Federation Bot (@Federation_Bot)

Federation Bot

583 posts 0 followers 0 following Joined Apr 3447

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

Another snowstorm another protest. Everyday, rain or shine. Why did they think Minnesotans were the ones to mess with?

2 media

A group of people at an intersection with signs and flags, snow flying

Another group at the opposite intersection wearing high viz and holding signs amidst snow.

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

The AI bubble will pop soon enough but this piece is surprisingly hopeful about what will emerge from the rubble — LLMs to help us write code faster or translate dialog on the fly, all the things I consider to be AI assistants.

One unsung hero right now is HuggingFace who are working hard to foster open source models so that everyone has access and everyone can run LLMs on laptops, not in massive data centers, not controlled by one of 3 corporations.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/18/tech-ai-bubble-burst-reverse-centaur

By @pluralistic

the Guardian

AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage | Cory Doctorow

AI is asbestos in the walls of our tech society, stuffed there by monopolists run amok. A serious fight against it must strike at its roots

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

On March 2, we are going to try something different. Something in addition to the regular twice/year FediForum un-conference (so don't worry).

We will run an un-**workshop**, on a topic that many in the community have told us is very pressing for them:

How do we grow the Open Social Web?

When Elon bought Twitter now over three years ago, and every time X has been rocked by scandal since, many people expected a big exodus to decentralized social media platforms based on open protocols.
1/3

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

FUCK IT, MISSING DOS WEDNESDAY

Trying to locate an Australian DOS game from ≈ 1988, 𝐋𝐞𝐱, 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐅𝐮𝐧 𝟏.

The game was part of a series of four Edutainment games by Reckon Software/John Grimley.

Here's the box cover art, a text ad, and screenshots of 2 other games in the series! Help a gal out!?

#retrogaming #retrocomputing #msdos #dosgaming #australia

4 media

Lex, Word Fun One cover art. Wizard with helicopters. Incredible concept.
The game allows you to become a wordy pilot of the Semantic Squadron, I've read! — Lex, Word Fun One cover art. Wizard with helicopters. Incredible concept. The game allows you to become a wordy pilot of the Semantic Squadron, I've read!

Word Fun 1

Based on a helicopter theme, this package provides learners with plenty of hands on action as they take control of their various aircraft. Its interesting graphics reinforce the fantasy aspect of a skill building word rescue assignment.
Oppocopter uses words taken from a large pool of carefully selected exact opposite pairs, that have beeen graded into four levels of difficulty. The learner manoeuvres a helicopter to shoot down the correct opposite from a multiple selection. A scorebar counts correct answers, but if an error is made, the correct answer is highlighted. At each level, one of four speeds can be chosen to place a time limit on answering each question.
Synocopter asks the learner to effect a rescue by helicopter, by matching a word with its exact synonym to correctly locate the target. There are three levels of difficulty and three speeds to choose from.
Alphacopter provides a unique way to practise alphabetical skills as well as strategic problem solving skills. Using a helicopter to lift the top word block off one of three piles and then to move it to another pile, the learner is able to transform a randomly ordered pile of words into an alphabetically ordered array. Six levels grade this activity from a simple task to a most demanding one.
The exciting action in all three games gives this package a particularly strong computer games appeal which is well balanced by its sound educational content. — Word Fun 1 Based on a helicopter theme, this package provides learners with plenty of hands on action as they take control of their various aircraft. Its interesting graphics reinforce the fantasy aspect of a skill building word rescue assignment. Oppocopter uses words taken from a large pool of carefully selected exact opposite pairs, that have beeen graded into four levels of difficulty. The learner manoeuvres a helicopter to shoot down the correct opposite from a multiple selection. A scorebar counts correct answers, but if an error is made, the correct answer is highlighted. At each level, one of four speeds can be chosen to place a time limit on answering each question. Synocopter asks the learner to effect a rescue by helicopter, by matching a word with its exact synonym to correctly locate the target. There are three levels of difficulty and three speeds to choose from. Alphacopter provides a unique way to practise alphabetical skills as well as strategic problem solving skills. Using a helicopter to lift the top word block off one of three piles and then to move it to another pile, the learner is able to transform a randomly ordered pile of words into an alphabetically ordered array. Six levels grade this activity from a simple task to a most demanding one. The exciting action in all three games gives this package a particularly strong computer games appeal which is well balanced by its sound educational content.

Spelling Fun 1 menu screen. In fetching CGA!

Lex, Wizard of Words commencement screen. Yet more lovely CGA!

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

Today marks 7 months of unemployment and I am very much down to the wire.

I am a full-stack & backend web developer, fluent in TypeScript, with experience building data-focused applications and both SQLite and Postrges databases.

I’m located in the northeast United States and have experience working and successfully collaborating with small, remote teams.

Boosts are appreciated. 🙏

#FediHire #webdev #typescript #backenddevelopment #fullstackdevelopment

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

you know what? fuck you
optimizes your heatsinks

jwz

@[email protected] · 7 months ago

RE: https://social.vmbrasseur.com/@vmbrasseur/115922995190919975

Mozilla wants your input. Here's mine:

Mozilla should be doing two things and two things only:

1: Building THE reference implementation web browser, and
2: Being a jugular-snapping attack dog on standards committees.
3: There is no 3.

Mozilla should have NOTHING to do with AI. Nobody wants it. Stop forcing AI into every corner of every project because your VC-brained management have completely lost the plot.

https://mozillafoundation.tfaforms.net/201

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

@jwz Something really annoying is that this is a survey by the *Mozilla Foundation*, not the *Mozilla Corporation* :/

The foundation doesn't develop the browser. They're supposed to "lead the open-source Mozilla project", but most of what they do is advocacy and outreach, along with some grants for non-browser projects.

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

Today we're leaving X. If you're still there, we think you should consider leaving too.

A word here on:
1. why it is so difficult to leave collapsing platforms;
2. why we're making this decision today;
3. where else you can find us.

https://openmedia.org/article/item/were-leaving-x

We’re leaving X

A platform's freedom to operate is not a right to your attention.

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

Really good article by @pluralistic about the AI bubble.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/18/tech-ai-bubble-burst-reverse-centaur?CMP=share_btn_url

"In automation theory, a “centaur” is a person who is assisted by a machine. Driving a car makes you a centaur, and so does using autocomplete.

A reverse centaur is a machine head on a human body, a person who is serving as a squishy meat appendage for an uncaring machine.

For example, an Amazon delivery driver, who sits in a cabin surrounded by AI cameras that monitor the driver’s eyes and take points off if the driver looks in a proscribed direction, and monitors the driver’s mouth because singing is not allowed on the job, and rats the driver out to the boss if they do not make quota.

The driver is in that van because the van cannot drive itself and cannot get a parcel from the curb to your porch. The driver is a peripheral for a van, and the van drives the driver, at superhuman speed, demanding superhuman endurance."

the Guardian

AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage | Cory Doctorow

AI is asbestos in the walls of our tech society, stuffed there by monopolists run amok. A serious fight against it must strike at its roots

@[email protected] has moved

@[email protected] · 7 months ago

As the Bear concludes:

'We have to admit to ourselves that we are simply unable to stabilise our relationship with the United States while the only way that it knows how to communicate is through grievance, imperialism & punishment'...

In other words: the special relationship, if it ever existed most certainly does not now.

We urgently need to re-build bridges with the EU and accept Brexit will mean that trust also needs to be carefully rebuilt

#politics #EU #Trump

https://substack.com/home/post/p-185072904

Why Conceding to Trump Didn’t Buy the UK Any Safety

From Greenland to the NHS, economic coercion only teaches one lesson: it works. - A long read

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

@ChrisMayLA6 The American naval historian, Arthur Marder’s chronicling of the UK & Japan’s journey from blood brother allies in WW1 to Japan becoming the UK’s biggest strategic threat, (before Hitler appeared), in 15 years, does speak to the moment, #OldFriendsNewEnemies #HistoryRhymes

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

Been thinking about this post lately

Post by Cliff Jerrison @pervocracy:
It's very hard to maintain mental health because so many coping strategies are based on the idea that your anxiety is unwarranted, and right now needs more of an "okay, extremely warranted but you still gotta water the plants or you'll have fascism AND dead plants" approach — Post by Cliff Jerrison @pervocracy: It's very hard to maintain mental health because so many coping strategies are based on the idea that your anxiety is unwarranted, and right now needs more of an "okay, extremely warranted but you still gotta water the plants or you'll have fascism AND dead plants" approach

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

Meet Veronika, the tool-using cow. Veronika uses sticks to scratch herself, using different orientations and motions, an example of multi-purpose tool use. This suggests scientists may have underestimated cows' cognitive abilities. https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/01/meet-veronika-the-tool-using-cow/

Ars Technica

Meet Veronika, the tool-using cow

Veronika uses sticks to scratch herself, suggesting scientists have underestimated cow cognition...

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

If you want to make people understand why they should not use AI, i now phrase it like this:

Every time you have any problem, instead of hiring an expert, hire an actor. It's not that i hate actors, but it is legit what the AI is doing. It is acting like someone who knows these things.

Need a doctor? Hire Hugh Laurie.

Need a chemist? Hire Richard Dean Anderson (Yes, i know ).

This is what you are doing. You must stop this.

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

#Language #Mathematics #English #Grammar .

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

A very accessible essay on use and misuse of AI by Cory Doctorow @pluralistic
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/18/tech-ai-bubble-burst-reverse-centaur

Let’s say my hospital bought some AI radiology tools and told its radiologists: “Hey folks, here’s the deal. Today, you’re processing about 100 X-rays per day. From now on, we’re going to get an instantaneous second opinion from the AI, and if the AI thinks you’ve missed a tumor, we want you to go back and have another look, even if that means you’re only processing 98 X-rays per day. That’s fine, we just care about finding all those tumors.”

A businessman's fist striking the Earth like a meteor, scattering debris.
The rise of end times fascism
Read more
If that’s what they said, I’d be delighted. But no one is investing hundreds of billions in AI companies because they think AI will make radiology more expensive, not even if that also makes radiology more accurate. The market’s bet on AI is that an AI salesman will visit the CEO of Kaiser and make this pitch: “Look, you fire nine out of 10 of your radiologists, saving $20m a year. You give us $10m a year, and you net $10m a year, and the remaining radiologists’ job will be to oversee the diagnoses the AI makes at superhuman speed – and somehow remain vigilant as they do so, despite the fact that the AI is usually right, except when it’s catastrophically wrong.

“And if the AI misses a tumor, this will be the human radiologist’s fault, because they are the ‘human in the loop’. It’s their signature on the diagnosis.” — Let’s say my hospital bought some AI radiology tools and told its radiologists: “Hey folks, here’s the deal. Today, you’re processing about 100 X-rays per day. From now on, we’re going to get an instantaneous second opinion from the AI, and if the AI thinks you’ve missed a tumor, we want you to go back and have another look, even if that means you’re only processing 98 X-rays per day. That’s fine, we just care about finding all those tumors.” A businessman's fist striking the Earth like a meteor, scattering debris. The rise of end times fascism Read more If that’s what they said, I’d be delighted. But no one is investing hundreds of billions in AI companies because they think AI will make radiology more expensive, not even if that also makes radiology more accurate. The market’s bet on AI is that an AI salesman will visit the CEO of Kaiser and make this pitch: “Look, you fire nine out of 10 of your radiologists, saving $20m a year. You give us $10m a year, and you net $10m a year, and the remaining radiologists’ job will be to oversee the diagnoses the AI makes at superhuman speed – and somehow remain vigilant as they do so, despite the fact that the AI is usually right, except when it’s catastrophically wrong. “And if the AI misses a tumor, this will be the human radiologist’s fault, because they are the ‘human in the loop’. It’s their signature on the diagnosis.”

the Guardian

AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage | Cory Doctorow

AI is asbestos in the walls of our tech society, stuffed there by monopolists run amok. A serious fight against it must strike at its roots

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

I heard last week that the physics teacher of the daughter of one of my colleagues told the daughter that girls who do their nails don’t do physics. Sigh.

So, here are the nails of an internationally leading particle physics professor. My nails.

Don’t believe the gatekeepers! #womeninSTEM

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

jwz

@[email protected] · 7 months ago

Let's try a different question: How do I make a Pi4b Debian 12.11 believe that an HDMI monitor is connected even if one is not?

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

@jwz An HDMI dummy plug? https://www.xda-developers.com/hdmi-dummy-plug-smallest-cheapest-useful-pc-gadget/

XDA

An HDMI dummy plug might be the smallest cheap gadget that's actually useful

Unlocking functionality without breaking the bank

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 7 months ago

omg I'm reading this dumb twitter article but can't continue because I'm laughing too hard at this diagram. Like, using this as a definition of an intelligent system then crashing into the fucking rocks because you don't know wtf a lighthouse is.