TehPers

When an Aura enters without being cast, if the effect that puts it onto the battlefield doesn’t specify what it will enchant, you can attach it to any object or player that fits the requirements of its enchant ability. There are a few exceptions. You couldn’t attach Pacifism to a creature with protection from white, for example. Attaching an Aura this way doesn’t target the object you’re attaching it to.

This is a trick I used in Brawl once to gain control of an opponent’s Niv-Mizzet, Guildpact with some Mind Control enchantment (I forgot which). It rarely comes up, but it’s one of those tools you can use to give you an edge in niche scenarios.

The article seems to conveniently hide the rampant corruption between Flock and local governments. Not that Wired has an obligation to include it, of course, but it’s still relevant context as to why everyone hates Flock.

I love how the Republicans like to talk shit about China, then turn around and propose their own Great Firewall, cameras on every corner, and so on.

And sure, the Democrats aren’t much better here, but these seem to be pushed more aggressively by the Republicans. Plus, for a party that claims to want less government, it’s very obvious that this goes against their brand.

This. You’d definitely want the cameras to have only the public key. If they’re not doing that, then their security must be as bad as their morals because they know people are tearing these down everywhere already anyway.

Of course, not using assymetric encryption makes them more auditable by “third parties” which is an unexpected benefit.

I wonder if they at least use a different key per camera. This would be less necessary for asymmetric encryption, of course, but they don’t seem to be using it. If all the cameras are using the same key, then you can theoretically use the key these people pulled to access data on every other camera as well (possibly remotely if you can remote in somehow).

Assuming it’s £600/day total (which would make more sense than per person), that’s a bit over £200k/yr. It isn’t that much taken relatively, but it’s still money that can be spent somewhere better, and it’s enough to make a noticeable impact depending on how it’s used.

FWIW, this seems ripe for data collection and field testing for free. (unless it’s a paid sub, then that’s worse)

Exploiting abuse survivors to test a surveillance system is a new low —even for government. 🖕🏼

Did you even read the article?

Here, I’ll help you:

The app’s effectiveness depends on courts ordering suspects to wear electronic tags, something that remains relatively rare in South Korean stalking cases.

Police arrested 29,404 people on stalking charges across 2024 and 2025. Authorities made 1,187 applications for electronic monitoring during that period, but courts approved only 427.

Your “surveillance system” is court-ordered ankle monitors for known stalkers. Which, sure, is surveillance. You know, for a convicted stalker.

Whether the ones who were stalked want to know where their stalker is might be a different story, but there’s this cool thing you can do with apps where you turn off notifications and hide the app somewhere you never go. That way they don’t have to see where the stalker is and they still get the benefit of “if that distance falls below 1km, police and probation authorities receive an alert and contact the victim.”

This could be the “new normal” for 2026 and beyond, with monthly totals climbing sharply since mid-year.

This would require there to constantly be security flaws to patch. Sure, vulnerabilities are inevitable, but steps can be taken proactively to avoid them, and no operating system (most of these vulnerabilities were in Windows) should be introducing an uncontrolled stream of constant vulnerabilities (in many cases against the user’s wishes).

Anyway, patching security holes is a good thing at least so long as the total surface area of holes actually decreases over time.

Oh hey! Actual man-made horrors beyond comprehension!

(Sorry, the fly brain simulation stuff felt so tame compared to this field)

TL;DR: Instagram chief argues against a strawman

If you go to a chronological feed, it ends up getting overwhelmed with content from companies, brands, and publishers… Creators get drowned out, and then your friends get drowned out even more… You miss a lot more content … and you spend a lot less time on the platform…

This is correct. A purely chronological feed will be drowned out by whoever posts the most. Creators publishing mass-produced slop will win.

Except that has nothing to do with the Australian draft legislation (if someone has a link to the draft itself, I can’t find it, but this PR statement still covers my point):

Alternatively, users can opt out of personally recommended content in their default feed and see the friends and creators they choose to follow.

A purely chronological feed consisting purely of friends and creators you choose to follow is not a feed that can be drowned out by mass-produced slop and “content from companies, brands, and publishers” because the user chooses who they follow. If a user doesn’t like the content, they can choose not to follow the person/creator. It’s really not that complicated. Heck, this is how the YouTube subscriptions page works (though I use FreeTube configured in the same manner).

As a secondary point, their statement presents the draft as a false dichotomy. This isn’t an “us vs them” thing. It’s an “us and them” thing. The user chooses what they want. Presenting it as the former serves only to invalidate the group that wants the less personalized feed rather than support them.

Anyway, as a non-Australian who doesn’t use any of these services, this doesn’t have much to do with me. It’s just such an obviously fallacious argument against the legislation that I can only assume the quote was taken out of context or something (though I doubt that’s the case).

This. Unlike the people using actual brains, these simulated brains are, for the most part, just linear algebra and no more a lifeform than a LLM. They lack all of the components of organic life, lack all the chemicals that make a real lifeform actually “feel”, and so on.

Sending the HTTP request and receiving and processing the response is a sequence of countless algorithms.

It seems the common meaning for “algorithmic feed” is actually “personalized feed” or “targeted feed”. They adapt based on the user, not necessarily the community as a whole.

If nobody receives a criminal conviction for illegal hacking, then there was no hacking.

So pick one. Is it illegal hacking? Or is it marketing? You can’t choose both.

Remember when Claude Mythos/Fable was the end of the world?

I guess you can’t end the world if the world already ended in 2012.

No.

It’s mostly just management dictating from the top-down. I’ve heard everything from “it’s our company’s direction” to “investors are only funding AI expenses” and nothing actually grounded on (B2C) customer feedback.

For software not exempted, the California Digital Age Assurance Act takes effect on 1 January 2027 for requiring age collection at device setup time and age-bracket signals for applications.

As a reminder, the law doesn’t require age verification, only attestation. It’s a really stupid law that accomplishes nothing for the services that now require age verification and nothing for the people opposed to it. It just makes some OSs (but apparently potentially no longer Android?) ask your age on account creation.

I still have no clue how this will work for Windows server (and the cursed Mac servers), but honestly it’s on you for using that over a Linux server.

Notepad had a “Copilot” button at one point. No clue if it’s still there though since I’m fully on Linux now.

By the states, and for that particular issue, yes. Though I believe “double jeopardy” only applies to criminal trials and not lawsuits.

From the AP:

If approved by the court, the deal will stop an avalanche of litigation by states against Meta, although the company still faces lawsuits from individuals and school districts throughout the U.S. For the states, the settlement delivers money for mental-health programs for kids, including after-school or summer activities and digital literacy counselors.

On the one hand, you can’t really believe the US government these days. On the other, the same can be said about the Chinese government.

You know what would solve this, though? Make the government actually exciting to work for. Get people excited to work there, and you’ll find some talented security people who can lock things down. Instead, all the good positions are offered by companies, and the government isn’t on anyone’s radar especially after Trump/Musk fucked around with it and fired everyone.

For all the money spent pointlessly on military, you could hire the most talented people in the country to run government services and you wouldn’t even need to sacrifice anything in the military if you just allow them to shop around and buy from the companies that won’t bend them over and make them beg for it. Hell, you could do all that and still provide healthcare to the entire nation.