A new study that takes advantage of a change in availability of the shingles (*Herpes zoster*) vaccine in Wales finds that vaccination reduces dementia symptoms in those already diagnosed with the disease, and reduced deaths from dementia by approximately 30% over the following nine years.
I sat for a long while with my complicated feelings about "vibe coding". It is _genuinely_ empowering for many — opening a door to creating with code that otherwise would never exist. Also? It enables a dangerous dependency that could be a path to serfdom for coders. anildash.com/2025/12/02/vibe-c…
Software engineering is often compared to actual engineering. Would it be good if everyone could design buildings, bridges, and elevators without any kind of education? Most software applications involve user data in some way, and some go as far as touching upon actual human safety. The argument about empowerment does not hold, especially considering how easy it is to be autodidact in software engineering in the first place.
@Gargron I think that's a fair argument for the segment of coding that is software engineering. I would argue a *lot* of coding isn't really... software engineering? Like, the front-end code on my blog certainly doesn't count as that for me. If I get an LLM to help me, and it has an error, there's no security or privacy implications, nor any real danger except maybe a rendering error. So it seems like a fair domain to just muddle through. There are a lot of things in that space these days.
@Gargron there is a lot of discussion in the US about a Professional Engineering license for Software. It goes in and out of favor, but I think that it should be required for at least life-critical software.
There is some gatekeeping there, but I think when human lives are at risk it is justified.
For this #GivingTuesday I'm going to make the (biased) argument for why you might consider donating to @spritely, especially if you care about a healthier future for the internet! spritely.institute/donate/
*None* of the decentralized social networks today are robust enough to handle the threats facing vulnerable people and activists today. Not the present-day fediverse, not Bluesky/ATProto. What can we do?
What can we do? Is there hope? Is it possible to build something better?
Spritely was born out of this work, and the strive to create infrastructure allowing for "Networks of Consent". More on that here: spui25.nl/programma/we-can-cha…
Christine Lemmer-Webber, best known as co-author of ActivityPub, the decentralized social networking protocol, will speak about the crisis technologists face. Why must we revise the default assumptions of the web 2.
User-empowering technology is a lot of work, corporations aren't motivated to build it. We need research and development of new tech that changes the game from an org that isn't bound by pushing profit.
And that's why @spritelyinst.bsky.social is a nonprofit research lab.
We're big believers in having tangible examples of tech so people can understand and it's not just vaporware. Sometimes that's challenging to do with low-level tech in development. But games are a great way to show things off!
It's the year of dogfooding and Spritely has been using its own tech *every day* this year with a project called Pumpkin Chat codeberg.org/spritely/pumpkin-…
Alas, it's what's called "dogfood". Not fit for human consumption. But it's possible to use this tech every day, and we are. We're working on getting it out to others too.
And we're still building key infrastructure. Goblins recently got a major upgrade to its persistence system: spritely.institute/news/sprite…
And it's about to get another one. Not really yet announced, but we're working on a hot-cache system that loads actors from store on demand. It's neat!
We also have another mini demo coming out soon. It's not our main focus, but @tsyesika has been working on a mini demo of an ActivityPub server built on top of Goblins. (Someone with money wanna fund this? 😛)
That's a teaser, some blogposts coming out soon (but again, not our main focus until we can get funding for it)
But what does it mean for systems to be social? Here's something you can't do on either ActivityPub or ATProto, but is a demo we built with Goblins and OCapN: a collaborative farming game! spritely.institute/news/goblin…
Earlier I mentioned that fun and joy are actually very important. Indeed, the success of *all* social networks, and indeed, almost every kind of tech, has been rooted in people having joyful, often shared, experiences together.
Joy is part of resistance. And joy is part of our tech.
🚀 We Are Hiring! May First is Looking for a Technical Support Advocate!
We seek individuals with technical skills who are also excellent communicators. Our ideal candidate can explain technical concepts clearly and provide warm, human support to our members.
🚀 ¡Estamos contratando! ¡May First busca Acompañante de Soporte Técnico!
Queremos personas con habilidades técnicas capaces de explicar conceptos técnicos de manera clara y ofrecer apoyo cálido y humano a nuestras membresías.
💻 Tipo de trabajo: 20 horas/semana, completamente remoto 💰 Salario: $24,000 anuales 📅 Fecha límite: 11 de enero de 2026
Brain Computer Enterprises, Cooperative Inc. believes privacy and security is important for all, which is why we run a TOR (Transparent Onion Router) node to support the Tor Project:
Documentos presentados ante la Justicia de EE.UU. exponen testimonios internos y miles de páginas de documentos que describen cómo la compañía dirigida por Mark Zuckerberg priorizó el crecimiento por encima de la seguridad infantil.
"epstein me lo recomendó como estrategia de negocios...y ese tipo sabe de negocios, no esperaba que el traficante de menores amigo de trump y cuya campaña financié a sabiendas de las movidas de ambos iba a promover pedofilia masiva por internet!"
me he cansé de reportar posts y perfiles que clara y abiertamente violaban las normas y mucho más.Y la respuesta de Meta era siempre la misma "no encontramos que viole NUESTRAS normas",Meta es un caldo de abusadores.
@Didimo @Sursiendo les pongo un detalle curioso y una razón más sumada a las miles que tenía antes de este incidente para abandonar la red de Mark Zuckerberg:
Frecuentemente me pasó que Facebook me mandaba notificación de que mi publicación violaba las normas comunitarias, díganme ustedes si publicaciones como esta que pongo de ejemplo de lo que hacía por allá tiene algo de malo, les parece ofensivo o contiene discursos de odio o muestra o dice algo inapropiado o ilegal:
"Muy buenos días tengan todos por aquí! el sol empieza a salir y en mi mano tengo ya una taza de café deseando a todos ustedes que su jornada sea ligera y el día esté lleno de buenos momentos memorables.
Bendiciones
¿ cuáles son sus planes para hoy?"
Ah, pero public
... show more
@Didimo @Sursiendo les pongo un detalle curioso y una razón más sumada a las miles que tenía antes de este incidente para abandonar la red de Mark Zuckerberg:
Frecuentemente me pasó que Facebook me mandaba notificación de que mi publicación violaba las normas comunitarias, díganme ustedes si publicaciones como esta que pongo de ejemplo de lo que hacía por allá tiene algo de malo, les parece ofensivo o contiene discursos de odio o muestra o dice algo inapropiado o ilegal:
"Muy buenos días tengan todos por aquí! el sol empieza a salir y en mi mano tengo ya una taza de café deseando a todos ustedes que su jornada sea ligera y el día esté lleno de buenos momentos memorables.
Bendiciones
¿ cuáles son sus planes para hoy?"
Ah, pero publicaciones donde hay gente semi desnuda, videos que claramente contienen discursos discriminatorios, publicaciones que hacen apología del delito, fan page que hacen todo tipo de negocio ilícito, grupos de trolls Unidos dentro de un grupo, una larga lista de acosadores y gente que persigue a menores son cosas que según Facebook no violan ninguna Norma comunitaria... 🤷
Fanatical are running various new game bundles during their Bundlefestive 2025 event, with a just launched Play on the Go Bundle that's great for Steam Deck.
Attached: 1 image
anecdotal reports are that this makes Firefox noticeably faster
that list of settings to disable:
browser.ml.enable
browser.ml.chat.enabled
browser.ml.chat.menu
browser.ml.chat.page
browser.ml.chat.page.
La famille s'agrandit ! Je voulais n'en garder que deux et offrir les deux autres, mais finalement je vais garder les quatre. Ils sont beaucoup trop mignons. 😁 #plushtodon
unbenownst-eth to most, every John Mastodon plushie comes with a nuclear-battery-titanium-shieleded chip that makes them able to moderate the instances used near them.
"The irony was hard to miss: the same month our union received layoff threats, OpenAI’s education evangelists set up shop in the university library to recruit faculty into the gospel of automated learning. The math is brutal and the juxtaposition stark: millions for OpenAI while pink slips go out to longtime lecturers. The CSU isn’t investing in education—it’s outsourcing it, paying premium prices for a chatbot many students were already using for free."
Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education.
Originally called Wild Blue and now Wild Blue Skies, recently we had a fresh proper gameplay reveal and it's clear this is the spiritual successor to Star Fox.
From the creators of The Binding of Isaac and The End is Nigh, Mewgenics is promising to be one of the most interesting roguelites released in forever.
The #Borneo Forest Dragon, also known as the Borneo Anglehead #Lizard is a vividly coloured lizard native to Borneo. This arboreal #reptile is known for their prominent crest and beautifully camouf…
Valve released the statistics from the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for November 2025, which shows once again that Linux use is trending nicely upwards.
@gamingonlinux Oh, yeah it wasn't meant as critique towards you at all 😀 I just spent the better part part of a career in tech strategy on how to run a successful company by being quick at identifying exponential trends.
I think Linux adoption is in such an exponential right now.
Tucuxi, small freshwater dolphins of Peru Ecuador Colombia and Brazil are Endangered due to fishing nets, deforestation, mercury poisoning from gold mining.
Valve released the statistics from the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for November 2025, which shows once again that Linux use is trending nicely upwards.
Known affectionately as ‘huana titi’ or ‘the cat from dry places’ by locals, the Andean mountain cat captivates with their mystery and elegance. This cat boasts an exceptional sense of hearing, att…
La famille s'agrandit ! Je voulais n'en garder que deux et offrir les deux autres, mais finalement je vais garder les quatre. Ils sont beaucoup trop mignons. 😁 #plushtodon
It is the honor of a lifetime to have one of my random posts (featuring @404mediaco) randomly screenshotted in the Mastodon documentation. docs.joinmastodon.org/user/pre…
With the revival of Hytale ongoing towards an Early Access release in January, we now have it confirmed that it will be coming officially to Linux and macOS.
We're not Big Tech pushing disposable gadgets and doorbuster deals. The Tor Project is a nonprofit fighting for a free internet– free from censorship and surveillance. This Cyber Monday, consider redirecting the money you might spend on Big Tech platforms and make a donation today. 🧅 torproject.org/donate/donate-m…
I’m not sure it’s really the right path building a protected enclave against manipulation doesn’t stop manipulation on the large numbers and those large numbers decide elections that’s how we end up with people like trump in power
Our last #dance of the year is this week Dec 3rd 7-8PM. Please join us to close out 2025 joyously in the dark with the company of others. No talking. no phone, just dance. We've been thrilled to bring back NLNL to #NYC this year and are looking forward to continuing on the first Wednesdays into 2026.
As always: $15 suggested donation. Nobody will be turned away for lack of funds. RSVP below but we will admit folks dropping in as long as we have space.
Eugen Rochko
in reply to Anil Dash • • •Anil Dash
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Ted Gould
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •@Gargron there is a lot of discussion in the US about a Professional Engineering license for Software. It goes in and out of favor, but I think that it should be required for at least life-critical software.
There is some gatekeeping there, but I think when human lives are at risk it is justified.