iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

boterham @czarch.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

Pshhh, I don't see what the big deal is @meredithmeredith.bsky.social , technologies like accurate image detection is a solved problem, it is infallible, and nothing could every go wrong with relying upon it. /s

startling image that illustrates the deep-rooted biases of AI research. Input a low-resolution picture of Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States, into an algorithm designed to generate depixelated faces, and the output is a white man

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Leena 🌵 @leena.reuben.games · 04/10/2025

increasingly convinced preventing americans from getting their little packages is the thing that will take this government down

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Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

If you were online before 2010 you know it's not a true mod crashout until a mod takes all the Adderall and then posts a sprawlingly incoherent sephiroth speech manifesto, breaks the site, and then vanishes for 3 months

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WuTangIsForTheChildren @wutangforchildren.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

ICE Nazis in Chicago tried to kidnap a food delivery worker but my man was too fast for those slow bastards

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Anonymous @youranoncentral.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

Human rights defender Greta Thunberg: "I am not scared of Israel, I am scared of a world that has seemingly lost all sense of humanity. What we are doing here is trying to show there is some humanity left. That there are still people willing to step up when all other means fail." #3E

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Tribalmoon @materobscura.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

This tells us two things: how brittle the façade of power is, & how desperately the world wants someone to remind it that courage still exists. There’s something deeply ironic here too. She’s mocked endlessly for being “just a kid,” but this "kid" was enough to shift state-level military calculus.

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Ada Loves Lace @adaloveslace.eurosky.social · 13/09/2025

"brings UK closer to US tech" No, it makes UK more dependent on the US. A mistake to give up more technological freedom. #r4today #EuroStack

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boterham @czarch.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

> [...] Hackers and Painters [...] And he's become an insult to both, f**king poser. #ai #genai #openai #chatgpt #llm

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boterham @czarch.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

> [...] Hackers and Painters [...] And he's become an insult to both, f**king poser.

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dell cameron @dell.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

i’d say this is likely to impact tiktok’s user activity negatively, but all evidence suggests that no matter how evil, racist, or surveillant a social media app’s owner is, people will find ways to justify sticking around.

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GrapheneOS @grapheneos.org · 07/07/2025

GrapheneOS is currently under a state sponsored attack attempting to misrepresent it as being for criminals, which we covered a bit at bsky.app/profile/grap.... These poorly researched, biased and inaccurate news stories have led to more harassment towards our community and team.

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Jeff Tiedrich @jefftiedrich.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

from today’s post, celebrating our big, beautiful, and extremely fucked up country on the 4th of July — please read the whole thing, thanks! link is here: bit.ly/4lfYR4V (and as always, there's a longer excerpt in the alt text)

249 years ago, a bunch of privileged rich white males who didn’t want to pay taxes founded America on a great set of ideals — freedom, equality and justice — and then went about implementing those ideals in the most fucked up way possible.

249 years later, we’re still fighting what often seems like a losing battle to guarantee everyone a share of freedom, equality and justice.

it’s exhausting, yet the struggle goes on.

never lose hope.

today, let’s rest. tomorrow, the fight continues.

here’s to you on this July 4th, America, you great big beautiful fucked up country.

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tits andronicus @tambourine.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

interesting to see how much more coverage here we're getting of a chant at a music festival than the IDF being ordered to shoot and murder people in Gaza who are seeking aid!

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boterham @czarch.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

This week in "Profiles in Courage"...

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boterham @czarch.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

This week in "Profiles in Courage"...

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ve, the ghost of info past @vortexegg.com · 23/06/2025

Tech companies only have five ideas: robot slave (actually just human slaves), hallucinatory counter-reality, untaxable money, The Everything App, and Clippy

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orinoco boo @nocontroller.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

You have more in common with the average Iranian citizen than you do with the people that run this country

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Alexandra Petri @petridishes.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

it’s even more demoralizing when the history you’re repeating is history you were around for the first time

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Tim Maughan @timmaughan.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

technological inevitability is a social construct. capitalism is not a law of nature.

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boterham @czarch.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

✊✊ It is a mild inconvenience for the community to pay for an important cause for the workers. Solidarity with NS strikers.

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iplayguitarbad.bsky.social @iplayguitarbad.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

This can't be right. Apple keeps telling us how they value privacy above all else, how they're leaders in privacy and respect nothing so much as they respect the privacy of their users. Surely you're not saying that a multinational company would lie about that!

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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

New from 404 Media: Apple gave governments data related to thousands of push notifications. Governments request this data in attempt to identify person behind devices. Sometimes include unencrypted push notification content www.404media.co/apple-gave-g...

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Andriy Terentyev @internetyev.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

meanwhile, #signal has made an important update of their mobile app:

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JAG @jag0911.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Na klar #Signal war „kaputt“ :D #Signalgate #Trump #Vance #USA #Politics #law

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Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

"End-to-end doesn't solve idiot-to-idiot." is how I've seen it put

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Jason Hickel @jasonhickel.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

What a world. Capitalism "externalizes" costs to the point where the costs are "externalized" into our own bodies.

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boterham @czarch.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

As #millennials try to relive the nostalgia of the 2010s #internet with the resurrection of things like #digg, I really hope that means we'll see the rise of other more important artifacts from that era such as campaigns of #hacktivism from heroes like @youranoncentral.bsky.social again. #anonymous

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Grace Blakeley @graceblakeley.substack.com · 08/03/2025

If Europe is so keen to ‘save the world from kleptocracy and fascism’ then why are they funding Putin’s war effort? Investing in renewables to reduce dependence on kleptocrats and fascists would be more effective, create more jobs, and help deal with the biggest threat humanity actually faces.

theguardian.com

EU spends more on Russian oil and gas than financial aid to Ukraine – report

Europe estimated to have bought €22bn of fossil fuels from Russia in 2024 but gave €19bn to support Kyiv

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🎃 Imani Gandy Corn 🎃 @angryblacklady.blacksky.app · 06/03/2025

You can't be a party committed to being the opposition when you're helping put money in Nazis' pockets. IT'S JUST NOT POSSIBLE. for fucks sake. (I mean, I know that Dems' idea of opposition is signs and pink jackets but come the fuck on.)

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Tom Scocca @tomscocca.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

There is a weird amount of overlap between the people who listen to scientists issuing warnings and the people who don't listen to salesmen peddling miracle bullshitting machines

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Jeff Yang @originalsp.in · 28/02/2025

“Internet celebrity” is a wild way of spelling sex predator and human trafficker

reuters * 20h
Internet celebrity Andrew Tate leaves Romania for Florida, source says reut.rs/3QEhW...

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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

I think about this headline all of the time.

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Grace Blakeley @graceblakeley.substack.com · 23/02/2025

Learn from Germany. When the left panders to anti-migrant sentiment, like the BSW, it just strengthens the far right. When the left fights solid, populist, grassroots campaigns, like Die Linke, it wins.

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Prof Julia Steinberger 🌹🌱🌍 #ClimateAction #Fightfascism @jksteinberger.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

As promised, here are the slides I shared with students to convince them to NOT use chatGPT and other artificial stupidity. TL;DR? AI is evil, unsustainable and stupid, and I'd much rather they use their own brains, make their own mistakes, and actually learn something. 🪄

NO CHATGPT Or other artificial stupidity: motivation
First, clarity on distinguishing AIs:
Non-generative: grammar aid, translation, dictionary, text-to-audio (e.g. Natural Reader): no problem
As long as you use the appropriate tools (least intensive in data and server energy use).
Why? Because you provide the content. Your brain is doing the most important work
Generative: ChatGPT & Co.
You only supply the prompt, the AI supplies the content.
Why is this delegation of work problematic?
3 domains: ethical, environmental, intellectual engagement.

(Caveat: generative is probably ok for computer programming, where it can be useful and save time. Not relevant to this class.)

1) AI and ethics
Mass theft of all and everything
«learning» on books, articles, blogs, social media, images, music, cultural production, without permission of authors/creators, and leading to their mass joblessness. Profits are not reditributed to originators.
Permanent destruction of the mental health of underpaid precarious tech workers in the Global South (Kenya, Philippines …):
«correction» to avoid production of violent and pedophile contents etc, tech workers are obliged to watch and correct super violent contents for days on end, leading to extreme psychological suffering and trauma, from which recovery is doubtful. No or little compensation (certainly not at the level of the suffering inflicted).
In short, an industry built on theft of real human creation and sacrifice of real human health, profiting a few megafortunes.

2) AI and (un)sustainability

Massive consumption of electricity, water, server capacity for generative AI.
Outcome: keep fossil fuel companies in business, using up new renewable capacity, without any satisfaction of basic human needs.
Massive misappropriation of the finance necessary for climate and ecological action (renewable generation, efficiency and retrofit for buildings, public transit, infrastructures for cycling etc) towards AI industry.
Overall: undermine climate action, reinforce fossil industry, waste resources necessary for human development.

3) AI and intellectual engagement

First, what learning is (or should be) about:
The goal should not (only) be the reproduction of «correct» knowledge,
But mainly personal engagement and experience of thinking about topics of interest. Personal engagement = using one’s own brain.
The most important activity for learning and intellectual engagement is the experience of making one’s own mistakes, by trial and error, corrections based on new ideas, starting over again. Learning to recognise nuances, knowledge gaps, better explanations
This kind of learning is possible only through using your own brain, not AI.
Also, Ais are not «intelligent». At all.
They simply reproduce pre-existing patterns. They «bullshit», invent false references, false facts, false data, simply because those sound plausible. VERY DANGEROUS.
If you learn how to NOT use AI, and how to research facts and data on your own, this will serve you and your communities for the rest of your life.

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Nancy Levine Stearns @nancylevinestearns.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

💥The Netherlands' largest pension fund, has sold its shares in Tesla, Meta, and Alphabet (Google). The fund with US $569 billion equivolent in assets is "directing more money to companies and projects that help to improve society and the environment." #Divest www.reuters.com/markets/euro...

reuters.com

Dutch pension fund ABP sells all Alphabet and Meta shares, CEO tells newspaper FD

ABP, the Netherlands' largest pension fund, has sold its shares in tech companies Meta and Alphabet , its CEO told Dutch newspaper FD in an interview published on Monday.

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Anonymous @youranoncentral.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

Europe has a solution for Starlink, it is faster and the quality is better. The IRIS 2 program. IRIS will make Starlink obsolete and provide permanent global coverage. The US, and especially Musk, are not needed. #IRIS #EU youtu.be/V-SXNVeNby0

youtu.be

IRIS²: Connecting Europe, Connecting the World. Securely.

YouTube video by EU Defence and Space

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boterham @czarch.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

Please tell me that knowing this was going to be fed into the LLM that some folks at least tried to include some llm poisoning, hacking, breakout, or other mischief in their emails or attachments. These fools have no idea what they are doing so my guess is that the guardrails are non-existent.

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