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This is probably my favourite fish sculpture in Glasgow. It's beside the door of the old Western Infirmary outpatients dispensary building on Church Street.

#glasgow #sculpture #fish #architecture #architecturephotography

One of the challenges of being an anarchist these days—and thus not having illusions about how bad things are—is the sense that nothing we do seems to work, leading to a sense of pointlessness in terms of slowing down fascism. The horrors persist, and only get worse.

Relatedly, though, not having illusions keeps us open to possibilities of our own collective creation, even if it’s tough to remember that right now.

Last night, walking down the gentrifying streets of Exarcheia, already filling up with hipsters and tourists eager to party at the neighborhood’s expense, I almost decided not to go to my destination: yet another demo. That “Why does it matter?” feeling washed over me.

Then I saw some of the kids of Notara 26 boisterously spray-painting a banner outside their squatted refugee and migrant home, alongside a multigenerational, diverse, and big crowd that buzzed not with anxiety or despair but instead a joyous spirit. I saw friendly faces and smiles, and engaged in upbeat conversations, as we waited for the signal to begin marching around the neighborhood. Or rather, we were a parade, our “instruments” the stuff of singsong, multilingual chants that the kids danced to and adults clapped to, or that people banged out a rhythm to on the brutal metal fencing that encloses the stolen (by state, cops, and capitalism) Exarcheia Square as we walked by it—a square that used to be filled with people and trees, and if resistance and organizing succeeds, will be again. The usual quarter-sheets—explaining what a demo is about—that rain down on protests were, in this case, cheerful confetti, especially when a Notara kiddo gleefully kept throwing them from a perch atop someone’s shoulders.

For this was a celebration: 11 years of Notara 26 housing people forced across hostile and often deadly borders, sans certainty. Yet Notara has held out solidarity that whole time—and today, is squatted home to families mostly from the Congo.

As I danced in unison to a tiny Congelese child grinning happily up at me, I thought: this world, even amid the worst, is what we make of it together, for each other—and that matters.

Happy 11th bday, Notara 26!

(photo of lead banner in last night’s birthday celebration on the streets of Exarcheia for Notara 26, taken by and borrowed from @land.and.freedom)

Leo Laporte and I have a monthly video/audio show. "Off by One with Jeff Atwood". The next episode, #6 "HypnoCube Therapy Session" is freely available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqOXemQ0uQc

How do computers calculate complicated trig functions such as tangent? I took a look at Intel's 8087 floating-point chip under the microscope to find out. The chip combines two techniques to evaluate the tan function quickly and accurately: polynomials and an algorithm called CORDIC...

I could go on.

In all these cases, I say “could” — not “should,” not “will.” I have nuanced and widely varying personal opinions on which of all these possibilities are probable, and which are desirable.

I’m just pointing out there we do in fact have choices, and the very specific trajectories AI vendors lay out are not at all inevitable.

A/end

@cstross Touché 😊 A river delta probably (that is the 'os' part of the name), but not so much a swamp. I suppose it is hard to blame the original builders of Bangkok, but understanding of the regional water mechanics should have been there for a while now. Willingness to do the right thing about it is probably not much there, as most such places in the world.

@catsalad
False marketing. It's clearly in a case of unbroken glass.

Postmortem of a little community hobby wiki struggling to survive an extinction-event-tier DDOS purely because they banned one guy for using Claude on the wiki https://blog.xkeeper.net/the-cutting-room-floor/tcrf-2026-ddos-postmortem/

@lowqualityfacts I'd like one star that says "MOSTLY"

When your job as a consultant on "cats eyes" turns out to be a hands-on role ...

I’m glad they’re putting this in the spotlight, really glad, but Mother Jones absolutely biffed something here, something a lot of folks are getting wrong:

The quote about how AI is “the largest theft of labor in human history?” That’s not “how tech leaders talk when they think no one is listening.”

No no no. •That• is the kind of email you send when you think the company is doing something terrible, and you want your objections preserved in writing. 🧵

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/09/openai-chatgpt-microsoft-copyright-legal-case-documents-revelations/

@matteopzz @diggita @thamichele @linux La frammentazione fa male anche al discorso disabilità. L'accessibilità all'informatica per ciechi, ipovedenti, disabili motori e (soprattutto) cognitivi, ha bisogno di standard rigidi. Ora non entro nel tecnico, ma a livello comunicativo pare un paradosso "l'inclusione ha bisogno di regole" perché includere vuol dire guardare qualsiasi eccezione che ci sia a questo mondo. Il che è per definizione utopico ma si cerca almeno di coprire più esigenze possibili. Linux non lo fa completamente, e questo rende difficile avvicinarsi a chi il computer non lo usa (solo) per produttività e svago, ma è una vera e propria "estensione" del corpo, insomma una protesi. E la comunità di sviluppo Linux, almeno in molte sue parti, ha la tendenza di dire "se hai bisogno di qualcosa, fattelo tu" con una narrazione "volere è potere" che non potrà mai coprire il background culturale, sociale, economico, di tutti.
L'altro giorno (lo trovate nel mio profilo) ho avuto in mano un tale, Robin Kipp, cieco, che è riuscito a rendere parlante un FlipperZero, uno di quei dispositivi hardware che servono a far funzionare telecomandi e cose strane. Però Robin ha, probabilmente, un background ingegneristico di tutto rispetto. Che io non ho.
Io, sto imparando ad "aggiustarmi le cose" grazie al codice assistito, insomma quello che il marketing chiama "vibe coding" come fosse un pene a pile. Rendo l'idea? Però fin che è un plugin WordPress gioco anche; ma non azzarderei mai a proporlo al pubblico né tanto meno a mettere le zampe su un materiale delicato come Linux. Rischierei solo di indispettire gli sviluppatori ancora di più e rendergli la questione accessibilità ancora più antipatica di quello che già gli è.
Spero di poter incontrare di persona qualcuno con cui parlarne al sfscon a Bolzano il prossimo novembre, così da scambiarci idee davvero davanti a un tavolo.

My quibble matters for two reasons:

1. The way that the AI-pushing tech leaders like Sam Altman and Elon Musk and Satya Nadella actually talk when they think no one is listening is AFAICT completely different from that Hecht quote. They are delusional, megalomaniacal. They wouldn’t gloat about getting away with labor theft; the concept of “labor theft” does not even exist for them. How can it be theft when they deserved it, when they are messianic figures whose wealth is proof of their infallible rightness?

If we want to oppose this destructive AI bubble, we should understand what we’re opposing.

2/

@farah I know 😩

The #ICanHazPDF hash-tag is active on the Fediverse.

I remember that hash-tag (ICanHazPDF) starting in (I think) the year 2011.

...

A lot of scholarly papers are paywalled. ICanHazPDF is a way for those who don't have "academic access" to ask for a copy of the paper.

...

ICanHazPDF was a play on the "I Can Has Cheezburger" (ICHC) meme.

#ICanHasCheezBurger #ICHC #ScienceFedi

Podcasting used to be a hobby for most people it's quickly becoming a business for many.

I talk with Claricast's Joe Eftihiou about this on this Tuesdays Entrepreneur's Enigma podcast.

#podcasting #podcastingBusiness