** 2025 Wrapped - the traditional summary of my year. which also serves as an award eligibility post.
(Spoiler - I'm elibible for the Best Fan Writer Hugo Award. I have been a finalist every year since 2023, and I hope you will consider nominating me this year too.)
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It sounds like there was another ICE shooting today but there's almost nothing known about what happened.
"The individual, who has not been identified, was shot in southern Pima County near milepost 15 of West Arivaca Road at around 7:30 a.m., according to a news release from the Santa Rita Fire District. The fire department said it transported the person in critical condition."
nbcnews.com/news/us-news/perso…
#ICE #Politics #USPolitics #USPol
A person was shot in an incident involving U.S. Border Patrol in Arizona on Tuesday, according to a Pima County Sheriff spokeswoman.Mirna Alsharif (NBC News)
One thing I love about being involved in my College is I get a direct line on what young people are thinking.
In my circle of 30-50-somethings, it's taken for granted that "AI" is changing everything. Some people express caution that we shouldn't even take any position on software engineering education because it will be out of date within a week.
Meanwhile, my students are telling me that in their cohort, everyone is tired of AI and wants to learn proper software engineering.
One lesson here is: do you remember how clueless your boss was about everything? Recognise when you are in the "boss" demographic, and that your breathless enthusiasm and concern may be equally misinformed.
@clv1 hm, you shouldn't. you can try it this way:
normalization:
classes:
R_SCHWA_FOLLOW_CONS:
# consonants that were causing the full-schwa to sound too syllabic
# (you can expand this later if needed)
- "f"
- "m"
- "r"
- "s"
replacements:
# If we have r + schwa and the next phoneme is one of the consonants above,
# swap schwa to the reduced schwa ᵊ so /r/ stays audible without adding a full syllable.
- from: "rə"
to: "rᵊ"
when:
beforeClass: R_SCHWA_FOLLOW_CONS
Philip Glass withdraws his ‘Lincoln’ symphony from the Kennedy Center, citing conflicting values
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/philip-glass-withdraws-his-lincoln-symphony-from-the-kennedy-center-citing-conflicting-values/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into World @world-CTVNews
Philip Glass has withdrawn his symphony based on Abraham Lincoln from the Kennedy Center, with the award-winning composer writing to the board of the arts institution that its values conflict with the work.CNN Staff (CTVNews)
What we pay for electricity should cover proper replacement and scheduled maintenance... so, why doesn't it?
Documents show the utility has long identified Hampstead substation as a weak link in the local grid... but f*ck the anglophones—let them freeze, let their pipes burst, let their food go bad—they have insurance, so STFU, eh
An aging substation caused Montréal’s latest blackout. Its replacement is still years away! cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/co… #polQC #QCpoli #polMTL #MTLpoli #hydroquebec
> Kash Patel says the FBI is investigating Signal chats of Minnesotans tracking ICE
ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/madd…
On Monday, the FBI director said, “We’re not going after people and infringing on their freedom of speech.” There’s fresh evidence to the contrary.Steve Benen (MS NOW)
they're not going to crack Signal's encryption, they absolutely have infiltrated these group chats a long time ago posing as concerned citizens trying to collect data on ICE agents and ICE activities
but I guarantee the majority of Signal users in that chat aren't using usernames, but still their phone numbers. So now you have all these contacts on Signal who have exposed their phone numbers to you, and you can look up who owns the number and start terrorizing those citizens for conspiring against ICE
oooh I guess the usernames don't protect you at all anyway
> If Signal receives a subpoena demanding that they hand over all account data related to a user with a specific username that is currently active at the time that Signal looks it up, they would be able to link it to an account. That means Signal would turn over that user’s phone number, along with the account creation date and the last connection date. Whittaker stressed that this is “a pretty narrow pipeline that is guarded viciously by ACLU lawyers,” just to obtain a phone number based on a username.
theintercept.com/2024/03/04/si…
so they'll just get your identity anyway, because we know they won't be able to guard this from the government no matter how "vicious" these ACLU lawyers think they are
Ephemeral usernames instead of phone numbers safeguard privacy — and makes the Signal messenger app even harder to subpoena.Micah Lee (The Intercept)
An aging substation caused Montreal’s latest blackout. Its replacement is still years away
Sonic Onslaught gives you your weekly metal face punch...it's live, right now!
FediVerseExplorer reshared this.
@pietervdvn Because that would involve a human using their brains or having a shred of conscience and those both go against the basic principles of the companies doing this.
When I did the promotion for the Firefly movie back in 2005, Universal gave the website and Browncoats stuff to me (unpaid) and instead spent the marketing money on merchandise to give out.
Unfortunately they got the website name wrong and printed a porn site name on everything, so it had to be destroyed.
RE: tech.lgbt/@JadedBlueEyes/11596…
Uff... @matrix heard of this?
Cloudflare just published a vibe coded blog post claiming they implemented Matrix on cloudflare workers. They didn't, their post and README is AI generated and the code doesn't do any of the core parts of matrix that make it secure and interoperable.Jade (LGBTQIA+ and Tech)
Re: last boost (mastodon.world/@anttipeltola/1…), I'm American, and I'd like more of that (open protocols, open source, no gods, no masters) over here as well.
Whatever this European tech sovereignty formulates into DO NOT give us European Big Tech.Open protocols, open standards, open source. Like the 1990s internet I enjoyed as a kid. The European governments finance the projects and largely leave us the fuck alone.
No gods. No masters. ✊
Whatever this European tech sovereignty formulates into DO NOT give us European Big Tech.
Open protocols, open standards, open source. Like the 1990s internet I enjoyed as a kid. The European governments finance the projects and largely leave us the fuck alone.
No gods. No masters. ✊
Interviewed on Al Jazeera today about ICE killing Alex Pretti and Renee Good, and made it a point to speak the names of all 9 people ICE has killed so far in 2026. Including Keith Porter, Parady La, Heber Sanchaz Domínguez, Victor Manuel Diaz, Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz, Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres, and Geraldo Lunas Campos.
We need unity of humanity against fascism and autocracy.
Will share the interview when it goes live.
Still hanging on to your iPhone 5s or 6? Apple just gave it a new lease on life
https://www.digitaltrends.com/phones/still-hanging-on-to-your-iphone-5s-or-6-apple-just-gave-it-a-new-lease-on-life/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Technology (UK Edition) @technology-uk-edition-FlipboardUK
Apple just rolled out an update for a few older iPhone and iPad models that ensures iMessage, FaceTime, and device activation continue working smoothly.Pranob Mehrotra (Digital Trends)
Carney's bill to counter the 27% increase in food prices over the last few years will mostly serve to subsidize the big 5 grocery stores - Loblaw, Sobeys, Metro, Costco & Walmart - which have already profited billions by that same 27% price increase:
Carney's bill includes:
$11.7 billion boost of 25% to GST benefits over 6 years. Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit to 12 million low income Canadians.
$500 million to help businesses address the costs of supply chain disruptions without passing costs on to consumers.
$150-million Food Security Fund that will help small- and medium-sized businesses to expand greenhouses and abattoirs.
$20 million to food banks.
Poilievre said in the House yesterday that he will support the bill.
Agriculture Canada did an inquiry into Canada’s grocery industry and found it extremely “vertically integrated”. The differenent suppliers all owned by the same corporations that “compete” (NOT) to supply groceries.
Ag Canada is being cut back, these analysis will be abandoned to fund the tax break that offers minor relief while falling to challenge the issue, subsidizing these corporations allowing the profits to further integrate the industry.
Grocery corporations invest their profitability in becoming more profitable through integration. Until politicians are willing to recognize and challenge this the problem will continue to become more extreme
Taxpayer’s are funding failure, Poilievre fully supports this policy
#cdnpoli
agriculture.canada.ca/en/secto…
RE: wandering.shop/@cstross/115967…
It's worse than that. Mandatory, authoritatively checked age verification is a short, slippery slope directly to mandatory, authoritatively checked internet access. This isn't hyperbole. Gating VPN access is just a short stop in between.
RE: social.vivaldi.net/@LonM/11596…UK PEOPLE: this is REALLY IMPORTANT. If the government bans under-16s from using VPNs, then logically they must intend to REQUIRE AGE VERIFICATION FOR ALL VPN USE. Which will affect adults too!
*Your* privacy and right to anonymous web browsing is at risk!
LonM (@LonM@vivaldi.net)
@gamingonlinux@mastodon.social You might be interested in giving this petition opposing the motion a signal boost: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/754408LonM (Vivaldi Social)
Question for #blind and partially sighted folk on the fediverse:
If you go to a museum or gallery, do you prefer braille or do you instead use a text to speech app?
(Or both, or something else)
I've got a bit of money to refurbish a small UK museum space with better provisions for Deaf and Blind folk, so I'm keen to know what will be the most useful.
Please Note: This is a question specifically for blind and partially sighted Fedi users, rather than fully sighted folk.
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Linking to an accessible companion guide on a site might be a better shout than braille. That would be easier to produce, easier to update, definitely cheaper to maintain and most importantly, it places the choice of how to consume that with each person who wants to read it. EG, I'm totally blind here, learned braille so young that I can't even remember not knowing it, but there are boatloads of blind/VI folk who lose sight later in life and never get that opportunity. IMO audio is a really nice to have extra if you can get it done within budget, but deafblind folk get the soggy end of the stick so often, I reckon I'd try to offset that a bit by commissioning a good writer over a sound designer if I were in your shoes.
BTW I live in London and my partner bloody loves a museum/exhibit. Would be happy to come and poke around ideas in progress. Holler whenever you've got something if that might help.
Captchas are getting so much harder!
Or maybe I'm a robot and just don't know it.
I just failed in creating an account somewhere because I failed the captcha THREE times.
It was some kind of wiring diagram where I had to match the wires on the left to the wires on the right like some kind of water pipeline game. And I had to do it 5 times (and then 6 and 7 times on the retries).
Open source alternative to Slack: Mattermost? Element? Matrix?? Zulip? Ideas??
#FOSS
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The 72-Hour Unraveling of Open Source's Fastest-Growing Star Three days ago, Clawdbot was...Sivaram (DEV Community)
I wish I wasn't so irrationally irritated with the folks who pick out my github username from gods know where and ping me in random issues or pull requests for random "Fix this!" or "Merge that!" reasons.
It's often not even my own project. Used to happen with Godot for a while, at a point when I hadn't merged any PRs in like 5-6 years. Often I don't even have merge rights on the project.
It's wrong, sure, but idiots gonna idiot whether or not my blood pressure spikes about it.
Just seems so entitled, though. "Hey random person! Do my thing now!" Fuck off.
For These Women, Grok's Sexualized Images Are Personal
rollingstone.com/culture/cultu…
But our ( 
) Minister of Chatbots say there is nothing they can do.
Apple and Google can't remove the app from their appstore because it is allowed to break the policies in place. (that would leave the website, but the point stands)
VISA and Mastercard still accept the payments because they have a double standard in censorship. One is about puritanistm, the other one is about allowing to break the law.
Elon Musk’s AI image generator has been used to create non-consensual intimate images on X. Meet some of the women affected by it.Ella Chakarian (Rolling Stone)
Micro SF/F by O. Westin
in reply to Micro SF/F by O. Westin • • •reactormag.com/anyone-can-vote…
**
Anyone Can Vote in the Hugo Awards — And Here's How - Reactor
Molly Templeton (Reactor)