On this May the 4th, let's remember that the greatest and most misunderstood character in all of Star Wars canon, Jar Jar Binks, was secretly a trained Force user and probably a Sith Lord, but we'll never know because you nerds hated so much on him that George Lucas lost his nerve and dropped him from the rest of the trilogy, except for that one scene he kept in Revenge of the Sith where Jar Jar straight up legislates the Empire into being and you sheeple never made the connection.

reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments…

Went to a donut shop in Japan today.

They had a CO2 monitor on the counter and a UV light on, plus circulating air through the ventilation system.

Also all the staff and most of the customers were masked. 😷

It's really not that hard and if a donut shop can do it we can certainly do it at least in schools and hospitals.

This is more what I'd think "Live with the virus" looks like. What we're doing feels more like "Pretend there is no virus".

#CovidIsNotOver

It has been reported by TechRadar and other publications that over 100 million devices, such as smartphones, have been infected with an intrusive adware that operates in the background without the knowledge of the device owner and/or end user.

Read more at Purism: puri.sm/posts/how-pureos-can-s…

How PureOS Can Stop Devices From Being Infected With Intrusive Adware! – Purism

Purism makes premium phones, laptops, mini PCs and servers running free software on PureOS. Purism products respect people's privacy and freedom while protecting their security.

^{Purism SPC}

Registration for #GUADEC2023 is now open! Join us in-person in Riga, Latvia from July 26-31, or attend remotely. Register now:
foundation.gnome.org/2023/05/0…

We can't wait to see you there!

#GUADEC #GNOME #opensource

@jcsteh @leonardder I saw the performance PR and discussion re Rust. Here's an interesting new project that you might wish to keep your proverbial eye on. They're calling it Mojo, a new language based on Python that can be incorporated into existing projects and can be compiled. Uses the same syntax. Right now, they're focusing on machine learning. But the developments are coming pretty fast.

fast.ai/posts/2023-05-03-mojo-…

fast.ai - Mojo may be the biggest programming language advance in decades

Mojo is a new programming language, based on Python, which fixes Python’s performance and deployment problems.

^www.fast.ai

Leaked Google document: “We Have No Moat, And Neither Does OpenAI”

The most interesting thing I've read recently about LLMs - a purportedly leaked document from a researcher at Google talking about the huge strategic impact open source models are having
simonwillison.net/2023/May/4/n…

Leaked Google document: “We Have No Moat, And Neither Does OpenAI”

SemiAnalysis published something of a bombshell leaked document this morning: Google “We Have No Moat, And Neither Does OpenAI”. The source of the document is vague: The text below is …

^{simonwillison.net}

The right likes to claim that the left is taken over by a “woke mind virus.” But they fail to look in the mirror at their own obsessive attacks on anything in our broader culture that they perceive as tinged with ”wokeness.”

Whether it’s corporations, movies, or beer, the right sees U.S. culture slipping away from them. This attack on “woke” is their sad attempt to cling to a world they feel should rightly be theirs.

But in so doing, often they can’t even agree on what is “woke” and what is “anti-woke.” Or what the terms even mean.

Today in #TheBigPicture, we try to understand conservatives’ growing infatuation with the term and how it developed from merely a word to a representation of the party's severe disconnect from reality. Read more here: thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p…

#curl CVEs as JSON, an update: curl.se/mail/lib-2023-05/0006.…

I consider this pretty thorough...

Last year we announced we would be joining Mastodon to explore an alternative to today's social media. 



We’re excited to announce we’re expanding Mozilla.social to a private beta, with hopes to open to the public soon.

This is just the beginning. Read more about the launch of our instance, including how to join the public waitlist. blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mo…

Mozilla Social Private Beta Launch

Today, we’re expanding Mozilla.social to a private beta. We’ve put a lot of work into getting to this stage, but there is a lot more to do before we open it up more broadly.

^{Steve Teixeira (The Mozilla Blog)}

Are AI tools really as smart as creative writers? 🧐 It looks like we will soon know for sure. In any case, AI and its influence on our societies must be watched closely: After all the tools were trained with human writers content who they are now supposed to replace.
vice.com/en/article/pkap3m/gpt…

Read more on this issue and why ChatGPT is a privacy nightmare: 👉 tutanota.com/blog/posts/chatgp…

#ai #creative #content #writers #privacy #chatgpt #bard #ernie

GPT-4 Can’t Replace Striking TV Writers, But Studios Are Going to Try

The desire to replace writers with AI is a symptom of the larger problem that the guild is fighting for—which is that companies do not value writers and their work. 

^{Chloe Xiang (VICE)}

I tooted Hello World on November 30, 2022.

Then I began tooting my #music and a ton of #puns #jokes, and #memes. And you all responded so genuinely, and with such positivity, that I very quickly was made to feel at home.

My deepest gratitude goes out to the #Mastodon community, a #community that has literally improved the quality of my time on this spinning rock as it hurtles through space, towards a future that seems more uncertain every day. It’s unlike any other “social media platform” here.

Today, I celebrate the arbitrary milestone of five thousand followers, and I just wanted to say thank you.

Thank you for the favourites, the boosts, the follows, and the comments.

Thank you for your conversations, discussions, and corrections.

Thank you for listening to my music and sharing your thoughts on it with me, and for following along on your chosen streaming service. This has been amazing.

But, above all, I’d like to thank you all for making Mastodon the friendly and welcoming place that it is. My experience here is one of wonderful acceptance, and it has been truly humbling. There is nowhere else quite like it.

Massive big huge love to you all,

- Jon (Dgar)

This one has different methodologies and philosophies that try to mitigate some of the ethical issues with other similar #GenerativeAI programming systems.

Hugging Face and ServiceNow Research release StarCoder, a free alternative to code-generating #AI like GitHub's #Copilot, as part of the #BigCode project.

techcrunch.com/2023/05/04/hugg…

#MachineLearning

Wichtige Frage an Android-Entwickler bezüglich Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM). Ist Google Firebase zwingend erforderlich für den Empfang von Push-Nachrichten? 👇

kuketz-blog.de/google-firebase…

#android #entwickler #google

Google Firebase zwingend erforderlich für den Empfang von Push-Nachrichten?

Ich beobachte immer öfter die Verwendung von Google Firebase – eine Entwicklungs-Plattform für mobile Apps und Webanwendungen, die von ...

^{Kuketz IT-Security Blog}

It turns out you can simply serve a file from a domain to use it as your bsky handle.

So this guy is now S3. All of S3.

Microsoft is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

theverge.com/2023/5/3/23709297…

Microsoft is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

Microsoft is warning IT admins of upcoming changes to Outlook and Teams that will ignore default browser choice for links. The change has angered some IT admins, especially ones at small businesses.

^{Tom Warren (The Verge)}

Musk threatens to reassign NPR Twitter account if it won’t start tweeting again

arstechnica.com/?p=1936320

Musk threatens to reassign NPR Twitter account if it won’t start tweeting again

Musk threat to NPR contradicts Twitter's own inactive account policy.

^{Ars Technica}

First time on Mastadon, and unsure of etiquette, but usually an introduction is a good way to start anything, so...
Hi, I'm Roxy. I'm a digital artist and designer from South Africa with over 20 years of experience. I make monthly YouTube videos, occasional brushpacks, and do weekly art lessons on Discord. I'm also the wife (of twitch streamer mr_w4rpath), a Christian, an animal lover, a PC gamer, an INFJ personality type.
roxanelapa.carrd.co/

#noai #humanartist #southafrican #introductions

Here are three slides from my talk today. My predictions for the near future (of tech, software and basically everything).

More curl. More HTTP(S). More Open Source.

RTVE deja a Podemos, IU y la coalición Unidas Podemos fuera de los spots electorales gratuitos en la programación estatal eldiario.es/politica/rtve-deja…

– Belarra, en TVE: “Excluir a Podemos de los spots no es decisión de la Junta Electoral, sino de RTVE” eldiario.es/politica/ultima-ho…

– Mientras, la cobertura electoral que propone TVG da más tiempo a Vox, sin ediles en Galicia, que a Mareas o Unidas Podemos eldiario.es/galicia/cobertura-…

El empleo supera por primera vez los 20,6 millones de afiliados tras un abril récord con 238.000 trabajadores más

– El paro registrado ha descendido en 73.890 personas hasta situarse en 2.788.370, por debajo de la barrera de los 2,8 millones por primera vez en este mes desde 2008

– El porcentaje de afiliados con contrato temporal se ha seguido reduciendo hasta el 13,9%, situándose en el mínimo histórico

Aquí tienes todos los datos eldiario.es/economia/empleo-su…

Are #apple #macos users here who would want to test one of the submissions to the #game jam for #blind gamers?

It’s the only one that didn’t get any ratings yet, and that’s just sad to see. It looks like a pretty nice blind-friendly 3D stealth system: itch.io/jam/games-for-blind-ga…

Agent Stealth jam comments

Stealthy rescue mission in the darkness of the night

^itch.io

The trailer for Once and Future: Past Lives is stunning!

#BigFinish #DoctorWho

youtube.com/watch?v=S49Em1E7gK…

Doctor Who - Once and Future: Past Lives

FIND OUT MORE AT THE BIG FINISH WEBSITE: bgfn.sh/137The Doctor Who audio event of the diamond anniversary year starts today with the release of Once and Futu...

^YouTube