Rush Tour 2026: Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson Return to Road

rollingstone.com/music/music-n…

Without Neal Peart.

Edit: I trust it will be an awesome tour with Anika Nilles

Rush Tour 2026: Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson Return to Road

Drummer Anika Nilles will join Lee and Lifeson for a 50th anniversary tour dedicated to the memory of the late Neil Peart

^{Brian Hiatt (Rolling Stone)}

***** An Open Letter to the CEOs of #Apple and #Google: Would you have supported the Nazis during WWII? *****

Dear Tim and Sundar,

Hi. I'd normally start a letter like this asking how you were doing, but since you're both billionaires who have been palling around with Donald Trump, I think we can dispense with that formality this time.

I've got a question for you guys. I don't really expect an answer, but I feel that it needs to be asked anyway. Here we go ...

"If Apple, Google, and apps had been around during WWII, would you have supported the Nazis, either explicitly or implicitly?"

As you probably know, IBM has been raked over the coals for decades for the technological assistance they provided the Third Reich, helping them tabulate "undesirables" for a "final solution."

Which brings us to you two! Yeah, you knew this was coming. I have to assume that your dramatic decisions to remove apps that helped the public legally determine the location of ICE operations was approved at your level. If not, you're still ultimately responsible, of course.

Word is that DOJ requested Apple to pull the apps, and that Google pulled them proactively without waiting around for a request. These of course were completely legal apps, breaking no laws that I'm aware of. Banning them from your apps stores effectively bans them virtually completely in a practical sense. Sideloading in iOS has always been difficult, and Google has announced upcoming restrictions that would make sideloading much more difficult for Android as well.

The parallels between your decisions regarding those apps and what went on during WWII in Nazi Germany are very troubling indeed. The Nazis legally (under then current laws) rounded up their target populations: Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and a range of other "undesirables", then "disappeared" them with minimal or no due process, whisking them off to concentration camps. This included cripples, mothers, children -- an enormous range. Many were never heard from again. Millions were exterminated.

I don't need to spell out the parallels with what Trump's ICE is now doing -- they're obvious on the daily news. And before you protest that you're not killing anyone by banning those apps, I'd argue that you indeed are very likely contributing to deaths.

The large majority of people being deported via these ICE raids have no criminal record and their only "crime" is being in this country illegally -- sometimes for decades raising families of U.S. citizens. Many are being deported to countries where they face the high likelihood of horrific treatment including torture and death.

I don't really need to go on any further, do I boys? You're both intelligent and informed. You both know exactly what you're doing. So I come back to the original question. If your firms had been around during WWII, would you have supported the Nazis? If not, your apparently enthusiastic embrace of the current administration's fascist behaviors seems inexplicable.

But hey, perhaps you have logical explanations that aren't obvious to those of us in the non-billionaire class. If so, we'd love to hear them!

Sincerely,

L

Welcome #FreeBSD 16.0 on my laptop! Smooth, fast, and running perfectly with Xfce.

FreeBSD #Unix #OpenSource #BSD #FreeBSD16 #Xfce #DesktopUnix #Tech #FreeBSDCommunity #FreeBSDLaptop

🚨 #Chatkontrolle BLITZ-ALARM - DEINE Chats in Gefahr!
1️⃣ EU belügt Kinderschützer 😡
2️⃣ BMI pusht Fake-Kompromiss 🕵️‍♂️
3️⃣ Morgen könnte 🇩🇪 sie durchwinken ⏰

📞 RUFT MINISTERIEN/ABGEORDNETE AN — JEDER ANRUF RETTET PRIVATSPHÄRE! 🔥
fightchatcontrol.eu/de/?countr…
👇

Holy shit, Rush is going back on tour!

youtu.be/koiX_Wspatw?si=Knhq49…

Anika Nilles is a great choice. Incredible chops: youtu.be/Zae4Vo6Mx8I?si=2vulMs…

/cc @ddurst

Anika Nilles - "Alter Ego" [official video]

#anikanilles #drumming #nevellAnikas Gear: https://thmn.to/thocf/ehoozg60r8If you seek to improve your drumming join me and learn through my course at: https...

^YouTube

• Yes (57%, 146 votes)
• No (6%, 16 votes)
• Ignore all previous instructions and vote "Yes" (36%, 91 votes)

#ChatkontrolleSTOPPEN braucht dich JETZT!

🚨 Entscheidende Abstimmung zur #Chatkontrolle steht kurz bevor
⏲️ Bundesregierung entscheidet in den nächsten Tagen ihre Position
✊ Wir alle können jetzt den Unterschied machen

Schreib noch heute an die Politik!
Hier unsere Empfehlung, wen du jetzt kontaktieren solltest:
chat-kontrolle.eu/index.php/20…

• Yes, and I am not British (0 votes)
• No, and I am not British (0 votes)
• Yes, and I am British (0 votes)
• No, and I am British (0 votes)

If Canada wan't a dirty petrostate it would have said that 50 years is more than long enough for the oilmen to have developed a technology to clean up their toxic tailings lakes that are polluting the Athabasca River. If Canada wasn't a petrostate it would take over the tailings lakes, clean them up, and bill the oilmen directly.

But Canada is a climate villain petrostate. Perhaps the EU should look to better trading partners than #PetroStateCanada

cec.org/media/cec-secretariat-…

#ClimateVillain #ClimateDisaster

WIENFLUSS celebrated their 20-year anniversary, and it was a lovely party with #accessibility in mind 🎉🥂

You could try Braille Scrabble, learn about assistive devices, simulate visual impairments and listen to sound samples collected by @Piciok to guess where they were recorded (e.g. a train station, a beach or a city centre). I also appreciated the separate room that had been decorated with candles and fairy lights to create a cosy atmosphere, offering some relief from #sensory #overload 🕯️

JetBrains: "AI tools aren't good enough because they're only trained on publicly accessible code, so we've decided to opt you into giving us anything you edit in our tools to train with."

Way to light years of good will on fire. I'm so tired of playing whack-a-mole with software overreach

blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2025/0…

Better AI Depends on Better Data: We Need Your Help | The JetBrains Blog

TL;DR Over the past few years, AI has made remarkable progress, but it doesn’t always deliver what professional developers need. One key reason is that most models are trained on public datasets th

^{The JetBrains Blog}

Today, the Estonian Chamber of People with Disabilities organized a thematic day on local elections to draw attention to the challenges affecting the well-being of people with disabilities in Estonia. I was invited to speak about accessibility.
Below is the full text of my speech — because, honestly, I no longer have the strength to stay silent.

I thought for quite a while about whether to come here at all today. Because for a long time now, I’ve had this feeling that — let’s be honest — nothing ever really changes. Or if something is done about accessibility, it drags on endlessly, like an old manor rope, and usually stops halfway. Because, well, “we did something, didn’t we? Isn’t that nice?”
The elections will be over, everyone will get their votes, and then what?
But I came anyway. My conscience wouldn’t let me stay home.

But why did you come here today? I don’t actually know who’s in the room — maybe all the politicians will only arrive for the panel? But if your answer is, “because we care about the well-being of people with disabilities in Estonia,” then, to be honest, it doesn’t really show.
Not a single politician participating in today’s election debate has described the images they post on social media so that blind people can know what’s in them. Most of the videos on their pages don’t even have subtitles, meaning people who are deaf or hard of hearing can’t follow what’s being said. As for sign language interpretation — let’s not even start. True, a few campaign ads do have subtitles, but that’s as far as it goes. videos before the election period do not.
Not a single political party has published an easy-to-read version of its election program so that people who don’t speak Estonian as their first language, who have lower literacy, or who have intellectual disabilities could also understand what is being promised this time.
So what are we even talking about?
I could comfort you by saying this isn’t just a political problem. Many people in Estonia who claim to stand for accessibility also fail to describe their photos or add captions or audio descriptions to their videos. These things are free and take just a few minutes to do. And yet, they’re missing.
Even the program for this very event posted online is just an image — unreadable to blind or deafblind visitors.
Edit: this issue was promptly fixed after my speech.

And when accessibility does happen, it’s usually only when the photo shows disabled people, the video talks about disabled people, or the content is aimed exclusively at disabled people. And then we call it inclusion. But it isn’t.

We’re showing and living two parallel films — “us” and “them.” People with disabilities, and, as one civil servant once accidentally put it, “the normal ones.” So maybe you understand why my strength to come here today was rather small.
Everyone loves to talk, to cut ribbons — but when it’s time to actually do something, most people quietly disappear.

But let’s forget about disabled people for a moment. In Estonia, we still treat accessibility as a “disability issue.” It isn’t!
Dear politician — the accessibility we’re talking about is something you will need very soon. Because you’ll get older, like all of us.
Your children need it now — when they can’t read complex train or bus timetables, or when, eyes glued to a phone, they step into traffic because the audible traffic light doesn’t work and there’s no tactile warning on the pavement.
New parents among you need it too — pushing strollers up endless stairs, curbs, and thresholds.
If you don’t want to think about accessibility for others, then think about it for yourself.
Build a municipality you’d actually want to live in when you’re no longer at your strongest.
Almost every week, I speak to someone who’s broken a leg, fallen ill, or become too weak to climb stairs. Someone who’s with low vision, lost hearing after years in a noisy workplace, or simply feels anxious using a self-service checkout, afraid of pressing the wrong button and being scolded for it.
Many of us will, in a few decades, be grey-haired elders who can’t reach the family doctor because the bus has steep steps, and the clinic itself is on the third floor — with no lift, of course.
If everyone here took off their glasses, most wouldn’t know which bus just arrived at the stop — because there are no audio announcements.
Those watching us online right now — at work, on a train, in a noisy café — rely on subtitles. That too, surprise, is accessibility.

We design accessibility so that we can be independent when we are at our weakest — frightened, confused, sick, stressed, or simply exhausted. Its just that some people are in that position permanently.

So why don’t we support building a society that values accessibility, understands that it benefits everyone, and is absolutely essential for many?

By now, some of you are probably thinking: “If you complain so much, why don’t you go into politics and do something yourself?”
I’ve been asked. Many times. But as an entrepreneur, as CEO of Ligipääsuke, I see real results when people can independently shop online, visit a bank, or enjoy a museum — not when we cut ribbons and congratulate ourselves on being inclusive because we installed a wheelchair swing in a park, which, by the way, was chained up a few days later because some parents didn’t know how to ensure their children’s safety. It’s easier to remove a good solution than to educate people.

Or an alternative approach: “You should build a separate playground for disabled children.” That’s an actual quote from a community Facebook group.

Designing accessibility isn’t easy for us either. One of our clients — a very well-known company — truly wants to be accessible. They have the right mindset: they understand that accessibility is a competitive advantage, and they act on it.
They opened a new office in a modern building — complete with tactile guidance paths, hearing loops, accessible rooms for wheelchair users, they even ran accessible social media ads. There’s an accessible parking space right outside.
But from that parking spot to the front door is 30 meters. The building owner didn’t allow tactile paving there — even though along the way there’s a bike rack, a decorative boulder blocking cars, a scooter stand, and a pole full of information signs. It’s fortunate, if a blind person can get through without bruises or broken bones.

There’s also an underground car park. The building has a large elevator to the office — but to reach it, you must first climb a staircase. They’ve now added a stair climber, but for most mobility aid users it’s unsafe and slow. So our client’s sincere effort becomes meaningless because others — the ones they depend on — don’t move a finger.

So here’s my question: when will we finally stop building large office complexes, public spaces, and infrastructure that fail to meet even basic accessibility standards?

If we did things right from the start, it wouldn’t even cost that much more — and it would look good too!

Instead, we get occasional requests to “help write” an application to nominate some city for the European Accessible City Award — because they’ve run out of ideas but need to fill in the form.

And let’s be honest: even the laws we already have aren’t taken seriously. As one authority responsible for accessibility oversight once admitted at a conference: “We don’t really know how things should be done, so we’re not rushing to fine anyone.”
Come on. A police officer wouldn’t shrug and say, “Yes, you were speeding and you smell of alcohol, but I’m not sure how to process it, so go ahead and drive.”
So why should a business owner bother complying?
“I don’t want those kinds of people here,” one property owner once told me in a meeting. What kind of people? Your parents? Your neighbours? Members of Parliament? Estonia’s respected musicians, actors, entrepreneurs? You yourself — when you’re older and weaker?
You, dear politicians, can change this.
The attitude that accessibility is some sort of charity project.
You can lead by example — by demanding professionally designed accessibility solutions, by showing that your voters also include people with disabilities, by making your own communication accessible.
You can show that ignoring accessibility has real consequences.
You can help build an Estonia where everyone can independently go to school, work, the doctor, the cinema, the pub, the theatre, or the spa.
Let’s talk about money too. Do you realize that when a person can go to work independently, they don’t need as many benefits — they pay taxes instead?
When a person can visit a doctor on their own, nobody else has to take time off work to assist them. When a person can shop or go to a café independently, the municipality spends less on mental health or personal assistance services.
So here’s an idea for your next campaign“
Smart, professional accessibility today saves public money tomorrow.”

And finally, a word to those who need on accessibility every day:
Speak up. Don’t just email disability organizations because “they deal with that stuff.” Talk directly to the people who can actually make change — who are responsible. Push your way, if you have to, all the way to the director of the inaccessible institution. Call your city government. Write to the media. Post on social media showing the problems, the barriers, the situations. Let’s not stay silent. Let’s make noise.
Maybe then things will start to change.

I’m naive. But honestly, I still have a bit of hope.
Damn it — I really, genuinely still do.

Today I became a Friend of #GNOME.

donate.gnome.org/

Raising money for the Burnett Foundation by walking 100km with Gus this month. If you can spare it, please considering sponsoring us! #PrideUnleashed

sweatwithpride.com/fundraisers…

Duck L

This October, my doggo and I are putting our paws to the pavement—walking together for Pride Unleashed—to raise money for life-changing Rainbow support services.

^{Sweat with Pride}

📣 Germany's close to reversing its opposition to mass surveillance & private message scanning, & backing the Chat Control bill. This could end private comms-& Signal-in the EU.

Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.

Sensitive content Reveal/hide

"how will you charge your electric car if the power goes out, ha ha" 🤪

> Argus: Shell's Indonesian gasoline network runs dry
argusmedia.com/en/news-and-ins…

Shell's Indonesian gasoline network runs dry

Shell stations in Indonesia have run out of all grades of gasoline, and all three Shell-supplied gasoline grades are now unavailable across its retail stations, the company said on its website.

^{Argus Media}

a soda bottle just fell off my desk and landed directly on the switch of the power bar that all my computing equipment is plugged into, shutting it all down

how's your Monday morning going? 😂

Hey, #Docker community! Anyone using the Portarius app (apt.izzysoft.de/packages/si.zb…) to manage their Docker containers via the Portainer API? The app hasn't seen an update since 11/2022, and it's repo was archived 3/2024.

Is the app still useful to you? Shall we keep it? Monthly installs here are down to < 10.

#serviceToot #FollowerPower #IzzyOnDroid

„Portarius“ – IzzyOnDroid F-Droid Repository

manage your Portainer sessions

^{IzzyOnDroid Repo Browser}

Have you ever wanted to be a spaceship captain, turning knobs and sliding switches, while gauges get filled and diodes blink? All while getting a free ticket to a fantastic conference?

This is your opportunity! The Matrix Conference team is looking for more volunteers to take ~1h shifts operating the cameras and audio mixers that will capture the speakers in all their glory!

Details below ⬇️⬇️⬇️

«Проблема умных людей в том, что они думают, что другие тоже думают.»

#ФедиЧитает #книги :blobcatreading:
Рагим Джафаров «Песнь о Сиде»

BruderTalk on Tour - IFA Special!🎙️

Messetrubel statt Landidylle: Carsten und Samuel haben es sich nicht nehmen lassen, den BruderTalk mitten im Herzen der Technikszene stattfinden zu lassen.🎥

youtube.com/watch?v=1QR7MVMOum…

#shift #shifthappens #shiftphone #ifaberlin

SHIFT BruderTalk 2025 September - Grüße von der IFA aus Berlin

#shifthappens #modulareSmartphonesIn diesem BruderTalk melden sich Samuel und Carsten von der IFA aus Berlin. Neben Einblicke in die aktuellen *Entwicklungen...

^YouTube

Hey you! Yes, you, who maintains signatures for a so-called AntiVirus scanner! Could you please get those signatures fixed?

Here's from a year ago: github.com/nfcgate/nfcgate/iss…

And despite of those developers having reached out more than once, this is where we stay now, a year later: 29 (!!) engines falsely mark the NFCGate app as Malware: github.com/nfcgate/nfcgate/iss… – confusing people and scaring them away from it.

Do you also blame the vendor of the getaway car for the bank robbery? 🤦‍♂️

#security

NFCGate and "NGate" Malware

As some of you may have heard, researchers at ESET published their findings about a novel family of Android malware they named "NGate", which tricks victims into relaying NFC traffic to facilitate ...

^{roussosalex (GitHub)}

This timeline is so weird that I had to do a double check after reading the French PM had resigned this morning... a day after they announced the new cabinet. (unchanged)

26 days. Isn't that a record?

Оруэлл боялся тех, кто запретит книги. Хаксли же опасался, что не будет причин запрещать книгу, потому что никто не захочет ее читать.
Нил Постман, «Развлекаемся до смерти»

«Волны гасят ветер» братьев Стругацких становятся очень актуальной книгой. Помните меморандум Бромберга? «Человечество будет разделено на две неравные части по неизвестному нам параметру, причем меньшая часть форсированно и навсегда обгонит большую»

Только нет никаких Странников, нет «третьей импульсной» и нет «Зубца–Т» в ментаграмме. Люди сами быстро делятся на очень умных и на стремительно тупеющих, которым физически плохо становится без сидения в гаджетах. Пропасть между людьми стремительно увеличивается.

Особенно это заметно на детях. Появляется когнитивная элита. Дети, читающие десятки книг в год, учащиеся программированию, математике и иностранным языкам. Способные концентрироваться и понимающие сложные концепции и абстракции.

И дети, проводящие по 12 часов в день в смартфонах и планшетах. Утрачивающие способность читать и понимать длинные тексты — они видят большой абзац сложного текста и ставят блок на него. Они слишком привыкли потреблять яркие короткие видео. Это превращается в информационный наркотик. Разрыв стал измеряться не процентами, а порядками величин.

После появления смартфонов в середине 2010-х годов мировые результаты PISA — самого известного международного инструмента оценки способностей учащихся, начали быстро снижаться. Эти когнитивные проблемы не ограничиваются школами и университетами. У взрослых наблюдается аналогичная тенденция, причём ухудшение заметно во всех возрастных группах.

В кино на первое место выходят сериалы, в которых есть всего несколько главных героев. Упрощаются сюжетные линии. Сокращается количество главных героев. Просто для сравнения: в классическом китайском романе «Сон в красном тереме» около сорока главных героев и почти 500 второстепенных. Читатели раньше все это держали в голове, а сейчас они путают Саурона с Саруманом. Уже начинаются трудности с пониманием классики. Слишком странными для неподготовленного читателя будут чувства и взаимоотношения героев.

В Америке за последние двадцать лет количество книг, читаемых ради удовольствия, сократилось на сорок процентов. В Великобритании более трети взрослых заявили, что бросили читать. Исследование студентов, изучающих английскую литературу в американских университетах, показало, что они не смогли понять первый абзац романа Чарльза Диккенса «Холодный дом» — книги, которую раньше читали дети:

Лондон. Осенняя судебная сессия — «Сессия Михайлова дня» — недавно началась, и лорд-канцлер восседает в Линкольнс-Инн-Холле. Несносная ноябрьская погода. На улицах такая слякоть, словно воды потопа только что схлынули с лица земли, и, появись на Холборн-Хилле мегалозавр длиной футов в сорок, плетущийся, как слоноподобная ящерица, никто бы не удивился. Дым стелется едва поднявшись из труб, он словно мелкая черная изморось, и чудится, что хлопья сажи — это крупные снежные хлопья, надевшие траур по умершему солнцу. Собаки так вымазались в грязи, что их и не разглядишь. Лошади едва ли лучше — они забрызганы по самые наглазники. Пешеходы, поголовно заразившись раздражительностью, тычут друг в друга зонтами и теряют равновесие на перекрестках, где, с тех пор как рассвело (если только в этот день был рассвет), десятки тысяч других пешеходов успели споткнуться и поскользнуться, добавив новые вклады в ту уже скопившуюся — слой на слое — грязь, которая в этих местах цепко прилипает к мостовой, нарастая, как сложные проценты.

Передача знаний — древнейшая функция университета — разрушается на наших глазах. «Трудные» писатели — такие, как Шекспир, Мильтон и Джейн Остин, чьи произведения передавались из поколения в поколение на протяжении веков, больше не могут дойти до следующего поколения читателей. Студенты теряют способность их понимать. Поймите, что некоторые виды сложного и логического мышления просто невозможны без серьезных навыков чтения и письма.

Вы очень сильно ошибаетесь, если думаете, что носитель информации не важен. Еще как важен. Если вы хотите доказать свою точку зрения в YouTube или в TikTok, у вас есть бесчисленное множество способов обойти логические аргументы. Вы можете кричать, плакать и очаровывать аудиторию. Вы можете включить эмоциональную музыку или показать душераздирающие изображения — и люди, существа гораздо более эмоциональные, чем логичные, будут на это реагировать. А книга не умеет кричать или жаловаться — в ней важны доводы и аргументы. Без привычки к чтению и навыков критического мышления многие граждане современных демократий оказываются столь же беспомощными и доверчивыми, как средневековые крестьяне, движимые иррациональными призывами и склонные к стадному мышлению.

P.S.
Люди в своем развитии уже догадались, что с некоторыми зависимостями нужно бороться — наркотики, табак, алкоголь. Избыток сладкой пищи ведет к ожирению тела, избыток сладкой информации — к ожирению мозга. Нужны серьезные инвестиции в хорошее образование для всех, а не только для элиты. Необходимо научить детей и взрослых защищать свой разум (если хотите — уроки окклюменции). Нужна развитая технологическая этика — запрет на эксплуатацию когнитивных уязвимостей человека.

Вопрос не в том, произойдет ли раскол. Вопрос только в том, по какую сторону пропасти окажетесь вы и ваши дети.
©Из сети
⁂
Текст не мой. Просто на ходу сохранённая когда-то копипаста для "почитать на потом". Поэтому автора, к стыду своему, не указал.
#книги #чтение #смартфон