Meanwhile in Norway.... the taxation of the wealthy has become a key election issue, with the major parties responding to the 'exodus' of the mega rich (upset at a 1% wealth tax) over the last decade.

Even if the centre Left wins, it looks like the tax will be 'reviewed' at the very least.

Which once again poses the Q. of why the ultra-rich who would hardly notice a 1% levy on their wealth get so vexed about its imposition? A Q. of relevance well beyond Oslo.

#tax #Norway #politics
h/t FT

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— "Can you believe how stupid and primitive the ancient Greeks were? When they didn't know something, they asked an oracle, and they believed whatever it said!"
— "That's nuts. Where was this oracle?"
— "No idea. Let's go ask ChatGPT."

Here’s a poem called ‘Roger’s Thesaurus’.

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Roger’s Thesaurus In order to grow, expand, widen his lexicological corpus, Roger bought, acquired, purchased
a synonymopedia, a thesaurus. Soon, presently, without delay, he no longer ran out of things to say, speak, utter, express, articulate, give voice to, pronounce, communicate. This was all very well, fine, great, wonderful, super, terrific but his friends, mates, pals found him boring, tedious, dull, soporific. So let this be a warning, an omen, a sign, a premonition, it’s all very well to show learning, education, knowledge, erudition, but here’s a top tip, a hint, a suggestion, some advice, don’t ever let it stop you from being concise

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brief, short, clear, pithy, succinct, compendious, to the point, compact, snappy, laconic. Breviloquent. Brian Bilston

In brazillian portuguese, LLM means "lero-lero machine" (bullshit machine) and I think that's beautiful

MIT Backs Away From Paper Claiming Scientists Make More Discoveries with AI. After a review process, MIT stated that it “has no confidence in the provenance, reliability or validity of the data and has no confidence in the veracity of the research contained in the paper.” https://gizmodo.com/mit-backs-away-from-paper-claiming-scientists-make-more-discoveries-with-ai-2000603790

I wonder if the federal patrols descending on DC will be including white-collar crime in their crackdown. You know, like pulling over fancy cars and auditing their taxes.

That could have a real impact.

When Australian artificial intelligence expert Dr Kobi Leins declined a medical specialist’s request to use AI transcription software during her child’s upcoming appointment, the practice told her [she] was "welcome to seek an alternative" provider.

[...]

It was a system whose privacy and security capabilities Leins had previously reviewed as part of her work in AI governance — and one she said she would not want her child’s data “anywhere near”.

https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2025/kobi-refused-a-doctors-ai-she-was-told-to-go-elsewhere.html

This feels appropriate for the second thing I've ever posted to mastodon.

The only thing ChatGPT ever does.

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Andrew Kadel @DrewKadel@social.coop My daughter, who's had a degree in computer science for 25 years, posted this about ChatGPT on Facebook. It's the best description I've seen. Something that seems fundamental to me about ChatGPT, which gets lost over and over again: When you enter text into it, you're asking "What would a response to this sound like?" If you put in a scientific question, and it comes back with a response citing a non-existent paper with a plausible title, using a real journal name and an author name who's written things related to your question, it's not being tricky or telling lies or doing anything at all surprising! This is what a response to that question would sound like! It did the thing! But people keep wanting the "say something that sounds like an answer" machine to be doing something else, and believing it *is* doing something else. It's good at generating things that sound like responses to being told it was wrong, so people think that it's engaging in introspection or looking up more information or something, but it's not, it's only, ever, saying something that sounds like the next bit of the conversation.

TIL the Kensington Turbo Mouse can use a billiard ball.

#RetroComputing #VintageMac #VintageAP

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Photo of a beige trackball with an 11 red/white striped billiard ball in it next to a Mac Plus keyboard.

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Photo of a beige trackball with an 8 black billiard ball in it next to a Mac Plus keyboard.

BRB. Moving to Ireland.

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A picture of a train. Text superimposed over the picture reads: "Irish Rail introduces 100 Euro fine for playing music without earphones."

Celebrating 50 years of The Rocky Horror Picture Show
"It's had a profound impact on our culture, especially on people who've felt different and marginalized."
https://arstechnica.com/culture/2025/08/celebrating-50-years-of-the-rocky-horror-picture-show/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

I’m probably laughing harder at this than it deserves. But, still… 😂

#Caturday

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Photo of a picture in a magazine, mimicking the layout of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody album, with the lit faces of four cats staring out towards the viewer at a point just above the camera, set against a black background. Written in white, blocky letters, above and below the faces, are the lyrics: MOMMA I JUST KILLED A MOUSE SLAPPED HIM RIGHT ACROSS THE HEAD HIS REMAINS ARE ON YOUR BED

“See the intended message was, Fascism Sucks. However, they gave the good Zoids to the fascists so instead you got, If you want a T-Rex with big guns, you want fascism. And I feel like that explains a lot of our cohort.” — My sister being too smart for her own good.

LOL my daughter used the NATO phonetic alphabet on a phone call and the person asked if she was from a military family.

#hamradio

I would love it if people had the same level of "Wikipedia isn't always right, you know" skepticism about... literally all other sources, regardless of context.

It's so weird how for decades most people around me were like "whoa, gotta be careful, can't trust wikipedia" and now many of those same people are taking whatever AI cooks up hook, line, & sinker.

I'm beginning to think it was never about actual info quality or actual critical thinking.

I think the cats are planning something... ⁠

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Photo of someone talking a selfie on the bed while two cats stare intently at them. This was the last photo taken before they were mysterious eaten by something. Don't worry, the well fed kitties were recovered and are doing great!

It should be illegal to sell "half and half" that is mostly skim milk and corn syrup. I generally don't do the shopping b/c I always get the wrong thing, and yesterday I grabbed what looked like a regular half-n-half off the store shelf but when I woke up w/ today's coffeine found it tasted like ass. What is the point of low-fat half-n-half? Doesn't the name itself suggest it's at least half cream? What a scam.

Yesterday my daughter emailed me, asking why I didn't do something useful with my time.
Talking about "doing-something-useful" seems to be her favorite topic of conversation.
She was "only thinking of me," she said, and suggested that I go down to the Senior Center and hang out with some of the other old fellows.
So I did this and when I got home last night, I decided to play a prank on her. I emailed her and told her that I had joined a Parachute Club.
She replied, "Are you nuts? You are 71 and now you're going to start jumping out of airplanes?"
I told her that I even got a Membership Card and e-mailed a copy to her.
She immediately telephoned me and yelled, "Good grief, Dad, where are your glasses?! This is a Membership to a Prostitute Club, not a Parachute Club."
"Oh man, I'm in trouble again," I said. "I really don't know what to do. I signed up for five jumps a week!!"
The line went dead.
Life as a Senior Citizen is not getting any easier, but sometimes it can be fun.

Here are 5 of the first 6 grievances with King George III that the colonists put in the US Declaration of Independence:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

#uspol

The phrase “ parents have a legitimate concern about integration of races in schools and as a party, we haven’t done a very good job of listening to those concerns.” would shock and offend I would hope. A similar statement about trans kids should also shock and offend.

GitHub is no longer independent at Microsoft after CEO resignation: GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke has resigned, and now GitHub will be part of Microsoft’s core AI engineering team. Github is no longer independent company.

https://www.theverge.com/news/757461/microsoft-github-thomas-dohmke-resignation-coreai-team-transition

Does anyone in my circle use/have thoughts on Qobuz? I buy a lot of music. I used to buy stuff on Amazon Music, but I've been trying to switch away from amazon as much as possible. Bandcamp is my preferred store now, but they don't often have stuff from big labels. I could buy/rip CDs, but I don't really want to store a big CD collection. So I'm looking for another store, and I'm impressed that Qobuz apparently offers lossless files too.

So far the best thing we’ve gotten through Amazon Vine was a pound of dried hibiscus flowers. Last night @elfkin brewed up a batch of cinnamon Jamaica and let me tell you it is muy refrescante this afternoon. 🌺😎

Any #Mastodon client recs for #iOS?

Listen, it’s very simple: In Britain we use the metric system, except for beer and milk, which come in pints. But not plant milk — that comes in litres.

Oh, and distances are in miles. But only if they’re too far to walk — if you can walk it it’s in metres. If you’re driving then your fuel efficiency is in miles-per-gallon, but petrol is sold in litres.

Oh, and your height is in feet and inches. If you don’t care much about your weight it’s in stone (but not pounds — no-one can remember how many pounds are in a stone and it’s hard to read the little tick marks on analogue scales). If you do care about your weight then your digital scales tell you it in kilograms.

Oh, and if there’s a heatwave then tabloids will forecast a “100°F scorcher”. But if it’s cold then it’s an “arctic blast” with “widespread temperatures below 0°C”.

I hope this clears things up.

@joel same, but for a while quite a few browsers defaulted to duckduckgo which is just a frontend for bing.

One of my favorite cookbooks. It’s also sweet knowing that I’m using someone’s Yia Yia’s recipe 🤗 Opa! 🇬🇷

It’s probably out of print, but worth finding.

“The Complete Book of Greek Cooking: The Recipe Club of Saint Paul’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral” (Hempstead, NY)

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The Complete Book of Greek Cooking: The Recipe Club of Saint Paul’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral” (Hempstead, NY)

So OnePlus is having a sale on the 512GB 13 right now. Is there any reason I shouldn't get one?

I know the 14 is slated for a January release (I think) but I'm not sure I can wait that long (and also not sure I should care about the feature differences).

If not a 1+13, what's your idea of the current "best" Android phone that I can get in the US (which means no Fairphone)?

Did you positively participate in democracy today? I sure hope so.

#Vote #PositiveAction #BeChange

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Alice, in a "Pink" brand camo sports bra, with an "I voted" sticker for King County over their nipple.

Cartoon by Mike Ramirez.

“I find it grotesquely ironic that the party that claims to adore the Founders and the nation's Founding Principles would have been summarily dismissed as traitors and assholes by the nation's actual founders.” - Mindy Fischer

This dog pretty much always sits in a sploot. One of his many adorable traits.

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My dog demonstrates the sploot. Dog or Cat laying with its back legs spread and feet pointed behind them. This is less common position.

"Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important."

~T.S. Eliot

Guys I figured it out

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The original Macintosh HD icon from system 6

The most incredible thrift store find

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A button down short sleeve shirt printed with bright rainbow care bears, ranging from muscular to chubby, in various ropes, jockstraps, and thongs

This article points to a common misconception around self-hosting.

The author tries hosting at home for a few weeks, & proclaims it is not the way. They then go on to argue for community managed server infrastructure instead (which is very much self-hosting).

Self-hosting does not solely refer to home-hosting ('on-prem'), nor sole owner-operator. It scales up to server infra in a datacenter, run & governed by those using it

So yes, the future is very much #selfhosted!

https://www.drewlyton.com/story/the-future-is-not-self-hosted/

#3124 - Grounded

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The comic shows a scene at an airport gate, viewed from above. There is an airplane parked with its boarding bridges connected to the terminal. Several airport service vehicles (luggage carts, fuel trucks, etc.) are scattered around the tarmac. Text reads: "This is your captain speaking. As you’ve probably noticed, we’re still grounded due to weather. But the first officer and I have been looking at bridge clearance maps and our top taxiing speed, and we have an idea." Hidden text: "We should have you at the gate in just under two hours--two and a half if we get pulled over."

I hate it when people bang on my door and tell me I have to be "saved" or else I'll "burn".

I hate their big red trucks and flashing lights too.

Target keeps the $5 box of borax locked up in the priceless artifacts case, and now I'm wondering what the street value is. How much could you possibly fence this for that makes stealing it worthwhile?

Typography is important, folks

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A title card for “The Final Stretch” but the type choices make it look a lot more like it says “Anal Stretch”

My cartoon for this weekend’s @theguardian.com books.

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Title: Doubts cast on another beloved inspirational tale Panel 1 Our investigations team has learned that the names "Jack" and "Jill" were invented to conceal a less than salubrious past. (image of smiling Jack and Jill with a bucket) Panel 2 The pair claim to have climbed a hill to "fetch a pail of water" but we found a number of water sources much closer to their cottage. (image of a water pump, atwo fountains and a drinking trough) Panel 3 (image of a book with the title "WELL: a memoir" by Jill) Jill now concedes that her account of Jack's fall and her own "Tumbling After" was intended to convey feelings, not "Cold facts". Panel 4 Multiple medical experts expressed Surprise that a broken crown was successfully treated with "Vinegar and brown paper. (Image of Jack with is head wrapped in brown paper beside an xray of his damaged skull).