in reply to Joe Lion

My kids sometimes play a game they made up called “Alexa”, where one of them says “Alexa, play [song]”, and the other one has to sing that song.

But occasionally one of them will say “Hey Siri, play [song]”, and the other will say “I’m sorry, I cannot complete that request right now”, and they will laugh and laugh and laugh…

This entry was edited (5 months ago)

Imagine the following situation: your company receives a ZIP file with an invoice, and you're the person responsible for checking if all the details are correct, before sending it off to the payment department. You open the archive, and there's a single PDF inside. You view it, and all the details match—your company's details, seller's company's details, items and total amount are what's expected, and even the bank account number is the same as on previous invoices from this company. As everything looks good, you forward the ZIP with the invoice to the payment team, and move onto reviewing other incoming invoices.

A few days later you receive the same invoice again, but you already have it in the system. Just in case you reach out to the payment department whether it's been paid, and they confirm it has—great, no action required.

Another month passes by, and you get a "payment due" reminder. What's this? You remember it being paid already, so what gives. You ask the payment team, they again confirm the invoice was settled. You phone the seller about this, but they say they received nothing. So you head down the hall to the payment department, you open the invoice on your laptop, and start going through the details with them. But what's this? The destination account number and amount in the wire transfer and the invoice don't match! The payment team manager's face gets a bit red—seems like it was their mistake? But no! They show you the invoice, and the amount and account number match the actual payment... but it doesn't match what you see on your screen! How can this be?

Both of you re-download the ZIP archive from the email you've forwarded and open the PDF inside. And there it is—you see two different invoices. What in the world is happening?

Immediately you report it up the chain, and your boss's boss gets a pair of IT forensics consultants on the job. They investigate, and later you learn that your company has been scammed with a pair of different invoices hidden inside a schizophrenic ZIP file. This means that you—on your work laptop running a certain software stack—saw and approved the correct invoice. But the payment team—running a different software stack—saw the fake invoice inside the ZIP, which they thought was what you had approved. Even later on you find out that the seller's company has been partially compromised and a lot of their customers got fake invoices. But that's water under the bridge at that point, and the money your company transferred is long gone.

Technical details → hackarcana.com/article/yet-ano…

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Novy #Fairphone 6

Oproti verzi 5 ma mensi display, mensi vydrz, pomalejsi cpu, mensi rozliseni selfie kamery a mensi rozmery

shop.fairphone.com/the-fairpho…
shop.fairphone.com/fairphone-5…
mediamarkt.de/de/brand/fairpho…

This entry was edited (5 months ago)

Ok found some prime day codes, which one is better?
This one for $330
GMKtec Gaming Mini PC, M7 AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H (4.70GHz) Dual NIC LAN 2.5G M7 Desktop Computer, 32 DDR5 RAM +2TB Hard Drive PCle SSD, Dual USB4, HDMI 2.1, USB-C
amazon.com/GMKtec-4-90Ghz-Desk…
And this one literally $10 more
MINISFORUM UM870 Slim Mini PC AMD Ryzen 7 8745H(8C/16T), Mini Desktop Computer 32GB DDR5 RAM 1TB SSD, USB4/HDMI/DP 8K@60Hz Output, 2.5G LAN Port, 4xUSB Ports, WiFi 6E, BT5.3, AMD Radeon 780M Graphics
amazon.com/MINISFORUM-Barebone…

Doctor Who - Out of Time - The Complete Series bigfinish.com/news/v/doctor-wh…

🦔 Eine kleine Lücke mit großer Bedeutung. Früher streiften Igel durch ländliche Hecken, Gehölze und artenreiche Magerwiesen. Heute kämpfen sie in urbanen Gärten und Parks um ihre Reviere – zwischen Zäunen und Straßen wird ihr Zuhause leider immer kleiner.

🪚 Du willst ihnen ein Stück Lebensraum zurückgeben? Zeit für ein Igel-Tor! Der Einschnitt im Zaun sollte am Boden mindestens 13 x 13 cm groß, ohne scharfe Kanten und am besten in der Nähe von Hecken und Sträuchern platziert sein.

America’s Mobile Security Crisis: Time for a Secure Alternative

ABC News reports a disturbing reality: smartphones used by U.S. officials, journalists, and tech execs are being hit by zero-click cyberattacks—many tied to Chinese state-backed hackers.

Learn more at Purism:
puri.sm/posts/americas-mobile-…

Just listened to this solid episode of the Statecraft podcast: How to Digitize the Government. I had the chance to meet Joel Burke in #Estonia at the e-Governance conference earlier this year.

I had the chance to meet Joel in Estonia at the e-Governance Conference earlier this year. Our conversation there echoed many of the themes in this episode.

Well worth a listen if you’re serious about modernizing public services.

statecraft.pub/p/how-to-digiti…

#XRoad #DigitalID #Digital #Podcast

🚨 WhatsApp is getting ADs 🚨

First #MetaAI in your messenger & now #ADs. 🫣

But will it stop there? Probably not!

Find out more here 👉 tuta.com/blog/how-to-turn-off-…

#WhatsApp #WhatsAppAds

Lidem, kteri vydelaji hromadu penez a s tim spojenou slavu/viditelnost v nejakym bode totalne jebne. Naprosto bez vyjimky.

Kdyby ty penize pouzili a nasli si kvalitniho psychologa, tak by to dost pomohlo cele spolecnosti. A sam doufam, ze to neni uplne pravidlo a jde vydelavat penize bez nutnosti se prepnout do modu chodiciho ekonomickeho a sociologickeho think tanku a snazit se ridit spolecnost podle mustru Thiela a Muska.

youtube.com/watch?v=wLN3cDgp9k…

🤦 Aby toho zmatku nabylo málo je tu “Zmatek v koncesionářských poplatcích. Část OSVČ se registrovat nemusí” kde tisková mluvčí vykládá zákon. Má to ale háček, ten nehovoří o nutnosti vlastnit, ale stačí už jenom “užívání”. Neměli by to konečně jasně vysvětlit (a napravit) zákonodárci?

seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/ekonomi…

Re: last boost, especially read @tante's article on "vibe coding": tante.cc/2025/05/23/on-vibe-co…

🚀 Openfire 5.0.1 is out! This update fixes several issues found in the 5.0.0 release that we did last week. Check out the blog post for more details: Openfire 5.0.1 Release #Openfire #XMPP discourse.igniterealtime.org/t…

Look, a new #curl option proposed by @icing: '--out-null'

github.com/curl/curl/pull/1780…

Distracted dolphin or frolicsome frog? Did you notice that in Raccoon themes are named according to a strange convention? Have you ever wondered why? My latest article explains the localization journey which has brought to this result.

livefasteattrashraccoon.github…

Wayback Machine to Hit ‘Once-in-a-Generation Milestone’ this October: One Trillion Web Pages Archived blog.archive.org/2025/07/01/wa…

Paul Harvey’s ‘The Rest of the Story’ Is Returning To Local Radio Stations cordcuttersnews.com/paul-harve…

Kelly Sapergia reshared this.

Molly White @molly0xfff) is the best journalist (by a considerable margin) covering the endlessly corrupt cryptocurrency "industry" and its metastasizing spread into the endlessly corrupt Trump world and -- this should scare the hell out of you -- now into our banking system.

citationneeded.news/issue-87/

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I went through and cleared out a load of unnecessary subscriptions, and put some of that to become a Friend of GNOME. It’s important to me to support my favourite thoughtful, usable open-source desktop environment (and who knows, perhaps one day my favourite phone environment too)

#gnome

social.ndlug.org/@pnutzh4x0r/1…

This entry was edited (5 months ago)

Open letter from #EPA employees says their boss has
has been "adopting the messaging of political propaganda, rather than the #science that the EPA’s work relies on. This includes spreading misinformation about science through official EPA channels, claiming science is a 'religion,' praising 'clean coal'(which does not exist), and attacking members of Congress (which may have violated the Hatch Act, which disallows political campaigning by federal employees)."
electrek.co/2025/07/01/hundred…

Google Tightens Android Sideloading—At What Cost to Digital Freedom?

Google has begun blocking sideloaded Android apps in Singapore, citing security concerns over apps requesting sensitive permissions like SMS and accessibility services.

Read the blog at Purism:
puri.sm/posts/google-restricts…

An iPhone app called ICEBlock, which allows anyone to lawfully and anonymously report ICE sightings and get notified about nearby ICE agents, went viral overnight after criticism from the US Attorney General.

FYI: The app doesn't collect or store user data. (I checked by doing a network traffic analysis of the app.)

techcrunch.com/2025/07/01/iceb…

Given that currently 8% of the people detained by ICE for deportation are factual violent criminals, American citizens should take note that the words of a dictator are fucking meaningless gravy.

Merely having the wrong meme on your phone and not enough money for the best deals on a golden Trump card can get you thrown into a gulag in another country.

#FuckYourCitizenship
#DeathToDemocracy

newsie.social/@ProgressivePowe…

This entry was edited (5 months ago)

Do it anyway.


I hate running. I used to believe that, over time, this would change. I thought, over time, that I would grow to love running out of sheer repetition. This has not happened.

I used to think that if I could write for a living I’d never have to work—my hobby would be my job. This also has not happened. It turns out that when you have to do something for multiple hours every day it’s not always fun. Sometimes the day goes by quickly because of how much fun you’re having, sure, but not every day. Some days you don’t feel like being creative but have to anyway. Some days you have absolutely nothing to say but need to keep talking because that’s the job.

Sometimes things are hard, is what I’m saying. It’s a universal human experience.

Companies, naturally, are trying to sell you things to “solve” this unsolvable problem. The logic of consumerism runs deep in all of us thanks to the hundreds of hours we’ve all spent listening to advertising’s constant rituals. In thirty second we see a problem presented, a solution offered at a reasonable price, then a moment of ecstatic relief as the product solves the problem. It’s the story we’ve all seen more than any other, drilled into our heads, shaping the way we see the world whether we realize it or not.

So obviously we all think we’re one purchase away from solving things that aren’t really solvable. Do you hate running? Buy a Fitbit and you can turn those dreaded workout into something fun. Are you having trouble feeling motivated? Maybe buy this fancy project management software, or notebook, or anything else you might come to believe will finally make it easy for you to do things you don’t actually want to do.

I am not, for the record, saying all of these things are useless. They have real purposes. But no tool is every going to make it easy for you to do things you don’t want to do. I am never going to like running—I’m just going to have to convince myself to do it anyway.

I’ve found ways to make running suck less. I do it first thing in the morning—that way I don’t spend all day dreading the workout to come. I always run with my wife, which creates the social pressure I need to actually follow through. I listen to music while I run, mostly so that I have something to think about that isn’t how much I hate running. And we basically always run the same route—that way I know exactly how much running is left and can avoid the need to make any decisions while I’m tired and angry.

None of this makes running fun. It does make it suck less. And part of doing things you dislike—or even doing things you like on days you’d rather not—is realizing that there’s never going to be some purchase or trick that will magically make it easy. There is never going to be some magic moment of truth where things click and you stop resisting the things you know you need to do.

Sometimes you just have to push through it. Sometimes it’s hard, and that’s okay. Do it anyway.

Featured image from the forth century CE depicting someone who enjoys running more than me.

Stuff I wrote this week


It’s been a few weeks since I published anything here—I’ve been away from home for a while. Here’s some stuff I published while I was out.


Stuff you should read



An adorable black and white cat looking at the camera from the carpet.