Entries for #I
The World according to Seeming
Listening today: The first 5 tracks off the pre-order album The World by Seeming.
Another album that Daneel put me onto. They introduced me to Seeming a while back and the band never dissapoints. Raw, synthy and shouty, music filled with joy and ennui.
Redditor passionately explains why geeky 80’s kids are confused with ChatGPT
Man, I felt this Reddit post so hard.
u/Quick_Butterfly_4571 passionately explains why geeky 80’s kids are confused with ChatGPT
So, you'd lay it all out, step-by-step, just to be super sure that you were helping and not confusing the kindred spirit you found half a world away.
Every CRS Report
I only recently learned about this site (and can't find the Mastodon post that mentioend it):
We’re publishing reports by Congress’s think tank, the Congressional Research Service, which provides valuable insight and non-partisan analysis of issues of public debate. These reports are already available to the well-connected — we’re making them available to everyone for free.
Coming Soon: The Oil Wars
From Council State Media via Mastodon:
After many months contemplating war on Iran, and later Venezuela, the US president has set his sights on… Nigeria. In one of the strangest coincidences of recent times, all three countries just happen to be rich in oil. What are the chances?
Source: By a strange coincidence, all the countries Trump wants to bomb are rich in oil
Look forward 100 years and I can easily imagine a documentary about how #TheOilWars contributed to nation state decline and our eventual Solarpunk future.
Happy Birthday Godzilla
More than seven decades after producer Tomoyuki Tanaka, director Ishirō Honda, and special effects master Eiji Tsuburaya first unleashed Godzilla in Japanese theaters on November 3, 1954, the King of the Monsters remains a beloved symbol of imagination and cinematic innovation.
Source: How to Celebrate Godzilla Day 2025
Godzilla really goes through candles.
In Praise of RSS and Controlled Feeds of Information
In Praise of RSS and Controlled Feeds of Information | Tom Burkert
Also, unlike algorithmic feeds, it allows me to pick what category of my interests I am in the mood for. If I’m in the mood for something lighter, I can just look into my “Fun” folder to check out new stuff from The Oatmeal or xkcd. If I feel like reading something more thoughtful, I’d dive into my “Reads” folder for The Marginalian or Sentiers.
A Robot, a Nazi and a Poorly diguised Russian walk into a timeline...
A cartoon in 2 frames:
Frame 1
Nurse: Are you OK love?
Minister: Yes I’m just hearing legitimate concerns from real voters
Frame 2
Nurse: That’s a robot, a Nazi and a poorly-disguised Russian
[Show that the people he is talking to are precisely these characters]
Hashtag-No-Kings
Drove over to the local #nokings protest yesterday and waved our own signs. It was great seeing so many folks out and being very (and inflatably!) visible!
I am sorry, but everyone is getting syntax highlighting wrong
Syntax highlighting is a tool. It can help you read code faster. Find things quicker. Orient yourself in a large file.
Like any tool, it can be used correctly or incorrectly. Let’s see how to use syntax highlighting to help you work.
Niki Tonsky makes some good points.
Why We Need "Shortwave 2.0"
On RADIOWWORLD, Kim Andrew Elliott guest writes about an old technology that could come back to help us route around the coming billionaire-and-fascist-censored internet:
Radio is the ultimate internet circumvention tool because it is not the internet. And it can’t be tracked.
This brings us to “Shortwave 2.0.”
Shortwave 2.0 won’t reach the audience of millions as in the heyday of shortwave decades ago. It will reach those who seek comprehensive, reliable, credible information. This audience will be technically inclined: radio amateurs, hobbyist shortwave listeners, scholars, technology enthusiasts and government and military personnel with access to receivers. They will pass on the information they have received to the larger audience.
Then comes this kicker:
An important feature of Shortwave 2.0 is that it is not limited to audio.
Starting about 2010 I was introduced to the digital modes of amateur radio. I was amazed that such a weak signal, in noisy conditions, could produce text. At that same time, VOA, RFE/RL and RFA were starting to feel the effects of internet blocking, especially in China and Iran. These two developments, combined, pointed to radio as a possible solution.
Starting in 2013, I was able to test the concept in “VOA Radiogram,” an experimental weekly program on the Voice of America. Instead of voice and music, we transmitted, on a conventional amplitude-modulated double sideband transmitter at Greenville, N.C., the warbles of the amateur radio digital modes.
The big advantage of text via shortwave is that it can be received successfully in poor reception conditions, in which voice broadcasts are difficult to comprehend. Text can be read and re-read, and passed on to others through personal media.
White leftists, fake allyship, and liberation
eva on Mastodon:
I need for folks to be better than that, white leftists have got to get their shit together because the fact of the matter is, their contributions are needed. We are not so blessed with solidarity and comrades that we can out-organize fascism without them. It's the truth.
Worldwide, the people of the global majority do not have the luxury of waiting for most of y'all to get your heads out of your collective asses on white supremacy. Stop huffing the fucking Klan glue and get serious. It's past time.
Public Service Broadcasting (band)
Daneel tuned me onto a new band recently, and I've become enamored.
Public Service Broadcasting is a rock group from the UK that creates instrumental music that trends a bit electronic and includes samples of... public broadcast radio from the UK. It's great music that warms my NPR and New Deal-loving heart.
Public Service Broadcasting (band) - Wikipedia
You can find them on Bandcamp, and in Apple Music (the two places I can access them).
The "The War Room" EP is not available on Apple Music, so go give them money (I gave them £10, the asking price is £4 I think) for a great EP.
cf. that last blog entry: I do want to learn more about passkeys, thankfully Ricky helpfully provides a list of resources in their post.
The Prospect: The Government Has Been Shut Down for Months
Today (Wednesday, Oct 1, 2026) at midnight-oh-one the U.S. government – once again – "shut down". This means that very few federal services are operating anywhere near capacity while our co-called representatives in the Congress figure out how to agree on passing a law to fund federal agencies.
So, government agencies are not able to do their jobs. How is this different from the last 6 months as Trump's administration enthusiastically follows Project 2025's plan to burn it all down and take us back to the golden era of robber barons, misogyny, patriarchy, and slavery? Federal agencies are already hamstrung by an Executive Branch that refuses to - or actively sabotages the ability to – execute the laws that Congress has passed, and/or previous court decisions have validated.
Nevertheless, the idea that Congress couldn't pass something is utter horseshit. The republicans have (and have used) all kinds of tricks to pass whatever they want; David Dayden at The Prospect makes this point well:
The reality is that Republicans have every opportunity to fund the government if they want. They can do what they have done repeatedly when stymied by Democrats in the Senate from achieving their goals; they can change the Senate rules. In this case, they can end the filibuster on legislative activities like the budget and pass it with the majority they have. Democrats are not needed to lend support to a process that is so distorted and broken that the executive is telling Congress he will not honor any deal they make. If Republicans want to hand over Congress to Trump, they can do it themselves.
But of course the Republicans playbook is to always do the most horrible shit they can, as long as they can find a way to blame on someone else. But Democrats don't have to play along:
Schuman has put this best: "There is no point for Senate Democrats (or Republicans, for that matter) to negotiate or vote for a spending bill, short term or otherwise, unless it resolves or leads to the resolution the issues of impoundments and restricting further withholding of funds, reinforces GAO authority to investigate and litigate impoundments, places political shackles on Vought (such as a new Inspector General at OMB), and requires regular, accurate reporting of agency spending."
Peertube, the video service John Gruber says we need
I stopped reading John Gruber a few years back as I felt his Apple schtick was just old (I'd been reading him since the early 2000s) but while importing my feeds into NewsBlur today I ran across this recent post of his, riffing on an article in Political Wire about Jimmy Kimmel:
John says:
The big problem is YouTube. With YouTube, Google has a centralized chokehold on video. We need a way that’s as easy and scalable to host video content, independently, as it is for written content. I don’t know what the answer to that is, technically, but we ought to start working on it with urgency.
John is on Mastodon, and I don't know how active he is, but in my corner of "the fedi" PeerTube ("An alternative to Big Tech's video platforms") is fairly visible:
With PeerTube, no more opaque algorithms or obscure moderation policies! PeerTube platforms you visit are built, managed and moderated by their owners.
PeerTube allows platforms to be connected to each other, creating a big network of platforms that are both autonomous and interconnected.
Peertube is a video service that runs like Mastodon - it's an an ActivityPub service - where anyone with the time and inclination can run a video hosting service that allows its users to "like and subscribe" to users on the same server and others.
Yes, John is popular enough that I am certain a great many reply-guys have mentioned Peertube to him, but I am not them and this is for _you :heart:)_
It's only a crime if no one profits
In 2011, Aaron Swartz was arrested after he downloaded millions of academic journal articles from JSTOR via the MIT network. He was charged under federal laws (including wire fraud and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) with up to 13 felony counts, carrying the possibility of decades in prison, large fines, and other penalties. These federal charges eventually lead to his death in 2013.
https://mastodon.xyz/@johl/115293173964294449
OpenAI is planning to release a new version of its Sora video generator, which creates videos featuring copyrighted material unless copyright holders opt out of having their work appear.
It's kind of hilarious that they go "if you don't want me to pirate your movies, you need to opt out". OTOH it's tragic that any ordinary person would've been fined to hell and back for this behavior, but companies get a free pass as usual.
https://icy.wyvern.rip/notes/ad9ptt2s993v01j8
On January 6, 2011, Swartz was arrested by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) police on state breaking-and-entering charges, after connecting a computer to the MIT network in an unmarked and unlocked closet and setting it to download academic journal articles from JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT. Federal prosecutors, led by Carmen Ortiz, charged him with two counts of wire fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution, and supervised release.
Chicken.pics: For all your weird chicken painting needs
Behold an abundance of fowl. Tap to embiggen. Share with anyone who needs a chickie break.
I loved these so much I used one for my mastodon profile pic.
Yeah yeah I'm back
The site is still a bit of a mess but I've managed to get it up and working. I'm back on Django now, and the home-brew blogging system is multi-tenant through Django's simple but terribly useful Sites framework. I'll be using that to host several of my sites in one place now.
I'm currently using Cloudflare to front the site but as they don't mind hosting Nazis I'll be moving to Fastly as fast as I can (it's more technical and I haven't had time).
I'll post another update soon and hopefully the posts will be flowing again.