@davew We keep having these trends of trying to kill URLs. E.g.:

1. In the 90s, even as the Web started to really take off, services like Compuserve continued to push "GO Words" and other centralised, controlled keyword systems of addressing.

2. In the 00s, as search finally got good, advertisements experimented with "search for [X]" rather than printing an address (which lead to the obvious Googlebombs and squatting, because of course it did).

3. At various times, browsers have experimented with (and in Safari's case, even pushed ahead with) efforts to conceal the power of the URL, cutting the visible part down just the domain name or even replacing it with the name from the (EV) SSL certificate.

4. And nowadays, people's business cards show e.g. a Facebook, X, or Instagram logo followed by the "keyword" that'll find their services on that platform. There IS a URL, but people don't see it anymore. It's Compuserve all over again.

The NYT reports today that members of the Department of Government Efficiency uploaded a copy of a crucial Social Security database in June to a vulnerable cloud server, putting the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans at risk of being leaked or hacked, according to a whistle-blower complaint filed by the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer.

From the story:

"Mr. Borges did not indicate that the database had been breached or used inappropriately."

"But his disclosure stated that as of late June, “no verified audit or oversight mechanisms” existed to monitor what DOGE was using the data for or whether it was being shared outside the agency. That kind of oversight would typically be provided by the agency’s career information security professionals, Mr. Borges said in his account."

'And his complaint cites an official agency security assessment that described the project as “high risk” and that warned of “catastrophic impact” to Social Security beneficiaries and programs if the database were to be compromised."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/us/politics/doge-social-security-data.html

Check out my new shirt! 👕

Destroy AI!

• Bad at Everything! 👎
• Kills the Planet! 🌍
• Brain Atrophy! 🧠

Artist: Phineas X. Jones
Order one too: Octophant

Thanks to @tante for the fantastic recommendation! https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/114863463868788391

#NoAI #HumanArt #NewShirt

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Photo of a person wearing a black t-shirt with only the torso part showing. The t-shirt has an amazing illustration from artist Phineas X. Jones, showing a punk woman holding a chainsaw and kicking a robot in the face. Above her the words: "Destroy A.I." and below the design are three sentences: "Bad at Everything!", "Kills the Planet!", and "Brain Atrophy!"

Do you ever think about how the fine for peeing in public is substantially more than the fine for dumping tonnes of CO₂ in public?

@woe2you @thomholwerda Ah, yes, because when I ask “how is the weather outside" I desire for the response to be "well, water thinks it's very cold”.

See also:

The only reason I use Fedora Server is because I like saying, "Oh you can just add that using the COCK PIT web UI"

✨ A Sprinkle of JoyousJoyness ✨

BOING!

Have a JoyousJoyfulJoyness day!

#happy #dog #dachshund #cute #joyousjoyness #repost

#3132 - Coastline Similarity

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Three-panel black-and-white classroom comic. Panel 1: A teacher points with a stick to a wall map. On the world map, the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa are traced in red. Text at top reads: “People had long noticed that South America and Africa had similarly-shaped coastlines.” Panel 2: Same classroom. Two students sit at desks facing the teacher, who stands by the map. Text at top: “In the 20th century, geologists finally found the explanation:” Panel 3: One of the students raises a hand and speaks; and the teacher interrupts. Dialogue: Student: “Plagiaris—” Teacher: “Continental drift.” Student: “Oh.” Hidden text: "Hey! A bunch of the early Cretaceous fossils on each coast seem to have been plagiarized, too!"

@liaizon @samhenrigold After some testing, we've determined that lobsters are surprisingly easy to disassemble using standard tools (the Jimmy was especially handy here). However, the disassembly was entirely destructive, which means a zero in terms of repairability.
It's not all bad, though! Unlike traditional tech, lobsters take very little resources to manufacture and are completely biodegradable. This makes replacement an acceptable alternative to repair in this crustacean's case.

Today I heard the phrase, "GPT endpoint". Sad to report it didn't mean what I first thought.

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

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

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.

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.

@catsalad

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lady reading book titled, "How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you." The cat is behind her, glaring at her.

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.

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.

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)