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An open-weight AI strategy is the right one. The closed, locked down, API-only, "we are Frontier" eliteness is doomed to failure, and at best, will result in hollowed out companies eventually piggybacking off the work of others instead of innovating. Most ubiquitous tech we all use today, under the hood or at its origin is open source or based on open source.

This article isn't taking into account Gemma, GPT-OSS, and others. There are lots of good open-weight non-Chinese models, but China is releasing the best ones right now.

I thought this was interesting: "American AI is locked down and proprietary. It's losing."

werd.io/american-ai-is-locked-

American AI is locked down and proprietary. It's losing.
American AI is locked down and proprietary. It's losing.
China's open-weights AI strategy is winning: its companies are taking the lead. America's closed-first, locked-down strategy is doomed to failure - and it could take the US economy down with it.

It absolutely sucks being in the server infrastructure buying market right now. The costs are completely out of control. No one can afford this. It's almost all BS they're blaming it on the industry. No, this is simply capitalism gone wrong and an aggressive push by industry to force organisations into renting everything.

Meta Now Lets Anyone Use Your Instagram Photos In AI Images tech.slashdot.org/story/26/07/

Meta Now Lets Anyone Use Your Instagram Photos In AI Images - Slashdot
Meta Now Lets Anyone Use Your Instagram Photos In AI Images - Slashdot
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Meta launched its inaugural AI image model from the Meta Superintelligence Labs on Tuesday, its effort to compete with the likes of OpenAI's GPT Images 2.0 and Google's Nano Banana 2 in the AI image generation race. The new model, called Muse Image, ro...

The arrest of a teenage hacker has revealed that can track a Windows PC and its online activity through a “Global Device ID" that seems to have no easy opt-out, sparking fears about potential .
pcmag.com/news/a-hackers-arres

RSS is a secret trick to making the internet more usable. eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/hate

Hate “The Algorithm?” RSS Is One of the Tools You’ve Been Looking For
Hate “The Algorithm?” RSS Is One of the Tools You’ve Been Looking For
Since at least the moment Facebook introduced (and apologized for) its News Feed, “the algorithm” has been shorthand for the ways the tech giants control what we see and when we see it. In the age of enshittification, there is a push to reclaim our feeds and networks. Good news: there’s a tool that’s been around for decades that can help wrangle many of your feeds into something manageable: Really Simple Syndication, more commonly known as RSS.

New, breaking: FBI Seizes NetNut Proxy Platform, Popa Botnet

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said today it worked with industry partners to seize hundreds of domains associated with NetNut, a sprawling residential proxy service operated by the publicly-traded Israeli company Alarum Technologies [NASDAQ: ALAR]. The action comes roughly two weeks after KrebsOnSecurity published findings from multiple security firms connecting NetNut to the Popa botnet, a collection of at least two million devices that have been compromised by malicious software with little or no consent from victims."

krebsonsecurity.com/2026/07/fb

A graphic depicting NetNut's proxy infrastructure shows a NetNut user (proxy customer) accessing a NetNut gateway, which then relays the request to one of many NetNut control servers and through to the Popa botnet victim and on to the targeted website or destination (and back of course).
A seizure notice from the FBI features the seals of the DOJ, the FBI, the IRS-CI, and the logos of Shadowserver, Lumen and Google. This domain has been seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in accordance with federal law as part of a law enforcement action, taken in coordination with the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, against the NetNut residential proxy platform, its administrators, and its subscribers. The FBI also acknowledges that Google, Lumen’s Black Lotus Labs, and the Shadowserver Foundation, with assistance from their partners, have disrupted other domains and infrastructure used by the NetNut residential proxy platform and its subscribers in separate and independent operations pursuant to civil action and violations of terms of service, respectively.

#Art is not a luxury, it is a necessity. You #artists, #writers, #musicians, #developers and others are doing a vital service for humanity. Thank you.

And since I've been talking about recently, a new Playdeaf album Goldfish Bowl was released today! tidal.com/album/528547337/u

Damn, so good to hear a new album from these guys. My favourite is Window.

Playdeaf - Goldfish Bowl
Playdeaf - Goldfish Bowl
Listen to Goldfish Bowl on TIDAL

Happy Birthday #Canada!
🎂

OH, I totally get it now. Ren is simply just an incredibly talented artist. Holy crap. If you enjoy authentic that makes you feel something, I recommend a listen. YouTube youtube.com/user/RenMakesMusic

I'm an immediate fan of this dude.

Ren
Ren
The Official Ren YouTube Page Follow Ren: PATREON: https://renmakesmusic.lnk.to/PatreonYD Website: https://renmakesmusic.lnk.to/OfficialWebsiteYD Store/Merch: https://renmakesmusic.lnk.to/OfficialMerchYD YouTube: https://renmakesmusic.lnk.to/YouTubeYD Instagram: https://renmakesmusic.lnk.to/InstagramYD TikTok: https://renmakesmusic.lnk.to/TikTokYD ALL: https://renmakesmusic.lnk.to/exploreYD Ren Official Music Videos: - "Hi Ren" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_nc1IVoMxc - "Sick Boi" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q6uCrpzbPY - "Su!c!de" - https://youtu.be/n3JNtfi4Vb0 - "Murderer" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hscHqw7CIFo - "Animal Flow" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4mUnmFbVNg - "Illest Of Our Time" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB-JGSdBerE - "Jenny's Tale" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT4PtvgakLU - "Screech's Tale" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVsrl8zDXnU - "Violet's Tale" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4R9Vk5_CbU