Sir Ryan Bemrose

Ever wonder why it seems like every piece of software is suddenly getting a ton of zero-day vulnerabilies?

These vulnerabilities aren't new. They're the expected result of two decades of agile programming, combined with ubiquitous LLMs, which excel at fuzz-testing software.

You can only "move fast and break things" for so long before your software starts to crumble under the weight of technical debt.

Good Night, No Agenda Stream. You served us well.

But the constellation of live shows continues on! We will continue streaming more than a dozen LIVE shows at Voidzero Community Radio. Pass the word!

BREAKING: No Agenda Stream is going OFFLINE following NA show #1916 tomorrow.

Stay connected with the community. Go to http://voidzero.stream for LIVE shows and quality podcasts!

(Now I've gotta go flog myself for using "BREAKING" in the headline)

Do not listen to talk of respect for other cultures from those who would see their own destroyed.

Local school board member bans children openly carrying Bibles on campus (presumably because he's worried he and his ilk will burst into flame)

https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/1958190413596594176

Now the district has to pay a $275k settlement, which will come directly out of MY stolen property taxes.

This is why I always vote no on school levies, no matter how much "for the kids" propaganda they drag out.

My local grocery store today had some kind of staffing shortage, probably a pride parade or something, the upshot of which was that none of the regular checkout lines were open. All that was available was those frustrating self-checkout kiosks where an AI voice with borderline personality berates you for having an extra paperclip on the scale.

I noticed later that the top of the receipt had the text "Your cashier today was Teresa".

No, Albertsons. My cashier today was Ryan. He hates this job, he sucks at it, and I never want him to ring up my groceries again.

When I was learning to write software, my professor gave this list of characteristics software must have to be considered quality. In order of priority:

1. Correct. When given valid input, the software must give correct output.

2. Reliable. The software does not fail when given invalid input.

3. Secure. The software does not compromise the integrity of its environment.

4. Maintainable. Software can be modified in response to requirement changes without having to rewrite it.

5. Readable. An educated person familiar with the problem domain should be able to look at the source code and understand how it works.

The number of examples of AI failing to be correct would have been a deal-breaker on the technology just 20 years ago. But modern AI and the software that it produces fail at all five.

In every discussion of the rising surveillance state, someone always has to argue that "your cell phone is already spying on you"; usually in an attempt to downplay or divert any complaints about the nationwide surviellance networks being built around us.

The cell phone argument is false equivalency. Making this argument is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest. You can opt out of being tracked by a cell phone - by removing tracking apps, by keeping the cell radio off, or simply by leaving the phone at home in a drawer. Even if you choose not to exercise this right; even if you are hopelessly addicted to your fondleslab and don't have the willpower to go five minutes without a social media notification, the choice to consent or not still exists.

No opt-out exists when cameras are surveilling the public roads that you have to use in order to exercise your freedom to move about.

A new credit card arrived in the mail today. It offers three ways to activate the card.

First, install our app and ... how about no.

Second, "Visit: website.com/activate". Yeah, let's try that. Oh, look, a redirect from https to http, causing my browser to throw a huge "Don't go here!" warning page. Now normally I think encrypting every webpage is overkill, but for credit card stuff, maybe not.

So I guess I'll take door number 3. Call this 866 number and very slowly and deliberately enunciate two dozen digits to an annoyingly-cheerful AI voice that is so advanced it doesn't even understand when I press the number buttons on my touch-tone phone.

Tell me again how technology keeps making everything easier?

There are only three types of people who vote Democrat: The corrupt, the stupid, and the fictional.

Unfortunately, America's voter rolls are overrun by all three.

I called up my credit card company to request a new card, because the previous one finally expired. The AI system was unsurprisingly resistant to putting a human on the line. I tried to explain to it that I have no working card and need a new one issued. The AI cheerfully informed me that since I have no cards, my account would now be closed, and was there anything else it could do for me today?

Fortunately, a string of profanity was able to get the system to transfer me to a human, who was able to sort things out without the destruction of 15 years worth of account trust.

Reminder how all-mail-in voting works in Washington State:

1. The state mails out ballots which arrive a couple weeks before the election.
2. Citizens dutifully fill out their preferences and put the ballot into the mailbox or an unattended drop box.
3. At the end of election day, the Democrat election officials, as directed by the Democrat politicians, announce that the Democrat whom they had preselected to win the election, won the election. There are usually ballot counts attached to these announcements, but system offers no way for the public to verify the veracity of these numbers.
4. Shortly after the election, all mailed ballots are destroyed. Wouldn't want any of that pesky "evidence" laying around, would we?

The system is perfect. No need to muck about with rigged voting machines, or ballot stuffing, or registering illegal aliens and dead people. They just announce the winner they want, and there is absolutely no way anyone can prove them wrong.

To all of the CEOs who think that AI can replace rank and file employees: CEOs can be replaced too.

https://github.com/SenteLabsAI/OpenExecutive

When I was young, I always thought that Labor Day was so named because it came nine months after the holiday season. Labor Day was the day that the expectant moms went into labor, which explains why September birthdays are so common.

Imagine my disappointment when I found out that the holiday was instead about communism.

The reason that enshittification works is because most of you out there are so hopelessly addicted to the bread and circuses, to the latest gadget, the latest social dopamine injector, or the latest status symbol, that you will put up with almost any level of indignity as long as you get your next hit.

Companies know this. They get away with it. The only way this trend gets better is if y'all start opting out of the product treadmill more often.

Whenever someone complains about surveillance networks like ALPR, there's always some pussy statist apologist coming out of the woodwork with the "But they're already tracking you through your car and your phone..."

Motherfucker, I can leave my phone at home. I can drive an older car without tracking built in. I can put my Elon chip inside a tinfoil bag.

How am I supposed to NOT drive past the panopticon-machine stationed on the PUBLIC road that goes where I need to go?

This is a difference in KIND for the surveillance society. This is a complete REMOVAL of the ability to skip this kind of tracking. Just because YOU have already given up and bent over to being tracked because it was CONVENIENT, doesn't mean that those of us who still care should somehow be DENIED the ability to go about our lives with any semblance of privacy.

One of the most annoying (personally) effects of unrepentant AI scraping is the number of sites turning to CAPTCHAs and other automated means of attempting to separate humans from bots. It doesn't work, of course; AI agents can plow through a CAPTCHA faster than a human can. But that doesn't stop the site operators from breaking accessibility with a bunch of ineffective javascript widgets.

Worse, nobody implements these things in-house anymore. Instead, they're turning to big microservices providers like Cloudflare, putting more and more of the once-open internet under the control of unaccountable corporate mega-gatekeepers.

If AI is as good at finding bugs and exploits as they say, why doesn't someone point it at the US tax code, and package the results in an app?

Thanks to AI, everyone can enjoy living tax-free like the ultra-wealthy!

Flock Safety: Constitutional Rights Infringment As A Service

Your monthly reminder to every web designer who completely rewrites a working site just to take advantage of the latest shiny whizbang javascript framework because they read about it in a trade article:

Accessibility is a thing. Look it up. Spend some time to learn about the well-understood fallback technologies called HTML and CSS.

Not everything has to be dynamically rendered. You can send information in response to a HTTP request, and not just code. The old ways are usually the best ways.

(Added bonus: HTML+CSS is pretty well tested, meaning you won't have to deploy a security patch next month. And the month after that. And the one after that. And ...)

Looks like StackOverflow has joined the ever-increasing list of sites that are completely and intentionally broken if you don't enable Remote Code Execution exploits in your browser.

Damn, and that was a useful one.

AI is not killing Hollywood. Hollywood is killing Hollywood.

AI is just a convenient scapegoat, so that they don't have to face their failures.

Three dead at a festival yesterday in the far-left communist shithole known as Seattle. Police have arrested a suspect identified only as a "15-year-old".

Not one news story mentions the suspect's race, which means he definitely wasn't white.

I propose we rename vibe-coding to something that better explains the actual process. How about Dunning-Kruger-based development?

The first time I ever heard of John C. Dvorak, he had written a review that absolutely savaged a software product that I had worked on for 18 months. I hated him instantly.

His review was spot-on. But of course that only made me dislike him more.

It wasn't until I saw him on TWiT years later that I gave the man another look. I've been a Dvorak fan ever since.

People accuse me of hating AI. Hate is a strong word that implies a level of emotional involvement that I don't generally give to online things.

I have some measure of disdain for AI. I'll argue against its use when someone suggests an inappropriate application for AI. I make fun at AI's expense. I will absolutely disrespect the people who deify AI.

But hate? Nah, I'm not nearly that invested.

It is with no small amount of wry humor that I listen to the rest of the country bitch about the wildfire smoke that we out west deal with for a month out of every summer.

I've given up on synchronous interrupt-driven communication. Notifications off, ringtones silent. When you get 15-20 robocalls a day, it's just not worth answering phone calls - especially from numbers that aren't in the address book.

Anyone who wants to get hold of me needs to leave a message - SMS, voicemail, email - somewhere that I can filter and check later, when I get the energy to deal with the bullshit of a world that wants me to be 24/7 connected.

The question is no longer "What radicalized you?"

The question is "Why aren't you radicalized yet?"

#2hfh Folk Hour Forever!

Reminder of the difference between news and propaganda:

News tells you what happened.

Propaganda tells you how to feel about it.

I don't know why the willful ignorance of political devotees still surprises me.

How often an otherwise reasonable-sounding person will demand you prove your points, but when you do, they will not trust or believe that proof - simply because they don't understand it.

I gave someone a mathematical analysis explaining why there is a higher probability that the sun will explode tomorrow killing everyone on Earth than that the numbers being reported by the Democrats of California came from actual American voters. He ignored the entire analysis and said "Yeah, but statistics aren't proof."

People who Believe will scream that there's "no evidence", and will believe their own words because they have no idea what evidence even looks like if they saw it.

And they steadfastly refuse to learn. Because that might challenge their Faith.

Debate Pro-Tip: If you are making a rational argument that you want taken seriously, avoid outing yourself as a mentally disabled 12yo by putting things like "LMAO" at the end of your post.

Some suggested symptoms of mental illness to be included in the next DSM:

• Trusting the government
• Wearing a mask alone in a car
• Having an AI girlfriend
• Believing that the weather is your fault
• Thinking that socialism can work