This is a good move for Bandcamp.

https://consequence.net/2026/01/bandcamp-bans-all-ai-music/

Government U-turns on mandatory digital ID cards for workers

https://news.sky.com/story/government-u-turns-on-mandatory-digital-id-cards-for-workers-13493917

#privacy #UK

You don't need to pay Apple or start a new subscription to unleash your creativity. We asked creatives what free software they use to get the job done and here are their picks.

A thread 🧵

kde.org/for/creators/

#creativity #design #audio #art #video

Full thread: https://floss.social/@kde/115895308165423644

Nuovo video tutorial su come aggiornare @linuxmint@mastodon.social 22.2 a 22.3 "Zena" in pochi minuti.

PeerTube: https://videos.gianmarco.gg/w/fuyH6mwKosDKRfA6kkcwF5
Odysee: https://odysee.com/@gianmarcogg03:e/mintupgrade:a
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_M83E7fF2s

@linux@diggita.com

#FreeSoftware #LibreSoftware #SoftwareLibero #OpenSource #FOSS #Video #Privacy #Linux #GNULinux #LinuxMint #LinuxMint223

In 2009, Microsoft made it a focus of the Windows 7 user experience guidelines to reduce pointless notifications. They point out notifications like the classic “There are unused icons on your desktop” as being in the Windows XP Hall of Shame™. Seriously, it’s in there: https://learn.microsoft.com/windows/win32/uxguide/mess-notif

In 2026, Windows interrupts you to ask if you want to clean up printers you haven’t used in a while. The intent is unclear (which printers?), there are too many choices, and it stays visible until you click an option.

For a good while, Microsoft were limping their way to good UX, and this doc was finally a clear set of guidelines. Now, it feels like they’ve slipped back into the Windows XP Hall of Shame™ era, and any good UX they happen to come up with is an accident.

#windows #windows11

Learn to self host now. While you still can.

Age verification is spreading like cancer.

First they came for adults site and social media; now they are already discussing about putting VPNs and app stores behind #AgeVerfication 🇬🇧🇦🇺

What’s sold as “online safety” means #surveillance via IDs checks or face scans.

Privacy & anonymity protect journalists, whistleblowers & activists.

We must fight against age verification - or the free web dies!

👉 More: https://tuta.com/blog/age-verification-kills-anonymity

dying laughing here:

https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli/issues/16750

Duckduckgo has a survey for pro/anti-AI and I cackled so hard at the (current) results

https://voteyesornoai.com

The server will now go down for maintenance.

The server is now back online.

Rumoredly, YouTube is getting rid of custom ".ytt" subtitles from their website. Here's a quick shell script if you need to archive them in a few formats for all languages:

#!/bin/sh
for i in vtt ttml srv3 json3; do
    yt-dlp --write-subs --all-subs --sub-format "$i" --skip-download --compat-options no-live-chat "$1"
done

I really wish we could get a secure replacement for email already, one that’s incompatible and not just bolting on and becoming an optional feature by necessity.

And SMS.

And phone networks.

And credit card networks.

And

Remember, we are causing the AI boom to falter because we keep using the term "slop":

https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/05/microsofts-nadella-wants-us-to-stop-thinking-of-ai-as-slop/

This is not very nice of us and is costing Microslop, and its slopholders and inveslops, real money.

RE: https://social.vmbrasseur.com/@vmbrasseur/115922995190919975

Mozilla wants your input. Here's mine:

Mozilla should be doing two things and two things only:

1: Building THE reference implementation web browser, and
2: Being a jugular-snapping attack dog on standards committees.
3: There is no 3.

Mozilla should have NOTHING to do with AI. Nobody wants it. Stop forcing AI into every corner of every project because your VC-brained management have completely lost the plot.

https://mozillafoundation.tfaforms.net/201

so ai is going great

https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/20/pwc_ai_ceo_survey/

LIQUID GLASS? MORE LIKE LIQUID ASS! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? THIS IS AN ABOMINATION OF MANKIND!

Just pointing out that a US parent company owns the European sovereign cloud 🙃

@vkc@linuxmom.net a point in favour of the association between the sparkle emoji and generative AI: gnome's new icon set contains a sparkle icon called ai-slop, which is also tagged with generative and bullshit