Instead of storing my data in the cloud, I just store it in the bush. It's the same thing, only palette-swapped. More accessible, too.

every damn time

#libraries

This AI rendering of an eyebrowless Sam Altman is poetic justice

“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,” Musk said. “There it’s they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.”
-Elon Musk, Feb 28, 2025

“In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trials 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”
-Captain G. M. Gilbert, the Army psychologist assigned to watching the defendants at the Nuremberg trials

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/05/politics/elon-musk-rogan-interview-empathy-doge/index.html

@anji I think it has a kind of earnest sweetness and tone that I really enjoy, which isn’t present in his more satirical novels. I suspect it’s because the main character was based on his daughter.

I got laid off today, with the rest of 18F.

18F was an elite federal software shop. We made gov't websites work better, more efficiently for the American people. We saved taxpayers from getting screwed over by contractors. And were fired for it.

We made this website to tell our story:

https://18f.org/

@emmiehine they appear to have an even worse app forthcoming

@krystman No Country for Old Men vibes

I had to spend all Friday on Threads unit-testing some stuff for the Threads API, and it made me appreciate the amazing crowd of developers, designers, and infosec people here on Mastodon. Seriously weird tech discussions going on over on Threads, and *a lot* of pining for Pete Buttigieg (?!?!?) to be the nominee.

People act like "Apple Intelligence" (AI on Apple devices) will make AI mainstream, but it could cut both ways. If the LLM integration is annoying and semi-functional, which seems likely, it might be what pops the current AI bubble. People who have only heard about LLMs are going to see them up close, on their iPhones, and will beg to have the features turned off.

@Moosader In short, I think you're right, lol.

@Moosader Infantilizing, maybe, but it saves so much grief later, in my experience. At least then they are incentivized to read the course policies.

As another wave of "suspected Flipper zero disrupting BTLE devices" is trending:
I probably qualify as an expert and I have DATA.
When you do BTLE connection spamming you are not only messing with phones, you're messing with health devices and Point-of-Sale terminals.

As someone who has spent the past ~1.5y of my life researching this exact topic:
If you're going to initiate connections with a radio (BTLE) the first and highest priority task is rate-limiting.

Connection spamming with a Flipper Zero (or other device) is objectively dangerous.

"But you're doing similar BTLE research, how can you say that?"
Because I took the time to understand the risks, mitigate them in a controlled environment for months, and collect data to make informed decisions. I also *broke* MY devices. But they were scoped to MY devices.

All of this to say, If you've written or using code for BTLE connection *spamming*:
You're a dangerous shitstain who is gonna get people hurt.
You're making the lives of people who are actually trying to collect data to enable informed decisions worse.
Log off. Touch grass.

I'm prepping for a 2024 conference talk on BTLE.
Please don't willingly get yourself include in the slide about "unethical conduct" ffs.

@jerry man, the board of theranos was like the Legion of Doom

Who's buying all them green apples?

@rose So, this might be too tangential to the contemporary framing, but Bakunin critiqued Marx's claim that there could be a stateless society with administrative functions. Here is an overview that looks promising, especially because of he bibliography. https://libcom.org/article/fate-state-bakunin-versus-marx-paul-mclaughlin

@b0rk I bought five zines and the first few pages of the Git zine were worth the total price of admission. Incredible stuff!

@Moosader glad to hear that things are going okay. People are so callous sometimes

@Moosader super tough market, they don’t know what they’re talking about!