Lou Katz @lou@entropyservice.com

While watching S1E1 of "Pee-wee's Playhouse" (1986) on #YouTube just now, I noticed for the first time an image of "Bob" from the Church of the SubGenius on a wall. I don't know how I missed that all these years, but please cut me some ... slack.

Them: You’re acting weird.

Me: First of all, I’m not acting…

I feel like if Europe is going to insist on using 0-based indexing for floors in their buildings Americans should insist on using it for their monarchs: "King Louis the 0th", "Charles the Nothingth", "Ferdinand the Null", etc.

Just basically gonna have to assume for the rest of our lives that any cloud/content hosting service offered for free is at best temporary and at worst some kind of trap

7 in 10 Americans Want SCOTUS to Be Subject to Investigation Over Ethics Issues https://truthout.org/articles/7-in-10-americans-want-scotus-to-be-subject-to-investigation-over-ethics-issues/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

Remember kids:

IRC is free.
IRC is a open standard.
You can run your own IRC server.
IRC doesn't collect data on you and sell it.
You can still moderate your channels via invite, voice, and ban modes.
You can run a server on a 486.
IRC doesn't try to up sell you on "nitro".
IRC doesn't need to make money to make some VC happy.

Having this as my default www root page to scare all security auditors to stone

The Kasperski ban should make everyone reconsider closed-source software. If Russia can threaten cybersecurity through anti-virus software, who says the US can't do so through Microsoft and Apple? Open-Source is the only way to control your data.
#opensource #digitalsouvereignity

Close to 75% of all police drone use in Minnesota is to survey accidents and officer training. That’s an expensive training toy–but also one that can very easily cross the line into surveillance. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/police-are-using-drones-more-and-spending-more-them

A very brave colleague of mine, historian and Jewish Israeli at Hebrew University of Jerusalem Lee Mordechai, has written an 80 page report on Israel's continued bombardment of Gaza.
It discusses why he believes Israel's response is gravely disproportionate and constitutes genocide, as well as providing various evidence and documentation concerning (not exhaustively) (a) the famine in Gaza and Israel's contribution to it, (b) the Israeli media's assistance in the continued dehumanization of Palestinians and support for massacres, (c) Human rights violations in the West Bank in part justified by the fighting in Gaza, (d) American involvement in the ongoing ethnic cleansing and war crimes.

It is an incredibly detailed and important document, though there is a helpful summary at the beginning.
Dr. Mordechai will (and probably already has) received death threats, alienation from some of his colleagues, and possibly even academic repercussions. He was not paid by anyone to write this document, but has done it solely from a deep commitment to human rights for all people and all Peoples. Given the great risk he has taken, and the difficult and extensive work he has put into it as a scholar, I think it is incumbent to share it as widely as possible so that his courage and work was not done in vain.
It's called "Bearing Witness to the Israel Gaza War"

You can download it here in English:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MVeJT9TDbEv_KXFjYQsDbW07nmjtQBse/view?usp=sharing

And here in Hebrew (the content is the same in both):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j9OhbOrsTFVeHwqZVl0MM0CG2P2mXTCr/view?usp=sharing

Mozilla's Original Sin.

Some will tell you that Mozilla's worst decision was to accept funding from Google, and that may have been the first domino, but I hold that implementing DRM is what doomed them, as it led to their culture of capitulation. It demonstrated that their decisions were the decisions of a *company shipping products*, not those of a non-profit devoted to preserving the open web.

Those are different things and are very much in conflict. [...]
https://jwz.org/b/ykVr

@jef reminds me of an ad for device that measured distance to a fiber break. The picture was of a backhoe in front of a sunrise and it read “Good morning. Your network is about to go down”

Governments, law enforcement agencies, and even private citizens use malware to circumvent encryption and to spy on users. Knowing how it works can help you protect yourself. https://ssd.eff.org/module/how-do-i-protect-myself-against-malware

If data from Minnesota is indicative of what’s happening in the rest of the country, then police are using drones more and more (and spending a lot more money on them too). https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/police-are-using-drones-more-and-spending-more-them

"Herding cats" sounds like a pretty good job, as long as it requires herding actual cats.

For data brokers dealing with our personal information, our data can either be useful for their profit-making or truly anonymous, but not both. Our privacy rights online must not be sacrificed so corporations can fill their pockets. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/debunking-myth-anonymous-data

In a move so douchey even his critics didn't expect it, twisted, hollowed-out GOP freak Ron DeSantis vetoes all arts grants previously approved by state legislators. Remember, IF YOU HATE THE ARTS, VOTE REPUBLICAN. [gift link] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/arts/ron-desantis-veto-arts-funding-florida.html?unlocked_article_code=1.1k0.YsxU.ytPMGyrnWTt5&smid=url-share

"Babies have accents" is right up there with "Languages have gesture-accents" as some of the absolutely bizarre phenomenology of human brains.

(Blind-from-birth people will gesture when speaking in ways that they _do_ share with sighted native speakers of their language but do _not_ share with blind-from-birth speakers of other languages, implying an unsuspected connection between grammar and physical expression. Humans are wild machines y'all.)

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGegqwcMa/

https://sci-hub.scrongyao.com/10.1177/0956797616629931

Trump lied about his fake university.

Trump lied about his fake foundation.

Trump lied about the value of his properties, with fake financial statements.

So do you REALLY think Trump is telling the truth on how much his campaign is fundraising?

All his numbers are bullshit.

@XenoPhage @uastronomer What makes you think that there will ever be another actually elected president after Trump? You can be sure his VP will never certify the electoral college vote for anyone Trump didn't want. He's not going to make the same mistake he did with Pence again.