Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Absolutely wild to see the degree to which AI slop-brain has taken root in some places.

A team at Microsoft rejected a documentation PR because LLMs might have trouble reading tables.

https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/WSL/pull/2021#issuecomment-2546627586

Happy January 6th to all who celebrate!

https://kolektiva.media/w/uKeMgh76zpAfroyN5eWh9S

Sometimes in debates about the usefulness of "AI" technology, people note recent examples in the news of AI being used to do amazing things, like improving cancer detection.

There's a really important distinction between AI / machine learning tools, even tools including generative AI, and the big LLMs like ChatGPT.

(1/?)

Fine weather to read a book. (It's cold, but no snow here.) https://www.gocomics.com/brian-mcfadden/2025/01/06

Be wary, be wary, on Sixth January,
for nooses, and zip-ties, and rage;
I see no reason why red-hatted treason
should ever be given a stage.

Class warfare is when there’s a limit to what poor & disabled people can earn before losing their benefits, but no limit to what billionaires can hoard while avoiding taxes.

We must reject the twisted idea that money incentivizes the rich but poverty incentivizes the poor.

I would be pointing to Robert Reich's newsletter posts regularly, but he chose to support a platform that was funded Trump-loving capitalists and is run by people who don't seem to mind helping right-wing extremists monetize their contempt for everyone else.

What a shame that someone like Reich couldn't be bothered to choose a more honorable platform for his work.

Hi all, I'm a computer engineering major (2024, embedded sys focus) looking for work as an electrical, computer, or software engineer. Currently based out of RTP, North Carolina, but able & willing to relocate as needed.

Exp with C/C++ in standard & embedded contexts, Python, HTML/CSS, and a working understanding of Bash, Rust, & Matlab. Additional exp with analog/digital circuit design, drafting schematics, PCB routing, and standard bench equipment. Can self-teach.

#getfedihired #FediHire

What is your preference about other people's Fediverse post lengths?
What is your primary mode of accessing the Fediverse?

(boosts welcome)

LinkedIn continues to be a wretched hole for finding work. Thought I'd give it another go here:

I'm a technical writer and software developer based in Berlin. I'm looking for work as a writer or developer with a company that has a legal presence in Germany (for my visa). Remote is more than fine.

I have experience writing Java professionally. I've done training in Go, Rust, and Typescript along with frontend frameworks like React, Vue, and Astro. I'll learn whatever I'm given to learn, really.

I routinely have to tell people 'I don't use WhatsApp' when they want to contact me. Few people understand that for me it's a question of principle. I *do* use Signal, which is functionally equivalent. My big question is 'how does Meta make money from WhatsApp', so I started investigating. They claim to make small amounts of revenue from charging businesses to use their API to send messages to WhatsApp users (i.e. spam). Meta also records metadata for the advertising profiles they sell... 1/2

Privacy Good News 🔒✨

People who reside in the United States in one of these states:

Delaware
Iowa
Nebraska
New Hampshire
New Jersey

Know that your state now
has a new data privacy legislation effective as of January 1st (or soon will on January 15th for New Jersey)!

I strongly encourage you to learn what your new privacy rights are, and to use them.

If you own a business collecting personal information from people based in these states, you must make sure you are compliant with these new laws if your business fits the criteria, in addition to other privacy laws you might be subjected to.

Here's some more information for each:

Delaware (Delaware Personal Data Privacy Act): https://attorneygeneral.delaware.gov/fraud/personal-data-privacy-portal/consumer/

Iowa (Iowa Consumer Data Protection Act): https://natlawreview.com/article/just-around-corner-iowas-consumer-privacy-law-taking-effect

Nebraska (Nebraska Data Privacy Act): https://protectthegoodlife.nebraska.gov/data-privacy-homepage

New Hampshire (New Hampshire Data Privacy Act): https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2024/03/12/a-guide-to-new-hampshires-new-data-privacy-rights/

New Jersey (New Jersey Data Protection Act): https://natlawreview.com/article/new-jersey-becomes-14th-state-enact-comprehensive-state-privacy-law

Know your rights, and congratulations!🔒🎉

#DigitalRights #Privacy #PrivacyLaws #USpol #Delaware #Iowa #Nebraska #NewHampshire #NewJersey

"...Machado had been pardoned for her involvement in the 2002 US-backed coup. But she was subsequently barred from running for office in 2015 for constitutionally-determined treasonous activities. Her electoral disqualification was judicially reaffirmed prior to the 2024 election. But that did not deter the US from identifying her as the next Venezuelan president."

"...it came as no surprise when the US announced before the 2024 election took place that, if Maduro were declared the winner, Washington would consider the contest illegitimate regardless of the vote count."

Funny how you never hear this part of the story in the Western press. Wonder why?
https://venezuelanalysis.com/opinion/two-people-claim-to-be-president-of-venezuela-will-us-militarily-intervene/

In the US, these are the "good guys."

https://www.timesofisrael.com/biden-administration-said-prepping-8-billion-arms-package-for-israel-including-heavy-bombs/

Jerry Lewis: You cannot polish a turd.
Stanley Kubrick: You can if you freeze it.

…and that's why we do freezes in software development.

#Programming #Software

I just made an unnerving discovery about a collision between the Mastodon and Hubzilla models for how conversation occurs.

I already knew that Hubzilla organizes everything as conversations, whereas Mastodon has treats each individual post/comment/reply as a top level thing in its own right.  Mastodon threads federated to Hubzilla show up as conversations owned by the original post in the thread.  Hubzilla conversations federated to Mastodon show up as Mastodon threads with the Hubzilla replies appearing as individual posts in the thread.

The upshot of this is that if the original post in a thread/conversation is deleted, the replies stick around on Mastodon, but (I'm pretty sure) not on Hubzilla.  That's a little unsettling on both ends, but is essentially what I would expect based on my understand of how the two platforms work.

The really unnerving thing that I discovered while I was confirming all this to myself is that this also means that if the downstream Mastodon thread of a deleted post is still active, the Hubzilla participants will not be notified of continued activity, even if they are @ tagged in the continued conversation.

So, um... watch out for that?

I guess the bottom line is that if as you as a Mastodon user have tagged me as a Hubzilla user but I don't seem to have seen your message, it might be worth sending a follow-up.  Ugh.

I was poking at a #udev regression and while I had used `udevadm test` from distro packages before I only realized today that it can also be used to easily test arbitrary udev versions by building it on the affected system and doing:

_build/udevadm test /sys/class/input/event3

to test the event run and giving about all the necessary details (if needed even with additional debugging added to the code or with breakpoints set).

No need to install anything.

#systemd

What to read this winter. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2025/1/3/2294913/-Cartoon-Winter-reading-pile