catileptic

catileptic, 3 days ago to Georgia

"Georgian MPs approved controversial plans to brand hundreds of NGOs and media outlets as foreign agents on Tuesday, paving the way for the bill to become law despite growing domestic dissent and condemnation from the U.S. and EU."

https://www.politico.eu/article/georgia-parliament-pass-foreign-agent-russian-law-amid-pro-eu-protest-crackdown-tbilisi/

Reminder: this law mandates that newsrooms & NGOs with more than 20% of their funding coming from outside the country declare themselves "foreign agents".

There have been constant protests, police brutality and intimidation.

#georgia

catileptic, 5 days ago to FiberArts

i'm learning to sew using a sewing machine. i have two second-hand sewing machines.

stuff breaks and threads jam and half the time i don't know if i did something wrong or the machine did something wrong.

it's tempting to quit. it's also tempting to think a new machine will fix all the problems. the "parent" in my head is trying to soothe me into being patient with the machines and with my learning process.

and then the catgirl in my head just wants to make a mess.

#hobby #sewing #meow

catileptic, 8 days ago to random

The situation in Georgia is developing into a coordinated intimidation campaign.

The OCCRP published an update and every single paragraph is chilling: https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/18707-georgian-opponents-to-russian-law-face-serious-threats

Journalists and activists are being intimidated, as are their families. They see their own faces on posters under the message "no place for agents in Georgia". And it's not just them who are treated with such brutality - protesters have also seen their faces on such posters.

1/2

catileptic, 9 days ago to trans

Google Delists DIY Hormone Therapy Sites

"Google has removed two websites providing “DIY” hormone replacement therapy used in gender-affirming care from search results at the request of the UK government, according to legal letters viewed by 404 Media."

https://www.404media.co/google-delists-sites-providing-diy-hormone-therapy-at-behest-of-uk-government

"Both sites were temporarily offline after their domain registrar received letters [...] asking them to suspend their domain names". The registrars are Namecheap and NiceNIC.

#trans #TransUK #transrights

catileptic, 9 days ago to random

OpenAI has partnered with StackOverflow to use the content on the site to train ChatGPT. Some users who have posted highly-rated answers have tried to either delete or edit them. But they noticed that the moderators changed their edits back and their old answers re-appeared. Then the moderators banned them for 7 days.

Oh and while we're on the subject, Valve also removed the ban on AI-generated art on Steam.

Anything we put up in these walled gardens will be monetized.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/stack-overflow-bans-users-en-masse-for-rebelling-against-openai-partnership-users-banned-for-deleting-answers-to-prevent-them-being-used-to-train-chatgpt

catileptic, 13 days ago to random

Brett Scott published a really good piece on the cost of "cashlessness".

"Money is political, and that’s the starting point of the economics of cash."

https://www.asomo.co/p/the-cost-of-cashlessness

It's especially important since the only other time I hear people defending cash is when they fear a take-over from a shady, world-wide organization. And it's not that they want freedom, but they want another shady, world-wide organization to not lose its foothold.

catileptic, 16 days ago to random

Facebook has a "who can comment on your post" option in the drop-down on public posts. You can restrict commenting to "people & pages you mention in this post" which effectively means nobody can comment if you didn't mention anyone. Great way to still do activism on FB without a slew of harassment.

I just posted something publicly and the option wasn't there anymore. After 20 mins and refreshing, the option appeared again.

Great way to dis-incentivize people from protecting themselves.

catileptic, 16 days ago to random

The police in Georgia are reacting violently and abusively against protestors who took to the streets against the "foreign agent law", that would force NGOs, civil rights groups and media to register as “foreign agents” if more than 20% of their funding came from abroad.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/may/01/georgia-protest-foreign-agents-bill-police-georgian-parliament

The chair of the leading party says the law is meant to prevent “non-transparent funding of NGOs", which is "the main instrument for the appointment of a Georgian government from abroad”.

1/2

catileptic, 19 days ago to OSINT

small #OSINT tidbit: add inurl:"Special:AllPages" to search through instances of MediaWiki (the framework behind Wikipedia) that have a public page listing all the pages on the wiki

cc @sector035 & @cyb_detective - maybe this is interesting to your audiences?

catileptic, 19 days ago to random

just read about the amendment to Investigatory Powers Bill (IPB) essentially passing (am i missing anything, UK folks? is there any chance for it to be stopped?)

with the Online Safety Bill letting Ofcom force companies to break end-to-end encryption and this amendment letting the gov. force companies to not patch security vulnerabilities, the uk is building a pretty good backdoor factory

the IPB applies the "halt security fixes" to overseas companies, too. wondering how that will work.

catileptic, 19 days ago to random

Six Theses on Anxiety and Why It is Effectively Preventing Militancy, and One Possible Strategy for Overcoming It

https://www.weareplanc.org/blog/we-are-all-very-anxious/

catileptic, 25 days ago to random

Romanian far-right organizing, in the streets, in alternative media and in Telegram groups - documented by Adina Marincea, for Context.

https://context.ro/cum-s-a-mobilizat-extrema-dreapta-din-romania-pentru-reabilitarea-unui-criminal-de-razboi-cazul-mircea-vulcanescu/

A network of far-right groups has formed in Ro, usually with a neo-liberal profile, bringing together ultra-nationalist, orthodox, neo-fascist extremist groups and representatives of public institutions. They organize and promote hate messages, rehabilitating war criminals, even though the law expressly forbids this.

catileptic, 1 month ago to random

i've been wondering: does the "post" in post-modernism mean the same as the one in post-punk? how about the one in post-truth?

i've read a bit about this in Robin James' "Is the post- in post-identity the post- in post-genre?" - which opened up more questions, in my mind. i recommend the essay to anyone who wonders about this.

does anyone have written or video essays they'd recommend, on this subject?

(is post-rock / post-punk a type of #postgenre?)

(so many questions!)

catileptic, 1 month ago to random

I just found out that @berlinergazette is active on Mastodon! <3 If you haven't checked them out, it's a source of very good, thought-provoking essays.

catileptic, 1 month ago to random

Is there any list / webring / index of independent wikis that are not game-related?

Is there any google dork (or some other search technique) to find them?

I'm more curious to see what folx build on the wiki platform, but also to go on some nice rabbit holes.

catileptic, 1 month ago to random

"All of the world’s billionaires younger than 30 inherited their wealth, the first wave of “the great wealth transfer” in which more than 1,000 wealthy people are expected to pass on more than $5.2tn (£4.1tn) to their heirs over the next two decades.

There are already more billionaires than ever before (2,781), and the number is expected to soar in the coming years as an elderly generation of super-rich people prepare to give their fortunes to their children."

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/apr/03/all-billionaires-under-30-have-inherited-their-wealth-research-finds

catileptic, 1 month ago to random

I'm delivering two sessions, on March 28-29, in Romanian, on digital security for NGOs, as part of an event by TechSoup Romania.

Sign-ups are free and still open: https://activatorsecuritate.ong.techsoup.ro/

One session is on passwords (which is going to quickly dive into MFA and such), and one is on the steps an activist can take after they are hacked or part of a security incident.

My colleague, Bogdan Manolea, from @apti is delivering a session on GDPR and the safe & secure processing of personal data.

catileptic, 1 month ago to random

i have no nice words, nor smart conclusions, so here's the investigative reporting:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/andrew-huberman-podcast-stanford-joe-rogan.html

#patriarchy

catileptic, 1 month ago to random

folks who maintain a #bookwyrm instance: what resources does your server / VPS have, and what's the user count that is sustained by those resources?

trying to work out what hosting a Romanian Bookwyrm could cost :)

catileptic, 1 month ago to random

i'm curious about deliberately practicing thinking / reasoning about things in order to clarify the thoughts one has about various subjects.

some folx journal (in writing or digitally) and explore a subject in writing, which, in turn, clarifies their thinking. other folx do this in direct conversation. others try to explain a subject, which they are still exploring themselves.

is there literature about these processes and how they shape our thoughts?

how do you do this for your own mind?

catileptic, 1 month ago to random

came across this "green new deal" simulator card game. it's 10 minutes of a pretty nice experience, trying to min-max things inside the simplified universe of a game.

sometimes i need things like these. a little bit of fun, a little bit of what-if, some cute animations, a chance to disconnect.

https://www.molleindustria.org/GND/