There was a game for the Wii called de Blob. The premise was you're in a sort of industrial world of grey and bring colour back into it.

It feels like we're watching the world do that in reverse.

#DollyParton #TimCurry

Mandrake. Pseudo-Apuleius Platonicus, De medicaminibus herbarum liber, England 12th century. British Library, Harley 5294, fol. 43r.
#medieval #MedievalArt

Rare-Book Sales Are Booming. They’re Getting Sliced Up and Fed to AI.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ais-need-for-content-has-put-rare-book-dealers-in-a-bind-1ac5a053?st=qGCvWo&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

RE: https://sigmoid.social/@csantosb/117162762005379489

“The transformation of society to address the climate emergency must be comprehensive, and each of us, in our respective industries and expertise, have a moral obligation to work to reduce our environmental footprint, particularly in systemic and institutional ways.”

“As software engineers we have front-row seats for the deployment of the world's fastest growing energy consumer: AI.”

"LibreOffice 26.8 brings professional typography, deeper support for the world's writing systems, and no artificial intelligence"

"Math has gained named functions and operators for the N’Ko and Adlam scripts, used for the Manding languages of West Africa and for Fulani ...
None of this work has a commercial market. It was done anyway, because a foundation does not have to ask whether a language pays for itself before deciding to support it."

#foss er #frihed

https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/08/26/libreoffice-26-8/

Rusko pokračuje v devastaci ukrajinského kulturního dědictví. V poslední době zesílilo útoky na válkou již tak ohrožený knižní trh – během léta zničilo ve skladech či tiskárnách třetinu roční produkce ukrajinských nakladatelů včetně velké části učebnic.

Yayoi Kusama passed away from multiple organ failure at a hospital in Tokyo on Aug. 14, 2026. She was 97.
The renowned Japanese avant-garde artist was best known for her signature polka dots, pumpkin sculptures and quirky, brightly coloured art installations.
Her museum’s official Instagram page said that she “continued to paint until her final days, never setting aside her brush and remained steadfast in her lifelong belief that love can save the world”.
#yayoikusama #globalmuseum #art

0,3 % des personnels confiants des personnels face à l’avenir de l’École
https://www.cafepedagogique.net/2026/08/27/03-des-personnels-confiants-des-personnels-face-a-lavenir-de-lecole/

Singaporean police raided the office of iron ore trader Radiant World and questioned some employees, as part of an investigation into the company's transactions after concerns about allegedly falsified documents. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/08/27/asia-pacific/crime-legal/singapore-police-raid-radiant-world/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #asiapacific #crimelegal #singapore #southeastasia

@danirabbit What's the gut feeling on immutability? I had some peace of mind giving these to friends and family.

The US is targeting the anarchist collective that hosts the popular Noblogs wordpress platform as terrorists. This is truly batshit (as are their various obvious lies about Rose City Antifa etc).

This is a HUGE attack on basic free speech.

https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/08/designation-of-autistici-inventati-as-a-specially-designated-global-terrorist/

RE: https://aus.social/@Robinzz3/117165610217964326

proudly part of the 3rd group: experiment it, understand it, decide when AI helps and when not.
Already sent to hell, 2 or 3 folks being hostile to me and then accusing me to be hostile to them. No progressive battle should include hostility and hatred towards someone.

i like how the monopoly man is a cyclops. this implies he's actually just a puppet and the real enemy is vril

Pnpm 12.0

https://pnpm.io/blog/releases/12.0

Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49460032

#HackerNews #pnpm #pnpm12 #release #updates #JavaScript #package #manager #softwaredevelopment

Dolly Parton's scientific, public health, and educational philanthropy was so significant that @nature is running a piece on the impact she had.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02676-1

Did you know that the “Israel pays influencers 7k dollars per post” statement is actually based on a calculation by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft:
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israel-paid-influencers/

The social media campaign launched as part of the “Esther Project” was revealed to have had a payout budget of 900k USD, and if you take that figure and use estimates of how many influencers were paid by the program and how many posts were made, you arrive at 6k to 7k USD per Post. In Germany that figure is ridiculed as being as nonsensical as the far right “paid protestors” myth. These numbers are based on court filings the Israel backed NGOs doing the sponsoring need to do. It's not a myth, it's a fact.

@Marloezovic Techdirt geeft een kritische analyse van deze "slechte schikking". Te veel om zo op te noemen.

Maar een eerste bedenking:
> Opmerkelijk is dat het hele punt van het doen van dit als een “schikking” is dat iedereen die erbij betrokken is volkomen weet dat geen enkele overheid deze functiewijzigingen kan opleggen zonder in strijd te zijn met het Eerste Amendement. Maar nu het in een “schikking” zit, moeten de rechtbanken mogelijk onderzoeken of deze keuzes — die Meta zelf vrij zou kunnen maken — plots een “staatstap” zijn geworden, waardoor het Eerste Amendement in het spel komt.

En een citaat van EFF wordt genoemd.

> Onder deze schikking zullen jonge gebruikers nu minder toegang hebben tot Meta‑producten, en minder mogelijkheden om hun rechten op vrije meningsuiting, toegang tot informatie, kunst en cultuur, associatie, gemeenschapsvorming en spel uit te oefenen. De schikking legt ook leeftijdsverificatie in elk product, waardoor nog meer persoonlijke gegevens van gebruikers van alle leeftijden moeten worden verzameld; dit verankert Meta’s schadelijke surveillance in de wet, en zal de privacy en anonimiteit van gebruikers ondermijnen terwijl hun blootstelling aan datalekken en overheidsverzoeken om gegevens toeneemt. En de maatregelen voor gegevensminimalisatie en beveiliging weerhouden staten er niet van de onder de overeenkomst verzamelde gegevens voor andere wetshandhavingsdoeleinden te gebruiken – wat zaken kan omvatten zoals criminele onderzoeken naar abortussen of gender‑bevestigende zorg.

https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/26/meta-just-paid-nearly-17-billion-to-make-sure-it-gets-to-write-the-kid-safety-rules-for-every-other-social-media-platform/

Lake Coldai, an alpine lake beneath the Dolomites near village Alleghe, Italy. Today is World Lake Day, designated by the United Nations to raise awareness about the importance of lakes and to promote their sustainable management.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lago_Coldai_6.jpg

#wikimedia #photo #daily #photography #fotografia #photographie #foto

The US government has designated the Italian collective Autistici/Inventati, which produces the infrastructure of NoBlogs.org, a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist," freezing their assets and prohibiting all transactions with them——citing their "far-left" politics and the fact that they have provided services to "anti-fascist" groups for justification.

Autistici/Inventati is an activist-oriented tech project that offers encrypted communications tools, email, web hosting, secure chat, and video conferencing platforms for users who prefer to stay off corporate grids.

This is what the US government is shutting down as "terrorism."

Screenshot from the press release.

https://cryptobriefing.com/us-sanctions-autistici-inventati-terrorism/

It's been a long journey, but our paper on "AI and Collective Data Governance in Crowdsourced Citizen Science: A Normative Framework Approach" has finally been accepted at HDSR!

My former colleague Ann Borda & I looked at how so-called "AI" systems could impact #CitizenScience and the role that collective data governance could play.

https://doi.org/10.1162/99608f92.92dc6df0

#ai #commons #governance