Bio and disclosures: dangillmor.com/about/ Boosts mean I think you should see this -- usually but not always an endorsement.
California, Nara · dangillmor.com
Bye #Flock! #Eugene says get the flock out of town.
"The Eugene Police Department said it “has identified vulnerabilities and limitations” in the Flock system that did not meet the standards of the department and the community. Springfield’s deputy chief said his department no longer had confidence in the system."
Betting <1 percent of the population knows that a manifestly corrupt "industry" bought itself a Congress that puts cryptocurrency holders first in line -- ahead of you and your money -- if there's a run on your bank. Yep, you're subsidizing the sleaziest speculators.
Having sent a crappy bill to the Senate the Senate - per tradition - made our bill worse by adding a provision that says that in the event of a run on a bank holding stablecoin deposits, those deposits have a senior claim, above those of law abiding citizens in insured accounts.
When the House and Senate marked up stablecoin legislation, we raised all of these concerns - their anonymity, their nearly perfect design for money laundering. All the barn doors were left wide open. It’s used for crime because that is its purpose. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/technology/how-a-cryptocurrency-helps-criminals-launder-money-and-evade-sanctions.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
@gleick How far the Times has fallen...
It's December 2025, the Trump regime is engaged in a vicious and lawless pogrom, destroying the lives of immigrants and children of immigrants, creating a reign of terror and cruelty, and the New York Times assails ...
Biden. For not being tough enough on immigrants.
I won't link to it.
If I had the attention span to write fiction longer than a page I'd write a near-future story where for RFK reasons it has become easier to get illegal recreational meth than ADHD drugs so the coop in Portland that makes the black market estrogen has a side gig buying street meth and converting it backward into Adderall
Our chat with Mary & Fanny, two independent technologists, on contingency for "what if Signal were blocked in the US?" and their suggestion: @delta
DoD buried this news by releasing it right before a holiday weekend: the U.S. Navy has canceled the planned Constellation-class frigate.
This is a big deal. The Navy has spent the last 25 years failing to deliver new ships on time and on budget. People are worried that they don't really know how to do it anymore.
The Constellation class was supposed to solve that problem by using an existing ship design, the European FREMM frigate. But it ran over schedule and budget anyway. The Navy screwed with the design of this "off-the-shelf ship" so much the first one was already three years behind schedule.
https://www.twz.com/sea/navy-sinks-the-constellation-class-frigate-program
In a preview of his next book, Cory Doctorow explains of where the "AI" business is taking us -- nowhere good -- and how we can fight its most malevolent impacts: https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/pop-that-bubble/#u-washington
The section on copyright is, for artists, particularly important.
@dangillmor not straight news but opinion, but well stated on CNN https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/06/politics/video/mockler-trumps-fifa-peace-prize-may-be-the-most-humiliating-for-the-us
Resale values of Teslas are in the depths for all kinds of reasons, but the central one -- apart from the taint of Musk -- is that the cars are ridiculously crappy and unreliable as they age. https://futurism.com/advanced-transport/old-teslas-falling-apart
Just one more reason to avoid this toxic brand at all costs.
Bitter lesson of the degradation of the online commons: although vendors of digital media failed to recognize it, literacy and know-how are not externalities. Will #llm vendors enable their media products to teach people how to use them? Educational institutions proved not to be up to the task over a decade ago when they failed to teach crap detection around internet search.
Did any major journalism treat the ludicrous FIFA-Trump "peace prize" with the LOL contempt it deserved? Links?
Plenty of people is blaming "AI" in the abstract for the recent RAM price spikes, but I haven't seen anybody around here point to the actual and direct culprit of it all: Sam Altman secretly bought 40% of silicon wafers (not even produced RAM, just the silicon wafers) from two of the biggest RAM manufacturers, at the same time. Not even with specific plans for what kind of RAM do with them. This is just to mess up with competitors.
Seriously, you can't hate OpenAI enough.
https://www.mooreslawisdead.com/post/sam-altman-s-dirty-dram-deal
The CEO of The Onion set the publication's goal for 2026 to have more subscribers than The Washington Post. At the rate the latter is going, that won't take long.
"For reasons we don't like or understand, our work has become increasingly important."
"Look, we're an independent company, we don't use AI to write headlines and make art, and we're one of roughly three publications who are up for the fight. Unlike other places, The Onion is quadrupling down on being a pain in the ass, politically. Are you?
Scumbag tech billionaire pushes Silicon Valley's expanding extremism bubble, touting public executions. https://www.thenerdreich.com/joe-lonsdale-calls-for-public-hangings/?ref=the-nerd-reich-newsletter
And could we get a visual of the size of the US Navy boat next to their "targets" ... it's preposterous.
These are monstrous machines of war. The boats they are shooting are unarmed.
You want the drugs? Want the drug dealers? Point your guns at them and simply take them.
They could find out who sent out the boats. Go find that person. You know if you cared about any of this.
