Jons Mostovojs @jonn@social.doma.dev

Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here https://www.bellingcat.com/donate/

Honestly I think we're screwed. Maybe I had some hope years ago, but after all that time from what I see around me, we're not going to do any significant changes that are needed.

I see people still flying to vacations, meetups, work stuff... A person I know flew south to be in the sun and then complained how hot it was. Meanwhile I'm contemplating if taking a 2-day bus/train ride is worth it to get to central Europe. Financially it makes no sense as flying is so subsidised that it's cheaper to fly to Europe. And booking it is a pain in the behind.

There has been some progress in diets, as we have a lot more plant based options available, but overall the numbers are not enough. At least I'm not usually getting ridiculed for my choices anymore. But being the only person ordering a vegan or vegetarian option in a large group tells me everything I need to know.

I bike to work year round and get admiring comments from people when it's raining or snowing or freezing outside. But honestly, for an able bodied person it's not such a huge deal to do. It's a hassle, sure, but in terms of personal sacrifices, for me it's a really easy choice to make. Meanwhile we have lowered the tax on petrol and have pretty much regulated ethanol cars out of existence. Biogas barely hanging on, and electric cars are too expensive. Any improvements for cycling infrastructure and for example trams in my city face fierce resistance, but there's always a need for more parking space.

The attitude of the people in my life on climate change range mostly from "I don't believe it exists" to "it's not our fault and we can't do anything about it" to "I don't think about it at all". Gotta love the jokes about climate change when it's -20°C outside, but when we're making new temperature records monthly or when it's 25°C in flipping early May, then it's always some other reason or just "nice and we should enjoy it". God forbid you try to mention the reasons behind the changes in the climate, then you're the ideological one and a spoilsport.

And it's not like I'm perfect. I make bad choices all the time. But it feels like at least I'm doing something, and what I get for it is reduced opportunities, extra hassle, and sometimes ridicule. I'd love to go to the alps for a skiing trip, or fly to Europe to a BEAM meetup or FOSDEM. Getting to experience an Airbus A380 would be so cool. And you know, plenty of times that plant based food has been subpar and I've looked at my friend's lunch with envy (recently less though). That's the nature of sacrifices, they suck. But what am I doing them for if it's all going to shit anyway?

I don't know how to end this properly, since it's just a thought dump. But don't tell me about your flight to the Azores and expect me to be happy for you.

My dudes, Telegram is not an e2e messaging app like Signal or WhatsApp. Telegram is more like Twitter. It is a social media app that is mostly public content that also happens to have DMs, where you can turn on e2e messaging with questionable cryptography that most people never even bother to use.

#GHC supports lexically scoped type variables, without which some type signatures are simply impossible to write. For example:
```
f :: forall a. [a] -> [a]
f xs = ys ++ ys
where
ys :: [a]
ys = reverse xs
```
The type signature for f brings the type variable a into scope, because of the explicit forall (Declaration type signatures). The type variables bound by a forall scope over the entire definition of the accompanying value declaration. In this example, the type variable a scopes over the whole definition of f, including over the type signature for ys. In Haskell 98 it is not possible to declare a type for ys; a major benefit of scoped type variables is that it becomes possible to do so.

An equivalent form for that example, avoiding explicit forall uses Pattern type signatures:
```
f :: [a] -> [a]
f (xs :: [aa]) = xs ++ ys
where
ys :: [aa]
ys = reverse xs
```
Unlike the forall form, type variable a from f’s signature is not scoped over f’s equation(s). Type variable aa bound by the pattern signature is scoped over the right-hand side of f’s equation. (Therefore there is no need to use a distinct type variable; using a would be equivalent.)

i think about this image a lot

oh my god! i was walking home (fucken hot out eh) and glanced at the wall and undergrowth to the side, wondering if I’d spot any more lizards to photograph and make @k8 jealous (😂) when i saw a flash of white and stopped in my tracks… a luna moth! no fucking way! that is the absolute coolest thing, i’m thrilled #LunaMoth #moths

New prompt injection data exfiltration attack today, this time against Slack and Slack AI

It's a bit of a subtle one, but the net effect is that if you can get your malicious tokens into a Slack you can get their AI bot to trick users into exfiltrating private data by clicking on links

My notes here: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Aug/20/data-exfiltration-from-slack-ai/

Original report by PromptArmor here: https://promptarmor.substack.com/p/data-exfiltration-from-slack-ai-via

VERY BIG TOP NEWS TODAY 👀

🇺🇦 1,263 km² of territory and 93 settlements in the Kursk region are under the control of AFU, - Syrskyi

💥 AFU destroyed pontoon crossing and engineering equipment in the Kursk region.

🔥 Rosrezerv oil depot in Proletarsk: The area of ​​fire 10.000 m2. 22 fuel tanks are burning.

🇩🇪 Germany plans to deliver four IRIS-T to Ukraine by the end of the year + 10 Gepard, 10 Leopard tanks and more, - EP

SUPPORT ME 💙💛
http://buymeacoffee.com/MAKS22
patreon.com/Maks24

📝 New blogpost: "Stop feeding the hype and start resisting" #ChatGPT #StochasticParrots #LanguageModels #HigherEducation #AIEthics https://irisvanrooijcogsci.com/2023/01/14/stop-feeding-the-hype-and-start-resisting/

🚨Our paper `Reclaiming AI as a theoretical tool for cognitive science' is now forthcoming in the journal Computational Brain & Behaviour. (Preprint: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/4cbuv)

Below a thread summary 🧵1/n

#metatheory #AGI #AIhype #cogsci #theoreticalpsych #criticalAIliteracy 🧪

@virtulis Tētis tikko atrakstīja:

“Tās plūmes. Jā, no ziemeļkorejas. Meitene veikalā to apstiprināja. Uz kastēm tā esot rakstīts. Jautāju, vai citiem pircējiem nav par šo faktu jautājumi, teica, ka es tāds pirmais. To mikroskopisko uzrakstu jau daudzi vispār nevar izlasīt.”

Tiešām ir legāli pārdot Ziemeļkorejas izcelsmes produktus Latvijā? Man tas šķiet 🤯🤯🤯

The Russian reaction to Ukraine's invasion of Kursk is somewhat misunderstood. They may be slow, but they are not paralyzed. We should expect them to escalate the war, but that will require the use of conscripts. They are progressing slowly to avoid domestic backlash.
https://youtu.be/u_80rUKItGc