Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

If you're interested in this stuff, I highly recommend @histoftech 's "Programmed Inequality" and #nathanensmenger 's "The Computer Boys Take Over".

I genuinely believe that for those of us interested in #retrocomputing, it's important to be aware of how the field of computing got to be as amoral and unethical as it is. Retrocomputing isn't just about clever but forgotten technical ideas.

Huh, who knew? Apparently the matrix chat ecosystem has 60 million users (probably more now): https://news.itsfoss.com/matrix-sixty-million-users/

Book publishers with surging profits struggle to prove Internet Archive hurt sales - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/03/book-publishers-with-surging-profits-struggle-to-prove-internet-archive-hurt-sales/ publishers' greed reallly knows no bounds...

So ChatGPT is basically just natural language programming where you don’t know what data and algorithms you’re working with and can’t predict the exact result you’re going to get.

Sure sounds like progress to me!

🤓👍

#ChatGPT #openAI #artificialIntelligence #ai #machineLearning #ml #largeLanguageModels #llm #statisticalModels #probabilisticModels #glorifiedMatrixMultiplication

.@metpoliceuk found to be institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/21/metropolitan-police-institutionally-racist-misogynistic-homophobic-louise-casey-report no, really? gosh, I'm so surprised to learn that... #uk

Can anyone remember an amazing early #FOSS graphical tile project with quirky branding from back in the mid-2000s - I can't quite remember the name (used the tiles on my desktop with glee, as they were rich and superb in their design). The branding featured weird cut outs of JFK driving a school bus making absurd statements about how great this library was. It was quite amusing & over the top...

Every few years, I remember that https://ProjectMF.org/intro.html exists, dust off my old blue box/signaling test set, dial in, and stick it to Ma Bell like it’s 1972.

I no longer have a POTS line, so I had to use a Bluetooth-POTS simulator box with a cellphone. But it works.

Here’s a quick audio sample I just recorded: https://www.mattblaze.org/audio/ProjectMFsample.mp3

“There is nothing to prevent the Press of this or any other country from coming under the financial control of armament makers, international traffickers in drugs, wealthy men who desire the perpetuation of the slum, aliens, or the worst type of market-rigging financier… save public opinion, which is itself hamstrung by the passing of the Independent Press. And if such a Press do not emerge from behind the smoke screen and the poison… then Democracy will have the newspapers it deserves.” [1928]

Pretty sure that on NPR (WGBH) this evening when talking about the diplomatic meeting between Russia and China that the newscaster said something about relations between "the two Communist countries", and I'm so confused.

@meejah @nf3xn @micahflee

Sounds like Microsoft #EEE - Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. MS wants our phone number or other mobile device data. The instructions give no explanation of TOTP except how to choose a gui and click on it.

I guess #GiveUpGitHub may accelerate, like #BirdSiteMigration .

https://giveupgithub.org

A few months to migrate any remaining repositories to #Codeberg should be enough.

So much this: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/mar/18/people-are-boiling-their-wooden-spoons-on-tiktok-i-wont-be-joining-them

Dear devs,

It's NEVER ok to create accounts for a webapp that require an email address, unless you validate that address first.😡

Every week, I get someone signing up for some kind of site with my email address without my consent.

And most of those sites make it difficult if not nearly impossible to stop their transactional #email.

Please boost for basic education.

#webdev

As we wrote when the law allowing the requests passed, “taxpayer-funded litigation to censor information about taxpayer-compensated judges [is] probably not what the drafters of the First Amendment had in mind.” https://freedom.press/news/judges-can-now-censor-the-internet-on-the-taxpayer-dime/

It’s not just about Elon Musk. Flight tracking data has enabled important investigative journalism on topics from climate change to corporate waste to Jeffrey Epstein. https://freedom.press/news/congress-dont-let-jet-owners-cover-their-tracks-on-the-taxpayer-dime/