onfocus

In the course of discussing whether Archive.today should be deprecated because of the DDoS, Wikipedia editors discovered that the archive site altered snapshots of webpages to insert the name of the blogger who was targeted by the DDoS. The alterations were apparently fueled by a grudge against the blogger over a post that described how the Archive.today maintainer hid their identity behind several aliases.

we can’t have nice things. The fact that this random web caching site run by one person is even important today is because we have lost the open web. This is a symptom of our broken system dominated by tech monopolies who don’t care about history, culture, or a shared set of information that we can use to understand our world.

Artifacts and technologies have certain logics built into their structure that do require certain arrangements around them or that bring forward certain arrangements.

This is a crucial point about LLMs. Sure the street finds its own uses for technology but the existence of some technologies requires a supporting system that is by nature anti-democratic.

Hundreds of judges around the country have ruled more than 4,400 times since October that President Donald Trump’s administration is detaining immigrants unlawfully, a Reuters review of court records found.

This is the system breaking down by design. It’s like a denial of service attack on the courts.

Yeah. So, I mean, to me, the experience was about, yes, being a reporter—being a cinematographer in a documentary, and doing my best to make Melania look visually beautiful with the lighting.

One thing reporters try to do is to spotlight ideas or news stories, and what you’re trying to do is spotlight her face and its beauty. I do see a real similarity there.

savage

In his statement Saturday night, Portland Mayor Wilson called for accountability.

“To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave. Through your use of violence and the trampling of the Constitution, you have lost all legitimacy and replaced it with shame. To those who continue to make these sickening decisions, go home, look in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children,” the mayor wrote.

Tear-gassing families with children in Portland.

See also: How to tear gas children

All of those means of accountability show how powerful visual evidence can be when it’s recorded carefully and ends up in the right hands. “Unquestionably, video has the power to expose the tactics that ICE and authorities are using against people and to challenge the ‘official’ narrative,” Witness’ Zammuto says.

Since it seems like ICE is only ramping up, everyone will eventually be dealing with them in their community. This is some good advice about filming them.

I think Apple is going downhill on almost every front that matters to me: software quality, user interface design, usability, and accessibility. Their Human Interface Guidelines used to feel close to sacred. They meant something. Instead, we now have Liquid Glass.

Ugh, unfortunately I agree with this assessment and I'm also trapped in the Apple ecosystem. There isn't an easy exit, especially on the phone front.

Some essential viewing about the current state of solar energy along with a healthy dose of righteous snark about the current administration.

"I'm not getting into the legality of everything," One agent responds tersely.

This kind of hits the nail on the head, doesn’t it? I hope more local law enforcement sides with people over lawless thugs. The history of that happening hasn't been great, but that's where we are.

Now, as then, when a direct path to justice is blocked, states need to find a work-around. The federal prosecution of the Minneapolis officers responsible for George Floyd’s death offers a model.

Some legal methods that might be available to states for justice when the federal government is willfully breaking the law.

If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology, you could call it “neighborism”—a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from. The contrast with the philosophy guiding the Trump administration couldn’t be more extreme. ...That is, arguably, a deeply Christian philosophy, one apparently loathed by some of the most powerful Christians in America.

Absolute heroes. This impulse for helping neighbors is saving lives. I also think this article demonstrates that having an entire party that believes its own most extreme propaganda via Fox News is a disadvantage when interacting with the real world.