⊥ᵒᵚ Cᵸᵎᶺᵋᶫ∸ᵒᵘ ☑️ @falken@qoto.org

The goal is to make corporate data less profitable.

Even stuff as simple as setting your birthdate to 1970-01-01 everywhere, adding [TEST] or [DELETED] as your name or account notes anywhere you don't need them to know your name.

Using plugins like AdNauseam to poison ad trackers (and cost them marketing dollars).

Using VPNs set to different locations.

Signing into data broker sites to "correct" outdated info (they'll often let you do that with little-to-no proof of identity, but will require your passport or state ID in order to delete your info). Bonus points if you correct it to someone else's info on their site that's similar to yours.

Only fill in required fields when you sign up for anything, but only provide correct info if it matters for you to use the service, otherwise provide plausible, but incorrect, data.

If you use LLMs anywhere, use the free tier and always vote thumbs up for bad answers and down for good ones. It wastes their resources and drives up their costs while making their training data worse.

Why Whiskey Collectors Care About Seamless Experiences

There was a time when buying whisky meant walking into a bottle shop and grabbing whatever was on special. If something better was on the radar, it came down to knowing the right bloke or waiting for a trip overseas. That setup’s gone. Today’s whisky drinker — especially in Australia — is after something different.… Why Whiskey Collectors Care About Seamless Experiences

https://dramgazette789681223.wordpress.com/2026/04/18/why-whiskey-collectors-care-about-seamless-experiences/

Just let me compute in peace.

https://neilzone.co.uk/2026/04/just-let-me-compute-in-peace/

#blog

Hackers Expose The Massive Surveillance Stack Hiding Inside Your “Age Verification” Check

"We've been saying this for years now, and we're going to keep saying it until the message finally sinks in: mandatory age verification creates massive, centralized honeypots of sensitive biometric data that will inevitably be breached.

Link: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/25/hackers-expose-the-massive-surveillance-stack-hiding-inside-your-age-verification-check/

#linkdump #blogpost #surveillance

If you buy a chainsaw or a bicycle or a power drill, and you don’t spend time learning how to operate it properly, harm may come to you. If you give your child a chainsaw or a bicycle or a power drill without imparting said understanding, great harm may come to them too.

Somehow we’ve decided computers are different and this is a problem we need the government to fix by breaking computers for people who do know how to use them.

@accidentalciso

Evergreen
Credit: https://jonikcartoons.blogspot.com/2011/

I ran this poll 2 years ago and 90% of the correspondents on mastodon told me there were no required AI usage at their workplace.

I would like to ask the same question again in 2026:

“Does your workplace have any AI related requirements, either as major project goal, in performance review, or with usage analytics tracking, against your own will?”

Boost welcomed.

I now have my own Utah teapot!

This ordinary teapot is the "hello world" object of computer graphics and has cameos in countless productions.

A thread on teapots and UNIX… 🧵

Photo: My Melitta teapot, 2026-04-16.

#retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #unix #utah

Android now stops you sharing your location in photos: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/04/android-now-stops-you-sharing-your-location-in-photos/

Discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47750669

@ahmadlubna @Geri seems pretty clear cut to me. The Home Secretary, may she rot in hell for her perfidy, is out making prejudicial statements (spreading lies and smears) against sub judice that exist for good reason, with zero consequences. While a barrister faced contempt of court charges for reminding jurors they have an absolute, irrevocable right to acquit defendants based solely on their conscience, which is a fundamental part of British justice.

These are show trials and purges.

This is why I believe Bluesky was never meant to be federated. To create a Bluesky "instance", like Blacksky is heroically attempting, you have to perfectly duplicate every server Bluesky runs. But Bluesky is a business operating at a loss by burning unlimited-for-now VC cash. That has always implied only a business with unlimited VC cash can create an instance. Blacksky is succeeding. Except on days where they aren't.

I am performing a solo show in Manchester next month - spread the word if you can - thank you

https://www.anthonyburgess.org/event/literature-robin-ince-book-tour/ #poetry #comedy #adhd #neurodiversity #mentalhealth #autism #love

Ya know, I wasn’t much of a conspiracy theorist until people started doing ludicrously stupid, cartoonishly evil conspiracies. But a major explosion at any refinery this specific month is sus af.

new video! Intel x86 SMP pre-history: what was the first multi-processor x86 PC, what came before it, and why asking those questions is actually pointless??

Pretty sure this is my most ambitious production to date. Watch it here:

https://tv.ol-worldwi.de/Intel%20x86%20Multi-Processor%20Pre-History.mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fatcpr9BDtk

subs available sometime later tonight :3c

Also: there’s now an atom feed for my videos! https://tv.ol-worldwi.de/atom.xml

We have recently received a trust score by 9.6 out of 10 from "European & Open Source Alternatives", a website that wants to help people find trustworthy alternatives to Big Tech.

With that stellar rating, we are currently the top-rated alternative in the Maps category, side-by-side with our friends from #OpenStreetMap ❤️

Check out how that score was calculated for us, and other map alternatives here: https://european-alternatives.cloud/en/browse?category=maps