Notices by ahistorical immaterialist (jimbob@aus.social)

@mattly regulate and license software engineers, prosecute them individually when their mistakes and carelessness enable risks to life and security 👍

TIL there is a species of fungus found only in Texas and Japan, and genetic analysis suggests the two populations have been separated for 19 million years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorioactis?wprov=sfla1

Looking for suggestions;
- 10yo wants to get into "coding", I am a poor teacher
- "coding classes"/clubs no longer seem to exist, at least in Hobart, anymore
- online classes seem risky, don't know if they will be as inviting as something hands on with other kids and live discussion
- we had looked into a programmable robot, to make things a bit real and interactive; one I was looking to buy (Sphero SPRK+) seemed ideal, but it has been discontinued and the new model is 2x the price

Anyone have any tips on things to investigate?

Just read an article detailing how Microsoft executives are confused and upset that people don't appreciate their AI features and don't like people giving them shit about them on Twitter. "How are people not impressed with this stuff?"

Fellas, have you used the internet lately? It's fucked. Have you used Windows? Fucked. It's shit. People are sick of it being shit, because it didn't used to be as shit as this. You've gone and fucked everything, that's why people aren't happy with you.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/microsoft-exec-asks-why-arent-more-people-impressed-with-ai

Son reports he did a radiation practical in his physics class this afternoon, got to play with strontium-90 and Geiger counters and things. Very jelly.

The thing about Palestine Action, in the UK, is as far as I can tell they did the absolutely most precision-targeted, moral action possible; property destruction against actual literal weapons of war - nobody harmed, no disruption to the general public.

No wonder the government is losing their shit and making an example of them.

Now obviously this whole thing is a shit show, but I would love to have someone from Federal Labor sit down and slowly explain to me how the fuck "not having an account" in any way makes YouTube a safer platform. Not being logged in is how you get the utterly insane racist grift pushed at you, it's how you get hit with the Sky News shorts and the relentless Trumpet of Patriots and Sportsbet ads. YouTube still pushes shit at you when you don't have an account, it's just even more base and horrible. What am I missing, apart from once again the ALP not understanding how to internet? https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jul/29/children-to-be-banned-from-having-youtube-accounts-as-albanese-government-backflips-on-exemption

I need to be very clear, that the push towards "vibe coding" - that is, deliberately deskilling people - is because AI code assistants are an (increasingly expensive) subscription service.

If you know how to code, you can just write Python, C, Java, R, PHP, whatever for free and make things. You may not own the tools of production, but at least you're not renting them.

If you have been deskilled so you only know how to vibe code, you will be paying for that privilege forever.

This also goes, by the way, for researchers who are starting to be convinced they don't need to learn how to be scientists anymore, because "the AI" can just do the science for them. Nope.

shipping John Mastodon with Fediverse Nicole

Absolutely taking the utter piss https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9vy191rgn1o

Sometimes the light in Tasmania is just *right*

Microsoft renaming their entire office app "Copilot" so my phone now says depraved things like "Would you like to open this PDF in Copilot?" is going to send me full The Joker

If *there is no longer any way to stay in touch with people if you leave Facebook* then that, alone, should be more than enough for anyone to realise what has been going on and establish alternatives. Same with X or anything else to be honest.

If someone online is really your friend/family/colleague, they will be happy to give you their phone number or email address if you ask. If they aren't happy to, then maybe they're just a rando after all.

My 82-year old Dad apropos of literally nothing; "Somebody's got to shoot Musk".

As a journal editor I've become aware that it is becoming a *thing* in the US for high school students to be recommended to *have already published a scientific paper* so it can be cited when applying for college.

This is insane.

I'm aware of, including some young people I personally know, of high-achieving high schoolers doing internships with scientists over a summer and writing a paper, and that's awesome.

But telling kids it's a requirement, that it's something they need to aim for or they are going to mess up getting into college? No way. Stop that.

@abstractcode @weirdestate this wasn't an architect's decision, this was the seller wondering "how can we advertise our 3 bedroom house as a 4 bedroom house?"

When you buy some multipack item from a supermarket and it says "Contains 11 packets!" and you just know a year ago it would have contained 12. MFs don't put prime numbers of items in things for the sheer hell of it.

Exciting news of a victory from the front line

Hmmmm. Wordpress is a painful, perpetually insecure behemoth that has long since lost its way from its original purpose, while Firefox is still, as least currently, *good*. The world is full of alternative CMSs. The world needs more browsers. https://hachyderm.io/@cam/113252252831641675

@troberts I tried Gemini AI this morning, results were not fantastic