I used to be airyairyquitecontrary, but following a deletion I can’t get that back. I like Sailor Moon, Star Trek, Star Wars, The Expanse, and cats. From Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1978.
and remember that this is all happening in massive data centers that are stealing water from and dumping pollution into poor and underserved communities. so that computer programs can make music for other computer programs to pretend to listen to
Other countries (Canada) successfully eliminated their pennies BUT they provided guidance for the post-penny landscape. They passed regulations about how and when to round to the nearest 5 cents. Planning was meticulous, the process was gradual, and the public educated.
But not America.
In typical Trump fashion, one day he just told the Treasury to stop making pennies. Followed up by an announcement on Truth Social. No, I am not kidding – that’s how it happened. He fucking tweeted it from the 2025 Super Bowl game a few months ago.
And now there are legal complications, since some states require BY LAW for merchants to give customers exact change. In other places, SNAP users may not be charged a different price for food than anyone else, yet SNAP cards calculate prices to the penny.
There are surprising economic impacts too. For example, an entire industry exists that makes the metal slugs the Mint uses to make pennies. They’re all out of work now, along with the companies that service fed into them.
While pennies cost 3.7 cents each to make, nickels are worse at 13.8 cents per nickel. The Mint will be forced to make more of them to offset pennies, costing taxpayers more. Stopping penny production doesn’t offset that.
Rounding up will cost consumers annually. Not much (a few bucks a year) but it adds up. And consumers are already strapped.
Rounding down will cost merchants potentially millions of dollars each, and they will pass the cost onto consumers.
Maybe it’s past time to ditch the penny, but not like this.
With the release of Android 12, Google began allowing users to delete their ad ID permanently. On devices that have this feature enabled, you can open the Settings app and navigate to Privacy > Ads. Tap “Delete advertising ID,” then tap it again on the next page to confirm. This will prevent any app on your phone from accessing it in the future.
On iOS
To see which apps you have previously granted access to, go to Settings > Privacy > Tracking. You can set the “Allow apps to Request to Track” switch to the “off” position (the slider is to the left and the background is gray). This will prevent apps from asking to track in the future. If you have granted apps permission to track you in the past, this will prompt you to ask those apps to stop tracking as well. You also have the option to grant or revoke tracking access on a per-app basis.
Apple has its own targeted advertising system, separate from the third-party tracking it enables with IDFA. To disable it, navigate to Settings > Privacy > Apple Advertising. Set the “Personalized Ads” switch to the “off” position to disable Apple’s ad targeting.
If it’s hackable, that’s even easier than those guys who got into a place through the fishtank or whatever it was.
Oh boy!! It’s HACKABLE!!!!!
*quietly shitting myself *
And it can walk around your house!
There are a lot of modern appliances we won’t buy because they’re essentially in-home surveillance for no other reason than “The company decided to gather information to sell”.
Like, yes, we’d like a newer Roomba… but I absolutely do not want one which uploads the fucking floor plan of my house to the Internet.
Would we like a nice mattress with which you can adjust firmness? Yes. Do we want a mattress which tells the company when we sleep? Why is this even a question???
Frankly, a lot of these companies need to see direct and absolutely destructive punishment for gathering data on customers. Things like “Oh, you kept customer names and birthdays in your database and that got stolen by ‘hackers’? Well, since you’re the company which didn’t secure that data properly, you’re now liable for every element of identity fraud and financial harm those customers experience. And also a fine which exceeds the profit you made from that data.”
They don’t need to be gathering all this data. They should look on excess data acquisition as a liability, not a revenue stream. They should be asking “How little information can we gather and still provide a profitable product?” rather than “How much more can we slurp from our customers and sell later?”.
Over a year ago, National Public Data (NPD), a search site for people, earned a place in privacy infamy for a security breach that revealed the personal data of 3 billion individuals (that’s billion with a “b”). Now, after disappearing, NPD is back.
As ZDNET sister publication PCMag reported, NPD is open for snooping again under a new owner, the rather mysterious-sounding Perfect Privacy LLC.
Oh boy. Better head over to nationalpublicdata.com and see if your profile is there. Then follow the handy instructions in the ZDNET article to have yourself removed:
They announced that they were going to use AI for this a while back but now they’re annoucing that they’re getting rid of the contractors reviewing the AI generated content. So, very soon Duolingo is just going to be AI generated slop that might not even be correct.
For alternatives, I’d recommend checking with your local library. For instance, mine offers Rosetta Stone for free if you have a library card.
I have found there is a way to nuke my duolingo account from orbit and god they don’t make it easy, putting instructions here for anyone else who would like to. I am unsure if it’s possible on mobile (already uninstalled the app on mobile) but I’m pissed off enough + suspect that they might pay slightly more attention to account deletion en masse rather than app uninstalling en masse. also I cannot see myself ever using this bs again, so…
step 1: log onto duolingo.com
step 2: there’s a sidebar on the left. mouse over “more” and then “help.”
step 3: scroll down the list of frequently asked questions to the “account management” category. click on “how do I delete my account an access my data” and then on the link to “duolingo data vault.”
step 4: hit the big red “erase personal data” button. do not be swayed by the crying owl. he cares not for you, only for your data.
step 5: they should send you an email to whatever account is connected to your duolingo account. you can tell which email it is based on the spam you’ve gotten for the past several years reminding you to maintain your streak.
step 5.5: if you have a super duolingo subscription or got suckered into their free trial that does not cancel automatically, cancel that separately, they explicitly state that they will keep charging you even if you do not have an account which tracks for the company duolingo is now
step 6: find the email, click on the link listed after “delete my data link”
step 7: wait 7 days. you cannot get your data deleted any faster than this, but you can cancel it during this 7-day grace period.
step 8: apparently it will take “up to 23 more days” to delete your data entirely. pat yourself on the back. you’re free now.
jokes aside, I’m still on step 7 myself, but I cannot see myself WANTING to undo my account deletion even if I could, so… for anyone who’s confused about how to do this but wants to, hope this can help.
and on a final note, fuck gen ai all my homies hate generative ai.
i love how the bot specifically trained with intent to make it support this shit ended up acquiring some amount of “wow, no, that’s actually just stupid”.
Okay- but this is leaving out the fact that Jeff Fowler literally hand delivered a 24k gold leaf embossed copy of the script to Carrey that’s worth at least $100,000, because of that gold ink script comment.
Did you actually deliver him a script with gold ink? (Two years ago, Carrey quipped that his return would require the angelic delivery of a script that’s written in gold ink.) I did, and it’s now worth about a hundred thousand dollars, so, hopefully, Jim has got it locked up somewhere.
Hey, if you do crafts (especially things like crochet, knitting, embroidery, etc), make sure to look up how to identify when a listing is AI generated. You do NOT want to waste money on an incredible looking kit or pattern that is physically impossible to make, especially if you’re on sites like etsy hoping to support an actual artist.
OP’s tags:
#as an embroiderer: big red flags are curved straight or satin stitches #stitches that you cannot identify or figure out at all #thread that fades into other colors #backgrounds that match the piece weirdly well (like a floral embroidery piece with a matching vase and flowers on the table) #and a lack of videos of the piece and photos from other angles
Here’s a guide for identifying real freaking cross-stitch patterns that are doable, and not AI-converted confetti:
I don’t knit, but I’m sure someone has a comparable guide somewhere. I know crochet and knitting seems like more of a problem- the crochet “patterns” make vastly different items than what’s pictured, and you can find some of those on r/CraftedbyAI because some people do follow those “patterns” to make a point.
Cross-stitch and embroidery seem like they’d be easier to fake, right? Like, cross-stitch patterns are basically pixel art, so what’s the harm?
The cross-stich often has dozens or hundreds of colours and they change every single pixel, which is basically impossible for a human to reproduce. It’s just not a pattern, dammit.
The embroidered ones break my heart, though:
Wherein someone is making a lovely embroidered piece but they end up dissatisfied with their work because it doesn’t look as impossibly plush and bright as the fake.
It makes people who are new to these crafts feel like they’re not doing it right, or gives them insane expectations, and it can drive people away from the craft.
I know of several cross-stitch pattern shops on Etsy that have closed because it’s just not worth the investment when they’re competing with AI-generated nonsense that can charge pennies because it doesn’t take any time or effort to make.
Fuck AI-generated patterns and crafts.
I’m actually knitting right now! Most of the resources I can find are targeted towards crochet because amigurumi and crocheting cute little creatures is super hot right now, but this information definitely applies to knit pieces as well.
Most (if not all) AI-generated images that feature knitted objects possess at least one of these traits:
-Rows (or even entire components of the project) splitting or merging in ways that make no sense. This sweater looks impressive until you try to make sense of that lump near the left shoulder or whatever is going on with the collar. You can even see one row splitting into two near the bottom for seemingly no reason at all.
-Impossible stitches. Those lumpy squares (?) in between Mario’s eyes are not real stitches. Neither are the stitches that fade seamlessly into tufts of material on the lion’s mane.
-Impossibly huge projects. This elephant is almost twice as tall as the person next to it, and you’ll realize that the stitches are actually massive when you take the time to think about how you could make it yourself. If you look closely, you’ll also see a fifth leg on the elephant!
-The overall “vibe” of the image is glossy, shiny, plastic-y, or smooth to a degree that is almost unnerving. Yarn comes in lots of different colors and textures, but what’s depicted in the image below is a bit too vivid and perfect to be real. Excessive blurring/out-of-focus areas on the project itself can also be signs of AI use.
Apologies for the long addition, I just loathe this stuff with a passion. The only people who benefit from the proliferation of AI images in fiber artist’s spaces are scammers, and they make things worse for literally everyone else.
