I know many of us are heading into the holiday season which can be taxing for a variety of reasons, so I will just say: “Good luck with whatever the hell you’ve got going on for the next week.”

Lmao. This is funny.

George Clooney is an actor.

Put him in the role of a surgeon in front of a camera, and he will do and say things the average non-surgeon viewer will agree are surgeonish. After an hour of that, we are, as average non-surgeon viewers, satisfied and entertained.

Put him in an operating theatre, and the patient will fucking die because he's not a surgeon and knows nothing about really doing surgery.

This is a post about LLMs.

What she said.
Could not have stated this any better.
👇🏽👇🏽

Christmas reminder: If GOP didn’t give 800 billionaires a $2T tax cut (again)—we’d have enough for SNAP, cancel all medical debt, and cancel all student debt.

GOP sold out 200M Americans to serve 800 billionaires.

This is what class war on working people looks like. Stop bootlicking billionaires. Start taxing them out of existence.

EMAIL WRAPPED 2025

This year, you received too fucking much email!

Number of emails that found you well: zero

Number of emails that you printed, even though you didn't consider the environment: zero

Number of times an "out of office" autoresponder was immediately followed by the person answering your email: all of the times

Your favorite email was: none of them

Next year, you are considering: are there any countries where email is illegal, and what are their immigration laws?

a high-profile software project proudly announcing that it's going to start "using AI" is basically the same thing to me as seeing a big "this repo is archived" banner. perhaps even worse in some respects? intentionally or not, the message it sends is "we don't really enjoy programming and we don't want to work on this anymore, but rather than retire the project we're going to do a really lackluster job from now on". like if your favorite coffee brand proudly announced "now 20% more sawdust"

In 1995, a Netscape employee wrote a hack in 10 days that now runs the Internet
Thirty years later, JavaScript is the glue that holds the interactive web together, warts and all.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/12/in-1995-a-netscape-employee-wrote-a-hack-in-10-days-that-now-runs-the-internet/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#SantaGotPhished

anecdotal reports are that this makes Firefox noticeably faster

that list of settings to disable:

browser.ml.enable
browser.ml.chat.enabled
browser.ml.chat.menu
browser.ml.chat.page
browser.ml.chat.page.footerBadge
browser.ml.chat.page.menuBadge
browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled
browser.ml.pageAssist.enabled
browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled
browser.tabs.groups.smart.userEnabled
extensions.ml.enabled
browser.search.visualSearch.featureGate

As holiday fundraising campaigns ramp up, remember that the #SalvationArmy is fundamentally an evangelical anti-LGBTQ organization that campaigns against equal rights while pushing its religious agenda.

Donate elsewhere. Ideally someplace more inclusive and local.

Refs (stance on LGBTQIA+):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Salvation_Army#Stance_on_LGBT_rights

#Whamageddon really bothers me.

Firstly, it's a million miles away from the worst Christmas song (Wonderful Christmas Time - McCartney, hang your head in shame), but also, it makes George Michael into a punchline, despite being a Grade A chap.

In a show of absolute magnanimity, Michael donated his proceeds from it - in perpetuity - to the Band Aid foundation. It still receives that money: around £300,000 a year.

And people actively avoid playing it for a meme.

You would be utterly astounded at the waves of effort and the things that I learned come back to me 15 years later. It all mattered. All that effort in that life. It mattered. And I just didn't know it then. But I did it anyway. I was the one that did. And here I am today.

In 1982, a physics joke gone wrong sparked the invention of the emoticon
A simple proposal on a 1982 electronic bulletin board helped sarcasm flourish online.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/11/in-1982-a-physics-joke-gone-wrong-sparked-the-invention-of-the-emoticon/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

The Mac calculator’s original design came from letting Steve Jobs play with sliders for ten minutes
In 1982, a young Mac developer turned Jobs into a UI designer—and accidentally invented a new technique.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/11/the-mac-calculators-original-design-came-from-letting-steve-jobs-play-with-sliders-for-ten-minutes/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

Oh, making an accessible website is too complex for you to bother? Sounds like you aren’t very good at your job then, eh?

#A11y #WebDev

I continue to be flabbergasted by just how boring billionaires are with their money.

Like... where's the paying your favorite band to record a new album entirely without commercial pressure? Commissioning some artist to make a massive mural of a bee/cheeseburger creature?

Where's the contract to fill an entire swimming pool with cream and let everyone in the city jump in?

Where's the "giving 100 homeless people houses just to see them smile friday"?

You have enough money to explode god, but you'll buy things that make more money, yachts you barely use and houses that are much too big for anyone to sensibly live in.

How fucking empty a person do you have to be for that?