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Comment Ads are adversive (Score 1) 123

This is peak enshittification- ads for most people are annoying at best, absolutely jarring at worst, especially for people who are neurodivergent and just want to listen to an ambient soundscape or the same song on loop for 20 minutes. Hopefully adblocking tech keeps up, as otherwise, it's just unusable. (Or other video sharing platforms will start cropping up. Or, you know, we all go back to bittorrent for our media.)

Comment Re:Autistic here (Score 1) 127

I mean at the end of the day, 'nothing personal' still feels bloody personal when it's a fundamentally exclusionary practice, and in alignment with this administration's massively anti-autism bent. When RFK goes out and says that autistic people will never have jobs, it emboldens businesses to stop accommodating autistic employees' needs. IT is one of the few lucrative careers neurodivergent people actually tend to do really well at, and blocking them out of it is just a step in the wrong direction. When I worked in IT, I made six figures. Now that I'm out, only place I could find that'd actually accommodate me was a nonprofit, and the wages there are a pittance. My mental health's great, but I'm poor.

Comment Autistic here (Score 5, Interesting) 127

I'm an autistic adult who's done both the office thing and the wfh thing, and honestly, the best is WFH for a lot of reasons. First off, there's no stupid, pointless conversations that just serve to completely derail me. (I remember there was a secretary who would pop by my desk several times a day just to make chit chat, drove my insane as I'd be neck deep in complex work and it takes a long time for me to retrace my thoughts) While Zoom meetings can be exhausting, I'd take them any day over in person meetings where I feel there's this constant need to make eye contact and be 'normal' even as my skin feels like it's crawling. I have a lot more control over my sensory environment at home, so I can actually focus. I don't have to go play peacemaker between neurotypical employees who are playing BS politics, or deal with petty drama. Working from home, I go at my own pace, which usually looks like 2-3 hours of really concentrated, hyperfocused work, then a few hours of relaxing, then back to 2-3 hours of hyperfocus- often getting the same amount of work done that my non-autistic employees would do in the office (or hell, sometimes outpacing them and getting all my tasks done by Tuesday.) I think there's going to be a big push to show that autism is a deficit, and that autistic people fail in work, and removing the ability to WFH is a guaranteed way to show that's true. We can get the work done great, but working in the office drives us insane.

Submission + - Whistleblower reports terrible things due to DOGE (youtube.com) 9

echo123 writes: NLRB employee Daniel Berulis reports on CNN that within 15 minutes of DOGE staff receiving new accounts with access to highly sensitive Department of Labor (DoL) data, someone within Russia logged in with the correct username and password over 20 times, but were rejected by location-related conditional access policies. Additionally a traffic spike of 10Gb of data exiting DoL was witnessed which is highly unusual activity at anytime.

Also, DOGE is using Starlink to exfiltrate data, and Starlink is known to be hacked by Russia.

He also reports this activity is not limited to the DoL, it has been witnessed across the government I.T. infrastructure, and that sensitive databases have recently been exposed to the open internet.

Daniel Berulis also received a clear message to stop looking. Part of the package he received included drone footage of him walking his dog.

Fast forward to 4min 15seconds if you're in a hurry.

= = =

Via Reuters

Berulis alleged in the affidavit that there are attempted logins to NLRB systems from an IP address in Russia in the days after DOGE accessed the systems. He told Reuters Tuesday that the attempted logins apparently included correct username and password combinations but were rejected by location-related conditional access policies.

Berulis' affidavit said that an effort by him and his colleague to formally investigate and alert the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was disrupted by higher-ups without explanation.

As he and his colleagues prepared to pass information they'd gathered to CISA he received a threatening note taped to the door of his home with photographs of him walking in his neighborhood taken via drone, Andrew Bakaj, Whistleblower Aid's chief legal counsel, said in his submission to Cotton and Warner.

"Unlike any other time previously, there is this fear to speak out because of reprisal," Berulis told Reuters. "We're seeing data that is traditionally safeguarded with the highest standards in the United States government being taken and the people that do try to stop it from happening, the people that are saying no, they're being removed one by one."

via NPR

The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee is calling for an investigation into DOGE's access to the National Labor Relations Board following exclusive NPR reporting on sensitive data being removed from the agency.

Ranking Member Gerry Connolly, D-Va., sent a letter Tuesday to acting Inspector General at the Department of Labor Luiz Santos and Ruth Blevins, inspector general at the NLRB, expressing concern that DOGE "may be engaged in technological malfeasance and illegal activity."

"According to NPR and whistleblower disclosures obtained by Committee Democrats, individuals associated with DOGE have attempted to exfiltrate and alter data while also using high-level systems access to remove sensitive information—quite possibly including corporate secrets and details of union activities," Connolly wrote in a letter first shared with NPR. "I also understand that these individuals have attempted to conceal their activities, obstruct oversight, and shield themselves from accountability."


Comment Culture difference (Score 1) 211

Just because there isn't a culture of punch down humor like on X, doesn't mean there's no comedy. Although I will say the feel is that of a digital refugee camp- A lot of people there are folks who are pissed off at what's happening to the country, so there's less humorous content, and more news discussion. Will say the engagement on Bluesky feels a lot more like old Twitter- fewer bots, lot faster follower count (I'm about to hit 7k), and more people actually wanting to talk instead of just spewing content or self promotion.

Comment Needs to grow the DIY movement (Score 2) 192

I've been in the FOSS and DIY scene on and off for 20 years, and there's always been some core group of DIY people doing cool stuff, whether it's custom ROMs, FOSS stuff, or just hosting their own servers and mesh nets. I know a few people dabbling with building their own AIs- A buddy of mine built a LMM to handle citywide policy analysis (he works as a civil servant). Kinda surreal to see this AI that literally sits in his basement. But I think the democratization of AI will happen when more people start getting into it and realizing, screw it, I can make my own. It's happening, but slowly.

Comment No AI, no ads. (Score 1) 63

No AI. It brings absolutely nothing of value, and likely will never. It serves to consume while only removing the ability to have any type of digital or information literacy. One of the most rewarding things about the internet was that it rewarded curiosity, problem solving, and research skills. AI removes all of these things by giving you bad information (while sucking up your personal data.) Ads are also bad, as they are not sensory friendly- they exist to make your internet experience a jumbled, dangerous cluster-f of garbage. If you've got people with sensory issues, they're gonna be overwhelmed. I use adblock because using a normal browser, it gives me a headache- More and more ads are coming for our personal environments, whether that be our desktop PCs, our TVs, or even our dashboards, and it's dangerous and awful. I have a practice of, if I see an ad, NEVER purchasing that brand. Ever.

Comment I had an 'INTERNET' sticker (Score 1) 192

In high school, there were a handful of computers in the library connected to the internet, and I was one of the few that actually took the time to take the training to be allowed on the internet, which landed me a little sticker on my ID that said 'INTERNET.' I remember it making my life so much easier right off the bat as far as writing papers and stuff went, amazed other people weren't using it. But, it was a nerdy thing back then. I vaguely miss those days, when the internet wasn't this oppressive force.

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