Taking a break from awful things:

Scientists taught rats to drive cars. The rats quickly learned to rev the engine and take longer routes just for fun.

Bonus: Watch the researcher do a little happy leap when the rat gets into the car.

theconversation.com/im-a-neuro… #science #tech

Elon Musk deployed his vast resources to help Trump get elected, and now he’s poised to remake the US government to serve his interests.

But that was only possible because far too many people chose to ignore who he was to tell a more appealing story of a founder moving humanity forward. They should be held accountable.

disconnect.blog/shame-on-the-e…

#tech #elonmusk #trump #uselection #politics

Shame on the Elon enablers

Media and politicians created a monster and lost control of him

^{Paris Marx (Disconnect)}

Are you interested how to use Apple notes as an #accessible graphing calculator? Check out this post

nunonuno.micro.blog/2024/11/04…
#accessibility #apple #blind #ios #math #education #tech

Wealthy tech guys are working so hard to relegitimize eugenics with a tech rebrand.

theguardian.com/world/2024/oct…

#tech

Revealed: International ‘race science’ network secretly funded by US tech boss

Group promoting ‘dangerous’ scientific racism ideology teamed up with rightwing extremist, recordings reveal

^{Jason Wilson (The Guardian)}

ABOUT THE .IO DOMAIN KERFUFFLE
this is one of those intersectional moments, many of you white folks in #tech need to learn from

not only is the .IO a geolocated internet TLD based on British colonial territories;
the whole origin and dispossession of Chagos people is a read:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagos…

what makes .IO extra sketchy is the creation of the domain itself:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.io

so, .IO LITERALLY exists for EU/USA capitalists to profiteer from slavery, colonialism & genocide.

🧵

"Bier’s first hit app, TBH, was marketed to teenagers and...it 'requested address book access before actually being able to use the app'. [...] Bier’s reputation for success is built on this growth hacking technique, so I understand why he is upset."
[...]
"Apple’s solution is imperfect. But if it stops the Biers of the world from building apps which ingest wholesale the contact lists of teenagers, I find it difficult to object."

pxlnv.com/blog/growth-hack/

#Apple #Privacy #SocialMedia #Tech

Long read but the TL;DR is basically that SaaS is the canary in the coalmine for the #growth fallacy. The arithmetic is so simple it boggles the mind how this mindset came to dominate in the first place: Growth stagnates for these megacorps because there's no more customers. Once you're on 95% of all PCs there's simply no remotely reasonable way to keep growing, let alone grow faster, yet that's what these supposed "business geniuses" expect.

wheresyoured.at/saaspocalypse-… #EdZitron #tech #business

Time for that "Looking for work!" post, I guess!

Unfortunately, my current role is impacted by Amazon's move to mandatory co-location for teams, and my family is far too settled in Brooklyn to move away now. So after 7 years at Amazon, I'm starting the search.

I'm looking for a new role as a Front-end engineer/Design technologist/UX Engineer. I like design systems. And CSS. And accessibility. Love those things.

linkedin.com/in/heather-buchel…

#getfedihired #remotework #remote #tech #techcareers

Heather Buchel - Amazon | LinkedIn

Experience: Amazon · Education: Lansing Community College · Location: Brooklyn · 299 connections on LinkedIn. View Heather Buchel’s profile on LinkedIn, a professional community of 1 billion members.

^{Heather Buchel (www.linkedin.com)}

A project analyzing human language usage by scraping the web is shutting down because "generative AI has polluted the data." It's going to become much harder to analyze human use of language with the rise of AI-generated stuff being everywhere.

404media.co/project-analyzing-…

#Tech #AI

A detailed look at Apple's Private Cloud Compute for Apple Intelligence, which Craig Federighi says allows personal data to be “sealed inside of a privacy bubble”.

wired.com/story/apple-private-…

#AI #Tech

Yes, our phones are ‘listening’ to what we say.

“In Leak, Facebook Partner Brags About Listening to Your Phone’s Microphone to Serve Ads for Stuff You Mention”

futurism.com/the-byte/facebook… #tech #AI

Teslas are surveillance on wheels. Bay Area police increasingly check to see if there was a Tesla in the vicinity of a crime so they can get access to the footage from its cameras.

If you see a Tesla, it’s probably filming you — and more automakers are doing it too.

sfchronicle.com/crime/article/…

#tech #tesla #cars #surveillance #police

Today 20 years ago, Pirate Bay response to legal threats from DreamWorks

#piracy #tech #news #pirates #meme #today

Major tech companies are producing far more carbon emissions than they suggest in their sustainability reports.

They’re lobbying hard to rewrite the rules on how emissions are calculated to show net zero on paper, but not in practice.

ft.com/content/2d6fc319-2165-4…

#tech #climate #emissions #climatechange

I can't even find the words. Like, just stop being weird to women.

#tech #infosec #technology

So am I to understand that a full 38% of my revenue may now be siphoned off by Patreon and Apple, neither of whom contribute in any way to the creation of my work?

And that this is because Patreon wants to have an iOS app, which I do not need, do not benefit from, did not exist when I selected them as my payment processor, and cannot opt out of?

Um, no thank you.
I called this as a danger almost a year ago, btw:

evhaste.com/2023/10/17/deplatf…

#tech #news #patreon

Did you know elephants are helping shape robot design?

Their trunks' precise movements have been inspiring new tech innovations for 20 years. Researchers are using the insights to create robotic limbs with precise grips that can work to pick up objects in the unpredictable real world:
theconversation.com/elephants-…
#tech #research #wildlife

Elephants use the tips of their trunks to grasp things with great precision – how this can help robotic design

New research has found that the two ‘fingers’ on the tip of an elephant’s trunk exert different forces. The finding will be used to improve the abilities of bio-inspired robots.

^{The Conversation}

Here's a very calm, well researched video analyzing the facts and data about AI technology progress. And all the stunning tech demos that were faked.

I really like the scientific approach to this and I feel like I'd want to adapt this kind of analytical process to other things in my life.

youtu.be/VctsqOo8wsc?si=XcuufC…

#AiRant #AI #fAIl #tech #science

AI Hype is completely out of control - especially since ChatGPT-4o

Now that ChatGPT4o is out, it's time to revisit my previous thoughts on AI, and discuss what might be happening in the future, and what evidence we have of w...

^YouTube

One of the selling points of Google’s flagship generative AI models, Gemini 1.5 Pro and 1.5 Flash, is the amount of data they can supposedly process and analyze. But new research suggests that the models aren’t, in fact, very good at those things. “While models like Gemini 1.5 Pro can technically process long contexts, we have seen many cases indicating that the models don’t actually ‘understand’ the content,” Marzena Karpinska, a postdoc at UMass Amherst. TechCrunch has more: flip.it/wW5pRm
#Tech #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Google #Gemini

Follow @Techcrunch for more breaking tech news and analysis.

The worst kind of tech hype is when something is portrayed as inevitable and unstoppable, with criticism or doubt blithely dismissed as "they don't get it".

Just because a giant tech company pours vast amounts of money down a toilet, that doesn't mean the toilet is going to start spewing gold coins into the air.

#Hype #Tech #TechBros #Journalism #TechNews

Do you ever stumble upon an old Excel file that's locked with a password and you can't remember what it is? This can be incredibly frustrating, especially if the file contains valuable data! 😩

In my latest video, I show you a surprisingly easy way to remove worksheet protection from any Excel file, even if you don't have the password! This trick is perfect for those times when you're locked out of your own information.

The best part? You don't need any fancy software to do it! Just a little bit of text editing will do the trick. 😉
Check out my full video here: youtu.be/68goS6XdoW0

#excel #howto #productivity #exceltips #microsoft #office #tutorial #tech #software #spreadsheets #YouTube #Feditips

If this lands on your feed, tell me about different features that are just missing in Matrix.

It can be anything, but please don't include memes like "unable to decrypt message" or other things that are already in the works, or maybe has already been merged (e.g media captions). Also, no, I won't "just use XMPP".

Some examples include better forwarded messages, rich profiles, or a live location sharing, just to name a few.

(I am writing something about this, boosts appreciated!)

#matrix #tech

Matrix.org

Matrix, the open protocol for secure decentralised communications

^matrix.org

“I have seen the extremely restrictive off-boarding agreement that contains nondisclosure and non-disparagement provisions former OpenAI employees are subject to. It forbids them, for the rest of their lives, from criticizing their former employer.”

vox.com/future-perfect/2024/5/…

#openai #tech #ai

OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk, but the new ChatGPT release can?

Why are OpenAI employees leaving the company helmed by Sam Altman? The safety alignment debate, explained.

^{Kelsey Piper (Vox)}

🦋 If you struggle with ADHD or have your focus constantly ruined by a whirlwind of thoughts, then you probably use productivity tools that can help crush those distractions and give you some peace of mind.

Find out how you can say goodbye to those scattered thoughts by customizing the Vivaldi browser to work for your needs and preferences 👇🏻

vivaldi.com/blog/kill-distract…

#adhd #Productivity #tech #Technology #browser #vivaldi #tips #hacks

"I deleted keys generated by our TV for 5 straight minutes. 5 Minutes of like 200BPM clicking. I restarted. Everything worked again. I laughed so hard I cried. I felt like I'd solved a murder."

Tech people, THIS IS A GREAT FANTASIC READ!!!

The title is, "DO NOT BUY HISENSE TV'S"

cohost.org/ghoulnoise/post/528…
#Tech #Android #TV #Debug

DO NOT BUY HISENSE TV'S LOL (Or at least keep them offline)

holy fucking shit!!!!!!!!!! I've had this in my drafts to finish writing up for a few weeks but today I made another discovery that has pushed me to finally write it up lol. My PC had a few hiccups over the past couple of years.

^{priscilla on cohost}

All of a sudden it starts raining handmaids in handcuffs:

erosblog.com/2024/04/06/its-ra…

#Facism #Handmaids #HandmaidsTale #Privacy #ReproductiveRights #BurnThePatriarchy #Technology #Patriarchy #Christofacism #Christianity #Ovulation #OvulationTracker #Ovia #Tech #Danger #ReproductiveFreedom

Yup, about sums it up...

#AI #tech #business

A new @DestinationLinux has hit the road! (363) 😎🐧▶️ tuxdigital.com/dl363

Check out #DestinationLinux 363: PipeWire Interview with Wim Taymans, Revolutionizing Audio & Video on Linux

#linux #podcasts #opensource #tech

363: PipeWire Interview with Wim Taymans, Revolutionizing Audio & Video on Linux - Destination Linux - TuxDigital

Download as MP3 On this week’s episode, we have a special guest joining us to discuss his work with making our lives better in Linux audio. Of course, this...

^TuxDigital

Missed @lea@ordinary.cafe and @jaiden@ordinary.cafe's panel at @socallinuxexpo@social.linux.pizza about the future of the Linux desktop?

Here’s a recording to satisfy your curiosity :3

youtube.com/watch?v=hNDJDyef_U…

Featuring:

- @lea@ordinary.cafe, Fyra Labs
- @jaiden@ordinary.cafe, Fyra Labs (Moderator)
- @zana@sfba.social, @gnome@floss.social Foundation
- @technobaboo@tech.lgbt, @stardustxr@fosstodon.org
- @communiteatime@fosstodon.org, @thunderbird@mastodon.online- @mattdm@hachyderm.io, @fedora@fosstodon.org & Red Hat
- @druonysus@mstdn.io, @kde@floss.social & @opensuse@fosstodon.org
#tech #linux #foss #oss #scale21x

Where Does the Linux Desktop Go from Here?

It's no lie that the Linux desktop has been changing greatly. Through technological and social shifts, the desktop and community we know today is a far cry f...

^YouTube

Hello, hello 😋
As we still focus on reliability and stability, there have been some major improvements made to JAMS. Discover it all in our new Dev Update #4. #tech #p2p #app

jami.net/dev-update-4/

Jami - Dev Update #4

Our dev team prioritizes stability and reliability, with significant updates to JAMS.

^{Loïc Bogino (Jami)}

“I’m a Google Cloud software engineer, and I refuse to build technology that powers genocide [and] apartheid”

dailydot.com/debug/google-prot…

Watch the others in the room. The assholes who jeer and manhandle the protestors. These are your peers in the tech industry. These are the “acceptable folks” in tech. Fuck these people.

Look at their faces. They know exactly what they’re complict in. Look at their smug smiles. Dickheads each one.

#tech #google #ai #ProjectNimbus #israel #genocide #palestine

Google Protest At Tech Conference Over Israel Contracts

Google engineers protested Google at an Israel tech conference in New York before being thrown out by security.

^{Marlon Ettinger (The Daily Dot)}