R.NF

I was reading A Coffin for Dimitrios (great book), and found a character saying "send me a pneumatique when you get to Paris." And in fact, there was a series of pneumatic tubes to speed the mail in Paris for over 100 years. Thought it was cool. Here's the wiki as well.

Not necessarily a bad thing. A lot of new users to the fediverse.

~~destroy me instead~~

I've been a user of Librewolf for a about a year now, and it's always served me pretty well as a nice easy way to get a hardened Arkenfox Firefox.

However, recently I was curious why Librewolf wasn't recommended on PrivacyGuides, and took a look through their reasoning on their forum. That thread spans multiple years, and for the most part I thought their reasons for not including it were a bit unfair, especially after Librewolf started offering automatic updates.

But towards the end of that thread in October, a Privacy guide team member posted a link to the Arkenfox github issue tracker, where a Librewolf team member reveals how the project appeared to have lost steam after a critical member left, and they are struggling to keep it up to date with the latest Arkenfox updates, despite putting out new releases.

I'm not sure if those problems have been resolved since that time. One of the maintainers did mention they're still short staffed in this topic on taking over maintaining Mull.

After considering the arguments for and against in the PrivacyGuides thread, I think their conclusion for not recommending it was ultimately correct. Using Librewolf adds an additional layer of trust, not only to not be malicious (which I don't suspect they are) but to also be able to adequately fulfill what they set out to do reliably.

Another big part of them not recommending it was the existence of the Mullvad Browser, which I didn't realize was in fact a very well hardened version of Firefox (essentially the Tor browser without the Tor part), and is far more effective for private browsing compared to Librewolf or an Arkenfox'd firefox.

Ultimately you'll have to come to your own conclusion, but personally I'll be switching back to Firefox as my convenient daily browser full of addons, alongside the mullvad browser for (more) private browsing.

China-based drone manufacturer DJI announced Monday that the latest firmware update to its “GEO” geofencing system reclassifies Restricted Zones (aka No Fly Zones) as Enhanced Warning Zones. The change means that drone operators are now responsible for monitoring their aircraft to ensure they do not encroach on FAA-designated flight restriction areas, as opposed to the automatic GPS-derived “fencing” that would not allow the drone to enter the restricted airspace.

https://flathub.org/

Would it matter which enterprise or star destroyer was used?

Apple pushed out a software update on Thursday which disabled news headlines and summaries generated using artificial intelligence that were lambasted for getting facts wrong.

The move by the tech titan comes as it enhances its latest lineup of devices with "Apple Intelligence" in a market keen for assurance that the iPhone maker is a contender in the AI race.

Apple's decision to temporarily disable the recently launched AI feature comes after the BBC and other news organizations complained that users were getting mistake-riddled or outright wrong headlines or news summary alerts.

Apple deployed the update to developers working with a beta version of its software, sidelining the AI feature for news headlines.

The tech giant plans to restore the feature when it is working properly and eventually roll it out to all users.

Apple in June of last year unveiled new iPhones built with generative AI as it seeks to boost sales and show it is keeping up in the technological arms race.

"Apple Intelligence" is a new suite of software features for all devices that was announced at the company's annual developers conference, where it also announced a partnership with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.

In the short-term, the new powers include AI-infused image editing, translation, and small, creative touches in messaging, but not more ambitious breakthroughs promised by other AI players, such as OpenAI or Google.

The features are similar to tools recently released by Meta, Microsoft and Google, which can produce well-crafted content simply by querying in everyday language.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians are dead. So too are scores of aid workers and journalists. Entire communities have been turned to rubble, leaving residents displaced or homeless.

Israel is more isolated than ever. Europe has turned against free speech. And despite a campus protest movement that rivals the opposition to Vietnam War, the U.S. government remains steadfast in its support for Israel’s war machine.

In all likelihood, the ceasefire agreement will hold to the pattern of past Israeli deals with the Palestinians: immediate concessions for Israel and then a slow-rolling of the rest of the plan — the rebuilding and anything else that might significantly improve the position of the Palestinians, especially in Gaza.

Since the establishment of the state of Israel, Gaza has only ever been an open-air prison, or a collection of mass graves.

There is little doubt that Israel will become more politically isolated from its neighbors, and that it will need to maintain a forever war. Its position is still buoyed by American support. The global protest movement against the war and crimes in Gaza may lose intensity, but the young people traumatized by them will not forget — and the ongoing suffering of Palestinians will not let them.