I strongly recommend uBlock Origin, and I curate a list of bonus filters: https://gist.github.com/mhoye/dcc2c2febeba230ca7ceb25c970390a1

... and forcibly disabling Edge on Windows: https://exple.tive.org/blarg/2023/12/07/polished-glass/

... and sanitizing the youtube experience: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/untrap-for-youtube/

You don't need to endure the worst, most manipulative stimuli from the worst most manipulative people to get to the good, human parts of the internet. The price of the participation doesn't have to be relentless psychological assault.

You can have this.

Saving an image to a bird

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/storage/yes-you-can-store-data-on-a-bird-enthusiast-converts-png-to-bird-shaped-waveform-teaches-young-starling-to-recall-file-at-up-to-2mb-s

They converted an image to a waveform, played it to a young starling who imitated it well enough that it could be recorded and the waveform converted back to an image.

The linked video is full of info about bioacoustic monitoring too

Today I wrote about 300 lines of Rust featuring "unsafe" that I thought about quite carefully.

Then I started adding safety comments. The act of needing to convincingly argue that something is true made me find and fix 3 bugs I had missed before.

Safety comments exist for a reason!
#rust #rustlang

If you follow someone and you enjoy their posts but you don't like their boosts, you can hide just their boosts:

1. Click on their name or picture to go to their profile page
2. Click ⋯
2. Select "Hide Boosts"

If you change your mind, go back to their profile and select "Show Boosts".

#FediTips #Mastodon

⚠️Today Gemini starts scanning your phone ⚠️

We've updated this blog post with recommendations from the @Mastodon community. Learn:

👉 How to disable Gemini
👉 How to deinstall Gemini

And why @GrapheneOS @LineageOS and others are better in the first place.

Stop #Google now: 👉 https://tuta.com/blog/how-to-disable-gemini-on-android

***** People are asking me if the email from Social Security yesterday was a scam *****

I'm getting many people asking me to "investigate" if the email they received yesterday touting the fascist GOP budget bill, that will enrich billionaires and throw over 10 million people off healthcare, and makes misleading claims about seniors not paying taxes on Social Security benefits, was some sort of phishing attack or other scam, the kind that Social Security is always warning about (and in fact, is a topic they send emails about occasionally, warning you about such scam emails).

Apparently all Social Security beneficiaries for whom Social Security has email addresses and has been sending emails in the past, received this propaganda email, which it noted in fine print at the bottom was "produced and disseminated at taxpayer expense".

And yes, it definitely IS a scam. It's Social Security Administration propaganda from Trump. It's not trying to get you to send money, it's trying to sell you fascist lies.

Which is even worse.

L