John Varley (78) died December 10, 2025 in his home in Beaverton OR. He had COPD and diabetes. John Herbert Varley was born August 9, 1947 in Austin TX. He attended Michigan State University. His f…
Initial notes on GPT-5.2 - I'm excited to see the knowledge cut-off bump up to August 2025, interesting that it's priced at 1.4x over GPT-5.1 simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/11/…
OpenAI reportedly declared a “code red” on the 1st of December in response to increasingly credible competition from the likes of Google’s Gemini 3. It’s less than two weeks later …
It is rumored that "OpenAI hasn't had a successful pre-training run since 2024, initially claimed by semi-analysis and never denied."
It looks like 5 and 5.1 were just different post-trains of some base model that they have had for a while, either 4o, 4.5 or something else entirely that we haven't seen at all. 5.2 seems to be using a newer base model.
Je viens de répondre au questionnaire du gouvernement sur l'IA. J'espère que je ne suis pas seul à répondre en faveur du numérique et IA accessible et du progrès technique. agora.gouv.fr/consultations/ci… #AI #France
Les citoyens aspirent à partager leurs convictions et idées régulièrement, pas seulement à chaque élection : c’est pourquoi Agora propose, pour la première fois, de créer les conditions d’un dialogue démocratique continu entre les citoyens et le Gouv…
ok so Trump says Americans need to just accept a lower standard of living and not buy their kids presents for Christmas and somehow THIS is not the "war on Christmas" we've heard so much about?
I mean it's not like he changed a Starbucks cup or anything I guess
Hello @Raroun hope you're well. every now & then, when i have joined a different #Friendica instance in the past, i ask this same question of its Owners / Admins. always it's the same negative answer, but i live in hope!
on Masto & Sharkey instances, if the Admins are willing, it is technically possible to add FOSS emojis to the servers. consequently, on many of my instances i've been able to include these in various posts when applicable:
Friendica supports custom emojis from other instances, but we don't support adding new ones per instance. One reason is that there is still an accessibility issue with them, see my issue that I created in the Mastodon repository in 2018: github.com/mastodon/mastodon/i…
Another reason is that Friendica is able to create posts that also appear on other system (not only ActivityPub). But these custom emojis will only work with ActivityPub and will look ugly on other systems.
so, even though, for instance, the obliging Admins at blahaj.zone & infosec.exchange/space added those ones in my OP for me, it can't now be done for @Raroun to just borrow them from either of those servers?
@Droppie [opensoc] I just activitated the standard "Smiley Pack Addon" for Friendica. I will have a look at the custom addon from @Matthias at the weekend :)
Here's a screenshot of what i now see, in draft / preview format, when i paste my original emoji-suite again, since @Raroun kindly enabled / added
the standard "Smiley Pack Addon" for Friendica
so i can see that yes, some of my desired #FOSSemojis now work, but sadly still most don't. i shall be most interested to see what might happen after this weekend. 🤞 🤞 🤞
@Matthias sorry for my delayed reply. the large majority of my regular interlocutors are on various Masto instances, with some on Sharkey, so for me to derive full benefit of my desired #FOSSemojis in my Friendica instance/s, ideally each of the emoji codes needs to be the same across those platforms. doing a comparison of
has now shown me that whereas happily some are the same, eg: :linux: :archlinux: :kde: :firefox: :thunderbird: :linux: :archlinux: :kde: :firefox: :thunderbird:
unfortunately other important ones are different, eg: :firefox_nightly: vs :firefoxnightly: :fedora: vs :linuxfedora: :opensuse: vs :linuxopensuse: :debian: vs :linuxdebian: :firefox_nightly: vs :firefoxnightly: :fedora: vs :linuxfedora: :opensuse: vs :linuxopensuse: :debian: vs :linuxdebian:
and a few are absent in Friendica, though present in the others, eg: :plasma: :zenbrowser: :floorp:
so, if i lump the "missings" with the "differents", the total number exceeds the "goods". it seems therefore that my desire to have comparable cross-platform FOSSemojis (without me needing to stop to think, each time i go to use some of them, "oh, are these good ones or bad ones?") is just not possible, so i need to abandon the idea.
Did you know Gemini can create images in .SVG format? This makes it very friendly to Braille embossers or tactile-graphic displays. Fun fact for the day.
Now that's neat. I'm trying to figure out why I'm getting a 429 error when running gemini cli. Or it says I'm waiting for your first command then drops me back to a prompt.
I've been doing a lot of work on PDF accessibility lately. As you may know, PDF is at heart a vector graphics format like SVG. So some diagrams and other graphics in a PDF document are vector graphics. Assuming the document is properly tagged so these vector graphics are marked as figures, is there a practical way to emboss them or view them on a tactile graphics display?
@matt oooh not sure. Thought some software (like Braille Blaster) can import the SVG if those could be exported from a PDF, then you'd have to add Braille labels to any visually-labeled portions. As long as it's grayscale (which was easy enough to ask Gemini to do) embossers shouldn't try to squeeze too much detail into the graphic at once. But yeah, that's an interesting one to experiment with, perhaps something to also research during my break off work :D
Today I got to experience the joys of the Scala programming language. Actually I do like it quite a lot - it's very readable syntax, statically typed however, oof. I think I don't like static typed languages for all the work you have to do, it does make you less careless, but it's why Python's great. Anyway, it uses functions and objects/classes, Scala does not require semicolons (;) to end statements. The val VS Var fight, mutable vs immutable variables, fun fun. But again, not a bad language overall, looks like I'll be needing it for work from time to time.
DeltaChat has just made its long-awaited Wireguard-esque multi-relay release.
You can add multiple relays (chatmail/email accounts) to your profile. Your account now survives server outages, censorship, or even government seizures. Your identity is not tied to a single email address anymore.
Change to another relay, message your contacts/groups, and they'll immediately learn the new address they can reach you at and will respond using that address now.
Just like how Wireguard gets a valid encrypted packet from a peer at a new IP address and automatically starts using it.
The one downside right now is that if you and all your friends were using the same server that disappears you can't really message them from your new address because... your point of contact for them is still the old address that is unreachable.
This is why it's important to embrace decentralization as much as possible.
Future work: automatically learning of ALL the current relay addresses for a peer and automatically re-routing your communications if the current point of contact is no longer valid. Or shotgunning your communications to the user across multiple addresses simultaneously just to be safe and letting the client ignore (not even download) duplicated messages they have already received.
If you use multi-device with DeltaChat, ensure all are on at least the new version 2.33.0 and add an additional relay. It will be automatically synced to your other devices so they are ready to use it as well.
Let’s say you have initially created a profile on the default relay and want to migrate away from it. Update at least to 2.33 on all your devices: Help testing upcoming Delta Chat 2.33.
call me when Reticulum is solving communication problems for people under authoritative regimes
These other projects *exist* but don't actually work with any groups directly to prove they're actually helping real humans solve real problems. Writing some code is only half the work.
Well I'm a guy and have the same problem. I hate disagreeing with anyone because I'm scared I'll come off as kinda an asshole, but I just need to stop overthinking and caring so much about what other people might say.
There's a miniature jungle gym thingy in our back yard. I just discovered, while stepping outside to de-stress after my interview, that if I lean on it just right, my perpetual back pain from a bad disc eases up. Found my new hangout!
you ever notice nobody speculates anymore what they'd do in a zombie apocalypse. wonder if that kind of speculation lost its luster now we're going through what feels like the actual end of the world
Le tribunal administratif de Paris a condamné, jeudi 13 novembre, Alstom à réparer un défaut logiciel grave affectant le RER A, huit lignes de métro et six lignes de tramway. Sans correction, ces rames s’arrêteront le 19 janvier 2038.
just going to reiterate this. if immigrants don't have due process, no one does. you can't tell citizens from immigrants without due process. www.everythingishorrible.net/p/if-immigra...
One of the joys of getting older is no longer doing things to get ahead or to look better to superiors or generally pushing yourself because someone else wants you to.
40 minutes into this evening's seminar, I wasn't getting anything from it and decided to turn it off, and instead I put Christmas film #2 on while I wrapped presents.
this is an experimental quote-share from my #Friendica #newsbots #Circle, whose default Permissions disallow anyone outside this Circle being able to see or access it. i have now done a one-off flip of the Permissions, just for this individual post, to Public, so...
Hello? (Hello, hello, hello) Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me Is there anyone home? Come on (Come on, come on), now I hear you're feeling down Well, I can ease your pain And get you on your feet again Relax (Relax, relax, relax) I'll need some information first Just the basic facts Can you show me where it hurts?
The Roland SC-8820 can be powered solely on USB, without the need for wall power, though this results in some USB bus noise with my setup, possibly because I typically have it connected to my laptop in two places at once through the USB connection and headphone jack. I have a few MIDIs that crash the SC-8820, and on USB power, the crashing is actually audible as a change to the buzzing. Note that I've raised the volume of this clip slightly so the change is easier to hear. The buzzing isn't typically this loud in practice.
If you want to power your SC-8820 from USB and connect it's audio output to something on the same box, to do it safely and without that noise, you'd need a DI box to isolate DC/ground from audio, preferably feeding an audio interface with balanced inputs. Of course, eliminating USB will also (mostly) take care of that.
You know what ““““AI”””” feature I’d actually use in Firefox? A locally-powered text-to-speech feature for the reader mode. Read me this web page in a natural voice, using some of the advances in recent models!
Is that possible to do efficiently in the browser, or are those models too big to be effective? Or would it need to lean on the OS APIs?
@metux, let the team know about the discussion of this feature. After my research, perhaps this will reduce the likelihood of malicious actions on the part of X clients and allow them to be identif...
In an academic sense, how bad is this actually? Assuming that X11 is already up and running before anybody can log in (no LD_PRELOAD or ENV fuckery) and "which" and "sh"/"bash" are a root-owned binaries that can't be substituted.
It's obviously dumb, but I'm kind of curious if this is actually exploitable.
Somehow, through some weird observation I cannot understand, I don't think that helping the PR author, or even notifying the PR author about that possibility was ever the intention of this thread.
there are quite a few reactionaries in my comments, some of which have been defederated in their entirety.
for the others:
1. although the system("which ...") use is silly, that isn't the problem here.
2. what do you think will happen when the code in this PR encounters a process named `" && :() { : | : & }; :&`? will it safely handle such a process name? before saying "that's impossible" please read setprocname(3), setproctitle(3), or in the case of Linux, understand that argv[0] is mutable.
3. yes, it is an open PR. it is also reflective of the code quality of many other PRs which have been merged to Xlibre already. how do you think that impacts its security record?
and yes, sometimes i post these things as bait to find out if we are missing alt-right reactionary servers that we need to defederate. it's like vaccines but for social media ❤️
In 1974 I visited the UK for the first time. It was also the first time, that I could (at least very, very rudimentarily) understand the language in a foreign land.
So my parents had „the talk“ with me: Why people may react negatively to me being a German. There was a big war and a very bad man named Hitler. I didn’t understand anything at all.
Will future U.S. children have to go through a similar talk?
How much of the justification for SaaS really boils down to "We have no idea how to administer Linux systems and we can't be bothered to hire anyone who does?"
Exchange email support has landed! We've invited members of our desktop team to Community Office Hours to give us all the details about what's in now and what's coming next!
oh I totally need to attend this because OAuth is totally broken in the account hub process and non-hub path won’t even let you try to do EWS. So I’m very curious how this session will go.
Pleast boost for reach: On the subject of Linux phone accessibility, the developer of AT-SPI wrote: There's a long-standing issue that Joanie filed against at-spi2-core for touch screen support: gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/at-spi2…
Ande I haven't taken the time to figure out how best to handle this. I'm not sure if evdev would do what we need, or we might want to work with the maintainers of mutter, KWin, etc. to create a protocol for intercepting/manipulating gestures. We would also need code that can detect gestures from touch screen presses. NVDA has code that we might be able to use as a model.
All of this is theoretically on my list of things to do. Of course, help would be welcome if anyone else was able to take it on. end quote
For blind people to switch to Linux on phones, we need to use the touch screen. If anyone can help with this, it would allow the blind to take one step closer to being capable of creating our own accessibility, our own environments, in the way that helps us most. See NVDA as a great example of how that goes. #accessibility #blind #foss #linux #phones #pinephone
Orca currently is able to register grabs for, be notified of, and consume keyboard events of interest. It should be able to do the same for touch/gestures.
Here's an interesting bit* of Canadian history and woodworking trivia, brought to you by me being enraged at a screw stripping while I was trying to remove it.
Most people are familiar with two types of screws & drivers: the old fashioned slot screw and the cross-shaped Phillips screw.
What if I told you there was a better way?
In 1908, a Canadian inventor named Peter Lymburger Robertson invented a screw with a square hole for the driver. If you've done any woodworking, you're probably familiar with it. This screw/driver design was very popular, as it is self-centering and the driver rarely slips out of the screw.
So why didn't the Robertson screw catch on in the USA? I blame Henry Ford. He initially was the Robertson screws biggest fan, as it was found to remarkably increase production speed. So Ford tried to get Robertson Inc. to give him an exclusive contract. Robertson wasn't interested. In the 1930s, an American inventor, Henry Phillips, created a screw/driver with a cross-shaped slot. Mr. Ford liked this screw because it worked well with powered screwdrivers. I think he also had sour grapes over Robertson rejecting him. At any rate, Ford's adoption of the Phillips screw/driver made it very popular throughout the USA.
If you've ever tried to build Ikea furniture, you probably know the frustration of cheaply-made Phillips screws. If your screwdriver is not the precise size for the screw, it will slip out of that cross repeatedly or just turn helplessly, unable to engage with the screw. In either case, there's a chance of stripping the screwhead. This can also happen when overtightening.
My husband insists on replacing stock Ikea (and other manufacturer's) screws with Robertsons, especially on anything that requires good structural strength or is made from a harder material. Worst case is that the screwdriver bit gets stuck in the screw, but this is easily remedied. With a Phillips screw, if it strips, you're hooped. You have a loose screw or an embedded screw that's never coming out.
tl;dr: I recommend replacing Phillips screws/drivers with Robertson ones, especially if you find your Phillips screws stripping regularly.
Phillips is a PITA for sure. I tend to use Torx where possible; Robertson seems to have similar qualities. I'm not sure about the IP situation there.
These days, a drill clutch in the chuck allows the operator to set a rough maximum torque; with non-slipping fasteners and powerful or single-speed drills, this prevents accidents. In its absence the Phillips cam-out acts analogously. So, I wonder if the drill clutch was only introduced after the episode you described.
I'm a European immigrant. I discovered Robertson screws here and it's one the better things Canada do... unlike insisting on using limbs as measurements.
![A billboard, purportedly from the NHS, saying: KNOW YOUR PARASITES:
❝TICKS: External parasites. Remove with tweezers. [photo of ticks]
WORMS: Internal parasites. Remove with medication. [photo of worms]
BILLIONAIRES: Economic parasites. Remove with wealth tax. [photo of laughing Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg]❞](https://fedi.ml/photo/preview/640/736889 "A billboard, purportedly from the NHS, saying: KNOW YOUR PARASITES:
❝TICKS: External parasites. Remove with tweezers. [photo of ticks]
WORMS: Internal parasites. Remove with medication. [photo of worms]
BILLIONAIRES: Economic parasites. Remove with wealth tax. [photo of laughing Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg]❞")
miki
in reply to Simon Willison • • •It is rumored that "OpenAI hasn't had a successful pre-training run since 2024, initially claimed by semi-analysis and never denied."
It looks like 5 and 5.1 were just different post-trains of some base model that they have had for a while, either 4o, 4.5 or something else entirely that we haven't seen at all. 5.2 seems to be using a newer base model.
Source for rumor: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4…
I've seen a rumor going around that OpenAI hasn't had a successful pre-training ... | Hacker News
news.ycombinator.com