“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,” Musk said. “There it’s they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.”
-Elon Musk, March 6, 2025

“In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trials 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”
-Captain G. M. Gilbert, the Army psychologist assigned to watching the defendants at the Nuremberg trials

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/05/politics/elon-musk-rogan-interview-empathy-doge/index.html

The ubiquitous ESP32 microchip made by Chinese manufacturer Espressif and used by over 1 billion units as of 2023 contains an undocumented "backdoor" that could be leveraged for attacks.

Update 3/9/25: After receiving concerns about the use of the term "backdoor" to refer to these undocumented commands, we have updated the title of our story.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/undocumented-commands-found-in-bluetooth-chip-used-by-a-billion-devices/

Given it’s international women’s day, I’d like to encourage you all, but especially Dutch men to read these ‘anti-acknowledgments’ in a PhD thesis. This is not from somewhere else, it’s from Delft. And it’s not from the 1950s, but from the present. Unfortunately what academic life and culture in The Netherlands is still like. The author is just one of the few who actually spoke up about it, but there are many stories like it.

(Alt at https://pastebin.com/cqLvxX1f)

"Hi Daniel,

I've written a web fuzzer in c using your library libcurl. I want to thank you for writing a this easy to use, fast and good library. I'm 11 years old and I don't have much experience but your library made it possible."

🚨I promised I'd say more on the Royal Society and Elon Musk, so here it is. 🚨

I've resigned my position as Associate Editor at Royal Society's journal Open Science in protest at their lack of action over Elon Musk.

My op-ed in the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/04/elon-musk-science-royal-society-scientific-integrity
1/2

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com #science #mathematics

I made a nerdy thing!

LatexInComments (laic) is an #emacs package to render LaTeX math blocks in code comments as overlays.

https://github.com/esquellington/LatexInComments

Just to be clear, because a bunch of assholes have hijacked public perception and lifted up some of the worst people on Earth as exemplars of what the “tech world” is supposed to be:

I’ve been in the software world for decades, surrounded by thoughftul, creative, and humane people with whom I’ve formed many wonderful friendships and done meaningful work. That’s possible. It’s normal, even.

You don’t have to become a sociopath to make it in the tech world. Or a malignant narcissist. Or a Nazi.

Your instincts to be a decent person are good instincts. Don’t let anyone talk you into being an antisocial monster. You don’t have to be.

Linus replied to Christoph about the Rust for #Linux DMA blockage:

https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAHk-=wgLbz1Bm8QhmJ4dJGSmTuV5w_R0Gwvg5kHrYr4Ko9dUHQ@mail.gmail.com/

'"Honestly, what you have been doing is basically saying "as a DMA maintainer I control what the DMA code is used for".

And that is not how *any* of this works […]

You are saying that you disagree with Rust - which is fine […]

I respect you technically, and I like working with you.

And no, I am not looking for yes-men, and I like it when you call me out on my bullshit. […]"'

#kernel #LinuxKernel

“What are we going to build now – those of us who still care about diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and giving consumers the power? Can we still put our HTML & CSS to good use? Can we get back to building a web where people have *agency* instead of *inhuman agents*?”
“Tech continues to be political” – https://www.miriamsuzanne.com/2025/02/12/tech-ai-wtf/

“I promise, America will soon be the Cybertruck of countries—uglier than you could have imagined, built for rich chuds, borderline inoperable, and on fire. “

Here at DOGE, We’ve Streamlined Every Aspect of America’s Collapse - McSweeney’s Internet Tendency https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/here-at-doge-weve-streamlined-every-aspect-of-americas-collapse

Before crowbars were invented, crows would drink at home.

The local crowbar was shut down because of all the murders.

Police are still investigating the caws.

While I don’t consider myself leftist*, this was worth reading.

*: As with many other labels, it depends on definitions / who you compare with.

#dkpol https://jksteinberger.medium.com/a-few-points-for-the-left-bed0357de8e1

A Danish baker from Videbæk is selling orange "Kvaje" Cakes, which literally means "fuck up cakes", shaped like the idiot from The White House.

Trump really is an international phenomenon — hated by the entire planet.

https://www.tvmidtvest.dk/ringkoebing-skjern/var-det-noget-med-en-bid-af-trump-bager-kommer-med-soed-stikpille

#Bufferbloat #latency #jitter problem & solution explained by one and only @toke is in print, physically, also in #Malawi 🇲🇼 now:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/brian-munyao-longwe-25432_tokehoilandjorgensen-activity-7286339768529903616-m9w3

Get your own copy from Karlstad University @kau here: https://bufferbloat-and-beyond.net

#OpenSource #LibreQoS #QoE #FLOSS #TokeHoilandJorgense #RFC8290 #FQ_CoDel #sch_CAKE #QoS #FQCoDel #schCAKE #QualityOfExperience #QualityOfService #brodband #WiFi #ISP #WISP #FISP #MwNOG #SAFNOG #ConnectingAfrica

There’s been a lot of talk about “Wokeness” lately & it’s given me some feelings.

Will people who used to support or tolerate me turn against me, out of a desire to conform or show obeisance to the prevailing winds?

I Met Paul Graham Once: http://okayfail.com/2025/i-met-pg-once.html

So, it would be a fair cop to say that I am one of the petite bourgeoisie. This has allowed me to do things like buy shares of companies because I want to keep track of what's going on in their shareholder meetings.

And I've noticed something. All of the shareholder proposals to drop #DEI programs, stop charitable contributions to leftist organizations, et.al., seem to be coming from one place: The National Center for Public Policy Research.

The #NCPPR is a privately funded and held charity that doesn't reveal it's donors. It's a pretty far, into extreme, right wing policy churn engine responsible for bullying some of the world's largest companies into getting rid of DEI or facing lawsuits from them. What makes them so powerful that companies like AT&T have folded before the shareholders have had a chance to vote?

I'm really surprised that there's not a major media story about this.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Jack Dorsey is a main track speaker at FOSDEM this year:
https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-4507-infusing-open-source-culture-into-company-dna-a-conversation-with-jack-dorsey-and-manik-surtani-block-s-head-of-open-source/

🤮

I am at a loss of words. I also owe sincere apologies to everyone flagging issues with FOSDEM over the years, whose concerns I often somewhat minimized. I am sorry, you were all right and I was wrong.

FOSDEM is now explicitly platforming AI/blockchain bro fascists. 🤬

👉 Edit: Drew DeVault is organizing a sit-in, and explains why: https://drewdevault.com/2025/01/16/2025-01-16-No-Billionares-at-FOSDEM-please.html

#FOSDEM #FOSDEM2025

mitmproxy 11.1 is out! 🥳

We now support *Local Capture Mode* on Windows, macOS, and - new - Linux! This allows users to intercept local applications even if they don't have proxy settings.

On Linux, this is done using eBPF and https://aya-rs.dev/, more details are at https://mitmproxy.org/posts/local-capture/linux/. Super proud of this team effort. 😃

‘There’s no greys, only white that’s got grubby. And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things, including yourself. That’s what sin is.’

‘It’s a lot more complicated than that—’

‘No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.’

‘Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes—’

‘But they STARTS with thinking about people as things ...’

#Books
#TerryPratchett