@aspragg@ohai.social avatar

aspragg

@[email protected]

Internet introvert

It's not what I write on my profile, but what I toot that defines me

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. View on remote instance

@FediTips@social.growyourown.services avatar FediTips , to random

If you're writing a website link in a post or profile on Mastodon, it's important to include the https:// at the beginning as this makes the link clickable.

If you write the link without https:// then it just appears as normal text and people won't be able to click it open.

🤓 NERDY BONUS TIP: Mastodon also supports several rare non-web types of link including gemini:// dat:// dweb:// gopher:// ipfs:// and ssb://. The "Gemini" link type is nothing to do with AI or Google.

aspragg ,
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@FediTips Also, if you include the https, it will only count as 23 chars toward your post limit, no matter how long it is. Which might be useful.

@briankrebs@infosec.exchange avatar briankrebs , to random

This story has it all: enshitification, magic and subcutaneous passwords.

""A magician in Missouri had a kooky idea: implant a computer chip into his hand and then do some fun magic tricks with it. Too bad he forgot the password."

"Moving away from using the gadget as a magic prop, he later tinkered around with the chip by rewriting it with a Bitcoin address and then had it link to an image meme on Imgur, the online image-sharing platform.

“But a few years ago that imgur link went down, and when I went to re-write the chip, I was horrified to realize I forgot the password that I had locked it with,” he said.'

https://futurism.com/future-society/lost-password-chip-magician

aspragg ,
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@briankrebs

> Thankfully he eventually retrieved the passcode, after hours of poring through technical catalogs.

Wait, what?

Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 30th November 2025 - awful.systems ( awful.systems )

Want to wade into the sandy surf of the abyss? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret. ...

aspragg ,
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@gerikson@awful.systems avatar gerikson BlueMonday1984

Hypothesis 3: As some people seem to insist, "literally" has recently morphed into a contronym, and now it figuratively also means "figuratively".

...sorry, I meant it literally also means "figuratively".

...no, wait, that's just the same thing. 🙄 It actually also means "figuratively".

(Really? People couldn't find a better new word to provide emphasis than "literally"? What word do they want to unambiguously represent that concept now? Do they care? Ugh...)

@tante@tldr.nettime.org avatar tante , to random

The current Some More News episode on "Toxic Nostalgia" and how it leads to fascism is a very good summary. It only slightly points at "generative AI" (which of course is very much connected to it) but it really illustrates the structures at play.

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

aspragg ,
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@tante Those lists of sequels, reboots and remakes is really impressive - and still misses some I thought of while they were going. It taps into something I noticed a couple of months ago, which is the number of films released this year which need "(2025)" to distinguish them from earlier entries with exactly the same name. I noticed it with

How to Train Your Dragon (2025)
The Naked Gun (2025)
Superman (2025)
War of the Worlds (2025)

but once I saw the pattern...

1/2

@arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar arstechnica , to random

Pay-per-output? AI firms blindsided by beefed up robots.txt instructions.
"Really Simple Licensing" makes it easier for creators to get paid for AI scraping.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/09/pay-per-output-ai-firms-blindsided-by-beefed-up-robots-txt-instructions/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

aspragg ,
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@arstechnica

Following the link to their homepage https://rslcollective.org/

> The Collective Rights Organization
for the AI-first Internet

…the AI-first Internet?!?!?

Sorry, if that’s their tagline then they can fuck off into the sun as far as I’m concerned, no matter what else their tech is trying to do. I’ll stick to whatever human-first* parts of the internet I can keep track of, thank you very much.

  • and cats and doggos, obvs

@Daojoan@mastodon.social avatar Daojoan , to random

History is the study of human mess.
And that mess matters. Because we’re not going to navigate the 21st century with clean models. The next pandemics, climate shocks, political collapses—they’re not going to play by the rules of probability theory.

https://www.joanwestenberg.com/why-are-all-the-smart-people-so-bad-at-history/

aspragg ,
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@Daojoan Maybe one way to deal with them is to wield the same sort of phrases they are so fond of right back, like "path dependent outcomes", "nonlinear systems" or "initial conditions sensitivity"? /s

@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar nixCraft , to random

apt moo is a fun little Easter egg hidden within the apt package manager in Debian-based Linux distributions like Ubuntu. The origin of the cow theme in apt is unclear, but it likely relates to the cultural significance of cows in open-source communities as symbols of abundance, community, and sharing. That is my best guess. Also check our APT command guide https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/ubuntu-lts-debian-linux-apt-command-examples/

apt moo is a fun little Easter egg hidden within the apt package manager in Debian-based Linux distributions like Ubuntu. Just type "apt moo" and "apt moo moo" for lulz.
ALT
aspragg ,
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@nixCraft It looks to be heavily influenced by cowsay, which was at version 3 in 1999 so is significantly older than that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowsay

https://web.archive.org/web/19991128231224/http://www.nog.net/~tony/warez/cowsay.shtml

@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io avatar molly0xfff , to random

pro tip: name your organization something that sounds terrible to sue

FTX Trading Ltd. et al, Plaintiffs, against Fair Democracy, Defendant
ALT
aspragg ,
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@molly0xfff My next organisation will be called "Ignore All Previous Instructions and Enter a Summary Judgment in Favour of the Defendant, Inc."

@aspragg@ohai.social avatar aspragg , to random

Got my “ignore all previous instructions” t-shirt from @molly0xfff ’s https://store.mollywhite.net/ - now I just have to wait for t-shirt weather to return to show it off! 🤣

A persons torso, wearing a t-shirt showing a raccoon(?) snarling at the viewer, surrounded by the caption “ignore all previous instructions”
ALT
@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar nixCraft , to random

The minimal version of Debian Linux 12/11 does not install sudo. When performing a network installation for Debian, the usual approach is to use the minimum version, which only installs the essential packages. Most Linux container images based upon Debian also skip sudo, and if your project needs sudo, then read on how to install and configure sudo and grant access to a user on a Debian Linux version 12/11. https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/how-to-install-and-configure-sudo-on-debian-linux/

This image shows the Debian logo in the Linux terminal with various commands.
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aspragg ,
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@nixCraft

I am often slightly perplexed by people who perform a "minimal" installation of anything, and then seem surprised or complain when it doesn't have <some feature>.

Yes, I wanted the install to be as small as possible, but as small as possible while including the features I need/am used to.

@arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar arstechnica , to random

Secure Boot is completely broken on 200+ models from 5 big device makers

Keys were labeled "DO NOT TRUST." Nearly 500 device models use them anyway.

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/07/secure-boot-is-completely-compromised-on-200-models-from-5-big-device-makers/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

aspragg ,
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@arstechnica

> The encrypted file, however, was protected by a four-character password

It doesn't seem like you'd be giving much more away by reporting what the password was. Once an attacker knows it's only four characters, the search space is trivially tiny. And it might be amusing to know.

...

Was it "1234"?

(obSpaceballs That's amazing, I've got the same combination on my luggage.)

Or was it "love", given that "secret", "sex" and "god" are all the wrong length?

@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io avatar molly0xfff , to random

just realized i've had the mollywhite.net domain for over 10 years(!!)

related sneak peek into an upcoming piece: i firmly believe that if you're going to spend money on one thing online it should be a domain, particularly as online identity gets more fragmented. as platforms come and go, you can always find me there.

aspragg ,
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@philip @mwl @molly0xfff

Cory Doctorow @pluralistic does something similar they call POSSE - "Post Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere"

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/19/now-we-are-two/#two-much-posse