Lou Katz @lou@entropyservice.com

"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.

I wish that I could convey to everyone who needs convincing that the text “AI” could *reasonably* be replaced with “A magic 8-ball” in most tech-related sentences and it would be very close to a difference without a distinction.

KnockLA reporter Ben Camacho prevails in lawsuot filed against him by the LAPD after Stop LAPD Spying published pictures of cops that Camacho secured in a public records request. City of LA will pay his legal fees. https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-police-lawsuit-lapd-b784ea5809942fe169cdc35a54e6b0fc

I’m getting stronger with age. I can now lift $100 worth of groceries with one hand.

Tech companies, please stop making things smaller and thinner, it's not 1998. We want longer battery life and our things to be repairable, instead of replaceable. If you can't think of any actual innovations, stop wasting resources!

The Philadelphia Inquirer recently investigated how Philadelphia narcotics cops not only allegedly failed to disclose their use of video surveillance in arrest reports or to prosecutors, but also that the video footage at times proved officers were lying when they testified. We talked to the founder of the nonprofit Surveillance Technology Oversight Project about what these new video systems can do and the privacy and other issues they raise.
https://theconversation.com/what-philadelphians-need-to-know-about-the-citys-7-000-camera-surveillance-system-230073
#News #privacy #surveillance

CISA (CyberSecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) releases report detailing grave vulnerabilities in #Motorola Solutions automated license plate reader system (formerly known as #Vigilant). 1.6 billion scans a year in California are collected and stored in Motorola's system #ALPR .https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-24-165-19

CISA (CyberSecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) releases report detailing grave vulnerabilities in #Motorola Solutions automated license plate reader system (formerly known as #Vigilant). 1.6 billion scans a year in California are collected and stored in Motorola's system #ALPR .https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-24-165-19

@krnlg @pluralistic

The lesson I take from this is simple: In order to have a good economy and a well functioning society you need a good justice system. But when you do, along come Vikings who intend to unjustly tear away as much of societies riches as they can – and they ignore your justice system.

At which point you have two choices: Pay Danegeld or fight.

And I contend we have been paying Danegeld since the Reagan years. Which has only resulted in more Vikings.

I'll wait for the experts to weigh in on this, but it's hard to keep trusting Mozilla when it buys an advertising company that claims -- contrary to essentially all available history of the genre -- to protect user privacy.

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-the-bar-for-privacy-preserving-digital-advertising/

I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying that I have reason to doubt this promise.

I would hate to abandon Firefox, and would hope that Ublock Origin and other plugins will keep working.

But this is, at best, a worrisome development.

The artist Edward Hopper lived and had his studio on Washington Square in an NYU-owned apartment, from which, despite his considerable fame, the university persistently tried to evict him.

Once he died, the University preserved the apartment as "The Edward Hopper Studio".

This story encapsulates most of what you need to know about university politics, NYC real estate, and the regard society has for actual working artists.

The user experience of the modern web is just so wonderful.

I mean, I'm so glad these ads are targeted, because I've never had a drink in my life and the guys in these photos have me seriously considering stopping drinking.

@rbreich The embarrassing thing about this is how cheap it is. For billionaires this is shake out the couch money.

Note: the debate isn't just over "merit and luck." The third possibility is crime: the share of the propertied classes' wealth that results either from outright expropriation and enclosure, or from unearned economic rents on artificial property rights and artificial scarcities enforceable only by state violence. @pluralistic
https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/17/lovilee-jubilee/