Quinn Norton

quinn@social.circl.lu

Writer, migrant, surprisingly nice in person. I write, these days mostly explainers. Old queer. I would rather be blocked than tone policed. It's all warnable content. More meme literate than I should be at this age. I mainly shitpost, then sometimes make you cry. ❤️ (I take <a href="https://social.circl.lu/tags/alt4u" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#alt4u</a> help, thanks)

Posts

Post #4474128
RE: https://stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/117048396195686755 I fondly remember my immediate reaction when I saw that first webpage: "Why would anyone use this when there are perfectly good gopher servers out there?"
Post #4411159
@dangillmor@mastodon.social laws are not for companies, who can act with impunity, that's the American way. Remember the Sony Rootkit? Still maybe the largest hack ever, but it didn't count because Sony did it. 50 AGs, not a single one was interested. That's who we are, that's why things are like this.
Post #4352250
RE: https://mastodon.social/@EUauditors/117030523517841711 Is it though? Is it? Is it transforming the world like lead in the water transformed ancient Rome and 1970s America? Is it transforming the world by tricking us into giving up our climate goals? Is it changing the world by burning it? Is it changing us by stealing our humanity and giving us collective psychosis? I don't see many productivity gains, but I do see dead kids, burning forests, financial instability and a mad rush towards...
Post #4279116
RE: https://infosec.exchange/@0xabad1dea/117013470325193102 With just the right set of circumstances, you could end up saying "I had to go to The Hague for a parking ticket, those guys are harsh"
Post #4246262
The whole Hugging Face/Openai thing just reeks of scam. It's a publicity stunt, it helps keep them in the media, trying to scare people into being wowed by their horrible next word picker. folks are assuming that it must of happened... because they said so? If it happened, it would be fucking CFAA felony. And there's no way to know if it's totally cleaned up on HF's side, *that's not how compromises of infrastructure work*
Post #4234154
I've decided to just call myself an LLM vegan. I plan to be annoying as hell about it too.
Post #4195527
I am fighting an ant invasion and all twisted up about how to get rid of them, but nicely if possible, thinking "what would @futurebird@sauropods.win do?"
Post #4165697
@mcnado@mstdn.social I've had an ng tube raw dogged violently down my nose. It went badly. For everyone in the room when I started violently vomiting.
Post #4009458
RE: https://mas.to/@gleick/116962686153453732 Turns out the CFAA was just a law for normal poor people.
Post #3861260
If there was something i could beam into the heads of all my fellow journalists, it's that polls are polls, and just polls. They can't peer into the collective soul of the people. They're not elections, sales figures, personality tests, cultural benchmarks, or some god-like insight into how the people will think and act. They're polls, and they've been broken for a while, partly because everyone knows what a poll is. And most people don't love them.
Post #3792968
RE: https://fediscience.org/@petersuber/116912971042945604 This seems like a good reason to preemptively block UK ips from accessing Wikipedia. That should make everyone happy.
Post #3675185
OMFG the Brits have the chance to do the funniest thing Please come through guys, it would be amazing. Epic. It's the miracle we all need right now. https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-farages-election-gamble-could-see-him-face-one-challenger-count-binface-2026-07-08/
Post #3600731
A lot of people acting like Trump is a uniquely American problem because of some integral flaw in the character of Americans. Folks sure aren't looking too close to their own right wings, which is how America got where it is now. There is a general rise in stupid awful fascism around the world, and slagging off Americans as particular idiots isn't going to help you get ready to fight your own fascists. Especially when you realize they might be your neighbors or your kids.
Post #3558140
The stories that come out from ICE don't surprise me, but a deep level they confuse me. How do these lying liars who lie all the time, and hurt people every chance they get, see themselves? Are they somehow the heroes of their own stories? If so, how?
Post #3472611
RE: https://mastodon.social/@anon_opin/116832554693146959 *spit take*
Post #3265788
The longer I live away from America, the more American culture looks like an ecosystem of cults. The jobs are cults, the neighborhoods are cults, the politics are cultish, the grocery stores are tribally affiliated. Step out of line and your cult will punish you. Or, the cult you are physically geolocated with. In the case of homeowner associations, literally you will be punished. It's weird, and bad, and America should stop it. Land of the Free - as long as your life style pleases the HOA.
Post #2613255
no post has ever made me feel more seen than this one.
Post #2531621
So I know I&#39;m almost too late but what fruit or vegetable should Starmer be racing to the finish line?
Post #2388282
RE: https://mastodon.social/@asymco/116544684139577727 That math doesn&#39;t math out too good.
Post #2100871
Happy Real Labor Day, everyone. Occupy the streets and man the barricades! Here&#39;s a little but of the history they try to make sure you never learn in school: https://medium.com/message/may-day-4ddceeae25ad
Post #1978059
Ok time for some SCIENCE. Movie science. How much do you see movies and where?
Post #1974130
The most maddening tech discourse these days is that we need AI to figure out how to solve climate change. We&#39;ve known how to completely solve climate change for more than a decade, thanks. We just don&#39;t want to.
Post #1803646
Me, Gen X, talking to my millennial partner: "I need you to understand how deeply traumatized my generation is, and how it interacts with our politics and world view." *Reaches for the Neverending Story DVD* (Also we're all lead poisoned, and survived on hose water, ketchup-is-a-vegetable lunches and Tupac and Biggie)
Post #1637741
I&#39;m endlessly confused by the wave of legislation to ban children from accessing social media, rather than banning social media companies from harming children. And yes I know Free Speech but now we know that we can torture and sicken people, including kids, in this medium. Some of the things we currently call Free Speech turn out to be poison, mental control, and torture. At some point we have to separate the &quot;innovation&quot; from the digital lead and asbestos tech com...
Post #1591913
I just need to say this every so often to keep myself sane: IT&#39;S NOT THE FUCKING DEPARTMENT OF WAR IT&#39;S THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CHANGING THE NAME TAKES AN ACT OF CONGRESS YOU KNOW CONGRESS? THE MOST POWERFUL BRANCH OF THE US GOVERNMENT? THAT ONE? THE ONE THAT CAN EXCLUSIVELY DECLARE WAR?
Post #1478088
Do you ever hear a sound in a dream so loud it wakes you up? I'm going to try and go back to sleep.
Post #1392768
@AlSweigart@mastodon.social I never wanted anything to be in the cloud. Old woman shakes fist at the sky. I suppose I am very internet old and was involved in the early days of personal data harvesting.
Post #1343118
One day there will be a story/movie/etc. genre where the hero goes back in time to kill Baby Trump before he can rise to power.
Post #1336418
Just found out who Hasan Piker is. Do not like the vibes. Has that tortured cats as a 13-year-old aura.
Post #1211050
@mztx@forcefemm.ing daaaamn you burned down bsky almost as much they burned down their infrastructure