Do we want a half dozen tech giants spending hundreds of billions of dollars on data centers around the world to build what is essentially the same technology, spiking energy costs, creating noise and pollution, and even, according to one study, dramatically raising the temperature around the complexes due to an advanced heat island effect? So that those tech giants can make good on their promises to automate jobs en masse and remake the social contract to their liking? A great many people who live closest to said projects have decided they do not, and rather than cut deals or hedge bets, they have chosen to refuse them.

Do we want AI text and image generators producing our journalism, safeguarding our stores of knowledge, creating our art? Even if it can? If not, then it makes good sense to refuse outright those products’ entry into those arenas. To ban AI-generated content from Wikipedia, from publishing, from video games. And to ban the companies aspiring to enrich themselves by taking over all that knowledge and content production from setting up shop in our backyards.

There is great power in refusal. The Luddites are mocked today because elites worked hard to distort their legacy—it is too inconvenient, too dangerous, even—but they were cheered as folk heroes and left the industrialists deskilling their jobs terrified by refusing outright to submit to rank automation. The writers and actors in the WGA and SAG-AFTRA who went on strike in 2023 rallied millions to their cause by drawing a line in the sand and refusing to let their work be turned over to studio bosses with enterprise ChatGPT accounts.

Looking back at the events of the last few weeks, I can’t help but wonder if we’re seeing a reawakening of our capacity for this sort of mass refusal. As it becomes clearer by the day that AI promises to be an implement of automation; of worker exploitation and knowledge degradation; an enormous energy and resource consumer; a tremendous engine of wealth transfer.

STEM graduates once clamored for jobs in Big Tech, but not so readily anymore. Since Israel began its genocide in Gaza, it has relied on AI and surveillance systems developed by once-dream-job companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. Today, many students and workers, uncomfortable with the prospect of fortifying the Israeli war machine, are engaging in a concerted effort to build alternative futures in technology.

At the center of this organizing are UC Berkeley students, who are just miles away from Silicon Valley. On August 27, 2025, Berkeley Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences lecturer Peyrin Kao launched an open-ended hunger strike to protest the use of technology in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The hunger strike, which lasted 38 days, demanded that the university acknowledge its role in Israel’s genocide and occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, pledge to sever material or financial relationships with the US military, and institutionalize ethical standards aligned with international human rights law.

While Kao suspended his hunger strike because of health concerns, his demands highlighted the University of California’s long-standing entanglement with the military industrial complex. In May 2024, the UC system disclosed that they had $32 billion invested in assets that Palestine solidarity protesters called for divestment from. Research across UC campuses has received $5.6 billion from 2005 to 2022 from the Department of Defense, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Atomics, Boeing, and the Israeli Ministry of Defense. From 2017 to 2022, UC campuses received 1,428 total military-funded research grants.

There’s nothing more annoying than a stream cutting out right at the climax of a match or a heated debate. If you’ve seen the "Error 200" code pop up on your screen, you’re not alone. It’s a common hiccup on the platform, but the good news is that it’s usually easy to fix.

Essentially, Error 200 is a "handshake" problem. It happens when your browser and Twitch’s servers fail to communicate properly. It’s usually tied to authentication issues or a breakdown in data transfer. In short: your browser is trying to load the stream, but something is blocking the path.

There are a few usual suspects behind this error:

• Unstable Connection: Your internet might be dropping packets or flickering.
• Cluttered Cache: Old cookies or corrupted cache files can cause a conflict with the service.
• Ad Blockers & Extensions: Plugins like AdBlock or certain VPNs often interfere with Twitch's video player.
• Server Issues: Sometimes it’s not you—it’s them. Twitch might be having technical difficulties on their end.

If you’re stuck with a black screen and that "200" code, try these steps in order:

• Refresh and Switch: Start with a simple F5. If that doesn't work, try opening the stream in a different browser.
• Go Incognito: Open Twitch in a private/incognito window. If it works there, one of your extensions is likely the culprit.
• Clear Your Data: Head into your browser settings and clear your cache and cookies. It’s a "reset" that fixes more problems than you’d think.
• Manage Extensions: Disable your AdBlocker or VPN temporarily to see if the stream resumes.
• Check Your DNS: If the problem persists, try switching to a public DNS, like Google’s (8.8.8.8).

Does your browser matter?

Interestingly, your choice of browser can play a role. While Chrome, Opera, and Firefox are the most popular, they are also the most prone to Error 200 due to how they handle caching and extensions. Users on Safari and Microsoft Edge tend to report this specific error much less frequently, though no browser is 100% immune.

RE: mastodon.social/@madeindex/116…

🤖 - 🤖 Guess from now on;

many apologies will read like:
"Sorry my Asisstant-Intelligence made a mistake!"
"Sorry my AI ate my homework!"

and replies like:
"That sounds really tough. It's OK to feel sorry - here are 2 options for you to solve..."

#AI #Stupid #Humor #ArtificialIntelligence #Joke #WhatsApp #meta #Facebook #Tech #Robot #Reply #Messenger #Message #Email #fun #joke #sarcasm #corporation #future #dystopia #Bigtech #technology #apology

MadeInDex 📰🌎

2026-03-26 17:27:46

So essentially #Meta imagines a world, in which people don't even have to write their own messages to family and friends anymore?

Like we are not talking useless emails read by a bot here:
techcrunch.com/2026/03/26/what…

Guess it's a good time to reddit.com/r/DeMeta/, to avoid massive amounts of inauthentic messages?

#AI #WhatsApp #Text #Facebook #Messenger #Artificialintelligence #MetaAI #Zuckerberg #News #Techcrunch #Tech #Technology #IT #Software

WhatsApp can now draft AI-generated responses based on your conversations | TechCrunch

The Meta-owned messaging platform is also launching a way to free up space, the ability to touch up photos with Meta AI, and more.

^{Aisha Malik (TechCrunch)}

Oracle is cutting thousands of jobs as the US technology company seeks to reassure investors that its bet on AI infrastructure will pay off.

The $420bn (£315bn) company, which is headquartered in Austin, Texas, started making employees redundant on Tuesday, with thousands of its 162,000-strong workforce expected to leave.

About 10,000 people have lost their jobs so far, the BBC reported, citing an unnamed employee at the company, which is chaired by Larry Ellison, the billionaire ally of Donald Trump. Ellison is worth $189bn and is the world’s sixth richest person, Forbes estimates.

Michael Shepherd, a senior manager at Oracle, who was not affected by the cuts, posted on the social media site LinkedIn that there had been a “significant reduction in force” at the business.

Shepherd said the decision had affected “senior engineers, architects, operations leaders, program managers, and technical specialists with deep expertise in cloud infrastructure, government and sovereign cloud environments, and enterprise-scale systems”.

That's just what we need. More senior tech workers out of work in Austin. Thank god we now have a fresh supply!