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angusm

@angusm@mastodon.social

I play with words, cameras & computers

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osma , to Random stuff
@osma@mas.to avatar

US Air Force is buying add-on seekers designed to give JDAM-ER glide bombs supplied to Ukraine the ability to zero in on GPS jammers. This would turn one of the weapons most impacted by this countermeasure into one used to directly attack it.

https://www.twz.com/air/jdam-er-winged-bombs-with-seekers-that-home-in-on-gps-jammers-headed-to-ukraine

angusm ,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@osma The reports I've seen suggest that the Russian GPS jammers (or at least the most powerful ones that have been disrupting air and sea traffic) are operating from fairly deep inside Russia (plus Kaliningrad). Maybe they have more local ones for battlefield use, but hitting any of the ones that have been making the news would be (a) more challenging, and (b) a significant escalation.

pzmyers , to Random stuff
@pzmyers@octodon.social avatar

Worst retirement plan ever.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/05/03/ad-agencies-should-watch-star-trek/

angusm ,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@pzmyers “We make Medicare simple.”

“He’s dead, Jim.”

“OK, can’t get much simpler than that. Moving right along now …”

angusm , to Random stuff
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

This excellent article by @molly0xfff reminded me of the sci-fi trope where everyone in the future lives in a domed bunker & gets told not to go outside because it's a wasteland filled with Bad People.

Of course the protagonists leave the dome & find that the reality is a bit different: outside can be scary, but it's not the hellscape they were told.

Big Tech walled gardens are the dome; outside them is a risky wonderland that’s ours for the taking.

Leave the dome.

https://www.citationneeded.news/we-can-have-a-different-web/

cstross , to Random stuff
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Only plain fabric is allowed in this chruch, obviously.
https://unfufadoo.net/@english/112359529662303787

angusm ,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@cstross @english And don't even get me started about the muslins.

cstross , to Random stuff
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Welp, looks like the next global pandemic just dropped: https://www.etvbharat.com/en/!state/jharkhand-two-doctors-six-others-quarantined-amid-bird-flu-outbreak-in-ranchi-enn24042801155

angusm ,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@cstross It's not as if we haven't known “grinding up dead animals and feeding them to other animals” is a bad idea for, oh, four decades at least. I still can't give blood in the US because I lived in the UK during the Mad Cow years. But, naturally, agribusiness never wanted to learn that lesson because, hey, what else are we going to do with all these dead chickens?

New industry rule: before you can feed it to the livestock, you have to feed it to the CEO. That should take care of the issue.

angusm , to Random stuff
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

Looking forward to reading this.

A fake book cover. The title of the book is “Essential Pet Care”, written in large white type on a red background. The author’s name is given as Kristi Noel, and below that appears a photograph of a handgun. Blue text elsewhere on the cover reads “How to Take a Firm Line with Problem Pets … and People!” and “Embracing the challenges of pet ownership by applying the principles of compassionate conservatism.” A small text at the foot of the cover reads “Governor Noem’s no-nonsense hands-on tips will resonate with anyone who’s ever been faced by animals -- or humans -- that just will not do as they are told.” and is attributed to “Wall Street Journal”. A black circle at lower right contains the words “With a foreword by Mitt Romney” in white text.
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    angusm , to Cats
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    Two cats of Place Lahdim, Meknès, Morocco, who stopped by our table to inform us that there is a 10% tax on all food items purchased, payable immediately to the official representatives of the El-Hedim Square Cat Union. Seemed like a shakedown, but what can you do?

    angusm , to Random stuff
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    If you can't log in to your Workspace administrator account, you can't message Support about it because you have to be logged into your account to use their contact form.

    Luckily, I eventually found another way to message Google Support, and today they got back to me.

    They told me that they don't handle that issue, and sent me a link to a contact form.

    It's the one I can't use because I can't log in to my administrator account.

    Google's parent company, Alphabet, is worth $2tn today.

    GossiTheDog , to Random stuff
    @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

    My Mastodon server, cyberplace.social, has received a legal threat in an attempt to have a user's thread deleted. It is styled as a cease and desist.

    I have published the email here:
    https://github.com/GossiTheDog/Cyberplace/blob/main/LegalThreats/Cease%20and%20Desist%20Order%20-%20Felix%20Juhl

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @GossiTheDog Streisand Effect intensifies …

    angusm , to Random stuff
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    INTERIOR, CLARION UCSD WRITER’S WORKSHOP, 2013

    Karen Joy Fowler: Cory told me that you, and I quote, "knocked it out of the park" last week.

    Me: (flustered) Uh … I … well, I, uh, wrote a story I thought he might like. As I did with Bob … I mean, I don't TAILOR my stories to each instructor but–

    KJF: –but you thought @KellyLink and I would enjoy a story about eating children?

    Me: Uh …

    Anyway, the story that @pluralistic liked is in ParSec today:

    https://angus.pw/writing/ghost-shift/

    angusm OP ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @cstross @KellyLink @pluralistic Has ... has your agent MET any of your readers?

    arstechnica , to Random stuff
    @arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar

    You can now buy a flame-throwing robot dog for under $10,000

    Thermonator, the first "flamethrower-wielding robot dog," is completely legal in 48 US states.

    https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/you-can-now-buy-a-flame-throwing-robot-dog-for-under-10000/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @arstechnica “The dog incinerated my homework.”

    angusm , to Microsoft Windows
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    I thought that omnipresent "AI" was the thing I least wanted in my operating system, but it turns out that I was wrong.

    The thing I least want in my operating system is third-party advertising injected into core parts of the UI.

    Fortunately, thanks to Microsoft, I don't have to choose -- I can have both.

    -- it's not just for the Web any more!


    https://mastodon.social/@verge/112325768078195117

    pzmyers , to Random stuff
    @pzmyers@octodon.social avatar

    Why did no writers stand up and scream that the Rebel Moon story is execrable shit and that no one should spend millions turning it into a movie?

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/04/22/i-am-stumped-by-the-logistics/

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @pzmyers Perhaps the words “… directed by Zack Snyder from a screenplay he co-wrote … based on a story by Snyder” will help explain this deep mystery.

    There was no pushback from writers b/c there were no writers involved except Snyder and two people he presumably paid to do the nuts-and-bolts work, and who weren’t about to jeopardize their paychecks by telling The Boss how much the whole thing stank.

    And I doubt Netflix execs solicit opinions from other writers before opening their checkbooks.

    molly0xfff , (edited ) to Random stuff
    @molly0xfff@hachyderm.io avatar

    was briefly baffled by this CAPTCHA until i realized it was asking me to identify the animal that was bigger than the other animals in the picture, not the animal that, in real life, is bigger than roughly 1cm

    we are rapidly approaching the point at which CAPTCHAs clever enough to keep the bots out are too confusing for the humans

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @molly0xfff Maybe it’s just me, but I feel we passed that point several years ago.

    scalzi , to Random stuff
    @scalzi@mastodon.social avatar

    People are buying this stock not as a solid investment but as a symbol of allegiance, which is cult thinking. The stock is massively overvalued and these small retail investors are going to end up taking a bath that they can't afford to take. They're going to lose their retirements, all for a man who would loathe them individually and to whom their only value is the money they can give them. They're not even being (actively) defrauded. They're doing it to themselves.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/04/14/truth-social-investors-faith-trump/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzEzMTUzNjAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzE0NTM1OTk5LCJpYXQiOjE3MTMxNTM2MDAsImp0aSI6IjA1ZDM5NTcwLTFmZWUtNDM1MC05MTNiLWNhYjRkOWY2YmI3ZSIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS90ZWNobm9sb2d5LzIwMjQvMDQvMTQvdHJ1dGgtc29jaWFsLWludmVzdG9ycy1mYWl0aC10cnVtcC8ifQ.NYOGXlrMhaG0zFW-9kwpWcjCV2_1gTWnqKaPObVb6b4

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @scalzi An Italian friend once said “I know I ought to feel bad for the Albanians -- but how much sympathy can you really have for a nation that lost all its wealth in a pyramid scheme?”

    (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_schemes_in_Albania)

    There comes a point where any compassion you feel for Donald Trump's marks must be tempered by the fact that (a) the scam is glaringly obvious, and (b) they are investing their money as a gesture of their unhesitating support for a man who is purely hateful.

    angusm , to Random stuff
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    I’m not saying that I’m easily distracted, but I owe my entire career to the fact that smartphones and the Web weren’t invented when I was in college.

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    Today's threads (a thread)

    Inside: Too big to care; and more!

    Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/

    1/

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @jarek @lori @omegaprobe @pluralistic Interesting.

    Might mean that I have to let the Ahrefs crawler back into my sites again, as it seems to be used to power the Yep search engine, which looks quite good.

    It's past time that we figured out a way to do an end-run around Google: they've just become too predatory and too useless. That's a bad combo.

    angusm , to Random stuff
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    Remember: we live in a world where the people buying $400 gold sneakers from a known con-man probably consider themselves smarter than the people who just reconfigured a malfunctioning spacecraft twenty-two light hours away over a 40 bps communication channel.

    angusm , to Random stuff
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    "From the men of property, the orders came
    They sent their hired men and troopers
    To wipe out the Diggers' claim,
    Tear down their cottages, destroy their corn.
    They were dispersed
    But still their vision lingers on.”
    -- "The World Turned Upside Down", Leon Rosselson

    (cc: @pluralistic)
    https://mastodon.social/@workingclasshistory/112196127101433030

    oscarfalcon , to Random stuff
    @oscarfalcon@mastodon.social avatar

    @pluralistic It seems we can't have nice things after all: the people at Serif who make Affinity Photo just sold-out to Canva and though they are praising the deal TODAY, I feel imminent Enshittification coming soon.

    Bummer!

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @oscarfalcon @pluralistic All the Affinity apps on iOS have just had updates for “Compatibility and stability improvements”, which probably means no more than what it says but the timing feels ominous.

    Interestingly, Serif and Canva seem aware of people’s misgivings and are trying to address (some of) them:

    https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/press/newsroom/affinity-and-canva-pledge/

    dangillmor , to Random stuff
    @dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

    Two state attorneys general are plainly running interference for Musk and his increasingly extremist-coddling deadbirdsite. They're deploying state power against a journalism organization -- one of the few -- that takes on right-wing media and lousy work in Big Journalism.

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/missouri-ag-sues-media-matters-in-lawsuit-echoing-elon-musks-complaints/

    This is incredibly dangerous to freedom of expression.

    Given journalists' myopic continued presence on Musk's site, it seems they don't care.

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @dangillmor Leaving aside the free speech aspect, when the authorities start doing special favors for selected private businesses on ideological grounds, we’ve moved beyond mere regulatory capture. It's United Fruit Company-level stuff.

    angusm , to Random stuff
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    My partner couldn’t make it to tonight’s @pluralistic event because she’s busy getting her home connected to a public-access community-run mesh WiFi network which has to be about the most Cory Doctorow reason for missing a Cory Doctorow event ever.

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    The foundational tenet of "the Cult of Mac" is that buying products from a $3t company makes you a member of an oppressed ethnic minority and therefore every criticism of that corporation is an ethnic slur:

    https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

    --

    If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

    https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/22/reality-distortion-field/#three-trillion-here-three-trillion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

    1/

    An early 20th century trustbusting cartoon from Punch depicting the Standard Oil company as a world-girding, fanged octopus, its tentacles gripping the US Capitol, a generic statehouse, the White House, and a cluster of screaming, tuxedoed politicians. The Apple 'Think Different' wordmark has been placed in the background above the octopus. The top of the octopus's head bears an original Apple '6-color' logo.
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    • angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @CptSuperlative @pluralistic Jobs’ one redeeming quality was that he could change his mind if given new information.

    A friend who worked for Apple told a story about running across Jobs as he was reviewing a full-scale mock-up for a new Apple Store. Jobs HATED the design, & said so loudly & at length.

    When he finally stopped ranting, the team lead said “If you'll allow me, Steve, I think it looks better with the lights on” & flipped the switch.

    Jobs blinked & said "Well, fuck me. So it does.”

    lowqualityfacts , to Random stuff
    @lowqualityfacts@mstdn.social avatar

    Mastodon now officially has over 15 million users!

    To put this in perspective, Dallas, Texas has a population of 1,304,379 people. This means that there are 200,000 more users on Mastodon than there are human toes in Dallas. Incredible.

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @lowqualityfacts This looks like a Quality Fact to me. Are you losing sight of your core mission?

    nixCraft , to Random stuff
    @nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar

    The Dead Internet theory feels closer to reality with each passing day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory

    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The dead Internet theory is an online conspiracy theory that asserts that the Internet now consists mainly of bot activity and automatically generated content that is manipulated by algorithmic curation, marginalizing organic human activity.[1][2][3][4][5] Proponents of the theory believe these bots are created intentionally to help manipulate algorithms and boost search results in order to ultimately manipulate consumers.[5][6] Furthermore, some
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    • + pluralistic
    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @nixCraft If they hadn't nailed it to its perch, it'd be pushing up the daisies.

    angusm , to Random stuff
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    Things that aren't election interference according to Donald Trump:

    • organizing a mob to disrupt official processing of the vote
    • calling state officials asking them to "find" votes for you
    • organizing slates of fake electors to vote in your favor
    • spreading falsehoods about election procedures and results

    Things that ARE election interference:

    • trying to prosecute someone for doing all of the above
    pluralistic , to Random stuff
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    According to "the greater internet fuckwad theory," the ills of the internet can be traced to anonymity:

    > Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad

    https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/greater-internet-fuckwad-theory

    --

    If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

    https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/04/greater-corporate-fuckward-theory/#counterintuit-ive

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    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @pluralistic I've always been fond of Penny Arcade's “Green Blackboards (and Other Anomalies)”, the origin of GIFT, even if it is wrong.

    Maybe what's at issue isn't anonymity, but unpunchability, for want of a better word. (Some) people who are insulated from the consequences of their speech or actions are emboldened to act in anti-social ways. Anonymity can be one source of insulation, but there are many others (e.g. money, power). If you never have to Find Out, you will Fuck Around forever.

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    Sunrise en route to Long Beach

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @pluralistic Well, screw that. I’m definitely not going to do any crimes just for “exposure”. That’s no way to make a living.

    molly0xfff , to Random stuff
    @molly0xfff@hachyderm.io avatar

    so infuriating. open source maintainers have a hard enough time without random people shitting up their repos trying to score crypto tokens.

    https://hachyderm.io/@web3isgreat@indieweb.social/112003997836479406

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @molly0xfff I’m thinking of having “remove me from your AI generated shitshow” printed on a T-shirt.

    I think that phrase will be increasingly applicable in an ever wider range of situations over the next few years.

    pluralistic , (edited ) to Random stuff
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    My next novel is The Bezzle, a high-tech ice-cold revenge thriller starring Marty Hench, a two-fisted forensic accountant, taking on the sleaziest scams of the first decades of the 2000s, from hamburger-themed Ponzis to the unbelievably sleazy and evil prison-tech industry:

    https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

    If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

    https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/16/narrative-capitalism/#bezzle-tour

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    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @adriano @LiberalEd @pluralistic

    Freakishly Large Online Platforms

    angusm , to News from fediverse
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    When you toot a link, every instance that sees the toot hits the website, pulling the page & any linked OpenGraph image.

    As the Fediverse grows, the number of requests increases. Eventually, it may grow so large as to crush smaller servers. There's also the risk of a DDoS amplification attack: post a stream of toots all linking to different pages on a site & watch the entire Fediverse hammer the site continuously.

    Maybe we need some kind of hierarchical caching before that happens?

    angusm , to Random stuff
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    Late correction:

    When I recently wrote that the American right “displays a boundless appetite for tonguing the sweaty ass-crack of the despots of the world” this was an unfortunate error introduced by autocorrect.

    It should, of course, have read “engages with foreign heads of state from a position of mutual respect.”

    We apologize to our readers for the error.

    angusm , to Random stuff
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    WOPR [“WarGames” (1983)]: “A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.”

    OpenAI GPT-4 [2023]: “Yee-haw! Nuke ‘em till they glow!”

    https://www.newscientist.com/article/2415488-ai-chatbots-tend-to-choose-violence-and-nuclear-strikes-in-wargames/

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    Ugh. I'm generally happy with roaming on , but its German MVNO partner is blocking port 995, so I can't access my mail server, and tech support is like, "If you want to report a mail problem, you must initiate a chat request from that email address." I'm stuck in circles - obviously I can't login to the Google Fi app with a non-Google address, and this isn't an email problem, it's a connectivity problem. ALL outbounds on 995 are blocked, not just to my server.

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @pluralistic What the actual ... ?

    Googling "port 995 abuse" produces a magnificent total of 0 results, so it's difficult to see what threat case they're actually defending against. Are they worried that people might … read their own email? Gotta stamp that shit out, fast.

    cstross , to Random stuff
    @cstross@wandering.shop avatar

    "Brake fluid by HP's printer division."

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @cstross “I try not to use the brakes. I’m saving the brake fluid I have left in case I ever REALLY need to stop in a hurry.”

    cstross , to Random stuff
    @cstross@wandering.shop avatar

    Trolley problem solution:

    I think we should find out who keeps tying victims to the tracks, and next time they try it, we should free the victims and tie them up in their place. It's only fair!

    SPOILER: the serial killer will probably turn out to be an SUV salesman, trying to discredit safe, cheap public transport.

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @cstross US version: “Five people have been tied to a trolley track. You can save them by diverting the trolley onto another track, killing one. But there is no trolley, because a private equity firm bought the trolley company, loaded it with debt & sold off the assets. All six people will eventually die of exposure, but if you attempt to rescue them you will be arrested for trespassing on land now owned by a real estate shell company registered in the Cayman Islands. What do you do?”

    mainframed767 , to Random stuff
    @mainframed767@infosec.exchange avatar

    Strongly recommend you read this post by @pluralistic about the HOPE conference.

    https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/19/hope-less/#hack-the-planet

    I also just love this quote

    But after the 2018 HOPE, the Hotel Pennsylvania was demolished to make way for the Penn15 (no, really) skyscraper, a vaporware mega-tower planned as a holding pen for luxury shopping and empty million-dollar condos sold to offshore war-criminals as safe-deposit boxes in the sky. The developer, Vornado (no, really) hasn't actually done all that – after demo'ing the Hotel Pennsylvania, they noped out, leave a large, unusable scar across midtown.

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @kmeisthax @krupo @mainframed767 @pluralistic

    “OK, Google Mail has some filtering issues, but at least Google search results are still accurate and useful … what’s that you say? Stuffed with AI-generated spam sites? … yeah, sure, so there are some issues. But Google Maps is still a … spam there too, huh? And outdated or inaccurate data? Sure, sure, but at least Google Docs is a top-quality product … and they’ve pretty much fixed that missing document issue they had recently. Anyway …”

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    As a science fiction writer, I am professionally irritated by a lot of sf movies. Not only do those writers get paid a lot more than I do, they insist on including things like "self-destruct" buttons on the bridges of their starships.

    --

    If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

    https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/17/descartes-delenda-est/#self-destruct-sequence-initiated

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    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @cstross @pluralistic Warships historically had mechanisms to allow them to be scuttled by their own crews if necessary. That required the active participation of a good number of people, though, and wasn’t just a handy button that one person could press when it all became too much.

    Sci-if spaceships might have similar devices for similar reasons, but there’d probably be safeguards. Dual-key systems? Or just put it under control of the ship’s AI & keep humans entirely out of the loop?

    Viss , to Random stuff
    @Viss@mastodon.social avatar

    enshittification takes its toll
    (cc @pluralistic)

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @Viss @mathaetaes @pluralistic “Because we can” is all the justification businesses need.

    When rail service was privatized in the UK, the formerly-free info lines became ‘premium-rate’, so it cost 48p/minute to hear timetable info (delivered, of course, as slowly as possible). One little extra source of income: how could they resist?

    They’ll always show ads, sell your data, suck out just a little more money, because the logic of the marketplace requires it. And because they can.

    troublewithwords , to Random stuff
    @troublewithwords@wandering.shop avatar

    FYI: anything an American business does between December 24 and January 3rd will be skeevy as hell hoping it gets no press.

    For example, Amazon just announced that all of Prime Video will get ads.

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @troublewithwords Amazon putting ads on Prime Video is a textbook case of what @pluralistic calls : “OK, we've got you where we want you, so now we'll start making the product worse & sucking more money out of it.”

    AMZN seems to be doubling-down hard on the whole enshittification strategy: from turning their storefront into a pay-to-play search engine for cheap crap, to amped-up Kindle DRM lock-in, to ads on Prime Video, it's an across-the-board effort.

    Expect to be next.

    pluralistic , to Random stuff
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    Sad to see the once-great Tokyo Mango blog taken over by spammers who deleted its archives and replaced them with AI-generated SEO nonsense.

    There needs to be a compound German noun for the feeling when a dormant RSS feed pops back up, filled with spam.

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @pluralistic Presumably this was a hack, rather than the spammers simply acquiring a lapsed domain name? It's common enough for them to do that, but I can't see them setting up a new feed at the old location just to catch people who are still subscribed to the feed.

    Mind you, I've seen spammers do more convoluted stuff with even less obvious payoffs, so I suppose we can't rule it out.

    angusm , to Cats
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    A striking image of the rare 'furry land turtle’. This specimen is named Cocoa.

    angusm , to Random stuff
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    I'm not much for formality, but I do feel that it's possibly inappropriate for the Director of the FBI to keep emailing me with the subject line "Greetings, my dear!”

    pluralistic , to NYC
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    Free as in CDs

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @dinandmentink @pluralistic A colleague who was confronted by one of the “Here's a copy of my rap CD" guys just said “Sorry, man, I don't have anything in the house that can play this.”

    He then gave the guy a talk about how no one used CDs any more & that he really needed to move with the times & had he thought of maybe putting his stuff on Bandcamp?

    This totally disrupted the normal flow of the guy’s "give CD/ask for money” routine; they parted friends, and no money changed hands.

    shermozle , to Random stuff
    @shermozle@aus.social avatar

    Spicy Autocomplete is such a great putdown for .

    Chapeau @pluralistic

    (Context: https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space )

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @nbkt @magnetic_tape @BradRubenstein @shermozle @pluralistic

    Discord is spicy IRC!

    Facebook is a spicy BBS!

    Wix is spicy GeoCities!

    TikTok is spicy Vines!

    Cryptocurrency is spicy Monopoly money! (true)

    Starship is a spicy Saturn V that blows up a lot! (also true)

    The Cybertruck is a spicy Sinclair C5!

    Elon Musk is spicy Henry Ford!

    2020s USA is spicy Weimar!

    nixCraft , to Random stuff
    @nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar

    This type of thinking is precisely why we can't have nice things. It's a terrible idea that only contributes to polluting the internet. It's nothing to be proud of but rather something to be ashamed of. I really hope Google removes all of his sites from the search.

    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @nixCraft "Someone bet us a quarter that we wouldn't shit in the swimming pool, so we did. We shat in the pool so much that the pool had to be drained and no one could swim in it for a week.

    We look forward to getting more quarters by shitting in more swimming pools in future.

    P.S. Follow us for tips on how to shit in swimming pools.”

    NickEast , to writingcommunity group
    @NickEast@geekdom.social avatar

    Writing is just like a regular job except you can do it in your PJs 😂

    @writers @writingcommunity @writing @humour




    angusm ,
    @angusm@mastodon.social avatar

    @NickEast @writers @writingcommunity @writing @humour There’s a story that when Cristiano de André, son of the Italian singer-songwriter Fabrizio de André, was asked in school to write an essay about “What does your dad do as a job?” he wrote a one-word answer: “Sleeps.”

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