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silveradeptLet us begin with a reminder of things that may help you if you are neurodivergent, having low energy, or could otherwise use some tools in your belt for specific purposes: Goblin Tools.
The writer Celia Lake on the stages that a person may go through in coming to terms with and figuring out how disability, or a change in degree of disability, is impacting their lives. Which mentions important things like the fact that this is a process, and the workarounds involved are often contingent on things not changing, or not changing a lot, in the future.
Because the Olympic Games are being put on in a country with sensible socialized healthcare by an organization that believes at least nominally in the health of the participating athletes, many of the United States athletes are making sure they are up-to-date on their checkups and treatments, because the Olympic village is providing healthcare for free, rather than the expensive costs that those athletes would have to pay in the U.S. There's certainly enough wealth and money in the U.S. to pay for a proper and universal health care option for everyone, but oligarchs don't like it when you take away one of their levers of power.
Unfortunately, some of the health care that has to be sought from the athletes is treatment for SARS-CoV-2 infections, and one wonders whether that is also true for many of the spectators as well during the course of the events. There certainly weren't many people masked in the crowds, or who appeared to be trying to behave as if there were infectious diseases about.
The British Medical Association has called for the ban on puberty blockers for under-18s to be rescinded, throwing official doubt on the report that the previous Government used to justify the ban and the current Government has continued to use.
The contradictions of being a woman in a patriarchal world, as delivered by America Fererra's character in the Barbie movie. Which we set next to a refusal to participate in a debate where the question being debated is not a question, but an excuse for polemic about the definition of a woman.
An Algerian boxer won her bout quickly, and it made all the transphobes mad because the boxer didn't meet their criteria for womanhood. Their criteria for womanhood, of course, is "whatever prevents this woman from participating in the sport." The IOC adjudicated her eligible for competition, and the article notes that the organization that had disqualified her in earlier matches on dubious to poor criteria is itself not a shining beacon of fair play and has been prevented from administering Olympic boxing for years. The boxer that Imane Khelif defeated apologized for how she handled the matter in the immediate aftermath of the defeat, but her next opponent and the transphobic outrage machine have decided that a woman representing an African nation that has succeeded at her sport against a European couldn't possibly be a woman. Just like all kinds of other women who have been accused of being secret men in international sport competitions, mostly women of color. (In the piece, Katie Ledecky stands out as the sole pale-skinned woman accused of being a secret man.)
It's near the end of the opinion, but I also want to draw attention to the point made that the TERFs are trying to narrow the definition of womanhood and exclude anyone who doesn't fit an idealized version of it. That's something anyone who has watched with dismay the narrowing of the definition of masculinity to the current toxic man box will hopefully push back hard against. We've already seen this narrowing and subsequent vitriol happen once, why would anyone want to let it happen again? (Mostly for selfish, and often racist reasons, yes, I know.)
Elsewhere in Olympic women, The opinion that breaker Rachael "Raygunn" Gunn did breaking no favors by participating on the Olympic stage, which mostly have to do with "what's a white middle-aged woman who has a Ph.D in breaking doing competing on the Olympic stage?" This particular opinion takes it as a truth that because of the origins and culture of hip-hop and breaking, there's no way that any country (or anywhere) should have a white woman academic representing their breaking scene, comparing the performance to minstrel shows and claiming it as cultural appropriation. With a comparison to one of the other breakers, who unveiled wings with the message "Free Afghan Women" in it during a performance (and was disuqalified from competing further, as the IOC frowns very heavily on political messages showing up in their Games) as a truer example of what breaking (and hip-hop) are about.
In contrast, a breaker who thinks that the only thing that Raygunn didn't have was a level of skill comparable to her competitors, and the judging at the Olympics reflected that, but the vitriol that's come out to accuse her of being cringe, or to ridicule the idea that someone got a Ph.D. in breaking as nonsense woke academics is the bigger problem and the one that disrespects breaking more.
I watched the competition and saw Raygunn in action. Having no knowledge of breaking or any ability to pick up on what the commentators were talking about, what I mostly saw out of the performances was someone who knows how to speak the language, but hasn't had enough practice with those who speak it as a first language to understand how it all goes together and where the spots are that someone says "Yeah, that's right, but nobody who speaks the language would say it like that out of some very specific contexts." In other words, an academic without enough field experience. And, with the other set linked in the second opinion piece, Raygunn looks like a breaker, so maybe there were some nerves. Maybe on another day, it would flow better. Probably not enough to get out of the qualifying round-robin, but better. And it's still more breaking knowledge and experience than I have, so take anything that I say with the appropriate amount of "you know nothing about this."
The DJs for Olympic breaking were fire, though. No misses at all in bringing out the best material from all the breakers.
Elon Musk, through his political action committee, has decided to engage in voter suppression through what is nominally a portal to assist with voter registration that manages not to actually help people register, depending on whether they're in am electorally close state or not. This is also on top of Elon sharing what was a parody deepfake of Kamala Harris, but seriously and sincerely, in violation of the site he shared it on's guidelines. That it's also the site he owns tells us he's not going to be punished for it.
He's not limiting himself to the USA, either. He tried to stoke the idea that fascists and democrats would end up in an inevitable civil war for control of the UK, trying to gain and give momentum to the fascists and their movement. Including sharing a fake headline claiming protesters would be sent to detention camps in the Falkland Islands.
Fortunately for the democrats, when the anti-immigrant fash said they were going to show up, the antifa turned out in numbers to tell them to fuck off. To the point where the fash were surrounded by the police for their own safety. This same scene repeated all across the UK, where the fash were severely outnumbered or didn't bother showing up once it was clear they would be severely outnumbered. Which is pretty cool, and sent a message of welcoming to immigrants and refugees in the country, which sometimes clashes with the official positions of the last Government and probably more than a few MPs still. (It also heps that the police there are taking it seriously and arresting, prosecuting, and getting cases through the court system quickly, rather than the years-long nightmare we've had in the States about getting our own rioters and fascists through their trials and sentences.)
The most difficult part about trying to have a serious grown-up discussion about racism, immigration, and other necessary topics is that there are media moguls, grifters, and professional outrage generators who are trying to break into that conversation every time they can with loud racist things, so they can get us to watch them and derail the actual conversation. So long as so many people are getting distracted by the shouting and the rest, it's very hard to get any momentum or action in the conversations.
The current Republican candidate for president took an invitation to answer questions from black journalists as an opportunity to whine, be an inveterate racist and misogynist, and thus get the news cycle to spend time on what a racist and misogynist he was, which was his real goal. He might have also found some willing sycophants who believe in his message and will vote with whiteness, but that was likely secondary to the goal of trying to get the media spotlight to shine on him again, instead of treating him with politeness because he's a candidate for President and then going back to covering something that's worth the column inches and the airtime. The last time he ran and won, he was behaving the same way as he is now and the people who voted for him either agreed with it or had a sufficient rationalization for it that they would vote for him anyway. I doubt those two dynamics have changed, and especially not for those people who don't really care what kind of boob he is in office, so long as they get more judges, legislators, and loyalists in government to do their bidding.
The Republican candidate for Vice President believes he can score points by painting the Democratic party as controlled by "childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives," which has roused the ire of a whole lot more women that those without biological children.
On the other side, Kamala Harris selected Tim Walz, who was Governor of Minnesota at the time of the ask, to be the other half of her Democratic Presidential ticket. The selection of Walz seems to focus fairly significantly on how normal Walz is compared to the weirdness of the Republican ticket, where, at least according to someone well-versed in Minnesotan who explained it to me, "weird" is a significant insult against the overriding desire to conform and otherwise be part of the normal U.S. Midwestern fabric. Based on statements that Governor Walz has made about the attacks against him, and the other things he's been spotted doing, "normal" versus "weird" is very much the way the messaging is going to shape up for this campaign.
And speaking of the pejorative "weird," did we mention that the state of Utah has decided that the most extremist of people in the most extremist school districts get to decide what books are in Utah school libraries and classrooms. And that legislators in Alabama believe librarians and libraries are sufficiently dangerous that, even after this bill has failed before, they've already filed a bill to criminalize library practice. In the face of such obvious hostility from legislators, I can hope that Alabama librarians are taking the leeway they've been given and doing their best to speak out against those who want to criminalize them. (After all, if you're already being accused of heinous acts, you may as well let everyone know what kind of weirdos and outliers are trying to smear you in such a way, right?)
The Simpsons having a very Jewish episode, including not needing to do a lot of explaining about why it's Jewish and funny.
I am not convinced by this writer that fiction told in words has some numinous quality that no other attempt at storytelling has, but I do agree with the idea that one reads fiction not as self-improvement or to increase the store of knowledge, but because fiction gives insight into the experiences of others, often through their own perspective.
Making an excellent case for why lawyers should only ever be a barely-tolerated part of the society and as to why the Disney corporation should likely be broken up into smaller elements or disbanded entirely, Disney is fighting a lawsuit for wrongful death when a Disney restaurant served someone with things they were fatally allergic for, even after having been informed about those allergies, because they claim that someone's agreement to a Terms of Service for Disney+ and/or Disney apps means all claims with the company have to be settled through binding arbitration. Even though this claim has nothing at all to do with the apps or Disney+. And/or saying that the claims against them are invalid because the restaurant where the problem happened isn't actually a Disney thing, but an independent contractor or tenant of Disney space. Which very well might be ruled legal based on the terms and the contract that was supposedly agreed to, but if that's the case, I feel like there should be someone saying, whether in the judiciary or in some other way, that such behavior is clearly not intended and therefore Disney should be punished in some other way for trying to weasel out of responsibility.
Rising ocean temperatures is not just worrisome for the ability to generate more powerful storms, but also that it gives a particularly necrotic bacterium more range to work with. And warmer temperatures combined with greater humidity means less ability of humans and other sweating creatures to thermoregulate.
The original history and usage of menopause was in service of continuing to pathologize women's health and decisions, and since then, has advanced a little bit past that, with the advent of women actually getting to join the ranks of the doctors.
Making things from childhood, but in sizes that match how big they feel those items were. A person coming forward to say where two axe heads that were delivered to a museum were found.
A reconstruction and portrait of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. a ride from one end of a Bay Area Rapid Transit train line to the other, with commentary and seeing the parts of the route that passengers may or may not see.
In technology, Testing out an automated driver assist system that will be useful in stop-and-go traffic under a certain speed limit, building already on cruise systems that use rangefinding and cameras to ensure the car stays in the correct lane and has a useful following distance. To pass into greater use, or toward even more automation, though, will have a steep climb in having to prove to appropriately skeptical regulators and professors that self-driving vehicles are sufficiently safe to be on the road with human drivers.
Remember the name and role of Lousie Webster, since she was part of those who discovered the first black hole.
The presence of public privies in earlier eras, usually taking advantage of the rivers and bridges above them for where they should be placed and maintained.
Analyzing spam sent to a search appliance to find a way of rejecting things that are likely spam instead of having the search appliance run the actual query. Saves time and processing if you can reject likely spam immediately.
Making AM/FM and other radio antennas more compact by coiling the antennae, so that they no longer interfere with the image the car designer wants to project about the car. Which gets put next to a request to have modern cell phones return to getting FM radio access, as FM can be very useful during disasters.
NASA is considering changes to a planned mission to the International Space Station because the previous crew's vehicle, a Boeing Starliner, has not proven itself sufficiently error-free to be trusted to bring that crew back to Earth.
An appeal made on a conviction that alleges the defense lawyers used an LLM to build a closing argument and that computer confused things so that the closing argument was not an effective defense. There was also an allegation that the lawyers representing the defendant had a financial interest in the software that generated the bad argument (as well as the lack of diligence from the lawyers to actually review such a generated statement for accuracy.)
Delta has threatened to sue Microsoft and CrowdStrike for their software failures, and Microsoft and CrowdStrike, in response, are blaming Delta's lack of modernized IT and their refusal to take offered help as the reasons why they took so much longer to get their systems back online after the bad CrowdStrike update.
Not that the other entities are blameless. CrowdStrike tried to weaponize the DMCA and sent a takedown notice to a clear parody site Clownstrike, and Cloudflare assisted them by continuing to forward on takedown notices without acknowledging or forwarding on the counter-notices the ClownStrike site operator sent in response. Cloudstrike claimed never to have received either counter-notice sent, and the parody site moved hosting to somewhere that isn't affected by the DMCA. In addition to the fair use for parody claims, the ClownStrike creator says that Cloudflare needs to have a better appeals process and to actually look at what's being sent to them before deciding to forward them on, so they can spot weaponized takedown requests and refuse them as the bullshit they are. (To do so, of course, would mean putting their own business and profits at risk, and so it will never happen and they will only forward on everything, no matter how specious, and claim not to have received things that should have clear and obvious pathways to go through.
Microsoft will soon start enabling full encryption on new installs of Windows 11 and backing up the decryption key to their cloud if a Microsoft account is used during the install.
Preserving the personal or more amateur designs of websites is important, because those designs show things about their creators that corporatized and stock-templated sites do not.
Last for tonight, Google has been declared in violation of antitrust laws regarding the ways that it spent significant amounts of money on being the exclusive or default search engine in several devices and pieces of software. This should be interesting to see how Google has to change to avoid staying in the monopolist's position.
And try to get and keep fresh air in all of your spaces, even if you are at a workplace that believes SARS-CoV-2 is no longer an issue. There's still stagnant air causing problems for attention and our best work.
(Materials viaadrian_turtle, azurelunatic, boxofdelights, cmcmck, conuly, cosmolinguist, elf, finch, firecat, jadelennox, jenett, jjhunter, kaberett, lilysea, oursin, rydra_wong, snowynight, sonia, the_future_modernes, thewayne, umadoshi, vass, the ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
meta_warehouse community, little_details, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)
The writer Celia Lake on the stages that a person may go through in coming to terms with and figuring out how disability, or a change in degree of disability, is impacting their lives. Which mentions important things like the fact that this is a process, and the workarounds involved are often contingent on things not changing, or not changing a lot, in the future.
Because the Olympic Games are being put on in a country with sensible socialized healthcare by an organization that believes at least nominally in the health of the participating athletes, many of the United States athletes are making sure they are up-to-date on their checkups and treatments, because the Olympic village is providing healthcare for free, rather than the expensive costs that those athletes would have to pay in the U.S. There's certainly enough wealth and money in the U.S. to pay for a proper and universal health care option for everyone, but oligarchs don't like it when you take away one of their levers of power.
Unfortunately, some of the health care that has to be sought from the athletes is treatment for SARS-CoV-2 infections, and one wonders whether that is also true for many of the spectators as well during the course of the events. There certainly weren't many people masked in the crowds, or who appeared to be trying to behave as if there were infectious diseases about.
The British Medical Association has called for the ban on puberty blockers for under-18s to be rescinded, throwing official doubt on the report that the previous Government used to justify the ban and the current Government has continued to use.
The contradictions of being a woman in a patriarchal world, as delivered by America Fererra's character in the Barbie movie. Which we set next to a refusal to participate in a debate where the question being debated is not a question, but an excuse for polemic about the definition of a woman.
An Algerian boxer won her bout quickly, and it made all the transphobes mad because the boxer didn't meet their criteria for womanhood. Their criteria for womanhood, of course, is "whatever prevents this woman from participating in the sport." The IOC adjudicated her eligible for competition, and the article notes that the organization that had disqualified her in earlier matches on dubious to poor criteria is itself not a shining beacon of fair play and has been prevented from administering Olympic boxing for years. The boxer that Imane Khelif defeated apologized for how she handled the matter in the immediate aftermath of the defeat, but her next opponent and the transphobic outrage machine have decided that a woman representing an African nation that has succeeded at her sport against a European couldn't possibly be a woman. Just like all kinds of other women who have been accused of being secret men in international sport competitions, mostly women of color. (In the piece, Katie Ledecky stands out as the sole pale-skinned woman accused of being a secret man.)
It's near the end of the opinion, but I also want to draw attention to the point made that the TERFs are trying to narrow the definition of womanhood and exclude anyone who doesn't fit an idealized version of it. That's something anyone who has watched with dismay the narrowing of the definition of masculinity to the current toxic man box will hopefully push back hard against. We've already seen this narrowing and subsequent vitriol happen once, why would anyone want to let it happen again? (Mostly for selfish, and often racist reasons, yes, I know.)
Elsewhere in Olympic women, The opinion that breaker Rachael "Raygunn" Gunn did breaking no favors by participating on the Olympic stage, which mostly have to do with "what's a white middle-aged woman who has a Ph.D in breaking doing competing on the Olympic stage?" This particular opinion takes it as a truth that because of the origins and culture of hip-hop and breaking, there's no way that any country (or anywhere) should have a white woman academic representing their breaking scene, comparing the performance to minstrel shows and claiming it as cultural appropriation. With a comparison to one of the other breakers, who unveiled wings with the message "Free Afghan Women" in it during a performance (and was disuqalified from competing further, as the IOC frowns very heavily on political messages showing up in their Games) as a truer example of what breaking (and hip-hop) are about.
In contrast, a breaker who thinks that the only thing that Raygunn didn't have was a level of skill comparable to her competitors, and the judging at the Olympics reflected that, but the vitriol that's come out to accuse her of being cringe, or to ridicule the idea that someone got a Ph.D. in breaking as nonsense woke academics is the bigger problem and the one that disrespects breaking more.
I watched the competition and saw Raygunn in action. Having no knowledge of breaking or any ability to pick up on what the commentators were talking about, what I mostly saw out of the performances was someone who knows how to speak the language, but hasn't had enough practice with those who speak it as a first language to understand how it all goes together and where the spots are that someone says "Yeah, that's right, but nobody who speaks the language would say it like that out of some very specific contexts." In other words, an academic without enough field experience. And, with the other set linked in the second opinion piece, Raygunn looks like a breaker, so maybe there were some nerves. Maybe on another day, it would flow better. Probably not enough to get out of the qualifying round-robin, but better. And it's still more breaking knowledge and experience than I have, so take anything that I say with the appropriate amount of "you know nothing about this."
The DJs for Olympic breaking were fire, though. No misses at all in bringing out the best material from all the breakers.
Elon Musk, through his political action committee, has decided to engage in voter suppression through what is nominally a portal to assist with voter registration that manages not to actually help people register, depending on whether they're in am electorally close state or not. This is also on top of Elon sharing what was a parody deepfake of Kamala Harris, but seriously and sincerely, in violation of the site he shared it on's guidelines. That it's also the site he owns tells us he's not going to be punished for it.
He's not limiting himself to the USA, either. He tried to stoke the idea that fascists and democrats would end up in an inevitable civil war for control of the UK, trying to gain and give momentum to the fascists and their movement. Including sharing a fake headline claiming protesters would be sent to detention camps in the Falkland Islands.
Fortunately for the democrats, when the anti-immigrant fash said they were going to show up, the antifa turned out in numbers to tell them to fuck off. To the point where the fash were surrounded by the police for their own safety. This same scene repeated all across the UK, where the fash were severely outnumbered or didn't bother showing up once it was clear they would be severely outnumbered. Which is pretty cool, and sent a message of welcoming to immigrants and refugees in the country, which sometimes clashes with the official positions of the last Government and probably more than a few MPs still. (It also heps that the police there are taking it seriously and arresting, prosecuting, and getting cases through the court system quickly, rather than the years-long nightmare we've had in the States about getting our own rioters and fascists through their trials and sentences.)
The most difficult part about trying to have a serious grown-up discussion about racism, immigration, and other necessary topics is that there are media moguls, grifters, and professional outrage generators who are trying to break into that conversation every time they can with loud racist things, so they can get us to watch them and derail the actual conversation. So long as so many people are getting distracted by the shouting and the rest, it's very hard to get any momentum or action in the conversations.
The current Republican candidate for president took an invitation to answer questions from black journalists as an opportunity to whine, be an inveterate racist and misogynist, and thus get the news cycle to spend time on what a racist and misogynist he was, which was his real goal. He might have also found some willing sycophants who believe in his message and will vote with whiteness, but that was likely secondary to the goal of trying to get the media spotlight to shine on him again, instead of treating him with politeness because he's a candidate for President and then going back to covering something that's worth the column inches and the airtime. The last time he ran and won, he was behaving the same way as he is now and the people who voted for him either agreed with it or had a sufficient rationalization for it that they would vote for him anyway. I doubt those two dynamics have changed, and especially not for those people who don't really care what kind of boob he is in office, so long as they get more judges, legislators, and loyalists in government to do their bidding.
The Republican candidate for Vice President believes he can score points by painting the Democratic party as controlled by "childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives," which has roused the ire of a whole lot more women that those without biological children.
On the other side, Kamala Harris selected Tim Walz, who was Governor of Minnesota at the time of the ask, to be the other half of her Democratic Presidential ticket. The selection of Walz seems to focus fairly significantly on how normal Walz is compared to the weirdness of the Republican ticket, where, at least according to someone well-versed in Minnesotan who explained it to me, "weird" is a significant insult against the overriding desire to conform and otherwise be part of the normal U.S. Midwestern fabric. Based on statements that Governor Walz has made about the attacks against him, and the other things he's been spotted doing, "normal" versus "weird" is very much the way the messaging is going to shape up for this campaign.
And speaking of the pejorative "weird," did we mention that the state of Utah has decided that the most extremist of people in the most extremist school districts get to decide what books are in Utah school libraries and classrooms. And that legislators in Alabama believe librarians and libraries are sufficiently dangerous that, even after this bill has failed before, they've already filed a bill to criminalize library practice. In the face of such obvious hostility from legislators, I can hope that Alabama librarians are taking the leeway they've been given and doing their best to speak out against those who want to criminalize them. (After all, if you're already being accused of heinous acts, you may as well let everyone know what kind of weirdos and outliers are trying to smear you in such a way, right?)
The Simpsons having a very Jewish episode, including not needing to do a lot of explaining about why it's Jewish and funny.
I am not convinced by this writer that fiction told in words has some numinous quality that no other attempt at storytelling has, but I do agree with the idea that one reads fiction not as self-improvement or to increase the store of knowledge, but because fiction gives insight into the experiences of others, often through their own perspective.
Making an excellent case for why lawyers should only ever be a barely-tolerated part of the society and as to why the Disney corporation should likely be broken up into smaller elements or disbanded entirely, Disney is fighting a lawsuit for wrongful death when a Disney restaurant served someone with things they were fatally allergic for, even after having been informed about those allergies, because they claim that someone's agreement to a Terms of Service for Disney+ and/or Disney apps means all claims with the company have to be settled through binding arbitration. Even though this claim has nothing at all to do with the apps or Disney+. And/or saying that the claims against them are invalid because the restaurant where the problem happened isn't actually a Disney thing, but an independent contractor or tenant of Disney space. Which very well might be ruled legal based on the terms and the contract that was supposedly agreed to, but if that's the case, I feel like there should be someone saying, whether in the judiciary or in some other way, that such behavior is clearly not intended and therefore Disney should be punished in some other way for trying to weasel out of responsibility.
Rising ocean temperatures is not just worrisome for the ability to generate more powerful storms, but also that it gives a particularly necrotic bacterium more range to work with. And warmer temperatures combined with greater humidity means less ability of humans and other sweating creatures to thermoregulate.
The original history and usage of menopause was in service of continuing to pathologize women's health and decisions, and since then, has advanced a little bit past that, with the advent of women actually getting to join the ranks of the doctors.
Making things from childhood, but in sizes that match how big they feel those items were. A person coming forward to say where two axe heads that were delivered to a museum were found.
A reconstruction and portrait of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. a ride from one end of a Bay Area Rapid Transit train line to the other, with commentary and seeing the parts of the route that passengers may or may not see.
In technology, Testing out an automated driver assist system that will be useful in stop-and-go traffic under a certain speed limit, building already on cruise systems that use rangefinding and cameras to ensure the car stays in the correct lane and has a useful following distance. To pass into greater use, or toward even more automation, though, will have a steep climb in having to prove to appropriately skeptical regulators and professors that self-driving vehicles are sufficiently safe to be on the road with human drivers.
Remember the name and role of Lousie Webster, since she was part of those who discovered the first black hole.
The presence of public privies in earlier eras, usually taking advantage of the rivers and bridges above them for where they should be placed and maintained.
Analyzing spam sent to a search appliance to find a way of rejecting things that are likely spam instead of having the search appliance run the actual query. Saves time and processing if you can reject likely spam immediately.
Making AM/FM and other radio antennas more compact by coiling the antennae, so that they no longer interfere with the image the car designer wants to project about the car. Which gets put next to a request to have modern cell phones return to getting FM radio access, as FM can be very useful during disasters.
NASA is considering changes to a planned mission to the International Space Station because the previous crew's vehicle, a Boeing Starliner, has not proven itself sufficiently error-free to be trusted to bring that crew back to Earth.
An appeal made on a conviction that alleges the defense lawyers used an LLM to build a closing argument and that computer confused things so that the closing argument was not an effective defense. There was also an allegation that the lawyers representing the defendant had a financial interest in the software that generated the bad argument (as well as the lack of diligence from the lawyers to actually review such a generated statement for accuracy.)
Delta has threatened to sue Microsoft and CrowdStrike for their software failures, and Microsoft and CrowdStrike, in response, are blaming Delta's lack of modernized IT and their refusal to take offered help as the reasons why they took so much longer to get their systems back online after the bad CrowdStrike update.
Not that the other entities are blameless. CrowdStrike tried to weaponize the DMCA and sent a takedown notice to a clear parody site Clownstrike, and Cloudflare assisted them by continuing to forward on takedown notices without acknowledging or forwarding on the counter-notices the ClownStrike site operator sent in response. Cloudstrike claimed never to have received either counter-notice sent, and the parody site moved hosting to somewhere that isn't affected by the DMCA. In addition to the fair use for parody claims, the ClownStrike creator says that Cloudflare needs to have a better appeals process and to actually look at what's being sent to them before deciding to forward them on, so they can spot weaponized takedown requests and refuse them as the bullshit they are. (To do so, of course, would mean putting their own business and profits at risk, and so it will never happen and they will only forward on everything, no matter how specious, and claim not to have received things that should have clear and obvious pathways to go through.
Microsoft will soon start enabling full encryption on new installs of Windows 11 and backing up the decryption key to their cloud if a Microsoft account is used during the install.
Preserving the personal or more amateur designs of websites is important, because those designs show things about their creators that corporatized and stock-templated sites do not.
Last for tonight, Google has been declared in violation of antitrust laws regarding the ways that it spent significant amounts of money on being the exclusive or default search engine in several devices and pieces of software. This should be interesting to see how Google has to change to avoid staying in the monopolist's position.
And try to get and keep fresh air in all of your spaces, even if you are at a workplace that believes SARS-CoV-2 is no longer an issue. There's still stagnant air causing problems for attention and our best work.
(Materials via
adrian_turtle, azurelunatic, boxofdelights, cmcmck, conuly, cosmolinguist, elf, finch, firecat, jadelennox, jenett, jjhunter, kaberett, lilysea, oursin, rydra_wong, snowynight, sonia, the_future_modernes, thewayne, umadoshi, vass, the meta_warehouse community, little_details, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)
no subject
Date: 2024-08-18 12:10 am (UTC)A fine British tradition, telling the fash to fuck off by outnumbering them immensely.
After the 2014 Worldcon in London, I spent some extra time in the city before going to Dublin for the Eurocon (which was well run enough to get me to support the 2019 Dublin Worldcon bid). To get from London to Dublin I flew out of London City Airport, and to avoid needing to switch trains I walked to Shadwell rather than the slightly nearer DLR stop at Tower Gateway to get to LCY.
On my walk I passed by the Cable Street Mural, commemorating the 1936 Battle of Cable Street for which Wikipedia lists three participating parties:
"The Police attempts to take and remove the barricades were resisted in hand-to-hand fighting and also by missiles, including rubbish, rotten vegetables and the contents of chamber pots thrown at the police by women in houses along the street."
(I gave a friendly salute-wave to the mural, with a silent "fuck yeah".)
no subject
Date: 2024-08-18 03:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-18 04:56 pm (UTC)The thing that I find remarkable is that the Estate of [deceased doctor] that the man is suing Disney on behalf of did not exist at the time he did a trial subscription to Disney+, the estate came into existence when she died! Is Disney trying to argue that once you agree to a TOS, it binds forever and ever, amen, even to entities that did not exist at the time?
FM in cell phones would be cool. However, relying on it is an iffy proposition as FM propagation is largely limited to line of sight whereas AM is a ground wave and will easily skip off the ionosphere and ignore LOS problems. But at the same time, as people increasingly switch to BEVs, those cars generate a huge amount of radio interference and usually don't come equipped with AM radios as it's very hard to filter out said RFI. This is part of the reason why car makers are petitioning Congress to relieve them of having to provide AM radio in future cars as it'll be largely worthless. The only people who largely use AM radio these days are religious broadcasters, political extremists, and sports broadcasting, and FM repeaters.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-18 05:52 pm (UTC)I suspect Disney is arguing for whatever well get them out of having to pay up, and they're probably confident they can argue against that when they need to in the future and still win. If it creates ridiculous precedents or makes mockery of the law, they don't care, because they have money to make sure it applies when they benefit and it doesn't when it doesn't.
AM radio is not as populated as it used to be, no. And FM signals blanket a lot of places on the planet already. If there were sufficient disaster that AM became a viable broadcast means again, we have probably also lost cell towers, and therefore whether the phone has an FM radio in it is pretty moot.