onfocus

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan said in his ruling that the agents violated Garrison Gibson’s Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure.

This is not a law enforcement mission, it is a violent harassment mission.

See Also: NYT: Couple Says ICE Agents Gassed Them as They Drove With 6 Children

This weekend, I watched January 6th insurrectionist Jake Lang agitate crowds of anti-ICE protesters in Minneapolis and I realized how strange it was that he wasn’t just, you know, officially part of ICE.

Garbage Day went to Minneapolis. I think it’s important to see what’s happening there. It’s much more like an invasion from an occupying force than previous protest movements. Also interesting to hear how that invasion is working hand in hand with right wing media.

See Also: Star Tribune Live Reporting

See Also: TPM: What the ‘Federal Invasion’ of Minneapolis Looks Like on the Ground: Photos

Six federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned on Tuesday over the Justice Department’s push to investigate the widow of a woman killed by an ICE agent and the department’s reluctance to investigate the shooter, according to people with knowledge of their decision.

Good to see people with ethics leaving rather than enable their lying.

The Boomers are leaving on a very bad note -- but they are leaving. They're leaving emptiness and wreckage as they head for the graveyards, but this is the second quarter of the 21st Century. It's not an era of Baby Boom Population Bomb. It's an era of radically shrinking populations and disturbed landscapes.

Bruce Sterling here in posts 117-121 on the complete destruction of the Republican party. [via Cory Doctorow, where it’s easier to read]

When asked by NYT reporters if there were limits to his power, Trump replied, “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

The corrupt supreme court decision to grant the President immunity from criminal prosecution gave us this. The framers designed three equal branches of government so power can’t live with one person. The design didn’t work.

And this is where we are now: Today, several days into Grok’s latest scandal, people are using an AI image generator made by a man who regularly boosts white supremacist thought to create images of a woman slaughtered by an ICE agent in front of the whole world less than 24 hours ago to put her in a bikini.

Please stop using this platform. Every link, visible logo, and pageview gives that project legitimacy and oxygen. Association with it should be a brand-killer. We all need to treat the former Twitter like the radioactive cesspool it is. ️ Nothing valued is there. ️

See also: Why Are Grok and X Still Available in App Stores?

The Google cofounder has cut ties between California and many of his assets that risked exposing him to a proposed new wealth tax in the state, meeting an end-of-2025 deadline, according to filings reviewed by Business Insider.

Morally bankrupt. California provided the environment, security, talent, and education that made Google possible. Running away because they ask for support is unethical.

Anthropomorphizing language influences how people perceive a system on multiple levels. It over-sells a system which is likely to under-deliver, and portrays a world view in which the people responsible for developing the systems are not held accountable for the system’s inaccurate, inappropriate, and sometimes deadly output. It promotes misplaced trust, over-reliance, and dehumanization.

This article addresses a major pet peeve of mine in AI discourse. These simulation technologies do not have emotions! The technology can’t feel regret, can’t apologize for bad behaviors, can’t feel pain. The owners and operators of these technologies are human and transferring their real world responsibility to a non-entity is causing a lot of problems.

See also: Journalistic Malpractice: No LLM Ever ‘Admits’ To Anything, And Reporting Otherwise Is A Lie

One by one, white-collar criminals have marched to the White House, bleating their fealty to Trump – and watching their prison sentences evaporate as a result.

Trump and Republicans will continue to undermine the rule of law as long as they are in control of the government.

In automation theory, a "centaur" is a person who is assisted by a machine. You're a human head being carried around on a tireless robot body. Driving a car makes you a centaur, and so does using autocomplete.

And obviously, a reverse centaur is machine head on a human body, a person who is serving as a squishy meat appendage for an uncaring machine.

Cory Doctorow is an international treasure. I'm reading his book Enshitification and it's a very helpful explanation of how we got our modern tech hellscape. This talk about AI is also a nice encapsulation of why AI isn't an inevitable trajectory for tech, it's a deliberate choice by some of the worst people in that tech hellscape. This is a must read!

In June, Dye revealed a redesign of Apple’s software interface for iPhones, Macs and the Apple Watch called Liquid Glass. The company described it as an “elegant” new design with translucent buttons, updated app icons and fluid animations.

So how fast can Apple roll back liquid glass? Please?

Amateur radio enthusiast Thomas Witherspoon (K4SWL) tells the story of surviving Hurricane Helene in September 2024 when all power and phone access went down.

I really enjoyed this conversation about amateur radio. Pretty inspiring to hear about helping people stay connected during an emergency.