You know I wonder if they even think about what they say. If anyone who talks about me, or the stuff I do knows that it hurts? Since apparently it's not interesting, or useless, or no one understands, or I should just do something else. Yeah title him as nerd and let him do whatever, people don't like nerds blahh blah. You fucking, yes fucking know that it hurts, you don't have to understand it, but you can accept it, you don't have to understand the concept, or even the principle, but the fact that it's a hobby like every other, that you get joy from it, that you don't have to downtalk it and label it as something bad. Cuz it makes me feel bad fucker.
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in reply to Jonathan

Obviously I don't know the particulars of your circumstances and your family history, so this advice could be entirely inappropriate, but don't wait for permission. If you wanna help your Grandad, hit him up, like today. Send him an email or phone him or go visit. Hey Grandad heard you want a Smart Phone. What would you most like it for. there are these options. Not an overwhelm of information, just enough to show your knowledge and will to help.
in reply to Jonathan

The key part of my post, which got buried in the implementation, is don't wait for permission or approval. Don't wait to be allocated the task. Allocate it to yourself. Volunteer! Why am I saying this? Because I've discovered over the past couple of years that I have spent too much of my life waiting for my ideas to be signed off on rather than just going ahead and making them happen.

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in reply to Jonathan

I've lived too much of my life, not for other people as such, not in their service, but to their schedules, fitting in with their expectations, what they approve of, what they permit me to do. By doing that, I automatically make myself subordinate to them rather than on an equal footing. Be on an equal footing. You have skills. You don't need other people's permission to use them.

Jonathan reshared this.

in reply to Jonathan

It's your life. they're your skills. It's your desire to help. Stepping forward means that yes you are putting yourself out there for rejection, for people to prefer someone else's advice and yes that will be mega mega hard if you're anything like me, but don't wait for life to happen to you...happen to it! You don't need to be told it's okay to do something, that you are considered worthy. Go for it.

I love my family. My father is dissatisfied cuz I finally do something for the security of my mom and manage her Bitwarden. He says the normal apple passwords app is enough. I quote his conversation to my mom: "Why do you even let him do that nerd shit, there is the apple passwords application which stores all your pass keys." With my mom going on about how she didn't even know what passkeys are, and that she's glad someone is at least doing something and explaining stuff. And may I mention that she forgot her Apple ID password, and Apple does not offer the same recovery methods as Bitwarden, such as backups through the API I can easily manage, etc. But yeah right, the apple passwords app without backups will just be fine for someone who recently locked themselves out of their half life. Holy shit I can't stand naive idiots, but yeahr right I'm the shitty nerd bitch, for using a proper password manager, fuck off man.
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in reply to daniel:// stenberg://

Would it be an option to add a small submission fee? That is of course unfair to researchers from developing countries. But $5 should dissuade the AI slop at least a little, I'd imagine.

Not sure if there was already a discussion in another thread about what could be done. Apologies if I have missed that.

Either way this current asymmetry of effort to report vs. effort to check is not sustainable. Thanks for putting up with it so far.

I've just seen the following comment posted on Lemmy, and I'm reeling at the spiciness of their take. It feels like genuine bravery to straight up admit this in public:

"Dredd (2012) was a technically proficient, but ultimately mediocre piece of uncritical copaganda action schlock, and a vastly inferior film to Judge Dredd (1995). i will die on this hill."

Just...astonishing.

I want to speak about how we speak to each other. Mostly because I am as guilty as anyone else of generalising, and I suspect that even as my very intelligent American friends know that when I shit talk about “Americans”, I don’t necessarily mean them. It still stings on a visceral level - especially if they are fighting like hell personally to try and get their mad king out of power. 1/
in reply to Madeleine Morris

Meanwhile, what a lot of Americans - even very well intentioned ones - probably cannot conceive of is that the rest of the world experiences the effects of American power as monolithic. We never get the opportunity to vote in your elections, but we pay in insecurity and financially when a terrible American president is elected.

When your president threatens other nations, we don’t (and can’t) stop to specify ‘not all Americans’. That is absurd - because we don’t experience you individually 2/

Is there a term for feeling productive through working on tools that will (might) make you more productive?

It's not procrastination, per se, because I am achieving something. But it's not ticking anything off of the to do list.

Basically, I'm describing Arnold Rimmer spending so much time devising a revision planner for taking his engineer's exam, that he doesn't actually do any revision. But it still *feels* productive.

Und a propos Wikipedia: Möchte nicht jemand bei mir dazu schreiben, dass ich wieder Referentin bei der Linksfraktion bin?

Ich bin ja brav und fasse den Eintrag nicht an.

background.tagesspiegel.de/dig…

Kompletní návod jak se zbavit v IT službách #USA

V tom blogpostu je snad vše, včetně uvedení odkud která služba je. To nemůžu a nechci nechat zapadnout, je vidět, že v tom je kus práce

disconnect.blog/getting-off-us…

#USA

Okay #MedMastodon folks - The instance is now back up and running I'm pleased to share. Things might take a moment to catch-up and I have sent out an announcement so hopefully anyone that had accounts that doesn't see this will get the e-mail ping letting them know everything is currently back online.

I will post a bit more about the plan in the near future but the long story short is nothing is planned to change that folks will see, the main goal for me is to get the site up and running, catch up on the activities that look to be outstanding and get a plan together for migrating everything onto new infrastructure.

Also a huge shoutout to @mastohost who have been excellent at keeping the server "Paused" effectively without deleting data even when there was no confirmed migration path and a real big thanks to Nick for being willing to transfer the server and keep the community running!

EDIT - Blog post with details: blog.atlas-media.co.uk/2026/01…

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I am literally in tears right now. I weep for the country we could have been.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s board of directors voted to dissolve the organization, officials announced Monday, ending the 58-year-old agency that distributed federal funds to #NPR, #PBS and more than 1,500 local public radio and television stations.

This formalizes the shutdown after Republicans in Congress rescinded $1.1 billion in funding because of Trump’s tantrum demand.

Created by Congress through the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, #CPB served as a middleman between taxpayers and public media, distributing most of its appropriations directly to local stations. The funding was particularly crucial for small and rural stations, especially those in areas where internet isn’t. Most of them will be forced to close.

Tax the rich, or eat them, one of the two.

cpb.org/pressroom/corporation-…

#NPR #pbs #cpb

Negatives about online shopping options as an American:

Amazon: might get a counterfeit

Temu: might get a fake (filled with rocks, 1MB flash stick)

eBay: seller might be a person pretending to be a company

Etsy: seller might be a company pretending to be a person

Big Corp Retailer Website: it's just junk from China

Nextcloud has ambitious growth goals for 2026. A lot of new remote positions are open now:

- Engineers (#PHP, #JS)
- Marketing
- Sales and Sales Engineers
- #HR (Germany)

➡️ Apply & share: nextcloud.com/jobs/

Boosts appreciated 🙏

#OpenSource #GetFediHired #FOSS #SoftwareDevelopment #Careers #Jobs #Hiring #Nextcloud #EU #WFH

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A digital infrastructure plan - The latest from Bianca Wylie for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

"The path we’re on instead is techno-solutionism: the cheapest, straightest line governments can choose towards efficiency and savings, and the most impoverished innovation strategy possible for a young country with every opportunity to do differently."

policyalternatives.ca/news-res…

Bianca is so cool.

#cdnpoli

If the allyship isn’t on this level… I dont want it, and you are not doing enough.

techcrunch.com/2026/01/05/hack…

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Over the weekend, did you see the much-shared story on Reddit by a supposed whistleblower?

It started like this: "I’m a developer for a major food delivery app. The 'Priority Fee' and 'Driver Benefit Fee' go 100% to the company. The driver sees $0 of it. I’m posting this from a library Wi-Fi on a burner laptop because I am technically under a massive NDA. I don’t care anymore."

Well, it was a fake.
platformer.news/fake-uber-eats…

#journalism #AI

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RE: fed.interfree.ca/notes/ah4xrew…

Interesting commentary on the differences in voice preferences by screen reader users and typical sighted users. My step dad has his Apple Maps voice set to an Australian man because it's "nicer" to listen to and he enjoys the dialect differences (car park vs parking lot). Such a different approach from the efficiency screen reader users typically want.


The State of Modern AI Text To Speech Systems for Screen Reader Users: The past year has seen an explosion in new text to speech engines based on neural networks, large language models, and machine learning. But has any of this advancement offered anything to those using screen readers? stuff.interfree.ca/2026/01/05/ai-tts-for-screenreaders.html#ai#tts#llm#accessibility#a11y#screenreaders

in reply to Amber Hinds

To be fair to your step dad, Karen and Lee, the popular Australian voices found on most GPS devices, as well as on IOS, originally developed by Scansoft, later purchased by Nuance, then transferred to Cerence Automotive, before finally getting owned by Microsoft, are some of the nicest text to speech voices ever made for casual listening. Largely this is due to whomever was in charge of recording and curating the data back in 2002. They did an excellent job editing and aligning the recordings for use with the concatenative synthesis technology that was available at the time, resulting in the Australian voices sounding noticeably better than all of the other English options, even though they all used the same underlying methods. The fact the data capture was so high quality has meant that as technology and training methods improve, those voices have continued to remain a step ahead. The female version of the voice your father is almost certainly using is based on this woman: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Jacobsen
If all of my favourite, fast and efficient voices were ripped away from me, those Australian voices are probably what I'd revert to. They're not as fast as I would like, but at least they're clear and accurate. Your step dad has good taste.

BREAKING: After 58 years, Trump dissolves the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. CPB served as the primary funder for PBS, NPR and local TV and radio stations. Now it is no more.

Meanwhile, billionaires continue to buy up major legacy media to prevent criticism of Trump.

My human rights newsletter remains unapologetic in fact-checked research and justice-centered writing. No required paid sub. Never a paywall. Join us: lets-address-this-with-qasim-r…

Debunking the AI food delivery hoax that fooled Reddit

platformer.news/fake-uber-eats…

Turns out a Reddit anonymous post was a hoax. And fortunately there are still reporters that fact check.

The author of a viral Reddit thread alleging fraud at a food delivery company tried to back up his claim by sending me AI-generated documents. Today I'm publishing those documents in the hopes that it helps other reporter see what we're up against in the age of AI platformer.news/fake-uber-eats…

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