User Profile

Thank you Mastodon and the Fediverse for being an example of communicating without billionaires and US venture capitalists calling the shots. We're going to need more of this.

i am mad at people

@Teop_Versant And still, people will vote for the person who will harm them more. They call the opponent a socialist, when only socialist policies would help with redistributing wealth.

They vote for the ultra capitalist candidate to fix the problems capitalism creates. That’s the sad part. They’re shooting themselves in the foot.

Representative Democracy was an experiment that the world only started trying a mere 250 years ago. We can conclude that other forces have become too strong for it (the driving forces of patriarchy and capitalism, and everything that comes from it: big tech / misogyny / etc). It is time we start implementing new forms of democracy. Deliberative democracy (without elections!) being the most promising one.

Illerya sketch.

I spent the last week scraping through a terabyte of GeoCities archives and collecting ALL THE #88x31 buttons! In the end, I gathered 29257 unique buttons (75k with duplicates). They are available at https://hellnet.work/8831/

Check them out!

I also have the dataset (~160MB), stats and a bit about the scraping process here: https://hellnet.work/8831/stats.html

#indieweb #smallweb #geocities #neocities

Some libraries are already opening #OpenSeeds collections, where you can “lend” seeds to grow vegetables and flowers that are not F1-hybrids (genetically crippled seeds that you can’t propagate)with the expectation to return dried seeds after the harvest. With #ClimateChange and more decentralisation this could become really important. As an #OpenSource Evangelist I like!

New: Discord has shut down a tool that was surveilling thousands of Discord channels and selling the data, and is considering legal action

https://www.404media.co/discord-shuts-down-spy-pet-bots-that-scraped-sold-user-messages/

I've spent four months looking at AI spam on Facebook. I've messaged hundreds of people commenting on the bizarre images trying to determine if they are real, and to understand what's happening.

Facebook isn't the "Dead Internet." It's something worse:

https://www.404media.co/facebooks-ai-spam-isnt-the-dead-internet-its-the-zombie-internet/

This new tool shows the approximate physical location of many Telegram users. It uses the API for Telegram's "Find People Nearby" feature, which is opt-in. But the tool lets you search for locations globally (I did on multiple cities around the world) https://www.404media.co/this-tool-shows-some-telegram-users-approximate-physical-location/

Amazon worker "voluntary time off" is so competitive that people sit on the app waiting for it release like it's a Playstation 5 or Taylor Swift tickets. Others use bots and "auto acceptor" scripts to grab it immediately

https://www.404media.co/amazon-workers-use-bots-to-snatch-fiercely-competitive-time-off/

Scoop: Solar storm is causing farmers' tractor GPS systems to go haywire. Many have shut down planting altogether during a critical period. A Deere dealer said accuracy is "extremely compromised"

https://www.404media.co/solar-storm-knocks-out-tractor-gps-systems-during-peak-planting-season/

KAFKAESQUE: Students at Emory University built an AI study tool. They pitched it to the university at an entrepreneurship competition. They won "grand prize" and $10,000 to build the tool. They built the tool.

The school's Honor Council suspended them for cheating and for building API support into the tool, which is what they pitched

https://www.404media.co/university-suspends-students-for-ai-homework-tool-it-paid-them-10-000-to-make/

Scoop: I obtained the contract Samsung requires independent shops to sign to buy phone repair parts from them.

It requires:

- "Daily" dumps of customer data
- The "immediate destruction" of any phones a shop comes across that has third-party parts

https://www.404media.co/samsung-requires-independent-repair-shops-to-share-customer-data-snitch-on-people-who-use-aftermarket-parts-leaked-contract-shows/

New from 404 Media: a hacker targeted a scam call center, broke in, then emailed the scam victims to warn them they’d been scammed. Also stole source code of the scammer’s tools. Here is the email: https://www.404media.co/hacker-breaches-scam-call-center-emails-its-scam-victims/