Reach for the Stars @antares@qoto.org

"I'm starting to hate Windows Copilot and all the ways in which it's infiltrating my PC even more. I've been using various forms of "AI" since Microsoft rolled out Bing with ChatGPT back in 2023 & I've yet to find a compelling reason to use any of them."

http://windowscopilot.news/2024/06/18/apple-is-handling-ai-so-much-better-than-microsoft-i-may-ditch-windows-for-macos-sequoia/

(Some background for non-NYers: the general election is between parties, and at least at the city level the democrat generally wins against some wackjob republican by a landslide. So really, if you want a say in the election, you need to vote in the _democratic_ primary. That's only allowed if you're a registered Dem. Doesn't matter how far left you are, how much you identify as independent, how angry you are w/ the Democratic Party, etc; you either register as a Dem or you don't have a voice.)

Hey Canadian nerds! I have held the domain registration for regex.ca for a very long time. When I lived in Canada it was my primary domain, but I haven't used it for years. Does anyone on the fediverse have a good use for it?

I'm going to release it but if you've got a good pitch I'll pay for a 1 year renewal and then transfer it to your ownership.

Please boost for visibility kthx!

#canada #regex #perl

There’s just nothing more to talk about when it comes to Gaza.

Netanyahu knows we see what he is doing, and he doesn’t give a fuck. Biden keeps talking big, but he folds every time because he knows if they arrest Netanyahu, they are coming for him next.

The news is broadcasting horror every day and telling us if we don’t support it, we hate Jews.

What’s happening in Gaza is an apocalyptic event visited upon them by a lunatic enabled by the most evil nation on earth.

There is simply no other way to view the situation. This atrocity will be remembered for all time, not just because of its cruelty, but how many people tried to defend it.

The narrative that voting is the primary way we achieve liberation is bullshit because we cannot vote on the shit that really matters, i.e., a livable wage, housing, policing, infrastructure, etc.

I'm not saying don't vote, but this idea that we are going to vote ourselves out of oligarchy is nonsense because we've always been given limited choices.

People who vote should be working with people who don't to make sure all bases are covered instead of slap-boxing about who is the better citizen in a declining empire.

Everyone can contribute to progress whether they vote or not.

Stop listening to white liberals who are afraid to confront the hate coming from their communities trying to make voting the end all be all.

Because it's not.

Anyone out there in the US got a Level 2 #EV home charger they have Strong Opinions on, ideally NEMA 14-50 plugin? Thinking about a Grizzl-E model.

#EVchargers #EVCharging

i had an app on my iphone which my phone's operating system randomly decided to delete off my phone. thankfully, they replaced the icon with a shortcut to re-download the app from the app store. when i tapped it, it said "sorry this app no longer exists on the app store so its' gone forever". so they deleted my app! not the developer's app, sure the developer made the app but the app was mine, it was on my phone! and they deleted it!

During apartheid, the South African government established “homelands” for Black South Africans that were ostensibly independent states—though no other country recognized them—so the regime could pretend Black South Africans were foreigners ineligible for rights in South Africa.

I used to think that this was purely for international consumption, a weak pretense to avoid sanctions and stay on the good side of allies.

But, having heard from Israelis who genuinely believe things like “there is no occupation” and “there is no apartheid” and “there is no ethnic cleansing” I now realize that white South Africans were the primary audience for the ruse and they probably ate that shit up.

President Joe Biden plans to send an additional $1 billion arms shipment to Israel, despite the U.S. being opposed to a full-scale invasion by the Israeli military on the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

BBC News has the latest: https://flip.it/KZ5Rwb

Do you think the U.S. should halt all weapons shipments to Israel until there's a ceasefire?

#Israel #Gaza #Biden #Palestine #Hamas #News

My Ubuntu installation of Discord is borked.

snap refresh discord

gives:

snap "discord" has no updates available

but when I try to launch it, it gets caught in an update failed, retrying loop.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling it.

Any ideas?

#ubuntu #discord

I'm being asked why I think #Google is pulling the standard "Undo" function out many Chrome text input right-click context menus, and replacing that menu selection (without any advance warning or explanation) with their AI-based "Help me write".

I don't know, but I can guess. I suspect it was something like this at a team meeting:

"Hey, word is that we really need to up the AI engagement metrics. What haven't we covered yet? [ laughter ]"

"Well, we could get rid of context menus Undo and replace it with an AI selection. Then when users right-click during text input, they'll get the "Help me write" prompt where they've pretty much always expected undo to be."

"I like that. It'll be right in their faces. Do you think there will be any blowback from people not finding Undo in those context menus anymore?"

"Naw, pretty much everyone knows the keyboard shortcut for undo is Control-Z. They can just use the shortcut. Only a fool wouldn't know that. And we don't care about fools!"

"Absolutely. OK, I'm in. Should there be any kind of warning or explanation for this?"

"No way -- let it be a surprise to the users! More impact!"

"Wow, I can feel those AI engagement metrics going up already!"

"Great work, team! All AI, all the time!"

Whenever Americans talk about "fighting for freedoms" I remember that one time some dude who got thwarted by his own flopsweat tried to blow up his shoes and twenty years later anyone who goes through an American airport has to shuffle around in their socks hoping their pants don't fall down while they get millimeter-radared for a security pageant and the whole country just rolled over and decided that's totally reasonable.

Honestly.. One of the biggest crimes of the Bibi regime is the persistent conflation of themselves with Jews. This perhaps, is one of the most blatant cases of antisemitism of our time.

Countless Jewish people are not represented by this regime or their acts of terrorism.

#israel #palestine

A moderator of a FB group I frequent has fallen headlong into the “politeness” trap, insisting that participarts observe “civility” and “manners” when they post.

Many of you probably already recognize that #politeness is a trap. It is a tool used by aristocrats and the powerful to silence dissent, by protesting *how* the oppressed choose to cry, instead of dealing with *why* they are crying. Southern slaveowners were probably the most polite bunch of folks you’ll ever know.

Focus on what’s important: kindess, empathy, respect, tolerance. And tell politeness to go fuck itself.

"Virtually every major wave of campus protests in the past sixty or so years has been met with condemnation by established elites. And virtually all--civil rights, anti-war, anti-apartheid--over the decades have proven the protestors to be on the right side of history."
-David Rothkopf

#StudentSpring #1A🇺🇸

Call me naive and woolly and ignorant of realpolitik, but if I'd had snipers posted on the roof of my university when I was 20 years old, in response to me saying "genocide is a bad thing, actually"....I'd have probably not felt kindly towards whoever was ostensibly in charge of running my country (Tony Blair, at the time, lol) and would have been disinclined to listen to anyone telling me that the alternative to rooftop police snipers was fascism.