Mastodawn

gregg r 5h ago

Morning on Lake Crescent, Olympic Peninsula, Washington.

#photography #SilentSunday

gregg r 1d ago

"Please enjoy this article on its own webpage. Trust me."

https://daringfireball.net/2026/05/what_is_a_dickover

#dickover

What Is a Dickover?

dickover — a modal panel, popover, or curtain presented by a website or app, deliberately obscuring its own content to frustrate the user with an unwanted, unnecessary, mandatory interaction; e.g. asking the user to accept “cookies”, subscribe to a newsletter, install the website’s mobile app, agree to terms of service, or anything else that the user couldn’t give two shits about.

Daring Fireball

gregg r 1d ago

Cory Doctorow 1d ago

Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: Carneyism without Carney; and more!

Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/30/rupture/

#Pluralistic

gregg r 3d ago

@pluralistic : "Many everyday people have replaced their romantic partners with chatbots ("AI boyfriends" / "AI girlfriends"), and they've formed active communities to revel in the delights of pursuing love with someone who demands no moral consideration or compromise, glorying in a world of love without lovers"

Sounds like Joi from Blade Runner 2049 ("Everything you want to hear. Everything you want to see.").

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/27/unnecessariat/#rubbuts-stole-my-jerb

Pluralistic: AI and a world without migrants (27 May 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

gregg r 3d ago

Maybe The Costco Theory of the internet can counter the enshittification @pluralistic first noted.

"People are tired of sorting. Tired of comparison, fake reviews, infinite tabs, marketplaces that play like casinos, software that needs a consultant to explain its pricing page, experts with hidden incentives, brands that treat their attention as something to strip-mine.

They want someone with the reputation & buying power to bin the obvious garbage before they walk in."

https://www.joanwestenberg.com/the-costco-theory-of-the-internet/?ref=westenberg-newsletter

The Costco theory of the internet

At FedMart, the discount chain Sol Price built in 1950s San Diego, you could buy a can of WD-40 in one size, the big one, and that was the end of the conversation. Anyone who wanted the small can went without. Price called it the intelligent loss of sales: carry

Westenberg.

ITTIFICATION

Today in "Butlerian Jihad" news.

US Law Enforcement Warns of 'Anti-Tech Extremism' as AI Hatred Grows: This new effort follows President Donald Trump's National Security Presidential Memo 7, which instructs the Department of Justice to target anyone...
https://jwz.org/b/yk7o

gregg r 4d ago

Violet Blue 4d ago

New: analysis of the billionaire empathy void and how it intersects with what AI is doing to social empathy skills, hackers hand global disinfo plans of Russia’s Social Design Agency to journalists, Kickstarter apologizes and reverses anti-sex policy, Google Search readies itself for the glue factory, serial numbers on rice bags lead police to cult killers, lawmakers rush to fix California’s operating system age check law before it takes effect, and more.

Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cybersecurity-26-159268484

gregg r 5d ago

Cory Doctorow 5d ago

One of the surprise breakouts of the early web was Lotus Notes, a primitive precursor to all-in-one office suites like Office365. It was so important that its creator, Ray Ozzie, was promoted to Microsoft's Chief Software Architect, succeeding Bill Gates himself:

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/knowledge-at-wharton-podcast/the-man-who-would-change-microsoft-ray-ozzies-vision-for-connected-software/

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/26/the-ai-will-continue/#until-morale-improves

gregg r 6d ago

"Now, as ever, we are America."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrzQjU560Gs

Introducing: 250 to 250

YouTube