Imagine a tech conference having no CFP, as they reach out to speakers directly. They successfully attract some of the most heavy hitter men speakers in tech, and 3 women speakers.

Now imagine my surprise that 2 of those women are FAKE profiles.

They do not exist.

Nada.

— Gergely Orosz (@GergelyOrosz) November 24, 2023

It's not often (read: ever) that I get to post about drama from my country, but this one is hot off the press and I think you guys might find interesting.

Full info is in the nitter thread, but here's a quick rundown:

QRD

Eduards Sizovs is some bloke that organizes and runs several international tech conferences, of those the two that are important to this are DevTernity and JDkon, though there are others

Apparently the organizers of these events do not accept applications from potential speakers, but instead reach out to people they are interested in, thus creating this more of a closed group of speakers.

Well, now as it turns out, there are fake speakers that are signed and advertised at these conferences (and have been in the past). In reality, they are merely fake online personas created by Eduards, and have never actually appeared at any of his events. Currently 4 such personas have been identified, all of them being women.

Here's Alina Prokhoda, a speaker at the upcoming DevTernity conference with prior experience at WhatsApp and Microsoft MVP who has been identified as a non-existent person who has never worked for those companies:

And here's Anna Boyko, with the same issues

Besides these there's also Julia Kirsina who worked as Uber's software Architect in Estonia, despite Uber not even having such division in that country, and there's also Natalie Standler who (didn't) work at coinbase.

Eduards has pushed back against the notion of him creating fake speakers by saying that a single fake was added by accident, but was quickly proven wrong when it was shown that these 4 fine ladies have been signed up to his conferences on 5 different occasions in total, and yet have given 0 speeches, without anyone ever seeing them in person.

This caused the organizer to go into full damage control mode as other, actually real speakers started pulling out of the conference after being informed of the controversy

But how could this happen? Surely someone would've noticed that these people don't exist?

Well, as it turns out, while the people themselves are fake, they have a very real online presence- we're talking several different social media accounts with over 100k followers, actively posting motivational quotes about girls who code, all while hiding behind what are likely AI-generated pictures of women. In short, Eduards has been quite successfully running several catfish accounts pretending to be women

Even Kiwifarms' LFJ gave her opinion on the matter, which is a complete moment which just shows that fricking everything and everyone is connected

So now for the big question: why would he do it?

Well, the guy who broke this story speculates that the reason behind why every fake persona is a woman is that Eduards, the organizer, has been trying to up his DEI compliance to attract bigger fish to his conferences by making them seem more inclusive than they really are, and probably to get some gibs/shoutouts from the organizations that promote such nonsense in the first place. Oh, and of course to milk attendees who pay... up to 800$ to attend? WTF people?

Well, now he's been caught and his entire life's work will likely go down the drain. Sucks to suck

So what's your opinion? Is the dude based for duping r-slurs, or is he an r-slur himself for thinking no one would find out?

Based - 253 votes

R-slur - 51 votes

I would like to apologize if this is a bit clumsily written because I'm a bit out of my comfort zone here trying to write about shit I have no understanding of off twitter, but I wanted to do it quickly so none of you strags manage to snitch it first

The bill to ban TikTok is absolutely terrifying. It gives the government the ability to go after anyone they deem as a national security risk at which point they can access everything from their computer to video games to their ring light.

This is a Patriot Act for the internet. pic.twitter.com/uYea49F1b1

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 28, 2023

Kiwi schizos discuss

Observers note that if somebody or something is designated as a threat to national security, under the proposed legislation, the government would be given full access to these entities.

The text of the act singles out several usual suspects as foreign adversaries, such as Russia, China, Iran, etc., but, the director of national intelligence and the secretary of commerce are free to add new “foreign adversaries” to the list, while not under obligation to let Congress know about it.

They would also be given 15 days before notifying the president.

Critics make a point of the fact that US citizens marked as national security threat can also be considered and treated using the provisions of this proposal as “foreign individuals.”

And when this designation is in place, then the threat of “any action deemed necessary” to mitigate it kicks in, which could result in people being ordered to pay a million dollar fine, spend 20 years in prison, or lose all assets (and these forms of punishment would be meted out without due process).

No limits are put on the funding and hiring to enforce the act, and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) would not apply.

archive of the bill

I never knew banning an app was complicated

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38369820

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/180r227/google_chrome_will_limit_ad_blockers_starting?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/technews/comments/180zrvc/google_chrome_will_limit_ad_blockers_starting?sort=controversial

Google Chrome will limit ad blockers starting June 2024

The "Manifest V3" rollout is back after letting tensions cool for a year.

Chrome's new adblock-limiting extension plan is still on. The company paused the rollout of the new "Manifest V3" extension format a year ago after an outcry over how much it would damage some of Chrome's most popular extensions. A year later, Google is restarting the phase-out schedule, and while it has changed some things, Chrome will eventually be home to inferior filtering extensions.

Google's blog post says the plan to kill Manifest V2, the current format for Chrome extensions, is back on starting June 2024. On that date (we'll be on "Chrome 127" by then), Google will turn off Manifest V2 for the pre-stable versions of Chrome—that's the Beta, Dev, and Canary channels. Google says, "Manifest V2 extensions [will be] automatically disabled in their browser and will no longer be able to install Manifest V2 extensions from the Chrome Web Store."

The timeline around a stable channel rollout is worded kind of strangely. The company says: "We expect it will take at least a month to observe and stabilize the changes in pre-stable before expanding the rollout to stable channel Chrome, where it will also gradually roll out over time. The exact timing may vary depending on the data collected, and during this time, we will keep you informed about our progress." It's unclear what "data" Google is concerned with. It's not the end of the world if an extension crashes—it turns off and stops working until the user reboots the extension. Maybe the company is concerned about how many people Google "Firefox" once their ad-blocker stops working.

Enterprise users with the "ExtensionManifestV2Availability" policy turned on will get an extra year of Manifest V2 compatibility.

Google's sales pitch for Manifest V3 is that, by limiting extensions, the browser can be lighter on resources, and Google can protect your privacy from extension developers. With more limited tools, you'll be more exposed to the rest of the Internet, though, and a big part of the privacy-invasive Internet is Google. The Electronic Frontier Foundation called Google's description of Manifest V3 "Deceitful and Threatening" and said that it's "doubtful Mv3 will do much for security."

Firefox's Add-On Operations Manager also didn't agree with any claims of privacy benefits, saying that, while malicious add-ons "are mostly interested in grabbing bad data, they can still do that with the current webRequest API." In a later article, the EFF also points out that Google's "lighter on resources" argument also doesn't really hold water. Anyone can open the Chrome Task Manager and see that a single website can take up a huge amount of memory, often in the 200MB-plus range. On the high end now for me, Slack is drinking 500MB, while a single Google Chat tab, created by this company that is so concerned about performance, is at 1.5GB of memory usage. Something like uBlock Origin, across all your tabs, is in the 80MB range.

The one part of Manifest V3 that everyone can agree on is that it will hurt ad blockers. Google is adding a completely arbitrary limit on how many "rules" content filtering add-ons can include, which are needed to keep up with the nearly infinite ad-serving sites that are out there (by the way, Ars Technica subscriptions give you an ad-free reading experience and make a great holiday gift!). Google originally went with a completely crippling limit of 5,000 "dynamic" rules, and after the widespread outrage during its first attempt to push Manifest V3, the company upgraded filtering to a "more generous" limit of 30,000 rules. uBlock Origin comes with about 300,000-plus filtering rules you can enable, and you can also import additional blocking lists and have that number skyrocket.

As far as we can tell, there's no justification for arbitrarily limiting the list of filter rules. Manifest V2 does not have a limit and works great. Firefox is also implementing Manifest V3—it basically has to because Chrome is so much more popular—but it's doing so without limits to filtering and other capabilities. Mozilla's blog post on the subject promises "Firefox's implementation of Manifest V3 ensures users can access the most effective privacy tools available like uBlock Origin and other content-blocking and privacy-preserving extensions."

Once Manifest V3 happens, Chrome users will be limited to "uBlock Origin Lite," while users will need to switch to Firefox or some other non-limited browser to get the full extension. An FAQ on the project details just how many feature regressions there will be—in addition to the hard limits on filtering rule sets, there are a host of other limits on filtering now. Items can't be filtered based on the response headers or according to the URL in the address bar. Developers are more limited in what regular expressions they can use, along with a host of other technical limitations.

Just joking it's VS code

https://old.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/162i54n/chinese_developers_release_cecide_claimed_as?sort=controversial

You live in a (((bad country))))? Sorry, we can't trust your device.

You have been using the internet in (((bad faith)))? Sorry, we can't trust your device.

You are posting (((dangerous))) content and (((disinformation))) online? Sorry, we can't trust your device.

Remember, you do not own this device.

Comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35524297 [178 comments]

https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/12ijhs4/the_free_software_foundation_is_dying/?sort=controversial [19 comments, removed]

https://archived.moe/g/thread/92712732 [367 replies]

https://archived.moe/g/thread/92716274 [still active, so far 57 replies]

https://fosstodon.org/@drewdevault/110180214217072221

There was some pushback, so Drew addressed the haters on HN:

Many people in this thread take offense at the calls to (1) remove RMS because of his problematic behavior and (2) promote diverse people to leadership positions.

I will reply to all of these comments at once: get a fricking grip.

No one, including myself, is calling for RMS to be removed because he has the wrong skin color or s*x. He needs to go because he acts as if his demographics are the right demographics, and those who don't have those traits feel unwelcome and uncomfortable under his leadership. That's a problem with RMS, not with his demographic identity, and someone possessing his demographic traits (which, I presume, are probably shared with most of the commenters upset about this), but lacking his problematic behaviors, would be a welcome change.

As for the inclusion of more diverse leaders:

1. There is more than one leadership position at the FSF.

2. I am not calling for non-proportional representation, or for forcing proportional representation either.

If you feel threatened because someone called for a jerk who looks similar to you to be kicked out of a project, that's a personal problem. If you feel threatened by the prospect of being led by people who look dissimilar to you, that's a personal problem.

Again, to sum it up: get a grip. Jesus.

That's right, do better, chuds!

https://old.reddit.com/r/MediaSynthesis/comments/wk9jzx/dalle_2_vs_stable_diffusion_comparison/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/wjcx15/dalle_vs_stable_diffusion_comparison/?sort=controversial

Haha I posted this on Dalle2 group and got banned 😂😂😂

Just got banned from Dalle.

Stable Diffusion for the win.

Safe to invest in anything that reddit hates?

>Kevin Rose who bought a $16.5 million dollar house in LA Brentwood burned his ENS name and sold two NFTs for $500k+ EACH without paying royalties.

https://www.therichest.com/luxury-architecture/kevin-rose-buys-16-million-l-a-mansion/

>Tether printed another Billion and reddit is mad

>ETH issuance is going to be negative .5 percent this year rather than 4-5 percent inflation.

>Milady is settling its internal lawsuit between founders.

https://www.dlnews.com/articles/people-culture/milady-nfts-lose-a-third-of-their-value-as-founders-fight/

>Sam ALTMAN's world coin is FRICKING MOONING. go check the chart $WLD

The first human received an implant from @Neuralink yesterday and is recovering well.

Initial results show promising neuron spike detection.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 29, 2024

Can't believe PEEPEE OUT didn't make it. RIP Harambe, you were too good for this world.

orange site: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35861826

One, SVB was incredibly integrated into the lives of many founders. Not just their startup's bank & lender, but also provided personal mortgages and other financial services. A whole mess for FDIC (or the eventual buyer) to unwind.

— Brad Hargreaves (@bhargreaves) March 10, 2023

A guy is standing on the corner of the street smoking one cigarette after another. A lady walking by notices him and says

"Hey, don't you know that those things can kill you? I mean, didn't you see the giant warning on the box?!"

"That's OK" says the guy, puffing casually "I'm a computer programmer"

"So? What's that got to do with anything?"

"I'm the world's gayest and most r-slurred piece of shit. I'm so pathetic and no one likes me. I smell really bad all the time and I hate eating vegetables but I love computers sooo much... my tiny ichthyosis peepee gets hard when it sees a fresh new computer screen or high tech gadget"

Rare U.S. Government actually does something useful for once.

orange site discussion

rtechnology discussion

second rtechnology thread

https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/15/apple-confirms-its-breaking-iphone-web-apps-in-the-eu-on-purpose/

Tldr: due to new eu requirements apple decided to throw a tantrum and suspend their support for PWAs on safari. "PWA" is when you "install" the webpage on your phone screen (see the rdrama phone app tab)

As to why they're doing it - to have your app in the appstore you have to pay up. By just sideloading it using PWAs you could avoid paying the fee.

Redditard discussions

https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1as3dn8/apple_confirms_its_breaking_iphone_web_apps_in/?sort=controversial

Another

https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1as3b15/apple_confirms_ios_174_removes_home_screen_web/?sort=controversial

Even iToddlers at /r/apple ain't buying that https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1aro48s/apple_confirms_ios_174_removes_home_screen_web/?sort=controversial

The linked news website has especially funny comment section because it has a lot of butthurt iToddlers trying to make excuses lol

Hackercels thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39388218

First claimed successful replication of LK-99

Accomplished by a team at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology and posted 30 minutes ago.

Why this is evidence:
The LK-99 flake slightly levitates for both orientations of the magnetic field, meaning it is not simply a… pic.twitter.com/bh0x9oqaz2

— Andrew Cote (@Andercot) August 1, 2023

Have a bunch of links:

orange site

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36953819

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36951140

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36952894

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36951815

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/18nzazp/substack_says_it_will_not_remove_or_demonetize?sort=controversial

If you look at the code, it's because for whatever reason, the emoji loader code creates an array that maps tags to emojis... but for some reason, they decided to implement this by storing an array of tags and then binary searching that array for EVERY TAG that must be updated -- consider that each of the 5,000 some emojis have multiple tags! Plus, they create multiple DOM elements for each emoji! This code has O(m * n * log(n)) complexity, where m is the average number of tags per emoji and n is the number of emojis. This code could very simply be sped up by using a hashmap (which is builtin with JS's Map) or by doing this work on the server and saving the result, so you would send back a JSON file like

{
    "tags": {
        "marsey": ["marseylove", "marseyfemboy", ...],
        "othertag": ["emoji1", "emoji2"....]
   }
}

That is all! What happens next? !codecels !schizomaxxxers !pings !dramatards !reportmaxxers discuss

orange site

r/technology

r/news

Farewell Letter

New CEO is Neal Mohan

i thought this already but now its real

also !codecels come laugh and point

https://graz.social/@publicvoit/111147782761723981

slack my nuts

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37702095