Notices by sknob (sknob@mamot.fr)

@txtechnician @dalias @limebar

Something being useful is really setting the bar as low as it will go. A rock or a stick can be useful. Overcooked pasta can be useful (to glue stuff maybe). So can child labor and slavery.

Usefulness is not a get out of ethics card.

@aral @_elena

Great speech. The surveillance part of surveillance capitalism is clearly hard to resist for governments 😭

@_elena unbelievable that they are still being treated like neutral telecom platforms that aren’t responsible or liable for their content, like internet providers. And you’d think that lawmakers would have caught up to the basics of technology after a generation… what a stupid timeline we’re in…

@thomasfuchs @_elena

I stand corrected. Whatever works to keep the genAI crap out of the EU!

Apple, the last holdout, falls into line and goes full GenAI. They insist that their version is super private, but apparently not private enough to be released in the EU \o/

@strypey wow, thanks for listening to and boosting the album. Much appreciated ☺️

« I was so naïve that I thought progress could only go one direction, because that’s all I’d ever known. »

Sad but brilliant post by @ratfactor. Hit home even though I’m not a programmer, because I think it applies to our entire society and way of life.

https://ratfactor.com/tech-nope2

Every time I consider the possibility that my position on gen AI might be too extreme (there is no ethical use of Gen AI, none), I stumble on something that makes me realize it is in fact way too lenient. Like yesterday, I watched a few minutes of a video about viral AI video slop… Oh boy…

Ptn, je reçois une prune pour excès de vitesse alors que 1/ je n’utilise quasiment jamais ma bagnole et 2/ je respecte toujours les limitations de vitesse (je suis bien le seul)

QUAND SOUDAIN, je vois que l’infraction a été constatée au milieu de la nuit à l’autre bout de la france 😭

Bref, je suis autant dégoûté que désoeuvré.

Apparamment, je dois déposer plainte pour usurpation de plaque… Mais conseils welcome…

@aral @lislegaard @eaterofsnacks @media
Yes, that one, sorry, couldn’t easily search for the link earlier. :)

@lislegaard @eaterofsnacks

I just wish there was a light mode for people with astigmatism like me (although I usually just read it in my RSS feed 😅)

https://mamot.fr/@sknob/114801643818143762

@lislegaard @eaterofsnacks
There are different ways of doing it, but the most common and compatible way is with a media query. It’s really a matter of defining the colors for light and dark. Something like :

:root {
--bg: #fff;
--text: #000;
}
@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
:root {
--bg: #000;
--text: #fff;
/* filter: brightness(.8) contrast(1.2); */
}
}

@lislegaard @eaterofsnacks @media
Or there’s @aral’s script which I’ve also used on complicated sites (in the answers to my linked toot).

Please please please don’t impose dark mode on your websites. Honor the user’s system settings.

There are plenty of people with visual impairments as common as astigmatism who can’t read light text on dark background, because it’s like staring at a strong lightbulb in the dark.

And it’s not hard. Just a few lines of CSS.

#accessibility

Me, daydreaming a few years ago about how to take down capitalism : what if we could spread some kind of malware that would discretely and randomly alter numbers in spreadsheets, etc., making all corporate data suspect ? 😈

Corporations (and states) today : let’s integrate bullshit-generating software in all our processes \o/ 😑

@aral
Not the only ones, no, unfortunately. And I was reacting to (and agreeing with) both points in @burnoutqueen toot…

@burnoutqueen @aral well that second bit is the problem isn’t it? So many people on the left (in France at least) equating jews with israeli fascists the same way people on the right equate muslims and palestinians with islamic terrorists. Jews and muslims are instrumentalized and tokenized all over the political spectrum for tactical, electoral reasons, while Israel continues to massacre palestinians unimpeded…

This can’t possibly be an original idea, but I made it for possible use on my own sites and so I thought I’d share (as in feel free to use it if you like).

#slop #StopSlop

Le moins que l’on puisse faire, le minimum syndical, c’est de ne plus utiliser/financer les produits et services des sociétés qui financent et appuient et mettent en œuvre les politiques supremascistes de Trump, à commencer par X, Meta, Amazon et Spotify.

Ce n’est pas forcément facile ni agréable, c’est bien comme ça que le capitalisme nous tient et qu’on devient les complices involontaires de la haine, mais quand c’est possible, ne pas le faire, c’est devenir complice volontaire de la haine.

Merci à celleux qui ont mis un CW. Pas merci aux autres.