Nostr notes by Mr Penguin

Interesting statistic that explains why young people get into ...

2026-10-22T05:22:04Z

Interesting statistic that explains why young people get into more accidents than older populations and it has nothing to do maturity, inexperience, distractions, or other youth/people in the car. No. It's a consequence of teenage brains being forced out of bed at hours that don't jive with their bodies. This is what the science says. Teenage accidents decrease 70% when high schools start a few hours later. It's laterally that simple. At some point as you age the body changes and this is not an issue. It doesn't impact pre-pubescent children and those who've aged out of this "teen" period (which varies a little from person to person).

"so much competition among streaming services" In the ...

2026-10-22T00:09:52Z

"so much competition among streaming services"

In the 1990s there were 31,000 video rental shops. There are only about 300 streaming services available in the United States, but really it's closer to a dozen because most aren't licensing content from hollywood studios.

Of the platforms that actually carry content from major Hollywood studios (Disney, Warner Bros., Sony, Universal, Paramount, MGM, Lionsgate, etc.) there are roughly just 12–15.

Competition? Call me skeptical.

"If AI were to make someone commit suicide" OMG. AI ...

2026-10-21T23:59:21Z

"If AI were to make someone commit suicide"

OMG. AI doesn't make anyone do anything. If AI "convinced" you to commit suicide and that's a big if it still didn't make you commit suicide. You chose to commit suicide. Otherwise you wouldn't be calling it suicide. You'd be calling it murder or an accident more likely. Murder = human. Accident = machine.

If you asked the AI to write you a program for your widget that had the power to move and potentially kill you and you then run that program on that widget and it does... there is an air of negligence on the part of the user.

The "tiger test" vs AI. So there is this argument that is ...

2026-10-21T23:44:22Z

The "tiger test" vs AI. So there is this argument that is being made that companies should be liable because the owner of a tiger is liable for the actions of their tiger even if they attempt to train the tiger and fail.

This is an utter fallacy and completely misses the point that a manufacturer isn't automatically liable because a user missuses a tool. A gun manufacturer isn't liable for the murder of an individual with that tool.

A manufacturer may be liable for negligence in the product in terms of safety, but that's a very different scenario. It's how the AI is used is the potential danger, not a failure in the design of the product.

That is to say the developer of a AI tool that is purely informational shouldn't be liable for either the misuse of that tool, but they may be liable if that AI tool is used as intended/designed and fails causing injury or similar.

Where the line is is effectively inserting AI into everything without consideration for the implementation of the tool's end use/purpose.

If you design a product that incorporates AI to assist with software development a failure in perfection of the tool is expected behavior.

If you design a product like a vehicle and connect it to AI where the product can't fail, well, then you've been negligent, and as a manufacturer you could be liable.

"The server logs could reveal what happened on Meta’s ...

2026-10-21T00:10:14Z

"The server logs could reveal what happened on Meta’s machines. However, publisher Entrepreneur Media also wants to know who approved the torrenting activity."

This is like asking a company who approved a system admin make regular backups.

umm the specific thing wasn't signed off on, but it may very well be presumed to be part of the job even if it's not explicitly spelled out in the job post.

"Last month, Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson ordered Meta to ...

2026-10-21T00:03:12Z

"Last month, Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson ordered Meta to hand over the command histories of the servers it used to torrent pirated books.

These logs would presumably reveal how Meta’s torrent clients were set up, including any changes to their upload settings."

I find it entertaining that this is presumed to exist. Not only have "command histories" not always existed or not existed on every system they may not exist depending on the system or configuration of a modern system today.

Anyone sane doing anything that might come back to haunt them later should be aware of "command histories", logging of messages, "recent history", (recently opened files, etc) "browser histories", "login histories' , time stamps (involving file creation/modification/copying), etc and these things should be turned off where it's possible and not preserved to disk where it's not possible. There are a variety of ways that can be done to one degree or another using different operating systems from using a live image and shutdown, to packages like overlayroot on Ubuntu and Ubuntu-derived distribution that turns a system into a read-only kiosk device that upon reboot loses its data/logs/etc. I believe something exists for Microsoft Windows even and I don't know what it is called or how effective it is compared to Linux or other OS equivalents, but the point is these things exist.

https://torrentfreak.com/judge-orders-meta-to-name-employees-who-approved-torrenting-annas-archive-and-libgen/

There is an update on that GrapheneOS user that is accused of and ...

2026-10-20T23:22:07Z

There is an update on that GrapheneOS user that is accused of and charged with wiping his phone at the US boarder, of whom merely handed over a distress code.

So the crazy thing about this story is he took no such action to destroy any data. The boarder patrol officer asked for his password to his phone and he apparently provided a distress code. The officer entered that distress code into the password entry box and it wiped the phone. The actor who destroyed what appears to have been non-existent evidence was in fact the boarder patrol officer, not the accused owner of the phone.

"As 404 Media first revealed in December, Tunick was charged because he allegedly "did knowingly destroy, damage, waste, dispose of, and otherwise take any action to delete the digital contents of a Google Pixel cellular phone, for the purpose of preventing and impairing the Government's lawful authority to take said property into its custody and control."

He did no such thing obviously. He provided information. He took no action and last I checked while you don't have all your rights at the boarder something tells me he still had free speech.

OMG: This is hilarious: https://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#80

2026-10-20T02:40:45Z

OMG: This is hilarious:

https://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#80

"TP-Link Moves to Assemble Routers In the US Following Import ...

2026-10-20T02:23:37Z

"TP-Link Moves to Assemble Routers In the US Following Import Ban "

Literally a jobs program. You know who else has a similar jobs program? Brazil. Do you know what they pay as a consequence for electronics? 200-400% more than we use to pay in the US. They also forced 'manufacturing' into the country and the consequences of it was obvious. They'd manufacture in China, disassemble, ship the components to Brazil, and then re-assemble the electronics. Brazil is no small market either. It's population is 216 million or so people vs the US's 320 million people. The negative consequences are society are fucking huge.

"New Video Game Law Proposed: 'If You Pay For It, You Own ...

2026-10-19T03:22:08Z

"New Video Game Law Proposed: 'If You Pay For It, You Own It'"

Ha, yea, I could half-get behind something like this, but the problem is you shouldn't be able to force the company to do shit, but you should be entitled to reverse engineer it, copy it, modify it, etc. When companies behave badly you should stop doing business with them. It's really that simple most of the time.

The problem really comes down to government interference in the free market as to why we have many of the problems we do. It is copyright, patents, and similar that most significantly undermine competition in the market place and hind folks ability to seek out a competing solution from a better behaving actor.

Governments should never grant monopolies and should look for solutions to undo what monopolies have handed unfair first mover advantages that benefited from such temporary or permanent monopolies of the past. Think electricity, telephone, internet, copyrights, patents, etc.

It's near impossible to open and compete against a pizza place that has been in business for 20 years already. They've paid off loans to get started and anything you do they'll be able to out-compete you on [probably] at least as far as price is concerned. They won't have the loans to pay off so if you set one price they'll just drop theirs to just below what you can afford until you go out of business. This a common practice of bigger corporations. Once they've run out their smaller competitors they then raise prices.

We should not be enabling this kind of behavior. It's also the case we should not be rigging our financial systems to reward larger companies over smaller ones.

It's these sorts of things that lead to less competition & it's effectively bad for everyone except those at the top.

Raspberry Pi's suck as it is. It's amazing anyone would ...

2026-10-19T02:36:26Z

Raspberry Pi's suck as it is. It's amazing anyone would want to use one even without these digital restrictions.

"Raspberry Pi justifies the use of DRM on the basis of being able to identify altered computers. There may be legitimate reasons for wanting to identify such altered computers."

This has got to be one of the lamest excuses I've heard and it's the same kind of bullshit justification for Apple locking down it's devices:

"Unscrupulous sellers have reportedly replaced memory on lower-capacity boards and resold them as more expensive models, sometimes using unreliable or defective components. But preventing fraud and maintaining quality does not require taking control away from users."

Say no to Raspberry Pi and get something else. Anything else.

My recommendation is effectively something with a Rockchip SoC at the moment.

While I don't have a solid image I can point anyone at in terms of OS and free bootloader/etc all of the pieces are there. I've built completely free Trisquel images for Rockchip SoC devices. You can install mostly free software images as most of the support is in the mainline kernel for at least some Rockchip based devices already and it's still better than Raspberry Pi either way.

I'm not quite seeing how this is an offense... if you were to ...

2026-10-18T03:09:03Z

I'm not quite seeing how this is an offense... if you were to hinder someone from leaving it might constitute kidnapping, but getting in the path of a robot? It's not like she's preventing it from being moved or going around. It comes off as inconsiderate, not a criminal act. Her defense of her actions is also somewhat humorous. It's not protected speech. Actions can be speech, but your actions can't violate other laws at least to the extent those other laws aren't prohibiting or restricting speech in some way.

"According to police, Marvin repeatedly blocked the robot's path and ignored multiple commands from officers to move.."

Yikes- MapQuest apparently requires WebGL which is really fucked ...

2026-10-17T23:02:36Z

Yikes- MapQuest apparently requires WebGL which is really fucked up. No thank you. I'll go somewhere else:

I'm getting tired of people bitching about how expensive it ...

2026-10-17T22:23:45Z

I'm getting tired of people bitching about how expensive it is to live while simultaneously looking at houses in some of the most desirable places or near the most desirable places. Of course it's going to cost you millions when you want to live near the ocean. Sane people buy houses where it's not absurdly expensive and the jobs pay better after getting an education or otherwise getting into a trade. As expensive as it may be you can get a house for $400-500k in a decent area. It just ain't going to be by the water in California or Florida.

"Ontario woman shocked to discover Amazon blocked her ...

2026-10-17T20:52:26Z

"Ontario woman shocked to discover Amazon blocked her account"

The disturbing thing about this story is that Amazon has a literal monopoly on obtaining a long list of items. It's a problem that has in part been created by folks doing exactly what she's done and exclusively shopping on a single online platform. This causes many businesses to sell through a single company because other platforms simply aren't worth the effort.

The lesson to be learned is avoid Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot and other similar retailers that have concerned markets. Avoid purchasing the "best" product. Often there are products on the market that are simply fine and sufficient even if they don't offer perfectly equivalent performance or quality or what not. You don't have to go with garbage, but going with 2nd best is often better as it smooths over issues that cause companies to be the sole manufacturer of a product of which later conduct themselves in less than desirable ways and of which you then can't avoid.

All modern TVs spy on you is a perfect example of this. People wanted to save a little bit of money and eventually the only TVs on the market left were spying apparatuses doing the bidding of others and not what is in your best interest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9q0jvYpZIU

Have you attended a public school in the past couple of decades? ...

2026-10-17T20:36:32Z

Have you attended a public school in the past couple of decades? Your personal data has probably been obtained no thanks to the poor security practices and decisions to computerize student records. Even if your haven't attended a public school in decades your personal information may now be in the hands of malicious actors (and I'm not just talking about the schools themselves).

"Personal Data for Millions of California Students Stolen in Massive Breach"

...

"The breach affects students 'who took the state's mandated standardized tests that annually assess their academic proficiency, education officials announced Friday.'"

The government is coming for your electronics. The FCC is now ...

2026-10-16T09:41:03Z

The government is coming for your electronics. The FCC is now demanding a FCC ID which will undermine your ability to sell used electronics online or get electronics they don't "approve" of all in the false name of national security.

This does NOTHING for national security or actual security / privacy etc. MOST devices have an FCC ID and are running malicious software. In fact nearly everything is. There are very few exceptions. I should know this is literally my business. We weed through and develop products that aren't hostile to a users freedom, control, privacy, and security.

Send your political critter a message telling this new FCC rule (not passed by the congress critters themselves, but arbitrarily created through a dictator that heads an organization with the authority to make up arbitrary rules that harm everyone) is completely unacceptable:

https://flipwise.app/ebay-fcc-id-sellers-speak-up

States shouldn't implement qualifiers to qualify for federal ...

2026-10-16T00:36:40Z

States shouldn't implement qualifiers to qualify for federal SNAP benefits and pay more of the administrative costs that the federal government use to cover.

Rather they should end social and corporate benefit programs entirely.

New Hampshire actually does this to one degree or another. Rather than subsidizing industries to attract them the benefit of setting up in New Hampshire is lower taxes.

If you stop the subsidizing bull shit people will learn to navigate their finances better and setup their own safety nets. Back in the day people saved for a rainy day, they bagged lunch, they maintained a checkbook, etc.

New Hampshire may have a long ways to go here, but the state has done a better job than most at NOT incentivizing companies to setup shop, but rather focused on maintaining lower taxes. When your economic situation declines in Mass you get your liquor in New Hampshire for a fraction of the price. You spent your dollars at New Hampshire grocery stores because there is no sales tax, etc.

Ubuntu 26.10 was released today, and this is why no one is ...

2026-10-15T23:37:07Z

Ubuntu 26.10 was released today, and this is why no one is exactly why no one is using it:

"system-wide controls for disabling Ubuntu Insights data collection"

Yea, umm most people are using GNU/Linux because they DON'T like what certain other companies are doing in this regard. So why one earth would you incorporate data collection into your OS????

Linux Mint has done the exact opposite and it's far from perfect, but it's SOOOO much better than other operating systems and Ubuntu it's hard to be overly critical. Linux Mint has mostly played it safe, maybe even a bit more than need be. What they haven't done is pissed off their user base to the point where they've seen the majority of their users hop ship. Canonical in one fell swing lost half its user base to Linux Mint decades ago now.... and they've done everything they could to undermine users trust.

I seriously want to know where these people live that it costs ...

2026-10-15T08:46:07Z

I seriously want to know where these people live that it costs $27 for a kids meal. No doubt prices have skyrocketed and are out of control, but if you live somewhere that the prices are $53 for a mean your cost of living is insane and you aught best move.

It costs me ~$10-20 for an ADULT meal these days. I'm having a hard time believing some place like Dennys or Apple Bees or similar is charging $53 a plate. Maybe a steak or something like that at some of the higher end places, but that's also been the case at high end places. Some places like Chris Ruth's stake house you won't walk away for less than $100 two decades ago.

Somehow I doubt anyone is actually going to lose access to the ...

2026-10-15T07:24:30Z

Somehow I doubt anyone is actually going to lose access to the internet. If folks value the internet and we all know the vast majority of even the poorest of the poor in society do they'll pay for access out of their own pockets:

"'Schools and libraries from around the U.S. pleaded with the Federal Communications Commission to drop the idea of ending E-Rate, a $2 billion-a-year program that connects students and library visitors to the Internet. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has criticized school districts for having 'experimented with a massive increase in screen time for students,' and said E-Rate expanded too far beyond its original purpose of "supporting basic Internet access to schools and libraries for educational purposes.' In June, Carr led a 2-1 vote to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) seeking public comment on whether E-Rate should be 'limited or sunset to reflect today's extensive connectivity rates.'"

"ZDNet notes that other Dutch government agencies are ...

2026-10-15T01:48:30Z

"ZDNet notes that other Dutch government agencies are developing an open-source alternative called DAWO (Digital Autonomous Work Environment for Government), which would begin by replacing Windows with the Linux distribution NixOS."

I'm not anti-NixOS, but I have to question the sanity and likelihood of success given the particular distribution.

There are things to like about NixOS, I'd be concerned about NixOS lacking the resources, support, documentation, etc and similar by comparison to a variety of other distributions.

One of the things that you'll be able to source for end-users if you build a spin off other distributions are things like books and extensive documentation.

My company stocks education materials and where Ubuntu, Redhat Enterprise Linux, and similar distros are fine for servers they're lacking in educational resources for use on the desktop. NixOS this is going to likely be even more true. The only distribution that we even have a few solid end-user English oriented desktop focused books on is Linux Mint. There are two that I'm aware of. There might be a crummier option for Ubuntu. I'm trying to recall what is in my companies catalog. I know there are more extensive books for the desktop for Ubuntu, but, the point is it's not just this alone.

There are other things to think about like hardware support.

With something like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora, or even Trisquel there are sources for hardware and distribution and version specific documentation.

If your organization is in need of a hardware authentication solution what options do you have for NixOS? Is there documentation? I can pretty much confidently say it's piss poor cause I'm the only one properly documenting fingerprint reader & smart card reader support.

"US Tech Giants Warn Europe That Data Sovereignty ...

2026-10-15T01:27:20Z

"US Tech Giants Warn Europe That Data Sovereignty Requirements Could Cost $128 Billion "

Talk about more self-serving bullshit... whatever the cost retaining control has serious value from a security stand point. It's insane to think companies are outsourcing to foreign entities like they do with 'cloud' services. It's even more disturbing that governments are doing it and forcing it on their own citizens whether they want it or not.

" A study commissioned by CCIA Europe, whose members include Amazon, Google, and Meta, estimates that the EU's proposed Cloud and AI Development Act could impose 115 billion euros ($128 billion) in costs over a decade as governments and companies migrate workloads and rewrite software. The figure is more than six times the European Commission's upper estimate. However, roughly 80 billion euros ($89 billion) of it comes from a modeled scenario assuming sovereignty rules are extended to 25% of cloud workloads in essential private-sector industries.The Register reports: "

While a little different NH's department of motor vehicle is openly and illegally partaking in sharing data the law says it can't except for on a case by case basis. Partaking in a sharing scheme is illegal, but this shares similarities with governments using 'cloud' services. They're giving others your info whether or not you want them to or have agreed to it. In-house technical solutions where security is maintained may make sense, but exposing your populations data is NOT COOL.

Yep- Microsoft being malicious as I expected. So the new ...

2026-10-15T01:11:09Z

Yep- Microsoft being malicious as I expected. So the new Microsoft 'defender' for GNU/Linux is proprietary. We can't even have a serious conversation about security if we don't know what it is doing and have to "trust" a company best known for umm being malicious.

"Microsoft Defender for Linux is proprietary, closed-source commercial software"

..

"Microsoft is also making it easier to onboard desktops through streamlined methods, offering a unified security operations experience, strengthened security, and improved response times. Organizations that are already familiar with securing Linux servers via Defender should feel right at home securing desktops too, as the experience is exactly the same. "
..

"As stated previously, all Linux server distros are supported via Defender on desktops too. These include RHEL, CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, SLES, Fedora, and Oracle Linux, GNOME, KDE, and more. "

...

And the rent seeking exploitative part we're all super familiar with from Microsoft:

"That said, you do need Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Plan 2 or a Microsoft 365 E5 and E7 subscription. You can enroll Defender on workstations using the same deployment methods you use for servers, but do check out the prerequisites here. "

I'm not against companies making money where they're providing GENUINE services that aren't purely self-serving (like a service your providing should actually be desirable to the customer) and inflicted by the same entities causing the problem. I'm far more amenable to paying for a subscription to Canonical for security updates as an example even if I'm not a fan of Canonical. Just as an example.

A privacy oriented VPN provider that isn't spying on their end user for example offers a genuine service if it's not from the ISP.

Am I the only one who understands what a scam ...

2026-10-15T00:45:54Z

Am I the only one who understands what a scam anti-virus/anti-malware are? Ya know it's not just these tools, but a lot of the VPN providers out there too. It's one thing when your providing a genuine service that's advertising a degree of pseudo-anonymity, protection from malicious ISP actors your basically forced to go through due to duopolies and shitty politicians, etc, but another when your lying through your teeth and spying/tracking the very customers you sold yourself as protecting.

Anti-virus is very much like that particularly where Microsoft is concerned. They produce a buggy insecure product, then basically make up a 'solution' that isn't effective rather than issuing a recall and fixing design flaws.

"Attorneys general from the states, which include Iowa, ...

2026-10-15T00:21:56Z

"Attorneys general from the states, which include Iowa, Kansas and Arizona, filed the lawsuits independently in state courts, claiming ChatGPT is designed to be agreeable and engaging to earn the trust of users. But the chatbot reinforces delusions, encourages dangerous behavior and assists users in planning violence like mass shootings, the lawsuits claim."

Yes, but it's not a human you morons. It's a fucking tool. If your kid is mental it's up to you to get them help. While this is PERFECTLY fine for 99.95% of youngsters are are SANE it may not be appropriate to hand them if they're MENTALLY ILL. It's like handing a kid a gun (well, probably something far less potentially dangerous really), or saw where they could potentially injure themselves, or something with a bit of risk attached. Skiing might be a great example sort of- there is anticipated risk, but of which your waiving liability that might otherwise exist for for the ski resort. We don't ban kids from skiing or hold ski resorts liable. Why the hell should companies developing AI be liable? EVEN IF THEY TARGETED YOUTH!!!! The onus is on the parents. There is no getting away from 'the internet be potentially dangerous user beware'. You can't play ignorant. It was NEVER designed for your precious baby.

Entertaining headline on Slashdot: "FBI Arrests Cybersecurity ...

2026-10-11T20:20:24Z

Entertaining headline on Slashdot:

"FBI Arrests Cybersecurity Executive Over Data Breach After Contractor Fails to Update Oracle HR Platform"

The FBI is also charging the guy with:

"Dubrovsky is facing charges related to extortion and making threats."

The problem I have is nothing law enforcement says is connected to reality. I wouldn't at all be surprised if there was some good reason the system wasn't updated and his knowledge within the criminal sphere was used against him independent of any actual malice or action. Or it's some other absurdity like 'if not for' the threats couldn't be made and therefore he's somehow an accessory of the crime even though he didn't even know about the incident at the time it happened.

And yea... they pull that kind of crap. In the Crypto6 case with Ian Freeman they pulled a 'if not for' him selling crypto to what they wanted us to perceive as 'little old laddies' being conned out of life savings (few if any really) when they [prosecutors] admitted in court (though this was never in front of the jury) that Ian had ZERO knowledge that the individuals in question were being scammed at the time. He only became aware of any of these victims the day he was arrested after a ~5 year investigation (with the exception of like ~1 person of whom he did become aware they had been victimized before the transaction fully completed I believe, and he spent 6 months working to get that victims money back via her son).

So I'm watching this video on how evil Amazon is with their ...

2026-10-10T21:00:19Z

So I'm watching this video on how evil Amazon is with their price fixing where sellers on the platform are coerced into getting other retailers to raise their prices such that the prices on Amazon are lower and many of the companies are claiming they have no choice. It's their only income and it's 90% of the revenue. That may be true, but it was still YOUR decision to sell on Amazon in the first place.

I run a business too and I've always chosen to NOT sell on Amazon. It may be more work. It may be I'm 'losing sales', but at the end of the day I'm in control and not contributing to the problem (err to the degree I don't use Amazon I suppose myself, but that is admittedly often difficult).

Anyhow... the answer? Stop selling on Amazon. Save up some of your profits and tear yourself away from Amazon. It is possible. My small company is proof of that.

Holly crap: The leading socialist figure in America (Bernie ...

2026-10-03T17:36:19Z

Holly crap: The leading socialist figure in America (Bernie Sanders) appears to have just introduced one of the most libertarian sounds bills if the description below is to believed I've ever encountered:

"on Friday U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Ban Flock Act. The proposed bill bans federal agencies in America from using automated license plate reader systems 'without explicit statutory authorization'. The bill also lets certain federal agencies (including the Homeland Security Department) withhold grant money from State and local governments that use automatic license plate readers."

It's NOT perfect, but it's as solid as anything I've heard proposed before, or probably close to it:

"covers any and all ALPR systems. The bill allows exceptions only for toll collection and for uses that Congress approves in future legislation, which would have to limit data retention to no longer than 48 hours."

New Hampshire might have a slightly better restriction on ALPR cameras already as it also limits the time the data can be retained by police and is very short.

https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/02/sanders-introduces-bill-to-ban-the-federal-government-from-using-flock/

I'm watching this Al Jazeera video (not something I do very ...

2026-10-03T08:42:32Z

I'm watching this Al Jazeera video (not something I do very often, but it's good to get in a bit of non-totally western aligned propaganda once in a while in addition to Russia Today and other outlets) and one thing I can say about non-western aligned outlets is they'll throw on socialist and libertarians here and there and it creates some really entertaining videos.

Here both sides make some good points. Social Security is failing even if it's not a total collapse. The socialist insists it's not stealing if we start forcing billionaires to contribute more, and they think, he thinks it'll solve the problem, but in reality it won't. It gets us part of the way there and it is theft. It's a new tax on billionaires so to speak. Social Security has always been essentially a pyramid scheme. On the other hand the socialist is right in saying the wealthiest have stolen from the rest of us. The question is how they're doing it and they're doing it through copyrights, patents, and similar artificial creations created through law.

The solution is partly an end to copyright/patents. You don't need to steal from the billionaires via taxes. Foster real competition by not protect the 1% from 'piracy'. IP laws don't protect the masses. IP funnels the wealth to the top 1%. This will not totally solve the 1% taking near everything, but it's a start. Monopolization by other means exist and it can't be solved this way as a short monopoly granted in the 80s is still paying dividends because no one can come in now and compete. It's a type of 'first mover advantage'. This is when your debts were long ago paid off so you can outlast any new competitor that might dare enter the market. If someone tries you just drop prices till they go under.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOwQQQSHfMQ

This is entertaining: "The European Commission has rolled out ...

2026-10-02T18:58:41Z

This is entertaining:

"The European Commission has rolled out Element Pro as a self-hosted 'sovereign back-up' to Microsoft Teams and the reviews aren't great. Politico reported that several officials questioned its usefulness and usability, with one calling it 'absolute shit.'"

So they rolled out a self-hosted Matrix solution. I'm not sure how well it was rolled out, but I've been using Element and Matrix for several years, including hosting a self-hosted server. It's a PITA to maintain and keep up and really it collapsed in on itself after ~5 years. It was complicated and lacked solid documentation to maintain.

The user-complaints are very general, but I think the reality is the solution does overall work and is comparable in terms of features to Telegram.

The interface isn't great, and it is built off one of these new fangled development solutions. It uses rust and Electron. Both of which are garbage by comparison to properly written software based on languages like C/C++ that have officials standards. Rust is ever-changing with no standard and it's bloated. Electron apps are similarly garbage- a cross platform solution.

The good news is Matrix is end to end encrypted, feature rich, decentralized, and there are clients written in proper programming languages that while not entirely ready for prime time are MUCH better.

Right now you probably will have to suffer with Element if you use Matrix, but I do believe at least one of the C/C++ alternative clients will come of age at some point and there are some other aspects to like about Matrix. There is support for at least one of these other clients properly written packaged for distributions like Debian already.

Overall it's probably the way to go for decentralized self-hosted solutions.

"at some point the tech companies have to be held responsible ...

2026-10-02T05:38:06Z

"at some point the tech companies have to be held responsible because ultimately they are providing the tools"

So are we going to start requiring an ID before someone can purchase a hammer? I mean seriously. Just because folks are doing something bad with a tool is a poor excuse to ban or restrict or ID everyone else.

Like seriously.. scammers are using addresses such as: ...

2026-10-01T22:58:29Z

Like seriously.. scammers are using addresses such as:

"web361.cc"

If you don't understand technology at such a fundamental level maybe you shouldn't be investing in it.

People make stupid investments all the time and yet we don't make them whole when the investments fail. Why should anyone feel bad for someone who didn't take even rudimentary steps when the scams should have been easily spotted even by folks with little technical know-how???

Victim of scam: "paranoid, questioning everything" aww ...

2026-10-01T22:44:39Z

Victim of scam:

"paranoid, questioning everything"

aww yea, that is how you should have been before.

It's the fucking internet. Did you do zero research before going online? Do you not understand that the world is full of bad apples? I mean seriously.

Your fucking television is spying on you. Corporations are doing all sorts of evil shit.

There are people out there who are actually victims through no fault of their own (maybe it is cancer, or being born into poverty or a religious household, or any number of things.. having a disability ...). It's sickening that 95% of the problem is self-inflicted by lazy people advocating for 'protection' rather than taking responsibility for their own actions.

If your genuinely stupid I can understand... but 95% of this is people being lazy stupid not that they're incapable stupid.

"Investigating the Online Scam Epidemic" So there is this ...

2026-10-01T22:10:09Z

"Investigating the Online Scam Epidemic"

So there is this documentary on scams and they're talking about how folks, in this case 'kids' (probably more like teenagers) are being scammed and committing suicide.

The scam is intended to extract money from those with mental illnesses and/or those in areas where mental illness is ripe (aka religious areas).

The way the scam works is the scammer pretends to be a girl (I think the specific scam primarily targets guys... but other variations probably target elderly ladies and older men, ie romance scams) and gets the guy to send sexual photos of themselves to the scammer. The scammer than demands a ransom else the photos will be publicly released and sent to friends and family.

In at least some instances the victim of the scam can't pay up and the pressure is too great. The victims kill themselves.

The underlying problem is religion and authoritarianism. A scam like this only works because the persons being threatened are made to feel like they have everything to lose. The reality is mental illness in society and authoritarianism holding peoples options back.

The scam isn't the real problem. Religious nuts and those advocating "protection" are.

When youth/people have options that don't involve suicide they'll take those options. When you tie young people/anyone to parents/or forced schooling/etc they become vulnerable and victims.

Stop tying kids to adults and giving others authority and these problems literally wouldn't exist.

When young people have options, like work instead of school (ie get rid of laws prohibiting employment), aren't forced to live in abusive homes with mentally ill parents (religious), etc. there is no longer a reason to commit suicide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8I2b1TK2EY

The world is getting crazier and crazier. There is a proposal for ...

2026-10-01T20:42:24Z

The world is getting crazier and crazier. There is a proposal for the EU Kids Act that would effectively ban personal servers.

It's not just crazy rules and regulations like this, but even real humans that are nuts.

I was in a parking lot today and driving extraordinarily slowly in just in front of a strip mall style store. This women who isn't paying attention to where she was going walks into the parking lot from the sidewalk without even taking a cursory glance. I'm pretty far away considering how slowly I'm driving, but well within eyesight for a pedestrian taking a cursory glance around them. Well, she's halfway between the part of the parking lot where cars drive and the first parking spots before she looks up and sees me. I'm still pretty far away, but she stops and so I take that as an acknowledgement to keep going because she's waiting for me to pass to continue forward.

As I pass her she starts yelling at me! If she had continued I would have stopped, but here she was standing in the middle for "street" in front of the store where cars drive.... crazy. If your going to cross a street you look both ways, then either continue walking until you get to the other side, or you wait for the cars going by to pass. You don't walk halfway blindly then stop in the middle and yell at the driver who was literally watching you BLINDLY walk into the street without looking.

I always find it humors in what tech reviewers, tech enthusiasts, ...

2026-10-01T17:08:50Z

I always find it humors in what tech reviewers, tech enthusiasts, and the tech industry think matter vs what your average user cares about (like stuff actually working):

"And while the inclusion of OLED across the range is a major draw to the new OmniBook, the base config only has a passable 1920 x 1200 resolution and 300 nits of max brightness on its non-touch panel."

I get that not everyone gives two shits about their privacy... but that is also a market segment and a seemingly growing market segment.

I am not convinced cloudflare is the solution ... it seems like I ...

2026-10-01T03:32:25Z

I am not convinced cloudflare is the solution ... it seems like I see more connectivity issues with cloudflare in the picture than before sites add cloudflare to the picture. I get it... it's a firewall of sorts for sites... but if the complexity it such that it causes more downtime than not... is it really the best solution to the problem?

"Singapore's government is trying its hand at matchmaking ...

2026-09-30T21:56:05Z

"Singapore's government is trying its hand at matchmaking again. The country's Government Technology Agency (GovTech) has launched FirstDate, a pilot dating service for singles aged 21 to 35."

It's no wonder we have a baby crises (not enough babies born to replace those retiring in terms of social security and the like, or for the matter sustain population levels).

If you convince young people not to reproduce and they manage to not reproduce before they hit 21 chances are your not going to be successful at convincing them to reproduce.

Your "First Date" solution needs to be focused on IDK actual youth in school. That's probably somewhere between the 5th-8th grades for US students which is probably in the 11-14 age bracket.

It's crazy to think that conservatives demonizing sex was so effective as to result in a baby crises 20-30 years later. Then again the aids crises probably didn't help any. A baby is one thing, but death.. eee that might be a stronger argument against it. The problem is the system over-sold the danger and created or contributed to a major modern crises.

I'd like to point out that about 5.74 billion investors (70% ...

2026-09-30T00:37:24Z

I'd like to point out that about 5.74 billion investors (70% of the worlds population) lost about $1.14 trillion on their entertainment purchases over the last 12 months.

I bring this up because of of the negative publicity California is bringing and laws they're pushing to ban public officials from creating memecoins or anyone from using public officials likeness in producing memecoins.

The question is why are people permitted to invest in other entertainment, ya know like hollywood's movies and tvs hows/streaming content/etc, but when we start talking memecoins it's an 'investment' and has to be regulated or even banned????

I say this as someone who would NEVER buy a memecoin and I don't 'invest' in memecoins. I do however use cryptocurrencies as Bitcoin was intended (not that I am a fan of BTC, it's not privacy friendly, Monero is better):

"The governor's office pointed to reports that about a million investors lost an alleged $3.8 billion on their purchases of the memecoin released by President Donald Trump in 2025 as a the motivation behind the new rule."

This should probably concern everyone. They're falsely ...

2026-09-30T00:18:53Z

This should probably concern everyone. They're falsely arresting people on the basis of AI matches and not even catching 'bad guys':

"A six-month British Transport Police trial of live facial recognition at London railway stations scanned more than 500,000 faces, cost over 320,000 pounds, and produced just one alert with no arrests directly resulting from the technology. That one alert ended up being a false positive.

Despite those results, BTP has extended the pilot through November and expanded it to selected Underground stations."

The copyright cartels are back at it trying to take down ...

2026-09-29T16:32:56Z

The copyright cartels are back at it trying to take down YouTube-DL:

“'YT-DLP is a major problem for the music industry as it provides freely available open-source software that enables users to download and permanently store music and audiovisual content from licensed streaming platforms, including YouTube, without authorisation,' IFPI writes."

Umm the app is just a general purpose tool and isn't specifically geared at downloading copyright'd content or music from YouTube. Nor is this rolling cipher anything other than a fiction of your imagination. Not every algorithm is an obscuring mechanism to prevent people from downloading your content. There is legit DRM on some YouTube content, but this app does not support it.

95% of the problem as far as I can see is the noise from there ...

2026-09-28T22:13:01Z

95% of the problem as far as I can see is the noise from there being homes too close to the data center. Instead of $10k checks you probably need to offer serious money to buy out those living around the area you want to build and tear the homes down. The water issues are basically bullshit scare tactics for the north east where water is plentiful and the extent of the impact is just fearmongering. All industries need water and there are real benefits from having *some* industry particularly light industry like this that have little in the way of environmental impacts by comparison to industries of the past in your area. Potentially lower taxes for example. Screw the schools and other money going to "improving" those. Money to the schools was never the problem. It's the potential tax savings if these businesses are taxed right and permitted and the payouts make sense in the areas that will be impacted by "noise pollution". Not to entirely write off the noise pollution, but 95% of that is they're just building too close to neighborhoods. The electric impact is also solvable by capping rates to inflation and forcing the data centers to offset the costs that result from increased demand. The more they demand and the higher the prices the more they pay in offsetting everyone else's increased costs.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/data-center-developer-offers-usd10-000-checks-to-4-500-households-if-the-1-300-acre-facility-is-approved-locals-push-back-over-noise-and-bribe-concerns

Absolutely disgusting: "TikTok to Pay Alabama $100 Million, ...

2026-09-28T21:59:47Z

Absolutely disgusting:

"TikTok to Pay Alabama $100 Million, Limit Teen Use In First State Settlement"

"TikTok has agreed to pay Alabama at least $100 million and adopt new restrictions for teenage users, including a two-hour daily limit, overnight access restrictions, stronger age verification, a ban on beauty filters, and an option for a non-personalized feed."

While I'll be the first to say I don't utilize TikTok the idea that these platforms should take actions to "protect" their "younger" users is just ridicules particularly when it negatively harms the privacy and anonymity of EVERYONE including their younger users. Just say no to ID checks and stop using these shitty platforms.

Good parenting includes things like teaching your kid the basics our terrible government "education" systems don't. Essentials like basic financial planning/management and IDK instilling a solid work discipline and time management skills.

If your kids constantly on TikTok and your response and justification to support or suing TikTok is you have no control half the problem is you were TOO controlling in the first place. Kids need freedom and someone to lead by example.

It's been shown that Mom and Dad are just as shit with these subjects as the kids are these days particularly when it comes to their phones. So MAYBE you should start with learning to control your own bad behaviors and get off your damn phone rather than blaming what I'd agree are shitty platforms... but of which you are NOT paying to be your kids babysitter.

I really want to know how this protects free speech or consumers, ...

2026-09-28T20:42:38Z

I really want to know how this protects free speech or consumers, this literally makes zero sense, talk about propaganda:

"'By enacting this legislation, our country can deploy a highly effective tool to protect creators and consumers from overseas digital piracy, all while safeguarding free speech and preserving the open internet,' MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin says. "

Bill to censor the US internet:

https://torrentfreak.com/unified-u-s-site-blocking-bill-targets-isps-and-dns-resolvers-but-spares-vpns/

How you know the law is unfair to your average user / individual ...

2026-09-28T20:25:39Z

How you know the law is unfair to your average user / individual publisher:

"Websites that are blocked by mistake can ask the court to modify the order. However, unlike Issa’s bill, which offers up to $250,000 in compensation, the DEFEND IP Act has no payout for collateral damage."

So in other words there is basically zero chance that a small guy is going to be able to get stuff blocked, but the ~7 hollywood studios (do we even have 7 left???) will be able to basically block any site they like without consequences even if it's non-infringing or primarily non-infringing because the little guy won't have the funds / lawyers on staff / etc to defend against the over-blocking that is inevitable and has occurred in EVERY country that has implemented a censorship regime.

Lets not forget that this also is one of the tactics that is used against political opponents. Particularly the authoritarian kinds (and yes- the very folks we have in congress too!). They have pushed for financial "sanctions" and used such censorship (of a financial nature) in Canada (Prime Minister Justin Trudeau froze the bank accounts, credit cards, and donations of those he disliked for protesting thanks to a highly regulated financial system) and the US against those they oppose. Europe has done the same thing for that matter, but it isn't just who you think. It's a large number of groups from "conservatives" during democrat administrations to folks previously involved in the legal porn industry (bank accounts being shut down by order of republican administrations).

In Canada which does have a censorship regime and site blocking like this bill proposes has attempted to add (?and maybe has?) other non-piracy sites to the list including gambling sites. Censorship doesn't end.

You heard SOPA was back? Right??? And the copyright cartel are ...

2026-09-28T20:04:06Z

You heard SOPA was back? Right??? And the copyright cartel are back with a vengeance now that they've succeeded at getting other governments around the world to introduce censorship regimes. Now there isn't just one bill in the US either, but two. The copyright cartel's cronies (representatives in the house and senate) have introduced a 2nd US bill to censor the internet in just the past week!

"The DEFEND IP Act. The proposal comes less than two weeks after Rep. Darrell Issa's competing proposal, and both bills allow rightsholders to obtain court orders requiring ISPs and large DNS resolvers to block foreign pirate sites."

If you haven't written your representative(s) don't wait! It's never too early to start writing and let them know that you don't support this bill or any other that would introduce censorship to the internet.

Here is the full story:

https://torrentfreak.com/unified-u-s-site-blocking-bill-targets-isps-and-dns-resolvers-but-spares-vpns/

Authoritarian "socialism" is going to be the death of us ...

2026-09-27T07:25:12Z

Authoritarian "socialism" is going to be the death of us all:

"The White House said that the leaders had agreed to use the term 'super intelligence' in place of "artificial intelligence." In a separate statement, the Chinese ministry said that Beijing valued Washington's use of the new term. As AI technology continues to advance, the two sides should step up exchanges and work toward consensus in line with new developments, it said."

All I'm thinking is ... maybe this is an indicator that there ...

2026-09-27T03:51:08Z

All I'm thinking is ... maybe this is an indicator that there is a lot of concern by your users that you and/or the developers more generally are moving away from what draws people to GNU/Linux and your software in the first place. People want to know there able to utilize software they can trust and they're pushing back and saying no to LLM development/features/etc. I'm not against LLMs, but like any sane person on this issue these are not issues that should be ignored and any functionality that adds AI needs to be a clearly designated separate feature and not embedded in everything everywhere. Something that can be disabled / not installed in the first place.

"KDE and GNOME Developers Ponder How to Handle AI-Generated Contributions"

"Two people unknown to any KDE contributors appeared and began fighting with one another about the broader topic of the morality of AI, not the proposed guidelines... Someone else outside of KDE set up kdeforpeople.com in an attempt to... pressure KDE into banning LLMs. A bunch of people signed onto it, almost none of whom are known KDE contributors. "

Interesting story covered on Lehto's Law about a guy pulled ...

2026-09-26T18:24:02Z

Interesting story covered on Lehto's Law about a guy pulled over in a self-driving car who was drunk and said it wasn't him driving. The entertaining part is Steve Lehto says "yea, but someone was in control" in response to "but it was driving itself", and it occurs to me that there are at least some vehicles where a third party control center with human operators take over which does kinda beg the question then, that sure, someone was driving, but it was likely someone outside the jurisdiction of the United States in control of the vehicle and the defense may not be quite as crazy as it sounds.

"The judge agreed. At roughly $50 per game, lost sales could ...

2026-09-25T08:10:37Z

"The judge agreed. At roughly $50 per game, lost sales could easily run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, making the maximum damages request 'not an unrealistic estimate' of Nintendo’s actual damages, the order reads."

Talk about a total logic fail here. A pirated game is not equivalent to a lost sale as it assumes a pirate would have paid for the game in the first place.

I'm convinced we've past the point of Idiocracy. For ...

2026-09-25T07:39:56Z

I'm convinced we've past the point of Idiocracy. For those too young to remember the film it came out in 2006 and showed a future where buildings were toppling over, only stupid had reproduced for 500 years and everyone was basically retarded. Water had been replaced by a sports drink called Brawndo for nearly all purposes, including crop irrigation, leading to agricultural collapse.

DW brought on "AI experts" and they were trying to convey that the AI companies were to blame for the Australian governments poor security practices, but utterly failed to even understand that the security issues were the fault of the government rather than the AI company. It's like it doesn't even occur to anyone that even if you eliminate the AI that the faulty software or configuration is why the AI was able to 'hack' into the system and expose all of Australians medical data to the world.

"Olevod is not a hobbyist running a one-man business from ...

2026-09-24T20:53:55Z

"Olevod is not a hobbyist running a one-man business from home, but 'a sophisticated company running interactive websites.'”

Just the absurdity of claims made by prosecutors and in this case copyright cartel members.

Running "interactive" websites now constitutes "sophistication". I hope you've never posted a link on the internet cause they might try to come after you for being a 'sophisticated criminal'. That link to that trailer on YouTube that turns out wasn't authorized makes you a 'sophisticated' criminal.

"That pirate streams are digital and designer bags physical ...

2026-09-24T20:37:48Z

"That pirate streams are digital and designer bags physical does not matter, he added."

umm, it's pretty straightforward when you catch a trafficker physically trafficking something into the United States as they cross the boarder and are in your jurisdiction. However that isn't so clear cut when it's digital. The trafficker here, is effectively the carrier or communications company if we're even going to go there. The requester was the person clicking the link.That would be the closest thing to an "importer" and in the jurisdiction of the court [possibly, if in Florida in this case, or federal court anywhere within the US I suppose]. The sender doesn't know where the receiver is. At best you can take an educated guess on where they might be based on a geo-location database, but these aren't accurate.

Trying to put liability onto a sender in the United States that has no operations or connection to the United States is malicious. The closest argument they might have is PayPal, but again, this isn't PayPal here being targeted, it's an dependent entity outside the United States and no order should be issued outside of maybe something targeting PayPal specifically whose sending value to an entity outside the US jurisdiction. The problem in my mind with that is that entity hasn't and couldn't have broken US law without extraterritorial jurisdiction and that's a seriously dangerous path to go down. Not that the United States doesn't go down it, but it puts everyone at risk of foreign governments holding US citizens for breaking laws in around ~200 countries and probably thousands of jurisdictions (cities, states, countries).

"Bitcoin Surges to $86,455, an 8-Month High, After ...

2026-09-23T21:23:16Z

"Bitcoin Surges to $86,455, an 8-Month High, After America's SEC Announces Tokenized Stock Experiment"

I thought Bitcoin was dead? I guess the skeptics just lost interest.

And people wonder why they don't get a follow up in response ...

2026-09-23T21:06:01Z

And people wonder why they don't get a follow up in response to a complaint when supplied with a simple easy to understand explanation as to why things are the way they are (ie policy regarding sticking to a forum topic basically and not allowing other political crap, and humorously it's not even like it was something moderators disagreed with, but keeping things pleasant regardless of political position, etc, not to mention resources required to deal with it, understand the nuances of particular groups, or really political factions that associate with 'defending' certain group , etc):

"This is a fallacy of reasoning that we are all unique snowflakes and that there are no patterns or categories to be found in humans. You evoke this fallacy because subconsciously you intuit that you yourself may well be part of some category that you might prefer not to recognize. There are bigots and centrist neoliberal allies and collaborators of bigots in rural New York and urban New York and San Francisco and on every continent, and you all subscribe to more or less the same trite rote rationalization, with little variation."

It's amazing the number of stupid people that exist in this ...

2026-03-24T00:37:10Z

It's amazing the number of stupid people that exist in this world. You'd think them doing this (making users create an account) in and of itself would be enough to convince folk to never consider another Microsoft product ever again. If you had faith before in Microsoft's actions (and you shouldn't have) you certainly should after this whether or not they lift this requirement (mandate creating a Microsoft account to use Microsoft Windows).

"Yes, Microsoft announced it's fixing common Windows 11 complaints. But what about getting rid of that requirement to have a Microsoft account before installing Windows 11? While Microsoft didn't mention that at all, the senior editor at the blog Windows Central reports there's 'a number of people' internally pushing at Microsoft to relax that requirement: "