struggling teachers.
Step 3: Privatize with the help of special interest groups. texasobserver.org/texas-defund…

#vouchers #education #politics #USpol #Texas #news #GregAbbott #Republicans

The 'Texas Three-Step': Defund, Demonize, and Privatize Public Schools

Vouchers become subsidies for families who had already decided to pay for private school, at the expense of public schools that must serve all students.

^{Chloe Latham Sikes (The Texas Observer)}