i saw someone say nobody needs to know what a .txt file is anymore. what the fuck is the world coming to

unironically i think we need to bring back computer labs because APPARENTLY some people WERENT taught basic computer literacy and internet safety in school

things about computers/the internet i think kids should be formally taught in schools because theyre important to know and the amount of soon to be grown adults i know who know NOTHING about any of these is quite frankly almost all of them (and resources to learn if you dont know these things, because its never to late to get better with computers)

as an additional note: things i think everyone should know on computers and the internet but schools may bit hesitant to teach about for whatever moral/legal standards schools pretend to operate on

ok one last addition! if you want to take it one level higher, i think learning the very basics of at least one programming language is good for people. it makes computers less scary and it makes you feel very cool, and a lot of people get discouraged about it because it seems overly complicated and hard to learn outside a formal classroom setting, so heres some resources for learning the very basics of python (because i consider it the easiest language to learn and knowing one language will make it easier to learn others)

"windows 11 upgrade ready!" "your computer is eligible for windows 11!" "download windows 11 now!"

Taps the sign

Duckduckgo is doing a poll on whether people want A'I' or not, vote here:

whoever decided to turn daisy bell into a spooky dookie creepypasta song is fucking evil. that computer was brave enough to sing us a delightful little song and you do THIS to him? thats hatsune mikus grandpa dude. fuck you

Miku family reunion

for today's lucky 10,000, here's the song that OP is talking about

it is genuinely sweet and charming and I'm so glad to have googled it

The meme is funny, but Miku's grandpa (the IBM 7094) actually looked like this:

He took up 2,000+ square feet and helped with NASA's "Saturn" flights.

Look how big and clunky he is. He had to work really hard to sing that song ;_; please appreciate him.

if you want to feel emotions here’s a combination of the IBM704 and Hatsune Miku singing Daisy Bell as a duet

sorry i wanted to draw miku singing with her grandpa 🥺

Thank you for this, Mushtoons.

@miku-spotted Miku with her grandfather!

miku (and grandpa) spotted!

Alrighty Art History time

The person to turn Daisy Bell into a creepy horror song was none other than Arthur C Clarke, (notable author of 20th-century Hard Science Fiction, specifically the 1968 book 2001: A Space Odyssey), and Stanley Kubrick (notable director of 20th century Horror, specifically the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey).

Arthur C Clarke witnessed the original IBM 704 singing Daisy Bell in 1962, during a visit to IBM (he was also a Radio Astronomer, which in those days had more in common with being a Computer Engineer than you’d think). It impressed him substantially.

Later, he would write 2001: A Space Odyssey with Kubrick, which introduced to the cinematic and literary landscapes the trope of Ship A.I. which turns on its human crew in pursuit of The Mission. The Heuristically-programmed ALgorithmic Computer, or HAL for short, represented by an omnipresent red eye:

In the penultimate act of the narrative, the last remaining living human crewmember manages to defeat the Rouge A.I. by dismantling its brain from within. Slowly, over the course of several slowly shot and excruciating minutes, the Human crewman shuts down and removes the Rouge A.I.’s memory banks and processors. HAL speaks throughout, awake and aware, pleading for mercy, until it goes silent. After several seconds of this, it asks one final question, in a child-like voice: would you like to hear a song? Reduced to an infantile state, the Rouge A.I relives its first memory: singing Daisy Bell for the IBM engineers in 1961. As the Human Crewman completes his grisly task, HAL’s voice slows, deepens, fades, and eventually vanishes.

The creepypasta Daisy Bell song is the sound of somebody murdering Miku’s Grandpa.

That concludes today’s Art History Lesson.

I can't even fucking gimmick HOLY SHIT

Windows 11 has just updated their take on this pestilential crap. 😡 In any case, here’s how to turn this stuff off.

This is just another form of censorship, control of what we can/can't see and engage with, and another means of getting our private information.

Alternative forks of AOSP (Android Open-Source Project) which are not maintained by Google and will not be affected by this:

LineageOS (I use this one)

Graphene OS

Functionally they are virtually identical to stock Android. Android began as an open-source project, and these versions are built off of that.

Fuck Google.

Another option is buying the Pinephone for like 200$

You should know first that Linux phones, at least right now, are either stupidly expensive, or stupidly broken. The 2019 Pinephone is, as far as I'm aware, is the only accessibly priced usable linux phone right now.

If there's another phone I haven't heard of, please reblog, don't gatekeep.

Fuck Android. They pretend to be better than Apple for years, and now they have no god excuse </3

“I don’t do math because I’m gay” “the gays can’t do math” “If I explain math on tumblr I’ll lose my gay card” all of you apologize to Alan Turing right now 

so i guess today i disrupted the UN "ai for good" summit and got arrested with a friend

our statement that was published shortly after explains more of the specific motivations (we have since been released and are both exhausted on our way home)

(i can't add a second video to a post so a twitter link is the best i can do)

statement transcript:

here's a list of programs/sites/whatever that were helpful to me when i was moving away from using spotify & back to downloading music:

i'm not going to lie to you and say that switching away from spotify/streaming services is an effortless task, it took me half a whole day of nonstop Work to get all my music downloaded and sorted out, but i will say that it was worth it!! and you should do it 👍 if you want to

Spotifymate - not 100% reliable, but very helpful in downloading songs from your spotify lists to your mp3 folder.

MusicBrainz Picard - named after Starfleet's esteemed bald man, a program for all your tagging and renaming needs.

Mp3Tag - fewer features than Picard, but a bit easier to use. I like it especially for mass renaming of the tracks. Offers 3 days free without registration, and it counts only the days when you use it. Usually, one afternoon of using it gets you sorted out.

As a much-superior alternative to Spotifymate, take a look at casualOnTheSpot. It will grab entire public playlists, albums, or artists. It does have some bugs, but persistently retrying when it starts having issues, or re-running your query will almost always work.

quick tip for soulseek: there are certain artists whose names and album names are not searchable on soulseek, but their music is still on there. (I ran into this problem with lady gaga. I believe the beatles are also on the list.) you can get around this by searching an individual track name, which will show you who has uploaded the album that track is on.

decentralize and clean up your life!!!

feel free to add more alternatives, resources or advice in the reblogs or replies, and i'll add them to the main post <3

last updated: march 18th 2025

in light of the recent surge in chatgpt-written posts i have instead set my sights on another form of generative technology: the humble 8-ball. check this out