Tuesday morning's least surprising news, ever... đ¤Ź
"Environmentalists decry âcrushingly disappointingâ Pfas action plan for UK.
Ministersâ proposals to tackle âforever chemicalsâ fail to match tougher stance taken in Europe, say experts."
âReform UKâs Plans For a British ICEâ
by Olly Haynes in The Byline Supplement on Substack
âKey figures in Nigel Farageâs party are demanding a UK version of Trumpâs immigration enforcement agency, in the wake of the killings of Alex Pretti and RenĂŠe Goodâ
open.substack.com/pub/bylinesuâŚ
#Press #SocialMedia #UK #ReformUKLtd #Farage #ICE #Pretti #Good #Murder #Minneapolis #Fascism #Trump
Interestingly Palantir's booming revenue & profits are being driven primarily by US business... the CEO Alex Karp told investors that there is a 'real reticence' among European countries to adopt their technology (except in the UK?) & often countries were keen to develop their own versions of Palantir's tools.
A low-key recognition that Palantir's connections with the Far Right in the USA are not doing so much for their European business?
(time to repost this diagram)
Israel has entered a new phase of territorial expansion and military aggression beyond historic Palestine. This is not due to a shift in strategic goals, but rather because the constraints that kept it confined before October 2023 have loosened.
mondoweiss.net/2026/02/the-newâŚ
Israel has entered a new phase of expansion and military aggression beyond historic Palestine. This is not due to a strategic shift, but rather because the constraints that kept it confined before October 2023 are now too weak to hold it back.Ahmed Alqarout (Mondoweiss)
Judge blocks Trump administrationâs stripping of Haitiansâ protected status | US immigration | The Guardian
theguardian.com/us-news/2026/fâŚ
'Reyes said in an accompanying 83-page opinion that plaintiffs were likely to prevail on the merits of the case and that she found it âsubstantially likelyâ that Noem preordained her termination decision because of âhostility to nonwhite immigrantsâ.'
Up to 350,000 Haitians legally live and work in the US due to being granted temporary protected statusGuardian staff reporter (The Guardian)
If you're interested in divesting yourself of US-based tech and reducing your digital footprint, there's plenty of guides to help (like these two).
disconnect.blog/getting-off-usâŚ
optoutproject.net/tags/cleanseâŚ
Iâm in the process of dropping US tech services. Hereâs how I did it, and options you should consider.Paris Marx (Disconnect)
"While LLMs offer immediate convenience, our findings highlight potential cognitive costs. Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels. These results raise concerns about the long-term educational implications of LLM reliance and underscore the need for deeper inquiry into AI's role in learning."
media.mit.edu/publications/youâŚ
This study explores the neural and behavioral consequences of LLM-assisted essay writing. Participants were divided into three groups: LLM, Search Engine, and âŚMIT Media Lab
My favorite part of the job has always been people, and itâs even more true at FOSDEM.
In those âbackstageâ pictures you can see what I love. People having fun, people taking care of each other, people helping each other.
FOSDEM is where I can thank those who make the software I use. Itâs where we can meet. Itâs where I can give back.
Like every year Iâm exhausted and looking forward to the next one. Thanks all for being part of this.
Petr KrÄmáĹ reshared this.
RE: mas.to/@TechConnectify/1159852âŚ
Remember the guy from YouTube who taught you how to use a dishwasher? He just posted a new video that is definitely worth watching.
Let's do this.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGâŚ
You are being misled about renewable energy technology.
Let's learn and grow. New things are cool!Links 'n' stuff down below. Lots of links.First, the "clean version." Please pass that around.https://youtu.be/Zgxb...YouTube
if you are in Brno this Thursday (Feb-5), please come and meet some good #IT people, including me :)
#brno
How AI is actually changing our day-to-day work (vs. the hype). Engineering practices that are working for us (and ones that aren't). Product engineering andâŚluma.com
Anyone needs a European Sleeper night train ticket from Brussels to Berlin for tomorrow Wednesday the 4th of February? I cannot take the train, I can't cancel the ticket but it's transferable.
Now as you might have landed somewhat after #FOSDEM, add your missing pieces and omitted details to github.com/bagder/FOSDEM
I met several newcomers who said it was helpful, and I think we can make it even more so with more eyes and fingers involved.
Advise for FOSDEM attendees. Contribute to bagder/FOSDEM development by creating an account on GitHub.GitHub
Something something tells me there's this rule on fedi: new account, new #introduction post. So here it is.
I'm Mimi/ĺ°ç§ (You can call me anything you like, really.)
Physicist by day (and night in practice), doing research on some of the most useless and abstract topics. #danmei writer by night, rotten to the core for nearly 30 years.
What's up with this funny display name, you ask?
It's a play on an exercise problem ("is Tolkien's middle earth flat"), which I came across in a textbook on general relativity. And Reverse London is from the Bleach franchise.
I'm here mostly to relax, talk about my mundane life, generate highly unpopular opinions about things I read/watch/listen to, and emoji react to cute, funny, and silly stuffs that show up on my timeline.
Follow requests and #boosts are both welcome, although I do prefer to have a bit of vibe checking.
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(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, Ăźber 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 Ăberlegungen dazu spielen keine groĂe 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
like this
ich glaube, diesmal ist unsere Instanz schuld.
Eigentlich sollte die ein Upgrade wegen all der Probleme bekommen, nur hat sich da das "FÜderationsproblem" 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
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. Weâve 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. â not Mr. Trumpâs Board of Peace, whatever its ultimate remit â can fill that void.
Peace cannot be improvised. It needs to be designed, carefully and deliberately."
nytimes.com/2026/01/30/opinionâŚ
#UN #UnitedNations #BoardOfPeace #USA #Trump #Imperialism #History #Militarism
"Late last month, TikTokâs Chinese parent company, ByteDance, finalized a deal to spin off the platformâs 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 âEpsteinâ 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 Owdaâs 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 USâs new CEO, speaking at an event organized by the World Jewish Congress last year, began to spread. He spoke about the platformâs moderation policies, saying, âWe made a change to designate the use of the term âZionistâ as a proxy for a protected attribute as hate speech. So if somebody were to use âZionist,â of course, you can use it in that sense, youâre a proud Zionist, but if youâre 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.â"
zeteo.com/p/trump-tiktok-disasâŚ
#SocialMedia #TikTok #USA #Censorship #Zionism #Palestine
Big Tech platforms wield far too much power over our information landscape to continue operating without transparency.Taylor Lorenz (Zeteo)
Buenos dĂas desde la AdministraciĂłn PĂşblica.
Este invierno se me estĂĄ haciendo interminable (y no, yo no soy pro-frĂo, a mi me gusta el calor). Como me gustarĂa vivir en Singapur o Indonesia o por ahĂ.
Zach Bennoui reshared this.
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?
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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)
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Justin Macleod
in reply to Emeritus Prof Christopher May • • •