An Experiment

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Oct 262018
 

To all zero of my readers,

Actually writing things seems to be something I can’t muster up the will to do.

So I hacked up an rss plugin for wordpress last year to repost excepts from my tt-rss shared feed, but have left the posts it generates private. Since it’s OK if not ideal, I’m just gonna set the plugin to post publicly for now to see if it works out, and maybe as motivation to hurry up and finish tweaking the format, or writing a fresh plugin from scratch that only does what I need.

For now it will post every time I update my shared feed from tt-rss; I am leaning toward modifying it so that it collects all posts and makes a single daily entry, but I’ll see how this works first.

Hackaday – Zinc Creep and Electroplasticity: Why Arecibo Collapsed

Nov 062024
 

It’s been nearly four years since the Arecibo Telescope collapsed, an event the world got to witness in unprecedented detail thanks to strategically positioned drones. They captured breathtaking video of one of the support cables pulling from its socket as well as the spectacularly destructive results of 900 tons of scientific instruments crashing into the 300-meter primary reflector. But exactly why did those cable sockets fail?
A new report aims to answer that question, and in the process raises some interesting questions of its own. The proximate causes of the collapse have been known for a while, including the most obvious and visible one, the failure of the zinc “spelter sockets” that were cast around the splayed…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2024/11/05/zinc-creep-and-electroplasticity-why-arecibo-collapsed/

 2024-11-06  No Responses »

Ballot Access News – 2024 is First Presidential Election in History in Which Ballot-Listed Candidates Can’t Have Votes Tallied

Nov 052024
 

This year, Georgia and Ohio ballots have presidential candidates on them, for whom votes will not be counted. This has never happened before in any state in the United States. In Georgia, after the ballots were printed, the State Supreme Court said the petitions for Claudia De la Cruz and Cornel West were invalid. In Ohio, after the ballots were printed, the Secretary of State said Jill Stein had accidentally withdrawn. So, in both states, voters will see names on the ballot but if they vote for those names, their vote won’t be counted.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2024/11/04/2024-is-first-presidential-election-in-history-in-which-ballot-listed-candidates-cant-have-votes-tallied/

 2024-11-05  No Responses »

Deeplinks – EFF Lawsuit Discloses Documents Detailing Government’s Social Media Surveillance of Immigrants

Nov 052024
 

Despite rebranding a federal program that surveils the social media activities of immigrants and foreign visitors to a more benign name, the government agreed to spend more than $100 million to continue monitoring people’s online activities, records disclosed to EFF show.
Thousands of pages of government procurement records and related correspondence show that the Department of Homeland Security and its component Immigrations and Customs Enforcement largely continued an effort, originally called extreme vetting, to try to determine whether immigrants posed any threat by monitoring their social media and internet presence. The only real change appeared to be rebranding the program to be known as the Visa Lifecycle Vetting Initiative.
The government disclosed the records to EFF after we…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/11/eff-lawsuit-discloses-documents-detailing-governments-social-media-surveillance

 2024-11-05  No Responses »

World Socialist Web Site (en) – DSA-backed “Uncommitted Movement” received nearly half a million dollars from pro-Democratic Party Super PAC

Nov 052024
 

Far from a “grassroots” operation, the “Uncommitted” trap was controlled and financed from the beginning by party operatives seeking to divert mass anger over the genocide in Gaza back into the Democratic Party.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/11/05/eyid-n05.html

 2024-11-05  No Responses »

The Onion – Neuralink Patient Unable To Stop Hand From Voting For Trump

Nov 052024
 

DOYLESTOWN, PA—Expressing concern about his inability to control his own body, local Neuralink brain-implant patient Emmett Shultz told reporters Tuesday that he was unable to stop his right hand from casting a vote for former President Donald Trump. “As soon as I entered the voting booth, my hand lurched forward and marked the box for Trump,” said Shultz, explaining that every time he attempted to select Vice President Kamala Harris instead, his hand went entirely limp and he was stricken with intense, overwhelming nausea. “Eventually I swatted at my right hand with the voter information packet, and I even tried stabbing it with a ballpoint pen. That seemed to subdue it for a while, but when…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://theonion.com/neuralink-patient-unable-to-stop-hand-from-voting-for-trump/

 2024-11-05  No Responses »

Planet Debian – Steinar H. Gunderson: Ultimate rules as a service

Nov 032024
 

Since WFDF changed their ultimate rules web site
to be less-than-ideal (in the name of putting everything into WordPress…),
I made my own, at urules.org. It was a fun
journey; I’ve never fiddled with PWAs
before, and I was a bit surprised how low-level it all was. I assumed that
since my page is just a bunch of HTML files and ~100 lines of JS, I could
just bundle that up—but no, that is something they expect a framework to do
for you. The only primitive you get is seemingly that you can fire up your own
background service worker (JS running in its own, locked-down context)
and that gets to peek at every HTTP request done and possibly intercept it.
So you can use…

External feed Read More at the Source: http://blog.sesse.net/blog/tech/2024-11-03-11-48_ultimate_rules_as_a_service.html

 2024-11-03  No Responses »

Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow – Pluralistic: Bluesky and enshittification (02 Nov 2024)

Nov 022024
 

Today’s links

Bluesky and enshittification: No one is the enshittifier of their own story.

Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.

Hoisted from the comments: Smart stuff from readers.

This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014

Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.

Recent appearances: Where I’ve been.

Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em.

Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em.

Colophon: All the rest.

Bluesky and enshittification (permalink)
I would like to use Bluesky. They’ve done a bunch of seriously interesting technical work on moderation and ranking that I truly admire, and I’ve got lots of friends there who really enjoy it.
But I’m not on Bluesky and I don’t have any plans to join it anytime soon. I wrote about this…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/ulysses-pact/

 2024-11-02  No Responses »

blarg? – Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag

Nov 022024
 

Back in the mists of prehistory, by which I mean 2014, I bought a Timbuk2 messenger bag and spent the next six or seven years loving it into the ground. When it finally fell part Timbuk2 had lost their way as a company, turning into a lifestyle brand at the expense of their product quality, and they didn’t have a meaningful replacement to offer me so it was time to look around.
To review, my requirements were, and are:

Waterproof for real.
Holds a large laptop plus the usual extra nerd shit and two days’ clothing.
Replaceable straps. The straps can’t be sewn in to the bag.
Quick-adjust straps, to cinch it down and step out of it easily.
Side pockets I…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://exple.tive.org/blarg/2024/11/02/papas-got-a-brand-new-bag/

 2024-11-02  No Responses »

Techdirt. – Norfolk, Virginia Residents Sue City Over Its Network Of 172 Flock Cameras

Nov 012024
 

This lawsuit could not be more impeccably timed. Whether or not this timing is more fortuitous than impeccable remains to be seen, but there’s no denying the bang-bang-bang effect on display here, even if it may just be coincidental.
Last week, a Virginia federal court ruled three hits from Flock ALPR cameras wasn’t enough to trigger a Fourth Amendment violation. It reasoned this was not the same sort of post facto long-term tracking addressed by the Supreme Court’s Carpenter decision, which mainly dealt with law enforcement’s obtaining massive amounts of cell site location data from service providers without a warrant.
That decision erected a warrant requirement for obtaining this data from service providers. The limited holding said important…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/10/31/norfolk-virginia-residents-sue-city-over-its-network-of-172-flock-cameras/

 2024-11-01  No Responses »

Labor Notes – Consolidation Threatens to Rip ‘Service’ Out of Postal Service

Oct 312024
 

EnglishEspañol October 30, 2024 / Alexandra Bradbury
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Letter carrier Greg Andregic loaded his truck for the day in downtown Pottsville, Pennsylvania, last year. Under postal consolidation, many letter carriers will face drastically longer commutes. Photo: Jacqueline Dormer/Republican-Herald via AP.
Workers are battling an overhaul of the U.S. Postal Service that would cost thousands of jobs and slow the mail for half the country.
In the name of efficiency, a letter mailed within Cheyenne, Wyoming, would travel to Denver and back. And if you miss a package, your local post office would no longer have it. It might be 45 minutes away.
In March, Buffalo became the…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://labornotes.org/2024/10/consolidation-threatens-rip-service-out-postal-service

 2024-10-31  No Responses »

Ars Technica – Pizza place accidentally spiked dough with THC, sickening dozens

Oct 292024
 

Dozens of people in Wisconsin have been sickened and at least five needed emergency medical services after inadvertently eating pizza tainted with Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the principal psychoactive compound in cannabis, officials of Public Health Madison & Dane County reported late Friday.
The contamination, which health officials called “unintentional,” occurred at Famous Yeti’s Pizza in Stoughton between October 22 and October 24. In a news release, the local health department advised customers to throw away any pizza they had from the restaurant during that time period.
“We want to be sure anyone who has this pizza on hand throws it away so they don’t get sick,” Bonnie Armstrong, director of Environmental Health at Public Health Madison & Dane County,…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/health/2024/10/thc-tainted-pizza-sickens-dozens-in-wisc-owner-blames-oil-bottle-mix-up/

 2024-10-29  No Responses »

Ballot Access News – Sixth Circuit Expedites Ohio Jill Stein Vote Counting Lawsuit

Oct 292024
 

The Sixth Circuit has requested that the Ohio Secretary of State file a response by 5 p.m., Tuesday, October 29, in Stein v LaRose, 24-3923. This is the lawsuit over whether votes for Jill Stein (who is on the ballot) … Continue reading →

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2024/10/29/sixth-circuit-expedites-ohio-jill-stein-vote-counting-lawsuit/

 2024-10-29  No Responses »

Deeplinks – The Real Monsters of Street Level Surveillance

Oct 272024
 

Safe trick-or-treating this Halloween means being aware of the real monsters of street-level surveillance. You might not always see these menaces, but they are watching you. The real-world harms of these terrors wreak havoc on our communities. Here, we highlight just a few of the beasts. To learn more about all of the street-level surveillance creeps in your community, check out our even-spookier resource, sls.eff.org. 
If your blood runs too cold, take a break with our favorite digital rights legends— the Encryptids.
The Face Stealer

Careful where you look. Around any corner may loom the Face Stealer, an arachnid mimic that captures your likeness with just a glance. Is that your mother in the woods? Your roommate down…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/10/real-monsters-street-level-surveillance

 2024-10-27  No Responses »

Jacobin – There’s No Pride in a Dick Cheney Endorsement

Oct 272024
 

Kamala Harris and her surrogates keep bragging about Dick Cheney’s endorsement. It’s deeply obscene: Dick Cheney is a depraved war criminal whose image should not be rehabilitated.
Kamala Harris’s rehabilitation of Dick Cheney’s reputation is an obscenity. (Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images) During a recent appearance on The Daily Show, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz touted the broad coalition supporting him and his running mate, Kamala Harris. “Dick Cheney, Bernie Sanders, Taylor Swift . . .”
It’s the kind of reference to former Vice President Cheney that Harris, Walz, and their surrogates have made many times throughout their campaign. Stewart, to his credit, seemed to find it painful….

External feed Read More at the Source: https://jacobin.com/2024/10/harris-dick-cheney-endorsement-election/

 2024-10-27  No Responses »

The Intercept – Netflix Wiped Most of Its “Palestinian Stories” Collection — and Erased the Whole Thing in Israel

Oct 272024
 

In 2021, Netflix moved to create a new movie collection for its viewers. “Netflix will launch the Palestinian Stories collection, showcasing films from some of the Arab world’s finest filmmakers,” said an announcement of the new grouping. “[T]he collection is a tribute to the creativity and passion of the Arab film industry as Netflix continues to invest in stories from the Arab world.” Thirty-two films were slated for inclusion, with more additions planned. Now, however, following a purge of at least 24 films from Netflix’s library, the landing page for the collection contains just a single film for streamers in the United States: Lina Al Abed’s 2019 documentary “Ibrahim: A Fate to Define” — and that’s…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://theintercept.com/2024/10/25/netflix-palestinian-stories-israel-movies/

 2024-10-27  No Responses »

Planet Debian – Russell Coker: The CUPS Vulnerability

Oct 262024
 

The Announcement
Late last month there was an announcement of a “severity 9.9 vulnerability” allowing remote code execution that affects “all GNU/Linux systems (plus others)” [1]. For something to affect all Linux systems that would have to be either a kernel issue or a sshd issue. The announcement included complaints about the lack of response of vendors and “And YES: I LOVE hyping the sh1t out of this stuff because apparently sensationalism is the only language that forces these people to fix”.
He seems to have a different experience to me of reporting bugs, I have had plenty of success getting bugs fixed without hyping them. I just report the bug, wait a while, and it gets fixed….

External feed Read More at the Source: https://etbe.coker.com.au/2024/10/26/cups-vulnerability/

 2024-10-26  No Responses »
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