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I'be started using "Look, it was the *nineties*!" to justify every bad decision I've ever made or questionable opinion I've ever held. It works surprisingly well.

Since the Harvard Astronomer is getting excited about the Wow! signal now, this is worth boosting:

“[...] We report the detection of narrowband signals (10 kHz) near the hydrogen line similar to the Wow! Signal, although two-orders of magnitude less intense and in multiple locations. Despite the similarities, these signals are easily identifiable as small interstellar clouds of cold hydrogen (HI) in the galaxy. We hypothesize that the Wow! Signal was caused by a sudden brightening of the hydrogen line in these clouds triggered by a strong transient radiation source, such as a magnetar flare or a soft gamma repeater (SGR). A maser flare or superradiance mechanisms can produce stimulated emission consistent with the Wow! Signal. Our hypothesis explains all observed properties of the Wow! Signal, proposes a new source of false positives in technosignature searches, and suggests that the Wow! Signal could be the first recorded event of an astronomical maser-like flare in the hydrogen line.”

arxiv.org/abs/2408.08513

#Google trips over its own words, when they sell you #Android it's the best computing device in the world that does everything. After you bought it Google doesn't let you do anything *you* want to.

#Sideload is a made-up term. Putting software on your computer is simply called “installing”, regardless of whether that computer is in your pocket or on your desk.

What Do You Talk About When You Talk About Sideloading?

What does Google?

Here's #FDroid: f-droid.org/2025/10/28/sideloa

I have nothing but respect and sympathy for @ThePSF in their decision to withdraw from the NSF grant program in order not to compromise on their mission to keep #Python a diverse and welcoming open source community

It's hard to turn down that kind of money

So, here's my .02c for it, metaphorically. I'll personally make a $1000 donation to help fill in that gap. There are certainly 1500 of us who can spare that much, in the global python community. Who's with me?

fosstodon.org/@ThePSF/11544665

To conclude: my silver lining hope is that AWS going down can be a learning moment, in which the risks of concentrating the nervous system of our world in the hands of a few players become very clear. And that this can help us craft ways of undoing this concentration and creating real choice ❤️ 13/

ROMs for booting MacOS on the Apple Network Server have been found/archived - now how to flash them to other ANS - Are you a OF expert or know about PPC Mac ROMs? Join in and let us know.

tinkerdifferent.com/threads/ap

Let me repeat that. The Austrian federal ministry of economics migrated to Nextcloud Hub. All 1200 employees. The complete Hub with Files, Talk, Groupware, Office and Flow. No test but fully in production since 6 months. People like it. No complains. Other ministries are impressed and want to do the same. People who say that Open Source doesn’t work are wrong.
nextcloud.com/blog/austrias-mi

After stealing all books, art, videos, forum content, and independent web data, and destroying journalists' work, ChatGPT is getting ready to sell all of your personal data and queries to the highest bidder. ChatGPT Ads are coming soon to monetise its massive user base or as sam Altman calls those users free loaders. OpenAI is going to profit massively from artists' work while building a bigger surveillance network. It all legal now.

@khzimmer2 I use Windows for a few tasks I can't easily do under other OS's (software/hardware dependencies). In my considered opinion, it represents some kind of peak in Annoying OS Design. I suppose we should recognize their achievement.

Side Side Project #Amiga game is playable now 😁

If you read these reports and think ‘bruh there’s no way ARINC were running Windows terminals with no antimalware in airports taking passenger fingerprints and uploading them over the internet with plain text FTP’, I’ve got a GIF for you

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Okay, there’s an incredible update to the RTX/Collins/ARINC airport ransomware situation

Everest are claiming the incident, saying they exfiltrated a very large amount of data, including passenger data.

They’re really salty and claim it wasn’t ransomware.. what they aren’t aware of (this isn’t in the story) is an in parallel, somebody also tried to deploy ransomware.

Overall the problem is: shite security.

cyberdaily.au/security/12814-e

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Oh, look, the entirely predictable consequences of age verification that everyone said would happen. Bravo for all involved with the #OnlineSafetyAct.

theverge.com/news/797051/disco

There’s an Alan Moore story about a Roman official who knows that the empire will fall, because the forged coins he’s assessing have more precious metals than the real ones.

The knock-off Penguin bars in Lidl can be called “milk chocolate”, whereas actual Penguins must say they have a “milk chocolate flavour coating”.

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