The ⚙️ FOSDEM 2026 Schedule ⚙️ app for Android is now available:
🛒 f-droid.org/packages/info.meta…
🛒 play.google.com/store/apps/det…
🆕 Search filters
🆕 New session cards design
🆕 Edge-to-edge support
🆕 New settings options
#fahrplan #fosdem #fosdem2026 #opensource @fosdem @fosdempgday @fosdembsd
Conference program app for the FOSDEM conferencef-droid.org
Peter Vágner reshared this.
the whole ai-bro shtick about "ai democritizes art/programming/writing/etc" seemed always so bs to me, but i couldn't put it into words, but i think i now know how.
ai didn't democritize any of these things. People did. The internet did. if all these things weren't democritized and freely available on the internet before, there wouldn't have been any training data available in the first place.
the one single amazing thing that today's day and age brought us is, that you can learn anything at any time for free at your own pace.
like, you can just sit down, and learn sketching, drawing, programming, writing, basics in electronics, pcb design, singing, instruments, whatever your heart desires and apply and practice these skills. fuck, most devs on fedi are self taught.
the most human thing there is is learning and creativity. the least human thing there is is trying to automate that away.
(not to mention said tech failing at it miserably)
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Current AI Downsides:
> Stole all creative, intellectual works from everyone ever
> Eats so much power that they need tons of nuclear plants yesterday
> Eats up so much electricity that everybody else is priced out
> Eats up so much GPU & DRAM that everyone else is priced out
> Devours jobs like Ghibli's No-face
> Falsely identifies people as criminals who aren't
> Hallucinates legal briefs in your court case
> Destroys the validity of all video evidence in all courts everywhere
> Facetracks children playing at the park
> Generates infinite piles of dogshit spaghetti code that can't be read or revised
> Can't count to 100, doesn't know how many r's are in Strawberry
> Deep-fakes Martin Luther King Jr. stealing fried chicken, Studio Ghibli child porn
> Produces ugly, smeary, unappealing fake video that nobody likes.
Added: Consumes water at a rate that will desertify our entire planet.
Added: Completely destroys college education, both in terms of cheating and inability to read/write
Added: Makes all art suspected as fake, all art stealable and reguritated.
Added: Allows world leaders to fake their health, presence, & speaking capacity.
Added: Not even a Language Model.
Added: Fake/bullshit content and rampant chatbotting means the Internet is now mostly dead.
Added: AI warfare is inept and kills innocent/misidentified people. AI security bots are in the works for your home town.
Added: Allows for extortion, sextortion, scamming at a level never seen before.
Current AI upsides:
> Sam Altman is rich, I guess, idk.
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An important PSA for people who are active on #Bluesky and who, upon hearing that the ICE account was officially verified, are saying: "I will just block it."
Blocking on Bluesky is NOT PRIVATE: it's very easy to see who is blocking any account by visiting sites that list that information.
I took a screenshot from clearsky.app, listing all the accounts that are blocking ICE (I pixelated avatars and usernames for privacy purposes).
The safest bet is to mute (that info is private) 😫
This is also true about Mastodon*, but Mastodon actively tries to hide that fact from users and muddy the waters.
* It's technically hidden to users but not the admins of the instances involved, but if you're a gov agency, you're presumably on your own instance, as seems to be the custom here for the "big players."
miki reshared this.
In a way, #Putin even got more then he ever could wish for
All for free by #Trump
Alliances shattered, internal threats, everyone really disliking the US, speaking about war within #NATO even
It's unbelievable how much damage that senile dic(tator) has done within a year
I really hope we learn from this.. But history shown otherwise I guess
This post by Bruce Schneier contains so many thoughtful soundbites:
> The question is not simply whether copyright law applies to AI. It is why the law appears to operate so differently depending on who is doing the extracting and for what purpose.
> Like the early internet, AI is often described as a democratizing force. But also like the internet, AI’s current trajectory suggests something closer to consolidation.
schneier.com/blog/archives/202…
More than a decade after Aaron Swartz’s death, the United States is still living inside the contradiction that destroyed him. Swartz believed that knowledge, especially publicly funded knowledge, should be freely accessible.Bruce Schneier (Schneier on Security)
I like looking at this through the concept of "enjoyment", which was originally developed in Japan I believe.
From that point of view, copyright only applies to a work when it is used for "enjoyment", for its intended purpose. If the work is primarily entertainment, it applies when the consumer is using it to entertain themselves. If the work is educative, it applies when the consumer is using it to learn something. It does not apply when the work is used for a purpose completely unrelated to its creation, such as testing a CD player on an unusual CD, demonstrating the performance of a speaker system, training a language model to classify customer complaints etc.
(This isn't a legal perspective, not even quite in Japan I believe, but it's useful lens through which we can look at the world and which people can use to decide on policy).
As curl now supports TLS (mqtts), it is no longer necessary to list it as a limitation in the docs.GitHub
TL;DR Most EV batteries will last longer than the cars they’re in. Battery degradation is at better (meaning: lower) rates than expected. Slow charging is better. Drive EV and don’t worry about your battery.
„Our 2025 analysis of over 22,700 electric vehicles, covering 21 different vehicle models, confirms that overall, modern EV batteries are robust and built to last beyond a typical vehicle’s service life.“
geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-hea…
PQ leader says Legault's resignation further evidence of need for independent Quebec
cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/qu…
tl;dr: the leader of the PQ is full MAGA. He believe in Santa Claus. He believe that in the US dictatorship Quebec and it's francofascism would be safe. Remember MAGA implies hating anyone speaking something other than English.
RE: mstdn.social/@TechCrunch/11591…
oh look, another AI chat tool pops on the block.
Attached: 1 image Confer is designed to look and feel like ChatGPT or Claude, but your conversations can't be used for training or advertising. https://techcrunch.TechCrunch (Mastodon 🐘)
Why Poilievre and Carney Are Silent on Grok’s Child Sexual Abuse
thetyee.ca/Opinion/2026/01/15/…
The former is just in his cesspool, running is con. The latter is just an hypocrite coward elite that would have no problem with Internet legislation when they can't enforce the basics.
The Liberals are afraid of Trump. The Conservatives fear their base.Eric Van Rythoven (The Tyee)
Sensitive content
CALL TO ACTION on January 23, 2026
Minneapolis Labor Unions are calling for a full #GeneralStrike. No school, No work, No shopping. Those of us outside Minnesota, stand with the unions by not shopping.
“The Minnesota labor movement is united against the violent ICE occupation of our beloved cities .. Workers are essential for our communities to function. Since the ICE campaign of terror began, both immigrant and non-immigrant workers have feared for their safety when going to work, being at work, and coming home from work.
Working people, our schools our communities are under attack. Union members
are being detained commuting to and from work, tearing apart families. Parents are
being forced to stay home, students held out of school, fearing for their lives, all while
the employer class remains silent. Our labor federations are encouraging everyone to
participate on January 23rd.”
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Walter Francis White was a Black man born to two Black parents, but he had blonde hair and blue eyes. (This is genetically possible without any extramarital affairs; it's just rare.)
He used his white passing appearance to pose as a white journalist and learn the truth about lynchings in the South. He investigated 41 lynchings and 8 race riots at enormous risk to his life. His documentation then helped the NAACP lobby for anti-lynching legislation.
In the story of America's fight for civil rights, certain names ring out: Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Thurgood Marshall. Yet, many figures who laid the essential groundwork for their work remain less known.America's Black Holocaust Museum
...completely defenseless, just like domestic abusers do, and we know these are the same kind of men.
They're scared of being watched, they're so scared of lawyers they shut up a lawyer yesterday by threatening to detain two other people as well as her client if she didn't shut up. (She was rightly saying the kidnapping they were doing was illegal.) She had to shut up at that time but her client will have his day in court. We initiated community support.
They are SCARED scared. They act...
...tough away from cameras but not when the cameras are going. Not when there's a crowd. Not when there's even one VIP, such as Bishop Pham of San Diego, who showed up to immigration court and made the ICE agents scatter like cockroaches.
The movement makes real difference in the here and now and will make a real difference when we punish these people.
Walter F White realized he had power as one Black man in the US in the heyday of the Klan.
We have real power if we use it.
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Almost everyone has heard of @dgar
And most of you will know by now that he's also released a song or two.
He shouts out a few his songs - such as "Always Monday On The Moon" and "Space Pop" - but my favourite is always missed.
So I'll shout it out instead - it's "Digital Busker"
youtube.com/watch?v=MjqgzpSDbY…
Provided to YouTube by Repost NetworkDigital Busker · DgarDigital Busker℗ DgarReleased on: 2021-11-12Auto-generated by YouTube.YouTube
WE CAN EITHER HAVE A LIVEABLE PLANET OR BILLIONAIRES. WE CAN’T HAVE BOTH.
The findings of @oxfaminternational’s latest report, released just days ago, are honestly terrifying and infuriating.
This is not accidental. It is the result of an economic system that protects extreme wealth, fuels corporate pollution, and puts profits before people.
It’s time to FLIP THE SCRIPT. Tax extreme wealth. Make polluters pay. Ban private jets and superyachts. Put lives before profits.
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RE: mastodon.nl/@bert_hubert/11591…
Translated: All ATMs from all big dutch banks rely on Amazon AWS. So if there's a disruption with the US and you think to yourself "hey, I'm gonna pay with cash", you won't be able to get cash.
Attached: 1 image Alle geldautomaten van alle grote Nederlandse banken draaien exclusief op Amazon Web Services. Dus als er verstoring is met Amerika en je denkt, dan betaal ik wel cash, kom je niet aan cash.Bert Hubert NL 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 (Mastodon.nl door Stichting Activityclub)
When talking about DRAM please don't use the term "shortage", call it what it is: price manipulation.
Shortages are when things you want to buy cannot be bought anywhere, but DDR5 memory kits are widely available. There's hundreds of different types in stock at online retailers. I've yet to see a kit that is actually out of stock. This is the tech industry attempt at keeping high margins at a time when computer sales were already predicted to be declining. Don't fall for it. It's a scam.
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 likes this.
As John Naughton warns (in parallel to many warnings here too), we are way too dependent on US technologies , although as he observes:
'Unwinding this dependency will be very difficult. But it has to be done'!
In this the Tangerine Tyrant's actions (alongside those of the TechBroligarchy) have been indicative of the trouble we could be in.
Up until now we have been too inattentive to the trap into which we have willingly walked.
observer.co.uk/news/columnists…
Ofcom’s investigation into X is not just a regulatory issue. It will define our future relationship with AmericaJohn Naughton (The Observer)
It's mind-boggling that the UK would give a massive defence contract to a US company when Trump is threatening to invade Greenland. Especially a company like Palantir which is run by a guy who thinks women shouldn't be allowed to vote and is very close to Trump.
The only way this makes sense is if you regard it as deliberate. Filter out what Starmer has said on the issue and look at his actions and who he is linked with. It feels like the UK leadership are either OK with US military dominance or resigned to it. For them, the UK military is simply an extension of the US military. The more compliant the more favours and jobs these politicians will win from US big tech and Washington.
politico.eu/article/palantir-l…
The £240 million contract with the Ministry of Defence has renewed a debate about Britain’s dependence on American technology.Joseph Bambridge (POLITICO)
Them: I love Eminem. How about you?
Me: They’re okay. I don’t like the ones with peanuts in them.
Them: I’m not talking about the candies. I’m talking about the rapper.
Me: Why would I eat the wrapper?
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Bogomil Shopov - Бого
in reply to tbsprs • • •