🌌 The US Space Force is like a self-fulfilling prophecy:

First they announce this:

"...Pentagon has definitively deployed active space-based weapons platforms."

Then they declare peaceful, untouched and shared Space: "Space is both a battlefield..."

Their counterparts around the world do the same, & these warmongers have brought us one step closer to turning the last frontier into a military conflict zone.

SPACE IS FOR ALL MANKIND - No leadership can change that!

🇪🇺 The new digital ID & biometric verification law, called EU KIDS ACT must be stopped!

It is a serious Human Rights nightmare, especially for Privacy & would negatively change the internet forever.

We need to stand together & fight this dystopian, authoritarian mass-surveillance movement!

It's all the same push as in Australia, the US et. - wherever you are, resist it ✊

#STOPEUKIDSACT NOW!

https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2026/09/2026-09-15_COM_EU-Kids-Act_COM-2026-681-3.pdf

As always the graphic is public domain CC0 no copyright, use it however you want <3

🇪🇺 Seeing Ursula Leyen¹ praised all day for her State of the European Union speech is upsetting to me.

🇨🇦 While closer ties to Canada sound great, it also included her brand-new digital ID verification² law, the so called "EU Kids Act"!

➕ It goes one step further than Social Media, covering video-sharing platforms, AI chatbots, AI companions, online games, software app stores and operating systems³

Europeans should fight this surveillance state law tooth and nail! #STOPEUKIDSACT

¹not sure why we still accept people using nobiliary particles such as "von der" 🤢

²or rebranded "age verification"

³ https://www.euractiv.com/news/gamers-will-have-to-prove-their-age-under-eu-kids-act/ https://www.euractiv.com/news/exclusive-von-der-leyen-to-fine-tech-companies-under-kids-act-text/

📌 Pinterest used ~500 Million ROWS¹ of user pins² to train it's AI!

Data from 2009-Now, however the Social Media corp claims "users have granted Pinterest a license".

What license? Pretty sure AI training fine print wasn't a thing in 2009!

It even includes "limited personal information".

Grounds for a lawsuit? 🤓

¹ Never heard of this unit ever before, but even if we assume 1 ROW = 4-6 Pins that is 2-3 BILLION user Pins!

² Post would sound way worse wouldn't it?

🔗 Source: https://help.pinterest.com/en/article/ai-at-pinterest

🪪 The recent idscan.net (&more?) breach exposed over 153M Driver's Licenses + 10m IDs + 579k Medical Cards mostly from the US & Canada.

Age verification aka ID verification proponents should really think about how unsafe data is once it's collected en masse.

Citizens' Security & Privacy need to be prioritized and considered BEFORE implementing any form of verification for anything.

Are the Western courts in charge of protecting the people sleeping right now? 💤

My take from this Cybernews article about an Android toolkit to trick KYC verification significantly differs from theirs!

Them: "...the existence of such tools puts users and organizations at imminent risk." "Not a tool for the masses"

Me: "Where can I find this amazing Privacy tool?" "A tool the masses everywhere need access to ASAP"

🗺️ While visiting Pride Berlin, I learned how utterly pointless Google Maps Reviews in Germany are.

⭐ Any place can simply report negative reviews for defamation or claim the person was never there and have it removed.

Users can then appeal & risk a lawsuit.

When a review is removed the removed count on Google Maps goes up (🖼️ 1)

However that count is reset after 365 days and also only goes to 250! (🖼️ 2)

Therefore companies can simply mass report negative reviews to improve their rating.

https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/16997273

So many vulnerable people are relying on Google Maps reviews & ratings to tell them where it is save to go.

Some places have only 1000-2000 reviews but >250 reviews removed in the past 365 days!

Like how bad must the situation there be?!

Absolute shame.

No simply means No, but some people really don't seem to care. Here are some examples from my life: 1️⃣ Three guys were pushing a girl into a car, against her will, I told them to stop, they threatened me, the police came. The victim was asked next to the perpetrators, her "boyfriend" told her to shut up & everybody was just laughing at the police and having a jolly good time until they released them. 2️⃣ Two girls shouted loud for help, while surrounded by a big group of guys, apparently somebody had spit at them, maybe more, it was in a crowded area and I was the only person to stand between them, luckily there was coincidentally police around. This time they luckily separated the victims and the perps and as far as I saw before I left, they did a good old catch and release.... 3️⃣ In a club, a guy chatted up a girl from my group and bought her a drink. She was friendly with him, but clearly told him that she was not interested.

He kept lurking around and followed us for like an hour, he told me "she is sooo beautiful", I asked him friendly to stop as the women in my group, especially one, were scared of him, he got aggressive, so I decided to tell security, the first time we didn't find him, but the 2nd time I saw him again, they finally got him, they talked to him and walked him out of the room, so we were relieved that he was finally gone. I told him to "fk off" and he gave me a headbutt, and hit me in the face, luckily he didn't do too much damage, I then was able to overpower him, but bystanders kept pulling me off, which helped him escape, he then ran out of the club. The crowd & staff came at me until the we had explained who it was & why. I truly hate violence & it's just sad that in 2026 people still behave like that. Staff told me they would remember his face & not let him in again - a real penalty for a tourist. Just felt like putting these stories out there, as I'm repeatedly shocked how bystanders and security usually don't really seem to care, the legal system doesn't either and police is left with catch and release, with abusers and criminals laughing in their face (both of the cases - as they know not much will happen anyway). I know of many places where the situation is way way worse. Surely as a society and humanity we can do better in protecting people from this kind of abuse.

All about the safety of the kids¹ they said, All about the safety of users² they said, All about the safety of the citizens³ they said, All about the money, control & power⁴ they left unsaid.

¹ https://mastodon.social/@madeindex/116959510981643276 ² https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/07/google-plans-to-exempt-sanctioned-nations-from-android-developer-verification/ ³ https://mastodon.social/@madeindex/113301303081128298 ⁴ https://www.gadgetreview.com/reddit-user-uncovers-who-is-behind-metas-2b-lobbying-for-invasive-age-verification-tech https://mastodon.social/@madeindex/116503944072899687

Most "Smart" TVs use Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), essentially taking snapshots every 10+ms of what you watch and hear, then forwarding & selling that data to companies for ads, etc. I now feel it's only a matter of time before this "feature" finds its way to our ever "smarter" PC monitors.

LG with the help of Windows is already installing adware when the right Device ID is detected.

☑️ To disable ACR on TV: https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/home-entertainment/how-to-disable-acr-tv/

🌎 Humanity is truly living its best ClimateCatch22 dream:

The hotter > The more ACs > The more Electricity consumption > The hotter

⛵ Meanwhile the rich take advantage of the rising water levels, MOVING onto superyachts & forever cruiseships (for one last journey).

⛽ Burning through a cool $1 million of diesel per refueling.

🌎 Humanity is truly living its best ClimateCatch22 dream:

The hotter > The more ACs > The more Electricity consumption > The hotter

⛵ Meanwhile the rich take advantage of the rising water levels, MOVING onto superyachts & forever cruiseships (for one last journey).

⛽ Burning through a cool $1 million of diesel per refueling.

If, like me, you have always been wondering if eBay is a more ethical alternative to Amazon, your question has just been answered: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/07/ebay-former-execs-pay-56m-to-settle-bloody-pig-mask-harassment-case/

Luckily we already have an alternative on the Fediverse for local listings!

The Flohmarkt instances: 🗺️ https://flohmarkt.fediverse.observer/map 📑 https://flohmarkt.fediverse.observer/list

It's still small but growing steadily :)

We visited the CSD Pride Parade in Berlin on Saturday when the terror attack happened.

Most people (myself included) did not even notice until they read the news later. In the area where the attack happened, the only security measure I saw was one police car, that drove by once while we were there.

There was even someone, feeling comfortable enough, to openly hand out business cards with a QR code, offering drugs.

We left there before it happened and only later saw helicopters fly past, however what I did notice was the lax security on the main roads, even remember remarking on it on arrival.

I just want to clarify: the park where it happened was PART of the parade, not "the edge" as news etc. claim, people marched there as well, used the portable toilets, rested in the shade...

Complete failure by state & police, as this is THE regular venue for the biggest gatherings of Germany not just CSD.

I know how this sounds, but to me the problem was not a lack of police officers, but horrific planning.

Modern threats aren't even addressed as far as I can tell... Don't want to go into detail, to avoid giving people ideas, but most of you probably know what I mean.

Feels to me like GrapheneOS did exactly what it should, passing the US border test with flying colours!

Funny part about this lawsuit: “With a little planning ahead of time, you can always download the data you need once you get to where you’re going,”

If you have been wondering about the effectiveness of the social media ban of under 15 year olds, this study got you :)

Spoiler: 92%+ of kids age 14-15 in Australia still use it 🥳

Meanwhile IMO forced verification of users had a much better success rate 😉

Source: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w35162/w35162.pdf

However you look at it age verification is a major change to the internet and our freedoms.

We've seen all kinds of legislation pushed through in the past, often even against major resistance.

What makes me suspicious this time is the speed at which some of the slowest bureaucracies in the world are adopting it and how it's happening in 20+ countries in parallel.

It's like they're all in a group chat, fast-tracking this before resistance can even form.

What could go wrong with forcing a data hungry AI company like Anthropic to force it's users to do ID verification?

https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/22/anthropic-says-claude-may-want-to-see-your-id

Meanwhile asylum-seekers are a great source for biometric data for the UK government: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/the-uk-will-scan-asylum-seekers-faces-for-age-checks-despite-knowing-the-tech-is-flawed

As the West is trying to imitate totalitarian states as of late, they might be better advised to imitate their exports instead.

With the worldwide wave of social media bans on major platforms aka digital verification, I wonder if we'll see an influx of people to the Fediverse?

🤞🤞🤞 here is hoping <3

A very very senior game developer recently told me how he is changing specialization because AI is much better than him at what he does already.

I asked him if it was just the speed and mass of code, to which he replied that Claude 5 Fable/Mythos is just so advanced, it comes up with solutions he would never have thought of, not even requiring good prompts anymore.

He further said in some areas like Unity it's not perfect yet, but improving drastically.

Honestly this is pretty different to what I read in many articles regarding AI code.

They mentioned errors, bad performance & such.

However if it is already used in production and he as a professional evaluating it, is saying it's better than him...

That same day I also talked to somebody that got hired to train an LLM. His interview was with that companies chatbot, that offered him over 120$ per hour, a roughly 500% increase from his previous job 🤣

I truly wonder if, with the billions lost, the UAE & GCC countries are really going to build a canal to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

There has apparently already been a plan for this collecting dust. With the current problems, $50B+ doesn't sound so bad anymore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabian_Canal

Although likely pipelines would be the preferred short/mid-term solution.

🌐 Many companies now block older browser versions from accessing their websites!

This follows many browser makers ending updates 4 older operating systems, leaving legacy devices unable to use web services without an OS upgrade.

This kinda reminds me of the Java website block by browsers a few years ago, just in reverse. (Revenge? ;)

Old Android versions are also increasingly blocked from accessing the Google appstore.

Truly about security or perhaps Planned Obsolescence?

Update: "old devices can only use old os > old os can only use old browser > old browser cannot use web> poor uneducated people = screwed once again!"

"Only suggesting corporate browsers, kinda like an ad."

It's funny how in the US you can just say HIM and everyone knows who you are talking about.

And even funnier when people reply something along the lines of: "What did HE do now?!"

*Or sad - however ya cope ;)

Always had a feeling this was true: Sleep the right amount, live longer, sleep the wrong amount, age faster!

"...scientists narrowed down a “sweet spot” of between 6.4 and 7.8 hours of sleep per night. Sleep durations that fall too much on either side of that, the study found, were associated with accelerated aging." (For some it's 4, for some 9 though)

Just thought I would share this, as it seems important to all of us who don't love aging ❤️

We’ll soon get a chance to see whether, frankly, our last hope, evil corp Google, can still distinguish content created by AI from Human one 🤖

Here’s how I would rank the detection difficulty: 1️⃣ Text 2️⃣ Code 3️⃣ Images 4️⃣ Gifs 5️⃣ Videos If they already fail at level 5, we have a SERIOUS problem.