https://archive.is/Ut310

They exchanged messages just before the subreddit r/WhitePeopleofTwitter was given a temporary ban for 72 hours

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59635227

Y'all come on now... If anyone in Louisiana is actually seeing this, there is no way y'all are ok with that right?

The main link is a comparison of both John Bell Edwards original declaration and Landry's most recent renewal from the 20th.

One obvious difference seems to be that Landry grants to the director of the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) authority to take whatever action he deems appropriate in response to declaration of emergency.

https://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/local/acadiana/2025/03/21/gov-landry-louisiana-omv-emergency-software-failure/82590867007/

Allegedly it has to do with the office of motor vehicles. Wouldn't be a big deal, except on literally the same day, he announced GOHSEP is now under control of the National Guard.

According to Landry "This move not only delivers significant cost savings but also aligns with my belief in the importance of relying more on our National Guard to strengthen our state's resilience."

According to this article https://www.nola.com/news/politics/jeff-landry-restructure-gohsep-under-louisiana-national-guard-fiscal-responsibility/article_7e9e08f2-ee67-463c-a2b3-424f6165a087.html

"GOHSEP Director Jacques Thibodeaux took on a challenging role and served our state with dedication under difficult circumstances. We deeply appreciate his service," Landry said in the announcement.

Thibodeaux said in an interview that, over the next 30 days, he will help transition GOHSEP from a stand-alone agency to one under the purview of the National Guard in a role titled special assistant to the adjutant general of the Louisiana National Guard.

His plans after that are currently undetermined, Thibodeaux said. He noted that he's worked in emergency management for 40 years and is also a retired army soldier and retired U.S. Marshal.

"I'm gonna take (a) well-needed break and enjoy my family, and then I'll determine what's gonna be the next chapter," he said.

So it seems like the director named in the order, no longer exists. If I'm just dumb and misunderstanding this please explain it to me.

• A jetlagged Troy Hunt accidentally clicked a link and logged into an account only to realise he had been phished.
• Despite reacting quickly, attackers were able to export a mailing list for Hunt’s personal blog.
• Hunt has detailed the attack and warned his subscribers in a timely fashion.

cross-posted from: https://poliverso.org/objects/0477a01e-4267-e55d-042f-69d193263777

Can Twitter X control journalists and politicians? The shocking revelation from Musk's Italian trustee gives pause for thought

The story of Andrea #Stroppa who, as a shareholder of X, boasts of being able to read its private messages, is told by @claudiagiulia
The journalist noticed Stroppa's "gaffe" during a "space" live broadcast and reported it to the Italian Data Protection Authority

It’s Saturday, March 22, 2025. I’m getting ready to head out and take one last look at Twitter. At the top of the screen, I spot a Spaces session featuring Andrea Stroppa, a key figure in Elon Musk’s orbit, with a prominent role in Europe, especially Italy. I hesitate, but then I notice some journalists I admire - people I’ve connected with on the platform - among the listeners. Curiosity wins out, and I join. Nicola Porro is interviewing Stroppa: they’re talking about Twitter X, Musk, and Tesla. Then my connection drops, I have to leave, and I close the app. The next day, I return to the audio: it’s still there, recorded on the platform, now heard by thousands. I pick up where I left off. At the 32-minute mark, Stroppa says something that stops me cold. I rewind and listen again. I can’t believe it. In a fleeting moment - maybe a lapse - he drops a bombshell: thanks to his role as a shareholder, he can uncover the identity of any user on X, specifically mentioning anonymous accounts that criticize him. It’s a stark claim, impossible to brush off.

A revelation everyone ignores

claudiagiulia.substack.com/p/c…

@technology

Following the announcement on 15 January that TikTok would be banned in the United States on 19 January 2025, hundreds of thousands of TikTok users migrated, and continue to migrate, to XiaoHongShu (‘Little Red Book’, or ‘RedNote’). XiaoHongShu is a Chinese app with a format similar to TikTok, which became the #1 most downloaded app on the Appstore, with 700,000 Western users joining in just two days. On 24 January, 4 days after President Trump repealed the short-lived ban, XiaoHongShu remained at #8 on the Appstore, evidencing its enduring popularity even with the return of TikTok.

This Insight investigates how Western extremists, including neo-Nazis, white supremacists and participants in Saints Culture, capitalised on the migration to XiaoHongShu. They rapidly started sharing extremist content, and even using Chinese language text to pose as Chinese netizens or be understood by a Chinese audience. Chinese netizens’ responses were largely negative, including some grassroots activist reporting of offensive content. Additionally, many monitored far-right extremist accounts and posts were removed within the first week of the migration, indicating that Chinese moderators were aware of and restricting the extremist activity, despite the unprecedented surge in English-language users.

Just found my Vivaldi update contained a little more than just bugfixes... it now has Proton VPN built in.

It's actually part of the browser, not an extension, so I'm in two minds whether I like that... or not.

You need either a Vivaldi account or a Proton account, so it's not completely anonymous, but it's a start.

The free-tier of Proton VPN also appears to be bandwidth limited and your exit point is randomised, so... yeah, it's ok...

Research

Interest in LibreOffice, the open-source alternative to Microsoft Office, is on the rise, with weekly downloads of its software package close to 1 million a week. That’s the highest download number since 2023.

“We estimate around 200 million [LibreOffice] users, but it’s important to note that we respect users’ privacy and don’t track them, so we can’t say for sure,” said Mike Saunders, an open-source advocate and a deputy to the board of directors at The Document Foundation.

LibreOffice users typically want a straightforward interface, Saunders said. “They don’t want subscriptions, and they don’t want AI being ‘helpful’ by poking its nose into their work — it reminds them of Clippy from the bad old days,” he said.

There are genuine use cases for generative AI tools, but many users prefer to opt-in to it and choose when and where to enable it. “We have zero plans to put AI into LibreOffice. But we understand the value of some AI tools and are encouraging developers to create … extensions that use AI in a responsible way,” Saunders said.

Archive article: https://archive.ph/kRM5f

Huawei on Thursday notched a milestone in its effort to cut its reliance on Google's Android operating system, releasing the first smartphone in its flagship Pura series that runs solely on its HarmonyOS Next operating system as well as an AI assistant it says can interact with humanlike "emotions."

Deepseek v3 0324 is the first open-source model to match SOTA coding performance

• Understands user intention better than before; I'd say it's better than Claude 3.7 Sonnet base and thinking. 3.5 is still better at this (perhaps the best)
• Again, in raw quality code generation, it is better than 3.7, on par with 3.5, and sometimes better.
• Great at reasoning, much better than any and all non-reasoning models available right now.
• Better at the instruction following than 3,7 Sonnet but below 3.5 Sonnet.