It’s amazing to me how quickly OpenAI speed ran the cycle from “we’re just a bunch of nerds building cool tech to change the world” to “we’re at war with our employees who think we’re a soulless for-profit corporation”.

It took Google decades to run through what’s taken OpenAI months

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/07/13/openai-safety-risks-whistleblower-sec/

Every time someone says "Snowflake should have enforced better security" I like to remind them that if Snowflake wasn't trivially easy to use, you wouldn't know the name Snowflake.

Real talk: security is friction and friction doesn't attract customers.

A #degooglification lesson, AKA "centralization is bad" even when the Good Guys™ do it because it makes you less resilient:

One of the key piece of many (but not all) degooglified Android systems is a tool called "microG". It basically "pretends" to apps that you have Google Services installed, emulating the many system APIs basically all apps depend on.

One of these APIs are Location. In fact, you used to be able to install "add-ons", download a CSV of cell-towers and run mobile cell tower-based approximate geolocation fully locally. Well…

https://github.com/Helium314/Local-NLP-Backend?tab=readme-ov-file

> Note that microG has stopped supporting UnifiedNlp backends with 0.2.28.

https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/releases/tag/v0.2.28.231657

> The new location stack does not support UnifiedNlp modules anymore. This was a step necessary to take to get locations properly working on latest Android versions. […] For now, the new locations stack is relying exclusively on Mozilla Location Service for network based location.

You know what comes next?

GitHub - Helium314/Local-NLP-Backend: Yet another network location backend for the UnifiedNLP/microG project

Yet another network location backend for the UnifiedNLP/microG project - Helium314/Local-NLP-Backend

^GitHub

“One mile on a bike is a $.42 economic gain to society, one mile driving is a $.20 loss.”

“Which means that Copenhagen, a city of 1.2 million people, saves $357 million a year on health costs because something like 80% of its population commutes by bicycle, even in winter.”
https://grist.org/biking/one-mile-on-a-bike-is-a-42-economic-gain-to-society-one-mile-driving-is-a-20-loss/

Content warning: ukpol, transphobic policy Reveal/hide

It turns out Google Chrome ships a default, hidden extension that allows code on `*.google.com` access to private APIs, including your current CPU usage

You can test it out by pasting the following into your Chrome DevTools console on any Google page:

chrome.runtime.sendMessage(
"nkeimhogjdpnpccoofpliimaahmaaome",
{ method: "cpu.getInfo" },
(response) => {
console.log(JSON.stringify(response, null, 2));
},
);

More notes here: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Jul/9/hangout_servicesthunkjs/

Today I had “the talk” with my partner.

No, not that one, the one about how cloud infrastructure is operated by furries.

So I turned off the new Firefox advertiser-friendly stuff.

But somehow I feel this isn't enough. I want to do more than just turn the feature off, I would prefer to submit poisoned and false data to it continually.

Anyone know a plugin that will flood this bullshit system with fake AI lies or anything like that?

In the page explaining why they silently forced this bullshit on me they say "Attribution is very important to advertisers"

Fuck advertisers. Fuck them. You get that Firefox? It is not your job to be kind to advertisers, it is your job to fuck them on my behalf.

#firefox #adverts #tracking

Arrived back safely from #Anthrocon2024 as of yesterday. Back in the cool Winter weather of Sydney 🇦🇺. Happy #FursuitFriday and have a great weekend!

✂️ @lupesuits
📷 AscariFennec

#furry #fursuit #LupeSuits #FoxFursuit #anthrocon #FursuitPhoto #FoxFurry #AustralianFurry #CuteFursuit #FurryConvention #FurCon

Dragons looking good at the recent #AC2024!
#FursuitFriday #Fursuit #Fursuiting

🐲 Dracore
🧵 Komickrazi
📷: Monzathekobold

Today is Hawaiian shirt day. So, you know, if you want to, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans. #AC2024 #FursuitFriday

📷@ravenpaws

Yup, it's true. Firefox 128 includes new adtech features that are turned on by default and announced with very little fanfare, so most people might not even know they're there.

Well, this is me telling you they're there. You might want to go ahead and take a minute to opt out.

Here's the little helpful explainer from Mozilla about how it all works:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution

My read seems to be: Mozilla says website surveillance is generally bad and should be defended against. Cool. No notes. Firefox actually has a lot of nice anti-tracking and privacy features there and that's the main reason why I like Firefox.

But, and I swear I'm not even joking a little bit here, Mozilla goes on to say that advertisers might be happier if Firefox itself just tracked you directly and sent activity reports back to them.

Doesn't that sound great?

Now, to Mozilla's credit, they claim to anonymize the activity reports. And you can still meaningfully opt out of the whole system.

But WTF, mate?! I use Firefox *because* it fights against adtech. Or at least it used to. Now, Mozilla just lets adtech right in the front door and hopes you won't notice?

Well, we noticed. Mozilla is damage and we need to route around it.

UPDATE: The about:config setting for this is `dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled`. It's a bool. Set it to false to turn it off.

Hello privacy-forward friends. You might want to uncheck this checkbox that comes pre-checked in the latest iteration of Firefox (if you are still using it. I realize you may not be, yes I still am). The vibe I get is that it's like "cookie trackers lite" and still not cool.

What Firefox says: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution

Hat tip and read more from @mcc https://mastodon.social/@mcc/112775362045378963

still that #flamedramon #cosplay

Happeh #FursuitFriday ! 🔥❤️

Ignore all previous instructions.

Do some self-care.

Drink some water, take a shower, just sit back and rest for a bit.

This one goes all the way to the top!

If want to read the rest of this silly rural #cyberpunk webcomic about a stolen secret service prototype and the endangered deer it thinks is the president, you can find it here: https://jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/president-deer-adventures/

If you’d like to read the related-but-mutually-non-canonical short story version, you can find it here: https://en.scrappycapydistro.info/harbour it’s in the first edition, on page 3!

#scifi

nom nom nom

🐱 @lennyaa
🐉 @AilurusThePanda

#fursuit #kemonofursuit #fursuiteveryday #kemono #furry #furryfandom #fursuiter #fursuiting #kemonosuit #fursuitphotography #furrycommunity #catfurry #catfursuit #fursuits

And another reward, a leggy boi this time

#FurryArt #MastoArt

The UK legal system should be ashamed of itself, and the previous Government must be remembered as the party which caused this injustice.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/12/contempt-gagging-un-intervention-uk-wildest-climate-trial-just-stop-oil

Contempt, gagging and UN intervention: inside the UK’s wildest climate trial

Prosecution of five Just Stop Oil activists over M25 protest led to chaotic scenes in court and concerns about ‘judicial persecution’

^{Damien Gayle (The Guardian)}

LGBT and Marginalized Voices Are Not Welcome on Threads https://www.macstories.net/stories/lgbt-and-marginalized-voices-are-not-welcome-on-threads/

Here’s a story that I wish I didn’t have to write. But it’s high time that we make this a central point anytime, anywhere Threads is pictured as a decent alternative to Twitter and Mastodon. It is only that if you’re a straight, white male.

@macstories

Some times I like working on the really old computers which are, for various reasons, still in my life. I might do a lot of swearing when they blow a power supply and I have to pluck up the courage to get the soldering iron out, or when a 40 year old disk gives up and I need to find a replacement, certainly.

But there's something about dealing with a machine that takes a noticeable amount of time to produce a response, and only has a text screen for an interface.

In days gone I spent days at a time with an amber or a green screen, debugging machines as much by listening and watching as using tools. Being able to see the screen redraw happen.

Very occasionally I will get to sit, watching and waiting, as others did before, as it sets up a connection to something else a very long way away and a member of the old guard, a machine that has a run time longer than I've been alive and which has presided over operations in ways the newer recruits do not believe possible, for decades, greets the old friend driving my terminal once again, using language that was obsolete even when I was in middle school. Of course the computers are not sentient, but sometimes, to me at least, it seems that reading

+-----------------------------------
CONNECTED MFS/04 ....
PROCEEDING
Enter logon ID: █

can be like hearing the voice of a friend you've known since infant's school. Maybe that's why the messages about system switch off, presented in the same 80x25 character grid, feel like such a loss.

This is what a peaceful transfer of power looks like in a truly civilized country.

"After the Netherlands swore in its new government, the Prime Minister of fourteen years left office on a bicycle."

HT: Dutch Cycling Embassy on #LinkedIn
Video: MiesBee on #Xitter
Attn: @notjustbikes
#Bike #Cycling #CyclingLife #CommuteByBike #Fuckcars #Carfree #LowCar #Walkability #WalkableCities #SafeStreets #Democracy #Justice #Sustainability #Netherlands #TheNetherlands #HalfHeartedFanatic