gAlienLifeform

joined 2 years ago
sorted by: new top controversial old
Mastercard release a statement about game stores, payment processors and adult content in c/games@lemmy.world
[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 61 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Kind of off topic, but this just activated one of my trap card rants,

The problem is not that we're a litigious society, the problem is we make litigation artificially costly and time consuming by restricting the number of lawyers and judges we create and only trying to address the bottleneck that creates by making courts harder to access (e.g. increasing filing fees, giving defendants more ability to force things into arbitration kangaroo courts, etc.).

Especially in light of how our courts have been just making up bullshit to let cops/soldiers/Republicans do whatever the fuck they since circa 1968/2001/2025, you can't tell me that people need as many years of education to practice law as we require in this country.

Also, private bar associations are fucking weird, feudal era anti-democratic bullshit that ought to get replaced with proper public licensing agencies that are accountable to democratic systems and accessible to the public

/end rant

Itch.io apologise for "frustration and confusion" after delisting thousands of NSFW projects in c/games@lemmy.world
[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

en masse

That sounds wonderful to me, I just want that mass of righteous people to write down all of their ideas so future generations can continue their work even after the fervor has died down. I call those ideas laws and regulations and the ongoing spirit of that mass of righteous people a government, but I'm not too attached to semantics.

Itch.io apologise for "frustration and confusion" after delisting thousands of NSFW projects in c/games@lemmy.world
[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Until they monopolize their industry, which is something they're always going to be trying to do by their very nature as for profits and which has already essentially happened here

A government can be influenced if it is transparent and democratic, which can be ensured if they've got good bylaws that are being scrupulously enforced. Like, if you have decisionmakers a) accountable to free and fair elections (whether they're elected directly or appointed by elected people) holding b) regular and public meetings where c) outside organizations can raise disputes and get them decided under d) neutral procedures that are published in advance and that every party has equal opportunity to understand and take advantage of, and e) if those decisions and the reasoning behind them are also published and cited as precedent to be reinforced or overturned in subsequent decisions, then I really think the rest takes care of itself.

And I think we had a lot of this figured out when we got done fighting totalitarian regimes in the 1940s and turned around and passed the Administrative Procedure Act, but conservatives keep adding loopholes and trying to drag all of us back to feudalism and monarchies.

Itch.io apologise for "frustration and confusion" after delisting thousands of NSFW projects in c/games@lemmy.world
[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I think it is possible to have a government that functions in this way on a long term basis. I don't think the same can be said of for profit companies.

Itch.io apologise for "frustration and confusion" after delisting thousands of NSFW projects in c/games@lemmy.world
[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 119 points 1 month ago (58 children)

Yeah, payment processing is among the many many many industries that ought to be nationalized so they can be administered in a transparent and democratic manner (see also, healthcare education housing electricity internet etc.)

There's just too much opportunity to use it to manipulate markets and oppress minority viewpoints for it to remain in private hands imo

39
Spanish broadcaster RNE breaks open RSS apps (podnews.net)
 

Spanish public broadcaster RTVE is blocking podcasts of its national radio station, RNE, from some third party podcast apps.

But unusually, the company still publishes open RSS feeds for all its shows - so shows appear in every podcast app that uses them. The broadcaster has chosen to deliberately block specific podcast apps from downloading the audio.

One such podcast app that RNE is blocking is AntennaPod, a free podcast app on Android. It’s one of the most popular apps on Android - and in Spain, 78.8% of Spanish mobile phone users use Android mobile phones.

Users have discovered that RNE is specifically blocking AntennaPod, based on the app’s user-agent, which is correctly set for every download. It’s unclear why: the app contains no advertising, and is open-source. It’s free to download, and acts in accordance with the unwritten contract between podcast publishers and apps.

“We will review the case of AntennaPod,” said J. Javier Hernández Bravo from RTVE, in an email to Podnews, after we asked for comment. He told us: “RNE Audio continues to publish open RSS feeds, and at the same time, it has decided to block some third-party podcast applications from downloading audio. Many of those platforms were making money from our content.”

There are no podcast platforms that Podnews is aware of which charge for access to open RSS feeds. (We’re always grateful to hear of any). Some podcast apps contain display advertising, but this is not the case for AntennaPod.

...

RNE had just told us that some companies were “making money” of RNE’s content - but then gives three examples of those that do. Spotify makes money off podcast content by aggressively marketing premium upgrades to its music app, and in some cases playing audio advertising before and after episode audio. YouTube puts advertising in front of podcast content, and markets a premium version. And even Apple Podcasts makes money off podcast content by exclusively being available as an app on iPhones and Macs, which only Apple sells.

AntennaPod does none of these things: so why is it blocked?

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250721123131/https://podnews.net/article/rne-blocks-open-rss

lemmy.blahaj.zone has setup a piefed instance. in c/fediverse@lemmy.world
[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 18 points 3 months ago

I asked that question recently and got some helpful responses,

https://lemmy.world/post/30977919

tl;dr PieFed has different people behind it, a few more features, and is written in Python instead of Rust (I'm not a coder or an instance host, so don't ask me what that distinction means, but I've anecdotally seen more people saying python is easier to work with than rust than the other way around),

PieFed communities federate with Lemmy communities, tho, so no matter which kind of instance you're going through as a user you should be able to interact with all the communities (assuming your instance admins haven't decided to defederate with the other instance for some reason)

When New Jersey Switches Prison Tablet Companies, I’ll Lose 10 Years of Family Memories in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 24 points 4 months ago

Also, it's arbitrary and capricious - this is hitting everyone in the prison, regardless of their sentence, just because they happen to be incarcerated at the wrong place and time

165
When New Jersey Switches Prison Tablet Companies, I’ll Lose 10 Years of Family Memories (www.themarshallproject.org)
 

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250509114029/https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/05/09/new-jersey-prison-jpay-viapath-tablet

Man speaks to killer from beyond the grave in Arizona courtroom through AI video in c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 152 points 4 months ago (8 children)

Not only did he allow it,

While the state asked for a nine-and-a-half year sentence, the judge handed Horcasitas a 10-and-a-half year sentence after being so moved by the video, Pelkey’s family said, noting the judge even referred to the video in his statement.

It has about as much evidentiary value as a ouija board, but since the victim was a veteran and involved with a church and the judge likes those things we can ignore pesky little things like standards of proof and prejudice

Cops are deploying AI-powered social media bots to talk to people they suspect are anything from violent sex criminals all the way to vaguely defined “protesters” in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago

If they spend weeks convincing you that you should do it, give you money or other resources to do it, or so on, then it can be entrapment.

Things like that should theoretically help you make an argument for entrapment, but it's no sure thing

260
Cops are deploying AI-powered social media bots to talk to people they suspect are anything from violent sex criminals all the way to vaguely defined “protesters” (www.wired.com)
 

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250418115851/https://www.wired.com/story/massive-blue-overwatch-ai-personas-police-suspects/

Boasberg signals he may hold Trump officials in contempt over deportation flights in c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago

Literally better than nothing, but two to five years for being an accessory to mass murder likely years after everyone who knew the victims were dead themselves doesn't exactly feel like justice

Boasberg signals he may hold Trump officials in contempt over deportation flights in c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 32 points 5 months ago (5 children)

As of April 3rd, he's considering whether or not to hold them in contempt for something they did March fuckin 14th

123
Boasberg signals he may hold Trump officials in contempt over deportation flights (www.politico.com)
The 200+ Sites ICE Surveillance Contractor ShadowDragon is Monitoring in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

Good question I don't have the answer to. I could speculate that this is all likely being sourced from some sort of marketing material that ShadowDragon put out where they just flatly say they're gathering this information from Tesseract, and in reality they're actually gathering any information they can on users who search for this software and download this software, but like I said I'm speculating.

If you're really interested, I would say you should email the author of this article, reach out to Tesseract's development team, or find a way to get a subpoena against ShadowDragon and/or ICE

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The 200+ Sites ICE Surveillance Contractor ShadowDragon is Monitoring (www.404media.co)
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
7 comments fedilink
 

A contractor for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and many other U.S. government agencies has developed a tool that lets analysts more easily pull a target individual’s publicly available data from a wide array of sites, social networks, apps, and services across the web at once, including Bluesky, OnlyFans, and various Meta platforms, according to a leaked list of the sites obtained by 404 Media. In all the list names more than 200 sites that the contractor, called ShadowDragon, pulls data from and makes available to its government clients, allowing them to map out a person’s activity, movements, and relationships.

Article archived at https://archive.is/xJcrm

Alternate archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20250312132300/https://www.404media.co/the-200-sites-an-ice-surveillance-contractor-is-monitoring/

List of sites at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VyAaJaWCutyJyMiTXuDH4D_HHefoYxnbGL9l02kyCus/edit?ref=404media.co&gid=0#gid=0

List archived at https://archive.is/k2icM

1
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tells NPR: 'Everything feels increasingly like a scam' (www.npr.org)
 

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250228132127/https://www.npr.org/2025/02/28/nx-s1-5306406/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-politics-interview

1
Lincoln Heights, Ohio, expanding 'movement' to become self-sufficient in response to neo-Nazi rally (www.wcpo.com)
 

The jubilant prayers, soulful singing and organ-backed testimonials at Thursday evening's Voices of the Valley meeting in Lincoln Heights could have fooled unaware visitors that the service was a regular church service. The armed men wearing bullet-proof vests walking the back walls and surrounding the building, however, dispelled that idea.

The men were part of the Lincoln Heights Watch, who've walked the streets of the village for nearly three weeks after a white supremacist rally just outside of town on Feb. 7. Tonight, they were at the Lincoln Heights Missionary Baptist Church Wednesday to protect the meeting.

...

Many of the people in the room were on the overpass three weeks ago as people pushed through a police line to confront the neo-Nazis who escaped in a U-Haul.

...

Simultaneously, Pastor Julius Cook reminded the audience a full boycott of Evendale businesses would begin Friday as the town undergoes an independent third-party investigation into police actions around the neo-Nazi rally.

Collins said if the Lincoln Heights Movement could be fully fleshed out, it could serve as a blueprint for how other communities respond to hate movements.

"Cincinnati, we get the opportunity to do what we do best, which is supply chain. This time, it's just the supply chain of love. The supply chain of community building, support and growth," he said.

The movement's first action after Thursday's meeting will be a clean-up and block party 2-5 p.m. at the old elementary school at 1200 Lindy Ave.

Brown said the timing for the clean-up event corresponded with the exact time the neo-Nazi group rallied three weeks earlier.

Archived at https://archive.is/4082q

1
Bureau Of Prisons To Cancel Staff Retention Bonuses (www.forbes.com)
 

Archived at https://archive.is/WlVt0

1
White Georgia Sheriff’s Deputy Buck Aldridge Will Not Be Charged in Shooting of Black Exoneree and Georgia Resident Leonard Cure (www.nytimes.com)
 

Archived at https://archive.is/eSz4G

1
Nitrogen hypoxia discontinued in euthanizing animals, why is it ok for humans? (www.ktalnews.com)
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
0 comments fedilink
 

A group of veterinarians and animal welfare providers in Louisiana gathered to share their opposition to the state’s decision to resume executions using nitrogen hypoxia.

Louisiana’s first execution in 15 years was set for March. However, Christopher Sepulveda died on Saturday, February 22, 2025, after 30 years on death row at the Louisiana State Prison in Angola.

The animal care providers, Veterinarians Against Gassing, gathered with signs and professional expertise to urge state lawmakers, including Governor Landry, to reconsider the state’s chosen method of execution. Members of the group expressed that they have different political ideologies and backgrounds and have differing opinions about the death penalty. However, they were all gathered to express their opposition to the method they call inhumane, which has been mostly abandoned by their industry.

Archived at https://archive.is/OE3oM

1
Amid Increasing Domestic Violence, Illinois Struggles to Review Fatalities (www.propublica.org)
 

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250228124143/https://www.propublica.org/article/deaths-are-rising-but-illinois-domestic-violence-review-boards-have-yet-to-offer-solutions

1
A shortage of criminal defense attorneys threatens indigent right to counsel in rural Texas (www.texastribune.org)
 

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250228124044/https://www.texastribune.org/2025/02/27/texas-rural-public-defense-indigent/

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