Sylvain Miermont @miermont@qoto.org

This felt too valuable not to share. Braille-labeled maps of washrooms to help people find and use facilities in the washroom. Everyone deserves to get in, do their business, wash their hands, and get out in peace and safety.

This seems valuable for all public spaces.

#Blind #Accessibility

Finally… I’ve been waiting for someone to cover this story. So sad. Climate[dot]gov has always been one of my favorite go-to resources to share.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/11/climate-website-shut-down-noaa

The impact of the president’s fiscal year 2026 funding request for #NASA on #astronomy facilities. When we wrote that we should slow down the deployment pace of new facilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions we did not mean shutting down everything

Turbo Pascal vs. Pedro Pascal.

#Pascal

i've completed reverse engineering the 2nd chip of the IBM MCGA graphics chipset. this is the "Video Formatter Gate Array" and i already discovered hidden functionality!

https://github.com/schlae/IBM_MCGA

New Caledonia has enacted a sweeping 50-year ban on all commercial seabed mining across its entire 1.3 million km² maritime zone. The French Pacific territory, home to nearly one-third of the world's remaining pristine coral reefs, says it is prioritising environmental protection over economic extraction, allowing only non-invasive scientific research. RFI https://www.rfi.fr/en/environment/20250502-new-caledonia-bans-dangerous-seabed-mining-for-half-a-century?ref=fixthenews.com
#ShareGoodNewsToo

After last year's woodpecker attack, we reinforced the birdhouse with a fan grille . It worked! This year's tit family is happy, and the nestlings are already peeking out!

I’m not sure it has sunk in yet how effective LLMs are at persuasion: there are now multiple empirical studies demonstrating significant, durable belief change effects

https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.adq1814

New LED polyhedron build is underway. The video shows two halves of a dihedral hexacontahedron which will have 60 identical kite-shaped sides. This is the third PCB-based polyhedron build in a row, and each one is an improvement. These 3D printed tile covers use a translucent PETG designed for lithophanes plus a larger air gap than the last build, and I think the diffusion looks much better

The power of Rust is not that it is "close to the metal" but rather that it is close to the compiler backend. Rust doesn't attempt to make you frame your code in a way that the hardware will execute well, but rather to frame it in a way that the LLVM optimizer will optimize well. This is the correct decision since your C code after all will be processed through that same optimizer before it touches anything resembling metal

### **Diagnostic Criteria for "Absurdly Rich Sociopathic Entitlement Disorder (ARSED)"**
*(Proposed for inclusion in future editions of the DSM)*

#### **A. Core Features**
A pervasive pattern of extreme wealth accumulation accompanied by maladaptive psychological and behavioral traits, beginning in early adulthood and present in various contexts, as indicated by at least **five (5) or more** of the following:

1. **Deficient Empathy:** Displays a chronic inability or unwillingness to recognize the suffering, struggles, or needs of others, even when directly responsible for their hardship. May rationalize exploitation or suffering as a necessary outcome of their own success.
2. **Narcissistic Grandiosity:** Maintains an inflated sense of self-importance, believing their wealth signifies inherent superiority, intelligence, or worthiness. Often exhibits excessive entitlement to admiration, obedience, or special treatment.
3. **Psychopathic Traits:** Demonstrates callousness, manipulation, or a lack of remorse in pursuit of personal and financial gains. May exploit legal loopholes, workers, or the environment without ethical concern.
4. **Extreme Privilege Blindness:** Exhibits an inability or unwillingness to recognize the systemic advantages that contributed to their status, often engaging in self-mythologizing narratives of "self-made success."
5. **Delusions of Grandeur:** Holds irrational beliefs about their omnipotence, seeing themselves as uniquely capable of solving world problems—often in ways that ignore or exacerbate structural issues. May attempt to reshape society according to their personal ideology.
6. **Compulsive Resource Hoarding:** Accumulates and withholds excessive financial, material, or land-based resources beyond reasonable personal needs, despite awareness of widespread societal inequities. Finds security in unchecked accumulation.
7. **Exploitative Control:** Uses wealth to exert disproportionate influence over political, social, or economic structures, often engaging in behaviors that reinforce their own power at the expense of the public good.

#### **B. Impairment & Consequences**
- The individual's behaviors result in **significant harm to others** (e.g., systemic worker exploitation, ecological destruction, destabilization of democratic processes).
- Despite external material success, the individual may exhibit **deficient interpersonal relationships, an inability to form genuine connections, or a deep-seated paranoia regarding threats to their status.**

#### **C. Exclusionary Criteria**
- The individual is not excessively wealthy.
- The pattern is **not better explained** by other conditions such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD), or Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD), although high comorbidity with these may exist.
- The behaviors are **not solely attributable** to a temporary manic or psychotic episode.

---

### **Specifiers**
- **Corporate Feudalism Subtype:** Characterized by monopolization of industries, lobbying for deregulation, and aggressive union suppression.
- **Technocrat Messiah Subtype:** Marked by a belief in their personal ability to "solve" social crises through technology, often with little regard for democratic governance or unintended consequences.
- **Neo-Philanthropist Subtype:** Engages in highly publicized charitable efforts that reinforce their own power, wealth, or ideological control rather than addressing root systemic issues.

---

### **Prognosis & Treatment**
- **Prognosis:** Guarded to poor. Individuals rarely seek treatment voluntarily, as their position insulates them from natural consequences. External interventions (e.g., wealth redistribution, progressive taxation, corporate regulation) are often more effective than direct psychological treatment.
- **Treatment Considerations:** Cognitive-behavioral approaches may be attempted but are often limited by entrenched delusions of superiority. Radical exposure therapy involving forced wealth redistribution may yield the best outcomes.

---

### **Notes:**
- This diagnosis is not currently recognized by the APA but reflects emerging critiques of extreme wealth hoarding as a form of maladaptive psychopathology.
- Further research is needed to determine the most effective intervention strategies, though historical precedent suggests wealth caps and systemic economic reforms may be necessary preventative measures.

#EatTheRich #FuckMusk #FuckTrump #DSM #Psychology

“We call on the European Commission to propose a binding legal ban on conversion practices targeting #LGBTQ+ citizens in the #EU”. A European Citizen Initiative (ECI) is not a petition, it is a legally binding instrument.
https://eci.ec.europa.eu/043/public/
There are 6 weeks left to reach the thresholds for this one. Berlin, Hamburg, where are you??

Did a little write up of some of the open-source software I believe needs to exist to help us tackle the future challenges of Trust & Safety on decentralized social networks: https://writings.thisismissem.social/open-source-tools-for-the-future-of-decentralized-moderation/

*Everything you yourself say in the house of some doofus with Amazon Alexa

According to a few sources [1-2] radon is radioluminescent and glows yellow to red, depending on temperature, when cooled to a solid state.

Anybody know if this has ever been photographed in color? Or in general, are there any photos of bulk radon in either liquid or solid form?

[1] https://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele086.html
[2] https://www.britannica.com/science/radon

Elon Musk just raided America's doomsday seed vault.

Yes, you read that right. The vault meant to protect humanity’s last defense against agricultural collapse, stripped and sabotaged.

This isn't hyperbole. The seed bunker held our future. Our protection from famine, disease, climate disasters, destroyed by reckless arrogance.

Elon Musk fired critical scientists, placing centuries of agricultural heritage at immediate risk.

America relied on those seeds. America relied on those scientists. America relied on that bunker.

62,000 unique wheat strains, 600,000 genetic lines, our lifeline in a crisis, now endangered.

Without regular care, these seeds die. Without these seeds, we lose our ability to respond to threats.

Without that ability, we lose food security itself.

This is a direct assault on humanity's survival.

Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) treated our collective security as disposable, gambling with millions of lives. Farmers, families, and children. Everyone is harmed.

If you're thinking someone else will handle this, you're wrong. If you're assuming private industry will step in, you're wrong.

If you're comfortable waiting to act, you're complicit.

Apathy won't fix this, waiting won't reverse it.

You must immediately demand:
- Full reinstatement of the fired scientists.
- Secured federal funding protecting the seed vault permanently.
- Legislative safeguards ensuring this can never happen again.

Call your representatives. Share this message. Demand accountability from Musk, DOGE, and our government.

Act now, because your future depends on it. Your children's survival, planet's stability, and the nation's integrity are at stake.

It is urgent, necessary, and morally essential.

Stand up, speak out, and fight for our shared future.

What have we here!

https://www.internetarchive.eu/

PSA - I'm working on some online courses that I'll be launching very soon, skilling up folk (incl from less technical backgrounds) to deploy, maintain and grow low-cost sovereign server infrastructure to keep their communities safe.

Spotted in the wild:

The TGV M, aka the Avelia Horizon, at the Gare de l'Est in #Paris.

This is the newest generation bullet train.

Capable of 350 km/h, but uses 20 percent less electricity.

Bi-level, so it can carry 740 passengers...

She no longer has confidence that we'll continue to get the kind of progress on brain diseases we've been getting; we already know multiple labs that have had to shut down their research programs entirely.