George Mari @GeorgeMari@qoto.org

I'm looking for US/North America remote work and would love any boosts!

I'm a product designer who's made accessible design systems, trained people in human-centered design, managed teams, and still knows how to do the work. I've worked with governments, EV tech, and more.

I also wrote a book called We Need to Talk (Rosenfeld, 2025), so I'm good with nearly any kind of tricky conversation.

Resume: https://joshuagraves.me/resume.pdf
Portfolio: https://joshuagraves.me/professional/portfolio/

#getFediHired #FediHire #FediHired

I regularly get death threats. I've had to go to federal court to testify against the man who wanted to kill me and my children. I have never responded by calling for violence against those who seek to harm me, & certainly never against any block of people.

We have no idea who killed Kirk, and may not for a while. But speculation only creates more chaos. And we don't create peace by demanding an eye for an eye.

If we want peace, take this moment to thoughtfully reflect, not seek blind revenge.

New post: This Cheap Metal Could Replace Lithium and Change Everything! https://www.transportevolved.com/2025/09/11/this-cheap-metal-could-replace-lithium-and-change-everything/

My students are often surprised to learn that LLMs aren’t answering their questions. Rather, an LLM answers the question “what would a reply to this look like?” It’s one of the first things I explain in the “Should I use LLMs?” portion of my syllabus.

I'm writing this post here today in hopes to bring some attention to something that is near and dear to my heart, and that's an update to the current situation with Nova Launcher, that I worked for and with for nine years up until August of 2024.

For those that haven't seen the news, Kevin Barry, the founder and developer of Nova has left Branch which in turn means he's now no longer involved with Nova Launcher in any way going forward.

https://teslacoilapps.com/nova/solong.html

For the past year or so Kevin has stated that he was working on the open source version of Nova Launcher so that if/when this time came, it would be out in the open and the community could take it over and contribute to it and have it continue being developed.

However, it seems that Harish Thimmappa and others at Branch had told him to stop working on that effort as they didn't want him to continue doing that for unknown reasons. This is sad news because this was something that former CEO, Alex Austin, had promised both via a contract and publicly that if Kevin were to ever leave Branch, Nova Launcher would become open source. You can find that quote here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/w2q6al/comment/igzoniu/

and another very similar quote with similar conversation here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/w2q6al/comment/ih25ntz/

The reason for this post is to try and draw some attention to the folks at Branch, specifically folks like Harish Thimmappa to do the right thing and honor these promises and any writings in the contracts from 2022 and to fully focus on releasing Nova Launcher as an open source app.

The community deserves this more than anything, since that was something that Kevin was very adamant about when he allowed Branch to acquire Nova Launcher back in 2022. Plus, this is just something that Branch should do since it is something that has been promised.

There is currently a petition on Change.org to try and get Branch to do this as well. After only 3 days of it being posted to Change.org, it sits at almost 1,500 signatures, and that's with very little to no press coverage at this time, which is something that would be super useful to bring full attention to this situation. You can find the petition here:

https://www.change.org/p/make-nova-launcher-open-source-let-the-community-continue-its-development

I ask that everyone who sees this post can share it with their followers as I would love to see Branch do the right thing and follow through with their promises that were made back in 2022 when they acquired Nova Launcher and release it fully as an open source app now that Kevin is no longer working for Branch and not involved in Nova Launcher.

I'm going to tag some folks below that I worked with at Branch in hopes of getting this post seen by as many folks there as possible.

#NovaLauncher #Nova #Branch #BranchMetrics #OpenSource #OpenSourceNova #Petition #Android #Apps #Google

From watermarks to missing sources and credibility gaps, here's how you can sharpen your senses – and avoid falling for the latest wave of newscast fakes:

https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-how-to-spot-ai-generated-newscasts/a-73053782

Useful media and information literacy feature by Monir Ghaedi & team for DW.

🕵‍♀️ 🔔

#ai #news #fakes #verification #mil

Hey gang, I really need a job. UK, remote, something to do with computers.

I've been doing all sorts of software plumbing for a decade now, I can speak C, Java, PHP, Python, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, even a bit of Assembly for certain architectures in a pinch.

I might not be extremely specialized in any one area but you bet I can solve that one nagging problem you're not sure what specialist you need for. I've done frontend, backend, embedded, everything.

Please boost!

#FediHire #getfedihired

To think -- some of us spent all that time and effort in school studying science, history, and math. We thought deeply about ethics and society.

Now, our government and businesses are run by the kids who cheated on all the exams. Our law enforcement and defense are run by the kids who skipped class to drink behind the bleachers. And our health care and science policy are run by the people who ate the crayons.

Every company with AI.

Courtesy of Eleanor Morton, comedian.

#EleanorMorton #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #funny #humour #NonFiction

When your dad is Mr. T 🤣 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjhJyAXS__M

"What if you could search every visible word on New York City’s streets?

(...)

The data is astonishing; it feels like sifting through the city's source code."

Impressive mix of #DDJ and #scrollytelling by @thepudding

https://pudding.cool/2025/07/street-view/

1: "Well ChatGPT says otherwise. It contradicts what you said about security."
0: "ChatGPT is consuming popular material from 10 years ago. The threat landscape has changed."

1: "Well the language is clear it's saying the exact opposite of you."
0: "It has made a statement. But what is it's reasoning. What is the logical argument behind its suggestion?"

1: "I just feel more comfortable going with what it say."
0: "After we've worked together for five years? After you've seen the results of my work? You realize this isnt your field of expertise? You arent able to explain its reasoning. Why it said it. The history and context behind it."

Well this is going to be fun.

Being a leader in your field and releasing new research that is different from the current consensus now has to fight AI and LLMs.

AI / LLMs is bias at scale. Now it's entrenched status quo.

AI cannot innovate. AI can only average out. And when that average is bad. Or dangerous. And speaks with authority. Folks will double down and be hurt.

Buddy of mine is looking for work. Been in #infosec longer than I have, worked with truly old school folks, worked for enormous orgs in high positions.

He’s hit a rough patch the past two years, divorce, depression, layoffs. It’s getting to the point that he’s going to need to move in with a mutual friend to keep above water.

If you need an absolutely brilliant infosec person in a leadership role, hit me up.

EDIT: Austin area or remote; gotta be by his kids. Thank you!

#GetFediHired

How a Powerpoint presentation might have killed the crew of Columbia.

https://mcdreeamiemusings.com/blog/2019/4/13/gsux1h6bnt8lqjd7w2t2mtvfg81uhx

The Register wrote a story about a single maintainer open source project, I think it's shameful and upsetting. So I wrote a blog post about it

An absolutely ridiculous amount of open source is one person projects. I have the data to prove it

https://opensourcesecurity.io/2025/08-oss-one-person/

"Currently, Massachusetts sends $4,846 more per capita to the federal government than it gets back. New Jersey and Washington are in the same position, bleeding thousands per person annually. Over five years, New York alone contributed $142.6 billion more than it received. Meanwhile, red states pocket $1.24 for every dollar they send to Washington." https://cmarmitage.substack.com/p/its-time-for-americans-to-start-talking

So, again today we get another crystal clear example of how #Bluesky is not decentralized. The company just blocked all users from an entire US state and those users are completely cut off. No other way to interact with the Bluesky network.

BECAUSE BLUESKY IS A CENTRALIZED PLATFORM.

Folks on Bluesky. There is a decentralized alternative. Just create an account on any decentralized Mastodon server. You will love it here. Promise.

https://joinmastodon.org/

I want us to be at the point where "Were you exposed to AI brainrot in the workplace? You may be entitled to compensation" ads by lawyers are filling all the top ad slots.

Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/08/21/zuckerberg-freezes-ai-hiring-amid-bubble-fears/

Get ready for the impact and much needed change.