The Death of the Mind

Today’s links

Darth Android: Pray I don’t alter it further.

Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.

Object permanence: We don’t know why you don’t want to have public sex; Hard Wired; Koko Be Good.

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.

Darth Android (permalink)
William Gibson famously said that “Cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion.” But for every tech leader fantasizing about lobotomizing their enemies with Black Ice, there are ten who wish they could be Darth Vader, force-choking you while grating out, “I’m altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”
I call this business…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/01/fulu/

AOL has officially announced it will discontinue its dial-up Internet service after more than three decades, ending support for the technology synonymous with the early days of the internet. What do you think?

“Hopefully it’s part of a broader plan to wind down the internet entirely.”
Michael Shim, Systems Analyst

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“Of course they cancel it right when I’m 14% through downloading Titanic.”
Roger Ferlet, Frosting Colorist

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“I don’t trust an internet that doesn’t screech in pain.”
Brenna Kirby, Data Memorizer

The post AOL To Discontinue Dial-Up Internet appeared first on The Onion.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://theonion.com/aol-to-discontinue-dial-up-internet/

The extremely sinister intent and thrust of the action by the Trump administration and Congress should be patently clear.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/08/04/egck-a04.html

Bove, a criminal credibly accused of flouting court orders to carry out Trump’s illegal mass deportation operation, was confirmed in a party-line vote by the Senate Tuesday night.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/07/31/xlqh-j31.html

Ring founder Jamie Siminoff is back at the helm of the surveillance doorbell company, and with him is the surveillance-first-privacy-last approach that made Ring one of the most maligned tech devices. Not only is the company reintroducing new versions of old features which would allow police to request footage directly from Ring users, it is also introducing a new feature that would allow police to request live-stream access to people’s home security devices. 
This is a bad, bad step for Ring and the broader public. 
Ring is rolling back many of the reforms it’s made in the last few years by easing police access to footage from millions of homes in the United States. This is a grave threat to civil liberties…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/22/amazon-ring-cashes-in-on-techno-authoritarianism-and-mass-surveillance/

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Suddenly wondering if someone has already done this.

Today’s News:

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/prompt

The Trump Administration’s constant escalation of its mass deportation programs now means ICE, CBP, and other federal agencies must come up with thousands of arrests a day. This never had anything to do with removing criminals from the country and, even if you once believed that might be the case, an unending string of raids by ICE has clearly demonstrated this is all about removing as many non-whites from the US as possible.
Keeping up with the administration’s body count demands means ICE has been forced to pull out all the stops. Fortunately for ICE, the administration is pitching in with the PULL ALL THE STOPS process, flooding the Los Angeles area with thousands of military…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/07/ice-using-repurposed-border-facial-recognition-tech-to-id-protesters-activists-and-migrants-on-us-streets/

On June 6, President Trump wrote, “The one thing Third Parties are good for is the creation of Complete and Total Disruption and Chaos, and we have enough of that with the Radical Left Democrats.”
The ability of the people to form new parties is the essence of a free society.  In 1990 the United States signed the Document of the Copenhagen Meeting, part of the Helsinki Accords process.  We promised to “respect the right of individuals and groups to establish, in full freedom, their own political parties or other political organizations and provide such political parties and organizations with the necessary legal guarantees to enable them to compete with each other on a basis of equal…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2025/07/07/president-trump-says-new-political-parties-are-bad-for-society/

It was a project more than 10 years in the making, but today, the Raleigh City Council voted unanimously to scrap planned improvements to the Six Forks Road corridor.  Two successful municipal transportation bonds—one on voters’ ballots in 2013 and one in 2017—were supposed to have paid for the improvements that, in 2020, were given a price tag of $31.3 million. But by 2024, the project’s budget had ballooned to $119 million, and after spending the last year attempting to re-scope the project, the council ultimately decided at its meeting Tuesday afternoon that it is unfeasible. The city already spent more than $9 million on the project, according to city staff.  “This was a corridor project of…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://indyweek.com/news/wake/raleigh-scraps-six-forks-road-widening-project/