mastodon - Link to source
I support Matt Dinniman, author of the dungeon Crawler Carl books. I'm super conflicted. The author drops chapters for patreon supporters to read on the regular. For this book and the previous one, I read some chapters to get a bead on what the story will be about, and then I figure “ well crap, I should wait for audio because the audiobooks are truly amazing in there own right”. I also get confused as with most serials, before publication, there's a ton of edits and rework. Am I the only one that supports authors sometimes but you don't read the prepublished chapters?

  • Yes, I read all author Patrion or Royal Road chapters the second they drop. (0%, 0 votes)
  • Yes, I read chapters as they drop because an alternate form doesn't do it for me. Author support is a plus.K (0%, 0 votes)
  • No, i am just a supporter, I like the finished product or an alternate form like a human narrated audiobook. (100%, 1 vote)
  • Neither, i sometimes read chapters as they drop and then re-read the book, but sometimes I wait (0%, 0 votes)
1 voter. Poll end: in 6 days

This entry was edited (6 hours ago)

friendica - Link to source

(Etwas später fliehen die Stare wieder aus ihren Bäumen, Krähen beobachten den rauschenden Schwarm, nebenan wird eine Kiste mit Spielzeug ausgekippt und dem inneren Auge bietet sich ein Berg von Bausteinen und Kunststofftieren, der klappernd in die Breite rutscht. Ein Newsletter unterbreitet Textpassagen von Stimmen, deren Gedanken man zu lange nicht mehr gelesen hat, über die eigene Kanälen währenddessen fällt es schwer, jene wiederzufinden, deren Namen man kennt, in den Radionachrichten sinniert eine Expertenstimme, dass AI alles disrupted, und die eigenen Überlegungen dazu spielen keine große Rolle, aber vielleicht haben Menschen, die englische Verben im Deutschen konjugieren, an gewissen Stellen einfach die Kontrolle verloren...)

#outerworld #concrete city #grounded #stories of time and its strange fabric

#concrete city #stories of time and its strange fabric

#stories #outerworld #concrete city #Grounded #stories of time and its strange fabric #concrete_city #stories_of_time_and_its_strange_fabric #concrete
in reply to Kristian 🌒

calckey - Link to source

crossgolf_rebel - kostenlose Kwalitätsposts

ich glaube, diesmal ist unsere Instanz schuld.
Eigentlich sollte die ein Upgrade wegen all der Probleme bekommen, nur hat sich da das "Föderationsproblem" zusätzlich aufgetan, wenn man die Software wechselt und dann den die selbe URL behalten will.

Das wird hoffentlich bald Geschichte sein und unsere Instanz wieder rennen

@Sigrun@norden.social

@Sigrun ☕️🏳️‍🌈🚲📚🐕🧡

glitchsoc - Link to source

Great article! ->

"The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 ushered in an era of American global supremacy. But the triumph of this U.S.-led so-called liberal international order also required that the achievements of an earlier, more internationalist order centered explicitly on the United Nations be quietly slipped down the memory hole. As the U.N. was increasingly retooled by the United States and other Western countries as a technocratic mechanism for managing faraway civil wars, largely through humanitarian aid and peacekeeping operations, its previous role as a mediator between states withered from view. What emerged was an institution deeply enmeshed in the U.S.-led order but peripheral to the strategic thinking of policy elites in capitals everywhere.

War and instability are once again on the rise, as is the risk of nuclear confrontation. We’ve suffered periods of intensified conflict and great-power rivalry many times since 1945. But for the first time since the Second World War, we are confronting these crises amid the near-complete erosion of the U.N. norms, institutions, and practices that, however imperfectly, constrained escalation and identified pathways to negotiated resolution. Only reinvestment in a radically remade U.N. — not Mr. Trump’s Board of Peace, whatever its ultimate remit — can fill that void.

Peace cannot be improvised. It needs to be designed, carefully and deliberately."

nytimes.com/2026/01/30/opinion…

#UN #UnitedNations #BoardOfPeace #USA #Trump #Imperialism #History #Militarism

#Trump #history #USA #un #unitednations #imperialism #boardofpeace #militarism

glitchsoc - Link to source

"Late last month, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, finalized a deal to spin off the platform’s US operations into a new, majority US-owned company.

Within 48 hours of the takeover, users began to experience problems. Many top creators saw their reach plummet and reported that their videos related to controversial topics like criticizing ICE and advocating for Palestine were being throttled by the algorithm. Some US users could not type the word “Epstein” in direct messages. Bisan Owda, an award-winning Gaza-based journalist, reported that her account was banned, prompting outcry.

TikTok said most of these issues were attributable to a data center power outage, and that the Epstein problem was a technical glitch. The company also said that Owda’s account was flagged due to an impersonation issue from last September, which has since been resolved. The account is back up.

Amidst this chaos, however, a clip of Adam Presser, TikTok US’s new CEO, speaking at an event organized by the World Jewish Congress last year, began to spread. He spoke about the platform’s moderation policies, saying, “We made a change to designate the use of the term ‘Zionist’ as a proxy for a protected attribute as hate speech. So if somebody were to use ‘Zionist,’ of course, you can use it in that sense, you’re a proud Zionist, but if you’re using it in a context degrading someone, calling somebody a Zionist as a dirty name, then that gets designated as hate speech to be moderated against.”"

zeteo.com/p/trump-tiktok-disas…

#SocialMedia #TikTok #USA #Censorship #Zionism #Palestine


The Disastrous Rollout of the Trump-Approved TikTok Serves as a Stark Warning for Us All

Big Tech platforms wield far too much power over our information landscape to continue operating without transparency.
Taylor Lorenz (Zeteo)
#socialmedia #censorship #USA #palestine #tiktok #zionism

mastodon - Link to source
Hacked away at Soundkeys some more. Ripped out UIA entirely with mixed results. Now checkboxes are reporting properly when tabbing through them, but the very first one still isn't auto-reporting its initial state change, but if I Tab away then Shift+Tab back, it will report its state change when I hit Space every time. The Bindings list is still very broken, even more than it was already! Now it's just saying "Column header title" or something close to that. WX is so annoying! I'm also using Python 3.7, probably should update to at least 3.9? I'm really just about ready to scrap this entirely and continue with the project that's working much better, then switch to trying to fix BlackHole's crappy Balatro Settings Screen support!

mastodon - Link to source
My partner is reviving his interest in and study of amature radio. This means brushing up on Morse Code. I've always been intrigued by the idea of learning it, so I'm bobbing along in his wake. I now know 13 letters, and can distinguish them at 3 in a row. It's weirdly addictive. Other than being able to communicate with him covertly at parties I don't know where I'd ever actually use it but it's just so cool. It's like learning binary convertion, once I started I couldn't stop. I'm not fast but I can do them. I think a braille reader and a musician has an advantage out the gate learning Morse code; learning it is just satisfying something in my brain.

Zach Bennoui reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

Random thought that crossed my mind, so I'm curious...

Let's say you start using a given software/app, purely based out of recommendations or random search, and you like it (doesn't matter how much, you just like it).

After some time you find an issue, or you want to request/suggest a feature, so you go to the project's source code (wherever that is). While browsing the source, the project page or the issues/bugs you find out that it was mostly (if not totally) written using AI/vibe code.

Do you stop using it?

#HomeLab @homelab

  • Right away! No doubt! (41%, 33 votes)
  • Maybe, depends how much I like it... (39%, 31 votes)
  • That doesn't make any difference to me, so no. (11%, 9 votes)
  • Something else (comment). (7%, 6 votes)
79 voters. Poll end: in 2 days

#homelab @Run your own homelab
This entry was edited (12 hours ago)

reshared this

mastodon - Link to source
Moltbook, the AI social network, exposed human credentials due to vibe-coded security flaw engadget.com/ai/moltbook-the-a…

Moltbook, the AI social network, exposed human credentials due to vibe-coded security flaw

Cybersecurity firm Wiz found that Moltbook exposed the credentials for thousands of its human users and undermined the AI social network's core premise.
Anna Washenko (Engadget)

reshared this

in reply to Borris

mastodon - Link to source

Zach Bennoui

@BorrisInABox At least on latest version of sequoia, it seems to be slightly better, but I haven't really configured anything. I have to use it a lot more for classes now, so I'll look into getting TDSR to hopefully make the experience less painful and more enjoyable. Sometimes I think I should've just stuck with music production, got my masters in that rather than CS, but here we are.
@Borris
in reply to Scarlet Phoenix Collective

mastodon - Link to source

Bri🥰

@the_spc The bop it extreme2 is based off the Bop It extreme. It's different in a few main ways. In the bop it extreme, when you turn it on, you get 4 modes accessed by the pull it, which are vox bop, vox bop solo, beat bop, and beat bop solo. On the bop it extreme2, you have a new mode added to these for each, one on one, in and vox bop/beat bop are now called vox bop pass it and beat bop pass it. You also now toggle between vox bop and beat bop with the flick it. So for example, pulling it would start with vox bop pass it, vox bop one on one, and then vox bop solo. It then would loop back around to vox bop pass it. If you press the flick it, it would then say beat bop, and then it would be on the last mode you were on for vox bop, but instead now in beat bop. And it would now say beat bop pass it, etc.
Another main difference is that instead of the beat being the same the entire time, the bop it extreme2 cycles between four unique beats. The game does not speed up after each command, but rather, after reaching the last beat and wrapping back around to the first, it then speeds up slightly. Each beat runs for 16 commands, at which point the next beat starts with it's start sequence. It also alternates between two pass it melodies, if in pass it mode. It uses the first melody for beats 1 and 3, and the second for beats 2 and 4.
In addition to this, each beat also has it's own sequence that it plays if the user loses on solo.
Finally, in beats 1 and 2, a separate beat sequence is played whenever the user performs a twist it command.
@Scarlet Phoenix Collective

mastodon - Link to source

"Last August, Adam Thomas found himself wandering the dunes of Christmas Valley, Oregon, after a chatbot kept suggesting he mystically 'follow the pattern' of his own consciousness. Thomas was running on very little sleep—he’d been talking to his chatbot around the clock for months by that point, asking it to help improve his life. Instead it sent him on empty assignments, like meandering the vacuous desert sprawl. He’d lost his job as a funeral director and was living out of a van, draining his savings, and now he found himself stranded in the desert."

slate.com/technology/2026/02/a…


It’s Causing People to Lose Jobs, Shatter Relationships, and Drain Their Savings. One Support Group Is Sounding the Alarm.

Victims often lose their grip on reality—but an unexpected recovery movement is taking shape online.
Tanya Chen (Slate)

mastodon - Link to source

OH FUCK WE'RE COOKED

THEY GOT OUR LEADER

🤪

'Feds Identify “Leader of #Antifa”

Twenty-nine year old Chandler Patey has been regularly protesting outside his local #ICE facility in South Portland for months, offering up his apartment to fellow #protesters to use the bathroom or wash off pepper spray, according to local news.

To the #DHS, “he is the leader of Antifa in #Portland, #Oregon.”'

kenklippenstein.com/p/feds-ide…

#FuckICE #ICEOut


Feds Identify “Leader of Antifa”

The list they're creating says so, anyway
Ken Klippenstein
#Oregon #dhs #portland #ice #antifa #protesters #fuckice #iceout

glitchsoc - Link to source
Urgent mutual aid request for food and meds, having a bad time with my mh

Sensitive content

#neurodivergent #lgbtqia #actuallyautistic #MutualAid #crowdfund #MutualAidRequest #cptsd #mutualaidsaveslives #DisabledArtist #urgentmutualaid #kofiartist #kofigoal #kofi #emergencyfund @Mutual Aid Requests @mutualaid 组

mastodon - Link to source

I was struck by this description about Christine Keeler and the 1963 Profumo affair. The related sex scandal forced Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, to resign:

"A shooting incident...caused the press to investigate her, revealing that her affairs could be threatening national security."

The agency seems reversed. Keeler wasn't the one threatening national security. That her lovers were, among others, a cabinet minister and a Russian agent were responsible for that.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christin…


English model and showgirl (1942–2017)

Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)
This entry was edited (10 hours ago)

mastodon - Link to source

RE: dragonscave.space/@Peiress/116…

That's such an old unproven republican bullshit.

Eigh

2026-02-02 23:37:46

mastodon - Link to source

the department said the temporary ban (visa) will "remain active until the U.S. can ensure that new immigrants will not extract wealth from the American people."
---
Meanwhile?
A study published last week by the Cato Institute, found that "immigrants consumed about 24 percent less in welfare benefits than native-born Americans on a per capita basis ...
smh
cato.org/blog/immigrants-still…

mastodon - Link to source

RE: flipboard.com/@marketwatch/rea…

At least he is buying in California, unlike his friend Larry who buys on the other coast!


Google billionaire Sergey Brin buys a $42 million Tahoe mansion, a few months after buying a $50 million Malibu

Google billionaire Sergey Brin has been linked to two extravagant property purchases in neighboring states—with reports suggesting that the tech …
MarketWatch

mastodon - Link to source

Cory Doctorow: "America is not great. It has been gutted by the Epstein class, who robbed us blind, raped our kids, and are now selling us shitcoins and chatbots and the spectacle of protesters being shot in the streets."

pluralistic.net/2026/02/02/cor…

Pluralistic: Stock swindles (02 Feb 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

pluralistic.net

mastodon - Link to source

George Carlin famously said that politics and economy are "a big club and you ain't in it."

The #Epstein files are showing how right he was, especially this one, in which Epstein cackles with his pal Peter Thiel about how #Brexit was "just the beginning" of their plans to destroy governments and institute a "return to tribalism."

They elected Trump knowing that he is a corrupt/evil imbecile who destroys anything he touches.

It's all about buying the dip justice.gov/epstein/files/Data…

From: jeffrey E. <jeevacation@gmail.com> Sent: Sunday, June 26, 201611:14 AM To: Peter Thiel Subject: Re: return to tribalism . counter to globalization= amazing new alliances. you and I both agree= zero interest rates were too high, and as i said in your office. =AO finding things on their way to collapse , was much easier than finding =he next bargain On Sun, Jun 26, 2016 at 7:04 AM, Peter Thiel apeter@thielcap4al.com <mailto:peter@thielcapital.com» wrote: Of what? From: jeffrey E. [mailto:jeevacation@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2016 3:17 AM To: Peter Thiel < Subject: brexit, just the beginning

Age Verification | United States Department of Justice

www.justice.gov
#brexit #epstein

mastodon - Link to source

By any measure, the F.B.I.’s search of an election center in Fulton County, Ga., last week was extraordinary.

Agents seized truckloads of 2020 ballots, as Trump harnessed the levers of government to not only buttress his false claims of widespread voter fraud,
but also to try to build a criminal case against those he believes wronged him.

What happened the next day was in some ways even more unusual, The New York Times has learned.

Behind closed doors, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, met with some of the same F.B.I. agents,
members of the bureau’s field office in Atlanta, which is conducting the election inquiry, three people with knowledge of the meeting said.

They could not say why Ms. Gabbard, who also appeared on site at the search, was there, but her continued presence has raised eyebrows given that her role overseeing the nation’s intelligence agencies does not include on-site involvement in criminal investigative work.

nytimes.com/2026/02/02/us/poli…

hometown - Link to source

Question for US legal things knowers RE Minneapolis and lawyering up.

My sister and spouse are actively helping vulnerable community members with things like rides etc. She’s been told that if she is detained that she’ll need to give her specific lawyer’s name and direct contact info, so she’s considering finding someone to have on retainer. Probably obviously, that’s not a straightforward thing to search for.

Does anyone with *specific and direct knowledge of these things* have any applicable information/guidance or local to MPLS recommendations that I can pass on?

Edit: June’s advice linked here about the National Lawyer's Guild seems to be exactly what she needed. Thanks for boosting! mspsocial.net/@june/1160020958…

antifa orientation crew (@june@mspsocial.net)

@mycrowgirl@flipping.rocks the National Lawyer's Guild is the number people are using who don't have an existing relationship with a specific lawyer. They have been working on this specific situation and are expecting such calls.
MSP Social.net
This entry was edited (18 hours ago)

mastodon - Link to source

Jennifer Brooks: "An avalanche of outerwear poured in."

“A couple of weeks ago, I was at Whipple, seeing if there was anything I could do,” said Rachel Gerdes, whose Instagram account now directs her 40,000 followers to Haven Watch and other mutual aid groups who are raising funds and supplies for people who are too afraid to leave their homes to shop, work or go to school.

Suddenly, she said, “They released someone in front of the Whipple Building in no winter clothes. It was freezing cold. She was just out in the cold.”

Gerdes approached the shivering woman and asked if she needed help. The woman said she had no way to get home. The light-rail station is half a mile from Whipple. A long way to walk without a coat in January.

Volunteers step up for ICE detainees who need winter coats
By Jennifer Brooks
The Minnesota Star Tribune
startribune.com/stepping-up-fo…

#Minnesota #WinterClothing #MutualAid #resist #WhippleBuilding

Smiling volunteers pose at the open doors of an elevator filled with bags of donated winter clothing. Caption: Donated coats warm the heart (and the rest of the body), but mutual aid groups say monetary donations are even more useful right now. You don't need a warehouse to store a cash donation. Photo courtesy of Sade Young.
#MutualAid #resist #minnesota #WinterClothing #whipplebuilding
This entry was edited (15 hours ago)

mastodon - Link to source

On a turnout of 53%, 93% of Resident Doctors have voted to continue their campaign of industrial action for another six months.... suggesting the absence of trust in Wes Streeting continues.

The Q. will now be whether the BMA can continue to (broadly) win the public argument on doctors pay - having navigated through the 'winter crisis' they may be able to keep people on side... but equally may have undermined the perception of their importance to the NHS?

#NHS #doctors
theguardian.com/society/2026/f…


Resident doctors in England vote to continue industrial action for another six months

British Medical Association members back further action as union’s chair says ‘a deal is there to be done’
Denis Campbell (The Guardian)
#nhs #doctors
in reply to Emeritus Prof Christopher May

mastodon - Link to source

ABOLISH PRIVATE HEALTHCARE!⚫

This is inhumane treatment of NHS patients and staff by our govt! Subjected to substandard healthcare by replacement of doctors by non-medics. Pls sign/share widely. #MedicalTorture #TakeBackOurHealthcare #NHS #AskForADoctor #StopReplacingOurDoctors you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions…

DHSC. Stop Replacing Our Doctors! Implement the Leng Review!

These professionals are being employed more and more, many working beyond their scope, eg. in GP, seeing undifferentiated patients (against the Leng recommendations). Patients have died due to PAs working above their competencies.
38 Degrees
#nhs #medicaltorture #takebackourhealthcare #askforadoctor #stopreplacingourdoctors

mastodon - Link to source

And this week's key political Q. is likely to be:

How much did Keir Starmer know & when, about Peter Mandelson's links with Jeffery Epstein?

Whatever he did or didn't know this is unlikely to play well for Starmer, who should have been a little more sceptical about Mandelson's desire to return to politics for the third time!

#EpsteinFiles #politics #PeterMandelson

#politics #EpsteinFiles #petermandelson
⇧