Tennessee Republicans move to shield gun firms after school shooting:

In the wake of a deadly school shooting last month, Republican lawmakers in Tennessee awarded final passage Tuesday to a proposal that would further protect gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers against lawsuits.

Won’t someone protect the childrenguns…

Daring Fireball: The Savings Account Is Half Empty:

This is just looking to piss on Apple no matter what the story. A digital state ID stored in Apple Wallet is more secure than a printed card stored in your physical wallet. If one thief takes my iPhone, and another takes my wallet and keys, the first thief needs my device passcode to get anything. The second thief instantly knows everything that’s printed on my driver’s license and credit cards — including the address of my home, where the keys will unlock the doors. The digitization of banking does carry risks, but the pre-digital world of banking revolved around paper checks and signatures.

There’s nothing hard to square about Apple’s initiative in this regard at all. I’ll bet Tim Cook has his driver’s license in Apple Wallet — and I practically guarantee that he has his credit cards in Apple Wallet. Apple Wallet really is more secure that a physical wallet and cards. And the new savings accounts simply offer Apple Card customers a way to earn interest on cash accounts that heretofore did not pay any interest at all. There’s nothing to be cynical about with this.

How to Post to Mastodon From Anything Using IFTTT - K²R:

I finally managed to hook up IFTTT to Mastodon to auto-post from another site!

I guess this is test test if it worked…

Disney’s response to DeSantis' threats? “Pride Night” | Boing Boing:

Disney is treating Ol' Puddin' Fingers like a joke. Shortly after DeSantis detailed his newest plans to take over the Reedy Creek special tax district, Disney ignored his threats and announced it would be holding its first-ever "Pride Night" at a Disney park.

While I love the reactions like this, it still means luring people into a state that is actively hostile to … pretty much everyone that’s not straight, white, cis, and male. The moral answer to Floria’s descent into Gilead is to call their bluff and move out, or at least turn off the lights for a few months and see what happens to the state without them.

PBS Joins NPR in Quitting Twitter Over State-Backed Designation - Bloomberg:

The Public Broadcasting Service has followed National Public Radio in quitting Twitter after the social media network labeled both organizations as government-backed media.

“PBS stopped tweeting from our account when we learned of the change and we have no plans to resume at this time,” PBS spokesman Jason Phelps said in an email. “We are continuing to monitor the ever-changing situation closely.”

All of the PBS/NPR family should share an ActivePub service for free press.

WB kills quality arm “HBO” and doubles down on transphobe’s tired story | Boing Boing:

To ensure we don't find anything new or exciting on "Max," WB is announced it will invest massive resources in retelling noted and outspoken transphobe JK Rowling's stories about magic people.

And I’m out. Toodles “Max”

Trump accidentally admits Michael Cohen told the truth in his new lawsuit: Legal expert - Raw Story - Celebrating 19 Years of Independent Journalism:

But that claim doesn't make any sense for Trump, said former Manhattan prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo on CNN's "OutFront" on Wednesday — because it implicitly requires Trump to admit that everything Cohen said, which he is now denying by pleading not guilty to criminal charges against him in New York, is actually true.

“When you look at this, Trump is alleging that Michael Cohen broke attorney-client privilege, he’s talking about all these falsehoods that he put out there,” said anchor Erica Hill. “Is there a legal merit here? I mean, does he have a case?

“It’s an interesting case here because, on the one hand, he’s saying everything is false, right?” said Agnifilo. “So if he was breaching attorney-client privilege, you’re doing that by telling things that were said to you in confidence. But so, is he saying things that Michael Cohen is saying are true because I told him in confidence, and now he’s breached that privilege? Or is he saying that the things are false? Because if they’re false, why didn’t he bring a defamation claim? So it kind of makes no sense.

“It really reads to me like he’s just trying to put his defense in the criminal case out and try and get his statements out there in the court of public opinion."

An Air National Guardsman thought a parody website for hitmen was real and tried to get work. Turns out he was messaging the FBI. | Boing Boing:

Josiah Ernesto Garcia, 21, an Air National Guardsman from Tennessee, chanced across rentahitman.com and tried to sign up despite it glowing like the sun. He submitted his ID, his resume, and a cover letter identifying him as an expert marksman. At some point the site's operators realized he wasn't messing around and called in the FBI, which he soon agreed to kill someone for, earning himself federal charges instead of the anticipated $5,000.

It feels like Air National Guard might not be recruiting all the best…

Here’s why Substack’s scam worked so well • Buttondown:

Substack’s business is a scam. They claim to offer writers a level playing field for making a living, and instead they pay an elite, secret group of writers to be on the platform and make newsletter writing appear to be more lucrative than it is. They claim to be an app when they are a publication with an editorial policy. They claim in their terms of service that they will protect writers from abuse, but they don’t.

Customize Your AirPods Pro for Even Better Sound:

What an amazing feature for people who are hard of hearing or who have trouble focusing their audio attention (definitely me sometimes). And what’s more, you can actually upload an audiogram to create a custom profile that adjusts audio levels specifically to how you hear. What? I had no idea. Here’s Paul Lefebvre:

This is a feature that’s been around for quite a while, but never well known.

The New York case is far from the first time Donald Trump was caught in a crime:

On April 4, Donald Trump was indicted and charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Even before the charges were officially read, Republicans were in high dudgeon, screaming about the unfairness of it all and the unprecedented nature of these charges. On the one hand, they’re right: It’s unusual for a former resident of the White House to be facing charges that could potentially end with years in prison. On the other hand, they’re dead wrong. Because if there’s anything that we know about Donald Trump, it’s that “crime” might as well be his middle name.

Trump first appeared on the national stage in the middle of a Justice Department investigation in 1973. Two decades later, he was tangled in another federal case with more than 100 charges. On the eve of the 2016 election, he was dealing with New York state, plus a class action lawsuit. Less than a year after taking office, he was involved in another criminal investigation case involving multiple crimes.

The difference between what happened then and what’s happening now is the difference between how our justice system deals with most crime, and how that same system deals with most rich people’s crimes. In every one of those previous cases, Trump was guilty. In some cases, he was guilty in ways that benefited him to the tune of millions of dollars. And in every case, he was able to write a check and walk away, often while still making a profit off his crimes.

NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as ‘state-affiliated media’ | MPR News:

For years, many journalists considered Twitter critical to monitoring news developments, to connect with people at major events and with authoritative sources, and to share their coverage. Musk's often hastily announced policy changes have undermined that. Lansing says that degradation in the culture of Twitter — already often awash in abusive content — contributed to NPR's decision to pull back.

I reiterate that NPR should craft their own ActivePub service for all social engagement. I actually think every major news outlet or company with a social component should do the same, get the public as used to @news@npr.org and similar social handles as they are with email addresses.

General Motors hates your iPhone – Six Colors:

GM wants your data. It wants to control your in-car experience. Yes, I have sympathy for a company that is trying to integrate a lot of advanced in-car navigation and safety features with its own hardware stack—in fact, I think it’s not at all unreasonable for GM to declare that if you want to use those features, you must use GM’s built-in navigation apps. But, of course, that’s not what they are actually doing. They’re trying to hide their power grab behind their need to tie auto-drive features to their own navigation system.

GM has, for the time being, ruled themselves out of my candidates for EVs. Good for them.

Rand Paul, Mike Lee lie about NPR as Elon Musk continues his war against the free press:

See now, that's just a flat-out lie and then some. Calling NPR "state-run" is disinformation. It's simply a hoax. NPR was spun off from a congressional edict a half century ago, and the "state" has not a damn speck of influence in NPR's programming. If NPR lost all of its "federal taxpayer funding" tomorrow, it would be ... just fine. Absolutely fine. The same cannot be said of Tesla or of SpaceX; government subsidies and contracts are the stuff that keeps Elon Musk's companies from collapse.

Tokyo Jazz Joints:

Book - TOKYO JAZZ JOINTS by Philip Arneill/James Catchpole — Kickstarter:

Sadly, while I was looking for a good image to tag this with, their site has all kinds of obfuscation and such… Less press I guess.

This whole site is love for a hidden slice of life, and I hope to snag the book to explore it all.

Musk puts false ‘state-affiliated’ label on NPR’s Twitter account because he’s a big pouting baby:

Well, it doesn't look like Elon Musk's Twitter tire fire will be burning itself out anytime soon. After retooling the social media site into a pay-to-play disinformation service, more petty posturing that included an order engineers to remove the verified status of The New York Times' account, and the sudden replacement of the Twitter bird logo with the "doge" meme in what might have been a two-day-late April Fool's Day prank, it's been made clear that the reason Musk bought Twitter was because he was extremely pissed off that it existed and became willing to spend a substantial chunk of his fortune to make sure it didn't.

NPR really should host it’s own activepub for employees and get off of Phony Stark’s hate-f**k of social media.

Life after Daft Punk: Thomas Bangalter on ballet, AI and ditching the helmet - BBC News:

For 28 years, Daft Punk blurred the lines between man and machine on hits like Da Funk, One More Time and Get Lucky. Now, as he turns his hand to ballet, one of the duo has a warning about Artificial Intelligence and the "obsolescence of man".

Great interview.

On 60 Minutes, MTG insisted that Democrats are pedophiles | Boing Boing:

News outlets need to stop treating it like “both sides are valid” issues.

How Drake Rescued the Long-Lost Art Carnival Luna Luna - The New York Times:

Earlier this year, in a 50,000-square-foot warehouse lined with weathered shipping containers and crates, the Viennese artist André Heller was reunited with one of the great loves of his life and career.

The psychedelic works inside, unseen by Heller or the world for 35 years, had long been lost to history, despite their flashy provenance. Together, they made up Luna Luna — a functional amusement park where the rides and attractions also happened to be contemporary art from the likes of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Salvador Dalí, which Heller had conceptualized and opened, briefly, in Hamburg, Germany, in 1987.

Standard disclaimer that it’s NYT so could be sh*twalled… But the pics are worth the trip.

‘We’re not gonna fix it’: Tennessee Republican says nothing can be done to stop gun violence:

To give the entire context to the “We're not gonna fix it” line, Burchett started by repeating that three children, three adults, and the shooter were dead, and it was a tragedy, but, “We're not gonna fix it.” He then said, “Criminals are going to be criminals,” and then told a possibly true story of some guy who he called “my daddy,” who had been in World War II and told little Timmy Burchett: “’Buddy,’ he said, ‘if somebody wants to take you out and doesn’t mind losing their life, then there’s not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it.’”

As far as I can tell, the GOP are the ones who wants to take our children out.

“The library is a safe place.” – WIL WHEATON dot NET:

“The library is a safe place.”

Why libraries? Because the library is so much more than a building with lots of books, internet access, 3D printers, D&D programs for kids, and all the other things. The library represents and offers equal access for everyone to all of those things. Not just the wealthy. Not just the privileged. Not just the in-group. It is a safe place for everyone to be curious, to find inspiration, to sit in the stacks, as far away from the door and the world as possible, and just quietly exist for a minute. (Don’t you love the way those books smell?) The public library is a safe place for all of us, whether we are a kid who feels invisible, a woman who is lost, or a New York Times bestselling author who has the privilege of sharing their story with you.

How America Embraced Aspics With Threatening Auras - Gastro Obscura:

As with so many things considered cutting-edge from the early to mid-1900s, this former food of the future is now a subject of derision and morbid fascination. Facebook groups like “Crimes against jello and vegetables and other mid-century transgressions” and “Aspics with threatening auras” collectively have tens of thousands of members, all of whom revel in the weirdest examples of the genre.

Whether it’s a whole turkey in aspic from the 1920s or a gelatin loaf portrait of Queen Elizabeth, the appeal lies in juxtapositions that feel, well, wrong. It’s what Freud would have called unheimlich, but in today’s internet parlance is known as “cursed.” Like an eyeball with a set of human teeth protruding under the lashes, the cursed aesthetic hinges on an image’s ability to make the viewer squirm.

Asking for a “correction” JK Rowling podcast’s PR firm mistakenly confirms her transphobia | Boing Boing:

Yesterday Boing Boing received an email from a PR firm claiming to "work with" the folks producing JK Rowling's podcast. The PR flack asked us to change a headline they felt was inaccurate:

Now JK Rowling grossly equates trans people to her “Death Eaters.”

The PR firm’s reasoning, and evidence their request was legitimate, actually supported the headline and seemed to confirm Rowling’s bias.

I encourage people to read the email exchange, it does seem that The Author can’t justify any argument with the headline as it is.

Mastodon Ownership · weblog.masukomi.org:

A group calling itself “Mask Group” has purchased three of the largest mastodon instances.

I don’t know if it’s better or worse… The brand seems to be a conglomerate of web3/NFT/crypto hucksters who are very excited by every digital MLM scheme around, and want to use every social media method they can to reach new people. If you’re allergic to BS buzzword salad, a visit to their site at mask.io might actually kill you.

I don’t believe a group like that can be a long-term steward, but I don’t know that anyone can be really. I would really like to see a simple composable package that sets up an activepub compatible server and matrix (or even XMPP) compatible server, with proper certs, in a way that anyone can setup federated social and chat on their domain for small communities in a way that we really do leverage the decentralized federated services for anyone.

Daring Fireball: It’s Game Over on Vocal Deepfakes:

Real recordings will be called fake and fake recordings will be leaked as purportedly real. I don’t think the general population is prepared for this, and I worry that news media organizations aren’t either.

This tech is moving out of the uncanny valley and into the indistinguishable realm… And bad actors will absolutely go wild with it.