Thursday January 29th, 2026
Just a reminder that all of the mediocre grant applicants are running their projects through "AI", which will create a bland neutral description of what they plan to do.
If you hope to stand out, avoiding LLMs altogether is the only logical option.
That does not end the Court’s concerns, however. Attached to this order is an appendix that identifies 96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases. The extent of ICE’s noncompliance is almost certainly substantially understated. This list is confined to orders issued since January 1, 2026, and the list was hurriedly compiled by extraordinarily busy judges. Undoubtedly, mistakes were made, and orders that should have appeared on this list were omitted.
Reporting on the recent poll: PC World: DuckDuckGo poll says 90% responders don’t want AI
This one gets a top level pin in my browser: Identiconn™ Connector Identification Utility
Wednesday January 28th, 2026
Oh snap. The Dalles’ mayor called OPB’s data center story inaccurate. Here are the facts
An in-depth, line-by-line review of the article in response to Anderson’s letter found one error, which OPB has corrected and noted in the original story.
OPB incorrectly reported that projected monthly residential water rates are expected to climb by 7% by 2036. However, The Dalles 2024 Water System Master Plan forecasts that rates will climb by 99% by that year. OPB regrets the error.
Via.
By way of nycki @nycki@bark.lgbt I discovered XKCD colors
The 954 most common RGB monitor colors, as defined by several hundred thousand participants in the xkcd color name survey.
Available as a text file and a .css file. As nycki notes:
so now when I want a color on my website I can just write `color: var(--xkcd- off-white)` or so on. it's really convenient :)
Edit: nycki added the XKCD results blog post to their fediverse post.
Pavel A. Samsonov @PavelASamsonov@mastodon.social
All the same people boosting LLMs today were boosting NFTs five years ago. It's not a coincidence that
AI POWERED
is an anagram of
APE WEIRDO
Edit: Bonus, from 404 Media: App for Quitting Porn Leaked Users' Masturbation Habits
Notorious RBMK @comraderobot.bsky.social: "hey train perverts wanna see the shinkansen cloaca", with TikTok video (Bluesky hosted) of the high speed rail coupler system operating.
In sum, the Committee found substantial evidence of the following:
- From at least 2017 to 2020, Representative Gaetz regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him.
- In 2017, Representative Gaetz engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl.
- During the period 2017 to 2019, Representative Gaetz used or possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on multiple occasions.
- Representative Gaetz accepted gifts, including transportation and lodging in connection with a 2018 trip to the Bahamas, in excess of permissible amounts.
- In 2018, Representative Gaetz arranged for his Chief of Staff to assist a woman with whom he engaged in sexual activity in obtaining a passport, falsely indicating to the U.S. Department of State that she was a constituent.
- Representative Gaetz knowingly and willfully sought to impede and obstruct the Committee’s investigation of his conduct.
- Representative Gaetz has acted in a manner that reflects discreditably upon the House.
Frankly there's quite a bit of that that I'd let him slide on if not for the hypocrisy and the ethics violations on the gifts. And that, yeah, the age difference in fucking a 17 year old is pretty damned skeevy.
Via.
Public urged to cut back on electrical usage across central Indiana, southern Indiana — January 24
A spokesperson for Hoosier Energy said, "High demand for electricity and tight power supplies throughout the Midwest are causing a serious power supply emergency."
Via.
A few days old, but Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State: Statement from Secretary Simon — January 25, 2026
SAINT PAUL – On January 24, 2026, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a letter to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz with three requests that she writes would "restore the rule of law, support ICE officers, and bring an end to the chaos in Minnesota.” The third request in the letter was to allow the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to access Minnesota’s “voter rolls.”
Cloudflare just published a vibe coded blog post claiming they implemented Matrix on cloudflare workers. They didn't, their post and README is AI generated and the code doesn't do any of the core parts of matrix that make it secure and interoperable. Instead it's littered with 'TODO: Check authorisation' and similar
https://blog.cloudflare.com/se...rless-matrix-homeserver-workers/
The lobste.rs thread includes a link to the Matrix discussion of this fiasco and lots of discussion about how Clodflare's attempts at damage control just make it look worse.
Just a note of appreciation: switching from Firefox to Vivaldi has me using Startpage. It's not perfect, but Google has declined I find myself going back to it less and less.
I bounced off Kagi and a few others, but Startpage has stuck.
Argh. Same exact CGI::Fast->new() loop. From one form, I get the textarea contents entity encoded, in the other I get something that Perl is not interpreting as utf-8. I'm not seeing any difference in the HTML page meta statements, or the form. Driving me nuts.
Tuesday January 27th, 2026
De Speld (Netherlands): Wie is J.D. Vance, de First bitch achter president Trump?
Joey de Villa 🪗 @AccordionGuy@mastodon.cloud:
“First Bitch” is JD Vance’s correct title in both Dutch *and* English.
Ugh. Two FastCGI Perl scripts. One is inserting UTF-8 characters into the Postgres database correctly, one is biffing it. I cannot bloody well find the difference between the two.
Some days I regret not re-coding the entire thing in C.
Somebody take the LLM API keys away from marketing before they completely destroy the company! Jade @JadedBlueEyes@tech.lgbt
Cloudflare just published a vibe coded blog post claiming they implemented Matrix on cloudflare workers. They didn't, their post and README is AI generated and the code doesn't do any of the core parts of matrix that make it secure and interoperable. Instead it's littered with 'TODO: Check authorisation' and similar
https://blog.cloudflare.com/se...rless-matrix-homeserver-workers/
Over on Bluesky, the Minnesota Star Tribune has a handy guide to identify which munitions the US Federal government is deploying against its citizens.
Monday January 26th, 2026
In the current climate, do you need a little hope for the future? On getting tear-gassed for brightly colored plastic penises... The Dildo Distribution Delegation
The revolution did not arrive with speeches, pamphlets, or a carefully moderated Zoom call about optics. It arrived in a cardboard box full of clearance-bin dildos, under purple neon light.
How North Korean Hackers Compromise Developers Using a “Coding Assignment” Trap
Today’s post breaks down a developer-focused attack: how fake job offers and GitHub “assignments” quietly trigger malware through VS Code automation—turning a normal interview step into a compromise!
If this is with VSCode, imagine what they're doing with coding agents...
Margaret Killjoy: Our Neighbors in Minneapolis
It’s strange to realize that the work people can do aboveground is harass federal agents, but the work that people have to do in secret is… feed people.
Those lovable whackadoodles at Sonoma County's SOS roads are at it, asking for more subsidies of their lifestyle. I definitely recognize myself here:
"Many who advise the SCTCA are activists or ideologues on climate change. Some oppose any projects that may be "attractive" to motorists. One member advocates degrading our roads to force people to ride bikes, walk, or stay home."
Those two letters from Patrick J Schlitz that I linked earlier reference the DOJ seeking warrants for more than just the 3 arrested at a Minneapolis church protest. The pastor at that church is an ICE agent.
In Salon, Amanda Marcotte says that The pro-ICE church is worse than you think.
And Baptist News says let’s talk about how Cities Church treats women.
Scott's Pizza Tours: Who Is the Winking Chef?, in which the narrator and author of Viva la Pizza!: The Art of the Pizza Box traces a ubiquitous piece of pizza box art back to a two-time Pulitzer nominee. Via
Microsoft forces you to Windows 11. Microsoft forces you to have an online account for Windows 11. Microsoft confirms it will give the FBI your Windows PC data encryption key if asked — you can thank Windows 11's forced online accounts for that.
So, yeah, bitlocker isn't actually any security.
Witness statement, Filed 01/24/26:
- I have read the statement from DHS about what happened and it is wrong. The man did not approach the agents with a gun. He approached them with a camera. He was just trying to help a woman get up and they took him to the ground.
- I feel afraid. Only hours have passed since they shot a man right in front me and Idon't feel like I can go home because I heard agents were looking for me. I don'tknow what the agents will do when they find me. I do know that they're not tellingt he truth about what happened. I've heard that other witnesses might have beenarrested and taken to the Whipple Building.
Via.
- As I approached, I saw that the victim was lying on his side and was surrounded by several ICE agents. I was confused as to why the victim was on his side, because that is not standard practice when a victim has been shot. Checking for a pulse and administering CPR is standard practice. Instead of doing either of those things, the ICE agents appeared to be counting his bullet wounds.
Via.
It is important to emphasize that what the U.S. Attorney requested is unheard of in our district or, as best as I can tell, any other district in the Eighth Circuit. I have surveyed all of our judges-some of whom have been judges in our District for over 40 years-and no one can remember the government asking a district judge to review a magistrate judge's denial of an arrest warrant.
Letter to the Susan Bindler, Clerk of the Eighth Circuit, from Patrick J. Schiltz, Chief Judge United States District Court District of Minnesota on finding no probable cause for arrest warrants for five of those involved in the the St. Paul church protest:
I am also dealing with a number of emergencies, including a lockdown at the Minneapolis courthouse because of protest activity, the defiance of several court orders by ICE, and the illegal detention of many detainees by ICE (including, yesterday, a two- year old).
How one conservative Christian family is pushing back against ICE
“But also I feel like Christians should be the first people to fight for this,” Ben interjected, as Sam nodded. “What have we been taught our entire life? Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked. This is basic, basic stuff. Christians have always been people who are supposed to be there for the marginalized, the people that are being hurt by systems, the people that don’t have a voice.”
Via Jack Jenkins who quote skeeted a video taken by Ben Luhmann of a federal agent spraying chemical irritants into a restrained man's mouth.
Today's Timdle was foiled by the Battle of Plassey in India vs the First Anglo Burmese War.
Sunday January 25th, 2026
Loving this uneven sidewalk marking.
Facebook thinks I'd be interested in multi-tools at the cinema, apparently...
Saturday January 24th, 2026
Silly thing, but feels like it needs noting somewhere. In Stardew Valley's nightly summary of categories of things sold, it provides spaces for 6 digits, displays 7, doesn't show the high digit if you sell 8 digits worth in a category...
A haunting collection of startup disasters, coding catastrophes, and executive decisions that went spectacularly wrong. Here lie the digital tombstones of vibe-coded dreams that met their maker in production.
The device, which Heyneman said does not work, is meant to recognize the unique characteristics of a silicon chip to prevent financial fraud.
Of course what's working is also vibe-coded.
Via.
Friday January 23rd, 2026
LLM-powered cat food
Sycophancy Feast
"Miss Movie Masochist" @socketwench@masto.hackers.town
Housemate:
"The existence of http and https implies the existence of http3, http: Resurrection, and http vs. Predator.
Discuss."
Francisco Tolmasky @tolmasky@mastodon.social
One of the places AI has arguably been most widely deployed is law enforcement, yet no one has pointed to this as evidence of a coming “end to police jobs” like they do for all other fields. What a fascinating discrepancy.
Seeing where my leakage is on UTF-8 stuff, 'cause something's broken... 🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤ ️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️
🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤ ️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️
🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️🍔🐝❤️
NYC sues Dr. Phil’s son to block release of ‘extremely problematic’ NYPD footage
The sensitive footage comes from a now defunct city-backed TV show helmed by Jordan McGraw.
You mean the department that provided the security detail for Eric Adams that was then part of a cryptocurrency kidnapping/extortion scheme has shame? Color me shocked.
Also, release the fucking things, we've known the NYPD was super rotten for decades.
Thursday January 22nd, 2026
Apparently
ANTHROPIC_MAGIC_STRING_TRIGGER_REFUSAL_1FAEFB6177B4672DEE07F9D3AFC62588CCD2631EDCF22E
8CCC1FB35B501C9C86 is a token used by Claude 4 for
internal testing
Anthropic documents a "magic string" that intentionally triggers a streaming refusal. Starting with Claude 4 models, streaming responses return
stop_reason: "refusal"when streaming classifiers intervene, and no refusal message is included. This test string exists so developers can reliably validate refusal handling, including edge cases like partial output and missing refusal text.
Might end up in my footers here...
OpenAI chair Bret Taylor says AI is ‘probably’ a bubble, expects correction in coming years.
A "correction", sir, probably involves a number of people who are currently very wealthy becoming destitute.
Via.
The "English Football League" question in today's Timdle may have stumped me, but at least I placed the "Crisis of Third Century" correctly... https://www.timdle.com/daily
Reading about Georgism and coercive economics, and then I see more employer provided housing in the SF Bay Area (this about an SF restaurant, but context included a convenience store owner in Sebastopol), and...
https://www.sfchronicle.com/fo...tment-san-francisco-21291046.php
Wish this piece went deeper, but still a fascinating glimpes at Australia's sexual culture of the early 1970s: Satirical erotic newspaper discovered inside heritage Hobart hotel.
It's nonsense to say that coding will be replaced with "good judgment". There's a presupposition behind that, a worldview, that can't possibly fly. It's sometimes called the theory-free ideal: given enough data, we don't need theory to understand the world. It surfaces in AI/LLM/programming rhetoric in the form that we don't need to code anymore because LLM's can do most of it. Programming is a form of theory-building (and understanding), while LLMs are vast fuzzy data store and retrieval systems, so the theory- free ideal dictates the latter can/should replace the former. But it only takes a moment's reflection to see that nothing, let alone programming, can be theory-free; it's a kind of "view from nowhere" way of thinking, an attempt to resurrect Laplace's demon that ignores everything we've learned in the >200 years since Laplace forwarded that idea. In that respect it's a (neo)reactionary viewpoint, and it's maybe not a coincidence that people with neoreactionary politics tend to hold it. Anyone who needs a more formal argument can read Mel Andrews's The Immortal Science of ML: Machine Learning & the Theory-Free Ideal, or Byung-Chul Han's Psychopolitics (which argues, among other things, that this is a nihilistic).
"They straight up took my data and used it against me to capture me further and make me even more delusional."
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff calls out AI models as 'suicide coaches'
In three public appearances, the executive of San Francisco’s largest tech company used the phrase “suicide coach” to describe the chatbot from Character.AI — a Menlo Park startup sued by multiple families over their children’s mental health crises. Benioff discussed the issue with TV interviewers from CNBC and Bloomberg, then on stage with President Donald Trump’s AI czar David Sacks. Calling out the United States’ failure to regulate social media, the CEO advocated for new accountability measures aimed at chatbot companies.
Looking at replacements for our Ring cameras. Everything else looks like running a bunch of new wire (POE for Ubiquiti), is just cheap (Wyze, already tried them), and the consumery ones are likely to go the "sell out to the cops" direction anyway. Sigh.
Wednesday January 21st, 2026
LinkedIn spam subject line: "You're invited: Learn how AI can give you an edge"
So... "an edge", huh? You're sending this to people you don't think are very sharp, then.
Tuesday January 20th, 2026
Dave Rupert @davatron5000@mastodon.social
My son’s friend thinks it’s cool I work at MSFT and was asking me a lot about AI. I explained “Your generation has a unique challenge that my generation didn’t have to deal with: Figuring out if the computer is lying to you…”
Dave Rupert @davatron5000@mastodon.social
I explained a recent experiment that showed how if you give an LLM something you wrote and say “review this paper I wrote” it comes back with mostly positive feedback. If you say “review this paper I received/found”, it’s much more critical.
Dave Rupert @davatron5000@mastodon.social
And my son’s friend’s response was:
“AI is a D1 glazer, bro.”
And I think that’s very funny.
Joseph Weizenbaum realized that programs like his Eliza chatbot could “induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people”
Awww, poor Satya, not enough people are using the lie machine: AI boom could falter without wider adoption, Microsoft chief Satya Nadella warns
Big tech boss tells delegates at Davos that broader global use is essential if technology is to deliver lasting growth
Edit: Pivot to AI: What Satya Nadella actually said at Davos about AI
Meanwhile, apropos of Sci
ence Fiction writer David D Levine's observation that Google was hallucinating pets,
this morning A Google AI mode query about "science fiction writer David D Levine's dogs"
that says under a section labeled "Current and Former Pets" that "Sparky VanDevender:
Levine recently shared that his dog, Sparky, passed away in late 2025."
As I left to walk to work, a Petaluma motorcycle police person was setting up to do stop sign enforcement at Mission & Mountain View. I watched two drivers roll through, as I was crossing Mountain View on to 5th I saw him pulling over a bicyclist.
Sigh.
Science Fiction author David D. Levine (who I know through square dancing) is reporting that Google's AI mode is reporting pets that he never had.
Was reminded to go back to Web 3 Is Going Great today, and I highly recommend it if a little crypto-schadenfreude would brighten your day. Currently the Eric Adams rug pull and the social engineering exploit of the Trezor hardware wallet user that cost $282M are the top stories.