What are #lawyers for? Jordan Furlong states that we all know lawyers’ commercial role, to be professional guides for human affairs. But he stresses we also need lawyers to bring the law’s guarantees to life for people and in society. And we need it right now. #law #justice #justice llrx.com/2025/08/what-are-lawy… #law #legal #lawyers #attorneys

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Sensitive content

Forced every engineer to take sales calls.They rewrote our platform in 2 weeks

Link: old.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/…
Discussion: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4…

#Mastodon Resources 2025, Marcus P. Zillman recommends selected sources and sites to help navigate and use the vast Fediverse effectively. Although BlueSky, Threads and Twitter continue to dominate the #socialmedia space, Mastodon offers #opensource connectivity that transverses silos and allows users to seamlessly communicate with users across platforms with little impediment. #research #education #socialmedia #KM #knowledgemanagement llrx.com/2025/08/mastodon-reso…

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Microsoft suggesting hopes and prayers as mitigation for ClickFix.

microsoft.com/en-us/security/b…

#threatIntel

PC Gamer just posted:

Bloodlines 2 developers try to justify the game's DLC clans, but it's not very convincing: 'We have been expanding it from where we originally planned to land'

The long-awaited Bloodlines sequel will launch with six playable clans, but you'll need to pay extra for two of them.

pcgamer.com/games/rpg/bloodlin…

#gamingNews

Another Brilliant Idea! the Hidden Dangers of Sycophantic #AI Jordan Furlong’s article expands analysis on already noted #risks arising from lawyers using AI. #GenerativeAI can be incredibly, & dangerously, sycophantic. This is particularly worrisome for lawyers, because if they lose intellectual skills, what will they left to offer people? Furlong notes that the similarities between lawyer thinking and AI “thinking” should be a cause for alarm within the legal profession.llrx.com/2025/08/another-brill…

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“Unpaid work is over”: Canadian flight attendants reach tentative agreement with airline.

Air Canada flight attendants win ground pay after four-day strike after workers condemn government’s back-to-work order as violation of their rights.

peoplesdispatch.org/2025/08/20…

#canada #cdnpoli #aircanada

i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i wanna die..i

_Wedding Song (There Is Love) (Remastered Version)_

I hadn't heard this song in decades. Nor had I ever known the name of the song, nor the artist.

Beautiful.

youtube.com/watch?v=FV0H4J3cFR…

Have you tried Kagi for web searches?

Like pretty much everyone I know, I’m sick of Google’s enshittified search results. This article got me really interested… arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/0…

(Plus an endorsement by @pluralistic !)

in reply to Dan k5s

I've used Kagi solely for the past two or three years. It's been a great experience for me. The search results are higher quality in my opinion, plus I love the ability to rank the results to see more or less of certain sites. They are all-in on AI but allow the user to discern how much or little of it to use. I've used their Privacy Pass off and on to not link searches to my account but overall don't find their service to be that handsy in the first place. I've enjoyed it.

Polygon just posted:

The Expanse: Osiris Reborn will have appearances from TV series cast members

Owlcat Games' action RPG emphasizes the impact of your choices as you deal with Protogen's nefarious plan

polygon.com/the-expanse-osiris…

#gamingNews

@markrprior@ohai.social I am SO doing this! Actually, are ICE agents smart enough to recognize the difference between the Mexican flag 🇲🇽 and the flag of Ireland 🇮🇪? Or maybe Italy 🇮🇹? Fuck it. I might put all three! ---

in reply to Robert R.

No murders last week too
foxnews.com/opinion/david-marc…
and summer is typically higher rates of serious crimes than other periods.

Scroll down a bit about the part about Eric Swalwell - will he make another comment about crime now??

Kotaku just posted:

Battlefield 6 Is Toning Down The Wild Jumps And Slides Seen In the Open Beta

EA also confirmed the shotgun is being nerfed and Rush is getting tweaked to make it more fun
The post Battlefield 6 Is Toning Down The Wild Jumps And Slides Seen In the Open Beta appeared first on Kotaku.

kotaku.com/battlefield-6-ttk-s…

#gamingNews

Le Teil (Ardèche) : Deux machines de la cimenterie Lafarge incendiées
attaque.noblogs.org/post/2025/…

"France Bleu / jeudi 21 août 2025 Deux engins ont été volontairement incendiés dans la nuit de mercredi 20 août à jeudi 21 août sur le site de l’usine Lafarge du Teil. L’action n’a, pour l’instant, fait l’objet d’aucune revendication, … Continuer la lecture →"

PC Gamer just posted:

EA just confirmed the most popular class in the Battlefield 6 beta, and it shines a spotlight on a major balance problem

337 million shotgun kills later, maybe the Assault class needs a rethink.

pcgamer.com/games/fps/ea-just-…

#gamingNews

"Senior officials have warned ministers that Ireland's rapid growth in data centres is using up electricity capacity and adding to the risks around energy costs and climate targets. In a confidential memo issued in November last year, the Secretary General at the Department of Public Enterprise, Delivery and Reform said that soaring electricity demand, "largely attributable to data centres" is forcing the State to spend heavily on new power generation and grid upgrades."
rte.ie/news/primetime/2025/082…

La diversité contre l’égalité | Raisons d'Agir


#politique #diversité #égalité

À la télévision comme dans les entreprises, au Parti socialiste comme à l’Élysée, à Sciences Po comme à l’armée résonne un nouveau mot d’ordre : Vive la diversité ! Avec l’élection de Barack Obama, le bruissement s’est changé en clameur. Désormais, chacun devrait se mobiliser pour que les femmes et les «minorités visibles» occupent la place qui leur revient au sein des élites. Mais une société dont les classes dirigeantes reflètent la diversité a-t-elle vraiment progressé sur le chemin de la justice sociale ?

À cette question jamais posée, Walter Benn Michaels répond par la négative. La promotion incessante de la diversité et la célébration des «identités culturelles» permettent au mieux, selon lui, de diversifier la couleur de peau et le sexe des maîtres. Sans remettre en cause la domination qui traverse toutes les autres : celle des riches sur les pauvres.

À l’aide d’exemples tirés de la littérature, de l’histoire et de l’actualité, ce livre montre comment la question sociale se trouve désamorcée lorsqu’elle est reformulée en termes ethnico-culturels. Plus fondamentalement, il s’interroge sur l’objectif d’une politique de gauche : s’agit-il de répartir les inégalités sans discrimination d’origine et de sexe, ou de les supprimer ?


raisonsdagir-editions.org/cata…

STAY WEIRD FEDI: IN DEFENSE OF THE ECCENTRIC, ECLECTIC, AND ERRATIC

by vanta rainbow black

-

"queer people joined, and furries. it comes in waves." --Gargron, 2018

-

a person's attitude towards furries is a great litmus test for their level of tolerance generally, and the presence of furries and queer people and other outcasts in a space is a major sign of a healthy social ecosystem. maybe the biggest one even. with statistics showing the vast majority of furries are queer in some capacity, it makes sense that 2000's era meme furry hate was nothing more than thinly-veiled bigotry

the fediverse is an interesting place. what happens when you accidentally sextuple-overbook the same convention center with a queer pride event and furry convention and punk show and kink festival and antifa assembly and hacker conference? you get early mastodon, essentially. the november 2022 twitter waves and meta threads' activitypub integration have diluted this vibe considerably, but the fighting spirit of the fediverse is still there. and as corpo gentrifiers (meta, etc.) continue to attempt to chip away at what makes the fediverse so wonderful, here's why it's worth saving:

-

ONE: because it's beautiful

the fediverse is the only major social media platform where trans people can freely express themselves and be visible without fear of experiencing unmoderated hate-speech. provided your instance has adequate moderation, of course. but this is the case more often than not. sure, the occassional new bigot pleroma instance pops up once in a while. but at least you can trust that something will actually be fucking done about it when you submit a report. nazis get banned and defederated. it's such a low godddamn bar to clear... and yet, by and large, the fediverse is the only major social media platform that actually manages to do this (the decent sections of it, at least). why? well, here's the big secret: BECAUSE WE DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT PROFIT!!! big companies allow nazis to fester on their services because it makes them money, and here we're not beholden to such a corrupting influence. that's kinda the entire point

all the good servers have all the bad ones blocked. that's the beauty of the fediverse. they're essentially isolated from the good portion of the network. in a book i got interviewed for (Move Slowly and Build Bridges: Mastodon, the Fediverse, and the Struggle for Democratic Social Media by Robert W. Gehl) this is termed the "covenantal fediverse" due to said instances broadly following the mastodon server covenant, the most important point of which is "active moderation against racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia." the rest is just technical stuff. still important, but nowhere near as influental

-

TWO: because it's subversive

c'mon. being "normal" is boring as fuck. "is anything as strange as a normal person? is anyone as cruel as a normal person?" pushing back against the mainstream is awesome and epic and cool as fuck. not just for the sake of it of course, but because the mainstream SUCKS. compulsive heterosexuality, patriarchy, transphobia, ableism, competition instead of cooperation, sanitized advertiser-friendly language ("unalived" etc.), silence in the face of injustice, compromise, conformity, boring watered-down top 100 pop hits playing on the radio and barbeques with a biological family who harshly judges and really just outright hates you

DON'T WE FUCKING DESERVE BETTER?!?!?!?!?!?!

i think we do. let's be less like uptight milquetoast suburbanites and more like the neighbors down the street who they despise -- the punk house with a front yard full of empty beer bottles and crumpled up anarchism zines that's constantly getting noise complaints. in other words: let's have fun, and be awesome, and fuck the corpo stiffs trying to stand in our way!

you can't even say swear words on tiktok. and other corpo social media platforms don't fare much better. that's no way to live. FUCK!!!!!

-

THREE: because it's important

as fascism ever-encroaches digital spaces free from corporate tyranny will only become more important. as trans people are being actively genocided here in the U.S. and abroad, alternative social media systems are a place where we can truly express ourselves. find ourselves. become ourselves. corporations are rolling back DEI initiatives and rules against queerphobia. these corpo platforms are no place to thrive. when i joined mastodon in 2017, it was at a crucial time in my gender journey. fedi singlehandedly saved me from being some doofy techbro and turned me into the amazing cyberpunk catgirl i am today. it gave me the critical positive trans representation i so desperately needed, and gave me a likeminded community. a space to learn and grow, and try on new aspects of identity to see what fit. i credit it almost entirely with shaping me into Vanta Rainbow Black

it's a common thread on the fediverse. always has been. even today. so much so that i came up with a name for it, way back in 2017: The Fediverse Effect. people tend to join and realize they're trans due to the sheer abundance of trans people on the network. it really helps to have positive representation y'know? like actual tangible people to dispel common myths and misconceptions, who you can even talk to personally about this stuff. it was indispensible in my journey towards finding myself and molding myself into the person i was meant to be

-

in closing... fuck meta. fuck automattic. fuck flipboard. and fuck all the other corporate gentrifiers in the future who might try to encroach upon our beautiful weird digital haven in the name of turning a profit. you have nothing but my contempt

we should stay weird. unsanitized. unmarketable. for to do otherwise would be to forfeit the very soul of what makes the fediverse so special

stay weird fedi

also published on my blog: vanta.blog/posts/2025-8-14-sta…

#vantablog #StayWeirdFedi #fediverse #FediPact #meta #threads #automattic #flipboard

This entry was edited (3 weeks ago)

Apple Watch wearable foundation model

Link: arxiv.org/abs/2507.00191
Discussion: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4…

Gamespot just posted:

Phantom Blade 0 Hellwalker Gameplay | gamescom 2025

We got hands on with Phantom Blade 0 and put Max to the test with the hardest difficulty in the game currently "Hellwalker" mode. Hellwalker is an "Extreme Mode" where every enemy is a tough piece of work and they have new moves you've never seen before. In the final release, this mode will only be unlocked after you've beaten the game at least once in Gamechanger Mode. ...

gamespot.com/videos/phantom-bl…

#gamingNews

Israeli soldiers storm the village of Al-Mughayyir carrying out detentions and field interrogations #Palestine tiktokgenocide.com/uploads/isr…

I saw a youtube video, where this guy was like (and this is paraphrasing) "I don't like AI art because it's like a microwave meal whereas proper art from talented individuals like paintings in art galleries are actually captivating".

I get that mentality. However, that is not a motivating mentality. His focus was on talent, and the old greats; artists who instinctively "get it". Not wrong, but I do not think this is super helpful to promote human creative endeavours.

It's why I like to focus more on perseverance and acquired skill rather than talent.

in reply to Epsi

also nothing is inherently wrong with microwave meals? sure don’t only eat those and, on a larger scale, be aware that they can destroy local food culture, which is also true for ai art but if that’s the only issue that would more speak for ai art (in contexts where money and time matter while human art will in that case continue to be cherished as “artisan” or something) than against i think?

Once upon a time
long, long ago

I was honored to host a (pretty weak actually) 'podcast' on behalf of my fav (only?) bookstore/cafe

with Cory @pluralistic Doctorow

not going to link it
because,why bother?
the bookstore/cafe has passed it's use-by date, and we're all tired.

that said:

I do miss the energy
Would love to do a silly, late, punchy, hyper-over-caffinated chat with Cory

he's a delight.

this is good:
m.youtube.com/watch?v=rsWN-CYs…

Llevo unos días debatiendo con un amigo apasionado de la tecnología que cree que la IA va a ser un cambio de paradigma.

Hoy hemos tocado el asunto de la productividad. Desde hace muchos años hay un intercambio académico interesante sobre la denominada "paradoja de la productividad". Como lo ponía Robert Solow ya en 1987: "Puedes ver la era de los ordenadores en todas partes menos en las estadísticas de productividad"

Wikipedia tiene una entrada al respecto.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Producti…

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Pedro J. Hdez

Me pega que buena parte de esto viene de que cuanto más digitalizado está un trabajo, más datos quieren las direcciones de las empresas sobre ese trabajo, lo que lleva a que te hagan perder más tiempo introduciendo información sobre lo que haces.

Aún peor, sistemáticamente infravaloran el impacto en horas de estas tareas extra, con el típico "Eso te lleva sólo un minuto". Y no, señores; un minuto es lo que lleva loguearte en la aplicación.

Si nos dieran una tarea para imputar todo el tiempo que acabamos dedicando realmente a imputar tareas e informar sobre ellas, les estallaría la cabeza.

Por no hablar de la gestión de tareas del tipo "pongo en marcha la tarea, pongo el grado de avance, indico que me he roto una uña, que hoy he estado media hora solo, que...".

Si fuera en papel, tardaríamos la décima parte en hacer lo mismo y, sobre todo, no pedirían ni la mitad de información.

Pero, como creen que al ser digital sale gratis, pues hala.

Y agárrense, que ahora empiezan a pedir que lo hagamos usando una IA.