paleBlue @paleBlue@qoto.org

Y’all are great - Manuel Moreale:
https://manuelmoreale.com/thoughts/y-all-are-great

As I like to say: The old, human web is still here! Its just that skyscrapers now dominate the web's skyline.

a typical vape board has
* cortex M0 MCU
* NOR flash IC
* a pushbutton or slide switch
* li-ion battery + charger
* nice LCD display (sometimes LED)
* differential pressure sensor
* coil driver(s) with voltage feedback

did you know that you can find free Cortex M0 development boards at the side of the road? folks call them disposable vapes but they're hackable, and i've reverse engineered a bunch of them! see https://github.com/schlae/VapeRE/

Ready to use ChatGPT Atlas? Please don't‼️

➡️ It can literally be hacked by reading websites

➡️ It reads everything you're logged into: your email, your CRM, your bank account

➡️ "Delete" doesn't mean deleted

➡️ "Incognito" mode isn't private

➡️ GDPR/compliance nightmare

More: https://tuta.com/blog/dont-install-atlas-ai-browser-heres-why

#OpenAI #ChatGPT #AtlasBrowser #AgenticBrowser

I no longer believe that pure open source licenses serve a public good, as our tools can easily be used to do harm - we are building weapons for our oppressors.

Building on the work of many others, I've cobbled together my own Ethical Software License from a variety of sources.

My own addition is a prohibition on using the software for building AI, crypto, or any similar technology.

I'd appreciate any and all feedback on this! (Sharing is OK!)

https://codeberg.org/krusynth/no-ai-ethical-license

#opensource #oss

"Google hates XML" me too
"keep XSLT alive" Absolutely the fuck not. Have you written XSLT. I have and I wish to never encounter it again in any context
"Tell your friends and family about XSLT" they will stop talking to me if I do

Mass surveillance doesn't make us safer. We need to deconstruct this false notion.

Mass surveillance is only a tool for control and oppression, it is not for protection.

#MassSurveillance #Privacy #HumanRights

Some of you may have heard about the proposed chat control law. A similar atrocious proposal has been put forth regarding seeds, making heirloom seeds (the OG's of seeds before GMO) illegal to sell, grow or trade.

Write to the EC and learn more at:

https://www.no-patents-on-seeds.org/en/campaign

If anyone needs a UX design team manager, head of UX or VP-level position, please let me know. My boss is sadly being made redundant and they’re genuinely a great person to work for, have crafted a fantastic team and grown our UX design and research capabilities across the business. Not to mention being great fun on social outings too. 💔

Hybrid positions in the North East of England or remote positions would be perfect.

#UX #UXdesign #UXjobs #designjobs #userexperience

my friend that i introduced to old computers and gifted a soldering iron a couple years back just fixed her headphones with her soldering station without my involvement. So proud of her and happy that she's confident enough to do stuff like this completely self directed.
And I don't even know what other projects she might get up to when we're not talking.

Soldering irons and pumps and screwdrivers can be so empowering.

The antidote to materialism isn't minimalism; it's maintenance. Keep things. Fix them. Mend them. Grow old with possessions you know well because you've cared for them.

Dammit Robin, get your head on straight!!

So one thing I notice about #blind Internet culture: even back on Twitter, and now here in the #fediverse, blind people tend towards having discussions in giant threads, sometimes with as many as 10-12 people in them, that can often stretch on for days. I rarely (if ever) see sighted culture do this. I wonder why? It's not a criticism, it's just interesting to me. Maybe because Discord and other chat apps were historically less #accessible, so blind culture tends to use the fediverse more as a discussion platform? Or maybe it's something UI related that makes it easier for blind folks to track giant threads of doom? The few times I've been involved in this style of discussion with sighted folks, they've become confused and begged for everyone to move to Discord or Slack or somewhere. On the other hand, I rarely see blind people do a single, lengthy post broken up and threaded the way sighted people do, with (1/N) at the end. We tend to just move to instances with longer character limits, or put our long form thoughts on a webpage or something.

Hearts at the PSF are full today from the responses about the recent grant turn down news we shared. All of your kind words of support & solidarity, as well as your donations & new memberships, mean the world to us. We're so grateful to be in community with each of you 💛 🐍 💙

The question isn’t "why does Signal use AWS?" It’s to look at the infrastructural requirements of any global, real-time, mass comms platform and ask how it is that we got to a place where there’s no realistic alternative to AWS and the other hyperscalers. 3/

Do you work for a company using Python? Is your company turning a profit? Show this blog post to coworkers and managers. Support the PSF!

https://hachyderm.io/@nedbat/115447331754295617

People used to argue, straight faced with sincerely held good intentions, that you couldn't trust free software or wikipedia, because who would you call if it breaks? You don't really know where it all comes from!

But the answer is "people". The answer was always people, and no matter what you've heard from governments, media outlets or corporations, people are far more trustworthy than the average government or the typical media outlet or any corporation.

Bet on people who bet on people.

If someone creates something, whether it's written or painted or animated or sung, if that thing affects you and means something to you, I urge you to tell them.

There are days in any creative career where the bills are late and the pantry is bare and none of it seems like a viable path. Those comments can keep someone going. I have seen and felt it. Knowing that it matters to a stranger is sometimes enough.

After making a page for tools that I like, I decided to create an anti-tools page.

In addition to specific things or vendors I don't touch (e.g. Meta, Twitter, Microsoft), I have a section devoted to rent-seeking (Adobe, Avid) and cocaine autocorrect.

https://www.soundslike.pro/anti-tools/

#GoHugo #MusicProduction #Software #AI #LLM

The Python Software Foundation shows more spine than every single tech giant in just one single decision.

> Diversity, equity, and inclusion are core to the PSF’s values

https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-funding-statement.html