Australis13

Sigh. Misleading headline - the suspected radiotrophic ability seems to already exist in the species (which was identified in the late 19th Century; it’s not new, despite the article claiming it’s a “strange black fungus”) and several others, based on research with non-Chernobyl collections:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1866175/

Right, so they wait until just after Windows 10 reaches EOL to release the patch for this annoying bug. Typical. They’ve probably had the solution ready for ages.

Probably right on the money, sadly.

Ouch. Glad I don’t run Windows 11…

In the undertaking, Google commits to removing certain pre-installation and default search engine restrictions from its contracts with Android phone manufacturers and telcos.

This ought to be interesting. At least it will hopefully mean one less bit of bloatware on Android phones.

I’m not sure if this is petition is actually helpful. It is 4 years old and hasn’t been updated to note the renewed focus on this legislation: https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/the-eu-could-be-scanning-your-chats-by-october-2025-heres-everything-we-know

I use Pi-hole, except that I originally retrofitted after setting up DNScrypt years ago to connect to Cisco OpenDNS. That’s not the only DNS server you can use with it, though, and it’s added more features since.

To use DNScrypt with Pi-hole on the same device, set DNScrypt to listen on 127.0.0.1:54 and point Pi-hole to that as the DNS server.

The only time I have ever had any trouble with this setup and DNS resolution is when the network is recovering from a power outage; there’s a race condition somewhere between the Pi and my modem/router that I’ve never found the time to pin down (given outages are so infrequent I just haven’t gotten around to it) and it’s easily resolved by rebooting the Pi.

LLMs are being shoved into so many bits of software (office suites, programming tools, etc.) it doesn’t surprise me that something like this has happened.

Hopefully Newag (the manufacturer) loses this case. This is malicious design on Newag’s part.

Yeah, that’s got my attention too. Definitely going to try them out now since I need an alternative for remote support for family.

As an Australian, my government can go for it. None of the tech companies have appreciated the Australian government’s attempts to regulate them (e.g. trying to make Google and Meta pay for using our journalism). (edit: not a good example)

That said, we have had idiots in power from time to time that definitely have worked against us, usually arguing the “security over privacy” nonsense (metadata collection laws, encryption backdoor legislation, etc.).

Interesting, I hadn’t seen news about that Apple feature before… There seems to be a lot more press around Recall, which in turn amps up the amount of consumer attention and backlash.

That said (and I wouldn’t want Apple’s “semantic search” even if I had an Apple device), I’d still trust Apple more to manage the dataset securely compared to Microsoft. The Apple ecosystem is far more strictly controlled, whereas in Windows it’s more of a free-for-all (most people just used XP as an administrator, the UAC could be easily disabled on Windows Vista and 7, etc.). Especially with Microsoft’s move to put advertising in Windows 11 and complete lack of security measures in the initial version of Recall, it is very hard to trust Microsoft in this regard.

Gardening is one of my hobbies but I don’t have much retail experience… Guess that’s me ruled out then.

Based on https://fedia.io/m/selfhosted@lemmy.world/t/2206365/Alternatives-to-MZLA-Pocket I’m going to try Wallabag and/or Readeck. Probably the critical issue is whether you can self-host or not:

• Wallabag has a paid public instance, but Readeck you’d have to host yourself until their public service launches later this year (see https://readeck.org/en/start)
• Wallabag uses the Pocket API to transfer data (so I think you’d need to migrate before Pocket shuts down), whilst Readeck can import the file produced by a Pocket export.
• Wallabag has phone apps, whilst Readeck is browser-only (does your e-reader support a browser?)
• Readeck can export to ebook formats (so might be more useful for e-readers in this regard); not sure about Wallabag

Really disappointed to lose Pocket. I am a big user of it and found it very convenient to save articles of interest as well as collecting anything that looked interesting that I might want to read. Have both the Android app and use it on the desktop.

Now I’m going to have to find a substitute.

Vile and dystopian.

Of the thousands of books tucked into the library’s stacks, one author has emerged as a patron favourite: Louise Penny, the bestselling Canadian novelist and creator of the detective Armand Gamache. … Penny made headlines in recent weeks after donating C$50,000 (US$36,000) to help fund a new entrance to the library, an “elegant” solution to the diplomatic snafu created in wake of new restrictions. “I have the resources to help because of the support of American and Canadian readers. The least I could do is give back,” Penny said. “Plus, it’s like giving the finger to the current administration: you close one door, we will open another one.”

This is exactly what I would do - make sure there is an accessible entrance on the Canadian side. Make it so that if the US really wants to be difficult, they have to put up a wall down the middle of the library.

The full study for those interested: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354152560_The_Psychology_of_Online_Political_Hostility_A_Comprehensive_Cross-National_Test_of_the_Mismatch_Hypothesis

the Trump administration has shown signs of enthusiasm for a pronatalist agenda. DOGE head Elon Musk, a father of 14, posts regularly on social media about the need for Americans to have more babies; he has also promoted NatalCon on X. Vice President JD Vance has proposed the idea of a weighted voting system, in which the votes cast by parents would be valued more highly than those by the childless. US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy (a father of nine) signed a memo recommending that his department prioritize “communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.”

Got to provide a continuous supply of children for the labour camps.

The ultimate goal is to speak dolphin, if indeed there is such a language. The pursuit of this goal has led WDP to create a massive, meticulously labeled data set, which Google says is perfect for analysis with generative AI.

So they’re aiming for a real-life version of SeaQuest DSV? Considering Season 1 was set in 2018-2019, we’re 7 years behind schedule so far…