Futurology Today

Before the mayor of San Jose, California, arrives at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new business, his aides ask ChatGPT to help draft some talking points.

“Elected officials do a tremendous amount of public speaking,” said Mayor Matt Mahan, whose recent itinerary has taken him from new restaurant and semiconductor startup openings to a festival of lowriding car culture.

Other politicians might be skittish admitting a chatbot co-wrote their speech or that it helped draft a $5.6 billion budget for the new fiscal year, but Mahan is trying to lead by example, pushing a growing number of the nearly 7,000 government workers running Silicon Valley’s biggest city to embrace artificial intelligence technology.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/21152300

• YouTube video (first 7 minutes): https://youtu.be/rIR3PpQ82yE
• SkipVids (same video, but without ad): https://skipvids.com/?v=rIR3PpQ82yE
• New site: https://www.thisweekinvideogames.com/ (at the time of the posting the website opens extremely slow, they might get hit with lot of visitors)

The first 7 minutes segment explains it. Its kinda self advertisement, but I think this is important. One of my favorite Gaming YouTube channels "Skill Up" launched a new website for gaming articles. The goal is to have articles without Ai, no advertisements, no sponsored articles, no CEO optimized content, to maintain a high quality content. I think this is really really important and a good step.

Only technology itself. Do not include any human being associated with that technology

https://archive.ph/aBgzP

See more of my stuff at

Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/cattrigger.bsky.social

And Mastodon - https://mastodon.art/@CatTrigger

Instagram if ya gotta - https://www.instagram.com/cattrigger.comics/

Czech president signs law criminalising communist propaganda

https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/czech-president-signs-law-criminalising-communist-propaganda/

@worldnews

(Also extends to people who refuse to use Linux too!)

Every unique Linux Desktop setup tells a story, about the user's journey and their trials. I feel like every decision, ranging from theming to functional choices, is a direct reflection of who we are on the inside.

An open-ended question for the Linux users here: Why do you use what you do? What are the choices you've had to make when planning it out?

I'll go first: I use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed with the Niri Scrolling Compositor(Rofi, Alacritty and Waybar), recently switched from CosmicDE

I run this setup because I keep coming back to use shiny new-ish software on a daily basis.

I prefer this over arch(which I used for 2 years in the covid arc), because it's quite a bit more stable despite being a rolling release distro.

I chose niri because I miss having a dual monitor on the go, and tiling windows isn't good enough for me. Scrolling feels smooth, fancy and just right. The overview menu is very addicting, and I may not be able to go back to Windows after this!

This was my first standalone WM/Compositor setup, so there were many little pains, but no regrets.

Would love to hear more thoughts, perspectives and experiences!

The Trump administration has decided to destroy $9.7m worth of contraceptives rather than send them abroad to women in need.

A state department spokesperson confirmed that the decision had been made – a move that will cost US taxpayers $167,000. The contraceptives are primarily long-acting, such as IUDs and birth control implants, and were almost certainly intended for women in Africa, according to two senior congressional aides, one of whom visited a warehouse in Belgium that housed the contraceptives. It is not clear to the aides whether the destruction has already been carried out, but said they had been told that it was set to occur by the end of July.

“It is unacceptable that the State Department would move forward with the destruction of more than $9m in taxpayer-funded family planning commodities purchased to support women in crisis settings, including war zones and refugee camps,” Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic senator from New Hampshire, said in a statement. Shaheen and Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator from Hawaii, have introduced legislation to stop the destruction.

Let me very clear. If you don't use a car, you are not part of society. You refuse to support the oil industry. You should be shamed, endangered and attacked.

Archived

Czech President Petr Pavel on Thursday signed an amendment to the country’s criminal code that criminalises the promotion of communist ideology, placing it on the same footing as Nazi propaganda.

The revised legislation introduces prison sentences of up to five years for anyone who “establishes, supports or promotes Nazi, communist, or other movements which demonstrably aim to suppress human rights and freedoms or incite racial, ethnic, national, religious or class-based hatred.”

The change follows calls from Czech historical institutions, including the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, to correct what they viewed as a legal imbalance.

[...]