. @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu: "Hardly anyone will ask why it is that so many people are so desperate to move that they will risk their lives. Few will mourn the dead."

The Far Right Is Distorting Ceuta

We’ve seen this before.

theatlantic.com

This is part of a thread that's a sad attempt from Alina Chan to frame Fauci and Proximal Origin authors' relationship as improper.

There's amazing applications for AI in the realm of spam, in the frontier of scams and grifts, an invaluable tool of the timewaster. Me however? I'm the one getting my time wasted, and I'll always be endlessly frustrated by that. It's added so much tedious, timewasting bullshit to my day to day.

Abolish the Home Office

the3million@the3million.bsky.social · 3d ago

Monique Hawkins, acting chief executive of the3million, said the impact of the Home Office’s retrospective review was devastating for many. "People applied to the EU settlement scheme in good faith...by building their lives in the UK and putting down roots." www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

#AI #LLM Something I've not seen commented on is the explosion of bot-impeding pages (e.g., via Cloudflare) that now appear before web pages load. The cumulative time waste for human users has got to be in the billions of person-hours. An immense burden imposed on everyone by the AI-bro assholes.

Yeppers. I am no longer going to conferences in the U.S. And I am not alone.

Detentions of International Scholars at Airports Raise Alarm

A Johns Hopkins University researcher was detained at an airport by immigration officials and later released. Cases like hers make travel fraught for foreign scholars.

insidehighered.com

Venus - Akatsuki - From Aster Cowart (terrasabaea.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/DUVaRB

Local (history) FB groups have gone through a few metamorphoses when it comes to 'do you have any information on [object/picture]'. From replies based on speculation/experience, replies that are copy/paste of the first thing a Google search brought up, and now a copy/paste of an AI answer.

The attack on pro-democracy shops continue. Earlier today, Wah Yee Tang Cake Shop in Sai Wan posted on their FB page that the Environmental Protection Department informed them they received "complaints" that the smell of baked goods in the oven has "caused discomfort" to others.

Here is something I wrote as a pitch for MAY YOU FISH IN INTERESTING TIMES. 🎣 I might as well share it on social media so that more people can read it. 🐦 aryl-ether.itch.io/fishintimes

You don’t need advanced tools to make art, around the constraints with which you’re working. You don’t need expensive formal training. You don’t even necessarily need years of practice. You usually just need some time and the willingness to muddle through the awkward phases of learning shit

And constraints force creative solutions and innovation, they are often GOOD ACTUALLY Sometimes it’s GOOD WHEN THINGS ARE HARD

One of the things about generative AI that particularly infuriates me is that some of the most fun I’ve ever had has been teaching myself how to do things around my own constraints I’m bad at art too. But I have PaintShop Pro! So I found some tutorials and *taught myself to make book covers*

Suzan the chalant goth@sillysyntax.bsky.social · 11h ago

My partner created something recently. They needed art. They are not good at art. They went to a stock photo company that uses zero AI and licensed a photo for like 30 dollars. There is no excuse to use an AI cover. Or any generative AI in writing except that you suck.

RT to scare a speculative collector

Your Canadian Girlfriend@yourcanadiangf.bsky.social · yesterday

Why? Why must everything we enjoy be sealed up with a "grade"? I get baseball cards being put in plastic because you can still enjoy both sides of the card. But a Blu-ray?

A new analysis in Science of DNA from Chilean mummies has revealed the earliest known strain of ancient smallpox from the Americas. The findings offer the clearest genetic evidence yet that European colonization brought this disease to the New World. Learn more: https://scim.ag/4w3Sl5U

Somehow things that would have been a background gag in a Verhoeven movie are now just real

Google appears to be getting worse as a search engine at a rate of knots.

Somebody asked me on Reddit why people who use AI to generate Recomp projects are currently being rejected from the communities and what they can do to fix this. I might tweak parts of this to be a more general blog post at some point, but this should be of help to anyone in a similar situation.

The other day I was looking at Twitter (still gotta, unfortunately) and I got ads for AI apps that were like "you can take pictures of girls and make them kiss in bikinis!" just regular ads on the regular feed

Matt Burgess (WIRED)@mattburgess1.bsky.social · 5h ago

NEW: Over the last few months, Meta has run dozens of paid ads that included AI-generated CSAM. The ads, some of which were linking out to “nudify” apps, targeted men in the US, UK, and a dozen European countries. Some were running in the last few days

Essentially just one Wikipedia paragraph for the Arch Eradicationist who successfully led the yellow fever elimination program across the western hemisphere, nearly eliminated smallpox there, and dramatically reduced malaria and yaws during his tenure too! Sad. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_So...

Fred Soper - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

since oscilloscope graphics are doing the rounds again, here's some photos from that time a few years ago when I built a gizmo to show dril tweets (and assorted other nonsense) on my ancient Tek 466

There was just a locally acquired case of dengue fever reported in Virginia, USA. The climate is becoming more suitable, the compatible mosquito species (Aedes) is already there, and we’ll likely see more cases across a wider area. Link: tinyurl.com/2pu4xrc5

The important thing to know about boots is that Dr. Martens was bought by a private equity firm a while back, the boots are now garbage in terms of construction quality, but Solovair set up to make similar boots on the old equipment in the old factory and their versions are much better quality.

Will Wilkinson@wlknsn.xyz · 8h ago

My take on boots discourse is that we face a lemons problem with many consumer goods, given the acquisition of many storied brands by companies aggressively milking accumulated brand equity for higher profits, such that price and reputation for durability does not reliably predict higher roi.

I'm tired of being angry about AI, so everyone say Happy Birthday to the Curiosity Rover 💗 14 years of Mars science!

You guys are going to make me write about that New Mexico medevac crash, aren't you? Stop spreading articles claiming it was shot down by DOD or DHS or CBP, etc. Read the Prelim here. There was a NOTAM on the GPS being down. If the crew needs GPS to fly, then don't fly. web.ntsb.gov/investigatio...

White Sands started it back up, and in which you had a controlled flight into terrain. This is the overall flight path with the key communications, and you can see the flight crew started doing a left hand with GPS back on rather than wait for a right hand for ILS line up.

The controller was setting them up for a series of right-hand turns to do ILS approach but instead, the flight crew with GPS back on, reported that they had a visual and started doing a left-hand turn. The supervisor then said that they were in visual, and jamming could start up again, to which

No, the US military did not do this at all, if anyone actually bothers to read the actual NTSB preliminary report. The flight crew (and others) were having issues and were telling it to the controller, the supervisor requested that jamming be turned off, and the military turned off the jamming.

And now it's up to 5,000+ likes. SIGH. That second paragraph is ridiculous. The GPS being unavailable was in a NOTAM which they would have gotten on the ground. They were unable to hold an altitude which has nothing to do with GPS. All pilots must fly & land without GPS. If you can't, do not fly.

Justin Ling@justinling.ca · yesterday

Holy shit. www.wired.com/story/a-civi...

Today the UK is putting into practice aggressive restrictions on trans people using toilets and changing rooms. This follows a complex legal/political mess over two years. The UK was among the best countries in Europe on LGBTQ rights; now it's among the worst. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-end-of-t...

The End of Trans Rights in the UK Is the Start of Democratic Collapse

It's never just one minority.

liberalcurrents.com