Notices by jwz (jwz@mastodon.social)

All these people fretting over "what fork of rsync should I use to get the hot new rsync features in the future".

Stop. Stop changing rsync. It's done.

This post is about ncurses.

Fluck Flock.

Flock is quietly training police to sway city leaders to buy surveillance tech: As East Bay communities raise concerns about civil liberties and immigration enforcement, the license plate camera company is seeking support from its...
https://jwz.org/b/yk79

Today in "Butlerian Jihad" news.

US Law Enforcement Warns of 'Anti-Tech Extremism' as AI Hatred Grows: This new effort follows President Donald Trump's National Security Presidential Memo 7, which instructs the Department of Justice to target anyone...
https://jwz.org/b/yk7o

Time for you to retire, old friend.
https://jwz.org/b/yk7l

WordPress "AI" Apocalypse Extremely Fucking Nigh.

WP 7.0 was just released and apparently this is the "AI" release. Is there a patch to excise this cancer from core, or is there a bugfix-tracking fork that I should switch to instead, or should I just never upgrade again, or what?

https://jwz.org/b/yk7j

@ryanc I see we're still dealing with the "genies want you to suffer" loophole.

The Rust Evangelism Task Force has declared "ethics" to be out of scope. And that's going as well as you might guess:

This document establishes a policy for how LLMs can be used when contributing to rust-lang/rust. [...] No comment on this PR may mention the following topics:

• Long-term social or economic impact of LLMs
• The environmental impact of LLMs
• Anything to do with the copyright status of LLM output
• Moral judgements about people who use LLMs

https://jwz.org/b/yk7V

How to radicalize investment bankers against AI: Plunge their ski resorts into darkness for data centers:

The Sierra Nevada tourist hub -- home to ski resorts, lakeside casinos, and roughly 25 to 28 million annual visitors -- is facing an energy crisis with a familiar culprit: the data centers powering the AI boom...
https://jwz.org/b/yk7J

Is there something I should put in some markdown file in the XScreenSaver source that will make things hilariously explode if someone slopfondles it?

@Infoseepage Ordering some more of these: https://www.mulebooks.com/store/pack-of-10-torment-nexus-zines

A slopfondler walks into a bar.

Once or twice a month some tech industry guy recognizes me at DNA Lounge. It always used to be *blah blah* Mozilla *blah blah* Code Rush, whatever... but lately all they want to do is proselytize "AI" at me. This has been 100% of fanboy interactions this year. And then they're shocked when I don't want to hear about their awesome project and in fact I tell them that what they are doing is unethical and harmful...
https://jwz.org/b/yk7E

@aparrish There are two kinds of articles you can write about AI, just like there are two kinds of obituaries you can write about Henry Kissinger.

And every morning tech "journalists" wake up and choose the one that is not this: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-kissinger-war-criminal-dead-1234804748/

@jeffowski @alexadeswift Screening tonight at @dnalounge ! https://sfba.social/@dnalounge/116534926718218939

This fountain is not going down without a fight!

Flames erupt as crews dismantle Vaillancourt Fountain:
https://jwz.org/b/yk69

Happy time_t 1777777777 to all who celebrate.

# date +'%F %r %Z = %s' 2026-05-02 08:09:37 PM PDT = 1777777777
https://jwz.org/b/yk62

I have been informed that "dad rock" refers to music released prior to to 2010.

@inthehands "I WANT TO BELIEVE" but given that this report / survey was *from a company trying to sell you AI* it will be impossible to tell whether there's even a single particle of non-bullshit in it.

@mjg59 @glyph If half your code isn't prose -- which is to say comments -- then your code is, what's the word, bad.

@mjg59 @glyph Anyway I've only been tangentially following this argument, but "code and prose are just different" has never held much water for me. They're not different and also you need both. Nor does the idea that LLMs are worse at one than the other, they're terrible at both.

It strikes me as the same old fallacy: "The most enthusiastic bitcoin and blockchain proponents are the ones who understand neither databases nor economics."

Some asshat out here calling themselves an "ethical AI vegan" because they only use corporate AI tools in "uwu smol" ways, and, I dunno, I guess they do a land acknowledgment before they boil a lake or whatever.

If anyone is an "AI vegan" it's me -- I don't use these tools at all, ever, because they are unethical. Telling me that they are delicious is not going to make them ethical.

Also, I will endlessly berate you about your use.

That's veganism, you're welcome.
https://jwz.org/b/yk6V