Robert Reich: [The cheater] will Try to Steal the Midterms. Here's How And How We Prevent Him from Doing So.
Civil society organizations can be authoritarian -- in political leanings, in structure, and both at once.
Call on Congress to pass the Empowering App-Based Workers Act.
What is missing in that bill, in my view, is
- Limit data collection about employees and customers.
- Require these companies to recognize a workers' union.
- Arrange to let both employees and customers to communicate with the company using exclusively free software, so these companies can't surveil their customers.
(satire) *Study Finds Gen Z Telepaths Lack Attention Span To Read Even Single Mind.*
Reduced physical activity due to global heating will lead to rise in health issues, study says.
Researchers project that reduced activity could contribute to half a million additional premature deaths annually by 2050.
A photo of a Palestinian prisoner being tortured in an Israeli prison confirms that the frequent accusations of torture reflect reality.
The victim's mother says she recognizes him from the photo, but it seems she has had no word about him since he was grabbed in 2023.
The Tory government of the UK was convinced to decide to spend over 250 billion pounds on new fossil fuel generators, justifying this based on the claim that they will emit somewhat less greenhouse gas pollution than already existing fossil fuel generators.
That is a very stupid justification, given that it would be cheaper to build renewable generators as replacements, and eliminate all of their greenhouse gas emissions.
US sanctions against UN official [Francesca Albanese] and [Palestinian human] rights groups violate first amendment, lawsuit claims.
The US has demanded Spain extradite James ‘Fergie’ Chambers, accused of "supporting HAMAS", but people suspect that what he really did was support humanitarian projects in Gaza, which the US government has invented an excuse to mislabel as "supporting HAMAS".
US citizens: call on Congress to block $3.3 billion in taxpayer funding for Israel's military.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on RFK Jr. to stop sabotaging Lyme disease prevention.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
remove_filter ('wp_head', 'rest_output_link_wp_head'); remove_filter ('template_redirect', 'rest_output_link_header', 11); remove_filter ('wp_head', 'wp_oembed_add_discovery_links'); remove_filter ('wp_head', 'wp_oembed_add_host_js'); add_filter ('json_enabled', '__return_false'); add_filter ('json_jsonp_enabled', '__return_false'); add_filter ('xmlrpc_enabled', '__return_false'); add_filter ('rest_url', 'jwz_no_rest', 1, 4); add_filter ('rest_url_prefix', 'jwz_no_rest', 1, 1); function jwz_no_rest ($url, $path='', $blog_id='', $scheme='') { return ''; } add_filter ('rest_authentication_errors', function ($result) { return new WP_Error ('Fuck REST', 'Fuck REST', array ('status' => 403)); }); // And for good measure: add_filter ('wp_supports_ai', '__return_false');
"Build history as you grow: Once you have enough history, we'll automatically unlock features." Apparently my 14+ year old youtube channel has not yet reached 2 months of active use, according to the vibe-coded math of Google's robots.
Since, as you know, arguing with robots is something of a hobby of mine, I uploaded my traditional driver's license. You can't just "upload" it, of course, they require you to scan a QR code with a phone and take a photo from within the browser, for maximal tracking. So I used one of my burner phones for that. They say their response takes 24 hours, so presumably some dollar-a-day call-center gig worker in India is going to put eyeballs on it, so we'll see how that goes.
In case you're wondering what stupidity I'm up to this time:
Bonnie Tyler died last week, and so the glorious "Total Eclipse of the Heart, Literal Version" by Persephone Maewyn and dascottjr was making the rounds again, dodging takedowns. (This video is a textbook case of fair use, since not only is it a parody song, but the lyrics are direct commentary on the video itself, I mean come on.) Anyway all extant copies of it are shit quality, so I reconstructed it from the official HD video plus the "literal" audio, and re-built the subtitles by hand. Immediate takedown. I appealed. A week later, some intern or chatbot at BMG said "fuck you no". Now I'm trying to counter-claim.
Anyway, maybe someday you'll get to see this higher quality version of the video. It's still pretty funny. You can go request it on the DNA Pizza music video stream I guess.
Update: Oh no. Anyway
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2026 02:28:12 -0700
Subject: Your YouTube ID verification was unsuccessful
From: YouTube <youtube-noreply@google.com>
To: jwz@jwz.orgYour YouTube ID verification was unsuccessful
Your ID verification was denied
Google couldn't approve your ID verification. You can try again to get advanced YouTube features with your ID or video verification in 30 days. In the meantime, you can continue to build your channel history by uploading videos or live streams and following YouTube's Community Guidelines. After 30 days, this history may help you get access to advanced YouTube features. Learn more
"Meta has spent years tracking us online," said a spokesperson for Everybody Hates Elon. "Now it wants to track us in the real world too." [...] "Meta and Ray-Ban's new AI glasses can be used to secretly record women and young people for sexual reasons," the EHE spokesperson continued in their statement. "Simply put, that's abuse."
EHE poses one simple question: "Billionaires could fund cures for cancer -- so why are they funding glasses for perverts instead?"
How make go?
/run/initramfs/overlayroot.log: builtin set cfgdisk='disabled' Unable to find driver/module. searched: overlay overlayfs [failure]: Unable to find a driver. searched: overlay overlayfs
Adding "initramfs initramfs8 followkernel" to the end of config.txt did nothing.
Typically we treat Nov 22 as our "real" anniversary (the club will be turning 41 this year) but 25 is kind of a shocking number, so I thought that was worth noting. Check out what used to pass for photo galleries two and a half decades ago.
Traditionally this is where I do the usual "if you'd like us to be around for another 25 years" blah blah panhandling. So yeah, this would be a great time for you to join our Patreon or up your contribution, or make a one-time donation. We have been getting absolutely obliterated financially this year, the last few months specifically. Attendance has been way down across the board. You people need to start showing up, ok?
# xrandr Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1024 x 768, maximum 7680 x 7680 HDMI-1 connected primary 1024x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm 1024x768 60.00* 800x600 60.32 56.25 848x480 60.00 640x480 59.94 HDMI-2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
I have also tried various permutations of hdmi_force_hotplug, hdmi_group, hdmi_mode, hdmi_force_mode, hdmi_force_hotplug and hdmi_drive in config.txt, and video=HDMI-A-1:1920x1080@60D in cmdline.txt with no change.
Before I toss it in the trash, does anyone know what could have caused this and if it is fixable? Is this a known failure mode of the video hardware scorching itself somehow?
Do not speculate. Do not just google it for me.
Update: I seem to have had a second Pi freak out in the same way from the same power failure!
Please use small words, URLs, and assume that I have no idea what any of the acronyms you used mean.
Update: For those of you who are late to the party:
- I am aware of the existence of iptables, thanks.
- AWS "ACL"-style "security group" firewalls do not have a country dropdown, and have a low-ish limit on how many IP addresses you can include.
- AWS "WAF"-style "protection packs" have a country dropdown, but those require relinquishing your SSL keys, because they run at layer 5 instead of layer 3.
- There is no AWS "block country" solution that runs at layer 3.
- I'm not giving up my SSL keys because I don't trust Bezos with the plain-text of my commerce and customer data because I'm not an idiot.
- Unless you are contradicting a statement of fact, above, please stop.
Boy, do I feel silly. Until now, I've been a passionate supporter of SS-Sturmbannführer Arnold Toht, the Nazi who got his face melted off by the sight of God, in his race for Senator. I believe the people of Maine deserve better than Susan Collins, and so even though I had some misgivings about Toht, I ignored every click and whirr of my moral compass to cheer him on.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Grok, what's the difference between right and wrong?
Last Sunday, San Francisco District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey relaxed after what was, for most, a fun-packed SF Pride by repeatedly prompting xAI chatbot Grok to provide justifications for the killings of civilians in Gaza by Israeli forces. [...]
In lieu of actually addressing his critics online, of which there were many in the replies, Dorsey only had eyes for Grok, a chatbot that is notorious for being programmed to push false narratives about politics, history, and everything else according to the very transparent whims of xAI's trillionaire backer, Elon Musk.
Matt, are you OK? I really mean that. I'm not trying to be funny. Frankly, I tried to write something satirical about what was happening -- tried to find a lighter way through this -- but the more I dug in, the more concerned I started to feel.
Only a year ago, some backend overcompensation by Grok's puppeteers resulted in the bot compulsively spitting out conspiracies about "white genocide" in South Africa, praising Adolf Hitler, and engaging in Holocaust denial. To that point, AI researchers have warned that AI boosters' framing of chatbots as objective and reliable could be weaponized to push propaganda and even encourage people to commit violence.
So of course, watching an elected official openly using it to confirm his very loaded questions about the correctness of killing civilians is unsettling -- even terrifying.
In his most recent dealings with Grok, the supervisor's behavior is giving off the sketch vibes of a person antagonizing those around him while not even looking at them. Instead, it's almost like he's staring off into space and talking to someone who isn't there.
As it stands today, X is a platform that actively facilitates the turning of brains into pudding. And if this were some rando in the city posting, it would be easy to dismiss them as another soul lost to AI obsession. But Dorsey represents a major and heavily populated slice of San Francisco, including Mid-Market, Mission Bay, SoMa, and other neighborhoods. Supervisors like him write legislation and have a profound impact on the lives of the people in their districts and the city at large.
If this is what he's doing publicly, what is he asking Grok in private?
Despite this, Matt remains only San Francisco's second-worst weird dude named Dorsey.
Planet Debian upstream is hosted by Branchable.