chiff82

@chiff
7 Followers
172 Following
258 Posts
Here instead of there. Mostly listening
"We used an AI to do this" is increasingly a way of saying, "We didn't want to do this in the first place and we don't care if it's done well." šŸ¤ŒšŸ½šŸ¤ŒšŸ½šŸ¤ŒšŸ½ blag post by @pluralistic

Hey @peter

You developed Gecko and you have shared my posts before.

My political activism group Stop Gen AI and @alexia both keep lists of Gen AI-free software.

I tend to recommend LibreWolf and Tor Browser, which are both, as you probably know much better than I do, forks of Firefox and great grandchildren of the versions of Firefox with Gecko you were directly a part of.

Whereas Alexia and some other devs are concerned that with the Gen AI fuckery Mozilla is into these days (none of us trust the new Firefox AI "killswitch" at all) will make it difficult for the developers of Firefox forks to continue to keep Gen AI out of their browsers.

As, to the best of my knowledge, all currently supported web browsers for modern endpoints use either Firefox or Chrome/Chromium "upstream," and we know how evil Google is... There may be a need for a new web rendering engine from scratch that is led by a team that takes a principled stance against Gen AI and overall privacy violations.

I have no idea how willing or not you're able to work on web engine development again, but at the very least, you would be able to advise me about how to find people who can develop a new web engine.

Obviously, we keep this FOSS and probably license under GPL.

But I was thinking of a Kickstarter campaign and a donation page (donationware) on the project's website to generate funds for developers so they can afford to work on this.

There's probably a massive demand among people who know how dangerous Gen AI is for there to be a new web engine completely independent of Mozilla and Google, that takes a strong stance against LLM vomited code and Gen AI software features from the very start.

I'm tagging @librewolf @tor

My new interview blog with Alexia, which briefly mentions the Gen AI web engine problem: https://stopgenai.com/anti-gen-ai-heroes-alexia-keeps-a-list-of-ai-free-software/

My successful Kickstarter campaign for Technofascism Survival Guide, which is still taking "late pledges." The description gives you a good idea of my mindset about technology without needing to support my campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kimcrawley/technofascism-survival-guide/

Alexia's Starlight Network and No AI List:
https://starlightnet.work/
https://noai.starlightnet.work/

Stop Gen AI and our Gen AI avoidance guide:
https://stopgenai.com
https://stopgenai.com/how-to-avoid-gen-ai/

My portfolio, I'm a cybersecurity consultant, writer, and educator, but not a dev:
https://kimcrawley.com

Share! Let's see if others are interested in the project.

#NoAI

RE: https://m.phase.org/@parsingphase/116076536542625856

Updating this again while I'm at it.

I'm doing a bit of a mini-Western Canada book tour for "Move Slowly and Build Bridges!" I'm talking in Edmonton and Burnaby, BC. Maybe I'll see some of you at one of these events!

https://libcal.macewan.ca/event/3981088
https://www.ualberta.ca/en/media-technology-studies/about-us/news/2026/january/february-12-book-talk-move-slowly-and-build-bridges.html
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/robert-w-gehl-visiting-lecture-tickets-1982555971279

Move Slowly and Build Bridges: Mastodon, the Fediverse, and the Struggle for Democratic Social Media

Want to find out more about alternative social media? Join Robert Gehl, author of Move Slowly and Build Bridges: Mastodon, the Fediverse, and the Struggle for Democratic Social...

LibCal
I've finally switched to the @Vivaldi browser. I've been using Firefox for as long as I've been on the internet, but the focus on AI means it's no longer the browser for me. Thankfully unlike Chrome, Vivaldi supports the uBlock Origin extension which is the most important extension for being able to browse the web nowadays.
Join https://studio.blender.org today and download our brand new character asset Storm! #b3d #blenderstudio #blender #character #asset
How much growth is required to achieve good lives for all? Insights from needs-based analysis - ScienceDirect https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452292924000493
How much growth is required to achieve good lives for all? Insights from needs-based analysis

Some narratives in international development hold that ending poverty and achieving good lives for all will require every country to reach the levels …

As a reminder, the notion that people should be able to maintain "a clean, well-organized household" came from the 19th century Western "upper classes" where the wife was expected to stay home and do this full time - and this was used as a status symbol and status marker to distinguish the affluent from the working classes, where women almost always had to work in (poorly paid) jobs in order to keep the household budget afloat.

Therefore, this notion is not only #Sexism but also #ClassWarfare . Thus, when someone presents this kind of "lifestyle" as something you should aspire to (whether a tv show, an Influencer, or a glossy magazine), you should really contemplate what kind of political agenda they are trying to sell to you.

Now, if you _enjoy_ keeping a household in a good, clean order, more power to you! Everyone needs their passion projects, after all! But it should not be the _expected_ thing - particularly for people who are already overwhelmed by the demands this late-stage Capitalist hellscape places on us!

Alzheimer’s reversed in mice as scientists restore the brain’s ā€˜gatekeeper.’ Spanish and Chinese researchers have reversed Alzheimer’s symptoms in mice using nanoparticles that repair the brain’s protective barrier. The treatment cleared up to 60% of amyloid plaques within an hour and restored memory over months by ā€œremindingā€ the blood-brain barrier how to clear waste. Scientists say the approach could open new paths for treating dementia in humans. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/07/alzheimers-reversed-in-mice-under-breakthrough-treatment/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
#ShareGoodNewsToo
Alzheimer’s reversed in mice under breakthrough treatment

Injection of nanoparticles ā€œremindsā€ blood-brain barrier to work properly, allowing brain cells to communicate again

The Telegraph