Systemd birth date field notes.
This is PII, and totally should not be stored in a plain-text, easily accessible database. For instance, a name + birth date is used by the health care system to authenticate patients. It's a common challenge question, too.
Really bad idea, folks. Theory behind this apparently is that only the parent has admin access, which isn't likely, but if an age must be stored, just store an age in years, that's enough.
One of my early roles at WaPo was as an editorial aide in the Editorial section, where part of my job involved reading all the Letters to the Editor and separating the crazies from those might possibly have a salient point to make.
30 years later (gulp), I am still getting plenty of Letters to the Editor, but they are not what they used to be. Time was, they were mostly people convinced their lives were being turned upside down and inside out by nebulous hackers, the govt, their ex, etc. Back in WaPo days, the common thread from the crazies was that their tormentors were using radio signals or somesuch to track and harass them.
These days, however, the "they're all after me" pleas are getting drowned out by inquiries from people who have clearly delved too deep down the AI chatbot rabbit hole. To the point where they're trying to convince everyone that nefarious, AI-based actors are harassing them, or that benevolent sentient beings reside within.
The thing is, the sentient being claim aside, it is actually stupid easy with today's hot new agentic AI toys for people to make their worst nightmares come true -- including having all their stuff taken over by a machine that most definitely does not have their best interests at heart.
The United States, it turns out, was the conscience of the world, and it seems to have had a stroke.
https://adviceunasked.blogspot.com/2026/03/global-brain-sclerosis-and-conscience.html
The map for No Kings Day just went live with nearly 600 peaceful protests planned across all 50 states (including our flagship event in the Twin Cities).
Find your local protest or start a new No Kings event if there’s currently nothing planned near you: https://www.nokings.org/?SQF_SOURCE=indivisible
@_L1vY_ this article on a different problem of "AI:" https://wandering.shop/@cstross/116080710484674751
(Wish we had retweets here.)
Why AI writing is so generic, boring, and dangerous: Semantic ablation. (We can measure semantic ablation through entropy decay. By running a text through successive AI "refinement" loops, the vocabulary diversity (type-token ratio) collapses.) https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/16/semantic_ablation_ai_writing/
Jeff Bezos didn't even fund bringing the Post's foreign correspondents home. May orcas sink his yacht and eat him.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-washington-post-international-employees
"Negotiations have resumed this week at the UN for a Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation. Corporations and the wealthy must pay their fair share of taxes and not be allowed to burrow into loopholes or stash their money out of view. Countries suffer and citizens suffer. Enough."— economist Joseph E. Stiglitz
BrianKrebs
Indivisible ❌👑
