Preston Austin @gl33p.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 9hI think the normalizing grease of "everything sucks in some way, nothing works for everything, this is novel and cool and works for something, why not use it since it's novel and cool and lots of people are" is just winning, tbh It doesn't suck the ways that add early friction, it works well […]mastodon.socialOriginal post on mastodon.social 100 1
Preston Austin @gl33p.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 9hIt turns out the answer to 'Can an expensive enough hammer smash free software into fragments that will fit into whatever ideological jar capital wants to pickle us in?' is 'Yep' There is a lesson here the people who need it most can't learn: Libertarian bullshit didn't protect free software […]mastodon.socialOriginal post on mastodon.social 102 2
Reposted by Preston AustinMicr0byte @micr0.wetdry.world.ap.brid.gy · 18/10/2026the app sends a few anonymous numbers to my own server (minutes of read along used, downloads finishing, whether it crashed, only that it did, no crash logs) so I know when something’s broken, especially since a lot of you are installing outside Google Play. Nothing about your books, no IPs, no […]wetdry.worldOriginal post on wetdry.world 000 0
Reposted by Preston AustinMicr0byte @micr0.wetdry.world.ap.brid.gy · 18/10/2026A couple months ago I posted a clip of an app I made just for myself, and a bunch of you said “please release this.” So I did! Cava Reader is an ebook + audiobook reader for Android. You load an EPUB and its audiobook, and it highlights each word as the […] [Original post on wetdry.world] 2727 27
Reposted by Preston AustinAdam Gurri @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com · 18/10/2026We’ve already got our lineup for the second issue of The Reconstruction Papers, but perhaps in the third we should include a serious rethink about anti-trust laws and the regulation of ownership of media companies specifically www.liberalcurrents.com/editors-note... 2258 25
Reposted by Preston AustinStefano Marinelli @bsd.cafe · 16/10/2026Ok, looks like this is the week of funny experiences. Customer: "I had an AI check our server and it says the SSH port is open and that's not very secure." Me: "Yes, you asked us to open it so you could access the server via SFTP (actually, you wanted FTP, but we discussed it a bit and found […]mastodon.bsd.cafeOriginal post on mastodon.bsd.cafe 88135 135
Reposted by Preston AustinErin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 16/10/2026Iowa Democratic Congressional Candidate Christina Bohannan breaks with other Iowa Democrats and releases an ad that does NOT throw transgender people under the bus. She answers "unfairness in sports" with "unfairness in prescription drug prices." Subscribe to support our journalism.erininthemorning.comIA-01 Dem Candidate Christina Bohannan Answers Anti-Trans Ad Without Throwing Trans People Under The BusHer approach is markedly different from Sand, Turek, and Trone Garriott. 19932188 932
Reposted by Preston Austinmyrmepropagandist @futurebird.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026Everyone can tell you used AI to do it. They just aren't saying anything about it because they want to be polite. (Do you know someone who needs this thought to pop unbidden into their head?) 41037 37
Reposted by Preston AustinBruno J. Navarro @bruno-j-navarro.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026BEND, Ore. -- Three children are dead and one teacher following a mass shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School. www.centraloregondaily.com/news/loc…centraloregondaily.com5 dead, including suspect, in shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School shootingShooter is dead, multiple reported injured after Silver Rail Elementary School shooting. 003 3
Preston Austin @gl33p.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026If "the shooter" (not a child in any telling I've seen yet) was in fact 16 and killed by "a bystander" (not a shooter in any telling I've seen yet), then "the shooter" is among "the children" dead because guns in this tragedy and it's depressingly telling that this child-killer child that our […]mastodon.socialOriginal post on mastodon.social 000 0
Reposted by Preston AustinProf. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026Anybody have dark sky connections around the Lone Pine, CA area? Can the town slap them with some nuisance lighting fines? That would be funny. 021 2
Reposted by Preston AustinProf. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026I fucking hate this company. This is so fucking stupid for so many reasons. www.sfgate.com/tech/article/mount-w…sfgate.comClient Challenge 5726 26
Reposted by Preston AustinLaura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 16/10/2026Is it ~~bad~~ that people feed wildlife in national parks? Yes, absolutely. But is it funny that jays are like, “gimme trail mix”? Also yes. 511310 113
Reposted by Preston AustinErin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 15/10/2026A girl won the role of Seymour in South Grand Prairie High School in Texas. Then, the district freaked out because of Texas' anti-trans and anti-gay law. So they tried to strip her role and give it to a boy. She refused, so now they are cancelling the play. Subscribe to support our journalism.erininthemorning.comTexas School Kills ‘Little Shop Of Horrors’ After Girl Cast As Seymour, Citing Anti-LGBTQ+ LawFollowing backlash, the school gave one young actress’s role to a boy—and told her to share the role of Audrey with another girl as consolation. Then they cancelled it altogether. 751801475 1.8K
Reposted by Preston Austinmyrmepropagandist @futurebird.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026She likes to hang out here so she can look you in the eye when you come around the corner. #PicaTheCat 329 9
Reposted by Preston AustinKarl Bode @karlbode.com · 15/10/2026prominent tech pundits could help journalists build alternative communications platforms free of fascist-coddling billionaire algorithmic influence but they might miss out on lazy boosterism by people completely disinterested in having honest conversations about the real-world impact of AI 3478 47
Preston Austin @gl33p.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026I swear to pudding this kind of "neutrality demands we say nothing at all about this" headline feels better to Wisconsin's political journalists than clean dry cushy socks on a cold rainy day 😏 000 0
Reposted by Preston AustinAlexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026Cutten derided social security as a “degrading” tool for “parasitic paupers” and condemned modern medicine and philanthropy. Bemoaning the rise of multi-culturalism in the 1920s, Cutten said, “what this melting pot has accomplished is to permit persons of different races and intellectuality to […]mastodon.onlineOriginal post on mastodon.online 203 3
Reposted by Preston AustinAlexander Karn @xankarn.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026Nazi eugenics drew heavily on the work on American theorists, including George Cutten, who served as the president of my current institution from 1922-42. Cutten, whose anti-immigration rhetoric is cited at the Immigration Museum on Ellis Island, said that Americans had made the word democracy […]mastodon.onlineOriginal post on mastodon.online 100 1
Reposted by Preston AustinCelloMom On Cars @cellomomoncars.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026Equitable transition to a low-carbon life: "The research assesses existing evidence through four dimensions of justice: how costs and benefits are distributed; how harms are repaired; how decisions are made; and whether communities' identities and values are respected." […]mastodon.socialOriginal post on mastodon.social 001 1
Reposted by Preston AustinIndio Gringo ® @paninid.mastodon.world.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026chnge.com/products/abcdefuck-ice-t-… 000 0
Reposted by Preston AustinPreston Austin @gl33p.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/08/2026I really prefer the term "unwarranted surveillance" to most of the terms critical of all these cameras everywhere because it's necessary to both morally and legally impugn the core practice here - which is watching everyone everywhere all the time, without a legal warrant and without a public […]mastodon.socialOriginal post on mastodon.social 001 1
Reposted by Preston Austinoschene @oschene.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026Three-sided Poincaré Disk Bowl #origami @origami Done this model before, but this one is a little different -- I made the arcs equally distant at the midpoints, instead of at the ends. Works rather better. 043 4
Preston Austin @gl33p.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026But but but open weights free range locally grown organic hormone free ethical models 🙄 000 0
Reposted by Preston AustinDon Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 13/10/20263. DOGE made false claims about employee performance in order to fire them, but did not want to put their names to these emails. So they would coerce civil servants into doing so. If the civil servants refused, they were fired. (Not just DOGE, other Trump appointees like Kash Patel did this). 2961277 961
Reposted by Preston AustinBikepedantic @pedantic.bike · 14/10/2026By fighting so hard, they’re showing all the other North American fascist leaders that this stupid populist easy win is neither popular nor easy. Thank you, Toronto. bsky.app/profile/cycl... 1253 25
Reposted by Preston AustinBikepedantic @pedantic.bike · 14/10/2026This is incredible. Go Toronto! 215018 150
Preston Austin @gl33p.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026He does only burst into houses after being invited 🤔 @corbden 000 0
Reposted by Preston AustinMx. Luna Corbden 🪿🐸 @corbden.defcon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026There is only one way to kill the Kool-Aid Man. It's similar to how you kill vampires. You have to spike the punch. 122 2
Reposted by Preston AustinDaniel Lakeland @dlakelan.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026My younger kid has realized that school is at least in part, a prison where kids are kept so parents can be farmed by capitalists, and that the grading, testing, major, and degree system serves to normalize and perpetuate hierarchies of importance among people. Also that many people have no […]mastodon.sdf.orgOriginal post on mastodon.sdf.org 12258 58
Reposted by Preston AustinDebbie Goldsmith 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈 @dgoldsmith.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026This is a work of art. Two big thumbs up. 125 5
Preston Austin @gl33p.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026Like, there are insects that will eat poop when they can't get the food they like, and some that eat dirt when they can't get poop even. These are perhaps desirable capabilities when starving, but a good society does not result from making eating dirt out to be a virtue 🙄 000 0
Preston Austin @gl33p.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026Oh no oh no are we entering the "food is expensive so people should eat the funny looking vegetables" part of the inflation news journey? 100 1
Preston Austin @gl33p.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026One thing about something like Facebook or Twitter or "AI" having so much capital and/or network-effect generated gravity is that the folks who don't feel its pull are probably the ones falling toward it It takes quite a lot of anyone's power to accelerate away just to keep one's distance from […]mastodon.socialOriginal post on mastodon.social 000 0
Preston Austin @gl33p.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026“the rest of us can see it” “you think you're the exception” “It is making your mind worse” “you understand less” “I'm sorry to hear it” The sentiments in this sad (not mean) post by @anildash over on Blooskie resonate for me way beyond the specific network he wrote about It's painful to […]mastodon.socialOriginal post on mastodon.social 110 1
Reposted by Preston AustinLyle Solla-Yates @lyle.cville.online.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026I don't talk about game development stuff here much, but I've (mostly) wrapped up the code work for a giant project for Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead's DinoMod so that sauropods 🦕 take up five tiles instead of just one teeny tiny tile. It was a ton of work but hopefully it's really fun […]cville.onlineOriginal post on cville.online 142 4
Preston Austin @gl33p.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026Lots of things would mean slower going to hell, but eliminating DHS is among necessary table stakes for unweaving the hand basket we're in 🧺 000 0
Preston Austin @gl33p.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026This is an interesting example of the sort of unclarity caused by treating absence of a religious conviction as an element in a set called "faiths" mastodon.social/@SeanCasten/1174336… Like, the US House is a secular humanist institution. It's constituted under secular […]mastodon.socialOriginal post on mastodon.social 000 0
Preston Austin @gl33p.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026Software eats the world. Software scarfs the world down nervously and way too fast. Software regurgitates the world on the carpet then runs into the dining room and coughs up a wad of hair and some shiny blue threads from that one sparkle ball in a little wet puddle of world goop. Software […]mastodon.socialOriginal post on mastodon.social 010 1
Reposted by Preston AustinProf. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026I asked a trusted colleague for comments on a written document and they fed it in to chatGPT and sent me back that output and I just want to cry. Guess I won't be asking that person for help or advice on anything anymore. Enshittification happens in people's writing skills too, I guess. I also […]mastodon.socialOriginal post on mastodon.social 181766 66
Reposted by Preston AustinElizabeth Spiers @espiers.bsky.social · 12/10/2026Okay, I am looking at this gendered reading piece by Ross Barkan and I have many thoughts and questions. Part of the thesis is this: 8243965 439
Reposted by Preston AustinEleanor Saitta @dymaxion.infosec.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026Another essay! This time, I'm talking about what happens with social engineering now that voice cloning is a thing, and some basic tools to prevent it. This one is a fun one, and not just for corporate security, as these attacks are starting to be aimed at individuals too. Along the way, we'll […]infosec.exchangeOriginal post on infosec.exchange 006 6
Reposted by Preston AustinLesley Carhart :unverified: @hacks4pancakes.infosec.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026Rather be poor and not famous than have anyone question in twenty years where I stood on human rights, or if I was afraid to take a stand against evil. 2116 16
Reposted by Preston AustinAdam Gurri @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com · 12/10/2026Congrats I guess. Enjoy feeding Elon’s CSAM generator your data. Instead of actually using your position of influence to help push more of a defection, you’re declaring victory for X and acting like it’s diagnosis rather than exactly the kind of thing that produces the reality.liberalcurrents.comThe New Epstein Island Is Right in Your Pocket: It’s Time to Abandon Elon Musk’s Paradise of AbuseIt has long been time to leave X. Now, it’s essential. 317138 171
Preston Austin @gl33p.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026» October is National Pedestrian Safety Month. You might see news or posts about this telling you to be safe by being predictable, being visible, or only crossing in crosswalks. I’m not here to give any safety tips. Instead, I’ll let ilajue on tumblr do that in their artwork titled “6 Tips for […]mastodon.socialOriginal post on mastodon.social 000 0
Preston Austin @gl33p.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026“ALPR camera surveillance networks exist in Canada, where Sistilli resides, prompting him to build his own device, but... encoded to exclusively track police cars” “He detailed the build in several TikTok videos, describing it as “a personal Flock surveillance camera to Flock the Flockers.” He […]mastodon.socialOriginal post on mastodon.social 000 0
Reposted by Preston AustinDon Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 12/10/2026DHS has repeatedly falsely claimed that people were weaponizing their vehicles to justify shooting those people. Also DHS is weaponizing its vehicles to run people over. 721062 210
Reposted by Preston AustinDavid Roberts @volts.wtf · 11/10/2026"If they don't want to be called nazis they should stop doing nazi shit, and the media should ask themselves why heated language bothers them more than nazi shit." 131108172 1.1K