BUTTERBODY

I wonder what the term is for a woman with an unappealing body and a face like a beach ball?

Rachel Bitecofer, a well-known progressive political scientist, faced backlash after calling Sydney Sweeney a ‘butterface’, a term used to describe a woman with an attractive body but an unappealing face.

I'll leave any transvestigations for another day, but it's safe to say there rumours!

EAT SHIT AND DIE

If you thought "eat ze bugs" was bad - Scientists at Pennsylvania State University are developing "an innovative way to recycle human waste into food using a process called anaerobic digestion". 

Microbes break down human waste into methane. Another microbe called Methylococcus capsulatus feeds on the methane and produces a protein and fat-rich biomass. The result is "a safe and edible paste that could provide essential nutrients". Yum!

FINGERPRINTING

Fingerprinting is another one of those concepts that most people seem to have given no thought to. But it's not all that complex, and it's not even in any doubt. Once explained it's actually pretty obvious. Not many people online seem to be discussing it, so I plan to do a full blog post about it soon.

To kick things off I'll just do a quick summary. Every computer (or laptop, or tablet, or phone, or other device) is unique. For example a laptop has identifying serial numbers built into it, with the motherboard, the sound card etc, each having it's own number. Unless it's running Linux the operating system does as well.

But that is only the starting point of your device's fingerprint. Every change you make to the settings, every program you add, is unique as well. If you install a browser, every change to the settings you make, and every extension you add to it, all becomes part of your fingerprint.

At this point I'm guessing everyone is expecting me to say something like "So that is why you need to use Linux". No, I'm sorry to say, there is no practical work around for this fingerprint thing. There is a very impractical work around I'll get to later, but unless you are Jason Bourne, you won't be doing it.

Despite not being a geek, from time to time friends & family ask me to sort out their computers for them. Over the past decade, typically that would be something like a basic Dell 15" laptop running Windows 10. They will have left everything as it came out of the box, made no changes at all, used it online for years with no thought of privacy or security, and eventually something has gone wrong. I have either given it a clean out, and installed a few new programs, or said no, this is junk, time to buy a new one!

 

For a total contrast, my own laptop is a top of the line Dell 17" business model with both hard drives upgraded, and a fresh Linux install that I've spent hours tweaking every setting to get it set up how I like. I have uninstalled the default browser and installed four other privacy browsers each running various extensions. But the galling thing about fingerprinting is that it makes no difference at all. In fact my laptop is actually easier to fingerprint than a $500 Windows 10 one.

So what would Jason Bourne do? If you get a brand new laptop that can't be tracked back to you, and do a fresh Linux install on it, all from a location that has no connection to you, you can use it for one task - send an email, do a blog post, do a crypto transfer etc - but remember that if you use it again, they now have that fingerprint. They may not yet have worked who you are, but the pattern is being established. If you want to do a second anon job, it's time to get another new laptop and set it up from a completely different location. (Preferably in a different country).

And that is another one of those penny dropping moments - yes they already have your fingerprint...

 

MODERN ART

Yesterday I was watching a compilation video of women taking selfies and using photos of themselves to create enhanced images to post on social media. Some of the results were hilarious so I took some screenshots and did some edits of my own. 
 
It struck me that some of them would be ideal to redo as sort of modernist paintings so I knocked a few digital remixes out.
 

"Fantasy Arse #666"

AI FREE ZONE

Much as I like to declare myself a cell phone free zone, the less dogmatic truth is that I actually have continually owned cell phones since 1998. But I seldom use them, and I really did decide to leave the stupid things turned off at all times back in 2002.

 My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy Note 9 that I bought second hand in 2019. I take it out of the house about once a week, usually keep it in a different room to the one I'm in, nearly always leave it turned off, and pretty much only use it to receive login confirmations a couple of times a week. 

It's my sixth cell phone and despite being seven years old, it's in mint condition. When it eventually stops working I'll probably replace it with a newer refurbished phone that I won't use either.

Which brings me to AI. Right now I'm looking at AI a bit like I was looking at cell phones in 2002. Yes AI is going to be the next big thing, but I think it sucks, and I want as little to do with it as possible. So I'm saying right now, as far as possible, I refuse to use or interact with AI. 

It's now estimated that around 50% of all internet activity is AI. The worst social media platform for AI is said to be Twitter ("X"), with around 75% of all content and activity being AI. I never look at Twatter myself because it's all utter crap, but I do look at Youtube (which is mostly utter crap as well). On YouTube it's glaringly obvious that the majority of the content, comments, and hits are AI. I suspect that it's actually more than 75% AI now, and climbing rapidly.

 

On Facebook which is the only social media platform I still use, the AI is rampant as well. But I don't think I'm interacting with it much, I mainly just get friend requests from women with huge boobs, no posts, and only about five friends. So really obvious fakes. I suspect a few of my "friends" are scammers, but I think those are dodgy real people rather than AI.

This may well turn out to be delusional and I could be getting conned by dozens of AI accounts, happily up-voting their fake content, or cheerfully commenting that they are lame and gay without realising I'm talking to a cell phone bot in some giant bot farm warehouse.

 Delusional or not, I'm keeping an eye out for anything that has signs of being AI. And if it looks like it might be,  I'm out of there. I suspect that there may come a time when I sound like a Luddite, but that is probably a good thing!