gru:Bz

Microsoft is testing a new in-game browser

Doing what they can to get people to switch to Internet Explorer Edge 😏

You deserve a better browser than Google Chrome

If you’ve been using Chrome because it came as the default browser on your phone, you might want to try something new. If you’ve been using Chrome for 15 years because it was so innovative when it was introduced, that’s no longer the case, and you should definitely try something new.

I’d also add that if you’re using Chrome on iOS, you’re just using a shittier version of Safari that spies on you.

Gaetz withdraws from consideration for Trump’s attorney general role

“There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General,” Gaetz wrote.

Whoa he really doesn’t want that report to come out 😆

‘Black mold-like substance’ and water contamination uncovered by FDA at Tom’s of Maine toothpaste factory

The FDA’s inspection took place in May, and Tom’s of Maine responded to its initial results in June. The FDA’s latest letter declares that the company’s June response was “inadequate,” so the agency is calling for further action.

Great way to freshen up after munching on some Boar’s Head deli meat with a side of listeria.

T-Mobile actually stopped some hackers from stealing customer data

T-Mobile detected suspicious activity in a recent attempt to access customer data and kicked the cyber criminals out before they were able to infiltrate deeper levels of the network.

Well now I’ve seen everything 🙃

The fight for Alex Jones' Infowars company heats up as Jones sues to hold on

I knew he wouldn’t go down without a fight. He’s just prolonging the inevitable, but he’s going to be as difficult and obnoxious as possible in the meantime.

Magnetic North Pole moves closer to Russia in a way scientists have never seen before

What a headline 😆

From 1600 to 1990, it is estimated to have moved about 10-15km a year. In the early 2000s, it sped up to around 55km a year…In the past five years, the magnetic north pole has significantly slowed down to about 25km a year.

At first glance it looks like a terrifying conspiracy theory about earth spinning off its axis and killing us all but I guess it’s pretty normal uneventful stuff.

RFK Jr. Told a Bunch of People the Government May Have “Planned” COVID

“Many people argue that this pandemic was a ‘plandemic,’ that it was planned from the outset, it’s part of a sinister scheme. I can’t tell you the answer to that. I don’t have enough evidence. A lot of it feels very planned to me. I don’t know.

I wonder when Alex Jones will get a cabinet seat.

The majority of news influencers are conservative men, study finds

This morning, The Pew Research Center…published a deep 122 page report that found that the news influencer landscape skews male and leans disproportionately conservative, creating a concerning imbalance in our online news landscape that could ultimately have profound political consequences. 

I find the whole influencer thing pretty wack to begin with but we do need more liberals in the space. And women. We need fucking crazy leftist conspiracy theorists actually. Clearly there’s a market for it.

Scientists Discover ‘Immortal’ Marine Creature That Can ‘Time Travel’

I’ve been a broken record on the sea aliens lately but this is pretty cool, and actually real.

Unreal Gold and Unreal Tournament are now free on the Internet Archive

An Epic spokesperson subsequently confirmed that it has given the green light for the games to be hosted on the Internet Archive, telling PC Gamer, “We can confirm that Unreal 1 and Unreal Tournament are available on archive.org and people are free to independently link to and play these versions.”

Finally some not terrible news relating to the Internet Archive! I was OBSESSED with UT ‘99 on the Dreamcast back in the day. Happy to see another classic saved from falling into complete obscurity.

Mountain lions in Los Angeles become night owls to avoid humans

Not a bad idea, honestly…

Bluesky feels more like old Twitter than X does

I’ll go as far as saying it feels more like original Twitter than Mastodon, too. I don’t know what it is, like I was on mastodon for two years before Bluesky came out and I had already built a pretty nice little community over there. But Bluesky somehow feels more welcoming. Or at least it feels more like what I remember about Twitter circa 2013 when I was still having fun.

I like that both Mastodon and Bsky are mostly made up of regular every day people. They’re both decentralized, which is a plus. Though I never really put any thought into that before I learned what it meant through using Mastodon.

But one big thing I missed about Classic™ Twitter was realtime updates. Everything from news to celebrities - without radical far right crypto bro influencers sprinkled in. Maybe that’s what I like; influencers aren’t really a thing on Bluesky and there’s no MAGA nonsense. It’s like Twitter pre-Elon and pre-crypto.

Here’s Why I Decided To Buy ‘InfoWars’ - The Onion

This is perfect. InfoWars makes much more sense as satire.

Mark ‘Z-Pain’ Zuckerberg did a cover of ‘Get Low.’

I may be scarred for life after hearing Zuckerberg’s autotuned voice serenade me with “‘Til the sweat drop down my balls.”

“‘Get Low’ was playing when I first met Priscilla at a college party, so every year we listen to it on our dating anniversary,” Zuckerberg wrote on Instagram. “This year I worked with @tpain on our own version of this lyrical masterpiece…"

We are undoubtedly living in the Bad Place.

Perplexity brings ads to its platform

Enshittification ensues

AI Chatbot Added to Mushroom Foraging Facebook Group Immediately Gives Tips for Cooking Dangerous Mushroom

This is what natural selection looks like in the age of gen AI

Daring Fireball: 1Password: The Infinite Loop of Security

The 2024 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) found that “the human element” (accidental breaches caused by human error, or victimization in phishing attacks and the like) was the number one cause of breaches. The same was true last year, and the year before that, and the year before that.

it’ll never happen to me…

I used the same weak ass password for hundreds of accounts. I ignorantly took the position of “I don’t have anything worth hacking so using the same password everywhere is fine.”

I sure fucked around and found out on that one.

A couple years ago I found myself in the middle of a shitstorm of hacked accounts after I fell for a phishing thing. I immediately switched from Windows 11 to Linux and spent almost two full days updating hundreds of logins with unique, random 20+ character passwords using 1Password. The damage was already done though. Or at least it was off to a pretty good head start.

I lost an entire Facebook account, my PayPal and Cashapp were compromised and I’m pretty sure they straight up cloned my browser because I was getting login attempts across a lot of different accounts for DAYS after that. Even things that had 2FA enabled. I have no idea how that’s even possible but they got in there.

I don’t like to advocate for specific brands here but 1Password has been a godsend. It’s worth the small yearly fee. Even if you don’t go with them, you need a password manager. Every time I’ve been fucked over with phishing or hacked accounts it was my fault; human error or maybe even just arrogance and being too loosey goosey with online security.

Election Conspiracy Theories Are for Everyone

In the days following Donald Trump’s clear win, conspiracy theories about how votes were tampered with or how the election was stolen from Kamala Harris have spread on the left, with viral tweets, TikTok videos, and posts on Threads making a chaotic and spotty case alleging a fishy result.

Maybe we need some zany conspiracy theorists on the left. It works out pretty favorable for the MAGA people anyway. Maybe we’ve just been playing it too clean and… sane.